Is your folktronica collection feeling a little empty? I highly suggest the newly released EP Slow News Day by Basic Astronomy, the middle school textbook pseudonym for fringe-musician David Haldeman and several guest musicians. According to the liner notes, the album was recorded in a Seattle apartment "with cracks in its walls".

Likewise, listening to Slow News Day is like listening to some quiet, haunting and yet familiar tune playing on a neighbor's radio through the cracks of your own walls. The eight-song album has a vintage feel to it, even despite the clever combination of an eclectic array of instruments. These range from accordion to vocoder, but somehow nothing sounds out of place. Guitars and violins blend seamlessly with Haldeman's heavily vocoded voice and layers of synthesizer pads.

The sound and feel of Slow News Day could be lumped in with the warm and fuzzy glowing-fire naturalness of a Fleet Foxes record, but to me it is best described as the feeling one gets while laying on a blanket in the middle of nowhere and staring up at the stars.