Free and legal MP3 from the Flying Tourbillon Orchestra (steady, graceful, dark indie pop, but not chamber pop)

"In a Dream" - The Flying Tourbillon Orchestra
     Steady, gracefully dark indie pop from Los Angeles. The verses march, almost claustrophobically, to a carefully articulated pulse; the chorus, without that much different a melody, offers a flowing, minor-key release, as clear-voiced Kellie Noftle joins buzzy-voiced front man Hunter Costeau in a bittersweet, Nancy and Lee sort of way. Don't miss the modulation at 2:41; the change in key, a relatively pedestrian effect, feels at that point like a mini-revelation.
     While there's nothing overtly orchestral about FTO's sound in this song--this isn't chamber pop--there is an almost sculptural attention to sonic detail here that I find appealing. While it's not uncommon to hear a trio that sounds like a bigger ensemble, this is one of the few times I've heard a sextet sound like a smaller band, thanks to the group's joint refusal to overplay their instruments. I'm liking for example the controlled use of a xylophone (or glockenspiel?), its chimey accents plinging in and out of the listener's awareness. I also like that choral-like synthesizer, emerging first at 1:36 and coming into its own in the last third of the song, which works unexpectedly well with both of the guitars the band uses.
     A "flying tourbillon," by the way, is a type of tourbillon ("tour-bee-yon"), which is a mechanism inside a watch, and apparently a mechanism that was very challenging to produce, especially in the days of hand-made watches. Tourbillon watches remain prized by collectors, according to my web sources. "In a Dream" is a song from FTO's debut EP, Escapements, which was self-released this summer. An escapement, by the way, is also a mechanism in a watch, of which the tourbillon is a part. Now you know.