Today’s installment of Lunch Listen (a series which we seeming give a new name to nearly every time it appears and which we intend for you to enjoy during the confines of your lunch hour – can’t be all internetting at work and stuff), features not just our usual component of some littler-known visiting acts that get our stamp, along with a the local cool, but also a convenient playing device so that you can just turn it on and rock the headphones without all that clicking hassle. We do really love you. So. Press play and let’s get started.

Nervous Curtains is the songwriting output vehicle for Dallas’ Sean Kirkpatrick of The Paper Chase, and who you might recognize as the guy who used to play keyboards for Spoon. The group just finished tracking their first full length, which, like Sean’s solo track “Falling Out of Sync With Time”, is piano and synth driven. Nay a guitar to be heard. It’s dark and we like it, especially the simplicity of the percussion especially that steady, muddled drum machine kick that lurks around like a shadow on the side of the barn. And though they feature a similarly cold tone on their “Lullaby,” Austin duo Followed by Static, has plenty of big guitar to go around. They, too, hold the beat down with programming (daang – someone give these drum machine dedicates the number to Dull Knife). Local icicles Antarctica Starts Here know a thing or two about ambiance and swirl, and they’ve got the songs with womens names in the titles to prove it (we don’t know what that means either, but it seemed clever enough considering how poorly this write up is going). “Karen” is their longest outing to date, and the first complete track they’ve released since many years ago when the keyboards exited their lineup. Maybe Sean can help.