under the radar: kurt vile

Meet Kurt Vile. His Constant Hitmaker is one of my sleeper faves of 2008, but for some reason I haven’t ‘Dot’d him yet. The procrastination paid off, though — Hitmaker seems tailor-made perfect to soundtrack the onset of the (so far beautiful) New York City fall.

The short of it: Philly-based lo-fi guitar pop guy who’s album is full of unassumingly great, homemade, breezy, reverb-y tunes. For fans of: Ariel Pink, Atlas Sound, Cass McCombs, Lee Hazlewood.

The (semi-) long of it: There’s not much written about this guy yet and, it must be said, the mystery (slight as it may be) is alluring. The music is so clearly homemade: everything is close mic’d, the drums are endearingly fake. You can imagine Vile recording these spacey folk songs hunched over in a narrow bathroom or a neglected, iMac-twin bed-and-nothing-else bedroom. There is a sweetness and an ease to Hitmaker that is both immediately (and, honestly, surprisingly) satisfying.

It’s easy to put the album on and zone out, daydreaming about leaf piles and pumpkin patches (can you tell I’ve done this?), but there are honest-to-God songs here; ditties, even. My friend Andy (Raven Sings the Blues) nails it when he says Vile “knows how to let the song overpower the aesthetics.” This isn’t just swaths of processed sound — it’s not just goofing around with pedals (“Ooh, pretty sounds!”); it’s a batch of great loner pop songs.

“Breathin’ Out” is the immediate winner: 2:58 of rinky-dink drum machine, grain silo reverb and (most importantly) a see-sawing, mega-catchy melody. There are wacky levels of delay on the guitar, like he was going for Roy Orbison but went too far and the knob broke off. Still, it’s a great tune and one of my favorites this year. It’s also probably as good a place as any to start, if you wanna give Hitmaker a shot. But, I’m hoping, a lot of you won’t want to stop there.