Seattlest has been uncharacteristically busy this week, so we were looking forward to a couple hours of mind-buzzingly beautiful harmonies at the Sunset. Little did we know that Johanna Kunin would be bringing an entire consortium of bandmates with her, and that they would be performing an entirely new repertoire of music from what we heard last time. Mind-buzzingly beautiful? Yes! But it was also crazier and louder than would fit comfortably in our old mental paradigm for Kunin. We're talking eight to 10 people on the Sunset's tiny stage, each playing an instrument, and at least a third of them singing along.

The new stuff's familiarly depressing at times: "I like depressing songs. I admit it. I certainly write enough of them," Kunin told us. We found our mind drifting towards the grimy details of long-dead (and long-unbirthed) relationships, toward paths not taken and frustrated dreams. There are some hopeful songs thrown in for good measure, though, and how depressed can you really get with an enthusiastic, mustachioed man playing a giant, multi-leveled xylophone within ten feet of your sad self? Not very.

These United States was another pleasant surprise. For one, Jesse Elliott's speaking voice reminded us of our father telling bedtime stories. He was soft-spoken, funny, and mildly self-deprecating. And his singing voice is all of that plus folksy, loose and scratchy. He seems most comfortable strumming that guitar. Even in the midst of a barely-rehearsed, spur of the moment collaborative musical effort with some of Kunin's crew, Elliott seemed to be just fine once he was singing and strumming. The collaboration was less-than-perfect, but it was an admirable effort.

Your Heart Breaks opened. Your Heart Breaks is also known, in this incarnation, as a tour bus driver who plays electric guitar and would like to share what she thinks about on the road. Namely, she thinks about the Corn Palace in South Dakota, what it's like to be from a broken home, 1960s space dramas, and love being all you'll ever need. The music is charmingly lo-fi, and her song introductions were enchanting. "You're somewhere between Chicago and Seattle, and you've got three hours to go, but you've already driven 40, and it's dark. You've got The Gossip blasting as high as it can go. Because it's not really music you can relate to, but you can somehow listen to it over and over again."

We know just what she means.

Photo of Johanna Kunin by Chris Zasche