Not a WIFLI Challenge this time. Just an artist I've recently discovered that I wanted to share with you.

Jonathan Spottiswoode -- what a great name, huh? -- is a transplant from London to New York, and he's had a band called Spottiswoode and His Enemies for more than ten years. They've released something like half a dozen albums and have been featured on NPR. And yet not only had I never heard of them until I stumbled across them in a shuffle through my SXSW. And then (you know how it goes), I had to go find out more. (Also, although they are listed here on MOG, nobody seems to have written anything about them. What's up with that?)

Spottiswoode is a master of many different styles, and they all appear on the one album I found at eMusic, Building A Road. The song attached here, Drunk, is the opening track, and I think it's not only great fun, but also a pretty sweet sentiment. Other tracks show influences ranging from Ray Charles-style soul (complete with female backing singers) to gospel (ditto) to country to ... well just about anything. He even sounds like he's channeling Ian Dury in the SXSW song I found, That's What I Like:

Both of these songs have had plenty of play on my iPod, along with a handful of the others from Building A Road. Solid instrumentation and production, a great horn section, a voice that ranges from Mark Knopfler to Tom Waits to Leonard Cohen... I will definitely be looking for more Spottiswoode. (His website has a lot of information about him, the band, and his other musical collaborations.)