Author: jeremyfingertips

This Week’s Finds: August 7-13 (Thee More Shallows, Mercury Rev, Brandi Carlile)

“Freshman Thesis” – Thee More Shallows

A spacey synthesizer noodle leads into a classical violin motif, but notice from the start the strict, punctuating beat (laid out by an accompanying violin): as many changes as the song takes us through, the clock-like beat remains constant, central, sometimes upfront, sometimes implied via syncopation, eventually yanked into a searing metallic shuffle but still always there. You can tap your finger on your desk steadily throughout the song; I’m not sure why this characteristic engages me so but so it does. There is plenty else, however, to appreciate here, from singer Dee Kesler’s plainspoken voice, and the words he sings (example: “Before I spoke in riddles I was worried someone would hear me/Now I know that no one really listens so I will just speak clearly”), to the lovely yet urgent texture created through the interweaving of bass, drum, programming, and the recurring violin. What hooked me for good was how unexpectedly the song is opened by melody from 1:30 through 1:45–what sounded to that point like an intriguing bit of minimalism is deepened by a precise series of delightful musical steps. And then somehow the pretty precision is itself deepened by the slashing coda. (A great touch at the very end: the beat finally stops, but the violin, briefly, endures.) “Freshman Thesis” is the third song on More Deep Cuts, the second Thee More Shallows CD, released last month on Santa Clara, Calif.-based Turn Records. The MP3 is available via the Turn site.

“Vermillion” – Mercury Rev

At once glittering and mysterious, “Vermillion” offers an instantly unique amalgam of sounds, combining the swift beat of an airy pop song with the chiming, floaty atmosphere of something still and new agey and, occasionally, the churning insistence of beat-driven electronica. It’s up to Jonathan Donahue—he of the thin-high-wavery voice and idiosyncratic phrasing—to connect it all, but thanks in large part to the sturdy, inspiring melody of the chorus, he does. I have not personally followed Mercury Rev’s career as it has wound along from the late ’80s through the present day, so I won’t trot out the apparently usual suspects when talking comparisons and influences; me, I hear echoes of glittery-mysterious bands of old, from Supertramp (remember “The Logical Song”? I’m betting Donahue does) to the Blue Nile. “Vermillion” is from The Secret Migration, released in May on V2 Records; thanks to Largehearted Boy for the lead.

“Fall Apart Again” – Brandi Carlile

Do you know how, in a great recipe, two flavors can be combined in such a way that you can clearly discern both of them even as they intermingle to create a new, distinctive taste? Thus does this 23-year-old from rural Washington state marry the throaty depth of Lucinda Williams to Emmylou Harris’s heavenly smoke. While I might wish for a somewhat more distinctive vehicle, song-wise, for this heart-searing voice, well, what the heck–she’s only 23. Besides, if “Fall Apart Again” is not breaking any songwriting ground, that’s really part of the point with Carlile, who admirably seeks a timeless vibe and pretty much hits it. I can keep listening to this because her voice is an ongoing revelation. As much as I’m cringing in advance of what Columbia Records may yet unleash in the effort to make Carlile bigger than Lucinda and Emmylou combined, I have to give the label credit first of all for signing her and second of all for (amazingly) allowing an actual full-length free and legal MP3 to represent her work on the web. So put aside, as I did, some preconceived notions (major label? country twang? professional production? Rolling Stone “artist to watch”? “Brandi”???) and check her out. “Fall Apart Again” is from the debut CD, released in July on Columbia’s Red Ink imprint.

This Week’s Finds: July 31-August 6 (the dB’s, the Spinto Band, Holopaw)

“World to Cry” – the dB’s

Listen to the opening salvo, just that first three seconds of guitar. No point in even trying to describe the sound (rubbery-chimy-dissonant-melodic?; like I said, no point), and the delicious sense of anticipation generated as it leads smack into the concise lines and elegant modulation of the rest of the intro. And then Peter Holsapple opens his mouth and there it is, the dB’s are back. Who’d have thought? Alternative before there was alternative, indie before there was indie, the North Carolina-born, NYC-generated dB’s pioneered what became known by the genre police as “jangle-pop”: a post-punk (late ’70s, early ’80s) reformulation of ’60s folk rock with chiming guitars and stellar melodies. These are indeed the dB’s in their original formation–Holsapple, Chris Stamey, Will Rigby, and Gene Holder: the same guys who recorded the first two (some might say classic) dB’s albums, Stands for Decibels and Repercussion. While this song might not on its own give you a sense of how resplendent this band could be back in the day if you don’t already know who they are, neither (I don’t think) will it disappoint you if you do already know who they are and what they were. The guitar riff from the opening three seconds spreads out as a recurring melodic anchor; Holsapple’s sweet-weary vocal style is as charming as ever; and the song displays characteristic dB’s smarts through its effective alternation of major and minor chords and 6/4 and 4/4 measures. “World to Cry” is one of an album’s worth of songs the band recorded in Hoboken in January; while they await a record deal, the song is available as an MP3 on the band’s site.


