THIS WEEK'S FINDS
June 24-30
"Kidstuff" - Tenderhooks
This song wallops me with its late-'70s new wave vibe but I can't put my finger exactly on why. Put early Elvis Costello, the 1977-79 Kinks, Television, and the Undertones in a blender and this song maybe pours out, with its ringing guitar line, observational wordplay, and solid pop melody. The production quality has a strong whiff of past glory about it thanks to those driving dual guitars and the enveloping rhythm section but again the sensation is vague rather than specific. The closest correlation I hear is with singer Jake Winstrom, whose high, sandy-warbly voice brings the legendary Undertones singer Feargal Sharkey to mind. But what of that unglued guitar break, beginning at 1:55 but becoming deviant by around 2:10? There's nothing late-'70s about that at all; while some may call it "shredding" (a term for the superfast playing style that arose out of heavy metal and prog rock), I hear something more aural than pyrotechnic about it--as if guitarist Ben Oyler is trying to make a cool sound rather than merely to sound cool. Like a good band in any era, this Knoxville quartet--often billed as alt-country but this song has nothing obvious to do with that genre--appear to be adept students and willful experimenters, so that in the end, the pieces of the past you hear become part of a vivid and present experience. "Kidstuff" is from the band's Vidalia CD, which is slated for release this week on Rock Snob Records.
"Trouble" - Over the Rhine
As the noisy part of today's music scene is dominated almost fascistically by those obsessed with what is bright and shiny and new, there fortunately remain many musicians to listen to who are not simply brand new, thank goodness. To think of the depth and richness we would lose if we really were only listening to the latest MySpace and Pitchfork sensations--but no worries, we're not, and never will. Because some of the best new bands will stick around and hone their art in fruitful and unanticipated ways over the years, just as some of today's most wonderful not-new-anymore bands themselves once gleamed with the newcomer's glow. Long-time Fingertips favorites Over the Rhine are a categoriocal example of how impressive musicians can become as they have the chance to mature and write and perform together. Linford Detweiler and Karin Bergquist have had a particularly enriching path as a married couple making music together; the connection apparent in their performance is a wonder to behold. Sly, engaging, and timeless-sounding, "Trouble" is a crisp and catchy tune that is one part cabaret, one part tango, one part orchestral pop, and all parts Bergquist, whose voice is as sultry and idiosyncratically alluring as ever. "Trouble" is a song from the band's forthcoming CD, entitled The Trumpet Child, to be released in August on the band's Great Speckled Dog label.
"Move = Move" - Wheat
And this one oozes the ramshackle charm of 1967-or-so Rolling Stones (the melody to my ears partially echoes "Sing This All Together Now"), without any of the silly bad-boy posturing. And yet "Move = Move" likewise feels rooted right here in the indie-rock-saturated '00s, with its sculpted sound and stray electronic lagniappes. There's a real looseness on display that I find totally wonderful in such an otherwise brisk and focused tune, epitomized by the almost haphazard way the harmony vocals weave in and out of both awareness and alignment. Wheat is a thoughtful duo from Massachusetts that began life in the late '90s as an art project; "Move = Move" is a song from the band's loquaciously titled CD Everyday I Said a Prayer for Kathy and Made a One-Inch Square, their fourth, which was released last month on Empyrean Records. The MP3 is courtesy of Spin.
Monday, June 25, 2007
Monday, June 18, 2007
THIS WEEK'S FINDS
June 17-23
"Elusive" - Scott Matthews
Tense, fragile, emotional, and intelligent. Listen to how the verse develops over an intriguingly minimal guitar accompaniment--he plays not chords, not a standard finger-picking pattern, but something more resembling a bass line. Vague keyboard washes add deep atmosphere, particularly as we get to the chorus. While not sounding specifically like Jeff Buckley--Matthews' tenor seems more constricted, and pretty much lacks Buckley's famous vibrato--there's still something Buckley-like in the air here in the strong yet delicate melody and the sense of dramatic vulnerability suffusing the song. Matthews is a British singer/songwriter and this song has already been a big sensation in the UK, from an album called Passing Stranger that was released there in October 2006. "Elusive" recently won a major UK songwriting prize, the Igor Novello Award; Passing Stranger is now being readied for U.S. release on Universal Republic, probably in the early fall.
"Always on the Telephone" - the Ladybug Transistor
Evocative minor-key 21st-century folk rock, with saxophone. Although here, for sure, is a band with its roots deep in the 1990s--associated with the storied Elephant Six Collective, the Ladybug Transistor in fact released its first CD back in '95. The personnel has changed over the years and it's a bit of a loosey-goosey outfit to begin with; it taxes me beyond my breaking point to determine, via all available press materials, who precisely is in the band at this point. (I do know that the band, tragically, lost their original drummer, San Fadyl, in April, to a fatal aesthma attack.) Through the years and the lineup shiftings, the band's sound remains ever centered around Gary Olson's sensitive baritone and his lovely capacity to convert something vaguely '60s-like into something vaguely contemporary. I'm taken this time by the unexpected entrance of the saxophone (only, um, now I guess you'll expect it) at 1:47--a sharp, lonely sax it is, its achy street-corner wail unlike anything one normally encounters in '00s indie rock. "Always on the Telephone" is the lead track from the band's new CD Can't Wait Another Day, which was released on Merge Records earlier this month. The MP3 is via Spin. Veteran Fingertips visitors, do you remember the band's previous TWF pick, in December '03? Refresh your memory.
"Rain" - Bishop Allen
Punchy, precise pop from the punchy and precise Bishop Allen, the Brooklyn-based band best known, in the web world, for releasing 12 separate EPs last year--one each month, each named for the month, each with four new songs (except for August, which had 14 live tracks). A band this productive has probably mastered the art of writing songs about more or less anything; this one appears to be, rather simply, about a rainy day. Between the snappy-clappy beat, the spirited, uncomplicated melody, and Justin Rice's high-pitched yet appealing voice, "Rain" is charming from beginning to end. I like how the lead guitar enters about halfway through (1:38) with a squawk or two, as if it was literally waking up, just in time for a recalcitrant sort of anti-solo. "Rain" is a track from the forthcoming Bishop Allen CD, The Broken String, slated for release next month on the Dead Oceans label. The MP3 is via the band's site.Bishop Allen is another band with a previous TWF appearance in the semi-distant past; unfortunately, the song selected back in March '04 is no longer available. With this new song, I'm happy to take the boys off the Artists Formerly Listed on the Master Artist List List.
June 17-23
"Elusive" - Scott Matthews
Tense, fragile, emotional, and intelligent. Listen to how the verse develops over an intriguingly minimal guitar accompaniment--he plays not chords, not a standard finger-picking pattern, but something more resembling a bass line. Vague keyboard washes add deep atmosphere, particularly as we get to the chorus. While not sounding specifically like Jeff Buckley--Matthews' tenor seems more constricted, and pretty much lacks Buckley's famous vibrato--there's still something Buckley-like in the air here in the strong yet delicate melody and the sense of dramatic vulnerability suffusing the song. Matthews is a British singer/songwriter and this song has already been a big sensation in the UK, from an album called Passing Stranger that was released there in October 2006. "Elusive" recently won a major UK songwriting prize, the Igor Novello Award; Passing Stranger is now being readied for U.S. release on Universal Republic, probably in the early fall.
"Always on the Telephone" - the Ladybug Transistor
Evocative minor-key 21st-century folk rock, with saxophone. Although here, for sure, is a band with its roots deep in the 1990s--associated with the storied Elephant Six Collective, the Ladybug Transistor in fact released its first CD back in '95. The personnel has changed over the years and it's a bit of a loosey-goosey outfit to begin with; it taxes me beyond my breaking point to determine, via all available press materials, who precisely is in the band at this point. (I do know that the band, tragically, lost their original drummer, San Fadyl, in April, to a fatal aesthma attack.) Through the years and the lineup shiftings, the band's sound remains ever centered around Gary Olson's sensitive baritone and his lovely capacity to convert something vaguely '60s-like into something vaguely contemporary. I'm taken this time by the unexpected entrance of the saxophone (only, um, now I guess you'll expect it) at 1:47--a sharp, lonely sax it is, its achy street-corner wail unlike anything one normally encounters in '00s indie rock. "Always on the Telephone" is the lead track from the band's new CD Can't Wait Another Day, which was released on Merge Records earlier this month. The MP3 is via Spin. Veteran Fingertips visitors, do you remember the band's previous TWF pick, in December '03? Refresh your memory.
"Rain" - Bishop Allen
Punchy, precise pop from the punchy and precise Bishop Allen, the Brooklyn-based band best known, in the web world, for releasing 12 separate EPs last year--one each month, each named for the month, each with four new songs (except for August, which had 14 live tracks). A band this productive has probably mastered the art of writing songs about more or less anything; this one appears to be, rather simply, about a rainy day. Between the snappy-clappy beat, the spirited, uncomplicated melody, and Justin Rice's high-pitched yet appealing voice, "Rain" is charming from beginning to end. I like how the lead guitar enters about halfway through (1:38) with a squawk or two, as if it was literally waking up, just in time for a recalcitrant sort of anti-solo. "Rain" is a track from the forthcoming Bishop Allen CD, The Broken String, slated for release next month on the Dead Oceans label. The MP3 is via the band's site.Bishop Allen is another band with a previous TWF appearance in the semi-distant past; unfortunately, the song selected back in March '04 is no longer available. With this new song, I'm happy to take the boys off the Artists Formerly Listed on the Master Artist List List.
Monday, June 11, 2007
THIS WEEK'S FINDS
June 10-16
"Speech Marks" - God Love You For a Liar
A continually engaging, skillfully constructed song from an unknown, unsigned UK band. Nice chords, indecipherable time twists, hardy melodies, intriguing lyrics, multiple hooks--"Speech Marks" packs it all into four and a half minutes, while adding a bit of goofy 10cc-like pop drama for good measure (I'm referring to the "phone conversation" segment, beginning at 2:26; and don't miss the answer given to "Do you believe in God?"). Vocalist Gareth Moss has a pliable tenor that suits the shifty music well, sometimes veering towards David Byrne-like rubberiness, sometimes doing a bit of crooning, but not for long, since he's not afraid to leap back and forth into his falsetto. I'll admit my eye was caught by this band before my ear was--they describe themselves as "owing as much to Kate Bush as they do to The Smiths," a claim that does my heart good in a "maybe the world isn't going to hell in a handbasket" sort of way (I mean, four guys in a rock band calling Kate Bush a major influence? Only in the 21st century.) The band by the way exchanged a '90s-style name (Plastik) for the much '00s-ier God Love You For a Liar within the last year, when they expanded from a trio to a quartet. "Speech Marks" is a song from their first CD, How Much Is Enough? that is not only available for free online at their web site but is genuinely good.
"The Underdog" - Spoon
So check out the handclaps (0:58) in this one: probably the most difficult-to-clap-along-with handclaps in the history of rock'n'roll. Knowing how meticulous Britt Daniels, Jim Eno and company are, this can't be an accident, so it strikes me as a good-natured if inscrutable joke in the middle of a good-natured if inscrutable (not to mention crisp and punchy) song. Launching off a relentlessly strummed, one-chord acoustic guitar riff, "The Underdog" features Spoon's characteristic sense of instrumental restraint--however many or (more often) few sounds are combined at any given point, one can always hear all of them distinctly--and yet delivers it in an easy-going, shuffly musical setting. This creates a wily tension throughout; even when the horns arrive, they don't cut loose but keep their distance, never overpowering either the acoustic guitar or Eno's precise percussion (he refuses to hit or shake too many things at once). The one excessive thing you'll hear--also no accident, I assume--is that repeating guitar chord (G major, if I'm not mistaken), not only in the beginning but in the middle (where it extends for 10 measures, blatantly two measures "too long") and then at the end, where it persists an almost excrutiating 18 measures before it sounds like someone has shot the guitar (or the guitarist). If you like this song even a little, I encourage checking it out within the context of the whole CD, in which it sounds mysteriously irresistible. The CD--entitled Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (yet another good-natured if inscrutable joke?)--is the band's sixth; it's scheduled for release next month on Merge Records.
"Perdu" - Watoo Watoo
As breezy and refreshing as a mojito in the shade by the beach on a hot day, "Perdu" disappears as quickly, too: the song's just a hair over two minutes long. With its melt-in-your-ears keyboard and brisk, semi-boss-nova-y groove, the song might fall into the "pleasant but generic" rut but for its immediately captivating melody, thirst-quenching chord changes, and the pure, breathy voice of Pascale, the singer. The French lyrics add measurably to the allure. Watoo Watoo is a husband-wife duo who live in Bordeaux and go by first names only (his is Michaël). They've recorded in an off and on sort of way since 1997. "Perdu" is from their new CD, La Fuite, which was released today on Letterbox Records. I'm pretty sure that this song will sound all but perfect on almost any mix you feel like putting together for yourself for the warm weather to come. Remember to thank Letterbox for the MP3.
June 10-16
"Speech Marks" - God Love You For a Liar
A continually engaging, skillfully constructed song from an unknown, unsigned UK band. Nice chords, indecipherable time twists, hardy melodies, intriguing lyrics, multiple hooks--"Speech Marks" packs it all into four and a half minutes, while adding a bit of goofy 10cc-like pop drama for good measure (I'm referring to the "phone conversation" segment, beginning at 2:26; and don't miss the answer given to "Do you believe in God?"). Vocalist Gareth Moss has a pliable tenor that suits the shifty music well, sometimes veering towards David Byrne-like rubberiness, sometimes doing a bit of crooning, but not for long, since he's not afraid to leap back and forth into his falsetto. I'll admit my eye was caught by this band before my ear was--they describe themselves as "owing as much to Kate Bush as they do to The Smiths," a claim that does my heart good in a "maybe the world isn't going to hell in a handbasket" sort of way (I mean, four guys in a rock band calling Kate Bush a major influence? Only in the 21st century.) The band by the way exchanged a '90s-style name (Plastik) for the much '00s-ier God Love You For a Liar within the last year, when they expanded from a trio to a quartet. "Speech Marks" is a song from their first CD, How Much Is Enough? that is not only available for free online at their web site but is genuinely good.
"The Underdog" - Spoon
So check out the handclaps (0:58) in this one: probably the most difficult-to-clap-along-with handclaps in the history of rock'n'roll. Knowing how meticulous Britt Daniels, Jim Eno and company are, this can't be an accident, so it strikes me as a good-natured if inscrutable joke in the middle of a good-natured if inscrutable (not to mention crisp and punchy) song. Launching off a relentlessly strummed, one-chord acoustic guitar riff, "The Underdog" features Spoon's characteristic sense of instrumental restraint--however many or (more often) few sounds are combined at any given point, one can always hear all of them distinctly--and yet delivers it in an easy-going, shuffly musical setting. This creates a wily tension throughout; even when the horns arrive, they don't cut loose but keep their distance, never overpowering either the acoustic guitar or Eno's precise percussion (he refuses to hit or shake too many things at once). The one excessive thing you'll hear--also no accident, I assume--is that repeating guitar chord (G major, if I'm not mistaken), not only in the beginning but in the middle (where it extends for 10 measures, blatantly two measures "too long") and then at the end, where it persists an almost excrutiating 18 measures before it sounds like someone has shot the guitar (or the guitarist). If you like this song even a little, I encourage checking it out within the context of the whole CD, in which it sounds mysteriously irresistible. The CD--entitled Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (yet another good-natured if inscrutable joke?)--is the band's sixth; it's scheduled for release next month on Merge Records.
"Perdu" - Watoo Watoo
As breezy and refreshing as a mojito in the shade by the beach on a hot day, "Perdu" disappears as quickly, too: the song's just a hair over two minutes long. With its melt-in-your-ears keyboard and brisk, semi-boss-nova-y groove, the song might fall into the "pleasant but generic" rut but for its immediately captivating melody, thirst-quenching chord changes, and the pure, breathy voice of Pascale, the singer. The French lyrics add measurably to the allure. Watoo Watoo is a husband-wife duo who live in Bordeaux and go by first names only (his is Michaël). They've recorded in an off and on sort of way since 1997. "Perdu" is from their new CD, La Fuite, which was released today on Letterbox Records. I'm pretty sure that this song will sound all but perfect on almost any mix you feel like putting together for yourself for the warm weather to come. Remember to thank Letterbox for the MP3.
Monday, June 04, 2007
THIS WEEK'S FINDS
week of June 3-9
"We Are Waves" - Dirk Darmstaedter
Crisp, polished, and incisive in a Neil Finn-ish sort of way, "We Are Waves" alternates itchy, restrained verses with a gorgeous, crashing-to-the-shore sort of chorus. And yet--if I may stretch the metaphor to the breaking point, as it were--much the way a crashing wave is simultaneously composed of the water being pulled back to sea, so do I hear in the chorus an engaging sort of counter-movement that gives the song extra depth and presence. What I'm talking about in particular is the way the chorus leads with a straightforward A major chord but then, even as the melody takes that engaging leap up, from the fourth to the seventh note (0:56), the chords retreat from the plain power chords one might expect into something more complex (perhaps suspended?; listen at 0:58, on the words "open sea"); listen further to how the chords take two more unexpected steps before finding A major again. The chorus might have been blandly catchier without the subtle complications, but it's richer and more gratifying with them. Darmstaedter, by the way, is an interesting dude--he split his childhood years between Hamburg, Germany, where he was born, and northern New Jersey, where he lived with his family from ages 5 to 11. After spending a few teenaged years busking through Europe on his own, he returned to NJ by himself to finish high school with his old friends, and eventually found himself back in Germany in the late '80s with a band (the Jeremy Days) and a hit single. After the band dissolved in 1995, Darmstaedter began recording solo albums. In 2002, he co-founded Tapete Records and has recorded a few CDs there, the latest being Our Favorite City, which came out in March. That's where you'll find "We Are Waves"; the MP3 is courtesy of Dirk and Tapete.
