Various Artists: Suburban Campfires

Suburban Campfires has an excellent idea at its heart. Its intentions are honorable and it makes no quarrels or qualms about having no transitional pieces in its schizophrenic genre-hopping. This is simply a collection of artists who have only one thing in common: they played the same stage as the other artists on Suburban Campfires. None of the artists are very well known but this release serves as an excellent introduction to all of them. Most of the songs here are strong folk-oriented numbers but the ones that aren’t (the electronic pieces that bookend the record) still exercise a beautiful, occasionally spellbinding, restraint. The first release for the Fiery Things label, it’s an intriguing little record that’s well worth a listen.