Author: jeremyfingertips

This Week’s Finds: April 8-14 (Elk City, Mason Proper, Tin Cup Prophette)

“Los Cruzados” – Elk City

Smooth and sinuous and upbeat and heartbroken. Over a pulse-like bass and a beautifully articulated, reverberant guitar, Renée LoBue sings with an ache in her slightly smoky voice that drapes the whole effort in a buoyant sort of sorrow. She’s singing “Halleluyah” but it’s as if she’s trying to convince herself; and when she says, “Let’s jump in the river to celebrate/The light that they left in our hearts,” the song has gotten so pensive there that she appears more focused on the jumping than the celebrating. Elk City, from New York City, has been around since 1998 and spent most of their time as a trio; the original guitarist left, discordantly, in ’04; LoBue and drummer Ray Ketchem eventually brought in guitarist Sean Eden, formerly in Luna, and bassist Barbara Endes, from the Lovelies, and the new band’s sound is strong and sure and polished in all the best ways. “Los Cruzados” is a song from the forthcoming CD, New Believers, the band’s first as a quartet, scheduled for release next week on Friendly Fire Recordings. The MP3 is available via the Friendly Fire site.

“Miss Marylou Carreau” – Mason Proper

This one is half crazed swampiness, half disciplined pop song. It’s an inspired amalgam. I really have no idea what’s going on here lyrically but I love the spill of tangible, baffling words we get from singer Jonathan Visgr, such as: “She bought a mug of bubbles from a bauble-hawker at the bazaar,/Supposedly an ex-czar from lands afar,” or “Her now ignored automatic attendent M.I.A. on the floor,/Amid discarded decor,” and what really nails these words–which, I’ll admit, sort of just sit there on the screen–are how they scan in the music, which swoops up and down via intriguing intervals and syncopations, rendering physical the strange jumps and blank spots in this impenetrable narrative. I don’t really mind if lyrics don’t make sense because I don’t really tend to hear them except as part of the sound, and Mason Proper seems a band with a great feel for words-as-sounds. The persistent crunch of the band’s variegated guitar arsenal is another ongoing highlight, and there is to be sure no shortage of guitar in this song, from the villainous riff that underpins the verse (heard for instance at 1:06) to the multifaceted, multi-guitar showdown that begins at 1:52 and ends in a high-pitched drone somewhere around 2:40. That’s a nutty and juicy snack for all you guitar fans out there. Mason Proper is a quintet based in Michigan; “Miss Marylou Carreau” is a song from the CD There is a Moth in Your Chest, released last month on Dovecote Records. (The CD was originally self-released last January in a limited run; the new version is re-mixed, re-mastered, and partially re-recorded.) The MP3 is via the Dovecote site.

“Going Numb” – Tin Cup Prophette

Perhaps it’s just in this odd little corner of the indie rock world in which I find myself wandering, but I’m beginning to wonder if the violin isn’t becoming at long last a bonafide rock’n’roll instrument here in the 21st century. Athens, Georgia-based Amanda Kapousouz—doing musical business as Tin Cup Prophette—is, in any case, a talented and energetic fiddler, and she keeps her instrument front and center, from the urgent, appealing pizzicato refrain that opens the song (which, if it repeated unaccompanied for three or four minutes, would not sound out of place in a piece of classical minimalism) to the loops of continuous bowing we hear as a surging and fading swell starting at 1:26. (Apparently Kapousouz has this way of looping her instrument through pedals, and I’m not geek enough to describe that better or to know exactly how it works but it sounds cool.) The other worthy instrument Kapousouz has at her disposal is her voice, a sonorous mezzo at once clear and rich–nicely plain-spoken during the clipped verse, fuller and more passionate during the melodic chorus. “Going Numb” is a track from Tin Cup Prophette’s debut CD, Liar and the Thief, which is another one that was self-released initially, now about to be released nationally—it’s due out later this month on Subway Grime Records, which does not appear to exist online at this point.

This Week’s Finds: March 25-31

“I Knew” – 22-Pistepirkko

Memorably described once as “nothing you’ve heard before, from nowhere you’ve been,” 22-Pistepirkko is an odd, enduring trio from Finland that plays an unpredictable sort of surfy garage pop. Founded in the northern village of Utajärvi in the early ’80s, the band, named for a common European ladybug, does seem to have a faraway sound; there’s something in singer PK Keränen’s high-pitched, accented, warbly English that appears to be coming to us from some other dimension of space and time. “I Knew” lopes along with a combination of early-’60s effects—the pre-Beatles beat, the sugary strings, and the surf guitar—that don’t actually sound like they’ve been successfully combined before, and certainly not with a high-pitched, warbly singer. “I Knew” is a song from the band’s most recent CD, Drops & Kicks, which came out back in 2005. They’ve yet to release a CD in the U.S., but are about to record for the first time with an American producer, suggesting the possibility of a Stateside release when the time comes. Another hint: the band visited North America for the first time ever this month, for a short tour which included an appearance at SXSW. The MP3, in fact, is courtesy of the SXSW web site.