"But Will Our Tears" - Soy Un Caballo
Handmade semi-electronic EU pop from a French-singing Belgium duo with a Spanish name (which translates to "I am a horse") and at least one English-titled song. When it comes to this sort of semi-lo-fi-ish duo music, it can be a fine line for me between something bright and alluring and something simply bubble-headed, but I think this one crosses onto the right side of that boundary for a few reasons. I like the peppy yet melancholy guitar line that opens the song, and provides an undercurrent for the electronics that follow--it grounds the song in something human and three-dimensional. I like that the electronics that follow help characterize the song but never dominate it; there are stretches where you're hearing just guitar and drum and voice here, and when some sort of keyboard joins in, I feel as if the actual concrete keys themselves are present in the soundscape somehow. Speaking of the drum, note how the electronic beat is supplemented--and quite often replaced--by an actual drumkit (listen around 0:32, when it's first noticeable), played with a wonderful carefree touch. And I like Aurélie Muller's upfront, deadpan voice and how well it wraps itself around the unadorned melody--back and forth on a third interval and then, oops, a delightful jump from the one to the five note. (Funny how striking it always sounds in a pop setting for a singer to leap beyond a standard third interval.) "But Will Our Tears" can be found on the band's debut CD, Les heures de raison ("The hours of reason"), which was released last month on the Belgian label Matamore. The MP3 is via the band's site. Thanks to the ever-reliable Hedvika at Getecho for the lead.
"Clue" - the Contrast
Funny thing about this elastic, elusive thing called power pop. Sometimes we (i.e. power pop fans) want almost slavish devotion to form (even though none of us know exactly what the hell the form actually is), other times a new twist helps render the form all the more heart-rending and addictive. The Contrast, a band from Peterborough, Cambridgeshire (the UK, don't you know), gives us a few prominent power pop earmarks--notably the guitar sound, an ineffable combination of the crunchy and the jangly, on display in a prominent riff, and the punchy (maybe compressed?) drumming. But then they deliver a couple of twists. First and foremost, a vocal twist: while classic power pop singers usually deliver in one sort of sweet tenor or another (think Alex Chilton, Matthew Sweet, Carl Newman of the New Pornographers), singer David Reid sings in a throaty, emphatic baritone. If Richard Thompson wanted to make a power pop record, it might sound a bit like this. Second, at 1:54: it's a piano. Like a regular sounding piano. Not your everyday power pop instrument, but it's not here for long, and then again, listen to how it pounds out those percussive chords--piano as percussion makes some sense in power pop, which is often (but not always! there are no rules, remember) characterized by an insistent (though often subtle) beat. "Clue" is from the Contrast's fifth album, Underground Ghosts, which came out in mid-May on Rainbow Quartz Records. The MP3 is via Insound.
week of June 3-9
"We Are Waves" - Dirk Darmstaedter
Crisp, polished, and incisive in a Neil Finn-ish sort of way, "We Are Waves" alternates itchy, restrained verses with a gorgeous, crashing-to-the-shore sort of chorus. And yet--if I may stretch the metaphor to the breaking point, as it were--much the way a crashing wave is simultaneously composed of the water being pulled back to sea, so do I hear in the chorus an engaging sort of counter-movement that gives the song extra depth and presence. What I'm talking about in particular is the way the chorus leads with a straightforward A major chord but then, even as the melody takes that engaging leap up, from the fourth to the seventh note (0:56), the chords retreat from the plain power chords one might expect into something more complex (perhaps suspended?; listen at 0:58, on the words "open sea"); listen further to how the chords take two more unexpected steps before finding A major again. The chorus might have been blandly catchier without the subtle complications, but it's richer and more gratifying with them. Darmstaedter, by the way, is an interesting dude--he split his childhood years between Hamburg, Germany, where he was born, and northern New Jersey, where he lived with his family from ages 5 to 11. After spending a few teenaged years busking through Europe on his own, he returned to NJ by himself to finish high school with his old friends, and eventually found himself back in Germany in the late '80s with a band (the Jeremy Days) and a hit single. After the band dissolved in 1995, Darmstaedter began recording solo albums. In 2002, he co-founded Tapete Records and has recorded a few CDs there, the latest being Our Favorite City, which came out in March. That's where you'll find "We Are Waves"; the MP3 is courtesy of Dirk and Tapete.
"But Will Our Tears" - Soy Un Caballo
Handmade semi-electronic EU pop from a French-singing Belgium duo with a Spanish name (which translates to "I am a horse") and at least one English-titled song. When it comes to this sort of semi-lo-fi-ish duo music, it can be a fine line for me between something bright and alluring and something simply bubble-headed, but I think this one crosses onto the right side of that boundary for a few reasons. I like the peppy yet melancholy guitar line that opens the song, and provides an undercurrent for the electronics that follow--it grounds the song in something human and three-dimensional. I like that the electronics that follow help characterize the song but never dominate it; there are stretches where you're hearing just guitar and drum and voice here, and when some sort of keyboard joins in, I feel as if the actual concrete keys themselves are present in the soundscape somehow. Speaking of the drum, note how the electronic beat is supplemented--and quite often replaced--by an actual drumkit (listen around 0:32, when it's first noticeable), played with a wonderful carefree touch. And I like Aurélie Muller's upfront, deadpan voice and how well it wraps itself around the unadorned melody--back and forth on a third interval and then, oops, a delightful jump from the one to the five note. (Funny how striking it always sounds in a pop setting for a singer to leap beyond a standard third interval.) "But Will Our Tears" can be found on the band's debut CD, Les heures de raison ("The hours of reason"), which was released last month on the Belgian label Matamore. The MP3 is via the band's site. Thanks to the ever-reliable Hedvika at Getecho for the lead.
"Clue" - the Contrast
Funny thing about this elastic, elusive thing called power pop. Sometimes we (i.e. power pop fans) want almost slavish devotion to form (even though none of us know exactly what the hell the form actually is), other times a new twist helps render the form all the more heart-rending and addictive. The Contrast, a band from Peterborough, Cambridgeshire (the UK, don't you know), gives us a few prominent power pop earmarks--notably the guitar sound, an ineffable combination of the crunchy and the jangly, on display in a prominent riff, and the punchy (maybe compressed?) drumming. But then they deliver a couple of twists. First and foremost, a vocal twist: while classic power pop singers usually deliver in one sort of sweet tenor or another (think Alex Chilton, Matthew Sweet, Carl Newman of the New Pornographers), singer David Reid sings in a throaty, emphatic baritone. If Richard Thompson wanted to make a power pop record, it might sound a bit like this. Second, at 1:54: it's a piano. Like a regular sounding piano. Not your everyday power pop instrument, but it's not here for long, and then again, listen to how it pounds out those percussive chords--piano as percussion makes some sense in power pop, which is often (but not always! there are no rules, remember) characterized by an insistent (though often subtle) beat. "Clue" is from the Contrast's fifth album, Underground Ghosts, which came out in mid-May on Rainbow Quartz Records. The MP3 is via Insound.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
THIS WEEK'S FINDS
week of May 20-26
"Our Life is Not a Movie or Maybe" - Okkervil River
This sort of anxious, cinematic indie rock is bound to remind many of us here in 2007 of the Arcade Fire, and yet let's note right away that this Austin-based quintet has been around since 1998, so do the math, as they say. From its wonderful if off-kilter title to its highly disciplined if slightly unglued sense of both song and production, "Our Life is Not a Movie or Maybe" strikes me as pretty brilliant from beginning to end. Front man Wil Sheff is a wordy sort of guy (he's spent some time writing music criticism for a living, as I recall), but rather than do as other wordy sorts of guys do and cram too many syllables into lyrics ("look at all my words!"), Sheff's a savvy enough songwriter to have figured out how to manipulate triplets and time signatures to embrace the extra syllables (you'll hear this for the first time at 0:22, when he sings--I think--"When the love that you locked in the suite says there's no crying"). So he's a wordy guy who makes room for the music, which makes sense when you've got a crack outfit around you like this. Me, I'm especially enjoying the drumwork: listen throughout to how Travis Nelsen uses all of his drums, from snares to toms to bass drum, with great energy and sensitivity. Part of me keeps waiting for Okkervil River to break through in at least an Arcade Fire-ish sort of way, but part of me keeps suspecting that this band may be too literate/inscrutable for mass consumption. I mean, take a look at what Scheff has written about the concept of downloading music (hint: he relates it to a Borges short story) and you'll see how literate I mean. (Also read it because it's interesting.) "Our Life is Not a Movie or Maybe" will be the lead track on Okkervil's River upcoming CD, The Stage Names, which is slated for an August release on Jagjaguwar Records. The MP3 is via the Pitchfork blog.
"My Rights Versus Yours" - the New Pornographers
Last week we heard from Kathryn Calder's lesser-known band (Immaculate Machine); this week her more well-known group steps to the forefront (and she steps a bit to the rear, as the fabulous Neko Case happens to be the senior female vocalist in the band). Carl Newman's affinity for late '60s and early '70s pop is yet again on full display, from the Brian Wilson-y beginning to the feel-good shuffliness of the rhythm section, once the rhythm section gets going (hang with it, it takes a while). Cross Bob Welch-era Fleetwood Mac with the Monkees and you're almost here. The twist is that this Canadian ensemble is clearly up to something serious ("My Rights Versus Your Rights": not a classic pop song title) while setting their observations to music so breezy you can bob your head to it while reading your trashy novel on the beach with your iPod on and no one's the wiser. (Just don't tell Will Sheff.) "My Rights Versus Yours" is an advance MP3 from the band's upcoming Challengers CD, due in August on Matador Records. This one I also heard about via Pitchfork, which had for the longest time previously been yielding little of interest to me. Go figure.
"Cage in a Cave" - Rasputina
A different sort of '60s vibe is in the air here--something quirkier and more psychedelic. And then something also having nothing to do with the '60s at all, as there were not, to my knowledge, any groups with two cellos and a drummer doing business during the Summer of Love. This idea belongs exclusively to Melora Creager, the founder and leader of Rasputina, whose goal in starting the band back in 1992 was to "make funny, depressing music with nothing more than cellos, singing and electricity." (In fact, when Rasputina started up, there were six cellos in all.) As "Cage in a Cave" illustrates, Creager captures a unique, full-bodied instrumental energy with her cello-based rock music, avoiding the frilly feeling one often hears when strings are an afterthought. A big part of the overall appeal is Creager's strong, irresistible voice and her capacity to write real melodies, as too often, to my ears, those inclined to noodle with odd instruments forget that we still need a true and sturdy melody to hang onto. Classically trained and an art school student to boot, Creager is an authentic character, obsessed with historical events and elaborate, vaguely Victorian costumes. And yet on Rasputina's upcoming CD, Oh Perilous World, Creager has partially let go of the historical content because, according to her press material, she decided that current events have become more bizarre than anything she could dig up from the past. Although the past still intrudes here and there, as in the lead track ("1816, The Year Without a Summer") and for that matter "Cage in a Cave," which seems to deal at least in part with Fletcher Christian, the man who was the leader of the mutineers on the Bounty back in 1789. The CD will be released in June on Creager's Filthy Bonnet Recording Company.
week of May 20-26
"Our Life is Not a Movie or Maybe" - Okkervil River
This sort of anxious, cinematic indie rock is bound to remind many of us here in 2007 of the Arcade Fire, and yet let's note right away that this Austin-based quintet has been around since 1998, so do the math, as they say. From its wonderful if off-kilter title to its highly disciplined if slightly unglued sense of both song and production, "Our Life is Not a Movie or Maybe" strikes me as pretty brilliant from beginning to end. Front man Wil Sheff is a wordy sort of guy (he's spent some time writing music criticism for a living, as I recall), but rather than do as other wordy sorts of guys do and cram too many syllables into lyrics ("look at all my words!"), Sheff's a savvy enough songwriter to have figured out how to manipulate triplets and time signatures to embrace the extra syllables (you'll hear this for the first time at 0:22, when he sings--I think--"When the love that you locked in the suite says there's no crying"). So he's a wordy guy who makes room for the music, which makes sense when you've got a crack outfit around you like this. Me, I'm especially enjoying the drumwork: listen throughout to how Travis Nelsen uses all of his drums, from snares to toms to bass drum, with great energy and sensitivity. Part of me keeps waiting for Okkervil River to break through in at least an Arcade Fire-ish sort of way, but part of me keeps suspecting that this band may be too literate/inscrutable for mass consumption. I mean, take a look at what Scheff has written about the concept of downloading music (hint: he relates it to a Borges short story) and you'll see how literate I mean. (Also read it because it's interesting.) "Our Life is Not a Movie or Maybe" will be the lead track on Okkervil's River upcoming CD, The Stage Names, which is slated for an August release on Jagjaguwar Records. The MP3 is via the Pitchfork blog.
"My Rights Versus Yours" - the New Pornographers
Last week we heard from Kathryn Calder's lesser-known band (Immaculate Machine); this week her more well-known group steps to the forefront (and she steps a bit to the rear, as the fabulous Neko Case happens to be the senior female vocalist in the band). Carl Newman's affinity for late '60s and early '70s pop is yet again on full display, from the Brian Wilson-y beginning to the feel-good shuffliness of the rhythm section, once the rhythm section gets going (hang with it, it takes a while). Cross Bob Welch-era Fleetwood Mac with the Monkees and you're almost here. The twist is that this Canadian ensemble is clearly up to something serious ("My Rights Versus Your Rights": not a classic pop song title) while setting their observations to music so breezy you can bob your head to it while reading your trashy novel on the beach with your iPod on and no one's the wiser. (Just don't tell Will Sheff.) "My Rights Versus Yours" is an advance MP3 from the band's upcoming Challengers CD, due in August on Matador Records. This one I also heard about via Pitchfork, which had for the longest time previously been yielding little of interest to me. Go figure.
"Cage in a Cave" - Rasputina
A different sort of '60s vibe is in the air here--something quirkier and more psychedelic. And then something also having nothing to do with the '60s at all, as there were not, to my knowledge, any groups with two cellos and a drummer doing business during the Summer of Love. This idea belongs exclusively to Melora Creager, the founder and leader of Rasputina, whose goal in starting the band back in 1992 was to "make funny, depressing music with nothing more than cellos, singing and electricity." (In fact, when Rasputina started up, there were six cellos in all.) As "Cage in a Cave" illustrates, Creager captures a unique, full-bodied instrumental energy with her cello-based rock music, avoiding the frilly feeling one often hears when strings are an afterthought. A big part of the overall appeal is Creager's strong, irresistible voice and her capacity to write real melodies, as too often, to my ears, those inclined to noodle with odd instruments forget that we still need a true and sturdy melody to hang onto. Classically trained and an art school student to boot, Creager is an authentic character, obsessed with historical events and elaborate, vaguely Victorian costumes. And yet on Rasputina's upcoming CD, Oh Perilous World, Creager has partially let go of the historical content because, according to her press material, she decided that current events have become more bizarre than anything she could dig up from the past. Although the past still intrudes here and there, as in the lead track ("1816, The Year Without a Summer") and for that matter "Cage in a Cave," which seems to deal at least in part with Fletcher Christian, the man who was the leader of the mutineers on the Bounty back in 1789. The CD will be released in June on Creager's Filthy Bonnet Recording Company.
Monday, May 21, 2007
THIS WEEK'S FINDS
week of May 20-26
Note that next week's update will appear on Tuesday May 29, because of the Memorial Day holiday here in the U.S.
"Lost Again!" - Morningbell
Pop songs tend not to be amenable to significant changes happening within them. In the interest of putting one basic idea across in just three or four minutes, they normally stick to one tempo, one key, one time signature, one vocalist, one type of feeling. This is also why melody lines are inclined to be short, often no more than four measures long, sometimes just two--concise melodies that repeat often being easier for the ear to grasp in a relatively brief span of time (not to mention easier for less-than-inspired songwriters to write). Fortunately for pop aficionados everywhere, however, there are always bands that come along and toss concerns like this out the window. And so we have "Lost Again!," which begins as a crisp acoustic shuffle, acquiring a quick shot or two of Queen or maybe ELO-like harmonies as the verse sneaks a 16-measure melody into an spiffy, upbeat framework--except of course for that time signature change and slowdown at the end. This slowdown leads, after the second verse, into a chorus in which tempo and feel are completely transformed--the pace slows, the harmonies change character, and the chords transmute from being predominantly minor to predominantly major. (Note one common element: an extended melody again, this time just about 12 measures long.) And then maybe best of all, the instrumental break that begins innocuously enough at 1:20 steps out into a thoughtful and full-fledged guitar showcase, the likes of which bring (oh no, them again!) Steely Dan to mind more than standard-issue indie rock. "Lost Again!" is from Morningbell's third CD, Through the Belly of the Sea, which is slated for a June release on Orange Records. And as yet another sign of the band's freewheeling ethos, the CD is billed as rock's first "Choose Your Own Adventure" album--a different story unfolds depending upon which order you choose to listen to the tracks.
