Author: jeremyfingertips

This Week’s Finds: March 19-25 (Sinéad O’Connor, Midlake, Spider)

“Y Mas Gan” – Sinéad O’Connor

Make no mistake: Sinéad O’Connor is a magical singer; the various twists and turns her career have taken, many of them controversial, have maybe blinded us to how deeply talented she really is. We were given another chance to figure this out last year, in the most unexpected of ways, as the often hair-free Irish singer recorded an album of roots reggae covers entitled Throw Down Your Arms (self-released in October on a label she calls That’s Why There’s Chocolate and Vanilla). It was the kind of well-intentioned but confusing-to-the-mass-media effort that was destined to look like a sort of stunt and fade away. I pretty much missed it, telling myself “Well, I’m not really much of a reggae fan anyway” and leaving it at that. Then I stumbled last week upon this MP3 atmusic.download.com and I realize I may have missed a treasure. This song has great musical character from the get-go, revolving around the mischievous dialogue between a melodic bass line and sly horn chart that unfolds against the familiar loping reggae beat. O’Connor’s voice has an incredible purity at its center, and she has learned to sing with a stunning sort of restraint, almost as if she were able to whisper with her mouth wide open. Listen for her overdubbed, upper-register harmonies, which offer a series of brilliant, unanticipated intervals in the service of the melody and the message. O’Connor traveled to Jamaica to record the CD in Bob Marley’s Tuff Gong recording studio, with the help of master reggae rhythm section/producers Sly and Robbie; she even went so far as to use at least one musician on each track who played on the original. Here she sings a song recorded first by the Abyssinians in 1972. Most of the words are not in English; she may or may not be playing entirely by whatever rules that practitioners and/or fans believe may govern the genre; all I know is that the end result is not only beautiful but distinctly inspiring.

“Roscoe” – Midlake

After a chuggy bit of Fleetwood Mac-ish keyboard vamping, we find ourselves abruptly in the middle of an unfathomable tale involving stonecutters, mountaineers, and an odd sense of displacement in both time and space. As difficult as it is to get grounded here lyrically, I feel myself completely embraced musically, and this is I believe one of pop music’s most wondrous gifts: the capacity to juxtapose accessible music with mysterious lyrics (just as powerful a combination, I think, as the more often discussed idea of setting sad lyrics to happy music). Too often it seems bands feel the need to push into obscurity both musically and lyrically, and while this no doubt can have its own rewards, it rarely works that well for the uninitiated listener, or for anyone seeking great pop music, which requires some amount of listenability by definition. Longtime Fingertips visitors may recall Midlake for the majestic “Balloon Maker,” a stylish piece of Brit-inflected neo-progressive pop from the band’s debut CD in 2004. “Roscoe” sounds almost nothing like that, its Stevie Nicks groove transforming singer/songwriter Tim Smith’s voice into that guy from Bread this time, although his Thom Yorke-ish tone is still pleasantly apparent. A five-piece band from Denton, Texas, Midlake will release its second CD, entitled (unfathomably enough) The Trials of Van Occupanther, on Bella Unionin July.

“Don’t Be Afraid, I’ve Just Come to Say Goodbye (The Ballad of Clementine Jones)” – Spider

Sometimes this song pulls the listener in to such a whispery-quiet place it seems I can hear not merely the acoustic guitar but the very act of strings being plucked and the guitar’s body shifting on the thighs of the guitar player. We’re talking intimate sound here, and yet what’s so bracing and engaging is how much else is going on even in this very personal setting: a wistful flute comes and goes, as does a french horn, a lonely yet precise wood block, and, even, some backward-sounding electric guitar lines, everything coming and going with so much gentleness that you don’t realize something has been until it’s not again. At the center of everything is Jane Herships, doing musical business as Spider, and it is her semi-trembly yet articulate voice that anchors the effort and keeps it from veering off into some sort of lo-fi abyss. If you think it’s easy to sing this closely and precisely and unwaveringly in pitch, you haven’t tried; and if you think it doesn’t make a difference, you haven’t heard enough singers who can’t do it. “Don’t Be Afraid…” is from Spider’s eight-song CD, The Way to Bitter Lake, which was released earlier this year.

This Week’s Finds: March 12-18 (SXSW edition: Pieta Brown, Oppenheimer, Nicolai Dunger)

The massive music orgy otherwise known as SXSW gets underway in Texas this week: more than 1,300 artists from around the world performing at a crazy variety of venues in Austin over a five-day stretch (you do the math–that’s 260+ acts a day). In salute of this ear-boggling enterprise, all three picks this week come from the really worthwhile storehouse of more than 700 MP3s the SXSW folks have amassed on their website. Here are three of the best ones I’ve come across so far (in addition to the ones featured over the past couple of weeks–namely, Editors and Guillemots).