“Gimme Shelter” – Patti Smith

Smith—truly one of the most inspired interpreters in rock history—manages here to take a familiar song, not change it very much, and still make it entirely her own. See, for instance, how she replaces the falsetto “oo-oo” vocals at the beginning with a languid slide guitar, and how different it sounds and yet strangely similar too. Growling and snarling and gargling through one of Mick and Keith’s best compositions (apparently Keith wrote most of it), Smith gives me the impression she overheard Bob Dylan giving singing lessons to Little Richard and liked the sound of it. And get a load of how she handles the tail end of the song, famously delivered by gospel singer Merry Clayton on the original Stones recording, here performed with extended moans and an almost trancelike roar. She’s now in the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame, but she’s still alive and kicking. “Gimme Shelter” is one of twelve intriguing covers Smith has assembled for her CD Twelve, due out next month on Sony. She’s doing offbeat Dylan (“Changing of the Guards”) and Wonder (“Pastime Paradise”), mainstream Cobain (“Smells Like Teen Spirit”) and Airplane (“White Rabbit”), and a bunch of “how did Patti Smith decide to sing this?” sorts of things (“Everybody Wants to Rule the World”? “The Boy in the Bubble”?). The MP3 is via Pitchfork.

“Rainbowarriors” – CocoRosie

A dreamy wash of rhythm and atmosphere, “Rainbowarriors” manages to sound simultaneously very current and altogether timeless. Rarely have I heard a song brought so beautifully to life by hip-hop scratches and other electronic goodies as this one—for once they seem not like random accessories but the very stuff and pulse of the music. I also don’t think I’ve heard a piece of resolutely 21st-century pop with such an ancient-sounding refrain at its heart. I mean, check out the chorus, first heard at 1:07: the ghostly harmonies that enrich the melody are positively medieval in timbre and interval, bringing to mind countertenors and Gregorian chants. CocoRosie is the half-Cherokee sister duo of Sierra and Bianca Casady, whose exotic and itinerant background found them separated for almost 10 years before Bianca appeared without notice at Sierra’s apartment in Paris in 2003; somehow, they knew they were supposed to start recording music together, and did, and have been inseparable ever since. CocoRosie is one of those groups with its own inscrutable mythos and I’ll be honest, I have no idea what to make of stuff like this, from the record label’s web site: “Rainbowarriors horse gallop through miles of balmy grass roads all the way to the swingset swamps. They witch water and have witches for fathers; they hear disharmonies of sadness sung by drunken glowworms. They sleep in swollen barns; they sleep through silver nights.” O-kay. “Rainbowarriors” is the lead track from CocoRosie’s forthcoming CD, The Adventures of Ghosthorse and Stillborn. (O-kay.)

This Week’s Finds: March 18-24 (All Smiles, Astrid Swan, Middle Distance Runner)

“Moth in a Cloud of Smoke” – All Smiles

Some songs take a while to build interest while others capture the ear effortlessly. One way isn’t necessarily better than the other, but “Moth in a Cloud of Smoke” strikes me as one of the latter—quickly likable and affecting. First comes ten seconds of a pensive yet propulsive piano line, and check out the unusual simplicity here: the right and left hands are each playing just one note at a time, no chords or flourishes. You don’t actually hear that too often in an age when technology all but demands more of everything—more notes, more layers, more sounds. The piano is then joined by percussion and acoustic guitar: still simple but now with a crisp, alluring drive. Ten seconds or so later, Jim Fairchild opens his mouth and the package is complete. He’s got one of those sweet, rich voices, high but not squeaky or breathy–a great power pop voice, I’d say, only he’s not singing power pop here, but something more introspective and knowingly hesitant—the melody in the verse is deliberate and contained within a surprisingly small interval (he’s working with just three adjacent notes) for how open and expansive it sounds. For the chorus we get a fuzzy guitar and a melody breaking beyond the confines of the original interval; I’m hearing an echo of Brian Wilson now as Fairchild reaches further up melodically and by the way gives great chord too. All Smiles is the performing name Fairchild is using on his first solo CD; and he’s the first ex-Grandaddy member to record on his own after that band broke up, rather badly, last year. “Moth in a Cloud of Smoke” is a song from the forthcoming All Smiles CD, entitled Ten Readings of a Warning, to be released next month on Dangerbird Records. The MP3 is via Filter Magazine.