"Brotherhood of Man" - the Innocence Mission
The combination of Karen Peris's voice and the melodies she writes for her voice to sing kindles unspeakable poignancy with its stark beauty. This is music that might pass you by if it's playing in the background as you're fumbling to pay for your takeout coffee but it is music that rewards keen attention with its rich, ageless sense and sensibility. Peris's distinctive, breathy-yearny voice renders profound the melodic simplicity, aided by husband Don's ringingly well-chosen guitar lines and subtle organ flourishes. This is also, I would argue, the sound of a small group of experienced musicians (Mike Bitts is in there on bass as well, but you have to listen closely) who are in it for the love of the music--and, in the case of Karen and Don, love of each other. Which sounds corny but the rarity of two people getting along so beautifully in both song and deed for this long--the band has been recording since 1986--transcends corny to all-out awe-inspiring. "Brotherhood of Man" is the opening track from the CD We Walked in Song, released in March on Badman Recording Company. The MP3 is via Insound.
"Dear Confessor" - Immaculate Machine
Friendly and welcoming, "Dear Confessor" launches off a vintage Elvis Costello beat and doesn't look back. It's that note that singer/guitarist Brooke Gallupe hits on the second syllable of the word "relax" that does it for me--that's where I sink in and let them take me where they're going to take me. There's an inexplicably comfy vibe permeating the music this Vancouver trio generates that I couldn't put my finger on until, reading about the band on their web site, I discover that Gallupe and singer/keyboardist Kathryn Calder "have lived down the street from each other since elementary school." It all begins to make sense. Another victory for a long-term relationship (and another example of how abnormal they actually are, and impossible to manufacture simply because we're told we're supposed to want one; and okay end of soapbox!). "Dear Confessor" will be found on the CD Immaculate Machine's Fables, scheduled for release next month on Mint Records. This will be their third full-length release. (Bonus fact: Kathryn Calder is also a member, since 2005, of the expansive, beloved Canadian ensemble the New Pornographers.)
week of May 20-26
Note that next week's update will appear on Tuesday May 29, because of the Memorial Day holiday here in the U.S.
"Lost Again!" - Morningbell
Pop songs tend not to be amenable to significant changes happening within them. In the interest of putting one basic idea across in just three or four minutes, they normally stick to one tempo, one key, one time signature, one vocalist, one type of feeling. This is also why melody lines are inclined to be short, often no more than four measures long, sometimes just two--concise melodies that repeat often being easier for the ear to grasp in a relatively brief span of time (not to mention easier for less-than-inspired songwriters to write). Fortunately for pop aficionados everywhere, however, there are always bands that come along and toss concerns like this out the window. And so we have "Lost Again!," which begins as a crisp acoustic shuffle, acquiring a quick shot or two of Queen or maybe ELO-like harmonies as the verse sneaks a 16-measure melody into an spiffy, upbeat framework--except of course for that time signature change and slowdown at the end. This slowdown leads, after the second verse, into a chorus in which tempo and feel are completely transformed--the pace slows, the harmonies change character, and the chords transmute from being predominantly minor to predominantly major. (Note one common element: an extended melody again, this time just about 12 measures long.) And then maybe best of all, the instrumental break that begins innocuously enough at 1:20 steps out into a thoughtful and full-fledged guitar showcase, the likes of which bring (oh no, them again!) Steely Dan to mind more than standard-issue indie rock. "Lost Again!" is from Morningbell's third CD, Through the Belly of the Sea, which is slated for a June release on Orange Records. And as yet another sign of the band's freewheeling ethos, the CD is billed as rock's first "Choose Your Own Adventure" album--a different story unfolds depending upon which order you choose to listen to the tracks.
"Brotherhood of Man" - the Innocence Mission
The combination of Karen Peris's voice and the melodies she writes for her voice to sing kindles unspeakable poignancy with its stark beauty. This is music that might pass you by if it's playing in the background as you're fumbling to pay for your takeout coffee but it is music that rewards keen attention with its rich, ageless sense and sensibility. Peris's distinctive, breathy-yearny voice renders profound the melodic simplicity, aided by husband Don's ringingly well-chosen guitar lines and subtle organ flourishes. This is also, I would argue, the sound of a small group of experienced musicians (Mike Bitts is in there on bass as well, but you have to listen closely) who are in it for the love of the music--and, in the case of Karen and Don, love of each other. Which sounds corny but the rarity of two people getting along so beautifully in both song and deed for this long--the band has been recording since 1986--transcends corny to all-out awe-inspiring. "Brotherhood of Man" is the opening track from the CD We Walked in Song, released in March on Badman Recording Company. The MP3 is via Insound.
"Dear Confessor" - Immaculate Machine
Friendly and welcoming, "Dear Confessor" launches off a vintage Elvis Costello beat and doesn't look back. It's that note that singer/guitarist Brooke Gallupe hits on the second syllable of the word "relax" that does it for me--that's where I sink in and let them take me where they're going to take me. There's an inexplicably comfy vibe permeating the music this Vancouver trio generates that I couldn't put my finger on until, reading about the band on their web site, I discover that Gallupe and singer/keyboardist Kathryn Calder "have lived down the street from each other since elementary school." It all begins to make sense. Another victory for a long-term relationship (and another example of how abnormal they actually are, and impossible to manufacture simply because we're told we're supposed to want one; and okay end of soapbox!). "Dear Confessor" will be found on the CD Immaculate Machine's Fables, scheduled for release next month on Mint Records. This will be their third full-length release. (Bonus fact: Kathryn Calder is also a member, since 2005, of the expansive, beloved Canadian ensemble the New Pornographers.)
Monday, May 14, 2007
THIS WEEK'S FINDS
week of May 13-19
** Two quick things:
1) Monday May 14 is the deadline for the Mason Proper contest, so if you're reading this while it's still Monday, there's still time to enter if you email before the end of the day; details here. Don't be shy!
2) Fingertips was one of the sites involved in selecting nominees for what have been dubbed the Music Blog Awards. They're seeking votes in a variety of categories, so if you like doing that sort of thing go here and place your votes. Be aware that this is all related to the year 2006. Well, you know what they say: better late than really really really late.
"Kid On My Shoulders" - White Rabbits
With its familiar but not quite placeable vibe--a slithery sort of explosiveness is in the air--"Kid On My Shoulders" jumps along to a nervous piano line and scratchy guitar riffs, its half-stepping melody adding to the jittery ambiance. Apparently a love of '70s ska was among the things that drew the band mates together, and you can certainly detect a bit of that genre's twitchiness here, but only to the extent that White Rabbits are using a knowledge of ska to forge their own sound--much the way, it occurs to me, that, back in the day, Steely Dan used reggae to inform a song like "Haitian Divorce." And I'm going to take the Dan reference and run with it, since the more I listen, the more I hear a Steely-ishness around the edges here--not the sedate, groove-oriented Dan of the '00s but the musically distinctive and subversive SD of the '70s; even the vocalist here (and I'm not sure who it is as the band has two lead singers) delivers with a slightly high-pitched Fagen-esque snap (listen from 1:46 to 1:51 for a strong example). White Rabbits is a six-man band from Missouri currently doing business in Brooklyn. "Kid On My Shoulders" is a song from the band's debut CD, Fort Nightly, scheduled for release next week on Say Hey Records; the MP3 is via the Say Hey site.
"While You Were Sleeping" - Elvis Perkins
Hypnotic, cryptic, and sweetly melancholy. Also, bracingly produced: what sounds like a simple song for acoustic guitar and voice becomes over a leisurely six minutes an idiosyncratic chamber piece featuring percussion, strings, horns, and some weird, resonant, blowy sort of instrument that I can't quite place. For everything that is ultimately strummed or beaten or blown or bowed, the arrangement is more subtle than lush, instruments simultaneously playing and calling to mind the silence that exists when they're not playing. Listen, for instance, to the moment the main drum beat enters--not till 2:06--and see how it enters your gut at the same time and only then do you realize that before that, it wasn't there. This is a song I've been living with a long time, slowly but surely entranced by its meandering lyricism, waiting for the right week, the right combination of sounds to place it between, and I think its time has come. You may have already heard tell of Perkins' tragic back story, but for the record: father Anthony Perkins died an AIDS-related death in 1992, when Elvis was 17; mother Berry Berenson was on one of the two planes that were flown into the World Trade Center on September 11, just 53 at the time. Maybe we all imagine an extra layer of sorrow braiding through the music as a result but to my ears, yes, there is a sublime sort of sadness infusing both his words and his voice. "While You Were Sleeping" is from Ash Wednesday, released in February on XL Recordings. The MP3 is available via Insound.
"Take Me to the Ballroom" - Moonbabies
The ineffably charming Swedish duo Moonbabies, longtime Fingertips friends, are back with a new CD that charms in the usual Moonbabies way, which is to say elusively. With their adroit blend of crisp acoustic guitars and fuzzy electronics, these guys are hard to pin down sonically--a sense reinforced by both time-signature trickery in the verse and a distinct rhythmic shift between the verse and the chorus. Another thing that keeps the sound pleasantly off-kilter is how multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Ola Frick and keyboardist/vocalist Carina Johansson share the lead vocal duties, and here it's the male voice (Frick) which gets the dreamier vocal, in the chorus, while Johansson handles the more matter-of-fact poppiness of the verse. I could be wrong but I'm thinking that historically, when male and female voices trade like this within a song, it's the woman who gets the dreamy chorus. For added perspective, see previous Moonbabies TWF picks here and here. "Take Me to the Ballroom" is the semi-title track of the new 'Babies CD At the Ballroom, slated for release later this month on Parasol Records. The MP3 is via Parasol.
week of May 13-19
** Two quick things:
1) Monday May 14 is the deadline for the Mason Proper contest, so if you're reading this while it's still Monday, there's still time to enter if you email before the end of the day; details here. Don't be shy!
2) Fingertips was one of the sites involved in selecting nominees for what have been dubbed the Music Blog Awards. They're seeking votes in a variety of categories, so if you like doing that sort of thing go here and place your votes. Be aware that this is all related to the year 2006. Well, you know what they say: better late than really really really late.
"Kid On My Shoulders" - White Rabbits
With its familiar but not quite placeable vibe--a slithery sort of explosiveness is in the air--"Kid On My Shoulders" jumps along to a nervous piano line and scratchy guitar riffs, its half-stepping melody adding to the jittery ambiance. Apparently a love of '70s ska was among the things that drew the band mates together, and you can certainly detect a bit of that genre's twitchiness here, but only to the extent that White Rabbits are using a knowledge of ska to forge their own sound--much the way, it occurs to me, that, back in the day, Steely Dan used reggae to inform a song like "Haitian Divorce." And I'm going to take the Dan reference and run with it, since the more I listen, the more I hear a Steely-ishness around the edges here--not the sedate, groove-oriented Dan of the '00s but the musically distinctive and subversive SD of the '70s; even the vocalist here (and I'm not sure who it is as the band has two lead singers) delivers with a slightly high-pitched Fagen-esque snap (listen from 1:46 to 1:51 for a strong example). White Rabbits is a six-man band from Missouri currently doing business in Brooklyn. "Kid On My Shoulders" is a song from the band's debut CD, Fort Nightly, scheduled for release next week on Say Hey Records; the MP3 is via the Say Hey site.
"While You Were Sleeping" - Elvis Perkins
Hypnotic, cryptic, and sweetly melancholy. Also, bracingly produced: what sounds like a simple song for acoustic guitar and voice becomes over a leisurely six minutes an idiosyncratic chamber piece featuring percussion, strings, horns, and some weird, resonant, blowy sort of instrument that I can't quite place. For everything that is ultimately strummed or beaten or blown or bowed, the arrangement is more subtle than lush, instruments simultaneously playing and calling to mind the silence that exists when they're not playing. Listen, for instance, to the moment the main drum beat enters--not till 2:06--and see how it enters your gut at the same time and only then do you realize that before that, it wasn't there. This is a song I've been living with a long time, slowly but surely entranced by its meandering lyricism, waiting for the right week, the right combination of sounds to place it between, and I think its time has come. You may have already heard tell of Perkins' tragic back story, but for the record: father Anthony Perkins died an AIDS-related death in 1992, when Elvis was 17; mother Berry Berenson was on one of the two planes that were flown into the World Trade Center on September 11, just 53 at the time. Maybe we all imagine an extra layer of sorrow braiding through the music as a result but to my ears, yes, there is a sublime sort of sadness infusing both his words and his voice. "While You Were Sleeping" is from Ash Wednesday, released in February on XL Recordings. The MP3 is available via Insound.
"Take Me to the Ballroom" - Moonbabies
The ineffably charming Swedish duo Moonbabies, longtime Fingertips friends, are back with a new CD that charms in the usual Moonbabies way, which is to say elusively. With their adroit blend of crisp acoustic guitars and fuzzy electronics, these guys are hard to pin down sonically--a sense reinforced by both time-signature trickery in the verse and a distinct rhythmic shift between the verse and the chorus. Another thing that keeps the sound pleasantly off-kilter is how multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Ola Frick and keyboardist/vocalist Carina Johansson share the lead vocal duties, and here it's the male voice (Frick) which gets the dreamier vocal, in the chorus, while Johansson handles the more matter-of-fact poppiness of the verse. I could be wrong but I'm thinking that historically, when male and female voices trade like this within a song, it's the woman who gets the dreamy chorus. For added perspective, see previous Moonbabies TWF picks here and here. "Take Me to the Ballroom" is the semi-title track of the new 'Babies CD At the Ballroom, slated for release later this month on Parasol Records. The MP3 is via Parasol.
Monday, May 07, 2007
THIS WEEK'S FINDS
week of May 6-12
Have you entered the new contest yet? The prize this time is a full-length CD plus a 7-inch vinyl single from the band Mason Proper, a recent "This Week's Finds" featured artist. You don't have to have heard of them to win, and you never know, they might just become your new favorite band.
"Flesh and Spirits" - the Gena Rowlands Band
With a free-flowing vibe, unusual instrumentation, and a vocalist who sounds like an actual grown-up, "Flesh and Spirits" has very little in common with what we've come to think of as "indie rock," and we are all the better for it. Centered around a ruminative electric piano and some itchy, jazz-tinged drumming, "Flesh and Spirits" avoids veering off into a loungey vagueness thanks largely to Bob Massey's rich, evocative singing--there's something in his voice that adds appreciably to the music itself. Listen to the chorus in particular and how, following the violin's lead, he transforms a relatively simple ascending melody (beginning at 1:02) into something sensational and heart-opening. Like the title's dichotomy, the song seems built on twin supports of matter and essence, which keeps the piece grounded even during its more abstract moments (for instance, the edgy instrumental break that starts at 2:49, matching mournful string lines against a sputtering electronically enhanced beat). The Gena Rowlands Band--no relation to the actress of the same name--is an ensemble from Washington, D.C. that Massey assembles whenever and however he feels like it from a rotating cast of a dozen musicians; "Flesh and Spirits" is the title track to the group's third CD, which was released last month on Lujo Records. The MP3 is via the Lujo site.
"All the Same Mistakes" - Mieka Pauley
The Boston-based, Harvard-educated Pauley sings here like a tantalizing cross between Cat Power and Sarah McLachlan, with a smidgen of Suzanne Vega thrown in. The crisp, disciplined production highlights the song's canny melodic appeal, and just when you think you've heard what it has to say, things take one left turn, and then another. First, around 2:30, the song all but grinds to a halt, reborn briefly as a lilting, slow-motion waltz and then transforming again through its original setting into an unexpectedly blistering recapulation, complete with slightly phased vocals, electric guitar, and bashy drums. "All the Same Mistakes" is a song that will be found on Pauley's next CD, scheduled for release this summer. The MP3 is available via her site.
"Kid Gloves" - Voxtrot
Then again, not that there's anything wrong with what we've come to think of as indie rock (see Gena Rowlands band entry, above), as I think is clear from this casually splendid new track from the Austin quintet Voxtrot. This one has a neo-New-Romantic feeling, with its '80s-club beat and melodramatic melody. (And speaking of the so-called "New Romantics," am I being fooled by the name overlap or is there something vaguely Ultravox-like going on with these guys?) What transports this one, for me, in particular is that part of the chorus when Ramesh Srivastava sings: "I have no choice but to put you in back of me"--geez, everything about that line melodically and harmonically is just plain wonderful, from the chord underpinning the word "choice" to the satisfying way the melody inches up by whole steps then dives back down a fifth (and, as always, much better to listen than to read about it). Voxtrot may be the best-known band in the U.S. that has yet to release a full-length CD, thanks to some sizable web love over the last couple of years, but "Kid Gloves" is in fact from their forthcoming debut non-EP release, entitled simply Voxtrot, set to be out on the Playlouder label later this month. The MP3 is via Spinner, the AOL indie music blog.
week of May 6-12
Have you entered the new contest yet? The prize this time is a full-length CD plus a 7-inch vinyl single from the band Mason Proper, a recent "This Week's Finds" featured artist. You don't have to have heard of them to win, and you never know, they might just become your new favorite band.
"Flesh and Spirits" - the Gena Rowlands Band
With a free-flowing vibe, unusual instrumentation, and a vocalist who sounds like an actual grown-up, "Flesh and Spirits" has very little in common with what we've come to think of as "indie rock," and we are all the better for it. Centered around a ruminative electric piano and some itchy, jazz-tinged drumming, "Flesh and Spirits" avoids veering off into a loungey vagueness thanks largely to Bob Massey's rich, evocative singing--there's something in his voice that adds appreciably to the music itself. Listen to the chorus in particular and how, following the violin's lead, he transforms a relatively simple ascending melody (beginning at 1:02) into something sensational and heart-opening. Like the title's dichotomy, the song seems built on twin supports of matter and essence, which keeps the piece grounded even during its more abstract moments (for instance, the edgy instrumental break that starts at 2:49, matching mournful string lines against a sputtering electronically enhanced beat). The Gena Rowlands Band--no relation to the actress of the same name--is an ensemble from Washington, D.C. that Massey assembles whenever and however he feels like it from a rotating cast of a dozen musicians; "Flesh and Spirits" is the title track to the group's third CD, which was released last month on Lujo Records. The MP3 is via the Lujo site.