“Oh Mandy” – the Spinto Band

Radiohead meets the Electric Light Orchestra at Adrian Belew’s house. From the neat staccato dissonance of the opening measures through its gorgeous chords and sprightly vibe, this is one brilliant piece of 21st-century pop, the simplicity and directness of its surface producing a song shot through with depth and strength. Notice for instance how the verse and the chorus are pretty much identical, musically, then notice how this similarity is used to ravishing effect when the song breaks off for an extended bridge at 2:00: the musical tension builds and deepens as the bridge shifts at 2:21—it seems as if we’re heading back to the verse but instead the song veers a couple of times into a new, neatly unresolved chord before triumphantly returning to the verse at 2:36 with more urgent instrumentation and a wonderful new vocal harmony. This young seven-piece (!) band from Delaware—which has been recording since the band members were in middle school—has a sparkling future if this is any indication. “Oh Mandy” is from the band’s debut full-length, Nice and Nicely Done, released last month on Bar-None Records. The MP3 is available via Spintonic.net. Many thanks to Bruce at Some Velvet Blog for the lead.


“Curious” – Holopaw

This is indeed a curious song, from a curious, difficult-to-describe band. One of the oddest things about “Curious” (besides perhaps singer/songwriter/guitarist John Orth’s unearthly tenor) is how short it is—its delicate, stringed setting and offbeat melody (bringing early Genesis to mind, of all things) speaks of a song that wants to spread out, offer instrumental breaks, bridges, and other ornamental accoutrements. And yet somehow we go from beginning to end in about two and a half minutes. No matter: set your MP3 players on “repeat” and let it cycle through a few times in a row, which seems to be the best way to grasp the underlying solidity of this sprinkly, evanescent, haunting song. My ear was hooked for good by the melody line that begins for the first time at 0:36, and in particular the chord change at 0:39, but that might have been on my third or fourth listen. Holopaw is a band from Gainesville, Florida, named after another Florida town that no one in the band is actually from. “Curious” is a song off Quit +/or Fight, the band’s second CD, slated for release next week on Sub Pop Records. The MP3 is available via the Sub Pop site.

This Week’s Finds: July 24-30 (Annie Gallup, The Deathray Davies, Levy)

“Down the Other Side” – Annie Gallup

Annie Gallup is a fierce writer, a teller of ravishing, compact stories, as funny and sensual as she is literate and subtle, and a vibrant peformer, with an idiosyncratic but immediately accessible, deeply expressive way of kind-of-talking, kind-of-singing her songs. While it’s easy to keep all the emphasis on the words and their delivery (and too readily pigeonhole her as some sort of neo-beatnik folksinger), I am continually impressed by the music as well, which seems at once casually created and intensely crafted, at once sparse and rich; and she may not get too loud but without question she rocks. “Down the Other Side,” for instance, has a swampy, seductive beat and some inspired electric guitar playing, even as the instrumentation is so spare that some of the percussion, it seems, is done by mouth. And yet it’s true that with Gallup, we’re never too far from the lyrics, like these: “Red-tailed hawk and a small white cross/ High on the Great Divide/ Drive on by until the tears I cry/ Roll down the other side”: yikes, to explicate them further takes away their breathtaking poetry. She is the real thing, yet also the single most mysteriously overlooked singer/songwriter I’ve probably ever come across. Swerve, her magnificent 2001 CD, came and went without a trace–I discovered it only as it called to me from the corner of my local library where they sell used books and, occasionally, CDs. Finally she has a follow-up–Pearl Street, her fifth, released on Fifty Fifty Music, oh, in April. (I hadn’t heard.) This is where “Down the Other Side” is from. (The MP3 is hosted on the Fifty Fifty site.) I just checked and found it was (no joke) the 97,854th best-selling CD on Amazon, where all five CDs of hers have now received a total of 7 reviews, at least two by the same person (a friend of hers, apparently). The world isn’t fair, I know, but sometimes it really really isn’t fair.

