THIS WEEK'S FINDS
Sept. 2-8
There's still a wee bit of time to enter the latest Fingertips Contest; the deadline for entry is midnight EDT but truth be told if you get your email in by tomorrow morning that'll be fine also. Three winners will each receive a copy of a new compilation CD entitled This Is Next, featuring 15 songs from a variety of well-regarded non-major-label artists, including Neko Case, the Shins, and Spoon.
"To the Dogs or Whoever" - Josh Ritter
A ramshackle folk rock tall tale overrun by breakneck lyrics and underscored by colorful keyboards. The literate Ritter--who designed his own major in American History through Narrative Folk Music, at Oberlin--cuts loose a bit here, singing with an off-the-cuff charm that unites generations of gonzo lyricists, from Greenwich Village beatniks to punk-rock snarlers clear through to late 20th-century hip hop rhyme masters. (And okay, also that guy from Minnesota, but I was trying to give Ritter a break and write about him without mentioning that particular influence.) I like the way he appends a vaguely boozy, sing-along style chorus to the rapid-fire verses, which adds to the good-natured vibe. I get the idea that Ritter wants us right away to remember (this song opens his new CD) that he's not the overly earnest singer/songwriter he's often portrayed as in the glowing reviews he's been receiving since the beginning of this decade. The album title is another hint: The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter, and if the words don't reveal a tongue planted firmly in cheek, the cover, featuring one red-crested Roman soldier's helmet and an early-'60s album cover font, should do the trick. The CD was released a couple of weeks ago on Sony/BMG. The MP3 is via Ritter's site, where you can also by the way stream the whole album.
"Belgian Beer and Catholic Girls" - Siberian
With its ringing wall of guitars and croony lead vocalist, the Seattle quartet Siberian reminds me how much a good chunk of the music identified online as shoegaze owes to early U2; but U2 of course isn't cool anymore so they are rarely mentioned except in a disparaging way by the shoegaze-friendly but snark-infested blogosphere. Meanwhile, Finn Parnell, Siberian's aforementioned crooner, reminds me how much Thom Yorke sounded like Bono sometimes on The Bends, for what it's worth. In any case, what we have here is a song with a chiming, bittersweet power to it, due primarily, I think, to its unusual, three-sectioned structure. In place of the standard verse-chorus framework (one or two verses followed by a chorus, followed by another verse or two and another chorus, etc.), "Belgian Beer and Catholic Girls" is divided into three distinct and relatively equal sections, each a melody that's repeated. At the heart of this structure is the arresting second section (beginning at 1:01 the first time), featuring a mournful melody that is simply a sixth interval going back and forth, back and forth, over chords that alternate between minor and major. This then yields to a third section that aims at a heart-rending sort of resolution before pulling up short in the song's center (1:48) and starting over. When the promised resolution at last arrives, after the song cycles back through its three sections, the song literally stops right on that long-awaited note. Nicely done. "Belgian Beer and Catholic Girls" will be found on Siberian's debut full-length CD, With Me, scheduled for release next month on Sonic Boom Recordings.
"Nothing Burns Like Bridges" - Penny Century
Penny Century vocalist Julia Hanberg sings with a breathless vigor that helps transform this attractive bit of fleet, late-summery pop into something that strikes me as substantive and lasting. There's an air of some earlier era floating around in the cheery mix of keyboards and what sounds like a trumpet; the chorus's infectious, speeded-up echoing of the old Linda Ronstadt nugget "Different Drum" adds to the ineffable nostalgia, as does the brief bit of boy-girl dueting halfway through. That said there's something entirely of the here and now in the band's sound--in particular its gleeful blend of the homespun and the precise; I keep thinking that a lot of this sounds sort of sloppy except that it actually isn't at all. The song flies across one's field of awareness in a zippy 2:07 and the first thing I'm tempted to do when it's over is hit the play button again. Penny Century is a sextet from the village of Östersund, in northern Sweden. "Nothing Burns Like Bridges" is a song from the band's debut CD, Between a Hundred Lies, which was released two weeks ago on Letterbox Records. The MP3 is via the Letterbox site.
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Monday, August 20, 2007
THIS WEEK'S FINDS
Aug. 19-Sept. 1 - vacation edition
* The Fingertips Home Office will be closed between August 19 and Sept. 3. To avoid leaving everyone empty-handed for two weeks, I'm offering you one reviewed MP3, plus a list of five others I've been listening to lately. Any one of these--or none of them--may yet end up as a TWF pick; see what you think if you have the time to check them out.
* And don't forget the new Fingertips Contest is up and running through September 4. Three winners will each receive a copy of a new compilation CD entitled This Is Next, featuring 15 songs from a variety of well-regarded non-major-label artists, including Neko Case, the Shins, and Spoon.
* Finally, the latest Fingertips Commentary, "The future (or not) of the album," has prompted some thoughtful responses; you can read the original essay and see what some readers have been adding to it over here.
"Boy With a Coin" - Iron & Wine
As Sam Beam continues to flesh out his homespun sound, he sounds better and better, to me. The strong, sure acoustic-guitar rhythm propels "Boy With a Coin," but the electric and percussive accents--including hypnotic handclaps--add so much texture and substance that this right away feels like far more than standard singer/songwriter fare. I particularly like the blurty punctuations the electric guitar begins to make at around 1:18, and how they subsequently lead to a marvelous instrumental break beginning around 1:32. The tightly harmonized female backing vocals are another background element that contributes centrally to the alluring vibe. I'm not sure what he's singing about but the overall effect is mysterious to the point of being outright spiritual, a sense accentuated by the droning electric guitar that haunts the background during the second half of the song. "Boy With a Coin" will be found on The Shepherd's Dog, Iron and Wine's third full-length CD, which is due out in September on Sub Pop Records. The MP3 is via the Sub Pop site.
Vacation Special: five MP3s, minus reviews:
"Nothing Burns Like Bridges" - Penny Century
"Setting Fire to Sleepy Towns" - the Sleeping Years
"For Science Fiction" - Maritime
"From a Tower" - Love Like Fire
"100 Days, 100 Nights" - Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings
As noted, you may yet read about one or more of these in an upcoming TWF update. In any case, all are worth hearing. "This Week's Finds" will resume in its regular guise on Tuesday, September 4.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Reaction to "The future (or not) of the album"
A discerning few of you may have noticed over time that Fingertips does not offer "comments" sections in any way, shape, or form. To explain that particular quirk would probably take its own "Commentary" essay (and watch out, I'm thinking of writing it); suffice it to say that I am very interested in what people have to say, but I'm not interested in publishing quickie reactions from random visitors--which often turn into their own conversations--on an equal footing with carefully thought-out essays. Just because 99% of all web sites do this doesn't mean it makes sense.
That said, as this essay (posted here originally on Aug. 2 and Aug. 3) has indeed prompted a number of thoughtful responses, I was moved to give some space to some of them, here--both on the web page with the original essay and here on the blog.
Mary Ann Farley, a talented singer/songwriter (and painter) in her own right, writes to mention an excellent point I completely overlooked:
One thing I loved about the vinyl disc was that it had two sides. When I made both of my CDs, neithier one cracking 40 minutes (My Life of Crime came in at 37), I felt like even that amount of time was too long a stretch for someone to sit and listen to. I worried that the songs further down the list wouldn't get listened to as much, even though they were just as good and placed there for a reason. And it seems I was right.
Just from anecdotal conversations, people tend to talk about the earlier songs on my discs. One friend said he found the music so dense (in a good way) both lyrically and musically, that he could only listen to a few songs at a time in order to digest it.
When I used to listen to vinyl records, I felt like there were two tiny worlds, one on each side, and the splitting in half of the entire work helped me get to know an album intimately. That experience, as you say, is just gone now, never to return, and I miss it.
Visitor Courtney brings up another excellent point that I missed:
Speaking for myself only, I can tell you why the CD changed albums forever for me: Because they make it so easy to skip a song. Records and tapes made it (comparatively) labor intensive to change to the next track. So I sat in my car or my room and learned to appreciate a song that I might initially have disliked, because I was too lazy to skip past it. I was forced to listen to the album in its entirety and to give in to the flow the artist intended (so that even years later, I would always expect track 4 to follow track 3 even when hearing that song on the radio).