"All the Same Mistakes" - Mieka Pauley
The Boston-based, Harvard-educated Pauley sings here like a tantalizing cross between Cat Power and Sarah McLachlan, with a smidgen of Suzanne Vega thrown in. The crisp, disciplined production highlights the song's canny melodic appeal, and just when you think you've heard what it has to say, things take one left turn, and then another. First, around 2:30, the song all but grinds to a halt, reborn briefly as a lilting, slow-motion waltz and then transforming again through its original setting into an unexpectedly blistering recapulation, complete with slightly phased vocals, electric guitar, and bashy drums. "All the Same Mistakes" is a song that will be found on Pauley's next CD, scheduled for release this summer. The MP3 is available via her site.
"Kid Gloves" - Voxtrot
Then again, not that there's anything wrong with what we've come to think of as indie rock (see Gena Rowlands band entry, above), as I think is clear from this casually splendid new track from the Austin quintet Voxtrot. This one has a neo-New-Romantic feeling, with its '80s-club beat and melodramatic melody. (And speaking of the so-called "New Romantics," am I being fooled by the name overlap or is there something vaguely Ultravox-like going on with these guys?) What transports this one, for me, in particular is that part of the chorus when Ramesh Srivastava sings: "I have no choice but to put you in back of me"--geez, everything about that line melodically and harmonically is just plain wonderful, from the chord underpinning the word "choice" to the satisfying way the melody inches up by whole steps then dives back down a fifth (and, as always, much better to listen than to read about it). Voxtrot may be the best-known band in the U.S. that has yet to release a full-length CD, thanks to some sizable web love over the last couple of years, but "Kid Gloves" is in fact from their forthcoming debut non-EP release, entitled simply Voxtrot, set to be out on the Playlouder label later this month. The MP3 is via Spinner, the AOL indie music blog.
Monday, April 30, 2007
THIS WEEK'S FINDS
week of Apr. 29-May 5
The hamsters are back in their wheels, firing up the Fingertips generators, and here we are, in the saddle again after a daring week-long venture into the offline world. But not only have the three weekly picks returned (below), there is a new contest on the way as well. The prizes this time will be CDs and 7-inch vinyl singles from the band Mason Proper, a recent "This Week's Finds" featured artist. Visit the Contests page tomorrow (Tuesday) and check it out. And now, on with the show (this is it):
"Everybody's Got Their Own Part to Play" - Shannon Wright
There's a distinct early '70s vibe in the air here, from the head-bobbing piano chords to the sing-song-y melody, but most of all, as I listen, what brings me back to that bygone time are the subtle John Lennon references I'm hearing in the music, the lyrics ("Nobody knows what the truth is"), and even in the echoey way her voice is slightly buried in the mix. As Wright is nothing if not a simmering vocalist, it's actually kind of fun to have to listen more closely than usual for the emotion--powerful singers grow more powerful, I believe, when they learn to present with subtlety. This compact song features an unusual structure--there are basically four different paired melodic segments, three of which we hear twice, one of which we hear only once, and that unrepeated segment appears to be the chorus. In any case, the whole thing whips right by us (total time: 2:43) before we've quite gotten our arms around it; I suggest allowing a few listens for its various charms to emerge most clearly. "Everybody's Got Their Own Part to Play" is the closing song on Wright's new CD, Let In The Light, which is scheduled for release next week on Quarterstick Records.
"TV Reality (The New Plague)" - Contramano
If David Byrne had been an Argentinian cellist rather than a geeky Ontario- and Maryland-raised art school dropout, Talking Heads might have sounded something like this. Contramano centers around Pablo Cubarle's spiky cello playing, homely singing, and joyfully unexpected sense of melody. The jagged rhythms of the introductory cello riff lead us into an extended, unsettled opening section--the band has our attention but it's unclear what they're going to do with it, as the chords hover without resolution and Cubarle's accented English renders understanding minimal. Then, as Cubarle sings, "But it's not a special day," something begins to shift, we are suddenly in a bridge to somewhere else, and that somewhere else becomes a crazy-great chorus, a very Talking Heads-like bit of infectious simplicity, enlivened by crystal-clear bass arpeggios and a lively drum kit. Cubarle is particularly difficult to understand right here; to add to your enjoyment, you should know that what he's singing is: "It's the new plague/The new invasion/Click on, screw your life, screw your life." And maybe reality TV presents an easy target but if so, not nearly enough people are taking it on. "TV Reality" is a song from Contramano's second CD, Unsatisfecho, which the band will release themselves next week. The MP3 is via the band's site.
"First Blood" - the Chrysler
An insistent, minor-key lament with engaging atmospherics and a sustained sense of woe. While an acoustic guitar strumming a simple E minor chord remains at the center of the sonic space, nice touches persist around the periphery, most involving a range of electric guitar sounds--shimmering sustained notes, controlled feedback, echoey chords, an occasional twang. I'm getting a feeling of the archetypal American West in this one, which may seem strange in that the Chrysler is a folk-pop quintet from smalltown Sweden; on the other hand, they are considered a "country" act there, so maybe that accounts for the mysterious, tragedy-prone landscape their music evokes. The song unfolds at a leisurely pace, and doesn't travel too far, yet somehow keeps the ear occupied through its five-plus minutes. "First Blood" is from the band's second CD, Cold War Classic, which was released in mid-April in the U.S. on Parasol Records. The MP3 is via the Parasol site.
week of Apr. 29-May 5
The hamsters are back in their wheels, firing up the Fingertips generators, and here we are, in the saddle again after a daring week-long venture into the offline world. But not only have the three weekly picks returned (below), there is a new contest on the way as well. The prizes this time will be CDs and 7-inch vinyl singles from the band Mason Proper, a recent "This Week's Finds" featured artist. Visit the Contests page tomorrow (Tuesday) and check it out. And now, on with the show (this is it):
"Everybody's Got Their Own Part to Play" - Shannon Wright
There's a distinct early '70s vibe in the air here, from the head-bobbing piano chords to the sing-song-y melody, but most of all, as I listen, what brings me back to that bygone time are the subtle John Lennon references I'm hearing in the music, the lyrics ("Nobody knows what the truth is"), and even in the echoey way her voice is slightly buried in the mix. As Wright is nothing if not a simmering vocalist, it's actually kind of fun to have to listen more closely than usual for the emotion--powerful singers grow more powerful, I believe, when they learn to present with subtlety. This compact song features an unusual structure--there are basically four different paired melodic segments, three of which we hear twice, one of which we hear only once, and that unrepeated segment appears to be the chorus. In any case, the whole thing whips right by us (total time: 2:43) before we've quite gotten our arms around it; I suggest allowing a few listens for its various charms to emerge most clearly. "Everybody's Got Their Own Part to Play" is the closing song on Wright's new CD, Let In The Light, which is scheduled for release next week on Quarterstick Records.
"TV Reality (The New Plague)" - Contramano
If David Byrne had been an Argentinian cellist rather than a geeky Ontario- and Maryland-raised art school dropout, Talking Heads might have sounded something like this. Contramano centers around Pablo Cubarle's spiky cello playing, homely singing, and joyfully unexpected sense of melody. The jagged rhythms of the introductory cello riff lead us into an extended, unsettled opening section--the band has our attention but it's unclear what they're going to do with it, as the chords hover without resolution and Cubarle's accented English renders understanding minimal. Then, as Cubarle sings, "But it's not a special day," something begins to shift, we are suddenly in a bridge to somewhere else, and that somewhere else becomes a crazy-great chorus, a very Talking Heads-like bit of infectious simplicity, enlivened by crystal-clear bass arpeggios and a lively drum kit. Cubarle is particularly difficult to understand right here; to add to your enjoyment, you should know that what he's singing is: "It's the new plague/The new invasion/Click on, screw your life, screw your life." And maybe reality TV presents an easy target but if so, not nearly enough people are taking it on. "TV Reality" is a song from Contramano's second CD, Unsatisfecho, which the band will release themselves next week. The MP3 is via the band's site.
"First Blood" - the Chrysler
An insistent, minor-key lament with engaging atmospherics and a sustained sense of woe. While an acoustic guitar strumming a simple E minor chord remains at the center of the sonic space, nice touches persist around the periphery, most involving a range of electric guitar sounds--shimmering sustained notes, controlled feedback, echoey chords, an occasional twang. I'm getting a feeling of the archetypal American West in this one, which may seem strange in that the Chrysler is a folk-pop quintet from smalltown Sweden; on the other hand, they are considered a "country" act there, so maybe that accounts for the mysterious, tragedy-prone landscape their music evokes. The song unfolds at a leisurely pace, and doesn't travel too far, yet somehow keeps the ear occupied through its five-plus minutes. "First Blood" is from the band's second CD, Cold War Classic, which was released in mid-April in the U.S. on Parasol Records. The MP3 is via the Parasol site.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
THIS WEEK'S FINDS
week of Apr. 15-21
The Fingertips home office will be closed, on adventure break, from April 20 through April 27. The next weekly update after this one will pixelate onto your screen on Monday April 30. Use the opportunity to visit other, less-trod-upon pages of the site, such as this one, or this one, or maybe even this one.
"Broken Arm" - Winterpills
The beauty of my slow, steady system here is that often it appears to work on its own, as if I'm not even a part of it. Songs that hit me at a level below rational thinking get added to my "top consideration" folder, and each week I spend time listening to all the songs in it, and when I listen long enough and closely enough they kind of just sort themselves out. It's a mystery. And what also sometimes happens--equally mysterious--is a song that I didn't pick that week ends up floating around in my head, singing itself to itself in the days that follow. Usually that means I will pick that song at some point. Thus, "Broken Arm," from the western Massachusetts band Winterpills, which I kept not quite selecting and which has continued to arise unbidden in my head. This one has the minor melancholy folk-rock tension of something from the '60s (Simon & Garfunkel? Mamas & Papas?), and I think the thing that really sticks with me is how the hook is, somehow, the first melodic line of the verse. Normally a pop song has to work up to its hook but this one starts with it: a simple descending melody that curls back up at the bottom, and it may not sound like much the first time you hear it, when singer Philip Price sings on his own; but one of the band's characteristic sounds is the vocal interplay between Price and keyboardist Flora Reed, and when Reed harmonizes that same line when it returns (at around 0:47), well, yikes. Wow. She stays with him for (I think) three notes then they separate into the most wonderful intervals. A parallel highlight is the interplay between the acoustic and electric guitar, the acoustic crisp and precise, the electric slurry and evasive. (Note a very clear "bad word" happens at 2:03 so be careful if children or bosses are nearby.) "Broken Arm" is from the band's second CD, The Light Divides, released on Signature Sounds at the end of February.
"Speak To Me Bones" - Land of Talk
And this one sounds like something sharp and itchy from maybe the early or middle '90s. Right away I like the tension established by a stationary guitar slashing intermittently against the propulsive rhythm section, while otherwise retreating into a vibrating, harmonic fuzz. I can feel the whole enterprise coiled up, restrained, ready to boil over. When the guitar is fully unleashed, at 0:27, we get pretty much the same chord--something with the vague dissonance of a suspended chord, from the sound of it--only now the slashing intensifies, gains a rhythm, is fleshed out by adjunct chords that veer magnetically back to the central cluster, with a beautiful fury that would do Neil Young proud. When singer/guitarist Elizabeth Powell emerges from behind her mighty instrument (54 seconds into it) to sing a discordant melody, with passion, I'm falling for this one big-time. While comparisons have been made to P.J. Harvey because of Powell's vocal turbulence, I hear something ultimately sweeter there in the midst of the storm--to me, in fact, her rich, sandpapery tone brings Kathleen Edwards rather unexpectedly but pleasingly to mind. But try not to let Powell's vocal assurance distract you from her impressive guitar chops, which provide a constant source of grinding grandeur to this explosive little piece. Land of Talk is a trio from Montreal; "Speak To Me Bones" is a song from the band's debut EP, Applause Cheer Boo Hiss, which was released in the U.S. in March on The Rebel Group. The MP3 is via the record company site.
"Loud and Clear" - Pink and Noseworthy
This is another song that engages me before the singing even starts. Here we have the often agreeable acoustic guitar and piano combination, and listen to this piano in particular--how slyly unconcerned with the beat it can be, just floating its gentle notes here and there, in and around the guitar's structured picking. And it's also another song with a very engaging male-female duet going on, in this case via Shanee Pink and Mark Noseworthy (yup, the band is simply named after people; and there was me intially trying to figure out what the name meant). I really like the vibe here: while there's a quiet late-night feeling going on, it's not simply loungey-jazzy; instead we get a nice and yet subtly unusual sense of movement--the unusual part the result of the unexpected 7/4 time signature. I can't remember hearing a song centered around fingerpicking in 7/4 time like this, although of course there may well be some. Another nice touch is how the acoustic instruments each pick up an electric counterpart as the song develops--we get both a dreamy electric guitar and an atmospheric keyboard filling out the original piano-guitar combo, plus some simple percussion (mostly just an egg shaker). And the percussion really disguises the unconventional beat, managing to keep what sounds like a regular pulse even with those odd-beated measures. All in all both a lovely tune and a spiffy accomplishment. "Loud and Clear" is a song from Pink and Noseworthy, the duo's debut CD, which was released in March on North Street Records. The MP3 is available via the North Street site.
week of Apr. 15-21
The Fingertips home office will be closed, on adventure break, from April 20 through April 27. The next weekly update after this one will pixelate onto your screen on Monday April 30. Use the opportunity to visit other, less-trod-upon pages of the site, such as this one, or this one, or maybe even this one.
"Broken Arm" - Winterpills
The beauty of my slow, steady system here is that often it appears to work on its own, as if I'm not even a part of it. Songs that hit me at a level below rational thinking get added to my "top consideration" folder, and each week I spend time listening to all the songs in it, and when I listen long enough and closely enough they kind of just sort themselves out. It's a mystery. And what also sometimes happens--equally mysterious--is a song that I didn't pick that week ends up floating around in my head, singing itself to itself in the days that follow. Usually that means I will pick that song at some point. Thus, "Broken Arm," from the western Massachusetts band Winterpills, which I kept not quite selecting and which has continued to arise unbidden in my head. This one has the minor melancholy folk-rock tension of something from the '60s (Simon & Garfunkel? Mamas & Papas?), and I think the thing that really sticks with me is how the hook is, somehow, the first melodic line of the verse. Normally a pop song has to work up to its hook but this one starts with it: a simple descending melody that curls back up at the bottom, and it may not sound like much the first time you hear it, when singer Philip Price sings on his own; but one of the band's characteristic sounds is the vocal interplay between Price and keyboardist Flora Reed, and when Reed harmonizes that same line when it returns (at around 0:47), well, yikes. Wow. She stays with him for (I think) three notes then they separate into the most wonderful intervals. A parallel highlight is the interplay between the acoustic and electric guitar, the acoustic crisp and precise, the electric slurry and evasive. (Note a very clear "bad word" happens at 2:03 so be careful if children or bosses are nearby.) "Broken Arm" is from the band's second CD, The Light Divides, released on Signature Sounds at the end of February.
"Speak To Me Bones" - Land of Talk
And this one sounds like something sharp and itchy from maybe the early or middle '90s. Right away I like the tension established by a stationary guitar slashing intermittently against the propulsive rhythm section, while otherwise retreating into a vibrating, harmonic fuzz. I can feel the whole enterprise coiled up, restrained, ready to boil over. When the guitar is fully unleashed, at 0:27, we get pretty much the same chord--something with the vague dissonance of a suspended chord, from the sound of it--only now the slashing intensifies, gains a rhythm, is fleshed out by adjunct chords that veer magnetically back to the central cluster, with a beautiful fury that would do Neil Young proud. When singer/guitarist Elizabeth Powell emerges from behind her mighty instrument (54 seconds into it) to sing a discordant melody, with passion, I'm falling for this one big-time. While comparisons have been made to P.J. Harvey because of Powell's vocal turbulence, I hear something ultimately sweeter there in the midst of the storm--to me, in fact, her rich, sandpapery tone brings Kathleen Edwards rather unexpectedly but pleasingly to mind. But try not to let Powell's vocal assurance distract you from her impressive guitar chops, which provide a constant source of grinding grandeur to this explosive little piece. Land of Talk is a trio from Montreal; "Speak To Me Bones" is a song from the band's debut EP, Applause Cheer Boo Hiss, which was released in the U.S. in March on The Rebel Group. The MP3 is via the record company site.
"Loud and Clear" - Pink and Noseworthy
This is another song that engages me before the singing even starts. Here we have the often agreeable acoustic guitar and piano combination, and listen to this piano in particular--how slyly unconcerned with the beat it can be, just floating its gentle notes here and there, in and around the guitar's structured picking. And it's also another song with a very engaging male-female duet going on, in this case via Shanee Pink and Mark Noseworthy (yup, the band is simply named after people; and there was me intially trying to figure out what the name meant). I really like the vibe here: while there's a quiet late-night feeling going on, it's not simply loungey-jazzy; instead we get a nice and yet subtly unusual sense of movement--the unusual part the result of the unexpected 7/4 time signature. I can't remember hearing a song centered around fingerpicking in 7/4 time like this, although of course there may well be some. Another nice touch is how the acoustic instruments each pick up an electric counterpart as the song develops--we get both a dreamy electric guitar and an atmospheric keyboard filling out the original piano-guitar combo, plus some simple percussion (mostly just an egg shaker). And the percussion really disguises the unconventional beat, managing to keep what sounds like a regular pulse even with those odd-beated measures. All in all both a lovely tune and a spiffy accomplishment. "Loud and Clear" is a song from Pink and Noseworthy, the duo's debut CD, which was released in March on North Street Records. The MP3 is available via the North Street site.
