Aimee Mann continues to astound. Having produced a powerful suite of songs for the Magnolia soundtrack--which shows signs of real commercial success, to the surprise of many--Mann is now making available a seven-song EP, Bachelor No. 2 (Or the Last Remains of the Dodo) as a preview of her upcoming full-length. It can be obtained at aimeemann.com and is issued on Mann's own Superego label. The success of Magnolia (including a Golden Globe nomination for Best Song, "Save Me" and radio action on the rueful "Wise Up") has sparked negotiations with a handful of major labels, but the inside word is that Mann may forgo the traditional route and stick with the DIY approach.

The EP's subtitle and cover image underscore the suspicion held by many fans of sophisticated pop: That music of this caliber is an endangered species. But Mann appears to be flourishing in the wild, which should make all musical conservationists cheer.

One thing's for sure: Being off the majors hasn't impaired her gifts. In fact, "Bachelor" is, if anything, even more on the point than "Magnolia"-and you can sense the relish she takes in crafting articulate lyrical conceits that would puzzle the mass-marketing whizzes to whom her work was entrusted in the bad old days. At times, it's easy to imagine record company types as the objects of Mann's digs; take opener "How Am I Different," for example: "Just one question before I pack/When you fuck it up later do I get my money back?" But it's the hooks that bring the EP to the level of her finest work. "The Fall of the World's Own Optimist" is a perfect-pop delight in which each section gives way to some startling, swoony new melodic variation. "Nothing Is Good Enough" appears as an instrumental in "Magnolia" and on its soundtrack album, but it soars here on the strength of Mann's weary but warm vocal delivery. The elegant waltz "Satellite" recalls Bacharach in both arrangement and melodic acumen. "Calling it Quits" is a tough-minded but irresistible singalong with playful sprinklings of "exotica," while the closer, "Just Like Anyone," takes the dynamics way down for an achingly intimate conclusion.

Will Mann succumb once again to the advances of the major labels? Perhaps--but when you're in the business of making quality music for grown-ups, maybe calling it quits with that world is the right idea.

Simon Glickman's review of Aimee Mann's work on the Magnolia soundtrack appears in the December 1999 issue of MASH magazine.

Elliott Smith's latest, Figure 8 (DreamWorks) displays one of the finest young songwriters of our era branching out impressively. Having defected from the indie-rock band Heatmiser in the early '90s, Smith began crafting spare but stunningly realized records on independent labels, notably the sporadically great Elliott Smith and the consistently superb Either/Or (both on Kill Rock Stars), before getting an Oscar nom for "Miss Misery" (from the Good Will Hunting soundtrack) and then inking with artist-friendly (if commercially struggling) DreamWorks. 1998's XO was a logical extension of Smith's aesthetic, with vital contributions from multi-instrumentalist Jon Brion and longtime producers Shnapf and Rothrock. Seasoning his folk-inflected rock and sensual vocals with evocative keyboards, Smith effectively upped the ante with tunes like the brilliant, Beatlesque "Baby Britain" and the devastating "Waltz #2 (XO)."

On Figure 8, Smith tours roughly the same musical territory, though the new disc finds him gradually working in more aggressive rock touches that have mostly been absent from his work since the Heatmiser days. It's a happier marriage than ever, as evidenced by the insistent, hooky guitar lines on "Junkbond Trader" and "LA." Even so, he's at his best in the stripped-down mode of tracks like "Somebody that I Used to Know," the delicate and anguished "Everything Means Nothing to Me," and the amazing "In the Lost and Found (Honky Bach)," with its stately tack-piano figure and devastating chorus hook. Once again, the album is a descent into Smith's twilit world of nocturnal outsiders, drug-addled visionaries and heartbroken hustlers, but he's refined his already powerful sensibility still further. Thus we have material as emotionally direct as "Everything Reminds Me of Her," which makes most heartbreak songs you'll hear this year (or most any other) sound like a cakewalk. What will Smith accomplish next time? It's almost scary to contemplate.

--Simon Glickman