“Good Girl” – Astrid Swan

I’m coming upon a certain number of breezy, swingy songs these days, and I’m sure there’s some hidden sociological message in it that I’ll restrain myself from commenting on for the moment. What I will instead comment on is this: mere breezy-swinginess is not enough to make a good song. This can get confusing, since breezy-swingy songs are cheerful and make us feel good. For me, however, the song still has to be there, and it turns out I may in fact be harder on breezy-swingy songs than songs with other basic sounds, since I listen carefully to be sure I’m not being tricked into automatically equating feel-good-ness with goodness. Or something like that. Here, however, I’m convinced we’re dealing with goodness. One clue: six seconds after establishing the breezy-swingy mood, it’s abruptly withdrawn. Kind of a musical tease, which subsequently renders the ultimate sound all the more persuasive. (Note too how the song’s most dramatic section, a bridge that starts around 2:08, likewise eschews the upbeat swing for something moodier.) Another clue: Astrid Swan’s voice, which has something of Neko Case’s fluid and convincing solidity both lower down and higher up. Finally, at the height of the breezy-swingy chorus, Swan strays into off-kilter chords, attractively minor and/or diminished sounding. And, okay, it doesn’t count for anything but I also happen to think Astrid Swan is one of the coolest names in show business. Swan is a singer/songwriter from Helsinski; “Good Girl” is from her CD Poverina, which was released in 2005 in Europe and is at long last getting a stateside release on Minty Fresh Records this spring. MP3 courtesy of Minty Fresh.


“Naturally” – Middle Distance Runner

Middle Distance Runner, a quintet from Washington, D.C., appears to be a group of guys with a well-developed sense of humor. (“Middle Distance Runner,” says their web site, “is what you would be left with if you took every nu-metal, frat-rock, and emo band, put them into a poorly insulated spaceship, and then drove it into the sun.”) As with the breezy-swingy thing, we have to be careful around such bands–easy it is to mistake “funny guys” for “good music.” This one even starts with hand claps. Cheery–one might even say jokey–hand claps at that. From there, the song acquires a sly sort of urgency, singer Stephen Kilroy delivering the eyebrow-raising lyrics with an easy-going slidiness. (The song appears to be about a guy who messes around romantically and kind of hopes he gets caught out and stopped already.) I love the chorus, with its abrupt 6/4 time change, as the words pour out beyond the boundaries of the 4/4 measures that precede it. “Naturally” is the lead track on the band’s self-released debut CD, Plane in Flames, which came out back in June 2006. The MP3 is courtesy of the band. Give the guys some hand claps.

This Week’s Finds: March 11-17 (WinterKids, Wilco, Sara Culler)

“Tape It” – WinterKids

Perky British pop with that brilliant blend of polish and DIY-ishness that so often characterizes, well, music that I think is brilliant. Beyond the simple but delightful opening guitar line, one of the things that caught my attention early on here was that 10-second instrumental break from 0:30 to 0:40—not only is that an unusual place to have an instrumental break, listen to what it sounds like: the sing-songy glockenspiel (or some such xylophone-like thing) on top, the dissonant rhythm guitar below. Fun. Also, not a couple weeks after noting how the Los Campesinos! singer uses a heavy British accent, unusually, in a non-punk lyrical setting, here we have James Snider doing the same thing at the head of this Surrey-based quintet. A 21st-century trend? This time the song seems basically to be about remembering (or not remembering?) to tape an episode of a favorite TV show. Oh, and don’t miss that deeply satisfying chord in the chorus on the word “leave” in the phrase “leave it in”—you can hear it first at 1:02. I’ve got nothing to add, just listen. “Tape It” was released by the band as a single last year and is due out on WinterKids’ first full-length CD, entitled Memoirs, scheduled for release in the U.K. this week on Little House Records. The MP3 is available via the band’s site.

“What Light” – Wilco

Relaxed, quirky, comfy, slightly odd, oddly elusive: yup, it’s Wilco all right. It starts off with unusual clarity—upbeat strummy guitar, and is that a straightforward steel guitar, after all these years?; and these words: “If you feel like singing a song/ And you want other people to sing along/ Just sing what you feel/ Don’t let anyone say it’s wrong.” As I think about it, this is not a bad way to approach music in the internet age, when there are always plenty of people, fingers ever poised above their oily keyboards, ready at a moment’s notice, 24/7, to say it’s wrong, wrong, wrong. Because of course what counts is not being right or good or authentic or generous but being first. (The first song I heard from this yet-to-be-released Wilco CD was posted—illegally! boo!—on a blog where one of the first comments on the post was: “A ghost is bored.” Been waiting three years to use that one? Now what?) Ok, I’m digressing. I pretty much like anything Jeff Tweedy opens his mouth to sing because his voice is just so real and likable, and because even when it’s not all that obvious, he’s using honest melody to tell his fragmented, quizzical songs. “What Light” is a song from the band’s forthcoming CD Sky Blue Sky (and hey is that a Laurie Anderson reference? I’m thinking yes), which leaked onto the internet last week, well in advance of its May 15 release date, on Nonesuch Records. The band, in response, has offered an official stream of the CD for two short periods of time on its web site, and also, now, this somewhat hidden but entirely free and legal MP3. Thanks to Alan at Sixeyes for the lead.

