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Aha - times four
Fresh talent offers the joy of discovery.

Thea Gilmore has a sharp eye for human foibles on “Avalanche.”

Since back when cigar-chomping mahoffs called it "the record business," the one thing that has united disc jockeys, label reps, and cynical media types has been the thrill of discovering a new talent - someone with a singular sound, and a point of view, and the ability to charm people just by singing. The Philly rock DJs who championed Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band experienced that fever. So did the New York press that covered the doings at CBGBs in the '70s.

There's nothing else like it, the "aha" moment when you're compelled to make room on the shelf for someone you didn't know existed yesterday. That rush is one reason people prowl the Internet for MP3s and lurk in chat rooms where those with highly specialized tastes share their gleanings.

No matter how dire things get on the business side, demand for the new is a constant. Following are four acts who may not be invited into MTV's TRL clique or dominate radio, but deserve to be heard all the same.

The Thrills

The songs on the Thrills' incandescent So Much for the City (Virgin ***1/2 out of four stars) are associated with various points in the California landscape: There's an ode to Santa Cruz and another to Big Sur, and references to ocean vistas and tranquil walks on the beach. For the Irish quintet, the images served as a form of therapy.

"We'd spent eight months living in San Diego," explains singer Conor Deasy, the band's principal songwriter. "While we were there, we signed a deal and then got dropped. It wasn't a very good year, and [once the group returned to Dublin] we were dealing with the stigma... . It can be tough to get people's attention again.

"We were broke, living back at home, and realizing we had to stay put... . Then we started writing songs, dropping in the towns and places we'd been as an escapist thing. It was us remembering when things were not so dire. It sort of made us feel better."

Sure enough, So Much for the City is dappled with California sunshine. The Thrills' calling card is elaborate vocal harmony, and on some cuts, whole verses are sung in formation, an echo of the Byrds. The idea was to offset the tunes' dark lyrics, Deasy says, and the contrast makes for surprisingly multidimensional pop: Songs such as "Don't Steal Our Sun" and "Santa Cruz (You're Not That Far)" are deceptively upbeat settings for discussions of longing and resignation.

The challenge for the quintet, which just concluded the U.S. leg of an extensive tour, has been to execute its intricate vocals live. Though the band is rawer in concert, it attempts to re-create the CD's vocal blend.

"That was always a thing for me: I'd love a record, then go and see a band live, and they wouldn't even try to do the vocals," Deasy says. "It took doing it gig after gig, trying and not getting it, before we felt comfortable singing these lovely melodies and four-way harmonies."

Baby Blak

West Philly rapper Baby Blak calls what he does "middle-ground music," work that falls in the gray zone between the thug-glorifying rhetoric of the city's hard-core rappers, such as Philly's Most Wanted, and the more culturally enlightened, musically adventurous missives of acts like the Roots.

"I'm speaking for people who don't drive Bentleys, [but]... don't wear headwraps and light incense, either," Blak, 28, says of the down-to-earth themes explored on his debut, Once You Go Blak (BBE ***). The problem, he believes, is that hip-hop has become polarized: Big stars have little in common with their listeners, and emerging truth-tellers are shut out if they don't play the celebrity game.

"There's a whole bunch of people who don't relate to the hip-hop stars," says Blak, born Alva Burton. "I mean, look at these videos: The girls are from some modeling agency... . The jewels and the cars are rented. I consider all that training wheels [for artists]... . The shoot ends and they go back to being regular people just like everybody else.

"I think cameo appearances [by big-name stars] are a crutch, too. What are you doing if you can't turn it on all by yourself? I rap about stuff that people who go to work every morning are dealing with."

If, that is, Joe Lunchbucket has a voracious sexual appetite and a tendency to let his temper go to the edge of violence. Blak, whose crisp tracks were handled by a formidable crew of Philly producers including P-Smoova and DJ Revolution, can be brutally explicit. But for every lewd rant, there's a moment of socially aware clarity. Among the memorable themes of Once You Go Blak is a dissection of neighborhood dynamics titled "The Youth," and "Starvin' Artist," the catchy tale of a rapper paying dues.

