July 2019 – Fingertips

Free and legal MP3:Mattiel (irresistible, retro-current indie rock)

“Keep the Change” is a high-energy stomper that has the air of an instant classic about it, straddling with flair and sly humor that often fine line between where we’ve been and where we’re going.

“Keep the Change” – Mattiel

Featured here previously last April, Mattiel is back with another irresistible slice of retro-current indie rock. “Keep the Change” is a high-energy stomper that has the air of an instant classic about it, straddling with flair and sly humor that often fine line between where we’ve been and where we’re going.

The recurring, six-note motif that launches the song through the intro is an apt aural symbol of the slightly off-kilter fun to come: on the one hand it’s got a Springsteen-esque grandeur, on the other hand it’s being plinked out on what sounds like a xylophone. When the drums join in at 0:14, the momentum is literally unstoppable, the drummer hitting every beat equally through the entire song except for a brief deviation in the pre-chorus, as lead singer Mattiel Brown sings, “When I throw my weight/I never throw it crooked/I always throw it straight” (itself an obliquely amusing thing to say). Another curveball arrives via the decision to call the song “Keep the Change,” in defiance of standard practice, which would derive the title from the song’s most often heard phrase (in this case that would be “Wasted all my time”). “Keep the change,” on the other hand, is a lyric we hear just twice (starting at 2:53) in the song’s late-arriving bridge.

And don’t get me wrong—there’s nothing laugh-out-loud funny going on here; the humor is more of that special, smile-inducing kind that music alone can create. If anything, Mattiel herself appears to favor humor of a particularly dry kind. The video for “Keep the Change” is a good example, featuring her setting about, blank-faced, on a series of inscrutable tasks, by herself, in an industrial site that has no recognizable purpose. The biggest clue that she’s having fun comes from the title she’s given the album where you’ll find “Keep the Change”—that title being Satis Factory. It took me a moment to register that. You can listen to the whole thing, and buy it in a variety of formats, via Bandcamp.

The album, her second, was released in June. She still seems to be employing Mattiel as a band name, even as her Facebook site doesn’t list band members. She/they is/are based in Atlanta. MP3 via The Current.

(Note that MP3s from The Current are available in files that are 128kbps, which is below the iTunes standard of 192kbps, not to mention the higher-def standard of 320kbps. I personally don’t hear much difference on standard-quality equipment but if you are into high-end sound you’ll probably notice something. In any case I always encourage you to download the MP3 for the purposes of getting to know a song via a few listens; if you like it I still urge you to buy the music. It’s the right thing to do.)

Free and legal MP3: Marti West (gauzy surface, robust depth)

Underneath the gauzy surface lies a robust and rewarding composition.

“Give Me Light” – Marti West

It might nearly be its own genre: music featuring delicate male vocals in an acoustic setting. I am not inherently a fan of this sound—which can get too whispery-slight for my ears—but it turns out I’m a big fan of “Give Me Light,” because underneath its gauzy surface lies a robust and rewarding composition.

The song launches with urgent finger-picking, strings held relatively high up on the guitar neck; the aura is of reverberant glass. West adds vocals at 0:17, in a tenor register mirroring the spangly guitar line. The verse melody is concise and potent, circling towards a solid but unresolved end point, which leads in turn to a chorus (0:49) pitched around the same melodic space, with now the added sway of percussion. And listen here to how carefully the lines this time build one by one into a firm resolution (the steps proceed from 0:55 to 0:59 to 1:03), so satisfying in its payoff precisely because of the subtle uncertainty propagated by the earlier unresolved melodies.

Another thing I appreciate here are the careful harmonies West provides for himself, which begin in the chorus. Note how they start as same-note harmonies, then separate into beautiful, affecting intervals as the phrase “Give me light” unfolds, twice. Note too how the harmonies then draw back into the melody on the closing phrase (first at 1:03 and then, as the chorus repeats melodically, at 1:17). In an elegantly crafted song like this, these harmonies provide their own gorgeous hook. Yet more elegant craft: the electric guitar that floats in, twice, as structural support (1:24, 2:45)—and, all the better, each guitar break is its own construction, not just one solo repeated.

Born in England, West lives in Göteborg, Sweden. He has previously released two EPs and one eight-song mini-album. “Give Me Light” is the first single to be released off his next EP, coming later this year. You can listen to everything, and buy what you like, on Bandcamp.

Free and legal MP3: Monster Rally (splendid cut-and-paste tropicalia)

Feighan constructs his tunes by mining old records for sounds to cut and paste together, and you can surely hear bygone decades in the instrumental tones—those saxophones all but scream 1940s to me, in the most delightful way.