#807 – Pieta Brown

With great offhand authority, Pieta Brown sounds like Kathleen Edwards taught by Rickie Lee Jones to stand in for Tom Waits; “#807” is all sturdy melody and slinky atmospherics, delivered with a dusky, jazzy sort of smolder. Words are carressed, slightly slurred, Brown’s voice alternating between soft and broken, and yet (here’s the impressive thing) never overwhelming the musical movement. I love the combination of intent and spaciousness created by the interplay between the understated drumming and the forlorn electric guitar (hat’s off to guitarist and co-producer Bo Ramsey), and how Brown lays herself in among them, rather than seek attention histrionically, as so many singers these days appear taught to do. I’m not a fan of generic bluesy-folksy stuff, but the minute I hear a song with a strong sense of its own center like this, I feel rivetted. Daughter of singer/songwriter Greg Brown, Pieta (pronounced pee-ETT-uh) has recorded three CDs to date; “#807” is from her latest, In The Cool, released in September 2005 on Valley Entertainment.


“Breakfast in NYC” – Oppenheimer

Mid-tempo synth-pop enlivened by its splendid juxtaposition of a heavy, drone-propelled beat and sweet soaring vocals. Subtract the synthesizers–both the fuzzy, deep one and the dingly high one–and the song is revealed at its core to be Beach-Boys pure (the very first word, even, is “Summer”), its Brian Wilson-y sing-song verse setting up a heart-bursting hook in the chorus. It’s a hook that packs a grand wallop for almost no apparent reason: the melody takes what sound like joyful leaps both upward and downward that all turn out to be that most pedestrian of intervals, the third. A third is the basic building block of music; all chords are based on thirds. And yet here the interval sounds towering, revelatory–probably due to both the singer’s immaculate tone and the irresistible use of echo harmonies as the thirds alternate achingly between major and minor chords. Ahhhh–just brilliant. Oppenheimer is a duo, first names Shaun and Rocky, from Belfast, Northern Ireland; they are thus far keeping information about themselves close to the vest. I can’t discover, for instance, which one is the lead singer, but I do know that the band’s debut CD is expected out in June on Bar/None Records.


“Hunger” – Nicolai Dunger

A joyous re-working of Van Morrison’s classic sound (ah, if only Van the Man himself hadn’t forsaken this vibe so entirely in recent decades; I miss it, is all). “Hunger” is all free-wheeling drive and shake-it-out passion, complete with warm piano riffs, soulful organ lines, surf-guitar accents (!), and hot horn charts. The wonderful combination of Dunger’s no-holds-barred vocal style and the song’s tumbly energy makes me certain when I say: Give me good over “new” any day of the week. All too many rock music writers, online and otherwise, issue noisy disapproval when they hear “nothing new” in the music of this or that band, but since when is newness a categorical virtue? Quality is the only thing it seems to me we should be paying attention to, and previously unheard sounds do not have the corner market on quality, says me. But I digress. As for Dunger, he was once a promising soccer player on the Swedish national team who was discovered by a producer who happened to walk by as Dunger sang on the balcony of his apartment in the small city of PiteÃ¥, on the Gulf of Bothnia in northern Sweden. That’s their story and they’re sticking to it. Dunger has been recording CDs for European release since 1996; “Hunger” can be found on his latest, entitled Here’s My Song, You Can Have It…I Don’t Want It Anymore, to be released in the U.S. tomorrow on Zoe Records.

This Week’s Finds: March 5-11 (Guillemots, Gus Black, Envelopes)

“Who Left the Lights Off, Baby?” – Guillemots

“I don’t think there’s a greater art than writing a three-minute pop song that people can sing when they’re drunk,” says Guillemots’ singer and songwriter Fyfe Dangerfield (nee Hutchins). Okay, so this one’s five minutes; but who’s counting when it’s this good-natured, finger-snappy, and brimming with loose-limbed musicality. “Who Left the Lights Off, Baby?” harkens back to Dexy’s Midnight Runners (“Come On, Eileen,” anyone?) for some of its rollicking spirit, but seems to be operating in a universe entirely of its own. On the one hand effortlessly catchy, the song on the other hand has some unusual things going on in the background and around the edges, such as the wash of spacey keyboards that accompanies most of the way through, the beepy synthesizer outburst at 2:03, the crunchy guitar that slashes in off the beat at around 2:42 (sounding as if another song has accidentally starting playing on my MP3 player at the same time), and then that startlingly hot sax solo that closes things down. Some of the song’s ineffable originality may have to do with the multinationality of the band: while Dangerfield is from England, the guitarist is from Brazil, the drummer from Scotland, and the bass player is from Canada (she’s also a woman, and is actually playing the double bass). “Who Left the Lights Off, Baby?” is a song off From the Cliffs, the band’s eight-song EP due out next week on Fantastic Plastic. The MP3 is one of the hundreds of free and legal downloads available via the SXSW web site.


