It’s as true now as it was then, judging by the first single from Sea of Bees’ second album. At its core, “Broke” is a compact indie-rock tune, anchored by acoustic guitar and adorned with punchy, overdriven guitar, swooping electronic effects and riveting double-tracked vocals.

As she did on the first album, Baenziger played most of the instruments herself, though we’ll have to wait entirely too long to hear the rest: “Orangefarben” isn’t due until May 1 on Team Love.

“Norfolk and Western has been dormant for a couple of years now,” singer Adam Selzer writes in a newsletter sent out early Friday morning. “I honestly don’t know if we’ll record or play anymore shows in the future but I guess I’m not ready to say never.”

Seems the various members of the band are busy with other projects: Selzer is now part of the Alialujah Choir, which releases its self-titled debut Feb. 14. Drummer/singer/multi-instrumentalist Rachel Blumberg is focusing on visual art, and recording music under the name Arch Cape, and bassist Dave Depper has been playing in other bands, including the Fruit Bats, and, for some reason, doing a complete re-creation of Paul McCartney’s album “Ram.”

Anyway, though Norfolk and Western has no plans to release any new music, there’s plenty of old music to enjoy. The band’s 2009 release, “Dinero Severo,” is available here on LP and CD. “The Unsung Colony,” “A Gilded Age” and “Dusk in Cold Parlours” are available here on CD, and you can grab the first two here on vinyl.

First, if we’d known whiskey farmer was a job, we never would have started with this writing bullshit. Second, holy crap, these guys are good.

Frontman James Low has vowed to make a video for each of the eight songs on the album, which he describes as the story of a guy who has “always done things kind of right — did OK in school, went to a generic college, racked up a shitload of debt and got a job to pay off the debt. He drinks to forget. He alienates the ones who love him best, and just cannot believe that this is all there is to life.”

Cheerful? Not so much. Beautifully wrought and desperately heartbreaking? Yes, and yes, thanks to Low’s steady voice on wearily resigned lyrics, over dusty, Western-style accompaniment from the rest of the band. “Thinkin’ California,” the fourth song, gets the first video, and it’s, well, it’s perfect.

‘Thinking California’ from James Low on Vimeo.

The first video

The group has not been idle since then. In addition to opening for Twin Sister and Gold Panda, the fivesome found time to record “Pet Storms, Ancient Clouds,” a 6-song EP due Dec. 5. Morning Claws is streaming “Fight for Your Friends,” a song less electro than flat-out epic, with a towering column of swirling electric guitar, atmospheric keyboards and downbeat male-female vocals. It’s a huge-sounding tune, fit to be heard in vast spaces.

If you happen to be in Belfast, you can score a copy of the EP Dec. 1 when Morning Claws peforms at the Menagerie. Otherwise, well, Dec. 5 isn’t so far off.

LISTEN
Fight For Your Friends by morningclaws

While Farrar plans to include some of the new Guthrie songs on a solo-acoustic West Coast tour starting today in Bellingham, Wa., the foursome will debut as a group Jan. 25, 2012, at Celtic Connections in Glasgow.

The album is due Feb. 28 on Rounder to help mark the centennial anniversary of Guthrie’s birth, though there’s no word yet on a title or track list. UPDATE: Rounder announced Jan. 4 that the album is called “New Multitudes.”

There is a little bit of a weirdness factor here, in that Farrar’s ex-Uncle Tupelo mate Jeff Tweedy already recorded two albums of Guthrie songs: the “Mermaid Avenue” volumes that Tweedy’s band Wilco released with Billy Bragg in 1998 and 2000.

All the same, the Guthrie project fits squarely into the Americana framework Farrar has worked in for more than 20 years, from the Carter Family title track to Uncle Tupelo’s debut “No Depression” to collaborating in 2009 with Death Cab for Cutie’s Ben Gibbard on “One Fast Move or I’m Gone,” an album of songs built around text from Jack Kerouac’s “Big Sur.”