Monday, April 09, 2007
THIS WEEK'S FINDS
week of Apr. 8-14
** As promised, there's a new giveaway on the Contests page: I've got one copy of the brand new Son Volt CD, The Search, to be randomly bestowed upon one fortunate Fingertips visitor. Two other lucky folks will receive a copy of the Fingertips: Unwebbed CD as a consolation prize. Hurry!: deadline for entry is April 13.
"Los Cruzados" - Elk City
Smooth and sinuous and upbeat and heartbroken. Over a pulse-like bass and a beautifully articulated, reverberant guitar, Renée LoBue sings with an ache in her slightly smoky voice that drapes the whole effort in a buoyant sort of sorrow. She's singing "Halleluyah" but it's as if she's trying to convince herself; and when she says, "Let's jump in the river to celebrate/The light that they left in our hearts," the song has gotten so pensive there that she appears more focused on the jumping than the celebrating. Elk City, from New York City, has been around since 1998 and spent most of their time as a trio; the original guitarist left, discordantly, in '04; LoBue and drummer Ray Ketchem eventually brought in guitarist Sean Eden, formerly in Luna, and bassist Barbara Endes, from the Lovelies, and the new band's sound is strong and sure and polished in all the best ways. "Los Cruzados" is a song from the forthcoming CD, New Believers, the band's first as a quartet, scheduled for release next week on Friendly Fire Recordings. The MP3 is available via the Friendly Fire site. Thanks to Bruce at Some Velvet Blog for the lead on this one.
"Miss Marylou Carreau" - Mason Proper
This one is half crazed swampiness, half disciplined pop song. It's an inspired amalgam. I really have no idea what's going on here lyrically but I love the spill of tangible, baffling words we get from singer Jonathan Visgr, such as: "She bought a mug of bubbles from a bauble-hawker at the bazaar,/Supposedly an ex-czar from lands afar," or "Her now ignored automatic attendent M.I.A. on the floor,/Amid discarded decor," and what really nails these words--which, I'll admit, sort of just sit there on the screen--are how they scan in the music, which swoops up and down via intriguing intervals and syncopations, rendering physical the strange jumps and blank spots in this impenetrable narrative. I don't really mind if lyrics don't make sense because I don't really tend to hear them except as part of the sound, and Mason Proper seems a band with a great feel for words-as-sounds. The persistent crunch of the band's variegated guitar arsenal is another ongoing highlight, and there is to be sure no shortage of guitar in this song, from the villainous riff that underpins the verse (heard for instance at 1:06) to the multifaceted, multi-guitar showdown that begins at 1:52 and ends in a high-pitched drone somewhere around 2:40. That's a nutty and juicy snack for all you guitar fans out there. Mason Proper is a quintet based in Michigan; "Miss Marylou Carreau" is a song from the CD There is a Moth in Your Chest, released last month on Dovecote Records. (The CD was originally self-released last January in a limited run; the new version is re-mixed, re-mastered, and partially re-recorded.) The MP3 is via the Dovecote site.
"Going Numb" - Tin Cup Prophette
Perhaps it's just in this odd little corner of the indie rock world in which I find myself wandering, but I'm beginning to wonder if the violin isn't becoming at long last a bonafide rock'n'roll instrument here in the 21st century. Athens, Georgia-based Amanda Kapousouz--doing musical business as Tin Cup Prophette--is, in any case, a talented and energetic fiddler, and she keeps her instrument front and center, from the urgent, appealing pizzicato refrain that opens the song (which, if it repeated unaccompanied for three or four minutes, would not sound out of place in a piece of classical minimalism) to the loops of continuous bowing we hear as a surging and fading swell starting at 1:26. (Apparently Kapousouz has this way of looping her instrument through pedals, and I'm not geek enough to describe that better or to know exactly how it works but it sounds cool.) The other worthy instrument Kapousouz has at her disposal is her voice, a sonorous mezzo at once clear and rich--nicely plain-spoken during the clipped verse, fuller and more passionate during the melodic chorus. "Going Numb" is a track from Tin Cup Prophette's debut CD, Liar and the Thief, which is another one that was self-released initially, now about to be released nationally--it's due out later this month on Subway Grime Records, which does not appear to exist online at this point.
week of Apr. 8-14
** As promised, there's a new giveaway on the Contests page: I've got one copy of the brand new Son Volt CD, The Search, to be randomly bestowed upon one fortunate Fingertips visitor. Two other lucky folks will receive a copy of the Fingertips: Unwebbed CD as a consolation prize. Hurry!: deadline for entry is April 13.
"Los Cruzados" - Elk City
Smooth and sinuous and upbeat and heartbroken. Over a pulse-like bass and a beautifully articulated, reverberant guitar, Renée LoBue sings with an ache in her slightly smoky voice that drapes the whole effort in a buoyant sort of sorrow. She's singing "Halleluyah" but it's as if she's trying to convince herself; and when she says, "Let's jump in the river to celebrate/The light that they left in our hearts," the song has gotten so pensive there that she appears more focused on the jumping than the celebrating. Elk City, from New York City, has been around since 1998 and spent most of their time as a trio; the original guitarist left, discordantly, in '04; LoBue and drummer Ray Ketchem eventually brought in guitarist Sean Eden, formerly in Luna, and bassist Barbara Endes, from the Lovelies, and the new band's sound is strong and sure and polished in all the best ways. "Los Cruzados" is a song from the forthcoming CD, New Believers, the band's first as a quartet, scheduled for release next week on Friendly Fire Recordings. The MP3 is available via the Friendly Fire site. Thanks to Bruce at Some Velvet Blog for the lead on this one.
"Miss Marylou Carreau" - Mason Proper
This one is half crazed swampiness, half disciplined pop song. It's an inspired amalgam. I really have no idea what's going on here lyrically but I love the spill of tangible, baffling words we get from singer Jonathan Visgr, such as: "She bought a mug of bubbles from a bauble-hawker at the bazaar,/Supposedly an ex-czar from lands afar," or "Her now ignored automatic attendent M.I.A. on the floor,/Amid discarded decor," and what really nails these words--which, I'll admit, sort of just sit there on the screen--are how they scan in the music, which swoops up and down via intriguing intervals and syncopations, rendering physical the strange jumps and blank spots in this impenetrable narrative. I don't really mind if lyrics don't make sense because I don't really tend to hear them except as part of the sound, and Mason Proper seems a band with a great feel for words-as-sounds. The persistent crunch of the band's variegated guitar arsenal is another ongoing highlight, and there is to be sure no shortage of guitar in this song, from the villainous riff that underpins the verse (heard for instance at 1:06) to the multifaceted, multi-guitar showdown that begins at 1:52 and ends in a high-pitched drone somewhere around 2:40. That's a nutty and juicy snack for all you guitar fans out there. Mason Proper is a quintet based in Michigan; "Miss Marylou Carreau" is a song from the CD There is a Moth in Your Chest, released last month on Dovecote Records. (The CD was originally self-released last January in a limited run; the new version is re-mixed, re-mastered, and partially re-recorded.) The MP3 is via the Dovecote site.
"Going Numb" - Tin Cup Prophette
Perhaps it's just in this odd little corner of the indie rock world in which I find myself wandering, but I'm beginning to wonder if the violin isn't becoming at long last a bonafide rock'n'roll instrument here in the 21st century. Athens, Georgia-based Amanda Kapousouz--doing musical business as Tin Cup Prophette--is, in any case, a talented and energetic fiddler, and she keeps her instrument front and center, from the urgent, appealing pizzicato refrain that opens the song (which, if it repeated unaccompanied for three or four minutes, would not sound out of place in a piece of classical minimalism) to the loops of continuous bowing we hear as a surging and fading swell starting at 1:26. (Apparently Kapousouz has this way of looping her instrument through pedals, and I'm not geek enough to describe that better or to know exactly how it works but it sounds cool.) The other worthy instrument Kapousouz has at her disposal is her voice, a sonorous mezzo at once clear and rich--nicely plain-spoken during the clipped verse, fuller and more passionate during the melodic chorus. "Going Numb" is a track from Tin Cup Prophette's debut CD, Liar and the Thief, which is another one that was self-released initially, now about to be released nationally--it's due out later this month on Subway Grime Records, which does not appear to exist online at this point.
Monday, March 26, 2007
THIS WEEK'S FINDS
week of Mar. 25-31
"I Knew" - 22-Pistepirkko
Memorably described once as "nothing you've heard before, from nowhere you've been," 22-Pistepirkko is an odd, enduring trio from Finland that plays an unpredictable sort of surfy garage pop. Founded in the northern village of Utajärvi in the early '80s, the band, named for a common European ladybug, does seem to have a faraway sound; there's something in singer PK Keränen's high-pitched, accented, warbly English that appears to be coming to us from some other dimension of space and time. "I Knew" lopes along with a combination of early-'60s effects--the pre-Beatles beat, the sugary strings, and the surf guitar--that don't actually sound like they've been successfully combined before, and certainly not with a high-pitched, warbly singer. "I Knew" is a song from the band's most recent CD, Drops & Kicks, which came out back in 2005. They've yet to release a CD in the U.S., but are about to record for the first time with an American producer, suggesting the possibility of a Stateside release when the time comes. Another hint: the band visited North America for the first time ever this month, for a short tour which included an appearance at SXSW. The MP3, in fact, is courtesy of the SXSW web site.
"Gimme Shelter" - Patti Smith
Smith--truly one of the most inspired interpreters in rock history--manages here to take a familiar song, not change it very much, and still make it entirely her own. See, for instance, how she replaces the falsetto "oo-oo" vocals at the beginning with a languid slide guitar, and how different it sounds and yet strangely similar too. Growling and snarling and gargling through one of Mick and Keith's best compositions (apparently Keith wrote most of it), Smith gives me the impression she overheard Bob Dylan giving singing lessons to Little Richard and liked the sound of it. And get a load of how she handles the tail end of the song, famously delivered by gospel singer Merry Clayton on the original Stones recording, here performed with extended moans and an almost trancelike roar. She's now in the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame, but she's still alive and kicking. "Gimme Shelter" is one of twelve intriguing covers Smith has assembled for her CD Twelve, due out next month on Sony. She's doing offbeat Dylan ("Changing of the Guards") and Wonder ("Pastime Paradise"), mainstream Cobain ("Smells Like Teen Spirit") and Airplane ("White Rabbit"), and a bunch of "how did Patti Smith decide to sing this?" sorts of things ("Everybody Wants to Rule the World"? "The Boy in the Bubble"?). The MP3 is via Pitchfork.
"Rainbowarriors" - CocoRosie
A dreamy wash of rhythm and atmosphere, "Rainbowarriors" manages to sound simultaneously very current and altogether timeless. Rarely have I heard a song brought so beautifully to life by hip-hop scratches and other electronic goodies as this one--for once they seem not like random accessories but the very stuff and pulse of the music. I also don't think I've heard a piece of resolutely 21st-century pop with such an ancient-sounding refrain at its heart. I mean, check out the chorus, first heard at 1:07: the ghostly harmonies that enrich the melody are positively medieval in timbre and interval, bringing to mind countertenors and Gregorian chants. CocoRosie is the half-Cherokee sister duo of Sierra and Bianca Casady, whose exotic and itinerant background found them separated for almost 10 years before Bianca appeared without notice at Sierra's apartment in Paris in 2003; somehow, they knew they were supposed to start recording music together, and did, and have been inseparable ever since. CocoRosie is one of those groups with its own inscrutable mythos and I'll be honest, I have no idea what to make of stuff like this, from the record label's web site: "Rainbowarriors horse gallop through miles of balmy grass roads all the way to the swingset swamps. They witch water and have witches for fathers; they hear disharmonies of sadness sung by drunken glowworms. They sleep in swollen barns; they sleep through silver nights." O-kay. "Rainbowarriors" is the lead track from CocoRosie's forthcoming CD, The Adventures of Ghosthorse and Stillborn. (O-kay.) MP3 courtesy of Toolshed.
* * * *
NEWS from the full Fingertips web site:
** Thanks to all who entered the Merge sixpack contest. Winners will be contacted by the end of the week. Look for a compiled list of "best of the '00s" (so far) CDs on the Contests page also before the end of the week. Also: look for a new contest shortly thereafter.
** The Fingertips Commentary has returned, here
** Note that the Fingertips home office will be shut down for something resembling Spring Break between the approximate dates of April 1 and April 8. The next "This Week's Finds" update will appear, as if by magic, on or about April 9.
week of Mar. 25-31
"I Knew" - 22-Pistepirkko
Memorably described once as "nothing you've heard before, from nowhere you've been," 22-Pistepirkko is an odd, enduring trio from Finland that plays an unpredictable sort of surfy garage pop. Founded in the northern village of Utajärvi in the early '80s, the band, named for a common European ladybug, does seem to have a faraway sound; there's something in singer PK Keränen's high-pitched, accented, warbly English that appears to be coming to us from some other dimension of space and time. "I Knew" lopes along with a combination of early-'60s effects--the pre-Beatles beat, the sugary strings, and the surf guitar--that don't actually sound like they've been successfully combined before, and certainly not with a high-pitched, warbly singer. "I Knew" is a song from the band's most recent CD, Drops & Kicks, which came out back in 2005. They've yet to release a CD in the U.S., but are about to record for the first time with an American producer, suggesting the possibility of a Stateside release when the time comes. Another hint: the band visited North America for the first time ever this month, for a short tour which included an appearance at SXSW. The MP3, in fact, is courtesy of the SXSW web site.
"Gimme Shelter" - Patti Smith
Smith--truly one of the most inspired interpreters in rock history--manages here to take a familiar song, not change it very much, and still make it entirely her own. See, for instance, how she replaces the falsetto "oo-oo" vocals at the beginning with a languid slide guitar, and how different it sounds and yet strangely similar too. Growling and snarling and gargling through one of Mick and Keith's best compositions (apparently Keith wrote most of it), Smith gives me the impression she overheard Bob Dylan giving singing lessons to Little Richard and liked the sound of it. And get a load of how she handles the tail end of the song, famously delivered by gospel singer Merry Clayton on the original Stones recording, here performed with extended moans and an almost trancelike roar. She's now in the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame, but she's still alive and kicking. "Gimme Shelter" is one of twelve intriguing covers Smith has assembled for her CD Twelve, due out next month on Sony. She's doing offbeat Dylan ("Changing of the Guards") and Wonder ("Pastime Paradise"), mainstream Cobain ("Smells Like Teen Spirit") and Airplane ("White Rabbit"), and a bunch of "how did Patti Smith decide to sing this?" sorts of things ("Everybody Wants to Rule the World"? "The Boy in the Bubble"?). The MP3 is via Pitchfork.
"Rainbowarriors" - CocoRosie
A dreamy wash of rhythm and atmosphere, "Rainbowarriors" manages to sound simultaneously very current and altogether timeless. Rarely have I heard a song brought so beautifully to life by hip-hop scratches and other electronic goodies as this one--for once they seem not like random accessories but the very stuff and pulse of the music. I also don't think I've heard a piece of resolutely 21st-century pop with such an ancient-sounding refrain at its heart. I mean, check out the chorus, first heard at 1:07: the ghostly harmonies that enrich the melody are positively medieval in timbre and interval, bringing to mind countertenors and Gregorian chants. CocoRosie is the half-Cherokee sister duo of Sierra and Bianca Casady, whose exotic and itinerant background found them separated for almost 10 years before Bianca appeared without notice at Sierra's apartment in Paris in 2003; somehow, they knew they were supposed to start recording music together, and did, and have been inseparable ever since. CocoRosie is one of those groups with its own inscrutable mythos and I'll be honest, I have no idea what to make of stuff like this, from the record label's web site: "Rainbowarriors horse gallop through miles of balmy grass roads all the way to the swingset swamps. They witch water and have witches for fathers; they hear disharmonies of sadness sung by drunken glowworms. They sleep in swollen barns; they sleep through silver nights." O-kay. "Rainbowarriors" is the lead track from CocoRosie's forthcoming CD, The Adventures of Ghosthorse and Stillborn. (O-kay.) MP3 courtesy of Toolshed.
* * * *
NEWS from the full Fingertips web site:
** Thanks to all who entered the Merge sixpack contest. Winners will be contacted by the end of the week. Look for a compiled list of "best of the '00s" (so far) CDs on the Contests page also before the end of the week. Also: look for a new contest shortly thereafter.
** The Fingertips Commentary has returned, here
** Note that the Fingertips home office will be shut down for something resembling Spring Break between the approximate dates of April 1 and April 8. The next "This Week's Finds" update will appear, as if by magic, on or about April 9.
Monday, March 19, 2007
THIS WEEK'S FINDS
week of Mar. 18-24
There are still a few days left to enter the Merge Records Promo Sixpack Contest. Winner receives six full-length, promotional versions of quality Merge Records releases, including the brand new Arcade Fire CD, Neon Bible. Details on the Contests page at the Fingertips web site. Deadline for entry is Friday, March 23.