“Certain Kind of Light” – Gus Black

“Certain Kind of Light” is crisp, itchy, and immediately recognizable and appealing: recognizable because, yeah, the basic chord pattern is a well-well-worn path, appealing because, well, it’s an incredibly engaging shift to most people’s ears. Why else is “867-5309/Jenny” such an indelible part of rock’n’roll history? This time around L.A.-based singer/songwriter Gus Black takes on the classic progression, and the freshness here, to my ears, has to do with the song’s brisk, syncopated feel. Rather than take us on a straightforward, Tommy Tutone-ish 4/4 power pop rave-up, Black, with his potent, elastic tenor, delivers a delicious sense of tension via the rhythm and meter. (Extra points for him for doing so in under three minutes.) I can’t always decipher time signatures successfully, but something to do with three rather than four is happening here: note how the rhythm section lays out an urgent series of six beats, while you can simultaneously count a slower 1-2-3 under the basic melody. As far as the basic chord progression goes, I could start talking incoherently about relative minors and subdominants and all that, but in looking at a keyboard I noticed this: the chord pattern is rooted in the fact that any minor chord is converted to a major chord by simply taking its top note up a half step. There’s something powerful here, symbolically: just a half step separates minor from major in this instance. Light/dark, good/evil–supply your own metaphor. In the meantime we’ve all but forgotten about good old Gus Black, whose fourth CD, Autumn Days, is set for U.S. release March 21 on Cheap Lullaby Records; apparently it’s been out in Europe since last summer.


“Audrey in the Country” – Envelopes

I know, I know: she’s singing out of tune. But bear with me, and her, as together we try to make it okay anyway. Lead singer Audrey (yes) Pic gains some points back for her endearing, Parisian accent (many of us Americans find what we call “foreign accents” unaccountably endearing, for some reason). And maybe the accent somehow makes the pitch problems a little more bearable, but in the end chalk it up to one of pop music’s most mysterious (infuriating?) qualities–namely, that singing in tune is not a prerequisite for success. So stay with this quirky, bouncy little song and see if it doesn’t work for you too somehow. For me, when the band kicks in fully, at around 0:28, the swelling, bright blue joy of the melody and the perky, melodious accompaniment takes over and suddenly, life is bright and bouncy. The presence of what sounds like a Hammond B3 organ in the swirly mix definitely helps. No doubt this is some sort of quirky, autobiographical thing but I’m not spending a lot of time trying to figure it all out, I’m just enjoying the romping-through-the-meadows sound of the ensemble, which creates a sonic innocence in the context of which the off-key singing perhaps almost makes sense. Envelopes is (are? never sure how that works) a quintet featuring four guys from Sweden, and Audrey, from France; “Audrey in the Country” is a tune from the band’s first CD, entitled Demon, which was released last summer in Europe on the Psychotic Reaction label. The MP3 is available via the band’s web site.

This Week’s Finds: Feb. 26-March 4 (Editors, Shoot the Moon, Buried Beds)

“Munich” – Editors

All siren-like guitars and deep drive, “Munich” is an engaging puzzle. With a full-bodied bravado owing much to British forebears such as Ian McCulloch (Echo & the Bunnymen), vocalist Tom Smith repeats a limited number of minimalist phrases, sketching the sketchiest of stories, at the center of which is a terrific chorus that breaks one of my personal cardinal rules of songwriting: never force the singer to accent the wrong syllable for the sake of the music. And yet here’s Smith singing “People are fragile things, you should know by now/Be careful what you put them through,” the music forcing him to sing “fragile” unintelligibly, with equal accents on both syllables. But: so much for cardinal rules. Because of the song’s resplendent atmosphere, because of Smith’s engaging delivery, and, maybe most of all, because of the poignancy of the remark itself, it works. In fact I find myself half believing that the offbeat enunciation was purposeful, that to more effectively make the point he did not allow himself the vulnerability required to say what he’s saying clearly. In any case, “Munich” strikes me as a sharp new take on the sort of sound some British bands (Joy Division and Ultravox too, along with Echo) were exploring back in the early ’80s. Sure, you can ask: “Munich? Huh?” But to ask is to miss the point of a mystery rendered strong and true by the chiming guitars, the driving beat, the resonant lyrical fragments, and (my favorite touch) the ghostly minor seventh traced by what sounds like a synthesizer through the heart of the chorus. “Munich” is a song off the band’s debut CD, The Back Room, to be released in the U.S. in March on the Fader Label (it came out in the U.K. last year). The MP3 is one of the many new ones recently made available via the SXSW web site.

