Remember when "indie" actually meant "independent?" Remember when geek-chic wasn't chic but actually still meant "geek?" Like that time when leading ladies stopped looking like Pamela Anderson and more like Shannyn Sossamon, before everyone decided that it was okay to ask you while you're working in the local music shop where your musical tapes section was and NO BECAUSE IT'S NOT 1983 and before mobile phone commercials didn't look like cheap rip-offs of your French noir film favourites?

A PHONE IS JUST A PHONE!

No big deal-it's just another capitalistic rape of another dime-a-dozen cult fad, right? Right, right. I can't wait for the next one. Oh, don't be so cynical. It's all going to be okay, I promise. Well… as long as you check out Oxford's Jonquil. Jonquil offer blanketing ballads of an affectionate distance that sound like music box melodies transmitted by time-less-destination time machines. Homespun and homemade, the folky instrumentation represented on their latest album Lions keeps modern with sharply-sewn-in sonic art recordings that fade in and out, producing a result that's closer to panoramic memoirs of wind-swept hair and knee-high grassy meadows, and the beautifully lush harmonies will smack that cynical smirk right off your face.