Nick Jaina is a very accomplished and demiurgic Portland, OR-based singer-songwriter whose lyrically romantic scenarios luxuriate in diversely orchestrated carnival folk-pop. His stately and quietly startling new album A Bird In The Opera House reminds me of when I was a teenager and brought home armloads of classic folk, rock, and even classical LPs from the library. I would spend lazy afternoons flicking between Simon & Garunkle and collections of courtly love music, sampling the poetic plumes of spoken word and instrumentals on The Amazing Adventures of the Liverpool Scene, and winding into romantic mesmerization with the ballads of bands like Jefferson Airplane.

A Nick Jaina record is just as rich in acoustic-based tapestries of sound and seriousness of mood. It may just be a sublimely melodic lead vocal and sweep of old strings, but tracks like "Days In My Room" and "Asheville" are meant to carry you into a more lived-in, yet more literary, world of indie rock song-craft. He is an unusual artist in the chamber/roots underground, due to higher level composing and arranging skills, a really sophisticated playing sensibility, and a Stoically mature confessional outlook in the songs.

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Oh When The Wind Comes Down has a sonorous delicacy--its lo-fi punk and Simon Joyner-inspired swagger taps into the under-stream of the nation's musical consciousness.

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Tonight at the Crocodile, behold the power of Chris Funk and his ensemble of cunning accomplices as they take over the room with their part rock jam / part concerto hymns.

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It sounds as if Kind of Like Spitting had fun making this tribute, and they've selected some songs that should never be forgotten and could really stand another listen now.

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You may consider In The Red's approach schizophrenic the first few plays through, but eventually it nearly has the same Gnostic divine and depraved flavor of Neil Young's awesome Rust Never Sleeps.

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Equal parts Rufus Wainwright, Ben Folds, Tom Waits, and Fiona Apple, Casey creates songs that skirt between somber indie-pop and cabaret.

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See what's in the stars -- and the record stores -- for you for December 2005, including reviews for Toothfairy, Rocky Votolato, Scissors for Lefty, Field Notes, and Ghost Stories.

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