Erik Stinson

intermission

The best bargain in music is the new Sun Giant EP from the Fleet Foxes on sale at Sonic Boom for $4.99. This is Seattle pop music that everyone can enjoy.

Singer/Songwriter Robin Pecknold has a high, airy voice that sounds less strained than Ben Bridewell of Band of Horses. I run into Pecknold from time to time at house shows. We don’t speak — I’m not within the inner circle of the downtown musicians — his beard and hair create a somewhat ominous composition of a young, post-hippy folk musician.

The bands sounds similar to CSNY.

The band includes local boys Robin Pecknold, Skye Skjelset (of the American Apparel downtown location), Craig Curran, Nicholas Peterson, Casey Wescott and Christian Wargo.

Each track is a different sorrowful lament at the beauty and wonder of life. Though there is a strong instinct to interpret the album as a hippy ode to nature, the Fleet Foxes constantly distance themselves from past paradigms of folk music and late ‘60s social politics. The album even includes a rambling (if poignant) statement Pecknolder posted in a Myspace bulletin, in which he describes live music as a proxy for the disappearing or extinct natural word.

While the band’s Myspace headline read reads, “Hey friends. It’s just music,”at press time, don’t believe it for a second.

We shall see what the crowd makes of the Fleet Foxes as they complete their first North America tour with a stop at Neumos April 18. They’re also playing at Sasquatch. Music Festival.

[Reach reporter Erik Stinson at arts@thedaily.washington.edu.]