“Tales From the Sea” – Shoot the Moon

The rollicking charm of this homespun adventure is apparent from the get-go: the open-ocean piano/guitar vamp of the introduction, and then that immediate “hey, cool!” part when the phrase “captain of the ship” is ever so slightly delayed before the word “ship,” in a way that sounds like a wave breaking across the bow. While the loose-limbed, orchestral feel makes comparisons to Montreal’s more well-known export, the Arcade Fire, semi-inevitable, Shoot the Moon doesn’t ooze that band’s edgy anxiety even as there’s a certain sort of tumbly similarity to the sound. I’m finding it hard to follow exactly what’s going on (there are hints of all sorts of high-seas drama unfolding), but it’s all backdrop to the engaging music, with its oceanic ebbs and flows. Ever the sucker for octave harmonies, I particularly like the ones I’m hearing in what may be the chorus (the whole song is pretty loose-limbed, come to think of it) because it sounds, unusually, like female vocals on top (the band’s lead singer is actually Nadia Bashalani, but she takes a backseat on this song). Shoot the Moon is a three-man, three-woman band with one self-released CD under its belt—an eight-song EP called Where Stangers Live, which came out last year. The MP3 is available via their MySpace page.

“Camellia” – Buried Beds

The sparse, clunky-ish drumbeat that opens “Camellia” gives you no idea at all of the sultry, yearning song that follows. But a soft keyboard enters, and the hint of a slide guitar, and then Eliza Hardy opens her mouth. Ahh: she sings close in your ear, with a beautiful tone, but torn up just a bit. Really nice. Another way she engages me at the outset is the four-measure melody she starts with—it leads into the verse, and is heard only once more, at the very end. That’s an unusual touch; at the beginning it lengthens the melodic line almost mysteriously; at the end it provides an aching sort of closure. As alluring as Hardy’s voice is, she sounds maybe even better when joined in harmony by her original bandmate Brandon Beaver in the chorus (Buried Beds began as a duo, expanding since then to a quintet); of course this may also be because the chorus itself is gorgeous, with all the low-key assurance of a lost pop standard. Featuring an unusal array of instruments (including mandolin and viola), Buried Beds is a Philadelphia band that arose from something called the New Planet Art Collective, a community of writers, artists, and musicians not far from the University of Pennsylvania; “Camellia” is a song off the group’s debut CD, Empty Rooms, which has been available at band gigs since last year but has been more officially released last week. The MP3 is available via the band’s web site.

This Week’s Finds: February 19-25 (Dead Heart Bloom, the High Violets, the Submarines)

“Letter to the World” – Dead Heart Bloom

With its Pink Floyd chords, Beatlesque strings, and Neil Finn-ish melody, “Letter to the World” is both lovely and deep, always a gratifying combination. The loveliness stems from a beautiful major-to-minor melodic refrain set against an exquisitely restrained instrumental background; the depth emerges first from Boris Skalsky’s rich voice, with its Lennon-like timbre, and, as with the loveliness, is encouraged by the pristine production. Formerly the bassist and keyboard player with a D.C. band called the Phasers, Boris Skalsky is now doing the one-man singer/songwriter/performer/producer thing as Dead Heart Bloom. To his credit, however, Skalsky seems at the same time to enjoy collaboration, bringing guest musicians in where needed (and thus avoiding the claustrophobic feeling that often afflicts bedroom rock productions). And he clearly knows what he’s doing: listen to how beautifully everything is layered together, from those mournful string quartet flourishes to his firmly centered piano motifs to that forlorn guitar crying echoes in the distance. Dead Heart Bloom’s debut, self-titled CD will be released in March on KEI Records, but is now available to download, for free, via the Dead Heart Bloom web site. Do yourself a favor and check out other songs on the album, as Skalsky manages, impressively, to range far and wide sonically even while sounding in the end very much like one band.


“Sunbaby” – the High Violets

And yet sometimes of course I feel like all the fuzzed-up grind of a real band. I will forever be partial to the sort of sound the High Violets aspire to, a shoegazey sort of churny-chimey drive, with an angelic singer floating along on top of all the rumbly electricity. I’ve been sitting with this song for a number of weeks, putting it aside in the past for what I kept hearing as the lack of a completely satisfying hook; but this week, coming after the precise beauty of the Dead Heart Bloom song, this sounds quite satisfying indeed (the segue is really good, if I do say so myself). (And okay, I know, not many of you guys may necessarily listen to each week’s songs one after the other, but be aware that they are in fact selected as threesomes, each balancing something off against the other two.) One of the mistakes I made previously was not turning the volume up high enough: this song just does not achieve its full minimalist-hypnotic effect without the right volume. (When the rhythm and lead guitars start to sort of melt into each other, you’re just about loud enough.) Singer Kaitlin Ni Donovan has both a cool name and a fetching way of singing the word “you” differently each of the six times she sings it in the chorus. She has a fetching way of singing “sunbaby” too, just kind of snapping the word “sun” off the roof of her mouth. The High Violets are a Portland, Oregon-based quartet; “Sunbaby” is a song from their new CD, To Where You Are, released at the end of January on Reverb Records. The MP3 is available via the band’s web site.


