Craig Ramsey is a singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist/producer based in Cleveland, Ohio. As one half of the indie-pop duo Bears, Craig has toured the country behind two critically acclaimed albums, sharing stages with like-minded groups such as Camera Obscura, Tilly And The Wall, and The Pains of Being Pure at Heart. On his stunning solo debut, Parting Gift for a Party Girl, he crafts hopeful odes and bittersweet goodbyes chronicling the late autumn of an ill-starred relationship. Fans of chamber-pop classics by George Harrison, The Zombies, and The Beach Boys will immediately recognize the colors on Craig’s palette. But while the instrumentation suggests sweetness and light, there’s a shadow running across the face of the album’s sunny-seeming pop. It’s this contrast that initially grabs your ears and ultimately catches your heart. Resigned melodies fight the uplift of lush arrangements, cooing harmonies wrap themselves around biting lyrics, recriminations leave their mark in major keys, the door slams—gently. The effect gives the self-produced album a rare immediacy and maximum intimacy that may well prove as timeless as its musical influences, if not its inspiration.