"Moth in a Cloud of Smoke" - All Smiles
Some songs take a while to build interest while others capture the ear effortlessly. One way isn't necessarily better than the other, but "Moth in a Cloud of Smoke" strikes me as one of the latter--quickly likable and affecting. First comes ten seconds of a pensive yet propulsive piano line, and check out the unusual simplicity here: the right and left hands are each playing just one note at a time, no chords or flourishes. You don't actually hear that too often in an age when technology all but demands more of everything--more notes, more layers, more sounds. The piano is then joined by percussion and acoustic guitar: still simple but now with a crisp, alluring drive. Ten seconds or so later, Jim Fairchild opens his mouth and the package is complete. He's got one of those sweet, rich voices, high but not squeaky or breathy--a great power pop voice, I'd say, only he's not singing power pop here, but something more introspective and knowingly hesitant--the melody in the verse is deliberate and contained within a surprisingly small interval (he's working with just three adjacent notes) for how open and expansive it sounds. For the chorus we get a fuzzy guitar and a melody breaking beyond the confines of the original interval; I'm hearing an echo of Brian Wilson now as Fairchild reaches further up melodically and by the way gives great chord too. All Smiles is the performing name Fairchild is using on his first solo CD; and he's the first ex-Grandaddy member to record on his own after that band broke up, rather badly, last year. "Moth in a Cloud of Smoke" is a song from the forthcoming All Smiles CD, entitled Ten Readings of a Warning, to be released next month on Dangerbird Records. The MP3 is via Filter Magazine.
"Good Girl" - Astrid Swan
I'm coming upon a certain number of breezy, swingy songs these days, and I'm sure there's some hidden sociological message in it that I'll restrain myself from commenting on for the moment. What I will instead comment on is this: mere breezy-swinginess is not enough to make a good song. This can get confusing, since breezy-swingy songs are cheerful and make us feel good. For me, however, the song still has to be there, and it turns out I may in fact be harder on breezy-swingy songs than songs with other basic sounds, since I listen carefully to be sure I'm not being tricked into automatically equating feel-good-ness with goodness. Or something like that. Here, however, I'm convinced we're dealing with goodness. One clue: six seconds after establishing the breezy-swingy mood, it's abruptly withdrawn. Kind of a musical tease, which subsequently renders the ultimate sound all the more persuasive. (Note too how the song's most dramatic section, a bridge that starts around 2:08, likewise eschews the upbeat swing for something moodier.) Another clue: Astrid Swan's voice, which has something of Neko Case's fluid and convincing solidity both lower down and higher up. Finally, at the height of the breezy-swingy chorus, Swan strays into off-kilter chords, attractively minor and/or diminished sounding. And, okay, it doesn't count for anything but I also happen to think Astrid Swan is one of the coolest names in show business. Swan is a singer/songwriter from Helsinski; "Good Girl" is from her CD Poverina, which was released in 2005 in Europe and is at long last getting a stateside release on Minty Fresh Records this spring. MP3 courtesy of Minty Fresh.
"Naturally" - Middle Distance Runner
Middle Distance Runner, a quintet from Washington, D.C., appears to be a group of guys with a well-developed sense of humor. ("Middle Distance Runner," says their web site, "is what you would be left with if you took every nu-metal, frat-rock, and emo band, put them into a poorly insulated spaceship, and then drove it into the sun.") As with the breezy-swingy thing, we have to be careful around such bands--easy it is to mistake "funny guys" for "good music." This one even starts with hand claps. Cheery--one might even say jokey--hand claps at that. From there, the song acquires a sly sort of urgency, singer Stephen Kilroy delivering the eyebrow-raising lyrics with an easy-going slidiness. (The song appears to be about a guy who messes around romantically and kind of hopes he gets caught out and stopped already.) I love the chorus, with its abrupt 6/4 time change, as the words pour out beyond the boundaries of the 4/4 measures that precede it. "Naturally" is the lead track on the band's self-released debut CD, Plane in Flames, which came out back in June 2006. The MP3 is courtesy of the band. Give the guys some hand claps.
week of Mar. 18-24
There are still a few days left to enter the Merge Records Promo Sixpack Contest. Winner receives six full-length, promotional versions of quality Merge Records releases, including the brand new Arcade Fire CD, Neon Bible. Details on the Contests page at the Fingertips web site. Deadline for entry is Friday, March 23.
"Moth in a Cloud of Smoke" - All Smiles
Some songs take a while to build interest while others capture the ear effortlessly. One way isn't necessarily better than the other, but "Moth in a Cloud of Smoke" strikes me as one of the latter--quickly likable and affecting. First comes ten seconds of a pensive yet propulsive piano line, and check out the unusual simplicity here: the right and left hands are each playing just one note at a time, no chords or flourishes. You don't actually hear that too often in an age when technology all but demands more of everything--more notes, more layers, more sounds. The piano is then joined by percussion and acoustic guitar: still simple but now with a crisp, alluring drive. Ten seconds or so later, Jim Fairchild opens his mouth and the package is complete. He's got one of those sweet, rich voices, high but not squeaky or breathy--a great power pop voice, I'd say, only he's not singing power pop here, but something more introspective and knowingly hesitant--the melody in the verse is deliberate and contained within a surprisingly small interval (he's working with just three adjacent notes) for how open and expansive it sounds. For the chorus we get a fuzzy guitar and a melody breaking beyond the confines of the original interval; I'm hearing an echo of Brian Wilson now as Fairchild reaches further up melodically and by the way gives great chord too. All Smiles is the performing name Fairchild is using on his first solo CD; and he's the first ex-Grandaddy member to record on his own after that band broke up, rather badly, last year. "Moth in a Cloud of Smoke" is a song from the forthcoming All Smiles CD, entitled Ten Readings of a Warning, to be released next month on Dangerbird Records. The MP3 is via Filter Magazine.
"Good Girl" - Astrid Swan
I'm coming upon a certain number of breezy, swingy songs these days, and I'm sure there's some hidden sociological message in it that I'll restrain myself from commenting on for the moment. What I will instead comment on is this: mere breezy-swinginess is not enough to make a good song. This can get confusing, since breezy-swingy songs are cheerful and make us feel good. For me, however, the song still has to be there, and it turns out I may in fact be harder on breezy-swingy songs than songs with other basic sounds, since I listen carefully to be sure I'm not being tricked into automatically equating feel-good-ness with goodness. Or something like that. Here, however, I'm convinced we're dealing with goodness. One clue: six seconds after establishing the breezy-swingy mood, it's abruptly withdrawn. Kind of a musical tease, which subsequently renders the ultimate sound all the more persuasive. (Note too how the song's most dramatic section, a bridge that starts around 2:08, likewise eschews the upbeat swing for something moodier.) Another clue: Astrid Swan's voice, which has something of Neko Case's fluid and convincing solidity both lower down and higher up. Finally, at the height of the breezy-swingy chorus, Swan strays into off-kilter chords, attractively minor and/or diminished sounding. And, okay, it doesn't count for anything but I also happen to think Astrid Swan is one of the coolest names in show business. Swan is a singer/songwriter from Helsinski; "Good Girl" is from her CD Poverina, which was released in 2005 in Europe and is at long last getting a stateside release on Minty Fresh Records this spring. MP3 courtesy of Minty Fresh.
"Naturally" - Middle Distance Runner
Middle Distance Runner, a quintet from Washington, D.C., appears to be a group of guys with a well-developed sense of humor. ("Middle Distance Runner," says their web site, "is what you would be left with if you took every nu-metal, frat-rock, and emo band, put them into a poorly insulated spaceship, and then drove it into the sun.") As with the breezy-swingy thing, we have to be careful around such bands--easy it is to mistake "funny guys" for "good music." This one even starts with hand claps. Cheery--one might even say jokey--hand claps at that. From there, the song acquires a sly sort of urgency, singer Stephen Kilroy delivering the eyebrow-raising lyrics with an easy-going slidiness. (The song appears to be about a guy who messes around romantically and kind of hopes he gets caught out and stopped already.) I love the chorus, with its abrupt 6/4 time change, as the words pour out beyond the boundaries of the 4/4 measures that precede it. "Naturally" is the lead track on the band's self-released debut CD, Plane in Flames, which came out back in June 2006. The MP3 is courtesy of the band. Give the guys some hand claps.
Monday, March 12, 2007
THIS WEEK'S FINDS
week of Mar. 11-17
There's a new Fingertips Contest up and running--the prize this time is a Merge Records Promo CD Sixpack: six full-length, promotional versions of quality Merge Records releases, including the brand new Arcade Fire CD, Neon Bible. Details on the Contests page.
"Tape It" - WinterKids
Perky British pop with that brilliant blend of polish and DIY-ishness that so often characterizes, well, music that I think is brilliant. Beyond the simple but delightful opening guitar line, one of the things that caught my attention early on here was that 10-second instrumental break from :30 to :40--not only is that an unusual place to have an instrumental break, listen to what it sounds like: the sing-songy glockenspiel (or some such xylophone-like thing) on top, the dissonant rhythm guitar below. Fun. Also, not a couple weeks after noting how the Los Campesinos! singer uses a heavy British accent, unusually, in a non-punk lyrical setting, here we have James Snider doing the same thing at the head of this Surrey-based quintet. A 21st-century trend? This time the song seems basically to be about remembering (or not remembering?) to tape an episode of a favorite TV show. Oh, and don't miss that deeply satisfying chord in the chorus on the word "leave" in the phrase "leave it in"--you can hear it first at 1:02. I've got nothing to add, just listen. "Tape It" was released by the band as a single last year and is due out on WinterKids' first full-length CD, entitled Memoirs, scheduled for release in the U.K. this week on Little House Records. The MP3 is available via the band's site.
"What Light" - Wilco
Relaxed, quirky, comfy, slightly odd, oddly elusive: yup, it's Wilco all right. It starts off with unusual clarity--upbeat strummy guitar, and is that a straightforward steel guitar, after all these years?; and these words: "If you feel like singing a song/ And you want other people to sing along/ Just sing what you feel/ Don't let anyone say it's wrong." As I think about it, this is not a bad way to approach music in the internet age, when there are always plenty of people, fingers ever poised above their oily keyboards, ready at a moment's notice, 24/7, to say it's wrong, wrong, wrong. Because of course what counts is not being right or good or authentic or generous but being first. (The first song I heard from this yet-to-be-released Wilco CD was posted--illegally! boo!--on a blog where one of the first comments on the post was: "A ghost is bored." Been waiting three years to use that one? Now what?) Ok, I'm digressing. I pretty much like anything Jeff Tweedy opens his mouth to sing because his voice is just so real and likable, and because even when it's not all that obvious, he's using honest melody to tell his fragmented, quizzical songs. "What Light" is a song from the band's forthcoming CD Sky Blue Sky (and hey is that a Laurie Anderson reference? I'm thinking yes), which leaked onto the internet last week, well in advance of its May 15 release date, on Nonesuch Records. The band, in response, has offered an official stream of the CD for two short periods of time on its web site, and also, now, this somewhat hidden but entirely free and legal MP3. Thanks to Alan at Sixeyes for the lead.
"Are You Sleeping" - Sara Culler
And talk about a likable voice: Sweden's Sara Culler opens her mouth and some part of me melts a bit. "Are You Sleeping" begins as a placid march, with a gentle one-two keyboard/drum riff. With the verse come lyrical blurts, rushed between beats in a clipped but also smile-inducing way (I think it's that voice of hers, that beguiling tone she gets even singing in rushed bursts); but notice in and around the singing how the music is building by way of that swooping, supple bass line. It's setting us up for something, and that something turns out to be a sweet, expansive chorus--a great sing-along thing set against a whimsical pastiche of blippy, ringy sounds, having the effect of being produced by some intricate Rube Goldberg-like apparatus. Listen to the words, too: as far as I can surmise, she's trying to wake us up, she is, with that ever-powerful awareness of how much of our lives we quite literally sleep through. "Are You Sleeping" is a brand-new song off her brand-new EP, Miss Takes - Light the Night!, self-released this week--just in time for her SXSW debut, as part of a series of WOXY-sponsored concerts at the festival. I also feel impelled to point out that Sara is one of the 13 wonderful artists featured on the Fingertips: Unwebbed CD, which is currently available for a $12 donation to this here web site; details aplenty are a click away.
week of Mar. 11-17
There's a new Fingertips Contest up and running--the prize this time is a Merge Records Promo CD Sixpack: six full-length, promotional versions of quality Merge Records releases, including the brand new Arcade Fire CD, Neon Bible. Details on the Contests page.
"Tape It" - WinterKids
Perky British pop with that brilliant blend of polish and DIY-ishness that so often characterizes, well, music that I think is brilliant. Beyond the simple but delightful opening guitar line, one of the things that caught my attention early on here was that 10-second instrumental break from :30 to :40--not only is that an unusual place to have an instrumental break, listen to what it sounds like: the sing-songy glockenspiel (or some such xylophone-like thing) on top, the dissonant rhythm guitar below. Fun. Also, not a couple weeks after noting how the Los Campesinos! singer uses a heavy British accent, unusually, in a non-punk lyrical setting, here we have James Snider doing the same thing at the head of this Surrey-based quintet. A 21st-century trend? This time the song seems basically to be about remembering (or not remembering?) to tape an episode of a favorite TV show. Oh, and don't miss that deeply satisfying chord in the chorus on the word "leave" in the phrase "leave it in"--you can hear it first at 1:02. I've got nothing to add, just listen. "Tape It" was released by the band as a single last year and is due out on WinterKids' first full-length CD, entitled Memoirs, scheduled for release in the U.K. this week on Little House Records. The MP3 is available via the band's site.
"What Light" - Wilco
Relaxed, quirky, comfy, slightly odd, oddly elusive: yup, it's Wilco all right. It starts off with unusual clarity--upbeat strummy guitar, and is that a straightforward steel guitar, after all these years?; and these words: "If you feel like singing a song/ And you want other people to sing along/ Just sing what you feel/ Don't let anyone say it's wrong." As I think about it, this is not a bad way to approach music in the internet age, when there are always plenty of people, fingers ever poised above their oily keyboards, ready at a moment's notice, 24/7, to say it's wrong, wrong, wrong. Because of course what counts is not being right or good or authentic or generous but being first. (The first song I heard from this yet-to-be-released Wilco CD was posted--illegally! boo!--on a blog where one of the first comments on the post was: "A ghost is bored." Been waiting three years to use that one? Now what?) Ok, I'm digressing. I pretty much like anything Jeff Tweedy opens his mouth to sing because his voice is just so real and likable, and because even when it's not all that obvious, he's using honest melody to tell his fragmented, quizzical songs. "What Light" is a song from the band's forthcoming CD Sky Blue Sky (and hey is that a Laurie Anderson reference? I'm thinking yes), which leaked onto the internet last week, well in advance of its May 15 release date, on Nonesuch Records. The band, in response, has offered an official stream of the CD for two short periods of time on its web site, and also, now, this somewhat hidden but entirely free and legal MP3. Thanks to Alan at Sixeyes for the lead.
"Are You Sleeping" - Sara Culler
And talk about a likable voice: Sweden's Sara Culler opens her mouth and some part of me melts a bit. "Are You Sleeping" begins as a placid march, with a gentle one-two keyboard/drum riff. With the verse come lyrical blurts, rushed between beats in a clipped but also smile-inducing way (I think it's that voice of hers, that beguiling tone she gets even singing in rushed bursts); but notice in and around the singing how the music is building by way of that swooping, supple bass line. It's setting us up for something, and that something turns out to be a sweet, expansive chorus--a great sing-along thing set against a whimsical pastiche of blippy, ringy sounds, having the effect of being produced by some intricate Rube Goldberg-like apparatus. Listen to the words, too: as far as I can surmise, she's trying to wake us up, she is, with that ever-powerful awareness of how much of our lives we quite literally sleep through. "Are You Sleeping" is a brand-new song off her brand-new EP, Miss Takes - Light the Night!, self-released this week--just in time for her SXSW debut, as part of a series of WOXY-sponsored concerts at the festival. I also feel impelled to point out that Sara is one of the 13 wonderful artists featured on the Fingertips: Unwebbed CD, which is currently available for a $12 donation to this here web site; details aplenty are a click away.
Monday, March 05, 2007
THIS WEEK'S FINDS
week of Mar. 4-10
"Heretics" - Andrew Bird
Andrew Bird has a sleepy, elastic way of singing his elusive, layered songs, and intermittently odd enunciation too. He uses solid, understandable words to create incomprehensible treatises on something resembling life, eschewing standard hooks and catchy melodies for carefully laid out, intertwining instrumental themes and snippet-like melodic motifs. The effect, once I let myself sink into it, is mysteriously convincing; not only do I return and return and get more and more out of it, I begin to believe that Bird is a unique talent--let the genre-meisters attempt to lay a genre on him, but there is none for what he is doing. The Chicago-based Bird has a bachelor's degree in violin performance from Northwestern, and might have double-majored in whistling if they had offered the right courses: Bird puts his lips together, blows, and a most eerie, flute-like whistle emerges--but you won't hear it in this particular song. You will hear the violin, however. "Heretics" is from his new CD, Armchair Apocrypha, to be released later this month on Fat Possum Records. If you really want to hear the whistling, I suggest buying the CD--it's really quite good, in an elusive and mysteriously convincing way. The MP3 is available via Toolshed.
"No More" - Julie Doiron
A variation of the often effective one-note song ("Subterranean Homesick Blues," "Pump It Up," et al) is the repetitive lyric song, where one or two words will repeat in each lyrical line but in each case matched with different subsequent words (Leonard Cohen's haunting "Who By Fire" comes to mind; and there are others, just don't ask me to name them right this moment). So here's Julie Doiron, from the Maritimes in Canada: "No more singing in the woods/ No more singing in the car/ No more singing in the streets/ No more singing in the bar," and so forth. Clearly the risk with such songs is that they will be, um, repetitive. But in the right hands, there is also the chance to make a certain kind of incisive and mesmerizing statement, and I think we have something like that going on here. Musically, the hypnotic, minor-key insistence underscores the lyrical focus, creating an uneasy sort of drive. The uneasiness, I think, is furthered by the rhythm guitar, which strums a relentless chord on the backbeat but somehow seems almost, each time, to miss the beat (you can hear its sneaky hesitation most clearly during the instrumental break at 1:20 or so). Whether Doiron is singing about the end of a relationship or something more threatening, such as the end of the chance--in this dire, dour day and age--to live a happy, expressive life, is unclear. Known more often for slower, quieter tunes, she wisely wraps things up quickly, which allows the repetitiveness to make the point without driving us crazy--as a matter of fact, even as the song clocks in at just 2:15, the lyrics--but for some lingering "No more"s, are through by 1:02. "No More" can be found on the CD Woke Myself Up, Doiron's seventh, which was released by Jagjaguwar Records in January. The MP3 is available via the Jagjaguwar site.