“Plan To Stay Awake” – the Deathray Davies

Compress “I’ve Just Seen a Face” and “It’s the End of the World as We Know It” into two minutes and five seconds and here we are, listening to the latest fuzzy blast of power pop from the Dallas outfit named after the storied leader of the Kinks. This is as straightforward a rock song as can be imagined–a hurried tumble of words in the verse, a two-line, sing-along chorus repeating the title twice–yet it positively bristles with spirit and panache, proving yet again that the true power of music is suggested but never completely encompassed by its concrete components. Much like life itself, if I may broaden the metaphor. The Deathray Davies were born in the late ’90s as the jokey stage name under which John Dufilho performed solo material that he couldn’t use with Bedwetter, the band he was in at the time. He wrote, sang, and played everything himself on the first Deathray Davies CD in 1999. Dufilho is still the writer and singer but by the third CD in 2002, the Deathray Davies had morphed into an actual band. “Plan to Stay Awake” is from the The Kick and the Snare, released in May on Glurp Records. The MP3 is available via the Glurp site.

“Rotten Love” – Levy

A languid sort of majesty propels this oddly affecting song. Everything seems encased in an echoey, mournful blanket, from singer/guitarist James Levy’s forlorn voice to the soft, chiming synthesizer lines and, even, the ringing wall of guitar that never quite blazes through to the forefront. Nothing, in fact, seems quite to burst through, even as the song moves at a steady clip; when all is said and done, lyrics about smelling the rotten love are perhaps best heard cushioned by the aforementioned mournful blanket. Levy is a NYC-based quartet that’s been gathering an enthusiastic following since its founding in 2003; for the record, the band is intent on using all upper-case letters for its name but as luck would have it Fingertips usage policy (see web page yet to be written) forbids such silliness. “Rotten Love” was the title track on the band’s self-released debut in 2004 and will again be when Rotten Love is released in somewhat different form later this summer by the U.K. label One Little Indian. The MP3 is available via the band’s site.

This Week’s Finds: July 17-23 (The Double, Moonbabies, Mary Timony)

“Idiocy” – the Double

Psychoanalyze this if you must, but I’m a sucker for weirdness contained within some semblance of normalcy. It’s a difficult balance to maintain, for one thing–it’s much easier simply to be weird, or normal. And boy do our black-and-white assumptions about what is “normal” after all need a continual technicolor tweak. This is one reason why I love the new “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” movie so much, and it’s a good part of why I love this squawking piece of skewed but peppy pop from the Brooklyn-based foursome known as the Double. What on earth is guitarist Donald Beaman up to, first of all?: after a spacey intro dissolves into feedback, he draws the feedback out into the entire song, playing along without playing along at all, not in the wrong key (feedback doesn’t really come in a particular key) as much as in another aural space entirely. The effect is fascinating, especially as vocalist David Greenhill (prone to the occasional odd whoop himself) romps along as if he’s got a normal rock band behind him. He doesn’t; beyond Beaman’s subversive slashing, he’s got a keyboard player (Jacob Morris) with his own sort of weird distortion going, pumping a muffled, organ-like sound into the mix, often via happy, beat-skipping blurts. Check out the clearing created when Beaman abruptly leaves the scene at 1:22 for about a half a minute (not counting one four-second feedbacky smudge at around 1:34). Did he need a rest? A drink of water? No worries, he’s back with an indescribable vengeance for the song’s abrupt conclusion. Weird. But not. “Idiocy” is the first song made available from the band’s Matador Records debut, Loose in the Air, scheduled for release in September. The MP3 is available via the Matador site.


“War On Sound” – Moonbabies

Back to Sweden we go, and back to the duo Moonbabies (whose song “Sun A.M.” was a previous TWF pick). Multi-instrumentalist/vocalists Ola Frick and Carina Johannason have a happy facility with a variety of pop languages (including but not limited to electronica, folk rock, and power pop) and a carefree touch in the studio. I like for instance how the martial drumbeat of the introduction, matched against a buzzing sort of keyboard, is augmented (and humanized) by the prominently-mixed in-breaths from (I think) both singers which launch every other measure. The song strips back, sonically, for the verse, with Frick singing, in Beck-like tones, against a fidgety electronic beat, Johannson harmonizing dreamily in the background. Everything ultimately is a set-up for the glistening chorus, a brisk yet soothing shot of melody, harmony, and comforting keyboard riff where cliches are forgiven (“It’ll be all right”) as great chords glide by. Listen in particular to where we end up when Frick sings “where everything’s passing by”–how the chord shifts as the word “by” is extended: live in that moment and everything is always wonderful. “War On Sound” is the title track to an eight-song “mini-album” to be released next week on Hidden Agenda Records. The MP3 is available via Parasol Records, which is Hidden Agenda’s parent label; thanks to Pitchfork for the pointer.


