State Bird - The band just "likes to have fun."

In recent years, strange things have been happening in folk music. You have the commune-friendly freak-folk of Devendra Banhart, the Jesus-friendly folk of Sufjan Stevens, and the teen-friendly anti-folk of acts like Kimya Dawson (whose backhanded "hey, don't kill yourself" approach to folk recently fell upon the ears of the 10 million-plus who've seen Juno). But stranger yet, if there's an act that free-falls right into the center of this big contemporary folk blanket, it's State Bird, and the duo (Jared Riblet and Coby Hartzler) hails from Dover, Ohio. What brought such a potent folk twosome together?

"We actually met about two years ago through mutual friends," Hartzler recalls. "We started hangin' out, had similar musical tastes and interests."

Here, Riblet interjects with a laugh and insists, "I actually just wanted Coby to record some stuff for me because he had a recording studio - just use him and abuse him."

It turned out neither Riblet nor Hartzler had anything particularly exciting going on musically at the time, so they decided to jam and see what happened. "We recorded a couple of songs that sounded really shoegaze-y. At the same time I kind of came down from that one day. I was just like, "I don't want to do that stuff anymore.' We wanted to do something folk-rock," Hartzler says.

Their new album, Mostly Ghostly, starts out with a duet between a whistle and a concertina and explodes into "I Saw the Light," a joyous campfire romp that takes all the better points of "Kumbaya" and infuses them with psych-pop. Mostly Ghostly makes it sound like Hartzler and Riblet have most of Dover at their disposal. In the appropriately titled "Hollerin' Mountains," it sounds like the whole town shows up for an all-out backporch hoedown. Hartzler guesses somewhere between 20 to 30 people were involved with the album. Riblet estimates it was more in the ballpark of 30-100.

"If we want to get people in a room and start chanting, we can do that. Because we know people," he says.

They certainly do. Unlike many other promising local acts, State Bird has already secured a record deal and recorded live sessions for two of the most popular sites in the music blogosphere: Daytrotter.com and My Old Kentucky Blog. The band's label, the Record Machine, will properly release Mostly Ghostly, an album it describes on its label site as "a Protestant fairytale," on Feb. 26.

There is a sort of myth that weaves the album together, the myth of "the ghost king." Throughout Mostly Ghostly, State Bird demonstrates a strong affinity for the spiritual and otherworldly. The ghost king isn't something to be feared, however. Ghosts don't represent Halloween spooks here so much as they represent an opportunity for what Riblet describes as "living life as a spirit instead of living it in the world." Neither of the band members claims to be "quote-unquote Christian," though both admit to being fairly spiritual people.

In the lovely acoustic "Ghost King Pt. 2," Hartzler takes over vocal duties, harmonizing with the pretty, lilting vocals of a female guest vocalist. At the beginning of the song, Hartzler admonishes "Don't go out into the wood, there are bears, there are wolves waiting to hurt you." The origin of the ghost king, however, isn't quite as compelling as one would think. "It involved getting a sheet and poking holes in it and six of us got under it and we called it the six-headed ghost king," Riblet says.

The communal feel to the songwriting approach translates to live shows as well. While Hartzler and Riblet are the only formal members, State Bird usually performs as a sextet. If you've seen State Bird live, you might've been taken aback by their neon face-paint, large numbers, and lack of shirts or shoes. But rest easy, there's much more to this skinny-white-boy pow-wow. When asked if there's some driving aesthetic behind the live performances, Hartlzer insists, "We just like to have fun."

Free Times' 10 Bands to Watch, featuring Afternoon Naps, To Be a High Powered Executive, Lunavelis, Unsparing Sea and State Bird : 8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 8, Beachland Ballroom, 15711 Waterloo Rd. Tickets: $5 advance, $7 day of show.

Humphrey Clinker
Among Cutting Threads (self-released)
humphreyclinker.com

Recorded by Todd Tobias (Guided by Voices) at his Waterloo Studios, this four-song EP gets off to a rough start. The opening tune, "Bastard Sleeves," sounds like an unfinished demo as its loud moments are too loud and the quiet ones too quiet. That's not to mention the haphazard guitars and off-key vocals that are paired with something that sounds like a tinny xylophone. The band rebounds nicely, however, on the other three tunes. The moody, off-kilter "Blemished Cheerleader (Captain)," brings out the best of Becky Goede's vocals and recalls late '80s work of Throwing Muses, and the same goes for the final tune, the bluesy "Cuckold." - Jeff Niesel

Humphrey Clinker performs with Argyle Denial, the Black Amps and the Switchblade Saints at 8:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 8 at the Jigsaw Saloon (5324 State Rd., 216.351.3869).

Sam Goldberg
Halcyon (self-released)

It takes about two minutes for this 15-minute limited edition tape release to get going, but when it does, it's the aural equivalent of one of those time-lapse movies of a flower blooming. Goldberg's also a member of local band the Pages, but his solo material skews much more toward ambient guitar sounds than that decidedly noisier song-structured act. At times, it recalls the beauty of Brian Eno, or even something from Kompakt's Pop Ambient compilations. Halcyon is a prelude to Goldberg's solo full-length debut, which will be released later this year on the Weird Forest label. - Jeremy Willets