“Are You Sleeping” – Sara Culler

And talk about a likable voice: Sweden’s Sara Culler opens her mouth and some part of me melts a bit. “Are You Sleeping” begins as a placid march, with a gentle one-two keyboard/drum riff. With the verse come lyrical blurts, rushed between beats in a clipped but also smile-inducing way (I think it’s that voice of hers, that beguiling tone she gets even singing in rushed bursts); but notice in and around the singing how the music is building by way of that swooping, supple bass line. It’s setting us up for something, and that something turns out to be a sweet, expansive chorus—a great sing-along thing set against a whimsical pastiche of blippy, ringy sounds, having the effect of being produced by some intricate Rube Goldberg-like apparatus. Listen to the words, too: as far as I can surmise, she’s trying to wake us up, she is, with that ever-powerful awareness of how much of our lives we quite literally sleep through. “Are You Sleeping” is a brand-new song off her brand-new EP, Miss Takes – Light the Night!, self-released this week—just in time for her SXSW debut, as part of a series of WOXY-sponsored concerts at the festival. I also feel impelled to point out that Sara is one of the 13 wonderful artists featured on the Fingertips: Unwebbed CD, which is currently available for a $12 donation to this here web site; details aplenty are a click away.

This Week’s Finds: March 4-10 (Andrew Bird, Julie Doiron, Kiss Kiss)

“Heretics” – Andrew Bird

Andrew Bird has a sleepy, elastic way of singing his elusive, layered songs, and intermittently odd enunciation too. He uses solid, understandable words to create incomprehensible treatises on something resembling life, eschewing standard hooks and catchy melodies for carefully laid out, intertwining instrumental themes and snippet-like melodic motifs. The effect, once I let myself sink into it, is mysteriously convincing; not only do I return and return and get more and more out of it, I begin to believe that Bird is a unique talent–let the genre-meisters attempt to lay a genre on him, but there is none for what he is doing. The Chicago-based Bird has a bachelor’s degree in violin performance from Northwestern, and might have double-majored in whistling if they had offered the right courses: Bird puts his lips together, blows, and a most eerie, flute-like whistle emerges–but you won’t hear it in this particular song. You will hear the violin, however. “Heretics” is from his new CD, Armchair Apocrypha, to be released later this month on Fat Possum Records. If you really want to hear the whistling, I suggest buying the CD—it’s really quite good, in an elusive and mysteriously convincing way.


“No More” – Julie Doiron

A variation of the often effective one-note song (“Subterranean Homesick Blues,” “Pump It Up,” et al) is the repetitive lyric song, where one or two words will repeat in each lyrical line but in each case matched with different subsequent words (Leonard Cohen’s haunting “Who By Fire” comes to mind; and there are others, just don’t ask me to name them right this moment). So here’s Julie Doiron, from the Maritimes in Canada: “No more singing in the woods/ No more singing in the car/ No more singing in the streets/ No more singing in the bar,” and so forth. Clearly the risk with such songs is that they will be, um, repetitive. But in the right hands, there is also the chance to make a certain kind of incisive and mesmerizing statement, and I think we have something like that going on here. Musically, the hypnotic, minor-key insistence underscores the lyrical focus, creating an uneasy sort of drive. The uneasiness, I think, is furthered by the rhythm guitar, which strums a relentless chord on the backbeat but somehow seems almost, each time, to miss the beat (you can hear its sneaky hesitation most clearly during the instrumental break at 1:20 or so). Whether Doiron is singing about the end of a relationship or something more threatening, such as the end of the chance–in this dire, dour day and age–to live a happy, expressive life, is unclear. Known more often for slower, quieter tunes, she wisely wraps things up quickly, which allows the repetitiveness to make the point without driving us crazy–as a matter of fact, even as the song clocks in at just 2:15, the lyrics–but for some lingering “No more”s, are through by 1:02. “No More” can be found on the CD Woke Myself Up, Doiron’s seventh, which was released by Jagjaguwar Records in January. The MP3 is available via the Jagjaguwar site.


“Machines” – Kiss Kiss

A full-bodied, melodramatic, squeaky, squawky, feverish, yet winsome waltz. Back to violin rock we go, but this time the violin’s electric and ghostly and mixed in with a kitchen-sink electronic orchestra featuring a variety of synthesized sounds and sound effects. “Machines” barrels along like some mad contraption, the three-quarter time lending a bizarre, 19th-century air to its careening, semi-apocalyptic ambiance. I’m a big fan of songs that balance control and chaos like this, and this tumbly juggernaut definitely seems simultaneously unhinged and tightly directed. Singer Josh Benash all but roars here and there, while electric violinist Rebecca Schlappich yanks off-kilter strains and the occasional squeal from her amplified strings, all to that familiar carousel beat. The whole wild ride is over in two and a half minutes, leaving the listener a bit breathless and quickly ready to go back and do it all over again. Kiss Kiss is a quintet from upstate New York who have named themselves after Roald Dahl’s book of (often macabre) stories, for adults. “Machines” appears on the debut Kiss Kiss full-length, entitled Reality vs. the Optimist, which was released last month on Eyeball Records. The MP3 is via the Eyeball site.