“Clouds” – the Submarines

No doubt if every song were in three-quarter time, the concept would wear thin, probably quickly. But as this is an unlikely development, songs that bounce along with three beats to the measure frequently carry an automatic, bonus air of wistful joy about them. The duo calling themselves the Submarines accentuate this wistful-joyful dichotomy as singer Blake Hazard’s intimate, ache-laced voice is offset by a bubbly keyboard riff; likewise does the pair manage to fuse a groovy ’60s vibe (I keep think I’m hearing musical allusions to early Joni Mitchell in here–hey she sang about clouds too–but they slip away when I try to pin them down) with a more somber 21st-century electronica edge. Hazard and John Dragonetti, the other Submarine, were once a couple, broke up, went and wrote a bunch of songs separately, and may now be reunited; it’s kind of hard to tell from the convoluted bio posted on the Nettwerk Records site [no longer online]. Likewise difficult to discern is when their debut CD, called Declare a New State is coming out–sometime in the spring, it seems. In any case, “Clouds” is one of three good songs from the CD now available as free and legal MP3s on the band’s site. Many thanks one more time to Bruce from Some Velvet Blog for the lead.

This Week’s Finds: Feb. 12-18 (The Essex Green, Shelley Short, The Elected)

“Don’t Know Why (You Stay)” – The Essex Green

Previous songs I’ve heard from The Essex Green have had their charms somewhat blanketed by the earnest groovy-’60s vibe laid on with such love and attention that it all grew a bit thick–everything from specific guitar sounds to the character of background harmonies and the tone of flute flourishes seemed almost too studied, or maybe too precious. Or maybe it was just the songs didn’t stick. But the band is back soon with its third full-length CD (The Cannibal Sea) and it sounds like things may be really clicking for them this time. “Don’t Know Why (You Stay)” has the crisp swagger of a great old Lindsay Buckingham tune, building a compelling whole from the steady, knowing layering together of its various parts; when the Mamas-and-Papas harmonies come in to flesh out the chorus, they seem the perfect embellishment rather than a cute bit of retro style. And darn if I don’t love to death the mysteriously engaging vocal leap taken each time on the second “I don’t know why” of each chorus. Too bulky to describe in words, just listen. It’s mysteriously engaging, you’ll see. The new CD is due out in March on Merge Records.


“Sweet Heart Said” – Shelley Short

Not much of a fan of pre-fabricated Hallmark holidays, I offer a prickly-cute, offbeat sort of Valentine’s Day salute, courtesy of the prickly-cute, offbeat Shelley Short. With a timeless, deep-folk melody, charming percussion, and an arresting violin accompaniment, the song clangs along with a determined stop-start-iness; it’s like someone deconstructing the McGarrigle sisters. Short’s new album, Captain Wild Horse (Rides The Heart of Tomorrow), is as endearingly enigmatic as the title suggests, a sometimes hypnotic amalgam of soft but often off-balance sounds, recorded in a purposeful sort of lo-fi sheen, if such a thing is possible. Short is a refugee from both art school and the Pacific Northwest who has settled for the time being in Chicago (“for no good reason,” notes her bio). Captain Wild Horse is her second CD; it will be released tomorrow (Valentine’s Day!) on Hush Records; the MP3 is courtesy of the good folks at Hush.


“Not Going Home” – the Elected

Glistening and stately, “Not Going Home” is a spiffy and captivating example of a new sort of rock that’s been emerging here in the 21st century, a rock that merges the big and the small in subtle and distinctive ways. While taking a lot of sonic cues from the smooth pop-rock of the ’70s, this is not really anything like that sort of stuff. The band’s own record label refers to this song as the album’s “stadium-sized centerpiece” but I really think they’ve got it mislabeled; it’s only stadium-sized to the extent that the stadium fits onto the HDTV screen in the family room. And to be honest that’s really what’s so intriguing and different here. Blake Sennett and company here take an expansive melody, rig it up with layers of vocals, underscore it with a ringing, reverb-ing guitar line, and still give us something precise and intimate. Sennett’s voice has a wonderful, mouthy sort of character that gives his whispery high notes an unnerving amount of depth. I can’t nail this down with words, but the sonic space here is introspective rather than extroverted; even the all-but-shouted vocalizing of the song’s final minute sounds personal and close at hand rather than arena-big. Sennett is Jenny Lewis’s songwriter partner and guitarist in Rilo Kiley; the Elected is his side project, and the band’s album Sun, Sun, Sun (Sub Pop), coincidentally or not, came out the same day in January as Lewis’s more widely publicized solo endeavor, Rabbit Fur Coat. The MP3 is available via the Sub Pop site.