I can name only a handful of albums that I have listened to that way since the introduction of CDs. The siren call of that forward button makes it SO easy to disregard a song that doesn't grab you immediately. A song you might learn to love if you gave it a chance.
Yes, absolutely, a crucial point. I didn't think of it in part because I never developed the habit, somehow. To this day I rarely if ever use the "next track" button; I forget it's even there, I feel rather sheepish in admitting.
Courtney notes that the iPod has aggravated the problem:
Now I don't even pretend to listen to an album as a whole. It gets dumped into my library and I listen to it when it finally pops up in shuffle mode.
Talk about breaking the spell of the album! This reality didn't occur to me either, so thanks to Courtney for bringing that up. I didn't think of it because of another idiosyncrasy of mine--namely, I do not by default upload CDs automatically into iTunes; I pick and choose and only put songs in my library that I like. This does require a bit of familiarity with the album on the one hand, but on the other hand it obviously results in me dismantling the album and never really hearing it again either. So, different approach, same results.
Visitor Chris writes in to point out that my quick summary of the album's rise in the mid-'60s overlooked the fact that jazz artists were most definitely recording albums as "cohesive musical statements" back in the '50s. Absolutely true, and I might have made it clearer that I was grounding the entire argument in the pop world. Still, this makes me wonder why the likes of Brian Wilson or the Beatles or any other thoughtful pop musicians of the day hadn't already looked to the jazz world for inspiration on the matter.
Chris also notes, rightly, that even as the album focus grew through the '60s and into the '70s and '80s, there always remained a reasonably strong concurrent focus on songs and singles on the pop side of things. Finally, he observes that while things have changed over the last generation, he does not see the album dying out any time soon:
I think maybe the cd was an agent in the trend away from the great rock albums of the 70s, but a focus on albums is still quite common in many realms of music. I keep encountering great new albums in metal, jazz, country, and rock music. I'm actually surprised that the album form is still doing so well despite all the pressures against it. I think there is hope that artists will continue to want to put the effort into creating albums and that dedicated listeners will still want to hear them.
Lucas Jensen, on the other hand, notes that there are genres of music that might do better to abandon the album format entirely:
Wouldn't a lot of R&B/rap artists be better if they didn't have to make or be judged by albums? I love Beyonce for a song or two but not a record because I think her singles are tops.
Lucas, who promotes indie artists for the Athens, Ga.-based Team Clermont, then wonders if the shift to digital distribution isn't damaging music in a way that goes deeper and further than merely killing off the idea of the record album:
Moving music away from the physical realm hasn't been properly addressed philosophically yet in my eye, but I think something is being lost in terms of permanence--when music is easily tradeable and deleteable it will become disposable. Someone's year of hard work goes down the drain because you didn't like the way it sounded at the beginning and deleted it.
I agree with this idea that lacking a physical form renders music more disposable, to the harm of artist and listener alike, and definitely to the detriment of the pop music album such as it used to exist much more commonly. It's worth noting that in our digital age you don't even have to delete a song literally to delete it effectively--bringing us back to Courtney's observations about how the "next track" button often leads her to ignore a track for good simply because it didn't grab her quickly enough.
More responses that add to the conversation will be included here as they come in.
Monday, August 13, 2007
THIS WEEK'S FINDS
Aug. 12-18
"Shade" - Portugal. The Man
While I don't think much of the band name--inexplicable punctuation is a pet peeve--I'm finding this slinky, vigorous, genre-resistant song has etched itself slowly but steadily into whatever part of my mind that's responsible for making songs stick in it. There's something prog-rock-y about it--the fairy-tale-like guitar riff that opens the piece, for instance--as well as something more Led Zeppelin-y in lead singer John Gourley's Plant-like yowl and Page-like guitar heaviness. Those synthesized strings floating in from above, and the band's gift for unexpected, rhythmic melody? That's a bit of Radiohead, perhaps. At the same time, the drum sounds are so up front and organic that it puts me in the mind of some classic rock track or another even as the overall vibe is good old '00s indie rock. All in all an attractive and successful stew of sounds and vibe from this young trio from the Northwest. Gourley and bassist Zach Carothers grew up together in Alaska, of all places; they are based now in Portland, Oregon, which is drummer Jason Sechrist's hometown. "Shade" is from the band's CD Church Mouth, which was released last month on Fearless Records. The MP3 is via Spinner, the AOL indie music blog.
"One Man" - Eulogies
Listen to how "One Man" plays with us pace-wise. The melody proceeds in an unhurried way, very much in the range of what is (too often) called a "midtempo rocker" (Google that phrase and it comes up 10,000 times; two of 'em right here, I must add, in the spirit of full disclosure). But the rhythm section chugs along in double time, creating a briskness and vibrancy the famous midtempo rocker often lacks. Eulogies is a trio featuring the singer/songwriter Peter Walker (previously featured here in April 2006); the band in fact came spontaneously into existence as Walker realized on his last tour how well he and the two musicians playing with him were jelling. I was impressed last year with Walker's sure touch as both a singer and songwriter, and am again this time around. I like the subtle but evocative hooks he has going in the chorus--first, to me, just the marvelous way his falsetto bends a bit before settling on the word "I" (and what a great, yearning note that is, too); second, how the melody deftly centers itself between the beats, creating this wonderful, bittersweet sense of movement. A bonus: the lyrics display the same subtle power. Walker sings: "I learned something/In the nick of time/I'm only one man"--and while the song doesn't reveal enough detail to know exactly what he learned and why it was just in time, the wistful atmosphere suggests a complex sort of heartache, and a good news/bad news type of education. "One Man" is from Eulogies' self-titled debut CD, due out in September on Dangerbird Records. The MP3 is via the Dangerbird site. Thanks to Largehearted Boy for the lead.
"Time is a Lion" - Joe Henry
Joe Henry has one of those really familiar-sounding voices for a guy who doesn't get a whole lot of exposure in the scheme of things. Part of the lack of widespread exposure has to do with the fact that he's spent a fair amount of time singing songs with that voice that have been purposefully arcane, oddly cluttered, and more than a little, shall we say, difficult. He has been quoted as calling his 2003 release Tiny Voices "intentionally chaotic," saying that it was "like a Bunuel film shown on the side of a building during a rain storm." This time around, lo and behold, he has decided to aim for clarity and if this song is any indication, he's at least part of the way there. "Time is a Lion" has the sort of barroom swing the likes of which labelmate Tom Waits might concoct, but where Waits tends to deconstruct and croak, and Henry previously might have piled on sounds and squeezed away the melody, he this time opts for a surface-level smoothness, even as the percussion beats out a distinctive pulse and the piano alternates between music hall chords and jazzy washes. Lyrically Henry is full of resonant pronouncements and abstract narrative of the sort Bob Dylan has specialized in since the late '90s. Good stuff. "Time is a Lion" is from Henry's forthcoming Civilians CD, to be released next month on Anti Records. MP3 via the Anti web site.
Aug. 12-18
"Shade" - Portugal. The Man
While I don't think much of the band name--inexplicable punctuation is a pet peeve--I'm finding this slinky, vigorous, genre-resistant song has etched itself slowly but steadily into whatever part of my mind that's responsible for making songs stick in it. There's something prog-rock-y about it--the fairy-tale-like guitar riff that opens the piece, for instance--as well as something more Led Zeppelin-y in lead singer John Gourley's Plant-like yowl and Page-like guitar heaviness. Those synthesized strings floating in from above, and the band's gift for unexpected, rhythmic melody? That's a bit of Radiohead, perhaps. At the same time, the drum sounds are so up front and organic that it puts me in the mind of some classic rock track or another even as the overall vibe is good old '00s indie rock. All in all an attractive and successful stew of sounds and vibe from this young trio from the Northwest. Gourley and bassist Zach Carothers grew up together in Alaska, of all places; they are based now in Portland, Oregon, which is drummer Jason Sechrist's hometown. "Shade" is from the band's CD Church Mouth, which was released last month on Fearless Records. The MP3 is via Spinner, the AOL indie music blog.
