PRETTY SONGS THAT ARE WEIRDLY SHORT

1. AKRON FAMILY - 'AWAKE'



Short songs like these are unsettling. 'Awake' is over just as it's starting to sink in, and its Abbey Road-type harmonies and lyrics about spectral events stay in your ears in their sonic afterimage.

2. PHOSPHORESCENT - 'AT DEATH, A PROCLAMATION'



The ending at about a minute and a half of this track from Phosphorescent's 2007 album Pride is aimed right at your gut. This effect is amped up in a not-small extent by the fact that it's called 'at death, a proclamation.' You figure it out. Pretty cool drumline rhythm section. Now that tribal rhythms are coming to the forefront of young new york white people music, like Animal Collective, TVOTR, Yeasayer and such, the next step is getting rid of your drummer and getting a middle school drumline.

3. BILL FAY - 'STRANGERS IN THE FIELD'

Bill Fay, Dylanesque British folk-rocker



Bill Fay, founder of FAYLITE NEON SIGNS


Of these four, only the Fay track doesn't make use of brevity for emotional intensity, probably because it's a demo, off the collection "From the Bottom of an Old Grandfather Clock." Instead it's the song's sense of airy longing that hits below the belt in its very lightness. To feed my lambs, to feed my lambs. 'Strangers in the Field' is over almost before you were able to arrive the world in the song, passing by like a fleeting thought that leaves its mark before you knew what was.

4. FOCUS 3 - '10,000 YEARS BEHIND MY MIND'

No one except psych nerds know what the deal with this track is. It's from a compilation called 'Psychedelia at Abbey Road 1965-1969'. It does not have a disconcertingly abrupt ending, unlike the others. But it is short. And compelling in a theatrical way. Like if you were going to do a Broadway musical about taking LSD. It could be from that Brian de Palma movie, 'Phantom of the Paradise'. Have you ever seen that?