Wilcox Sessions -- Hanni El Khatib ("You Rascal You") from Wilcox Sessions on Vimeo.

The singularity of Hanni-El Khatib reveals itself when you attempt to wedge his music into your iTunes playlist. His scraped and scarred guitar salvos are too pyrotechnic to fit into the ethereal folk-like float or world-music fixation of the NPR-friendly indie-rock wing. And his influences stretch further back than the lo-fi tinnitus titans that record for the rightfully acclaimed Woodsist and Siltbreeze imprints.

His copy of “A Change Is Gonna Come” is battered enough to consider him a disciple of classic soul. But no one will mistake his abrasive racket for the reverent worship of the Budos Band, Fitz & the Tantrums and the Mark Ronson mafia.  If he does have a contemporary cognate it might be the Dum Dum Girls or Best Coast, which fuse garage-rock rawness with the Cherry Coke pop of Phil Spector and the Shangri-Las.