Emerging: All Smiles

Okay, so maybe Jim Fairchild, the captain at the helm of All Smiles, isn't really "emerging" from anywhere.  Any music fan worth his/her salt would instantly rock forward out of their seats at hearing his name.  Yes, folks, Fairchild used to be in this band called Grandaddy.  Heard of 'em?

Anyways, after that whole deal dissolved (fizzled out?), Fairchild set out to lay some tracks of his own.  Adopting the moniker All Smiles, he enlisted the help of some of the mostest of the most in indie rock drumming help, with the likes of Janet Weiss (Sleater Kinney, Quasi), Joe Plummer (Modest Mouse, Black Heart Procession, Magic Magicians), Danny Seim (Lack Thereof, Menomena), and Solon Bixler (Great Northern) lending their kicks, toms, snares and rides to the mix.

What you get as a result is full length Ten Readings of a Warning.  We're not going to lie and tell you that we've heard the whole record, but the two tracks we've heard from Fairchild & co. (both streaming graciously on his MySpace page) are endearing little bits of pop music crafted and finely tuned to a staggering degree.  Fairchild admitted to recording all of the material on 8-tracks, saying "It was a no-budget record.  There wasn't any backing yet. I just set up whatever gear I had in the kitchen of our borrowed house in Portland, and our living room in Los Angeles. It sounds like the places it was recorded in. You can hear the walls, and the floors, and the ceilings, and you can hear the cars, and the trees, and the guys selling drugs outside."

If you're any kind of fan of Figure 8-era Elliott Smith or a less Scottish Belle & Sebastian (imagine that!), you should dig your teeth right into All Smiles.

All Smiles hit the Mercury Lounge with label-mates Dappled Cities on August 2nd.

(stream)    All Smiles - Various tracks [via MySpace]

Godspeed!