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“Nice to Know You” – Ash Molloy

Fully-formed confidence

“Nice to Know You” – Ash Molloy

“Nice to Know You” exhibits a fully-formed confidence that flows through all aspects of the song: the melodies, the arrangements (including the assertive bass line), the anthemic chorus, and maybe best of all, Ash Molloy’s assured and wide-ranging vocal presence.

One of the song’s subtle assets is its use of an instrumental counter-melody beneath the main melody. You can hear it first, if quietly, around 0:31, underneath the lyrics that begin with “And the way you say you’re sorry.” It’s that sing-song-y synthesizer line that leaps up and then back down; a clearer version recurs around 1:10 as Molloy repeats “Nice to know you.” Coming full circle, Molloy herself sings the counter-melody as a coda starting around 3:33. Let’s just say I appreciate the craft, especially as it is couched within something of a ’90s-early-’00s alt-rock vibe; or, think Sky Ferreira for you Sky Ferreira fans.

Ash Molloy is a singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist originally from Newfoundland; she’s been recording since 2023. “Nice To Know You” is her tenth single. You can hear them all on Spotify. Oh and she writes her melodies on her fiddle and has an undergraduate degree in behavioral neuroscience, so there’s that too. Keep an eye on this one.

“Goddamn Fool” – Ruby Gilbert

Americana via Australia

“Goddamn Fool” – Ruby Gilbert

The Brisbane-based singer/songwriter Ruby Gilbert has a gift for evoking lonely Western landscapes, as noted when she previously appeared here in 2021. She’s at it again, marvelously, in “Goddamn Fool.” Brisker than “No Vacancy,” the song still aches with her distinctive variety of Americana. There’s banjo, a foot-tapping backbeat, evocative guitar flourishes, and, at center, Gilbert’s fetching, throaty vocals, laced with just the right amount of reverb. And don’t miss that signature trumpet, haunting the rear of the mix until the very end.

So help me out here. I’m mystified why musicians with so much obvious authority and quality as Ruby Gilbert exist at the fringes of our musical culture while copycat pop stars with nothing at all interesting to say garner gobs of attention, not to mention sycophantic praise from so-called critics. Have we become that shallow? And this isn’t me, from a bygone generation, claiming everything was better back in the day; it’s me finding wonderful music from the here and now and wondering what happened to our collective ability to recognize and reward actual excellence. End of quiet rant.

Support Ruby Gilbert by checking her out on Bandcamp, and (gasp) buying something you like. What this talented Australian lacks in quantity–she released a four-song EP in 2018 and but four singles since–she more than compensates for in quality. “Goddamn Fool” came out in September, her first release since 2021.

“Once It Starts to Kick In” – Hand Gestures

Deft ambling

“Once It Starts to Kick In” – Hand Gestures

With its friendly vibe and strummy groove, “Once It Starts to Kick In” develops over an agreeable mix of crunchy, bell-like guitars and a perky synth line. The song so deftly ambles along that I was surprised when I noted the length (4:44); it feels shorter than that, never hurrying yet never wearing out its welcome.

Front man and songwriter Brian Russ has an appealing, everyman voice that manages to convey innocence and experience simultaneously–which is kind of what the music itself does here, with the juxtaposition of the substantive guitar work and that playful synth line. Speaking of, I like in particular how the synthesizer, after dutifully playing its instrumental hook a couple of times, breaks out at 3:42 for an extended, off-script solo.

By the time Russ was writing the songs for this album, in 2022, he had had 20 years of experience on the Brooklyn music scene, which you may or may not recall was quite the engaged and engaging environment back there in the ’00s. He was in his early 20s then, putting him now in his 40s and eager to write songs reflective of his current life stage. Although Russ originally wrote these songs for Unisex, a previous band of his, by 2024 that band had more or less dissolved; he ended up recording the songs by himself with the help of the Unisex drummer. Then, this year, he assembled a new group of musicians and as such decided to change the group’s name. The album had been titled Hand Gestures; this became the band’s name too. Russ by the way is also the founder of the indie label Campers’ Rule Records, which released Hand Gestures on Halloween. You can listen to the album, and buy it, via Bandcamp.