“Friend to J.C.” – Mary Timony

Hailed in the ’90s as part of the D.C.-based trio Helium, which trafficked in the indelible sub-genre known as “noise pop,” Mary Timony veered in a quieter, quasi-medieval direction on two early-’00s solo CDs that puzzled some of her fans and exasperated her record company (the aforementioned Matador, as a matter of fact). Whatever the merits of her musical sidetrack, she decided a return to a harder sound was in order for her latest CD, Ex Hex, which was released–without a whole lot of fanfare–in April on Lookout Records. “Friend to J.C.,” the album’s second track, is an off-beat but rewarding piece of Liz Phair-ish indie-singer-songwriter-rock. A chiming guitar riff (backed by chimes, just for kicks) forms the song’s sort-of-center, but Timony is too idiosyncratic a songwriter to let anything feel settled or familiar. And that strikes me as central to her appeal: like a foreign film in which you’re never sure exactly where the story is going next, “Friend to J.C.” unfolds in its own, unformulaic manner. The closest thing here to a chorus is a section anchored by a series of four chords that seem not exactly to match the pitch of her voice–which somehow or other seems to be its own odd sort of hook. The MP3 is available via both her site and the Lookout site.

This Week’s Finds: July 10-16 (Islands, Kate Miller-Heidke, Get Him Eat Him)

“Flesh” – Islands

A dense, variegated rocker alternating time signatures, volume, and soundscapes to create a complex but memorable piece of (somehow) pop—almost as dense but way more memorable than this sentence, I should add. The introduction rocks and prickles in and out of a 7/4 beat like Television doing a Led Zep imitation; 50 seconds in, things quiet down as a mellowed-out electric guitar traces spare arpeggios before Nick Diamonds enters with his echoey and full-bodied tenor (Thom Yorke doing his Robert Plant imitation). This was already too much for me to absorb on one listen; my simple ears needed many repeats to begin to make sense of it, but along the way I caught melodies, chord changes, instrumental shifts, vocal qualities, and production touches that said “Keep listening.” During one of my later listens, I realized how the band uses the same post-introduction quiet section three-quarters of the way through the song to lead back to the music from the introduction, which ends up, palindromically, as the coda also. Cool, and maybe even brilliant. Islands is the name of a new side project formed by Diamonds (known as “Niel”) and Jaime Thompson (aka J’aime Tambour), who are two-thirds of the Unicorns, an eccentric, lo-fi Montreal band with something of a following.

“Space They Cannot Touch” – Kate Miller-Heidke

I think sometimes my ear not only needs charm and grace but also proficiency–unmitigated, unapologetic proficiency. From Miller-Heidke’s classically-trained soprano (used with a restraint almost unheard of in this age of “American Idol”-promoted histrionics) to her spiffy band’s exquisitely laid-back accompaniment (imagine Steely Dan as Joan Armatrading’s backup band), “Space They Cannot Touch” sounds like a song the indie-oriented ’00s cannot touch. Vocal comparisons to Kate Bush may be inevitable—Miller-Heidke has some of mighty Kate’s contained flutteriness and substantive breathiness–but her tone strikes me as purer, her ineffable idiosyncrasies more Siberry-ian, I’d say, than Bush-like. Be sure, by the way, not to miss the marvelous wordless flourishes of the song’s last 30 seconds or so. That this all comes from a 23-year-old Australian singer/songwriter is wonderful; I love how the rest of the world is more than ever feeding worthy music back into our bloodstream, compensating refreshingly for the black hole created by the American music industry’s abandonment of music itself as a virtue. “Space They Cannot Touch” is one of seven songs on Telegram, Miller-Heidke’s debut EP, self-released in April 2004 but not yet heard much in this part of the world. The MP3 is available via her site.