This Week’s Finds: Feb. 25-March 3 (Blonde Redhead, Jill Barber, Los Campesinos!)

“23” – Blonde Redhead

A ravishing combination of guitar noise and melody. I’m a sucker for the combination of guitar noise and melody, particularly when the melody comes, as here, via a breathy, difficult to decipher soprano. Kazu Makino may as well be singing in Serbo-Croatian for all I can understand her; the only thing I’m picking up is that she’s actually saying “two-three” rather than “twenty-three” (so, no, no tie-in to the Jim Carrey movie; just an unexplained coincidence! bwa-ha-ha!). And let me get more specific about the guitar noise, because it’s a particular kind, the kind where the chords just seem to melt or bend continually into one another; the guitar is played (via a pedal of some kind?) more like a keyboard, with a sustained tone rather than in discrete strums of any kind. (Ah, note how the song is introduced by a few keyboard chords. Another unexplained coincidence?) I invite you to go back and listen to the entire song and try only to hear the guitar rather than the singer. It’s almost mind-blowing. Blonde Redhead is an intriguing, international, NYC-based trio–Makino’s from Japan; her bandmates are twin brothers Simone and Amedeo Pace, from Italy. “23” is the title track to Blonde Redhead’s forthcoming CD, the band’s seventh, scheduled for release in April on 4AD Records. The MP3 is available via Spinner, the AOL Indie Music Blog.

“Hard Line” – Jill Barber

Anything this sharp and snappy is pleasant enough to listen to from the get-go, but for me what renders it memorable is Barber’s voice. Just a quarter step away from a twang, Barber may sound somewhat like Nanci Griffith, and maybe also somewhat like one of the McGarrigle sisters, or both of them, but the Halifax, Nova Scotia-based singer/songwriter is truly her own singular self. In a way, the snappy vibe is almost a distraction–I get caught up bobbing my head and tapping my toe and I don’t really listen, much the way one gets caught up in daily living and forget, for days on end, simply, to be. And yet, of course, the paradox is one needs the form to give rise to the essence. So I wouldn’t trade the snappy vibe here for anything. And I keep listening, keep trying to sink fully into this indescribably rich and playful and sweet and knowing voice, even while bobbing my head and tapping my toe to a song that acquires a deep and meaningful momentum underneath the peppiness as it unfolds. “Hard Line” comes from Barber’s second CD For All Time, which was released last year in Canada on Outside Music. The MP3s is available via SXSW, one of the hundreds of new free and legal MP3s recently posted there for the 2007 festival.

“You! Me! Dancing!” – Los Campesinos!

This song’s almost excruciatingly slow build is completely worth it when the payoff arrives: the itchy, catchy, joyful guitar riff that announces the true beginning of the song (well over one minute after it actually starts) and propels us giddily through the rest of it. There is, however, way more to “You! Me! Dancing!” than fun guitar work, and exclamation points; Los Campesinos! are a seven-piece band from Cardiff with a no-holds-barred instrumental sensibility–glockenspiel (that’s the tinkly xylophone-like sound) and melody horn (a type of melodica) are both prominently featured among the free-spirited mix. And talk about free spirits: all seven members of the band have taken on the last name Campesinos! (with punctuation). Thickly accented lead vocalist Tom Campesinos! upends rock history with his unexpectedly endearing persona. In the past, a thick British accent has been all about punk posturing. Here it’s just a guy who’s not sure about his dancing ability. “You! Me! Dancing!” is a song from the band’s self-released EP Hold On Now Youngster, which came out last year; the MP3 is via the BBC (and hm I have to investigate the BBC music sites more carefully; could be a good source of free and legal music). Signed to the British label Wichita Recordings towards the end of ’06, the band’s first label release, a seven-inch single called “We Throw Parties, You Throw Knives,” came out this week in the U.K.