“Menagerie” – Monster Rally

And then there are sounds I’m so fond of that I love a song from its opening notes, and willingly follow it wherever and however it goes. If you want a more detailed idea of what Monster Rally is about and why I like this so much, you can read what I wrote when I first featured the project back in September 2013. All still holds true for me, despite the years that have passed and the dismal situation we find ourselves in since then. Though I suppose here in 2019 there’s an added air of escapism attendant to the tropical amalgams served up by Ted Feighan, the singular musical brainiac behind Monster Rally.

In any case, listen to this and just enjoy the heck out of it, from the funky tropical groove (those splat-y bass notes from what sounds like a tuba are priceless down there at the bottom of the mix) to both of the two lead melodies (the upward/downward swing of the saxophones; the smooth-as-silk answer from the trombone), to the clunky thump of percussion holding it all together. Feighan constructs his tunes by mining old records for sounds to cut and paste together, and you can surely hear bygone decades in the instrumental tones—those saxophones all but scream 1940s to me, in the most delightful way.

“Menagerie” is the lead single from the new Monster Rally album, Adventures on the Floating Island, coming in September via Gold Robot Records. Note that the project’s previously featured song, “Orchids,” also made its way onto an Eclectic Playlist Series mix (5.07, September 2018), for those keeping score at home.

Free and legal MP3: Pure Bathing Culture (glistening indie rock w/ notable guitar work)

“All Night” – Pure Bathing Culture

I’ve got one more artist with a Fingertips track record for you this month, as the Portland duo Pure Bathing Culture returns with another glistening piece of indie rock, this their third feature here, dating back to 2012. Whereas in previous incarnations the duo presented their guitar-based material wrapped in a cloud of hazy electronics and constructed beats, they are now embracing their inner Fleetwood Mac and going all in on sprightly riffing and buoyant melodies. (Seeing them in person definitely adds to the Buckingham-Nicks vibe, Sara Versprille white-gowned and witchy up front, Daniel Hindman working guitar magic under a balding, curly-haired pate.)

“All Night” is as upbeat as these guys get; the song’s momentum receives an added push thanks to its persistently on-the-beat melody—in the verse in particular, there are a limited number of quarter or eighth notes, and little in the way of syncopation. Over time this lends a subtle breathlessness to the proceedings, reinforced by Versprille’s recurring yelp in the chorus at the end of the lyric “Till black in the sky turns blue.”

Most of all the song in particular, and Pure Bathing Culture more generally, presents an ongoing affirmation on the power and purpose of the electric guitar, despite its relegation to the scrap heap of history by 2010s mainstream pop. Sure, Hindman still tucks his licks in and around a glossy bed of bounce and reverb, but if you have any questions about the intensity of his instrumental commitment, even here in 2019, listen closely to the last 60 seconds of this song, where he out-Buckinghams Buckingham and maybe even out-Knopflers Knopfler in the process. Personally, I think he gets faded out a bit too gently and too early but even in those closing seconds you can feel the heat of his playing.

“All Night” is the sixth of 11 tracks on the band’s album Night Pass, their third, which was released in April and produced by Portland crony Tucker Marine. Listen to it and buy it, in your format of choice, via Bandcamp. There’s even a tote bag for you tote bag fans. MP3 once more via The Current.

Nothing surprises me anymore

Eclectic Playlist Series 6.07 – July 2019

“Polaroids” is as majestic and affecting a song as a singer/songwriter could hope to write and record, complete with an ear-catching rhyme scheme, emotive vocal work, and nimble interplay between the hypnotic melody and a chord pattern so elegant that its unanticipated gambits register as predestined. Together these elements transform a leisurely-paced six-minute narrative into a spellbinding classic, albeit a classic not a lot of people may know a quarter-century after its release.

Ideally that’s a good part of what I’m offering here–lost classics of one kind or another, from this or that genre, flecked with the intermittent crowd-pleaser for balance and character. I sometimes think of this–whimsically, if not especially accurately–as an exercise in aural feng shui, where the interaction is between the ears and the music rather than the body and physical space. The goal, however, isn’t good luck or bad luck, it’s a sense of aliveness and potency, of the subtle kind that one song, certainly, can offer but I think a disparate and well-blended group of songs can deliver with extra power and, I hope, delight. A playlist should delight, shouldn’t it? Delight is often fostered by a sense of the unexpected. But how unexpected can music be in the context of a single-genre playlist? You see where I’m going with this. I’ll be quiet now and let the music do the rest of the talking.