"One Man" - Eulogies
Listen to how "One Man" plays with us pace-wise. The melody proceeds in an unhurried way, very much in the range of what is (too often) called a "midtempo rocker" (Google that phrase and it comes up 10,000 times; two of 'em right here, I must add, in the spirit of full disclosure). But the rhythm section chugs along in double time, creating a briskness and vibrancy the famous midtempo rocker often lacks. Eulogies is a trio featuring the singer/songwriter Peter Walker (previously featured here in April 2006); the band in fact came spontaneously into existence as Walker realized on his last tour how well he and the two musicians playing with him were jelling. I was impressed last year with Walker's sure touch as both a singer and songwriter, and am again this time around. I like the subtle but evocative hooks he has going in the chorus--first, to me, just the marvelous way his falsetto bends a bit before settling on the word "I" (and what a great, yearning note that is, too); second, how the melody deftly centers itself between the beats, creating this wonderful, bittersweet sense of movement. A bonus: the lyrics display the same subtle power. Walker sings: "I learned something/In the nick of time/I'm only one man"--and while the song doesn't reveal enough detail to know exactly what he learned and why it was just in time, the wistful atmosphere suggests a complex sort of heartache, and a good news/bad news type of education. "One Man" is from Eulogies' self-titled debut CD, due out in September on Dangerbird Records. The MP3 is via the Dangerbird site. Thanks to Largehearted Boy for the lead.
"Time is a Lion" - Joe Henry
Joe Henry has one of those really familiar-sounding voices for a guy who doesn't get a whole lot of exposure in the scheme of things. Part of the lack of widespread exposure has to do with the fact that he's spent a fair amount of time singing songs with that voice that have been purposefully arcane, oddly cluttered, and more than a little, shall we say, difficult. He has been quoted as calling his 2003 release Tiny Voices "intentionally chaotic," saying that it was "like a Bunuel film shown on the side of a building during a rain storm." This time around, lo and behold, he has decided to aim for clarity and if this song is any indication, he's at least part of the way there. "Time is a Lion" has the sort of barroom swing the likes of which labelmate Tom Waits might concoct, but where Waits tends to deconstruct and croak, and Henry previously might have piled on sounds and squeezed away the melody, he this time opts for a surface-level smoothness, even as the percussion beats out a distinctive pulse and the piano alternates between music hall chords and jazzy washes. Lyrically Henry is full of resonant pronouncements and abstract narrative of the sort Bob Dylan has specialized in since the late '90s. Good stuff. "Time is a Lion" is from Henry's forthcoming Civilians CD, to be released next month on Anti Records. MP3 via the Anti web site.
Monday, August 06, 2007
THIS WEEK'S FINDS
Aug. 5-11
"Crown Victoria" - Robbers on High Street
An unmistakeable Kinks-iness animates this boppy little nugget--the opening clearly echoes "A Well Respected Man"--but that's just the beginning of "Crown Victoria"'s charms. Working with noted Italian film composer Daniele Luppi, who had previously never worked as a producer on a rock album, the NYC-based trio Robbers on High Street have found their British Invasion-y '60s sound enhanced with a Spaghetti Western-y '60s sound, and damn if it doesn't work rather well, if only because in retrospect all those sounds kind of blend together historically anyway. So, the slowly-strummed chord that starts the song happens not on an acoustic guitar (as per the Kinks) but on a twangy, throbbing guitar straight out of Ennio Morricone. (An acoustic guitar soon joins in, however.) The piercing organ that chimes in around 0:38? Spaghetti time again. All this insider homage-ing will get us only so far, however. To me, the song takes off when we get to the chorus, which has a swingy, winning melody, deftly enhanced when the organ begins to add some swoopy, ascending lines below. Keep an ear open for the bass next, which plays some acrobatic lines itself when the second verse comes along. And stay tuned for the wacky (but still somehow retro-y) duck-like sounds (maybe they're just vocals? hard to say) in the instrumental coda. "Crown Victoria" is from the CD Grand Animals, released in July on New Line Records. The MP3 is courtesy of New Line.
"Throwin' Shapes" - Minus the Bear
Bright, brisk, and determined, this song is in the mix this week not just because I like it but because it sounds exactly right between its two TWF-mates. And I can't say why that is, at all. I do know that I particularly enjoy the interplay between Jake Snider's yearning vocal style and the painterly guitar licks brushed around him by the gifted David Knudson. I am also captivated by the comfortable but unplaceable soundscape here--although the opening recalls Haircut One Hundred (I kid you not), there's something in the blend of beat and arrangement that sounds neither like typical '00s indie rock nor like the music of any particular past era. It's easy enough to do that if you're just trying to be weird, but this Seattle quintet manages to sound at once fresh and familiar. "Throwin' Shapes" is a song off the band's Planet of Ice CD, scheduled for release later this month on Suicide Squeeze Records. The MP3 is via Suicide Squeeze.
"Escape City Scrapers" - Mono in VCF
Another quintet from Washington State; very different music. The sublime mystery of this song is how something that threatens at first to be syrupy and too retro for its own good ends up, rather quickly, sounding so pure and vibrant. Clearly a lot of credit here belongs to singer Kim Miller (such a substantive and alluring voice!), but let's pay attention as well to the grand aural structure that supports her reverb-laced vocals, which is nothing less than a creamy orchestral souffle that knowingly marries Phil Spector-ish majesty with darker James Bond-ian swank. Either way, yes, we're back in the '60s, inspiration-wise. At the same time, this is no slavish tribute. Mono in VCF understands its influences (the band's name is a nod towards Spector, who recorded in mono; VCF stands for voltage-controlled filter, which is a Moog synthesizer gizmo) but transcends them through a willingness to be creative on its own terms as well. Although the echoey strings and occasional drum bashes help build a sort of "wall of sound" (Spector's famous production effect), the band here steers clear of both the "Phil Spector beat" (think "Be My Baby") and any girl-group-style pop tune; what we get instead is a snakey, spy-movie melody, some wonderful piano interjections, and grand washes of synthesizers that sound maybe like something Portishead might have done if someone took their sampler away. All in all, a sweeping and memorable bit of work from this unsigned (but probably not for long) Tacoma band with but one four-song EP to its name so far. (The debut album is expected either late this year or early next.) The MP3 is via the band's site; thanks again to the 3hive gang for the head's up.
Aug. 5-11
"Crown Victoria" - Robbers on High Street
An unmistakeable Kinks-iness animates this boppy little nugget--the opening clearly echoes "A Well Respected Man"--but that's just the beginning of "Crown Victoria"'s charms. Working with noted Italian film composer Daniele Luppi, who had previously never worked as a producer on a rock album, the NYC-based trio Robbers on High Street have found their British Invasion-y '60s sound enhanced with a Spaghetti Western-y '60s sound, and damn if it doesn't work rather well, if only because in retrospect all those sounds kind of blend together historically anyway. So, the slowly-strummed chord that starts the song happens not on an acoustic guitar (as per the Kinks) but on a twangy, throbbing guitar straight out of Ennio Morricone. (An acoustic guitar soon joins in, however.) The piercing organ that chimes in around 0:38? Spaghetti time again. All this insider homage-ing will get us only so far, however. To me, the song takes off when we get to the chorus, which has a swingy, winning melody, deftly enhanced when the organ begins to add some swoopy, ascending lines below. Keep an ear open for the bass next, which plays some acrobatic lines itself when the second verse comes along. And stay tuned for the wacky (but still somehow retro-y) duck-like sounds (maybe they're just vocals? hard to say) in the instrumental coda. "Crown Victoria" is from the CD Grand Animals, released in July on New Line Records. The MP3 is courtesy of New Line.
