Each Tuesday, FADER editor Matthew Schnipper highlights an underappreciated recent release he thinks we need to know about. This week it’s Sandro Perri’s Plays Polmo Polpo. Listen to “Hearts Like Swelling” from the album here, buy it from iTunes and read Schnipper’s thoughts on it after the jump.

Just before I went to sleep at 10:30 I watched a few minutes of Millionaire Matchmaker, a reality show following a woman who runs a dating service for millionaires. She said to one of her clients, “You’re a Virgo. You expect everyone to be perfect as soon as they step off the curb.” I am a Virgo and this is about right. I’ve never figured out if that was a good or bad thing.

I can’t find Sandro Perri’s birthday, but I don’t think he’s a Virgo. His EP Plays Polmo Polpo is his own versions of his older songs. Most of the songs on the record come from Polmo Polpo’s Like Hearts Swelling, an album of electro-acoustic fiddle faddle compositions. It’s a somewhat unfocused album with much meandering, though the base melodies are strong. Perri, three years after that album’s release, reworked the tracks, playing them barren and strong with a greater emphasis on guitar and voice. “Dreaming,” which came from a compilation, was originally an instrumental track entitled “Dreaming (…Again),” is introduced with a sludgy maraca and deep pan percussion and a soft fingered guitar looped around for its first minute and a half until the guitar’s accidental neck slide bubbles into full Western slide meander. It’s a song from the credits of a hopeful romantic film or what you listen to when you’re on the people mover in an airport and want to pretend you are in a music video. But for his cover he cuts the song’s length by a minute and adds vocals. I can see the whites of your eyes he says a number of times and it’s phrased like an accusation but is followed by a inevitably unhappy question, Where did you go where did you go where did you? It is sad and vague, and that moody gloom is what I am preternaturally attracted to in music. Perri’s voice is like vulnerable like wet wood. His guitar is a little lame, even, too simple in its doe eyed shame. But overall he’s raw, jealous and confused. This is what indie rock was supposed to be good for.

I wonder which version Perri likes better. Do you think he even likes either of them now? The new version is three years old at this point, certainly enough time for a musical cycle. But is this a reinvention or just a revision? It’s a grand distinction, one that can’t be made on music alone. I wonder if he felt bad recording this album. It’s not particularly peppy. But it’s better than its predecessor. Is the improvement worth it to be mired in gloom? I’ll say yes undoubtedly. I don’t know who that bodes well for.