“Mumble Mumble” – Get Him Eat Him

Not that there’s anything wrong with a sparkling slice of quirky indie-rock mastery either–coming to us this time via a quintet from Brown University in Providence, a location not unknown for breeding quirky rock bands. “Mumble Mumble” is a short, spunky mixture of slashy guitars and tumbly words, held together by a good-natured melody, a knowing sense of production, and octave harmonies (gotta love octave harmonies). The chorus is particularly joyful, with its cascade of chord changes, nifty keyboard effects, and old-school Brit-pop allusions (both 10cc and Squeeze leap to mind). (In my musical-history-addled head, I see the song as a tribute both to Get Him Eat Him’s former name–they began life as Grumble Grumble, but changed when threatened legally by the both obscure and defunct space-rock band Grimble Grumble—and to the brilliant Tilbrook/Difford song “Mumbo Jumbo.” Even if it’s not.) Singer/guitarist/songwriter Matt LeMay sounds like a wiseass, but a self-aware wise-ass (he is, after all, credited on the bio page as “jerk, nerd, guitar”), which makes all the difference; many of rock history’s best singers have had the air of self-aware wiseass about them. “Mumble Mumble” is a song from the band’s full-length debut, Geography Cones, slated for release later this month on Absolutely Kosher Records. The MP3 is available on both the band’s site and the Absolutely Kosher site.

This Week’s Finds: July 3-9 (Halloween Alaska, Halomobilo, Great Lakes Myth Society)

“Call It Clear” – Halloween, Alaska

A sustained synthesizer fades into a drum that sounds simultaneously like an electronica beat and a real drum being pounded by a real drumstick. The bass that quickly joins in is yet more intriguing, mashed somehow into a boopy sort of electro-sound for half of its repeating motif. This immediate and compelling blend of electronics and organics then releases into a meltingly warm two-chord guitar riff—a sound that has clear roots in jazz rather than electronica—and I’m pretty much hooked. Guitarist James Diers, it turns out, has a voice as meltingly warm as his guitar, with something of the husky depth one hears in Peter Gabriel, or the Eels’ Mark Oliver Everett. This also makes me happy, and still happier I become as I note the indescribable series of precise, programmed sounds that work to create an electronic background of unusual (that word again) warmth. Halloween, Alaska is a four-man band from Minneapolis apparently specializing in infusing electronics with a deep human glow. The world can use the skill. “Call It Clear” is a song off the band’s self-titled debut CD, originally released on Princess Records in 2004, and re-released by East Side Digital in April. The MP3 can be found on CNET’s music.download.com. Thanks to 50 Quid Bloke (self-described “saviour of the music industry”!) for the lead.

“Shallow” – Halomobilo

So this one sways to a fat 3/4 beat and is introduced with a barrage of heavy guitar work (I will continue to find lower-register guitar playing refreshing as long as most rock guitarists express themselves predominantly on the high notes). A bonus: within the first 30 seconds of the song, the singer uses the word “whilst,” which sounds unaccountably endearing to my American ears. The entire song, come to think of it, sounds unaccountably endearing to me. I think it’s the head-bobbing chorus that does it in particular: the measure-long notes and diving intervals work especially well with the muffled sort of angst that singer Mark Burnside has itching at the back of his throat (and occasionally throwing his pitch off in a strangely effective way). Even the lyrical imperative (“I won’t be a shadow/No, I won’t be so shallow”) is unexpectedly touching, but perhaps not surprising from a group describing itself as “a heartfelt, commercially acceptable, big sounding rock band.” Halomobilo was founded in Chelmsford, England in 2002; they have yet to release a CD. “Shallow” is available as an MP3 on the band’s site.

“Across the Bridge” – Great Lakes Myth Society

Sounding like a song from some lost epic indie-folk rock opera, “Across the Bridge” weaves banjo, violin, and increasingly dramatic vocal choruses around a sure beat and a sturdy, gratifying melody. Lead vocalist James Christopher Monger bears a smile-inducing resemblance to Paul Heaton of the Beautiful South (and the Housemartins before them), singing with open-hearted gusto both alone and in larger groups. The Great Lakes Myth Society are five guys from Ann Arbor with a geographical fixation and a keen sense of socio-historical drama, not to mention an unusual way with words. As their web site notes: “Like five applehead men soaking in their respective freshwater tombs, feeling the pulp return to their faces, each day brings the delicious pain of life and the endless need to create.” Indeed. “Across the Bridge” is one of 15 songs on the band’s self-titled debut CD, released in April on their own Stop, Pop, and Roll label. Thanks to Salon’s “Audiofile” for the lead, which came from one of the intriguing summer-oriented playlists Thomas Bartlett has been posting there recently. The MP3 is hosted on the Stop, Pop, and Roll site.

