Pitchfork

Kelley Stoltz is on a roll. The San Francisco-based home-recording craftsman shared an album just last year, his third overall and first full-length for Sub Pop, Below the Branches. Now he's got another one primed to blow up in early 2008, and a tour popping off right now.

Circular Sounds is set to arrive February 5 via Sub Pop, packing 14 more examples of that signature Stoltz sunshine onto one thin plastic disc. As Stoltz describes it, he's no longer "lo-fi", having embraced what he calls a "mid-hi" aesthetic on the new offering.

"I work in a second-hand record store and that's made me more of a hi-fi advocate," Stoltz explained via press release. "It's hard for me to listen to stuff that was recorded on a cassette player nowadays. By the last record I was mid-fi. I think I'm mid-hi now!"

Get mid-hi yourself and catch Stoltz on tour overseas now, playing quite a few shows with Two Gallants and labelmates Blitzen Trapper and hawking copies of his just-released "Your Reverie" / "Owl Service" 7" on Sub Pop.

Circular Sounds:

01 Everything Begins
02 Tintinnabulation
03 The Birmingham Eccentric
04 Gardenia
05 Mother Nature
06 To Speak to the Girl
07 Put My Troubles to Sleep
08 When You Forget
09 Your Reverie
10 I Nearly Lost My Mind
11 Something More
12 Reflecting
13 Morning Sun
14 You Alone

Stoltz:

11-12 Portsmouth, England - Wedgewood Rooms *
11-13 Brighton, England - Duke of York's *#
11-14 London, England - KOKO *#
11-15 Oxford, England - Zodiac *#
11-16 London, England - Fly
11-17 London, England - Brixton Windmill
11-19 London, England - Water Rats

* with Two Gallants
# with Blitzen Trapper