"Machines" - Kiss Kiss
A full-bodied, melodramatic, squeaky, squawky, feverish, yet winsome waltz. Back to violin rock we go, but this time the violin's electric and ghostly and mixed in with a kitchen-sink electronic orchestra featuring a variety of synthesized sounds and sound effects. "Machines" barrels along like some mad contraption, the three-quarter time lending a bizarre, 19th-century air to its careening, semi-apocalyptic ambiance. I'm a big fan of songs that balance control and chaos like this, and this tumbly juggernaut definitely seems simultaneously unhinged and tightly directed. Singer Josh Benash all but roars here and there, while electric violinist Rebecca Schlappich yanks off-kilter strains and the occasional squeal from her amplified strings, all to that familiar carousel beat. The whole wild ride is over in two and a half minutes, leaving the listener a bit breathless and quickly ready to go back and do it all over again. Kiss Kiss is a quintet from upstate New York who have named themselves after Roald Dahl's book of (often macabre) stories, for adults. "Machines" appears on the debut Kiss Kiss full-length, entitled Reality vs. the Optimist, which was released last month on Eyeball Records. The MP3 is via the Eyeball site.
week of Mar. 4-10
"Heretics" - Andrew Bird
Andrew Bird has a sleepy, elastic way of singing his elusive, layered songs, and intermittently odd enunciation too. He uses solid, understandable words to create incomprehensible treatises on something resembling life, eschewing standard hooks and catchy melodies for carefully laid out, intertwining instrumental themes and snippet-like melodic motifs. The effect, once I let myself sink into it, is mysteriously convincing; not only do I return and return and get more and more out of it, I begin to believe that Bird is a unique talent--let the genre-meisters attempt to lay a genre on him, but there is none for what he is doing. The Chicago-based Bird has a bachelor's degree in violin performance from Northwestern, and might have double-majored in whistling if they had offered the right courses: Bird puts his lips together, blows, and a most eerie, flute-like whistle emerges--but you won't hear it in this particular song. You will hear the violin, however. "Heretics" is from his new CD, Armchair Apocrypha, to be released later this month on Fat Possum Records. If you really want to hear the whistling, I suggest buying the CD--it's really quite good, in an elusive and mysteriously convincing way. The MP3 is available via Toolshed.
"No More" - Julie Doiron
A variation of the often effective one-note song ("Subterranean Homesick Blues," "Pump It Up," et al) is the repetitive lyric song, where one or two words will repeat in each lyrical line but in each case matched with different subsequent words (Leonard Cohen's haunting "Who By Fire" comes to mind; and there are others, just don't ask me to name them right this moment). So here's Julie Doiron, from the Maritimes in Canada: "No more singing in the woods/ No more singing in the car/ No more singing in the streets/ No more singing in the bar," and so forth. Clearly the risk with such songs is that they will be, um, repetitive. But in the right hands, there is also the chance to make a certain kind of incisive and mesmerizing statement, and I think we have something like that going on here. Musically, the hypnotic, minor-key insistence underscores the lyrical focus, creating an uneasy sort of drive. The uneasiness, I think, is furthered by the rhythm guitar, which strums a relentless chord on the backbeat but somehow seems almost, each time, to miss the beat (you can hear its sneaky hesitation most clearly during the instrumental break at 1:20 or so). Whether Doiron is singing about the end of a relationship or something more threatening, such as the end of the chance--in this dire, dour day and age--to live a happy, expressive life, is unclear. Known more often for slower, quieter tunes, she wisely wraps things up quickly, which allows the repetitiveness to make the point without driving us crazy--as a matter of fact, even as the song clocks in at just 2:15, the lyrics--but for some lingering "No more"s, are through by 1:02. "No More" can be found on the CD Woke Myself Up, Doiron's seventh, which was released by Jagjaguwar Records in January. The MP3 is available via the Jagjaguwar site.
"Machines" - Kiss Kiss
A full-bodied, melodramatic, squeaky, squawky, feverish, yet winsome waltz. Back to violin rock we go, but this time the violin's electric and ghostly and mixed in with a kitchen-sink electronic orchestra featuring a variety of synthesized sounds and sound effects. "Machines" barrels along like some mad contraption, the three-quarter time lending a bizarre, 19th-century air to its careening, semi-apocalyptic ambiance. I'm a big fan of songs that balance control and chaos like this, and this tumbly juggernaut definitely seems simultaneously unhinged and tightly directed. Singer Josh Benash all but roars here and there, while electric violinist Rebecca Schlappich yanks off-kilter strains and the occasional squeal from her amplified strings, all to that familiar carousel beat. The whole wild ride is over in two and a half minutes, leaving the listener a bit breathless and quickly ready to go back and do it all over again. Kiss Kiss is a quintet from upstate New York who have named themselves after Roald Dahl's book of (often macabre) stories, for adults. "Machines" appears on the debut Kiss Kiss full-length, entitled Reality vs. the Optimist, which was released last month on Eyeball Records. The MP3 is via the Eyeball site.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
THIS WEEK'S FINDS
week of Feb. 25-Mar. 3
"23" - Blonde Redhead
A ravishing combination of guitar noise and melody. I'm a sucker for the combination of guitar noise and melody, particularly when the melody comes, as here, via a breathy, difficult to decipher soprano. Kazu Makino may as well be singing in Serbo-Croatian for all I can understand her; the only thing I'm picking up is that she's actually saying "two-three" rather than "twenty-three" (so, no, no tie-in to the Jim Carrey movie; just an unexplained coincidence! bwa-ha-ha!). And let me get more specific about the guitar noise, because it's a particular kind, the kind where the chords just seem to melt or bend continually into one another; the guitar is played (via a pedal of some kind?) more like a keyboard, with a sustained tone rather than in discrete strums of any kind. (Ah, note how the song is introduced by a few keyboard chords. Another unexplained coincidence?) I invite you to go back and listen to the entire song and try only to hear the guitar rather than the singer. It's almost mind-blowing. Blonde Redhead is an intriguing, international, NYC-based trio--Makino's from Japan; her bandmates are twin brothers Simone and Amedeo Pace, from Italy. "23" is the title track to Blonde Redhead's forthcoming CD, the band's seventh, scheduled for release in April on 4AD Records. The MP3 is available via Spinner, the AOL Indie Music Blog.
"Hard Line" - Jill Barber
Anything this sharp and snappy is pleasant enough to listen to from the get-go, but for me what renders it memorable is Barber's voice. Just a quarter step away from a twang, Barber may sound somewhat like Nanci Griffith, and maybe also somewhat like one of the McGarrigle sisters, or both of them, but the Halifax, Nova Scotia-based singer/songwriter is truly her own singular self. In a way, the snappy vibe is almost a distraction--I get caught up bobbing my head and tapping my toe and I don't really listen, much the way one gets caught up in daily living and forget, for days on end, simply, to be. And yet, of course, the paradox is one needs the form to give rise to the essence. So I wouldn't trade the snappy vibe here for anything. And I keep listening, keep trying to sink fully into this indescribably rich and playful and sweet and knowing voice, even while bobbing my head and tapping my toe to a song that acquires a deep and meaningful momentum underneath the peppiness as it unfolds. "Hard Line" comes from Barber's second CD For All Time, which was released last year in Canada on Outside Music. The MP3s is available via SXSW, one of the hundreds of new free and legal MP3s recently posted there for the 2007 festival.
"You! Me! Dancing!" - Los Campesinos!
This song's almost excruciatingly slow build is completely worth it when the payoff arrives: the itchy, catchy, joyful guitar riff that announces the true beginning of the song (well over one minute after it actually starts) and propels us giddily through the rest of it. There is, however, way more to "You! Me! Dancing!" than fun guitar work, and exclamation points; Los Campesinos! are a seven-piece band from Cardiff with a no-holds-barred instrumental sensibility--glockenspiel (that's the tinkly xylophone-like sound) and melody horn (a type of melodica) are both prominently featured among the free-spirited mix. And talk about free spirits: all seven members of the band have taken on the last name Campesinos! (with punctuation). Thickly accented lead vocalist Tom Campesinos! upends rock history with his unexpectedly endearing persona. In the past, a thick British accent has been all about punk posturing. Here it's just a guy who's not sure about his dancing ability. "You! Me! Dancing!" is a song from the band's self-released EP Hold On Now Youngster, which came out last year; the MP3 is via the BBC (and hm I have to investigate the BBC music sites more carefully; could be a good source of free and legal music). Signed to the British label Wichita Recordings towards the end of '06, the band's first label release, a seven-inch single called "We Throw Parties, You Throw Knives," came out this week in the U.K. The band, bless their seven hearts, is giving it away for free (as a .zip file) on their website.
week of Feb. 25-Mar. 3
"23" - Blonde Redhead
A ravishing combination of guitar noise and melody. I'm a sucker for the combination of guitar noise and melody, particularly when the melody comes, as here, via a breathy, difficult to decipher soprano. Kazu Makino may as well be singing in Serbo-Croatian for all I can understand her; the only thing I'm picking up is that she's actually saying "two-three" rather than "twenty-three" (so, no, no tie-in to the Jim Carrey movie; just an unexplained coincidence! bwa-ha-ha!). And let me get more specific about the guitar noise, because it's a particular kind, the kind where the chords just seem to melt or bend continually into one another; the guitar is played (via a pedal of some kind?) more like a keyboard, with a sustained tone rather than in discrete strums of any kind. (Ah, note how the song is introduced by a few keyboard chords. Another unexplained coincidence?) I invite you to go back and listen to the entire song and try only to hear the guitar rather than the singer. It's almost mind-blowing. Blonde Redhead is an intriguing, international, NYC-based trio--Makino's from Japan; her bandmates are twin brothers Simone and Amedeo Pace, from Italy. "23" is the title track to Blonde Redhead's forthcoming CD, the band's seventh, scheduled for release in April on 4AD Records. The MP3 is available via Spinner, the AOL Indie Music Blog.
"Hard Line" - Jill Barber
Anything this sharp and snappy is pleasant enough to listen to from the get-go, but for me what renders it memorable is Barber's voice. Just a quarter step away from a twang, Barber may sound somewhat like Nanci Griffith, and maybe also somewhat like one of the McGarrigle sisters, or both of them, but the Halifax, Nova Scotia-based singer/songwriter is truly her own singular self. In a way, the snappy vibe is almost a distraction--I get caught up bobbing my head and tapping my toe and I don't really listen, much the way one gets caught up in daily living and forget, for days on end, simply, to be. And yet, of course, the paradox is one needs the form to give rise to the essence. So I wouldn't trade the snappy vibe here for anything. And I keep listening, keep trying to sink fully into this indescribably rich and playful and sweet and knowing voice, even while bobbing my head and tapping my toe to a song that acquires a deep and meaningful momentum underneath the peppiness as it unfolds. "Hard Line" comes from Barber's second CD For All Time, which was released last year in Canada on Outside Music. The MP3s is available via SXSW, one of the hundreds of new free and legal MP3s recently posted there for the 2007 festival.
"You! Me! Dancing!" - Los Campesinos!
This song's almost excruciatingly slow build is completely worth it when the payoff arrives: the itchy, catchy, joyful guitar riff that announces the true beginning of the song (well over one minute after it actually starts) and propels us giddily through the rest of it. There is, however, way more to "You! Me! Dancing!" than fun guitar work, and exclamation points; Los Campesinos! are a seven-piece band from Cardiff with a no-holds-barred instrumental sensibility--glockenspiel (that's the tinkly xylophone-like sound) and melody horn (a type of melodica) are both prominently featured among the free-spirited mix. And talk about free spirits: all seven members of the band have taken on the last name Campesinos! (with punctuation). Thickly accented lead vocalist Tom Campesinos! upends rock history with his unexpectedly endearing persona. In the past, a thick British accent has been all about punk posturing. Here it's just a guy who's not sure about his dancing ability. "You! Me! Dancing!" is a song from the band's self-released EP Hold On Now Youngster, which came out last year; the MP3 is via the BBC (and hm I have to investigate the BBC music sites more carefully; could be a good source of free and legal music). Signed to the British label Wichita Recordings towards the end of '06, the band's first label release, a seven-inch single called "We Throw Parties, You Throw Knives," came out this week in the U.K. The band, bless their seven hearts, is giving it away for free (as a .zip file) on their website.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
THIS WEEK'S FINDS
week of Feb. 18-24
"Hardcore Hornography" - Michelle Shocked
Michelle Shocked has the happy ability to sound completely unfettered and at home in a multiplicity of musical styles; you can now add straight-up New Orleans party music to her impressive list of genre performance credentials. And leave it to Shocked, a born activist and good-natured hell-raiser, to serve up this traditional good-time music with an added jigger of social awareness, hot sauce included: "That was one blow job you won't forget/ I ain't talkin' 'bout Katrina yet/ When that brass band starts to play/ Lay back and think of the U.S.A." Mardi Gras spirit infuses both melody and accompaniment; there is so much movement in the roisterous sound that you'd swear this must have been recorded while everyone was marching down St. Charles Avenue. Shocked plays here with the Newbirth Brass Band, trumpeter Troy Andrews, and a trombone player so authentic his name is simply Trombone Shorty. After flirting with mainstream folk-rock success back in the late '80s, Shocked has gone on to record an idiosyncratic string of albums, including an ambitious yet free-spirited trilogy (yes, three separate CDs) released last year on her own Mighty Sound record label. Her next CD is due out this summer; another trilogy appears to be in the works. "Hardcore Hornography" is offered up for Mardi Gras and to bring awareness to the ongoing plight of New Orleans, which remains largely abandoned by the federal government. The song is available for via her web site. Thanks to Bruce at Some Velvet Blog for the head's up.
"If That's the Case, Then I Don't Know" - the Electric Soft Parade
At once squonky and lithe, the latest effort from the British brother duo the Electric Soft Parade features anthemic chords and resounding beats, scuffed up fetchingly with fuzzy guitars and electronic blips and boops. Add Alex White's nicely vulnerable, Brit-poppy vocals and the whole manages to trump the sum of its parts--quite an accomplishment, as the parts themselves are pretty darned keen. A casual know-how informs both the song structure and the production; we get a masterly mix of rhythm and melody, guitar and drum, busy-ness and spaciousness, loud and soft. The loud-soft thing is especially cool, since the White boys (Tom's on drums) aren't offering a standard sort of "here's the soft part, here's the loud part" approach as much as utilizing the dynamic range of sound throughout, much as a first-rate black and white photograph will display the blackest black, the whitest white, and many gradations of grey in between. Another cool thing is the nifty coda: note at 4:02 how the song's drive shifts gears, the beat moving to swinging triplets, before the drums pretty much disintegrate, electronically. Or something like that. The song will be found on the band's next CD, No Need to Be Downhearted, their third full-length, scheduled for an April release on Better Looking Records. The MP3 is via the Better Looking site.
"Limbs" - Emma Pollock
A lovely piano refrain, composed of a careful series of arpeggios, runs through this pensive acoustic ballad. The song builds to it slowly--piano is part of the central sound from the outset, but the anchoring refrain is not heard until 1:12, and from there it accompanies the verse as it proceeds, falling away during the understated chorus. Overall, "Limbs" advances with a beguiling sort of relaxed meticulousness: not a guitar string, not a piano key is used without precision, and yet, perhaps because of Pollock's warm, and warmly recorded, voice, the effort seems easy-flowing, almost impromptu. The song seems to emerge from some mysterious, unflappable inner space; despite the strong melody, the effect is still somewhat trancelike. Emma Pollock, from Glasgow, was one of the founders of the well-regarded '90s band the Delgados, who were also responsible for founding the important independent record label Chemikal Underground. The band split amicably in 2005; Pollock has been signed to 4AD Records since. Her solo debut is forthcoming at some unspecified date. "Limbs" is so far a free-standing song. The MP3 is courtesy of SXSW.com, which has just unleashed its latest storehouse of free and legal MP3s, oriented now towards the 2007 festival happening next month in Austin.
week of Feb. 18-24
"Hardcore Hornography" - Michelle Shocked
Michelle Shocked has the happy ability to sound completely unfettered and at home in a multiplicity of musical styles; you can now add straight-up New Orleans party music to her impressive list of genre performance credentials. And leave it to Shocked, a born activist and good-natured hell-raiser, to serve up this traditional good-time music with an added jigger of social awareness, hot sauce included: "That was one blow job you won't forget/ I ain't talkin' 'bout Katrina yet/ When that brass band starts to play/ Lay back and think of the U.S.A." Mardi Gras spirit infuses both melody and accompaniment; there is so much movement in the roisterous sound that you'd swear this must have been recorded while everyone was marching down St. Charles Avenue. Shocked plays here with the Newbirth Brass Band, trumpeter Troy Andrews, and a trombone player so authentic his name is simply Trombone Shorty. After flirting with mainstream folk-rock success back in the late '80s, Shocked has gone on to record an idiosyncratic string of albums, including an ambitious yet free-spirited trilogy (yes, three separate CDs) released last year on her own Mighty Sound record label. Her next CD is due out this summer; another trilogy appears to be in the works. "Hardcore Hornography" is offered up for Mardi Gras and to bring awareness to the ongoing plight of New Orleans, which remains largely abandoned by the federal government. The song is available for via her web site. Thanks to Bruce at Some Velvet Blog for the head's up.