"Throwin' Shapes" - Minus the Bear
Bright, brisk, and determined, this song is in the mix this week not just because I like it but because it sounds exactly right between its two TWF-mates. And I can't say why that is, at all. I do know that I particularly enjoy the interplay between Jake Snider's yearning vocal style and the painterly guitar licks brushed around him by the gifted David Knudson. I am also captivated by the comfortable but unplaceable soundscape here--although the opening recalls Haircut One Hundred (I kid you not), there's something in the blend of beat and arrangement that sounds neither like typical '00s indie rock nor like the music of any particular past era. It's easy enough to do that if you're just trying to be weird, but this Seattle quintet manages to sound at once fresh and familiar. "Throwin' Shapes" is a song off the band's Planet of Ice CD, scheduled for release later this month on Suicide Squeeze Records. The MP3 is via Suicide Squeeze.
"Escape City Scrapers" - Mono in VCF
Another quintet from Washington State; very different music. The sublime mystery of this song is how something that threatens at first to be syrupy and too retro for its own good ends up, rather quickly, sounding so pure and vibrant. Clearly a lot of credit here belongs to singer Kim Miller (such a substantive and alluring voice!), but let's pay attention as well to the grand aural structure that supports her reverb-laced vocals, which is nothing less than a creamy orchestral souffle that knowingly marries Phil Spector-ish majesty with darker James Bond-ian swank. Either way, yes, we're back in the '60s, inspiration-wise. At the same time, this is no slavish tribute. Mono in VCF understands its influences (the band's name is a nod towards Spector, who recorded in mono; VCF stands for voltage-controlled filter, which is a Moog synthesizer gizmo) but transcends them through a willingness to be creative on its own terms as well. Although the echoey strings and occasional drum bashes help build a sort of "wall of sound" (Spector's famous production effect), the band here steers clear of both the "Phil Spector beat" (think "Be My Baby") and any girl-group-style pop tune; what we get instead is a snakey, spy-movie melody, some wonderful piano interjections, and grand washes of synthesizers that sound maybe like something Portishead might have done if someone took their sampler away. All in all, a sweeping and memorable bit of work from this unsigned (but probably not for long) Tacoma band with but one four-song EP to its name so far. (The debut album is expected either late this year or early next.) The MP3 is via the band's site; thanks again to the 3hive gang for the head's up.
Friday, August 03, 2007
The future (or not) of the album
a Fingertips commentary
part 2 (see 8/2 for part 1)
The CD broke the spell of the record album.
Interestingly how we all kind of intuited this before long, even if it was nothing we thought to articulate. The use of the word "album" diminished as the CD era progressed. Instead of saying, "Did you get the new Radiohead album?" you maybe, more often, said, "Did you get the new Radiohead CD?"
Bonus tracks were but the first step. Once music fans had pretty much abandoned the vinyl LP, by the early '90s, the industry found itself released once and for all from the time restriction of the vinyl LP. After which point albums, sure enough, became longer. Quite a bit longer.
While there are certainly individual exceptions to the rule, as a whole, the music industry never makes decisions based on quality, and I never expect it to. To wonder whether longer albums were better albums, qualitatively, was besides the point: longer albums were better quantitatively so longer albums by and large became the rule of thumb. I mean, aren't 16 songs better than 10? Eighteen better than 16? Etcetera.
Price was part of it. I do not doubt for a minute that industry honchos figured they could push $17, $18, and $19 CDs onto the music-buying public more easily if the CDs came with 16 or 18 or 20 songs and lasted more than an hour than they could if artists had only 10 or 12 songs and only 40 minutes of music.
It's one thing to add songs to make an album last 60 minutes instead of 40 minutes. It's a whole other thing to make those 20 minutes really good, not to mention fit in with the other 40. I don't know about you, but my CD collection is chock full of discs that would be truly outstanding if they were 35 or 40 minutes, but seem kind of average at 65 minutes. (Of course, what do we do with these CDs, with our iPods? We upload only the good 35 or 40 minutes, don't we.)
I'm not here to argue with the industry philosophically. These were business people making business decisions. I am here to point out, however, that a combination of technological capacity and business acumen (or not) fostered an age of 60-plus-minute albums that absolutely and positively led to the demise of the very thing that was being marketed. (Ironic, ain't it?)
Thing is, albums really do have an appropriate length. With the benefit, again, of historical hindsight, it's clear that a vinyl LP-length album tends to work as a listening experience in a way that a CD-length album does not.
There is nothing magical about this; it's kind of just ergonomics, in a way: how long it feels comfortable to sit and focus on one somewhat connected piece of music. And the fact that the vinyl LP works for this and the CD doesn't is rather accidental, since neither the CD nor the vinyl LP were developed with pop albums particularly in mind.
Originally used for classical recordings, long-playing records, when they finally made their way to the market in a pop music setting, were nothing more than the latest collection of a performer's songs, with no particular rhyme or reason to look and feel, or even sequencing. It took some 10 to 15 years between the widespread emergence of the 33 1/3 LP in the early to mid-1950s and the arrival of record albums in the artistic sense of the word--that is, the album as some sort of coherent (though not necessarily thematic) work of art
Circumstances by then had arisen that prompted recording artists to look at the LP as a larger-scale canvas on which to paint their musical ideas. It's well-known that the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson was inspired by the Beatles 1965 album Rubber Soul to produce Pet Sounds, released in 1966, which in turn inspired 1967's Sgt. Pepper, after which the floodgates opened.
For the next couple of decades, cultural and technological circumstances combined to keep the vinyl album at the center of the pop music market, during which a great majority of pop music's classic albums were produced.
But in the latter half of the album's heyday, along came the CD, which took its own 10 to 15 years to change how music was being conveyed to music buyers. And here's me in 2007 finally realizing that however many great songs there are out there these days there are oddly few great albums.
Leading me to realize that it is the CD, and not the internet, that steered the music industry back to its earlier, pre-Pet Sounds position: record albums in themselves have no artistic integrity as a coherent whole, they're just a collection of songs for people to buy. Record companies, artists, and music buyers alike have been slowly and steadily over the last 10 to 15 years adjusting their sense of what releasing music is about to the reality of the CD rather than the vinyl LP.
And then the internet came in for the kill.
Because if CDs are just collections of songs for people to buy, and it turns out here in the 21st century that people can, online, buy all the songs they want--or steal them--without buying albums at all, then this is a logical outgrowth of how the music industry began to treat albums on CDs versus albums on vinyl records.
Furthermore, with CDs having stretched albums beyond agreeable length and/or having "bonused" them beyond recognition, it only makes sense that people feel no particular affinity for the collections of songs they're being sold on CDs now that they can make their own collections of songs--playlists, as they are often called in this online setting.
Re-examining my opening circumstance in light of all this, what does it really mean that I've been unable by and large to find albums that I really like? Clearly, as noted at the top, there are no shortage of CDs being released. But with everyone fully adjusted to the CD experience, with the vinyl album experience a quaint relic of the past, I say it's no coincidence that albums with the spark of that experience in their laser-etched grooves are so hard to come by.
And I have to own up to the fact that my feeling that there aren't many really good albums these days is no doubt due in part to my own diminished interest in this sort of album, as fostered by the environment I've been describing. It's an odd admission for someone who always thought so highly of albums, or always thought I thought highly of them.
But I've been pretty happy with my iTunes library, and shuffling through my odd but engaging assortment of songs on my iPod. Lots and lots of great new songs I'm listening to, I have to tell you. And, yes, of course, the occasional great album. I do not mean to imply by all this that no one is releasing good albums at all.
I hope, still, to post reviews to the Album Bin. Occasionally. And I pledge to myself no longer to worry about not posting.
That said, I have a suspicion that we haven't heard the last of the album. And if this turns out to be the case, the album's survival and re-emergence will be grounded in a recognition that the "record album" as often, now, romanticized was a phenomenon born of a time and place and technology and culture that just isn't coming back. If the album is to have a renaissance someday, it will have to be reinvented--and reinvented in a way that is as inconceivable to us in 2007 as Pet Sounds would have been to Pat Boone fans in 1959. The person or people who accomplish this wondrous task will have themselves grown up listening to CDs. Ironic, ain't it?