This Week’s Finds: Feb. 5-11 (The Apparitions, Khoiba, The Young Republic)

“Electricity + Drums” – the Apparitions

From its almost startling, stripped-down, Frank Zappa-meets-the-Stones opening, “Electricity + Drums” picks up full-out rock’n’roll flavor, but with any number of idiosyncratic turns and shifts. I’m particularly enjoying how the song blends the straight-ahead ambiance of a basic, three-chord rocker while actually sneaking a lot more into its simple-seeming container. The overall sound seems familiar in a rootsy-rocky somewhat-Southern sort of way and yet also slightly off and unusual, like when you dream you’re in your own house, and you know it’s your own house even as it doesn’t look like your house really looks. Stuff keeps happening: different vocalists show up (three of the band members sing), chords modulate, guitars churn and squeak in unexpected combinations (the band also features three guitarists). I don’t think I’ve often for instance heard these two sounds in one song: the down-and-dirty, feedbacky, “get ready to rock” electric guitar sound at :33 and the siren-like octave accents that chime in around 2:18. They are from two entirely different rock-guitar universes. The Apparitions are a five-man band from Lexington, KY; their second CD, As This Is Futuristic, was released last month on Machine Records. The MP3 is available via the band’s site. (MP3 no longer there, but Heather has posted it at I Am Fuel You Are Friends, so I hope she doesn’t mind the link here.)


“Sonic Parts” – Khoiba

Slow, moody electro-pop from the Prague-based quartet Khoiba (apparently pronounced ko-EE-ba). Listen to how vocalist Ema Brabcova keeps us paradoxically enveloped and off-balance through the purposeful meanderings of the song’s subtle yet robust melody. The quiet verse–based around the always lovely alternation between a minor one and major four chord–appears to resist a time signature, which right away tells me that we’re dealing with something interesting. (Standard-issue electronica, after all, is all about beats; beats are all about steady time signatures–in other words, a regular, symmetrical rhythm, however fuzzed-up and complicated by programmed effects.) Electronica accents, subtle at first, more up front as the song develops, are therefore used for their aural contributions, not just for their rhythms. Even as the chorus acquires a steadier beat, Brabcova’s plaintive, hanging-off-the-beat, fully human voice (listen to how she lets it crack and wobble, softly but definitively, whenever it wants or needs to) dominates almost hypnotically. “Sonic Parts” is a song off the band’s debut CD, Nice Traps, released in September on Streetbeat Records. The MP3 is available via the band’s site. (Khoiba, by the way, is an invented name, which strikes me as a particularly brilliant move for a band in the Google era.)


“Blue Skies” – the Young Republic

I think it’s safe to say that not many rock songs have begun with this particular combination of strings, flute, and drums. It sounds like a small orchestra has arrived to serenade you out your window (and here you didn’t even know the sun was out and the flowers were blooming). It’s a charming, earnest bit of acoustic fuss and bother, leading right into a quick, lightly-stepping piece of pop, full of expansive melodic lines and grand ensemble energy. Vocalist Julian Saporiti uses his thin, guileless voice with great verve, as if physically buttressed by all the musicians who’ve agreed to play along. The net effect is a rather precise amalgem of Belle and Sebastian and the Arcade Fire, but only achieved by a band not attempting specifically to sound like that at all. The Young Republic is Boston-based nonet (and how often do I get to use that word?); they once in fact had 11 members, and all are Berkee College of Music students. “Blue Skies” comes from the band’s new, eight-song Modern Plays CD. The MP3 is up on the band’s site. Thanks to Bruce at Some Velvet Blog for the head’s up.

This Week’s Finds: Jan. 29-Feb. 4 (Neko Case, Loveninjas, Wes McDonald)

“Star Witness” – Neko Case

A mysterious, echoey, and rewarding waltz from the highly-regarded Case, itinerant singer/songwriter and member of the indie “supergroup” the New Pornographers. What depths she hits here all across the board: her voice at once lithe and husky, the subtly indelible melodies, the expert arrangements, and (I always love this) the array of extra touches that round the music out so fetchingly—the amusement-park howl at the beginning, the reverby guitar that accompanies, the organic drum sound, the vivid but elusive lyrics. Case sketches a story I can’t quite follow but it doesn’t seem to end happily. Don’t miss the yodeling leap she takes so unexpectedly and perfectly at around 3:42—just another touch that keeps you both engaged and mystified. There’s something in the whole thing, from her vocal presence to the unearthly vibe, that puts me in the mind of the great Syd Straw, from another era of indie/alternative rock—so if any of you know and love Straw I’m pretty sure this is going to be a big winner for you as well. “Star Witness” is a song from Case’s forthcoming CD, the intriguingly titled Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, scheduled for release in early March on Anti Records. The MP3 is available via Better Propaganda.