This Week’s Finds: June 26-July 2 (Sambassadeur, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Dear Leader)

“Between the Lines” – Sambassadeur

A sure sign of the robust state of Swedish rock’n’roll is how there really isn’t a “sound” we here in the U.S. can pinpoint anymore to say: “Ah! That sounds like a Swedish band.” Of course I’m sure that never really was the case in Sweden to begin with–clearly the country has had a diverse and potent music scene for decades. But only recently (thanks in no small part to the internet) have we on this side of the Atlantic been exposed to so much of it to begin to be truly impressed with the range of aural possibilities emerging from Stockholm, Göteborg, Malmö, et al. So here’s the band Sambassadeur, a quartet formed in 2003, and here’s “Between the Lines,” a wispy, summery confection with earnest acoustic guitars and an early-’60s melody. Singer Anna Persson’s pure, weightless voice conjurs Belle & Sebastian somehow, even as the song itself better resembles something from Kirsty MacColl’s earlier years in its efforts to recapture something otherwise lost between the years 1962 and 1965. “Between the Lines” can be found on Sambassadeur’s self-titled full-length debut, recently released on Labrador Records; the MP3 is available via the Labrador web site.

“In This Home On Ice” – Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

Alec Ounsworth has a voice like a mosquito, thin and buzzy, and he sometimes infuses syllables with the same swoopy anxiety that David Byrne specialized in back in the early days of Talking Heads. Beyond that, however, this suddenly visible Brooklyn quintet really doesn’t have much to do with Talking Heads, early new wave, ’70s or ’80s art school rock, or any particular past moment in rock’n’roll, despite what you may be reading. What catches my ear here is the song’s ongoing juxtaposition of edginess and resolution, most prominent in the way Ounsworth’s metallic strangle of a voice works against the muted, pulsing drive of the guitars. But maybe the best example is at the end of the verse, a moment that sounds to me like the song’s central pivot point (and best hook): the way the melody works through the same note twice with a classic (actually classical) chord progression through to the tonic, or home chord. Adding that extra line delays resolution even as it makes resolution all the more inevitable and delicious–extra-delicious, really, in the context of this nervous-seeming song. Don’t by the way miss the wacky moment of Queen-ish anarchy in the bridge, which adds to the song’s odd brilliance. “In This Home On Ice” can be found on the band’s self-titled debut CD, self-released this month (and temporarily sold out); the MP3 is one of three available on the band’s site.

“Raging Red” – Dear Leader

The idea that music has to sound different to be deemed admirable/worthy/whatever is a common underlying theme in many reviews you will read every which where, but it’s a needless intellectual conceit, introducing a boggy layer between the sound itself and the world at large. Too many critics are so wrapped up in assessing whether a band is doing something “new” that they can’t possibly be listening, simply, to the song itself and deciding whether it is good, which may or may not have to do with how much sonic ground it happens to be breaking. Never mind the fact that what critics tend to listen for to determine newness are typically surface-level characteristics (same guitar sound as Band X, same vocal sound as Musician Y) that can be concretely identified, versus ineffable aspects of the sound such as vibe, integrity, and spirit. That said, this is a big, bashing rocker from a Boston band fronted by Aaron Perrino (ex- of local indie favorites the Sheila Devine) and the way it is different than most songs you’ll hear on the internet is that it’s good: solidly constructed and passionately delivered, with a nice balance between the exclamatory verses and the anthemic chorus. Perrino is not above utilizing time-honored big-time rock tricks like stuttering a central word in the chorus, screeching beyond the capacity of his vocal cords, and a quick cut of silence before cranking into verse number two. “Raging Red” is a track off Dear Leader’s debut CD, All I Ever Wanted Was Tonight, released towards the end of 2004 on Newburyport, Mass.-based Lunch Records. The MP3 is available via the band’s site.

This Week’s Finds: June 19-25 (Goldrush, The Arrogants, Van Elk)