Thursday, August 02, 2007
In the interest, at long last, of doing a bit more with this blog beyond posting the three weekly song picks, I'm going occasionally to post some other things here that have gone up on the web site. Commentary pieces make a logical--if lengthy--addition to this blog, so given that I've just written a new one, that's what I'm going to post today. Or, actually, I'm going to post the first half of it here today, and then the second half of it in another few days. So it's not too much to read at once, basically. If you really can't wait, there will be a link at the bottom to click to join up with the rest of it on the Fingertips (non-blog) web site. Also, so you know, the full version of the essay has a number of footnotes to click on that I am not bothering to code in here. The essay still works without them.
* * * * * * *
The future (or not) of the album
a Fingertips Commentary
A year and a half after unleashing Fingertips onto an unsuspecting public (that was way back in May '03), I got it in my head that I wanted to augment the MP3 reviews I was doing weekly with an album review section. The Album Bin, accordingly, was born, at the end of 2004.
A page of paragraph-long CD reviews, the Album Bin has sputtered along ever since, with me intermittently pledging to post reviews more regularly, and then that never really happening.
I know that I limited myself by deciding that I would only review albums that I really liked. But I didn't, at the outset, recognize what a mighty limitation this would become. Because what turns out to have kept me from writing a lot of reviews has been, rather simply, my inability to find many albums that I liked enough to want to write about.
So here's me, week after week finding song after song that I really love, but month after month hearing a negligible number of albums that get me equally excited. For the longest time I didn't think about this too carefully, and used this information merely to feel badly that I wasn't updating the Album Bin very often.
But I finally realized there's something bigger going on here.
Lots of songs I love, few albums that I love: this sounds in a nutshell like the problem the entire music industry is grappling with. People are buying songs, not albums. And of course there are many who are not buying at all but simply downloading without paying--and not all of these people, alas, are visiting Fingertips and downloading legally.
As a music fan, you may have read an article or two (or five) declaring the album to be more or less dead, if not now then very soon. (Never mind, for the moment, the fact that there are still tons of CDs being released every week.) For proof, everyone points to the latest generation of music fans, who have little to no interest in buying albums in the way that anyone older than 25 or 30 remembers doing, and maybe still does.
So, yes, folks, it's the internet that has killed the album. Might as well blame Al Gore and be done with it.
Or maybe not. First, there's the simple point that the album may not, after all, die. The main reason I can find in support of the album's survival is, to be honest, the fact that so many techno-zealots believe it's a goner. And techno-zealots are perhaps our single most unreliable prognosticators.
But there's a second and more complicated point to the story because in many ways, despite the ongoing onslaught of weekly releases, the album is already in serious hibernation. I do not, however, see this as the internet's fault. With the benefit of hindsight, I can see that the record album was gravely injured by something we all thought at the time was giving it new life--the CD itself.
Maybe we should define our terms here. When people speak of the death of the album, they may be talking about one of two distinct things: the disappearance of physical CDs entirely, replaced by downloadable songs only; or, somewhat more subtly, the end of an era in which pop musicians release songs that are grouped together in some sort of cohesive way, in which the entire work is thought out as a whole and feels, as a listening experience, to be a unit of some sort.
I am not, here, concerned that much with the fate of the physical CD, and I don't think that's what most true music fans fret about when talking about the death of the album. They worry, instead, about a musical world in which we are denied the pleasures of pop music presented in a larger format than a single song--a musical world without good albums, basically. Many seem to believe that a lack of a physical product would hasten this day, which is why the two distinct ideas--no CDs on the one hand, no albums on the other--are so intertwined.
To me, however, the ongoing existence, or not, of the physical CD is actually besides the point, because its indisputable existence for the last 25 years has slowly but steadily eroded the idea of the record album as anything that many people care about.
Go back to the basic problem: lots of good songs out there, not a lot of good albums. How did this come about? Not because of iTunes. Because of the CD. Because the CD was actually unsuited to the task of being a record album. To be more precise, the CD as developed and promoted by the music industry became unsuited to the task of being a record album.
Where this story really begins, then, is with the number 74. As developed by Sony, the compact disc had the (weirdly random) capacity of 74 minutes. Vinyl LPs, by contrast, seemed to max out at around 52 minutes.
The CD's extra-large capacity is something we heard about but might not have noticed much at first. Because when the CD was introduced in 1982, CDs and vinyl LPs had to coexist. Obviously not everyone purchased a CD player right away, meaning that albums had to be produced that fit onto vinyl LPs, despite the CD's 40 percent greater capacity. The decade would end before the CD established itself as the preemiment medium for recorded music.
In the meantime, however, one of the principal ways the music industry sought to convince music fans to start buying CDs instead of LPs was by re-releasing popular albums with extra songs of one sort of another. These would typically be songs that were recorded at the same time but not ultimately included on the album, or alternate takes and/or live versions of album tracks.
This seemed like a win-win: the record company sells the same album, essentially, twice, while filling up some of the "empty space" on the CD (which by the way maybe helped justify the higher price), and the consumer gets a new version without vinyl pops and scratches and hey with a few extra songs. These so-called "bonus tracks" were many music buyers' first encounter with the CD's larger capacity.
Bonus tracks were also the first stake in the heart of the record album as we know it.
A seemingly small issue, adding bonus tracks to an existing album that had been thought through and laid out without them? Definitely, to music buyers newly enamored of the silvery, futuristic CD in those sleek, hard-shell cases. To talk about spoiling artistic integrity seemed, maybe, quaint.
But this became a slippery slope. Bonus tracks were first a kind of clever add-on (sort of). But eventually they led to an important shift. The album was no longer the same as the thing you had in your hand, it was something contained on the thing you had in your hand. The vinyl LP was the album; the CD was just a storage medium containing the album, and maybe other stuff as well.
Packaging furthered the disconnect. A stack of vinyl LPs looks like an array of different items; a stack of CDs looks like a pile of more or less identical things. Storage media. Those of you old enough to remember pre-CD vinyl record albums will remember that some music fans sorely complained about how the digital format, so much smaller than a vinyl LP, took away the sensory and sensual experience of the album as something to hold and read and study. By and large this was seen as an aesthetic issue. But it was more than that, ultimately.
The CD broke the spell of the record album.
* * * * * * *
to be continued......
or, click here to finish reading at the Fingertips web site
* * * * * * *
The future (or not) of the album
a Fingertips Commentary
A year and a half after unleashing Fingertips onto an unsuspecting public (that was way back in May '03), I got it in my head that I wanted to augment the MP3 reviews I was doing weekly with an album review section. The Album Bin, accordingly, was born, at the end of 2004.
A page of paragraph-long CD reviews, the Album Bin has sputtered along ever since, with me intermittently pledging to post reviews more regularly, and then that never really happening.
I know that I limited myself by deciding that I would only review albums that I really liked. But I didn't, at the outset, recognize what a mighty limitation this would become. Because what turns out to have kept me from writing a lot of reviews has been, rather simply, my inability to find many albums that I liked enough to want to write about.
So here's me, week after week finding song after song that I really love, but month after month hearing a negligible number of albums that get me equally excited. For the longest time I didn't think about this too carefully, and used this information merely to feel badly that I wasn't updating the Album Bin very often.
But I finally realized there's something bigger going on here.
Lots of songs I love, few albums that I love: this sounds in a nutshell like the problem the entire music industry is grappling with. People are buying songs, not albums. And of course there are many who are not buying at all but simply downloading without paying--and not all of these people, alas, are visiting Fingertips and downloading legally.
As a music fan, you may have read an article or two (or five) declaring the album to be more or less dead, if not now then very soon. (Never mind, for the moment, the fact that there are still tons of CDs being released every week.) For proof, everyone points to the latest generation of music fans, who have little to no interest in buying albums in the way that anyone older than 25 or 30 remembers doing, and maybe still does.
So, yes, folks, it's the internet that has killed the album. Might as well blame Al Gore and be done with it.
Or maybe not. First, there's the simple point that the album may not, after all, die. The main reason I can find in support of the album's survival is, to be honest, the fact that so many techno-zealots believe it's a goner. And techno-zealots are perhaps our single most unreliable prognosticators.
But there's a second and more complicated point to the story because in many ways, despite the ongoing onslaught of weekly releases, the album is already in serious hibernation. I do not, however, see this as the internet's fault. With the benefit of hindsight, I can see that the record album was gravely injured by something we all thought at the time was giving it new life--the CD itself.