Random notes:

* I loved “Indian Ocean” from the moment I heard it back in 1996; it struck my ears as an unusually successful modern (at that point) update of the power pop I’ve long held dear. And yet I never ended up learning much about the unusually-named band that recorded this gem, outside of knowing that The Frank & Walters came from Cork, Ireland. By the 2000s, I had assumed they had disbanded without a trace, but now that I’ve belatedly investigated, it turns out that they are still an active band, although more of a regional than an international outfit. I just listened to a song called “Stages,” from their 2016 album Songs For The Walking Wounded, and wow, they’re still doing what they do, still creating music with a distinctive but accessible air about it. The band was originally formed by brothers Paul and Niall Linehan; Paul still fronts the band, while Niall left in 2004. But the beat goes on. Time for me to go back and listen to more of their stuff.

* So in the process of constructing this playlist I discovered that “Midnight Confessions,” a song I’ve had a soft spot for since pre-teenager-hood, was not a Grass Roots original, but a cover of a song recorded the year before by a band called The Ever-Green Blues. Although slightly slowed down from the original, the Grass Roots’ version employed a strikingly similar arrangement, and had the benefit of Hal Blaine, Carol Kaye, and the Wrecking Crew as backing band. You can check out the Ever-Green Blues version on YouTube if you’re curious. While the original version went nowhere chart-wise, a year later the same song became the Grass Roots’ biggest hit.

* So “The Stand” has a needlessly complicated history, made more complicated by robotic internet misinformation. The song came out as a single in April 1983, and then was wrapped into the band’s debut eponymous EP in June that same year. In 1984, a longer version of the song was released on a 12-inch “maxi-single” called The Chant Has Just Begun. And then in 1990, this longer version was released on a compilation album called Standards (“Stand-ards”; get it?). But a good portion of the internet is fooled by the presence of a one-minute, fifteen-second song called “The Stand (Prophecy)” that appears on the group’s full-length 1984 release, Declaration: on YouTube, the long version of “The Stand” comes accompanied by the Declaration album cover, and on Wikipedia, “The Stand” is identified as a single from the album. The super-short version on the album–not the single–seems to be a glimpse at the more acoustic-based way the song was originally written. The lyrics by the way were inspired by the post-apocalyptic Stephen King novel of the same name, and intended as a heartfelt protest against nuclear proliferation. Some things never get old.

* You had of course the Beatles and the Stones, Hendrix and The Who, and all sorts of other iconic artists that come to mind when you think of the music of the 1960s. But for me, in my own childhood memory of that time, probably nothing says “the ’60s” to me as potently as the music of Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. Ridiculous? Maybe, maybe not. Look at the facts: between 1965 and 1968, the Brass released seven albums; five of them went to #1 on the charts, the other two peaked at #2 and #4. If you happened to be a musically impressionable youngster at that exact moment in time, the stuff just imprinted itself on your psyche. There, it seems, it remains, for some of us.

* And then there’s Lene Lovich, a singular star in the new wave firmament of the late ’70s and early ’80s, who rose and faded abruptly, her quirkiness at once her advantage and her undoing. “It’s You, Only You (Mein Schmerz)” comes from her neglected 1982 album No Man’s Land, which I picked up a while back for a few dollars on vinyl in the discount crate of a local record store. As it turns out, after many years away from the music scene, Lovich released an album in 2005 called Shadows and Dust, which I missed entirely; she started actively touring again in 2015. She is now 70, which causes me mein own kind of schmerz. Time time time. You can by the way, rather unexpectedly, check No Man’s Land out on Bandcamp.

Full playlist below the widget.

“Indian Ocean” – The Frank and Walters (Indian Ocean EP, 1997)
“Nova” – Baula (Nova, 2017)
“Was I On Your Mind” – Jesse Baylin (Firesight, 2008)
“Stand!” – Sly and the Family Stone (Stand!, 1969)
“Loneliness” – Horslips (The Man Who Built America, 1978)
“Polaroids” – Shawn Colvin (Fat City, 1992)
“More and More Amor” – Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass (Going Places, 1965)
“It’s You, Only You (Mein Schmerz)” – Lene Lovich (No Man’s Land, 1982)
“I Wasn’t Her” – The Blueflowers (Watercolor Ghost Town, 2009)
“Joanne” – Michael Nesmith (Magnetic South, 1970)
“Motion Sickness” – Phoebe Bridgers (Stranger in the Alps, 2017)
“Something to Believe In” – The Ramones (Animal Boy, 1986)
“How Can You Mend a Broken Heart” – Al Green (Let’s Stay Together, 1972)
“Pot Kettle Black” – Wilco (Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, 2002)
“Midnight Confessions” – The Grass Roots (single, 1968)
“Not Too Soon” – Throwing Muses (The Real Ramona, 1992)
“Ponteio” – Astrid Gliberto and Stanley Turrentine (Gilberto With Turrentine, 1971)
“I Already Forgot Everything You Said” – The Dig (Midnight Flowers, 2012)
“The Stand” – The Alarm (long version; single, 1984)
“Adventure” – Be Your Own Pet (Be Your Own Pet, 2006)