“Wait for the Wheels” – Goldrush

Five lads from Oxford, England who do not sound like Radiohead, Goldrush has been busy the last few years perfecting a British take on Americana music, with nods towards everyone from the Byrds to Neil Young to Wilco. In the process (as these things go with the right amount of talent), the band has developed a sound that seems pretty much their own (not to mention a record company in the U.K. that is their own). “Wait for the Wheels” begins (nice touch) like the end of a Neil Young/Crazy Horse song–a fuzzy blare of guitar, a flare of cymbals, a noodling bass–but the drummer picks up the beat and soon we’re churning along to the crunch of a deep, circular interplay between guitar and bass. As singer Robin Bennett opens his mouth, the guitar peels away, which highlights the almost funky bass riff, while an acoustic guitar soon slips in to provide some sparkly texture underneath Bennett’s friendly, slightly breathy voice. Electric guitars return rather janglingly in the somewhat syncopated chorus: listen to how both sides of the verse “I wait for the wheels/To turn” begin on the central upbeat between the second and third beats, which then drags the line into the next measure. You sense a stutter or shift even as the song retains its 4/4 drive. Bennett has something of Jeff Tweedy’s casually pained depth while not sounding very much like Tweedy at all (except maybe a little in the chorus, come to think of it, particularly the second time, as the guitars really start buzzing and crunching); I really want to describe Bennett’s voice as “chalky” except that I’ve never quite figured out what a chalky voice is. Ah well. “Wait for the Wheels” will be found on the band’s U.S. debut CD, Ozona, scheduled for release in July on Better Looking Records. The MP3 is available via the Better Looking site; the other one there is equally as good, as is one more that’s available on the band’s site, which is a song from their first CD, Don’t Bring Me Down, released in the U.K. in 2002.


“Lovesick” – the Arrogants

If “Lovesick” wastes no time flaunting one of pop music’s greatest of chord progressions, so be it–either not enough people bother to employ it, or (more likely) it’s not as easy to pull off as it may seem. Eschewing all distracting embellishments (there’s no introduction, no instrumental break, and the chorus and bridge are effectively combined), “Lovesick” accentuates its classic-pop roots and in so doing, may just transcend them. I especially enjoy the messy-tight guitar work scorching a hole in the background, as well as singer Jana Wittren’s endearing vocals, with their elusive almost-British-isms and sweet phrasing (the way she sings “you were the one” 15 or so seconds into the song melts my heart). If Harriet Wheeler from the Sundays sang lead for Blondie, they might have sounded, at least sometimes, like this. The Arrogants have released two EP-length CDs on Shelflife Records; “Lovesick” comes from their first, entitled Your Simple Beauty, released in 2000. The band’s long-awaited first full-length CD is due out next month; it will feature 23 songs, most of them new, some of them reworked “oldies,” including a new version of “Lovesick.” The MP3 is available via the band’s site.



“Salome” – Van Elk

Quiet, elegiac “Salome” overcomes its somewhat lo-fi trappings through the palpable mystery evoked by its simple setting and haunting beauty. There’s such refinement at work within the aural landscape here that it casts a spell and I am hooked. I love the heartbeaty percussive accent that sounds like a squelched guitar chord and love even more the stately, wordless motif that winds its way repeatedly through the song. “Salome”‘s mystery is enhanced by the dirth of information available about the duo calling itself Van Elk. Featuring former Mistle Thrush singer Valerie Forgione and Boston-area musician Ken Michaels, Van Elk (Val plus Ken, swirled around a bit) has the barest of internet presences–a web site with four songs to listen to, basically. No word about releases, no word about current work. I for one hope to hear more.

This Week’s Finds: June 12-18 (New Estate, Noe Venable, The Spectacular Fantastic)

“Don’t Like The Way” – New Estate

Rocking with a leisurely, feedbacky vibe, “Don’t Like The Way” juxtaposes an edgy, shrill-but-likable guitar sound with a flowy melody and good-natured background chug that somehow puts me in the mind of Fleetwood Mac of all things (hm, maybe the song title also did it, bringing “Go Your Own Way” unconsciously to mind). In any case, the band has an intriguing sound going here, and while I am not one of the writers about music on the web who demands innovation above all else, I certainly am impressed when I come across a band that seems to have its own particular voice–something that has become more and more difficult to do without lapsing into unaccountable quirkiness here in the new century. I’m guessing that this Melbourne-based quartet–featuring, unusually, both three singers and three songwriters–may be worth keeping eyes and ears on. “Don’t Like The Way” is the lead track on the band’s CD Considering…, released this month on Kittridge Records; the MP3 is found on the Kittridge web site.

“Boots” – Noe Venable

Atmospheric and structurally engaging, “Boots” unfolds with precision and intrigue, anchored by Venable’s able and appealing voice. While an acoustic guitar provides a centering pulse, this song moves well beyond standard singer/sonwriter fare, brandishing a varied instrumental palette with great subtlety and skill, while some of the melodic turns give me goosebumps. Venable is a Bay Area musician with a loyal local following; she plays in a trio featuring keyboards, violin, and various electronic devices. “Boots” is the title track to her second most recent CD, released in 2003 on Venable’s Petridish Records. The MP3 can be found on her site; thanks to 3hive for the tip.

