Musical progeny of Stephin Merritt, with that collision of hyper-Romanticism and urbanely poker-faced ironic distancing, Brooklynite Corey Dargel makes bedroom electronic tracks in the early Magnetic Fields style, but with the unmistakable complicating impulse and rococo ingenuity of a conservatory-trained (in this case, Oberlin), new music-obsessed mind. "Gay Cowboys," from his latest release "Less Famous Than You," is a gem -- moving, funny and arch -- with some splendid sustained bursts of lyrical brilliance ("Compulsively sexual desperadoes/ In our lavender Chevrolet/ Bringing flamboyant bravado/ To the good old US of A"). Dargel also offers custom-made love songs, written to your specifications, so if you missed Mother's Day on Sunday and want to make it up in style, go here.
-- T.B.
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