Mariee Sioux’s "Swimming Through Stone" is a bit of lovely, animal-fantasy Californian folk that imagines life as a herring, pictures gifts wrapped in birch bark and nearly ends on the line I've never sucked blood before this. Sioux has a great knack for creatively doubling her own vocals, like artfully jumbled currents in an estuary or clouds warping through one another. Folk music that's happy being folk rarely gets a fair shake around here—I feel actual guilt about never mentioning Meg Baird's Seasons on Earth, a highlight from last fall—but sounds like these deserve a listen, ideally over a good sandwich with the windows open. Sioux's sophomore album, Gift for the End, comes out April 17th on Paris' Almost Musique and as the debut release for Brooklyn's Whale Watch .