But it's battle taunts and cutting contests such as "Firewater" in which Blak - who grew up near 52d and Baltimore and turned to rapping after attempts at DJing ("couldn't get a flow") and break dancing ("broke my foot twice") - capitalizes on his fierce sense of rhythm and mad word-association skills.

"What I tried to do with 'Firewater' was cut you up, in the old-school sense, while moving with a groove that's what's happening right now. I could have gone off on that all night."

Rachael Yamagata

Rachael Yamagata has a husky, unvarnished voice, and a penchant for melismatic slides that threaten to veer out of control at any moment. The exotic-looking singer, who is of Japanese, German and Italian ancestry, delivers her songs in an offhand way. Her slouchy phrases suggest a musical development that occurred in sad bars, performing solo for indifferent drunks.

In fact, the 26-year-old Chicago singer and songwriter, who just released her first offering, the six-song EP (Private Music ***1/2), learned her craft in an up-and-coming funk band.

"I had this practice space in Chicago, and the band Bumpus used to practice down below," Yamagata recalled recently, during a break from recording her full-length album. "I'd sit on top of the roof and sing the songs. It was this cool, soulful band with lots of Sly Stone in it, but with tight originals. The singer was a girl who had the most phenomenal voice, and I learned from imitating her."

Eventually, Yamagata - who studied theater at Vassar and Northwestern, and spent a year training to sing opera - joined Bumpus, and spent 41/2 years with the band. But her original compositions weren't a good fit; she left to pursue a solo career and has written more than 200 songs since.

"From the band, I got a real richness of tone, and I learned about playing live," said Yamagata, who was so serious about pursuing her own music that she was willing to plunge back into waitressing to make ends meet. "What I had already was this ethereal, reflective quality. And that's what I'm concentrating on now."

The songs of the Malcolm Burn-produced EP, particularly the halting "Collide" and the rueful "The Reason Why," split the difference between those worlds: They're dreamlike evocations with an edge. Songs about relationships fraying and cracking are never just raw torment: Yamagata sings gently, her voice conveying regret but also distance, the ambivalence of one who's been hurt but is moving on.

She says that's not an accident. "I started writing when I was 12 to express crushes and all. For much of my life it's been the way I get over anything or anyone that's too much for me."

David Dondero

Writing about life on the road is almost beyond rock cliche: How many songs about anonymous towns and low-down drifters' loneliness can one form handle? And then you hear David Dondero's gorgeously twisted The Transient (Future Farmer ****) and realize the surface has just been scratched.

The album opens with a brisk two-step in which Dondero, who has kicked around on the fringes of rock since the early '90s, identifies himself as a "convenience-store connoisseur on a broken-shoestring-budget tour." From there, The Transient offers advice to those left behind ("Throw my ashes on the highway"), describes a desperate urge to understand the unknowable ("See It Clear"), and talks acerbically, in haunted metaphors, about death.

"When you're living out of your vehicle on the road, you start to feel more and more detached from regular society," Dondero said recently, while driving on Highway 101 toward San Francisco, where, as is his custom, he planned to stay with friends.

"It's almost like you're closer to death... . You're just kind of out there, trying to find something of value... . People tend to look at you suspiciously."

This isn't Dondero's debut. He released several records with the band Sunbrain, and last year issued the solo Shooting at the Sun With a Water Gun. But The Transient, which Dondero wrote mostly in his car, marks the first time the guitarist and singer has worked with the rising stars of the Omaha, Neb., rock scene - most prominently Conor Oberst, Tiffany Kowalski, and producer Mike Mogis, all associated with the group Bright Eyes.

Recorded in Lincoln, Neb., The Transient catches some of Bright Eyes' earnest innocence, but also Dondero's brusque, more cynical worldview. Its sad, resolutely unsentimental songs depend on his own brand of caustic humor.

At 34, Dondero has suffered more life lessons than the youngsters of Bright Eyes. Much of the record, particularly "Dance of Spring" and the title track, was written after the death of his girlfriend several years ago.

In his grief, Dondero - whose nominal hometown is San Francisco - realized that his life lacked direction. "Dance of Spring," he said, is "about trying to see events clearly or distorting them with alcohol - you know, making choices.

"For me, the experience made for some clarity. When you encounter death like that, it makes you go for broke. It's like all of the sudden there were no more questions about what I wanted to do with my life."

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