“Meet Me Here” – Loveninjas

Every now and then a bit of lo-fi sneaks through the usually lo-fi-resistant gates here. But how could I resist a chorus like this? I couldn’t. So perhaps we can all forgive the thin, filtered vocals and tinny electronic percussion that the decidedly offbeat Swedish trio Loveninjas employs on this track to glory in the pop-heavenly melodies. As undeveloped an aural landscape as we’ve got here, these guys give us the full three-part hook: two different ones in the verse, and then the glory of that killer chorus. Apparently this quirky Swedish outfit specializes in goofy/naughty English lyrics, but this song seems genuinely sweet (although it probably isn’t). Apparently, too: “Loveninjas is not really a band. It’s a concept.” So says the web site; it continues: “I was playing with a small electronic piano in the autumn of 2004 when a nice melody evolved. ‘Sweet Geisha Love’ was about the dilemma of a young, female assassin; to kill or to make love. Now that I had a song I figured I might as well start a fake band. I decided on writing about death, sex and Japanese girls only. It’s a good way stimulate creativity.” It’s signed by a guy named Tor; the three who went on to perform the songs live wear costumes, including ninja-style masks. Sweden is an interesting place. “Meet Me Here” is available via the Loveninjas web site; it’s difficult to tell if it’s been released on a CD at this point but I’m guessing not.

“Chinese Rug” – Wes McDonald

There’s something refreshingly old-fashioned enlivening this low-key but still hard-driving number. Except for some recurring film noir-ish/femme-fatale whispering, nothing unusual goes on here at all: the song just rocks, McDonald pushing it forward with an assured sort of throaty, snarly growl that’s one part Steve Earle, one part Graham Parker, one part balding-guy-with-scaggly-hair-in-jeans-who-maybe-looks-like-a-plumber. Seems to me McDonald has Earle’s natural ear for a quick melodic hook as well–look how effortlessly the chorus kicks some seriously catchy butt. A refugee from one of the U.S.’s original hotbeds of alternative rock (Athens, Georgia), McDonald lives now in the hotbed of not very much (Birmingham, Alabama). After a stint in a very Athensy “jangle-rock” band called the Ohms, he went on to record three solo CDs without acquiring too wide a following. This time around he’s enlisted the help of Ken Coomer, ex- of Wilco and Uncle Tupelo, who helped out with the production, also acquiring a bit of a PR help along the way. Not that there’s anything wrong with that: we’ve gotta hear about this stuff somehow. “Chinese Rug” is a song from the forthcoming CD 1:50 In The Furnace, scheduled for release in April on Skybucket Records.

This Week’s Finds: January 22-28 (Mates of State, Oh No! Oh My!, Devics)

“Fraud in the ’80s” – Mates of State

For a keyboard-and-drum duo, Mates of State manage to build a warm and involving sound. The key, I think, is their willingness (and ableness) to be truly musical rather than try to hang too much (an entire song) on too little (beats and maybe a short riff); everywhere you turn this song has been fleshed out and thought through—there’s genuine meat on its catchy and likable bones. Listen for instance to the central keyboard line in the main part of the introduction: most songs that float a melodic riff like that will run it for two measures and vamp it a while, pounding it into your head until the song actually begins. Here, however, the keyboard is playing an actual melody that extends a full eight measures, leading directly into the start of the verse. Singer/keyboardist Kori Gardner has an upfront but soft-edged voice and sings with a fetching looseness, playing with notes in just the right way, adding flourishes that draw attention to the melody rather than her vocal prowess. I like how the throbbing, Laurie Anderson-ish synthesizer we hear in the song’s “pre-intro” returns as the backbone of the bridge that keeps the wonderful chorus at bay until 1:38. Worth the wait, it is, yet even then the song doesn’t stop giving; I especially like the deep, rounded sound that kicks in around 3:22, all fuzzy chords, bashy drums, and now the bass is allowed to stretch out a bit after hiding behind the keyboard most of the song. Oh, and I couldn’t figure out a smooth way to work this into the song description, but note that Gardner and drummer Jason Hammel are married. “Fraud in the ’80s” will be on their forthcoming CD Bring It Back, scheduled for release in March on Barsuk Records. The MP3 is hosted on the Barsuk site.

“Jane is Fat” – Oh No! Oh My!

And sometimes it’s one pure thing in a song that slays me, so go figure: in this case it’s the way vocalist/guitarist/bassist/etc. Greg Barkley unaccountably, idiosyncratically, and yet irrestistibly stretches out the last syllable at the end of the first line of the verse by ricocheting a fifth up and down and up and down. Against that crisp strumming background it’s oddly brilliant. Then notice (well really how will you not notice?) how at the end of the verse (balancing out the bouncing?) he holds just one note far longer than might be expected, or even otherwise desired, given the shrillness of his upper register. The song teeters dangerously on the edge of lo-fi purgatory during what appears to be the chorus, with its unintelligible, sloppy-gang call-and-response and tweeting synthesizer, but, no worries, it holds together thanks largely to the sharp dynamism of the acoustic guitar. There’s an extra payoff in the coda following the second chorus, in which Barkley’s warbly tenor reveals an unexpected depth and poignancy, against a spaghetti-western guitar line. Don’t ask, but it works. Oh No! Oh My! is a trio from Austin, but two of them appear to be living in Nashville now, and they only just recently changed their name from the Jolly Rogers (decidedly less ’00s/indie-sounding, huh?). “Jane is Fat” is from a nine-song self-produced CD made available this past October when they were still the Jolly Rogers; the MP3 is available through their as-yet still-pirate-ish web site. Apparently a full-fledged CD is in the works and will be released soon. Thanks to Catbirdseat for the lead.

