Picastro - Become Secret (Monotreme Records)  Become Secret with its sparse piano stabbings, bed spring bass, Eastern European folk tinges, subtle noise inclusions, drawn viola and quivering cello, makes for a spellbinding, bleak, melancholic and haunting avant-folk gem, right from the offing. Front woman, Liz Hysen shares vocal duties with guests including Tony Dekker (Great Lake Swimmers), Brendan Massei (Viking Moses) and Colleen Kinsella (Fire on Fire, Cerberus Shoal) and cites influences such as Westerns, Cormac McCarthy and the Bible. It could easily draw favourable comparisons to the work of White Magic, PJ Harvey, Josephine Foster, Nick Cave and Espers.  Hysen, an avid film buff, claims the closing track, a minimalist Appalachian folk number entitled “The Stiff”, synchs up perfectly with the final scene of Michaelangelo Antonioni’s “The Passenger”! www.monotremerecords.com Willsk Next