This Week’s Finds: February 18-24 (Michelle Shocked, The Electric Soft Parade, Emma Pollock)

“Hardcore Hornography” – Michelle Shocked

Michelle Shocked has the happy ability to sound completely unfettered and at home in a multiplicity of musical styles; you can now add straight-up New Orleans party music to her impressive list of genre performance credentials. And leave it to Shocked, a born activist and good-natured hell-raiser, to serve up this traditional good-time music with an added jigger of social awareness, hot sauce included: “That was one blow job you won’t forget/ I ain’t talkin’ ’bout Katrina yet/ When that brass band starts to play/ Lay back and think of the U.S.A.” Mardi Gras spirit infuses both melody and accompaniment; there is so much movement in the roisterous sound that you’d swear this must have been recorded while everyone was marching down St. Charles Avenue. Shocked plays here with the Newbirth Brass Band, trumpeter Troy Andrews, and a trombone player so authentic his name is simply Trombone Shorty. After flirting with mainstream folk-rock success back in the late ’80s, Shocked has gone on to record an idiosyncratic string of albums, including an ambitious yet free-spirited trilogy (yes, three separate CDs) released last year on her own Mighty Sound record label. Her next CD is due out this summer; another trilogy appears to be in the works. “Hardcore Hornography” is offered up for Mardi Gras and to bring awareness to the ongoing plight of New Orleans, which remains largely abandoned by the federal government. The song is available for via her web site. Thanks to Bruce at Some Velvet Blog for the head’s up.

“If That’s the Case, Then I Don’t Know” – the Electric Soft Parade

At once squonky and lithe, the latest effort from the British brother duo the Electric Soft Parade features anthemic chords and resounding beats, scuffed up fetchingly with fuzzy guitars and electronic blips and boops. Add Alex White’s nicely vulnerable, Brit-poppy vocals and the whole manages to trump the sum of its parts—quite an accomplishment, as the parts themselves are pretty darned keen. A casual know-how informs both the song structure and the production; we get a masterly mix of rhythm and melody, guitar and drum, busy-ness and spaciousness, loud and soft. The loud-soft thing is especially cool, since the White boys (Tom’s on drums) aren’t offering a standard sort of “here’s the soft part, here’s the loud part” approach as much as utilizing the dynamic range of sound throughout, much as a first-rate black and white photograph will display the blackest black, the whitest white, and many gradations of grey in between. Another cool thing is the nifty coda: note at 4:02 how the song’s drive shifts gears, the beat moving to swinging triplets, before the drums pretty much disintegrate, electronically. Or something like that. The song will be found on the band’s next CD, No Need to Be Downhearted, their third full-length, scheduled for an April release on Better Looking Records. The MP3 is via Better Propaganda.

“Limbs” – Emma Pollock

A lovely piano refrain, composed of a careful series of arpeggios, runs through this pensive acoustic ballad. The song builds to it slowly—piano is part of the central sound from the outset, but the anchoring refrain is not heard until 1:12, and from there it accompanies the verse as it proceeds, falling away during the understated chorus. Overall, “Limbs” advances with a beguiling sort of relaxed meticulousness: not a guitar string, not a piano key is used without precision, and yet, perhaps because of Pollock’s warm, and warmly recorded, voice, the effort seems easy-flowing, almost impromptu. The song seems to emerge from some mysterious, unflappable inner space; despite the strong melody, the effect is still somewhat trancelike. Emma Pollock, from Glasgow, was one of the founders of the well-regarded ’90s band the Delgados, who were also responsible for founding the important independent record label Chemikal Underground. The band split amicably in 2005; Pollock has been signed to 4AD Records since. Her solo debut is forthcoming at some unspecified date. “Limbs” is so far a free-standing song. The MP3 is courtesy of SXSW.com, which has just unleashed its latest storehouse of free and legal MP3s, oriented now towards the 2007 festival happening next month in Austin.

This Week’s Finds: Feb. 11-17 (Goldrush, Sarah Shannon, The Veils)

“Every One of Us” – Goldrush

We don’t seem at a loss here in the still-young year for brilliant, glistening rock songs. Here’s another, from the fine British band Goldrush. I love how the guitars add texture and tension to the song’s galloping beat, both the wavery synth-y line that arches like a siren above and the waves of skittery feedback-like chords that fade in and out below. But maybe the best thing on display here is Robin Bennett’s voice, which I find deeply affecting—a rubbery and slightly trembly tenor that at certain moments bring Ray Davies to mind (as, happily, do the melodies). And please listen to the words, which start out poignant and then turn transcendent, as the song makes that rare, exceptional link between the socio-political and the interpersonal. What begins as a moving statement on 21st-century alienation gains depth and spirit as the perspective angles in on a single human heart: “And if nothing is the way that it was/ Well there’s one thing you can be sure of, because/ We are not the way that we were/ She will forget about you/ So forget about her.” The title phrase proceeds to assume two competing, plaintive meanings. Nice nice work. “Every One of Us” is a song from the band’s new CD, The Heart is the Place, which is set for release next week in the U.K. on Truck Records, an impressively robust label run by Bennett and his brother Joe, who is also in Goldrush. The CD has been out since mid-January on City Slang, the band’s German label. No word yet on a U.S. release date. The MP3 is available via City Slang.