Maybe we should define our terms here. When people speak of the death of the album, they may be talking about one of two distinct things: the disappearance of physical CDs entirely, replaced by downloadable songs only; or, somewhat more subtly, the end of an era in which pop musicians release songs that are grouped together in some sort of cohesive way, in which the entire work is thought out as a whole and feels, as a listening experience, to be a unit of some sort.
I am not, here, concerned that much with the fate of the physical CD, and I don't think that's what most true music fans fret about when talking about the death of the album. They worry, instead, about a musical world in which we are denied the pleasures of pop music presented in a larger format than a single song--a musical world without good albums, basically. Many seem to believe that a lack of a physical product would hasten this day, which is why the two distinct ideas--no CDs on the one hand, no albums on the other--are so intertwined.
To me, however, the ongoing existence, or not, of the physical CD is actually besides the point, because its indisputable existence for the last 25 years has slowly but steadily eroded the idea of the record album as anything that many people care about.
Go back to the basic problem: lots of good songs out there, not a lot of good albums. How did this come about? Not because of iTunes. Because of the CD. Because the CD was actually unsuited to the task of being a record album. To be more precise, the CD as developed and promoted by the music industry became unsuited to the task of being a record album.
Where this story really begins, then, is with the number 74. As developed by Sony, the compact disc had the (weirdly random) capacity of 74 minutes. Vinyl LPs, by contrast, seemed to max out at around 52 minutes.
The CD's extra-large capacity is something we heard about but might not have noticed much at first. Because when the CD was introduced in 1982, CDs and vinyl LPs had to coexist. Obviously not everyone purchased a CD player right away, meaning that albums had to be produced that fit onto vinyl LPs, despite the CD's 40 percent greater capacity. The decade would end before the CD established itself as the preemiment medium for recorded music.
In the meantime, however, one of the principal ways the music industry sought to convince music fans to start buying CDs instead of LPs was by re-releasing popular albums with extra songs of one sort of another. These would typically be songs that were recorded at the same time but not ultimately included on the album, or alternate takes and/or live versions of album tracks.
This seemed like a win-win: the record company sells the same album, essentially, twice, while filling up some of the "empty space" on the CD (which by the way maybe helped justify the higher price), and the consumer gets a new version without vinyl pops and scratches and hey with a few extra songs. These so-called "bonus tracks" were many music buyers' first encounter with the CD's larger capacity.
Bonus tracks were also the first stake in the heart of the record album as we know it.
A seemingly small issue, adding bonus tracks to an existing album that had been thought through and laid out without them? Definitely, to music buyers newly enamored of the silvery, futuristic CD in those sleek, hard-shell cases. To talk about spoiling artistic integrity seemed, maybe, quaint.
But this became a slippery slope. Bonus tracks were first a kind of clever add-on (sort of). But eventually they led to an important shift. The album was no longer the same as the thing you had in your hand, it was something contained on the thing you had in your hand. The vinyl LP was the album; the CD was just a storage medium containing the album, and maybe other stuff as well.
Packaging furthered the disconnect. A stack of vinyl LPs looks like an array of different items; a stack of CDs looks like a pile of more or less identical things. Storage media. Those of you old enough to remember pre-CD vinyl record albums will remember that some music fans sorely complained about how the digital format, so much smaller than a vinyl LP, took away the sensory and sensual experience of the album as something to hold and read and study. By and large this was seen as an aesthetic issue. But it was more than that, ultimately.
The CD broke the spell of the record album.
* * * * * * *
to be continued......
or, click here to finish reading at the Fingertips web site
Monday, July 23, 2007
THIS WEEK'S FINDS
July 22-28
"Elouise" - Maps
Buzzy, expansive, and richly melodic, "Elouise" is the work of shoegaze-inspired one-man band James Chapman, doing business from his Northampton (UK) home as Maps. But get this: unlike most if not all 21st-century bedroom rockers, Chapman developed his music entirely on a 16-track recorder in his apartment. Meaning he doesn't use computers. That knowledge will change how you hear this one, as the drones and beats and keyboards which drive the evocative, anthemic "Elouise" were all laid down the old-fashioned way, not manipulated by a laptop. (Note that the strings were added later; the album ended up being produced in Iceland by Valgeir Sigurdsson, who has worked extensively with Sigur Rós and Björk.) I'm loving the chorus in particular, with its simple but memorable descending melody line, and then--I'm a sucker for this move--the addition of those two extra beats in the measure beginning at 1:18 (the lyric when he first mentions "Elouise"). Listen too to how the guitars drop out in the chorus, adding to the lushness of the sound there. Chapman churns out humming, atmospheric music that forces everyone who writes about him to mention My Bloody Valentine, but to my ears this song has a lighter and more accessible feel than, by and large, the music that seminal band produced in its day. "Elouise" is from the CD We Can Create, which was released in the U.S. in June on Mute Records. (In the U.K., the CD came out in May and was last week one of 12 albums placed on the short list for this year's Mercury Prize.) The MP3 is available via Insound.
"Sinking Ships" - the Archibalds
Friendly, strumming acoustic guitars lead us into a good-natured, back-country rave-up with an unmistakable zydeco flavor, minus the accordion. And lookee here, as unlike as this one is from the Maps song above, the zydeco feel is responsible for one distinct similarity: the measure with the two extra beats, which you can hear here as soon as singer Joey Thompson opens his mouth (at 0:23, as he sings "Hey there, Mister Boll Weevil"). And once Thompson opens his mouth, extra beats or no, I'm hooked--as a singer, he's got one of those round, personality-laced voices that brings Ray Davies to mind, and as a songwriter he's got a casual, John Fogerty-like knack for neighborly, classic-sounding melodies. A quartet from Austin, the Archibalds play with the real-time gusto of a band that records live (whether they do or not); "Sinking Ships" is a song from the band's debut CD, O Camellia, which was released in March, jointly, by Breakfast Mascot Records and Austin's Superpop Records. The MP3 is courtesy of Breakfast Mascot.
"Horse and I" - Bat For Lashes
And it has inadvertently turned into Mercury Prize week, as Bat For Lashes, like Maps above, is one of the 12 finalists for the U.K.'s Mercury Prize for album of the year, as announced last Tuesday. As with Maps, Bat For Lashes also sounds like the name of a band but is one person--in this case, 27-year-old Natasha Khan. Building off an unadorned, almost awkwardly plain keyboard riff, "Horse and I" unfolds in an unhurried manner. Khan enters, singing, after half a minute; a ghostly synthesizer joins in shortly thereafter; and then, intriguingly, about halfway through, a military drumbeat takes on the rhythm of the keyboard riff, which now makes further sense in retrospect. Khan by the way has a marvelous voice--breathy and vulnerable in the lower register, achy-urgent in the upper register. The song has a fairy-tale vibe (horses, woods, destiny, etc.) that might be a bit precious were it not for the formidability of the music and arrangement. I'm especially taken by the juxtaposition of the other-worldly synthesizer and the martial beat--it's a combination I can't recall hearing simultaneously before (the short duet between the two sounds at 1:24 is an oddball highlight here). "Horse and I" is the lead track from the debut Bat For Lashes CD Fur and Gold, which was released last September in the U.K. on Echo Records; its U.S. release is scheduled for next week, on Caroline Records.
July 22-28
"Elouise" - Maps
Buzzy, expansive, and richly melodic, "Elouise" is the work of shoegaze-inspired one-man band James Chapman, doing business from his Northampton (UK) home as Maps. But get this: unlike most if not all 21st-century bedroom rockers, Chapman developed his music entirely on a 16-track recorder in his apartment. Meaning he doesn't use computers. That knowledge will change how you hear this one, as the drones and beats and keyboards which drive the evocative, anthemic "Elouise" were all laid down the old-fashioned way, not manipulated by a laptop. (Note that the strings were added later; the album ended up being produced in Iceland by Valgeir Sigurdsson, who has worked extensively with Sigur Rós and Björk.) I'm loving the chorus in particular, with its simple but memorable descending melody line, and then--I'm a sucker for this move--the addition of those two extra beats in the measure beginning at 1:18 (the lyric when he first mentions "Elouise"). Listen too to how the guitars drop out in the chorus, adding to the lushness of the sound there. Chapman churns out humming, atmospheric music that forces everyone who writes about him to mention My Bloody Valentine, but to my ears this song has a lighter and more accessible feel than, by and large, the music that seminal band produced in its day. "Elouise" is from the CD We Can Create, which was released in the U.S. in June on Mute Records. (In the U.K., the CD came out in May and was last week one of 12 albums placed on the short list for this year's Mercury Prize.) The MP3 is available via Insound.
