Mozart's Sister - DEAR FEAR

My big brother(who's officially a bigger hipster than me) turned me onto the glamorous bedroom pop of Mozart's sister. The mastermind of the project is Caila Thompson-Hannant of (of course...) Montreal. Caila's vocals twist and turn through endless permutations in the span of just three songs, touching upon the likes of Erykah Baduh, La Roux, Deradoorian, the girls of CoCoRosie and even Kim Gordon. Although vocals are clearly the star of the show, the actual music has quite a bit going for it too. The first two tracks are aimed at the dance floor, with "Don't Leave it To Me" sounding not so far off from Diamond Rings. "Single Status" delves into weirder territory, including a sort of death moan breakdown and a shrill whistling outro. The final song and most innovative of the three, "Contentedness," recalls the famous stream-of-consciousness intro from Teenage Riot. Pounding percussion and vaguely eastern guitar stabs keep the song from bogging even though it takes up half of the EP's length. Its hard to believe that the entire affair takes less than eleven minutes. There's at least half an hour's worth of ideas jammed into DEAR FEAR, but the whole thing is so playful that you're never overwhelmed.