Tobin Sprout, Elf Power

Guitarist-songwriter during Guided by Voices’ definitive mid-Nineties run, Sprout banged out key four-track ethos on classics Bee Thousand and Alien Lanes. Now a successful children’s author, his sixth solo album The Universe and Me revisits childhood through a prism of hooks, fuzz, and wonderment. Athens, Ga.-bred Elephant Six collectivists, Elf Power retains its ornate tangle of baroque pop and neo-psychedelia on latest album Twitching in Time.