“Come Up” – Devics

This one’s just gorgeous. Don’t be deceived by the lounge-like piano and drum sound at the beginning if you don’t like a lounge-like piano and drum sound; once singer Sara Lov opens her mouth, we’re transported way way beyond surface-level cocktail-hour piffle. Such sweet strong character emerges as Lov breathes music into the words over Dustin O’Halloran’s assured touch at the piano; when she arrives at the simple sad sing-along chorus, the piece has acquired a melancholy grandeur not often heard from the indie world. As noted last time Devics were featured here, their music reminds me, admirably, of Over the Rhine: Lov has a lot of Karin Bergquist’s aching soul, with a less idiosyncratic timbre, while O’Halloran accompanies her with a sensitivity akin to the great Linford Detweiler. “Come Up” is a track from the L.A.-based duo’s next CD Push the Heart, to be released in early March on Filter US Recordings, a label associated with Filter Magazine, which hosts the MP3.

This Week’s Finds: January 15-21 (Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan, The Attorneys, Philip Fogarty)


“Ramblin’ Man” – Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan

Every now and then, for reasons I can neither understand nor articulate, a swampy, bluesy romp sounds like just the right thing to me. Normally I don’t connect to this stuff. In this case, however, I’ve no doubt that the crazy combination of Mark Lanegan’s deep gruffly voice (doesn’t he sound like Steve Earle doing a Johnny Cash imitation? sort of?) and Isobel Campbell‘s quintessential whisper-fairy lilt is too brilliantly odd to overlook. Around this vocal odd couple is built a ghost-town shuffle, complete with a deep twangy guitar, whip crack accents, and, at the perfect moment, a lonesome whistle. Lanegan some may remember as the voice of Screaming Trees, the grunge-pop growlers from Washington state, and sometime member of Queens of the Stone Age; Campbell, from Glasgow, spent six years or so as cellist and vocalist with Belle and Sebastian. Somehow or other they decided to collaborate on an album together and this Hank Williams cover is one of the results. “Ramblin’ Man,” originally available on an EP at the end of last year, will be on the CD Ballad of the Broken Seas, to be released later this month on V2 Records. The MP3 is available via Better Propaganda.

“Stay” – the Attorneys

If Queen had been a power pop garage band, they might’ve sounded like this. So it’s big and brash and just this side of over the top (Toto wasn’t all bad, were they?), but I am genetically unable to resist the kind of chorus this one breaks into, never mind the melodies that lead us there: one four and five chords up the wazoo, it’s just irresistible. The Attorneys, a trio from Brooklyn, appear to be gleeful pop ransackers, ready and willing to combine sounds from the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s (heck, maybe they sneaked the ’90s in there too) into one juicy slice of merry bombast, with slashing guitars and histrionic harmonies to spare, all the while careening along that fine line that separates pure pop from ripe cheese. The band has recently self-released its first CD, entitled Sparrow Gardens/Pencil Factory, a 19-song extravaganza divided into what are called two “chapters”; “Stay” leads off the “Pencil Factory” section.

“Sleepless” – Philip Fogarty

Okay so this sounds like Peter Gabriel a bit. Maybe a lot. But the more I listen, the more it doesn’t matter, for a couple of reasons. First of all, the song positively shines with an austere, semi-minimalist beauty—Fogarty wastes few notes and fewer sounds in creating an aural landscape suffused with tension and yearning. This comes across as not so much a standard song as a meditation around one central motif—the part where he sings “And I’m wide awake”—that happens to be perfectly placed and pitched enough to carry the entire enterprise. After I listened a few times the melody there started to give me the shivers. Listen too for the elegant, chime-like piano punctuations, which deepen the musical effect. The other reason why the Peter Gabriel echo doesn’t matter to me is because, well–how many people out there are busy sounding like Peter Gabriel? Pretty much nobody, as everyone seems to be busy trying to sound like the Gang of Four. But come to think of it, Peter Gabriel was putting out a lot of really good music there in the late ’70s that was edgy in its own way; he had a lot more to offer than just being your sledgehammer. Fogarty is an Irish musician with one previous CD to his name (1999’s Endangered Breed); “Sleepless” is a track off his new Short Stories EP, a digital-only release that came out in December and is available via his web site.