New Music: Mountain Man - "Soft Skin"

Mountain Man -- a band of women, not Red Wings-wearing, flannel-clad Devendra lookalikes -- play willowy, wind-through-the-trees folk reminiscent of singers such as Marissa Nadler or L.A.'s Chapin Sisters. "Soft Skin" is the first single from Made The Harbor, the Vermont trio's formal follow-up to their self-titled, self-released album of last year, but at 2 minutes, it's barely a taste of what the group can do. After after the first 70 seconds, it shifts from one song to another idea entirely like an Appalachian Skeletal Lamping; it is, in other words, not your new jam of the week. As an album indicator? We'll have to see, but the group's decidedly non-rugged charms may well be worth the wait.

Mountain Man - "Soft Skin": mp3

(Made the Harbor is due on Bella Union on July 20)