Farrar’s West Coast tour itinerary is here. Here’s the track listing for “New Multitudes”:

1. Hoping Machine
2. Fly High
3. My Revolutionary Mind
4. VD City
5. Old L.A.
6. Talking Empty Bed Blues
7. Chorine
8. Careless Reckless Love
9. Angel’s Blues
10. No Fear
11. Changing World
12. New Multitudes

Photo by Spring Waugh

We’ve already posted a song from the album, which has been pushed back to November. We can only assume Beck’s people have already been in touch with Jeff Beck.

Big Harp is the project of Chris Senseney (vocals, guitar, keyboards) and Stefanie Drootin-Senseney (bass, backing vocals), who had a kid, got married, had a second kid and started a band, all within the past few years. Having recently signed to Nebraska label Saddle Creek, the duo has posted a video for the song “Everybody Pays,” recorded during an in-store appearance at the Saddle Creek Shop in Omaha.

It’s a simple, affecting tune built around Senseney’s rich voice, a full, round bass and a steady, subdued guitar pattern jangling in the background. You can download the song here.

Big Harp’s album, “White Hat,” is due Sept. 13.

Big Harp: Everybody Pays from Love Drunk on Vimeo.

Yet when she’s not getting banned from local clubs for kicking stuff over, or tending to her other gig as a dancer for the Metropolitan Opera, Clancy fronts Huff This!, a group a little less in-your-face than its name would suggest — at least, on the first song. She calls it a dream-thrash band, and the tune, “Lovin You,” does indeed have a certain dreamy quality.

The song is a study in dynamics, opening with subdued instrumentation from guitar, piano and cello and ghostly vocals from Clancy. Her breathy voice grows flintier and more intense as the song builds into a swirling blend of piano, crashing cymbals and groaning cello from composer Chris Lancaster (at left above), for an effect that is at once riveting and a little uncomfortable — a sensibility magnified in this video, which features Clancy dancing on a litter-strewn beach in a skintight white bodysuit as the tide comes in.

Clancy says “Lovin You” is part of a nearly finished album called “Tuff Love,” due this fall.

LISTEN
Lovin You mp3

Because October is a long way off, and Real Estate wants to give you a little taste early, the band is giving away the first single, “It’s Real,” in exchange for your e-mail address here. The tune is classic Real Estate, if such a term applies to a band with a slender catalog. Chiming guitars cascade around wistful, echoing vocals while the rhythm section makes a series of tight little turns.

“Days” is out Oct. 18 on Domino Records, and Real Estate is on the road through Aug. 2:

07-13 — Oxford, MS, Proud Larry’s
07-14 — Nashville, TN, Hard Rock Cafe/Sounds Like Summer
07-17 — Chicago, IL, Subterranean
07-18 — Detroit, MI, Mgic Stick
07-19 — Toronto, ON, The Garrison
07-20 — Montreal, QC, Il Motore
07-23 — Brooklyn, NY, Prospect Park Bandshell
07-24 — Hoboken, NJ, Maxwell’s
07-31 — Big Sur, CA, Henry Miller Library/Woodsist Festival
08-02 — San Francisco, CA, The Independent

Photo by Shawn Brackenbill

Cool: The Dex Romweber Duo next month releases a new album, “Is That You in the Blue?” Cooler: This time, it’s just the duo, blasting through 38 minutes of taut garage-surf-rockabilly ravers.

The last release, “Ruins of Berlin,” featured some special guests, and while we liked the album — and fully understand how the presence of someone like Neko Case can boost the profile of the criminally overlooked Dex, who’s been badass since he was half of the Flat Duo Jets — there’s a visceral power that flows from Dex and sister Sara, as their live show amply demonstrates.

There’s no free mp3 available yet (fingers crossed for the surfy instrumental “Gurdjieff Girl”), so the video above will have to do for now. “Is That You in the Blue?” is due July 26 on Bloodshot.