"Sinking Ships" - the Archibalds
Friendly, strumming acoustic guitars lead us into a good-natured, back-country rave-up with an unmistakable zydeco flavor, minus the accordion. And lookee here, as unlike as this one is from the Maps song above, the zydeco feel is responsible for one distinct similarity: the measure with the two extra beats, which you can hear here as soon as singer Joey Thompson opens his mouth (at 0:23, as he sings "Hey there, Mister Boll Weevil"). And once Thompson opens his mouth, extra beats or no, I'm hooked--as a singer, he's got one of those round, personality-laced voices that brings Ray Davies to mind, and as a songwriter he's got a casual, John Fogerty-like knack for neighborly, classic-sounding melodies. A quartet from Austin, the Archibalds play with the real-time gusto of a band that records live (whether they do or not); "Sinking Ships" is a song from the band's debut CD, O Camellia, which was released in March, jointly, by Breakfast Mascot Records and Austin's Superpop Records. The MP3 is courtesy of Breakfast Mascot.
"Horse and I" - Bat For Lashes
And it has inadvertently turned into Mercury Prize week, as Bat For Lashes, like Maps above, is one of the 12 finalists for the U.K.'s Mercury Prize for album of the year, as announced last Tuesday. As with Maps, Bat For Lashes also sounds like the name of a band but is one person--in this case, 27-year-old Natasha Khan. Building off an unadorned, almost awkwardly plain keyboard riff, "Horse and I" unfolds in an unhurried manner. Khan enters, singing, after half a minute; a ghostly synthesizer joins in shortly thereafter; and then, intriguingly, about halfway through, a military drumbeat takes on the rhythm of the keyboard riff, which now makes further sense in retrospect. Khan by the way has a marvelous voice--breathy and vulnerable in the lower register, achy-urgent in the upper register. The song has a fairy-tale vibe (horses, woods, destiny, etc.) that might be a bit precious were it not for the formidability of the music and arrangement. I'm especially taken by the juxtaposition of the other-worldly synthesizer and the martial beat--it's a combination I can't recall hearing simultaneously before (the short duet between the two sounds at 1:24 is an oddball highlight here). "Horse and I" is the lead track from the debut Bat For Lashes CD Fur and Gold, which was released last September in the U.K. on Echo Records; its U.S. release is scheduled for next week, on Caroline Records.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
THIS WEEK'S FINDS
July 8-14
"Deep Frieze" - Chris Letcher
Smartly put together and sharply produced, "Deep Frieze" offers a gratifying union of acoustic, electric, and electronic sounds, linked beneath rich, almost choral-like vocalizing. A crisply strummed acoustic guitar lies at the heart of this midtempo rocker, but other rewarding guitar sounds come to fore as well, along with a battery of good-natured knob-twiddly noises. I like how this song feels so ornate without actually wasting a whole lot of aural space: it sounds very layered and yet you can easily, at any point, pick out and label everything you're hearing--which isn't often the case when bands aim in this sort of baroque direction. Chris Letcher is a South African musician now based in London, and studying composition at the Royal College of Music, no less. In South Africa, he was part of a successful '90s band called Urban Creep. "Deep Frieze" is a track from Letcher's CD Frieze, which was released in March on the Sheer/2 Feet label. (In South Africa, it was out in November 2006, while in Europe, release is slated for September; globalization in music is sometimes very complicated.)
"Dancing Behind My Eyelids" - Múm
So this one takes a little while to get going: one minute of slow and quiet noodling, 20 seconds of a bit more activity, then a good half minute of engaging rhythm and instrumental melody, leading surely into...well, oops, there's another 20 seconds of quiet noodling. The singing starts at 2:30, which is bizarrely late, especially in song that's just about four minutes long. All in all a recipe for the kind of thing I don't have patience for, and yet in this case, I find myself rather charmed. Why? I'll tell you: I'm not sure. Maybe it's the happy tone of the noodly notes--those are very friendly-sounding synthesizers offering that reverie of a duet: the staccato pulse of a bass-like sound below and a chimey companion playing a smeerier sort of pulse up above. A drum at 1:00 breaks the trance and sets up a full-out breakthrough at 1:21, a wonderfully engaging bit of driving but melodic electronics, enlivened by starbursts of synthesizer glissandos. At this point it sounds like everyone's having so much fun--Múm is seven members strong--that the singers perhaps have forgotten their cues. There is a reprise of the noodly part with a friendly animal sort of noise added to the mix. Then the singing, and it's a strong ascending melody line we get from two singers who are not in fact the baby-voiced Kristín Valtýsdóttir, who has left the band. The melody line repeats four times, with -- still! -- instrumental breaks and we're through. Is this even a song? Not sure. But it will be on the Icelandic band's mysterious new CD, Go Go Smear the Poison Ivy, scheduled for release in September on Fat Cat Records. MP3 via Pitchfork.
"She's In Love" - Fourth of July
From semi-avant-garde not-quite-song-writing we go to pure easygoing indie pop. What makes this a killer track, however, is that underneath the goofy-peppy sound is a genuinely poignant tale of love gone awry. So yes we're in the land of "happy sound, sad lyrics" that is one of pop music's special gifts to the world. The endearing, vaguely sloppy vibe here belies the precision of the song, from the well-placed, more interesting than you might realize "ba ba ba" background vocals to the short-story-like quality of the lyrics. Singer/songwriter Brendan Hangauer utilizes the slick trick of opening and closing the song with the same lines: "She's in love with a photograph/And the idea things could last/Goddamn, I never thought of that"; and when you hear it the second time your heart kind of breaks. Fourth of July is a six-piece band from Lawrence, Kansas that came to life in 2001 as Hangauer's solo project. "She's In Love" is from the CD Fourth of July On the Plains, released in June on Range Life Records. The MP3 can be found on Insound, and also on Lawrence.com (I'm using the latter so it'll register on the Streampad player; Insound's MP3s don't).
July 8-14
"Deep Frieze" - Chris Letcher
Smartly put together and sharply produced, "Deep Frieze" offers a gratifying union of acoustic, electric, and electronic sounds, linked beneath rich, almost choral-like vocalizing. A crisply strummed acoustic guitar lies at the heart of this midtempo rocker, but other rewarding guitar sounds come to fore as well, along with a battery of good-natured knob-twiddly noises. I like how this song feels so ornate without actually wasting a whole lot of aural space: it sounds very layered and yet you can easily, at any point, pick out and label everything you're hearing--which isn't often the case when bands aim in this sort of baroque direction. Chris Letcher is a South African musician now based in London, and studying composition at the Royal College of Music, no less. In South Africa, he was part of a successful '90s band called Urban Creep. "Deep Frieze" is a track from Letcher's CD Frieze, which was released in March on the Sheer/2 Feet label. (In South Africa, it was out in November 2006, while in Europe, release is slated for September; globalization in music is sometimes very complicated.)