Try not to panic

Eclectic Playlist Series 12.05 (October 2025)

Friends, it’s been a challenging year not just nationally (obviously) but personally; and I fear I’ve spent too much of it apologizing for late posts. I aim for monthly playlists but in 2025 they have turned bimonthly. I will try to take a deep breath and remember that it doesn’t really matter, that there is in any case more than enough to listen to online were I never to make another mix. But hey if nothing else I must try to justify the $15 a month that Mixcloud extracts from my nonexistent budget. Let’s see if I can at least get another two playlists in the hopper before year’s end. First and foremost here’s what awaits your ears right now:

1. “Live Life” – The Kinks (Misfits, 1978)
2. “Virtual Insanity” – Jamiroquai (Travelling Without Moving, 1996)
3. “Not Strong Enough” – Boygenius (The Record, 2023)
4. “Shallow” – Halomobilo (single, 2005)
5. “I Want to Know What Love Is” – Ane Brun (Leave Me Breathless, 2017)
6. “Rockaway” – Christine Lavin (Future Fossils, 1985)
7. “One More Chance” – Margie Joseph (single, 1969)
8. “Happy As Can Be” – Cut Off Your Hands (Happy As Can Be EP, 2008)
9. “To Find a Friend” – Tom Petty (Wildflowers, 1994)
10. “All These Things” – Empire (Expensive Sound, 1981)
11. “Take It Off The Top” – Dixie Dregs (What If, 1978)
12. “New Punching Bag” – Tristen (Zenith EP, 2025)
13. “City Sidewalks” – Hard Water (Hard Water, 1968)
14. “Half Ladies” – Christine and the Queens (Chaleur Humaine, 2014)
15. “Ozark” – Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays (As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls, 1981)
16. “Untouchable” – Glenn Tilbrook (Transatlantic Ping Pong, 2004)
17. “One Goodbye in Ten” – Shara Nelson (single, 1993)
18. “Come Down in Time” – Elton John (Tumbleweed Connection, 1970)
19. “Stay Soft” – Mitski (Laurel Hell, 2022)
20. “Detectorists” – Johnny Flynn (single, 2014)

Random notes:

* Did the British band Jamiroquai know something the rest of us didn’t back in 1996? Most of us were reveling in our newfound online universes at that point, with little idea of the Pandora’s Box we’d unwittingly opened. Founded in 1992 by vocalist Jay Kay, the veteran outfit is still active, with a tour about to begin and a ninth studio album purportedly on the way. For those few who may not have seen it, the trippy video for “Virtual Insanity” is widely regarded as a classic.

* Split for a number of 21st-century years from his Squeeze bandmate and songwriting partner Chris Difford, Glenn Tilbrook released a handful of generally agreeable but largely overlooked albums on his own during the century’s first decade and a half. Perhaps the best of them was 2004’s Transatlantic Ping Pong; “Untouchable” is in any case a song that compares favorably with Squeeze’s better offerings. But truth be told, even on his weaker material Tilbrook wins points for his indelible voice. And for those who’ve lost track, I’ll point out that Squeeze re-formed in the mid-’10s and has so far released two newer albums, in 2015 and 2017. They claim not to be done yet.

* I seem to have a soft spot for performances that reimagine songs I previously considered somewhat beneath my consideration. There were all those Journey songs entirely upended by Clem Snide, for one; another that comes to mind is Fountains of Wayne’s sublime version of “…Baby One More Time.” In that general vein, I now present the Norwegian singer/songwriter Ane Brun with her version of Foreigner’s “I Want to Know What Love Is.” Brun’s voice is something of an acquired taste, but conjoined with the right material it can compel. The Foreigner song comes from her 2017 album Leave Me Breathless, an all-covers effort, including songs by Bob Dylan, Sade, and Radiohead, among others.

* Tom Petty left our midst eight years ago, early October. At his best his songs and performances sound simple and effortless, which is a good part of his magic.

* I just featured Christine and the Queens in a song review in my last post, which put me in the mind to dig back into Chaleur Humaine, their debut album. I know there’s a lot to unpack with them, given their complex personal and performing history, but I mostly just use my ears and as such find the music, while somewhat out of my usual wheelhouse, wonderfully crafted and mysteriously alluring. I recommend the whole album, and will put in one more pitch for the magnificent “Tilted” video.

