Daniel Carlson has every right to be proud of his new EP, Now. It's a thoroughly engulfing listening experience, as the lush layers of instrumentation do their best to surround you and not let you get away. It's pop perfection that meanders along a musical landscape not unlike that of artists such as Brian Wilson, Belle and Sebastian, and Elliot Smith, while simultaneously maintaining a voice all its own. Carlson spent the better part of a year traveling between his home in New York City and producer Neal Ostrovsky's b-Side studio in Chicago, the pair slowly articulating what would become Now. "There were times when I didn't think we'd finish it", remembers Carlson. Friends in Chicago came in and played, but Carlson's East Coast friends helped, too. "We recorded the violins in my apartment, a french horn player in her kitchen outside of Boston, in the middle of a raging snow storm". Call it what you will - an EP, side one of a vinyl album, whatever. It's all about Now.