"If That's the Case, Then I Don't Know" - the Electric Soft Parade
At once squonky and lithe, the latest effort from the British brother duo the Electric Soft Parade features anthemic chords and resounding beats, scuffed up fetchingly with fuzzy guitars and electronic blips and boops. Add Alex White's nicely vulnerable, Brit-poppy vocals and the whole manages to trump the sum of its parts--quite an accomplishment, as the parts themselves are pretty darned keen. A casual know-how informs both the song structure and the production; we get a masterly mix of rhythm and melody, guitar and drum, busy-ness and spaciousness, loud and soft. The loud-soft thing is especially cool, since the White boys (Tom's on drums) aren't offering a standard sort of "here's the soft part, here's the loud part" approach as much as utilizing the dynamic range of sound throughout, much as a first-rate black and white photograph will display the blackest black, the whitest white, and many gradations of grey in between. Another cool thing is the nifty coda: note at 4:02 how the song's drive shifts gears, the beat moving to swinging triplets, before the drums pretty much disintegrate, electronically. Or something like that. The song will be found on the band's next CD, No Need to Be Downhearted, their third full-length, scheduled for an April release on Better Looking Records. The MP3 is via the Better Looking site.
"Limbs" - Emma Pollock
A lovely piano refrain, composed of a careful series of arpeggios, runs through this pensive acoustic ballad. The song builds to it slowly--piano is part of the central sound from the outset, but the anchoring refrain is not heard until 1:12, and from there it accompanies the verse as it proceeds, falling away during the understated chorus. Overall, "Limbs" advances with a beguiling sort of relaxed meticulousness: not a guitar string, not a piano key is used without precision, and yet, perhaps because of Pollock's warm, and warmly recorded, voice, the effort seems easy-flowing, almost impromptu. The song seems to emerge from some mysterious, unflappable inner space; despite the strong melody, the effect is still somewhat trancelike. Emma Pollock, from Glasgow, was one of the founders of the well-regarded '90s band the Delgados, who were also responsible for founding the important independent record label Chemikal Underground. The band split amicably in 2005; Pollock has been signed to 4AD Records since. Her solo debut is forthcoming at some unspecified date. "Limbs" is so far a free-standing song. The MP3 is courtesy of SXSW.com, which has just unleashed its latest storehouse of free and legal MP3s, oriented now towards the 2007 festival happening next month in Austin.
Monday, February 12, 2007
THIS WEEK'S FINDS
week of Feb. 11-17
"Every One of Us" - Goldrush
We don't seem at a loss here in the still-young year for brilliant, glistening rock songs. Here's another, from the fine British band Goldrush. I love how the guitars add texture and tension to the song's galloping beat, both the wavery synth-y line that arches like a siren above and the waves of skittery feedback-like chords that fade in and out below. But maybe the best thing on display here is Robin Bennett's voice, which I find deeply affecting--a rubbery and slightly trembly tenor that at certain moments bring Ray Davies to mind (as, happily, do the melodies). And please listen to the words, which start out poignant and then turn transcendent, as the song makes that rare, exceptional link between the socio-political and the interpersonal. What begins as a moving statement on 21st-century alienation gains depth and spirit as the perspective angles in on a single human heart: "And if nothing is the way that it was/ Well there's one thing you can be sure of, because/ We are not the way that we were/ She will forget about you/ So forget about her." The title phrase proceeds to assume two competing, plaintive meanings. Nice nice work. "Every One of Us" is a song from the band's new CD, The Heart is the Place, which is set for release next week in the U.K. on Truck Records, an impressively robust label run by Bennett and his brother Joe, who is also in Goldrush. The CD has been out since mid-January on City Slang, the band's German label. No word yet on a U.S. release date. The MP3 is available via City Slang.
"City Morning Song" - Sarah Shannon
With its sunny, late-'60s/early-'70s swing and bright-eyed production, "City Morning Song" has seemingly little to do with the noise pop favored by Shannon as lead singer of the mid-'90s band Velocity Girl. And yet, what, to my ears, made that band's fuzzy, atmospheric music work so well was Shannon's airy voice floating above the busy, churning din. Remove the busy, churning din and here's her airy voice, set free in a vastly different musical landscape, in which we can now hear its attractive, meatier, Laura Nyro-ish-ness, especially in her lower register. Loving reverberations from a bygone era suffuse this snappy little number: the sly time-signature stutter that perks up the piano chord section introducing and anchoring the song; the piano itself, all guileless chords and happy rhythm; and, but of course, the trumpet--emerging in the background at 1:10, and you don't quite hear it, but hear it enough to make the short solo (1:42) smilingly inevitable. (Burt Bacharach, at least, would be smiling.) Shannon clearly feels at home here--City Morning Song is her second solo CD, and her previous effort, a self-titled album in 2002, found her likewise reveling predominantly in a '70s-flavored land of horns, keyboards, and evocative rhythms. City Morning Song was released last week on the Chicago-based Minty Fresh Records; the MP3 is via the Minty Fresh site.
"Advice for Young Mothers to Be" - the Veils
Based charmingly, if unexpectedly, upon classic doo-wop chords and melodies, this song has a mysterious appeal that I'm still trying to figure out. I like, to begin with, when songs are simultaneously accessible and weird. And yes, I have to say that the sound of a young indie band singing anything that sounds remotely like doo-wop is immediately odd--but, also, resoundingly familiar because of the time-honored musical setting. So, there: accessible and weird. And the accessible weirdnesses thereafter pile on, from Finn Andrews' quavery, croon-y baritone to the lilting, semi-reggae-ish shuffle this comes wrapped in to the inscrutable lyrics and indirect Smiths-like vibe--I can't put my finger on that one precisely because Andrews doesn't really sound like Morrissey but there's something in, maybe, his delivery that does the trick: try when he sings "The friends who care still call you on the phone" (1:18) or the words in the chorus "Your advice for young mothers to be/ Will never find the words, darling believe me" and see if you can't hear it. "Advice for Young Mothers to Be" is from the Veils' second CD, Nux Vomica, which was released in the U.K. last fall on Rough Trade Records, and is scheduled for a U.S. release in April on Great Society Records. Andrews, by the way, is son of Barry Andrews, once of XTC and later of Shriekback. Based in New Zealand, the Veils are now a trio; they were a quartet on their first CD, The Runaway Found (2004), and everyone but Andrews from that incarnation is gone.
week of Feb. 11-17
"Every One of Us" - Goldrush
We don't seem at a loss here in the still-young year for brilliant, glistening rock songs. Here's another, from the fine British band Goldrush. I love how the guitars add texture and tension to the song's galloping beat, both the wavery synth-y line that arches like a siren above and the waves of skittery feedback-like chords that fade in and out below. But maybe the best thing on display here is Robin Bennett's voice, which I find deeply affecting--a rubbery and slightly trembly tenor that at certain moments bring Ray Davies to mind (as, happily, do the melodies). And please listen to the words, which start out poignant and then turn transcendent, as the song makes that rare, exceptional link between the socio-political and the interpersonal. What begins as a moving statement on 21st-century alienation gains depth and spirit as the perspective angles in on a single human heart: "And if nothing is the way that it was/ Well there's one thing you can be sure of, because/ We are not the way that we were/ She will forget about you/ So forget about her." The title phrase proceeds to assume two competing, plaintive meanings. Nice nice work. "Every One of Us" is a song from the band's new CD, The Heart is the Place, which is set for release next week in the U.K. on Truck Records, an impressively robust label run by Bennett and his brother Joe, who is also in Goldrush. The CD has been out since mid-January on City Slang, the band's German label. No word yet on a U.S. release date. The MP3 is available via City Slang.
"City Morning Song" - Sarah Shannon
With its sunny, late-'60s/early-'70s swing and bright-eyed production, "City Morning Song" has seemingly little to do with the noise pop favored by Shannon as lead singer of the mid-'90s band Velocity Girl. And yet, what, to my ears, made that band's fuzzy, atmospheric music work so well was Shannon's airy voice floating above the busy, churning din. Remove the busy, churning din and here's her airy voice, set free in a vastly different musical landscape, in which we can now hear its attractive, meatier, Laura Nyro-ish-ness, especially in her lower register. Loving reverberations from a bygone era suffuse this snappy little number: the sly time-signature stutter that perks up the piano chord section introducing and anchoring the song; the piano itself, all guileless chords and happy rhythm; and, but of course, the trumpet--emerging in the background at 1:10, and you don't quite hear it, but hear it enough to make the short solo (1:42) smilingly inevitable. (Burt Bacharach, at least, would be smiling.) Shannon clearly feels at home here--City Morning Song is her second solo CD, and her previous effort, a self-titled album in 2002, found her likewise reveling predominantly in a '70s-flavored land of horns, keyboards, and evocative rhythms. City Morning Song was released last week on the Chicago-based Minty Fresh Records; the MP3 is via the Minty Fresh site.
"Advice for Young Mothers to Be" - the Veils
Based charmingly, if unexpectedly, upon classic doo-wop chords and melodies, this song has a mysterious appeal that I'm still trying to figure out. I like, to begin with, when songs are simultaneously accessible and weird. And yes, I have to say that the sound of a young indie band singing anything that sounds remotely like doo-wop is immediately odd--but, also, resoundingly familiar because of the time-honored musical setting. So, there: accessible and weird. And the accessible weirdnesses thereafter pile on, from Finn Andrews' quavery, croon-y baritone to the lilting, semi-reggae-ish shuffle this comes wrapped in to the inscrutable lyrics and indirect Smiths-like vibe--I can't put my finger on that one precisely because Andrews doesn't really sound like Morrissey but there's something in, maybe, his delivery that does the trick: try when he sings "The friends who care still call you on the phone" (1:18) or the words in the chorus "Your advice for young mothers to be/ Will never find the words, darling believe me" and see if you can't hear it. "Advice for Young Mothers to Be" is from the Veils' second CD, Nux Vomica, which was released in the U.K. last fall on Rough Trade Records, and is scheduled for a U.S. release in April on Great Society Records. Andrews, by the way, is son of Barry Andrews, once of XTC and later of Shriekback. Based in New Zealand, the Veils are now a trio; they were a quartet on their first CD, The Runaway Found (2004), and everyone but Andrews from that incarnation is gone.
Monday, February 05, 2007
The midwinter blowout continues at the Prize Closet, where contribution gifts are now available for $9 and $12. Thanks to the hale and hearty crew who've contributed! See what it's all about here.
THIS WEEK'S FINDS
week of Feb. 4-10
"Thank God for the Evening News" - Fulton Lights
Satisfyingly moody and intriguingly entitled, "Thank God for the Evening News" unfolds with vivid style over an unhurried beat and minimal chord changes. Now then, I like chord changes and pretty much thought I required a good number of them in a song; and yet here's one with maybe two chords in it and I'm quickly and continually engaged. Well. How can this be? Certainly the beat beguiles, combining an electronica-like ambiance--including the subtlest sort of clanky, scratchy noises and thin, smashy drums--with organic sounds, including in particular a nice assortment of strings, employed with great color as the song progresses. Could it be that Andrew Spencer Goldman, the driving force behind Fulton Lights, uses the texture of the beat in lieu of chord changes, as its own sort of structure and substance? It's a theory. What he also has going for him is a wavery tenor, and a billowy melody for it to sing--moving and rising and sinking enough to distract you from the single-minded chord structure. The lyrics, at once dreamlike and caustic, add to the stylish desolation, like this recurrent series of lines: "I've seen blurry vision/I've seen slow explanations/I've seen false advertising/And wholesale degradation." "Thank God for the Evening News" is a track off the debut Fulton Lights CD, self-titled, which is due out next month as a joint release on Goldman's own Android Eats Records and Catbird Records, a label associated with the estimable blog The Catbirdseat. The MP3 is via the Fulton Lights site.
"Eye for an Eye" - Telograph
Here's a band from Washington, D.C. with a song that sounds like an intriguing cross between, oh, maybe Echo and the Bunnymen and early R.E.M. Singer Andy Boliek definitely has something of Ian McCulloch's deep-throated, romantic baritone, while the glistening guitar lines and soaring refrains bring you back to the early '80s in a number of ineffable ways. Even so, I don't hear this as simply a throwback or retread; there's something crisp and present in the sound. I like the hunger conveyed by Boliek's yearning, repeated return to the E-flat and D notes near the top of his range (for instance, as he sings "border" at 1:02), and love how the bittersweet atmosphere is enhanced by an extended melody that takes us, with a tender sort of briskness, through a lovely series of chords (no shortage of modulation this time!) that to my ears give the song both lift and depth--listen, for instance, from 1:24 to 1:54. "Eye for an Eye" is one of five songs on Telograph's debut EP, Little Bits of Plastic, which the band released on January 1. The MP3 is via the band's site.
"I'm a Broken Heart" - The Bird and the Bee
Awash in an echoey, vaguely '60s-like aural landscape, "I'm a Broken Heart" reveals itself to be brand new at its core, a combination of electro-retro sounds that we've never quite heard before. Inara George sings the coy melodies with a beautiful airy tone, while keyboardist/producer Greg Kurskin surrounds her with a warm but quirky mix of jazzy sounds, the line between electronic and organic completely obscured. On their MySpace page, the duo describes their music as "a futuristic 1960's American film set in Brazil." While this inspired pronouncement doesn't quite nail this particular song's sound, an alternative self-description, "psychedelic Burt Bacharach," is right on target: if you have doubts, check out the extended horn work, from 2:50 to 3:19, particularly the staccato-y melodrama starting at 3:06. That's Burt on some sort of drug, all right. George by the way is daughter of legendary Little Feat leader Lowell George, who died back in 1979 when she was five; Jackson Browne is her godfather, and sang on her first solo CD, All Rise, which came out early in 2005. "I'm a Broken Heart" is from the debut CD for the Bird and the Bee, which was released, interestingly, on Blue Note Records (normally a jazz label). The MP3 is via the fine folks at betterPropaganda.
THIS WEEK'S FINDS
week of Feb. 4-10
"Thank God for the Evening News" - Fulton Lights
Satisfyingly moody and intriguingly entitled, "Thank God for the Evening News" unfolds with vivid style over an unhurried beat and minimal chord changes. Now then, I like chord changes and pretty much thought I required a good number of them in a song; and yet here's one with maybe two chords in it and I'm quickly and continually engaged. Well. How can this be? Certainly the beat beguiles, combining an electronica-like ambiance--including the subtlest sort of clanky, scratchy noises and thin, smashy drums--with organic sounds, including in particular a nice assortment of strings, employed with great color as the song progresses. Could it be that Andrew Spencer Goldman, the driving force behind Fulton Lights, uses the texture of the beat in lieu of chord changes, as its own sort of structure and substance? It's a theory. What he also has going for him is a wavery tenor, and a billowy melody for it to sing--moving and rising and sinking enough to distract you from the single-minded chord structure. The lyrics, at once dreamlike and caustic, add to the stylish desolation, like this recurrent series of lines: "I've seen blurry vision/I've seen slow explanations/I've seen false advertising/And wholesale degradation." "Thank God for the Evening News" is a track off the debut Fulton Lights CD, self-titled, which is due out next month as a joint release on Goldman's own Android Eats Records and Catbird Records, a label associated with the estimable blog The Catbirdseat. The MP3 is via the Fulton Lights site.
"Eye for an Eye" - Telograph
Here's a band from Washington, D.C. with a song that sounds like an intriguing cross between, oh, maybe Echo and the Bunnymen and early R.E.M. Singer Andy Boliek definitely has something of Ian McCulloch's deep-throated, romantic baritone, while the glistening guitar lines and soaring refrains bring you back to the early '80s in a number of ineffable ways. Even so, I don't hear this as simply a throwback or retread; there's something crisp and present in the sound. I like the hunger conveyed by Boliek's yearning, repeated return to the E-flat and D notes near the top of his range (for instance, as he sings "border" at 1:02), and love how the bittersweet atmosphere is enhanced by an extended melody that takes us, with a tender sort of briskness, through a lovely series of chords (no shortage of modulation this time!) that to my ears give the song both lift and depth--listen, for instance, from 1:24 to 1:54. "Eye for an Eye" is one of five songs on Telograph's debut EP, Little Bits of Plastic, which the band released on January 1. The MP3 is via the band's site.
"I'm a Broken Heart" - The Bird and the Bee
Awash in an echoey, vaguely '60s-like aural landscape, "I'm a Broken Heart" reveals itself to be brand new at its core, a combination of electro-retro sounds that we've never quite heard before. Inara George sings the coy melodies with a beautiful airy tone, while keyboardist/producer Greg Kurskin surrounds her with a warm but quirky mix of jazzy sounds, the line between electronic and organic completely obscured. On their MySpace page, the duo describes their music as "a futuristic 1960's American film set in Brazil." While this inspired pronouncement doesn't quite nail this particular song's sound, an alternative self-description, "psychedelic Burt Bacharach," is right on target: if you have doubts, check out the extended horn work, from 2:50 to 3:19, particularly the staccato-y melodrama starting at 3:06. That's Burt on some sort of drug, all right. George by the way is daughter of legendary Little Feat leader Lowell George, who died back in 1979 when she was five; Jackson Browne is her godfather, and sang on her first solo CD, All Rise, which came out early in 2005. "I'm a Broken Heart" is from the debut CD for the Bird and the Bee, which was released, interestingly, on Blue Note Records (normally a jazz label). The MP3 is via the fine folks at betterPropaganda.
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