A few months ago we were visited by one Daniel Hales, a longtime Valley artist whom I had known peripherally through various musical contacts, and whose other projects, S.H.A.R.Q. and The Ambiguities, had spun on our disc players. Hales foisted upon us his latest (and perhaps best) effort, an album called Frost Heaves, which, for the most part, harkens to an aesthetic similar to that of early REM or Beck's Sea Change, a relaxed, earnest baring of emotion dressed up in jangly guitars, creamy violins and pedal steel washes, and produced with great competence with aid from both Norm Demoura at Haydenville's Harmonium Studio and Scott Coar at Easthampton's Sow's Ear Studio.

Every now and then, one of our Valley artists manages to weasel, extort, wrangle through steadfast labor or otherwise come into a chunk of national attention. Now, Frost Heaves can bathe for a while in the national limelight thanks to NPR's Car Talk, a recent episode of which aired Hales' song "Questions for a Carjacker." Cambridge-based hosts Tom and Ray Magliozzi (a.k.a. Click and Clack) are notorious for playing car-themed songs as quickly as they can find them, and the show is an opportune venue for anyone who's happened to pen a tune that's automotive in nature. You can listen to and learn more about Daniel Hales and Frost Heaves at www.thefrostheaves.com or www.myspace.com/danielhalesfrostheaves.