“60 Cycles” – the Spectacular Fantastic

First of all, check out the big bashy guitars in the intro and the way the lead and the rhythm guitars leap immediately into action with both a manner and sound that seem heartbreakingly old-fashioned (the lead guitar’s tone is itself a blast from some indefinable past). Then Mike Detmer opens his mouth and he’s got a great dollop of Westerberg-ish goofy humor about his voice even as he’s not saying or doing anything particularly funny. And then, geez, is the hook in the chorus insanely good or what? I have no idea why, it just is: “And I try to be the same as you,” he sings, and listen if you would to the notes he hits on the word “try” and “as” and somewhere in there is not only the secret to the hook but (maybe) the secret to life as we know it. (Maybe. It’s a hunch, that’s all.) While nothing here is new or different it sounds new and different precisely because it’s not trying to be new and different, if that makes any sense. This isn’t self-conscious retro rock, this is brand new classic pop, delivered with love and verve by the Cincinnati-based Detmer, who likes to work with a rotating cast of characters and call himself a band. “60 Cycles” is the lead track on a new EP entitled I Love You, all six songs of which are available as free downloads on the band’s web site. Thanks to The Catbirdseat for the head’s up.

This Week’s Finds: June 5-11 (Novillero, The Sames, Devics)

“Aptitude” – Novillero

Anchored by a swinging piano riff, appealing chord progressions, and what seems an unusually hard-headed philosophy for a pop song, “Aptitude” is both immediately enjoyable and lastingly affecting. A quartet from Winnipeg founded in 1999, Novillero sounds like the real thing to me, capable of delivering music that is at once melodically and lyrically astute–no mean feat in our mash-up culture. The chorus is especially marvelous, rendered all the more effective for its jaunty bouncing between major and minor chords. Even better, it builds with each iteration–first delivered in a restrained vocal-and-piano setting, the chorus next arrives with the full band fleshing out the harmonics, and the third time with vocalist Rod Slaughter (he’s also the piano player) singing an octave higher, adding a keening edge to both the music and lyrics. This works particularly well as the song has now shifted its focus: what began as a world-weary warning about how we are all limited by our inherent capabilities reveals itself (if I’m hearing it right) rather poignantly as a philosophy borne from disappointment in love. Complete with nifty horn charts. “Aptitude” is on the band’s cleverly titled second CD, Aim Right For The Holes In Their Lives, which was released in the U.S. last week on Mint Records. The MP3 comes from the band’s web site.

“Heart Pine” – the Sames

From its opening guitar pulse—sounding like a stressed-out siren—“Heart Pine” grabs my ear and doesn’t let up. This is quite an accomplishment for a song lacking both melodic and harmonic diversity; here the whole clearly transcends the sum of its parts. With repeated listens I begin to understand how the insistent guitar accompaniment, at once slashing and chiming, works with the hypnotic melody (sung with slightly fuzzed-out vocals) to push the song forward with an urgent but subtly complex sort of drone–and then how the drone itself is slyly deconstructed as the song develops. Listen for instance to the way the second beat is dropped in the verse section–once the singing starts, you may notice the 4/4 time is marked out by the first, third, and fourth beats, which is a very gratifying rhythm (the fact that the drummer masks what he’s doing adds to the effect). Listen too to how the song’s limited chord changes are swallowed by the drone for a good minute and a half, creating an extra layer of tension before the release introduced by a perfectly timed bit of feedback at 1:35 and then (at last) a series of chord changes that I feel as if I’m hearing in my stomach more than my ears. The Sames are a quartet from Durham, North Carolina; “Heart Pine” is a song from their debut full-length CD, You Are The Sames, released in April on Pox World Empire. The MP3 is available via band’s web site.

“Just One Breath” – Devics

What an instantly fetching voice Devics singer Sara Lov has, simultaneously strong and vulnerable, with great character and yet not odd in the way that voices with great character can sometimes be—think, maybe, Tanya Donelly (upper register) combined with Over the Rhine’s Karin Bergquist (lower register) without, somehow, the potentially distracting idiosyncracies of either. The song glides along with grace and assurance, blending equally crisp acoustic and electric guitars with some baroque-ish keyboards in a cinematic sort of aural space, veering into the occasionally unexpected chord, with Lov always at the magnetic center. Devics are a duo from Los Angeles now living in Italy, multi-instrumentalist Dustin O’Halloran being the other half.
“Just One Breath” is a song off the band’s new EP Distant Radio, to be released next week on Leftwing Records. The MP3 is hosted on the band’s site, with Filter Magazine pointing the way.