“City Morning Song” – Sarah Shannon

With its sunny, late-’60s/early-’70s swing and bright-eyed production, “City Morning Song” has seemingly little to do with the noise pop favored by Shannon as lead singer of the mid-’90s band Velocity Girl. And yet, what, to my ears, made that band’s fuzzy, atmospheric music work so well was Shannon’s airy voice floating above the busy, churning din. Remove the busy, churning din and here’s her airy voice, set free in a vastly different musical landscape, in which we can now hear its attractive, meatier, Laura Nyro-ish-ness, especially in her lower register. Loving reverberations from a bygone era suffuse this snappy little number: the sly time-signature stutter that perks up the piano chord section introducing and anchoring the song; the piano itself, all guileless chords and happy rhythm; and, but of course, the trumpet—emerging in the background at 1:10, and you don’t quite hear it, but hear it enough to make the short solo (1:42) smilingly inevitable. (Burt Bacharach, at least, would be smiling.) Shannon clearly feels at home here—City Morning Song is her second solo CD, and her previous effort, a self-titled album in 2002, found her likewise reveling predominantly in a ’70s-flavored land of horns, keyboards, and evocative rhythms. City Morning Song was released last week on the Chicago-based Minty Fresh Records; the MP3 is via the Minty Fresh site.

“Advice for Young Mothers to Be” – the Veils

Based charmingly, if unexpectedly, upon classic doo-wop chords and melodies, this song has a mysterious appeal that I’m still trying to figure out. I like, to begin with, when songs are simultaneously accessible and weird. And yes, I have to say that the sound of a young indie band singing anything that sounds remotely like doo-wop is immediately odd—but, also, resoundingly familiar because of the time-honored musical setting. So, there: accessible and weird. And the accessible weirdnesses thereafter pile on, from Finn Andrews’ quavery, croon-y baritone to the lilting, semi-reggae-ish shuffle this comes wrapped in to the inscrutable lyrics and indirect Smiths-like vibe—I can’t put my finger on that one precisely because Andrews doesn’t really sound like Morrissey but there’s something in, maybe, his delivery that does the trick: try when he sings “The friends who care still call you on the phone” (1:18) or the words in the chorus “Your advice for young mothers to be/ Will never find the words, darling believe me” and see if you can’t hear it. “Advice for Young Mothers to Be” is from the Veils’ second CD, Nux Vomica, which was released in the U.K. last fall on Rough Trade Records, and is scheduled for a U.S. release in April on Great Society Records. Andrews, by the way, is son of Barry Andrews, once of XTC and later of Shriekback. Based in New Zealand, the Veils are now a trio; they were a quartet on their first CD, The Runaway Found (2004), and everyone but Andrews from that incarnation is gone.

This Week’s Finds: February 4-10 (Fulton Lights, Telograph, The Bird and The Bee)

“Thank God for the Evening News” – Fulton Lights

Satisfyingly moody and intriguingly entitled, “Thank God for the Evening News” unfolds with vivid style over an unhurried beat and minimal chord changes. Now then, I like chord changes and pretty much thought I required a good number of them in a song; and yet here’s one with maybe two chords in it and I’m quickly and continually engaged. Well. How can this be? Certainly the beat beguiles, combining an electronica-like ambiance–including the subtlest sort of clanky, scratchy noises and thin, smashy drums–with organic sounds, including in particular a nice assortment of strings, employed with great color as the song progresses. Could it be that Andrew Spencer Goldman, the driving force behind Fulton Lights, uses the texture of the beat in lieu of chord changes, as its own sort of structure and substance? It’s a theory. What he also has going for him is a wavery tenor, and a billowy melody for it to sing–moving and rising and sinking enough to distract you from the single-minded chord structure. The lyrics, at once dreamlike and caustic, add to the stylish desolation, like this recurrent series of lines: “I’ve seen blurry vision/I’ve seen slow explanations/I’ve seen false advertising/And wholesale degradation.” “Thank God for the Evening News” is a track off the debut Fulton Lights CD, self-titled, which is due out next month as a joint release on Goldman’s own Android Eats Records and Catbird Records, a label associated with the estimable blog The Catbirdseat. The MP3 is via the Fulton Lights site.

“Eye for an Eye” – Telograph

Here’s a band from Washington, D.C. with a song that sounds like an intriguing cross between, oh, maybe Echo and the Bunnymen and early R.E.M. Singer Andy Boliek definitely has something of Ian McCulloch’s deep-throated, romantic baritone, while the glistening guitar lines and soaring refrains bring you back to the early ’80s in a number of ineffable ways. Even so, I don’t hear this as simply a throwback or retread; there’s something crisp and present in the sound. I like the hunger conveyed by Boliek’s yearning, repeated return to the E-flat and D notes near the top of his range (for instance, as he sings “border” at 1:02), and love how the bittersweet atmosphere is enhanced by an extended melody that takes us, with a tender sort of briskness, through a lovely series of chords (no shortage of modulation this time!) that to my ears give the song both lift and depth–listen, for instance, from 1:24 to 1:54. “Eye for an Eye” is one of five songs on Telograph’s debut EP, Little Bits of Plastic, which the band released on January 1. The MP3 is via the band’s site.