* Halomobilo was a band from Chelmsford, England who were active from 2002 to 2009. “Shallow,” from 2005, was an early Fingertips favorite–so much so that it landed a spot on the one promotional CD I curated and offered as a limited release in 2006. This song has a dark, appealing swing and is actually rather touching if you listen closely. Note that this “Shallow” has no relation to the song sung by Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga in 2018’s A Star is Born.

* If you don’t know of the TV series Detectorists and consider yourself a fan of subtle, quirky British comedy I would urge you to check it out. This Johnny Flynn composition served as the sharp yet melancholy theme song.

“Twos” – The Noisy

Purposeful mix of light and dark

“Twos” – The Noisy

With a retro lilt and a buzzy undertone, “Twos” both charms and unnerves. On the one hand we have front person Sara Mae Henke and their lovely silver tone, propelling the song effortlessly forward; on the other hand they sing an elusive tale of dating two people at once that seems purposefuly to mix light (chimes!) and dark (crunch!). If you sense something vaguely disquieting in the ambiance, that hunch is reinforced by a video that layers a campy, vintage vampire scenario onto the proceedings, complete with pitch-dark black-and-white blood.

Musically, I sense a hint of Neko Case in the air here, which can only be a good thing; both Henke’s resonant voice and the song’s carefully chosen words have a Neko-ish panache, as does the sturdy melodicism and chord progressions on display. And as with many a Neko song, “Twos” all but compels, and rewards, multiple listens.

The Noisy has been a rotating cast of characters fronted by Henke, a Philadelphia-based singer, songwriter, and poet. “Twos” is a track from The Noisy’s 2024 album The Secret Ingredient is More Meat, which is being re-released with extra material in October by Audio Antihero Records (now to be entitled The Secret Ingredient is Even More Meat).

photo credit: Morgan Kelley

“Last One” – Cerrone and Christine and the Queens

Buoyant neo-Italo-disco

“Last One” – Cerrone and Christine and the Queens

If this sounds like quintessential Italo-disco there’s good reason: the artist known simply as Cerrone, a Frenchman with Italian parents, was a pioneer in the pulsating, glistening genre back in the late ’70s. After encountering Rahim Redcar (whose intermittent performing name is Christine and the Queens) when both participated in events during the 2024 Paris Olympics and Paralympics, Cerrone and Redcar came together this year to release a four-track EP in July called Catching Feelings.

“Last One” is a splendid example of what these two can do as a team, Cerrone with his dynamic and shimmering beats, Christine and the Queens with their impassioned vocals and intrinsic sense of drama. The chorus is a particular delight, the one-measure instrumental lead-ins to each lyrical line lending a syncopated feel to what is actually an on-the-beat melody. And while I’m not a groove-oriented listener (at all) I’m ongoingly impressed here by the diversity of sound and feel of Cerrone’s creations–this isn’t just a push-button backing track but a calculated mixture of unabashed electronics and drumming that sounds organic (Cerrone did begin musical life as a drummer so that might even be him with the sticks). That said, I also like the moment mid-song where the beat is stripped away, increasing the theatrics with a less-is-more gesture. Likewise I urge you not to miss the 10-ish-second fadeout, with its subtle assortment of shutdown sounds.

You can check out the EP, and buy it, via Bandcamp. And for those who may not have seen it, I’ll use the opportunity to send you to YouTube to see one of my all-time favorite videos: Christine and the Queens’ endlessly riveting performance of “Tilted.”

photo credit: Thomas Spault

“The Day Is Long Enough” – Claire Barbour

Lovely, vulnerable

“The Day Is Long Enough” – Claire Barbour

“The Day is Long Enough” begins with a lovely sense of spacious vulnerability, and doesn’t take long to show off its fetching chorus. The 21-year-old Claire Barbour sings with both authority and reserve as the song combines lo-fi immediacy with a sneaky sense of production know-how. The simple, engaging melodies provide a throughline for a song that slowly transforms itself from bedroom ambiance to, by 1:47, the feel of a full (if gentle) band playing, a transition preceded by Barbour providing us with an unexpected taste of airy, jazz-inflected singing starting at 1:26.

And remember that gorgeous chorus that gets introduced near the beginning? This smartly crafted song withholds the chorus’s lyrical and musical resolution until its third and final iteration, as Barbour at last completes her thought that begins with “I can’t say it all enough,” singing, at 2:22, with wonderful offhand phrasing, “how the light makes me high.” The song, it turns out, is at least partially about those famously long Scandinavian summer days.