"Dancing Behind My Eyelids" - Múm
So this one takes a little while to get going: one minute of slow and quiet noodling, 20 seconds of a bit more activity, then a good half minute of engaging rhythm and instrumental melody, leading surely into...well, oops, there's another 20 seconds of quiet noodling. The singing starts at 2:30, which is bizarrely late, especially in song that's just about four minutes long. All in all a recipe for the kind of thing I don't have patience for, and yet in this case, I find myself rather charmed. Why? I'll tell you: I'm not sure. Maybe it's the happy tone of the noodly notes--those are very friendly-sounding synthesizers offering that reverie of a duet: the staccato pulse of a bass-like sound below and a chimey companion playing a smeerier sort of pulse up above. A drum at 1:00 breaks the trance and sets up a full-out breakthrough at 1:21, a wonderfully engaging bit of driving but melodic electronics, enlivened by starbursts of synthesizer glissandos. At this point it sounds like everyone's having so much fun--Múm is seven members strong--that the singers perhaps have forgotten their cues. There is a reprise of the noodly part with a friendly animal sort of noise added to the mix. Then the singing, and it's a strong ascending melody line we get from two singers who are not in fact the baby-voiced Kristín Valtýsdóttir, who has left the band. The melody line repeats four times, with -- still! -- instrumental breaks and we're through. Is this even a song? Not sure. But it will be on the Icelandic band's mysterious new CD, Go Go Smear the Poison Ivy, scheduled for release in September on Fat Cat Records. MP3 via Pitchfork.
"She's In Love" - Fourth of July
From semi-avant-garde not-quite-song-writing we go to pure easygoing indie pop. What makes this a killer track, however, is that underneath the goofy-peppy sound is a genuinely poignant tale of love gone awry. So yes we're in the land of "happy sound, sad lyrics" that is one of pop music's special gifts to the world. The endearing, vaguely sloppy vibe here belies the precision of the song, from the well-placed, more interesting than you might realize "ba ba ba" background vocals to the short-story-like quality of the lyrics. Singer/songwriter Brendan Hangauer utilizes the slick trick of opening and closing the song with the same lines: "She's in love with a photograph/And the idea things could last/Goddamn, I never thought of that"; and when you hear it the second time your heart kind of breaks. Fourth of July is a six-piece band from Lawrence, Kansas that came to life in 2001 as Hangauer's solo project. "She's In Love" is from the CD Fourth of July On the Plains, released in June on Range Life Records. The MP3 can be found on Insound, and also on Lawrence.com (I'm using the latter so it'll register on the Streampad player; Insound's MP3s don't).
Monday, July 02, 2007
THIS WEEK'S FINDS
July 1-7
"Intelligentactile 101" - Jesca Hoop
There's a Björk-like friskiness enlivening this song, from its invented-word title to Hoop's somewhat pixie-ish delivery. At the same time, this Northern California-born, LA-based singer/songwriter exudes a laid-back cool that's far more akin to a young Rickie Lee Jones than to the Icelandic wonder (Björk may be a lot of things but laid back isn't really one of them). "Intelligentactile 101" springs along with a finger-tapping boppiness, and in the boppy course of things Hoop rather casually gives us a generous array of melodies (there seem to be four distinct sections: verse, bridge, chorus, and something else) to capture her trippy lyrics, along with a winsome assortment of percussive accents, from clacky to tinkly to whirry. The opening melody has a particularly lovely lilt to it, but she slyly withholds its full effect until the song is more than half over: listen to how the same melody that opens the song (0:10-0:16) sounds later on, fleshed out ever so slightly with an elastic bass and spacey keyboard, enough to open our ears to the chord progression that lay latent beneath the tune. "Intelligentactile 101" is a song from Hoop's forthcoming debut CD, Kismet, scheduled for a September release on 3Entertainment/Red Ink, a Columbia imprint. Thanks to Filter Magazine for the head's up.
"White Dove" - John Vanderslice
Another slice of harsh reality served up with passion, precision, and beauty by one of his generation's leading, if under-publicized, singer/songwriters. Driven by fuzzed-out guitars, "White Dove" nevertheless leaves a lot of aural space in and around its attack; there are quiet sections, the acoustic guitar remains central throughout, and there are moments where the silence in between instruments is used as its own sort of beat. This approach strikes me as the musical equivalent of a movie that terrifies more for what it doesn't show than for what it does. Here, a horrible story from the past is retold, along with its lingering effect on the present, suggesting the pointlessness of expecting anything resembling peace here in the human realm and yet also, I think, the necessity of holding on to that dream. Or maybe that's just my personal addition. In any case, if you are not yet familiar with Vanderslice, a multiple TWFer, I urge you to explore his generous free and legal offerings; more details here, in the Select Artist Guide. "White Dove" is a song from his new CD, Emerald City, due out later this month on Barsuk Records. (Emerald City by the way is his caustic way of referring to the Green Zone in Baghdad; no, we're not in Kansas anymore.) MP3 via the Barsuk site.
"Rootwings" - the Sheds
Popular music's internet age has given birth to a whole heck of a lot of indie-rock duos--the duo being the most DIY-ish way of being a band, I suppose (less equipment, fewer people to pay, etc.). What they tend to possess in spirit and productivity, however, duos seem commonly to lack in songwriting acumen--a fact which makes Burlington, Kentucky's premier contribution to the field of indie-rock duos so unexpectedly wonderful. The Sheds feature a croony but homespuny vocalist, simple but personable arrangements, and truly rewarding music and lyrics. Also, female backing vocals when you least expect it. "Rootwings" is both short and truly sweet, and one of a number of nice songs from the band's latest CD You've Got a Light, which was self-released this spring and available, in its entirety, via free and legal download on the band's web site.
July 1-7
"Intelligentactile 101" - Jesca Hoop
There's a Björk-like friskiness enlivening this song, from its invented-word title to Hoop's somewhat pixie-ish delivery. At the same time, this Northern California-born, LA-based singer/songwriter exudes a laid-back cool that's far more akin to a young Rickie Lee Jones than to the Icelandic wonder (Björk may be a lot of things but laid back isn't really one of them). "Intelligentactile 101" springs along with a finger-tapping boppiness, and in the boppy course of things Hoop rather casually gives us a generous array of melodies (there seem to be four distinct sections: verse, bridge, chorus, and something else) to capture her trippy lyrics, along with a winsome assortment of percussive accents, from clacky to tinkly to whirry. The opening melody has a particularly lovely lilt to it, but she slyly withholds its full effect until the song is more than half over: listen to how the same melody that opens the song (0:10-0:16) sounds later on, fleshed out ever so slightly with an elastic bass and spacey keyboard, enough to open our ears to the chord progression that lay latent beneath the tune. "Intelligentactile 101" is a song from Hoop's forthcoming debut CD, Kismet, scheduled for a September release on 3Entertainment/Red Ink, a Columbia imprint. Thanks to Filter Magazine for the head's up.
"White Dove" - John Vanderslice
Another slice of harsh reality served up with passion, precision, and beauty by one of his generation's leading, if under-publicized, singer/songwriters. Driven by fuzzed-out guitars, "White Dove" nevertheless leaves a lot of aural space in and around its attack; there are quiet sections, the acoustic guitar remains central throughout, and there are moments where the silence in between instruments is used as its own sort of beat. This approach strikes me as the musical equivalent of a movie that terrifies more for what it doesn't show than for what it does. Here, a horrible story from the past is retold, along with its lingering effect on the present, suggesting the pointlessness of expecting anything resembling peace here in the human realm and yet also, I think, the necessity of holding on to that dream. Or maybe that's just my personal addition. In any case, if you are not yet familiar with Vanderslice, a multiple TWFer, I urge you to explore his generous free and legal offerings; more details here, in the Select Artist Guide. "White Dove" is a song from his new CD, Emerald City, due out later this month on Barsuk Records. (Emerald City by the way is his caustic way of referring to the Green Zone in Baghdad; no, we're not in Kansas anymore.) MP3 via the Barsuk site.
"Rootwings" - the Sheds
Popular music's internet age has given birth to a whole heck of a lot of indie-rock duos--the duo being the most DIY-ish way of being a band, I suppose (less equipment, fewer people to pay, etc.). What they tend to possess in spirit and productivity, however, duos seem commonly to lack in songwriting acumen--a fact which makes Burlington, Kentucky's premier contribution to the field of indie-rock duos so unexpectedly wonderful. The Sheds feature a croony but homespuny vocalist, simple but personable arrangements, and truly rewarding music and lyrics. Also, female backing vocals when you least expect it. "Rootwings" is both short and truly sweet, and one of a number of nice songs from the band's latest CD You've Got a Light, which was self-released this spring and available, in its entirety, via free and legal download on the band's web site.
Monday, June 25, 2007
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.
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 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.
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