Debra Cowan
Fond Desire Farewell
(Falling Mountain Music)

This gorgeous album is reminiscent of mature projects from the likes of Judy Collins, Anne Hills or Sandy Denny. Cowan covers songs by musicians ranging from bluegrass icon Ralph Stanley ("The Darkest Hour") to Nic Jones ("Ruins by the Shore") and Richard Thompson ("Jealous Words"). She balances sparse and melancholic arrangements—including superior renditions of "The Night Owl Homeward Turns" and "The Snow is on the Ground"—with unique mash-ups, such as a take on Ray Davies' "Alcohol" that's a blend of klezmer, honky-tonk, Kurt Weill and Spike Jones. The gypsy cafe/jazz/folk cross of "Lili Marlene Walks Away" is another genre-bender, and producer Dave Mattacks (Fairport Convention) has his fingerprints all over the folk-rock "The Rainbow."   —Rob Weir

Violent Kin
Bitter Blood
(Violent Kin Entertainment)

One track into their debut album, brother and sister Maygen and S.J. Kardash utter the line "This isn't music—I'll tell you what's music" without a trace of irony. On a pop record, the phrase rings false. Much like the rest of the record, it wants to sound edgy, but tries too hard and comes off sounding forced. Take the track "Call You Out ****." Instead of containing curse words, the song uses the familiar sound of the censorship beep as a musical hook that grates on the nerves. Other numbers incorporate repetitive sound effects, including bird sounds. Elsewhere, Maygen Kardash's vocals resemble electronically altered stutters over synthetic beats. Her brother fares better with the strummy title track. They do have songs; listeners shouldn't have to dig for them in so much unhelpful sonic experimentation.  —Michael Cimaomo

John Bellows
Clean Your Clock
(Moniker)

Chicago-based artist John Bellows' self-penned bio describes how he was "nearly evicted from [his] studio apartment," because his landlord said he sounded like "a dog with its balls caught in a chain link fence." In regard to at least half of this album, Bellows' landlord was pretty dead-on. Much of it is a cacophony of screaming and gratuitous lo-fi noise-making that attempts to conjure the rubber-room 4-track phenomenon of Daniel Johnston, and sounds, frankly, like shit. However, there are other parts of the CD that seem rather inspired and not as horribly executed—there is much here that clearly worships by imitation the likes of Nirvana's Bleach, Syd Barrett's The Madcap Laughs and even the Stones' Beggars Banquet, and sometimes the whole weird cocktail of grunge/psychedelia/back woods (Bellows hails from rural Kentucky) congeals into something almost worthwhile. Almost. —Tom Sturm