Kevin Bronson on June 10th, 2009

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[In L.A. this week, we’re having a spate of June Gloom. That’s Californese for “clouds.” Here are a couple of singer-songwriterly things that may lighten the mood, if not cause the sun to break right through …]

The secret link between KCRW and Perez Hilton? Butterfly Boucher, who, according to her people, is endorsed by both the tastemaking radio station and the whatever-he-does Web wag. The Australia-reared, Nashville-based songwriter’s name really is Butterfly, and the major-label refugee last week released her sophomore album, “Scary Fragile,” which was produced by big-time guy David Kahne. This sultry, twinkling number is slick, very slick, but never quite suffocates the nifty metaphor in the title. Live: Tonight and June 17 at the Hotel Cafe; Thursday at the Detroit Bar in Costa Mesa.

||| Download: “Gun for a Tongue”

Montreal-based songwriter (and producer) Chris Velan reminds me a lot of Jack Johnson – karma-conscious folk-pop infused with unthreatening doses of island and Afro beats. This straight-ahead pop track comes off Velan’s third album “Solidago,” which found him working with Johnson’s drummer Adam Topol, the Mother Hips’ Tim Bluhm and members of ALO, Dengue Fever and Bran Van 3000, among others. Live: Tonight at Genghis Cohen.

||| Download: “Oldest Trick”