There is not much yet to learn online about Claire Barbour. Her submission letter here identifies her as “Stockholm/New York based” and notes that she was born in New England; her internet trail at this point is all but nonexistent. “The Day is Long Enough” was released last month on Hvilan Grammofon, an independent label based in Stockholm.

I wish I could believe you

Eclectic Playlist Series 12.04 (July 2025)

Yet another overdue playlist! Life issues have been intervening here in 2025 but I remain grateful for the opportunity to continue to share these mixes when I have the wherewithal to plan one out and put it all online. For those keeping score at home, fully 12 of the 20 artists in this month’s mix are appearing in the Eclectic Playlist Series for the first time. Reminder that house rules prohibit any given artist from appearing more than once in a calendar year. Reminder too that, against all conventions on the internet, I aim to distribute the music evenly across the decades. Might as well keep the robots puzzled if nothing else. Here’s what your dog-days-of-summer-2025 playlist looks like here in Fingertips World:

1. “Breathing Underwater” – Metric (Synthetica, 2012)
2. “Too Late” – Shoes (Present Tense, 1979)
3. “Dark Ages” – Eliza Gilkyson (Dark Ages, 2025)
4. “It Didn’t Work Out” – Michael Chapman (Rainmaker, 1969)
5. “Somewhere Else” – Kathleen Edwards (Back To Me, 2005)
6. “Kidney Bingos” – Wire (A Bell is a Cup…Until it is Struck, 1988)
7. “Red Wooden Beads” – John & Mary (Victory Gardens, 1991)
8. “Picture Window” – Japanese Breakfast (For Melancholy Brunettes [& sad women], 2025)
9. “Intermission” – Mary Lou Williams (Zoning, 1974)
10. “Viva La Vida” – Coldplay (Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends, 2008)
11. “We Don’t Have to Go Out Tonight” – Death in the Afternoon (Death in the Afternoon, 2015)
12. “Et moi, et moi, et moi” – Jacques Dutronc (Jacques Dutronc, 1966)
13. “Sweethearts Together” – The Rolling Stones (Voodoo Lounge, 1994)
14. “Lipstick on the Glass” – Wolf Alice (Blue Weekend, 2021)
15. “A Million Miles Away” – The Plimsouls (Everywhere At Once, 1983)
16. “Turn This Thing Around” – El Presidente (El Presidente, 2005)
17. “Need Your Love” – The Notations (single, 1972)
18. “Come As You Are” – Nirvana (Nevermind, 1991)
19. “Not Today” – Mattiel (Mattiel, 2017)
20. “Break Away” – The Beach Boys (single, 1969)

Random notes:

* In a just world, Eliza Gilkyson’s “Dark Ages” would by now be our country’s unofficial anthem. Do your part, at least, and play it, loudly and repeatedly. She names names (except when she purposefully doesn’t), pulls no punches, and sings like a hero. The 74-year-old Gilkyson has more grit and guts than most performers half her age.

* “Kidney Bingos” is for all appearances a nonsense song: while composed of English words, the lyrics nonetheless make no normal kind of sense even as the song carries you amiably along. I like this combination of accessibility and inaccessibility. If AI managed to spit out these lyrics it would be a pointless glitch; with human intention behind it everything is different. Try to remember that.

* Mary Lou Williams was an American jazz pianist and composer of great talent and stature. Her recording career spanned more than three decades; she was friends and collaborators with many of the genre’s giants, including Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. Not a jazz aficionado myself, I only recently stumbled on her work, starting with Zodiac Suite, her debut recording, released in 1945. A series of 12 interrelated pieces, each one based on one of the signs of the zodiac, the album is considered a landmark recording for its fusion of jazz and classical elements. “Intermission” comes from her 1974 LP Zoning.

* El Presidente was a promising Scottish band with a short career in the mid-’00s, who seem to have disappeared without a trace. “Turn This Thing Around” is a super confident piece of neo-glam rock; it was featured here on Fingertips way back in 2006.

* The Illinois quartet Shoes (no “the” please) were formed in Zion, Illinois in 1974. They had their moment in the sun in the late ’70s and early ’80s during the brief ascendancy of power-pop-oriented new wave music. This included the band’s being among the first featured when MTV launched in August 1981. Shoes continued in an off-and-on way through to the release of Ignition in 2012, their last album of new material. All these decades later, “Too Late” remains an impeccable exemplar of the difficult-to-pin-down power pop genre.