“I’m a Broken Heart” – The Bird and the Bee

Awash in an echoey, vaguely ’60s-like aural landscape, “I’m a Broken Heart” reveals itself to be brand new at its core, a combination of electro-retro sounds that we’ve never quite heard before. Inara George sings the coy melodies with a beautiful airy tone, while keyboardist/producer Greg Kurskin surrounds her with a warm but quirky mix of jazzy sounds, the line between electronic and organic completely obscured. On their MySpace page, the duo describes their music as “a futuristic 1960’s American film set in Brazil.” While this inspired pronouncement doesn’t quite nail this particular song’s sound, an alternative self-description, “psychedelic Burt Bacharach,” is right on target: if you have doubts, check out the extended horn work, from 2:50 to 3:19, particularly the staccato-y melodrama starting at 3:06. That’s Burt on some sort of drug, all right. George by the way is daughter of legendary Little Feat leader Lowell George, who died back in 1979 when she was five; Jackson Browne is her godfather, and sang on her first solo CD, All Rise, which came out early in 2005. “I’m a Broken Heart” is from the debut CD for the Bird and the Bee, which was released, interestingly, on Blue Note Records (normally a jazz label). The MP3 is via the fine folks at betterPropaganda.

This Week’s Finds: Jan. 28-Feb. 3 (Albert Hammond, Jr., Manic, The Young Republic)

“In Transit” – Albert Hammond, Jr.

With a name that sounds surely like he must be some rough-and-tumble Delta bluesman, Hammond is, rather, simply the guitarist in the Strokes—oh, and also the son of the guy who co-wrote the ’70s hits “It Never Rains in Southern California” and “The Air That I Breathe.” Neither of those connections, however, set the stage for this chimey, brightly-paced, instantly likeable song. While the sharp guitar lines are reminiscent of something you’d hear from the Strokes, the vibe is lighter, airier, and poppier. Hammond betrays an unexpected affinity for ELO (there are moments when his voice in fact sounds eerily like Jeff Lynne’s), complete with that old band’s penchant for sky- and space-oriented sounds and imagery. Listen here how the melody in the verse seems literally to float in space above the double-time background; then in the chorus, the idea of floating in space is accentuated by those Star Trek synthesizers. (Hammond sings about how he “went too far” just as the background implies “where no man has gone before”: cute.) “In Transit” is the lead track from Yours To Keep–the first solo album released by any member of the Strokes. The CD was released back in October in the U.K. (where the band have always been huge); the U.S. release is slated for March, on New Line Records. The MP3 comes from the New Line site, via Filter.

“Chemicals for Criminals” – Manic

After a short atmospheric recording studio noodle, this one leaps out of the speakers with remarkable assurance for a new band. We get an incisive melody, a strong, sly beat, and ringing guitars shot through with a hint of dissonance, all held together by singer Paul Gross’s full-throttled delivery that, like the song itself, manages to combine indie spunk with the sort of blazing poise one expects from an arena band. This is one of those unusual songs where the hook comes at you in the first line of the verse: that melody is the centerpiece of the song, and as often as it’s repeated, it manages to continually engage me. Maybe it’s the octave harmonies (gotta love those octave harmonies); maybe it’s the fact that it’s based on the same notes as “Whistle While You Work.” “Chemicals for Criminals” is a song off this L.A. foursome’s debut release, Floor Boards, a five-song EP on Suretone Records that came out last week. The MP3 is via Suretone.

“Girl in a Tree” – the Young Republic

Back we go to the Young Republic, and back we go to that resonant two-chord progression I wrote about a few weeks ago. This time it’s supported with this marvelous Boston band’s vivid and inventive instrumental sensibility: we get a variety of strings, we get a flute, and I think a trumpet, and maybe a tambourine and a mandolin? The eight members of the Young Republic are classically trained and obviously play and think like a true ensemble, but instead of being subsumed by an actual orchestra (in which you don’t hear, for example, a single violin as often as “violins”—a different sound), they play in a setting in which each voice can be heard distinctly. The perky way the two central chords are presented in the intro, on a sprightly variety of dueling stringed instruments, is but one example. And let not the sophisticated musicianship allow us to lose sight of another of the band’s primary assets, which is singer/songwriter/rhythm guitarist Julian Saporiti, whose textured ache of a voice recalls an earthier version of Belle and Sebastian’s Stuart Murdoch. “Girl in a Tree” is a song from the band’s most recent release, YR7, which yup is their seventh release; the MP3 is via the band’s site.