* There appears to be nothing on the internet to corroborate the fact that there was a British girl group called The Notations–Google’s AI assistant denies their existence–and yet, go figure, “Need Your Love” by a group called The Notations is in fact a track on a compilation album called Right Back Where We Started From: Female Pop and Soul in Seventies Britain. AI does like to make things up. (Just like humans!) Things are muddied by the existence of a male soul group called The Notations; they are often misidentified as the band behind “Need Your Love,” which they most assuredly are not. Beyond the indisputable fact of their existence, however, the female British group called The Notations are a mystery I haven’t been able to solve. Cool song, however!

* I do not need to add to the outpouring of tributes posted in the aftermath of Brian Wilson’s death last month. But what I am happy to do is continue to dive into the man’s vast discography ever on the lookout for hidden gems. “Break Away” was released as a non-album single in 1969, having been recorded during the sessions that produced the album Sunflower. The song was co-written by Wilson and his father Murry, who used the pen name Reggie Dunbar. It’s not clear whether the father and son co-wrote any other songs; what is clear is that Murry Wilson presented as a complex and often troubling presence in his sons’ lives. You can read about this elsewhere if you’re interested.

“Fading” – Steel Wool

Laid back melodic fuzz

“Fading” – Steel Wool

There’s a deep Wall-of-Sound blur to the aural landscape here–try as the ear might to discern what exactly is doing what and when to create the murky clamor of noise that underpins “Fading,” explanations are not forthcoming. No matter: the song’s amiable melodies and Sean Lissner’s laid-back vocals combine with the amorphous noise to create an oddly welcoming environment.

But things change. At 1:37 a trap door opens and the background din shifts forward and seems now to be constructed, at least partially, of intersecting screams. For some 35 seconds we are embroiled in something of a sonic bad dream, where strangled words fall short of comprehension, the listener offered no immediate way out except to focus on the unflappable lead guitar line that competes concurrently with the noise. (The screaming is real, and credited to bassist Jaden Amjadi.) Things slide back to the previously established noise norm but with a residual edge; there’s a sense of waiting for the other shoe to drop. The song goes on to revisit its two previous responses: at 3:04, Lissner reprises his reassuring “oo-oo”s, first heard around 1:07; but, as before, these are followed by the disorienting scream-noise. The song seeks simultaneously to soothe and agitate. As does the world at large.

Steel wool, a material at once tough and fuzzy, seems oddly apt to the sonic palette this Los Angeles-based quartet produces. “Fading” is a track from the band’s five-song self-titled EP, which was released in April. You can listen to it and buy it, for a price of your choosing, via Bandcamp.

“Take It Out On Me” – Smug Brothers

Incisive, immediate, well-built

“Take It Out On Me” – Smug Brothers

The Columbus, Ohio-based Smug Brothers return to Fingertips with more of their durable lo-fi pop rock, in which the “pop” has little to do with its contemporary usage but refers rather to the platonic ideal of modern music that’s incisive, immediate, and admirably well-built. This is the pop of “power pop” and “jangle pop” but less confining. It’s music made by humans with three-dimensional instruments and a reflexive predilection for the Beatlesque.

This song’s particular charms are rooted in the way it ongoingly anchors its melodies away from the downbeat (i.e., the first beat in a 4/4 measure). This creates a slinky, seductive atmosphere in which the song becomes its own backstory–a propulsive backbeat on the one hand, melodies that weave between the lines on the other. Kyle Melton’s sturdy vocals begin the verses within a megaphone filter, inviting us to lean in, before allowing his Tweedy-ish tone to fully inhabit a song that eschews narrative for the stringing together of evocative lyrical phrases. All in all these guys operate so far from what passes for popular music here in 2025 that I can nearly imagine a moment of cultural whiplash that would bring them straight to the forefront of the zeitgeist. Don’t laugh: any indie band forever remains one canny song placement away from if not fortune then at least fame.

“Take It Out On Me” is a song from the 11th Smug Brothers album, entitled Stuck on Beta, released earlier this month on Anyway Records; check it out via Bandcamp. MP3 courtesy of the band. The band has also released seven EPs and nine singles, all of which are also up there on Bandcamp. The band has previously been featured here in 2023 and 2019.