jeremyfingertips

Free and legal MP3: Magana (short, off-kilter, hypnotic)

This quiet, off-kilter electric ballad all but hypnotizes me, for reasons I’m still unraveling.

“Get It Right” – Magana

This quiet, off-kilter electric ballad all but hypnotizes me, for reasons I’m still unraveling. I like the cold opening, I like the smoky clarity of Jeni Magana’s voice, how she uses reverb to add texture without adding muddiness, and I feel especially engaged by the low-register electric guitar work, breathing a nonchalant semi-atonality into the bottom of the mix. Everything is simple-sounding, and it’s a short song, but it glides by without giving you a firm handhold to breathe out during. This is a fetching dynamic; I have gladly kept this on repeat for quite a while.

Jeni Magana is a Brooklyn-based musician doing musical business, succinctly, as Magana. “Get It Right” is the lead track on her debut EP, entitled Golden Tongue, which was released last week on Audio Antihero Records. Magana was previously in the Brooklyn band Oh Odessa, which released one album in 2012.

You can both listen to Golden Tongue and purchase it via Bandcamp. MP3 once again via Magnet Magazine.

Free and legal MP3: Almanac Mountain (ambling vibe, classic rock undertones)

There’s something wonderfully out of time about the ambling vibe of “Harborside”; it has the feel of a lost classic-rock nugget while not really sounding all that classic-rock-y.

“Harborside” – Almanac Mountain

There’s something wonderfully out of time about the ambling vibe of “Harborside”; it has the feel of a lost classic-rock nugget while not really sounding all that classic-rock-y. I think it’s the unhurried, three-note sampled-strings synthesizer riff that we hear in the intro and which anchors us throughout that brings the joy here—it’s got a bit of cartoon loony-bin about it, in maybe a Pink Floyd- or Supertramp-ish way. (And those are two groups that didn’t have much to do with each other, I realize, except for being British and thriving in the ’70s but in retrospect, here we are.)

The riff, traveling from the home tone to the major third to the augmented fourth, has an inherent majesty, which throughout the song plays engagingly against the loopier touches (the opening, standalone flourish; the jaunty, bridge-like chorus; the intermittent interjection of warbles and odd sounds; the abrupt, oceanic ending). The subtle mirth here also for vague reasons brings some of classic rock’s better efforts to mind, as underneath the rock’n’roll mindset, however dressed in frills and gilding, has been an understanding that we can’t be taking it all too too seriously. I have long contended that when music can make you smile, independent of lyrics, there’s something substantive going on.

Almanac Mountain is the name that New Hampshire-based Chris Cote has given to his work as singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist/producer. “Harborside” is the closing track on his latest album, Cryptoseismology, released last week. It’s the third full-length Almanac Mountain album, and note that Cote’s sound with the project tends to have a heavier, ’80s-ish sound to it (Depeche Mode this time more than the Smiths), which makes “Harborside” all the more curious and lovable. You can listen to the whole thing, and buy it either digitally or physically, via Bandcamp.

Now we’re alone in this freaky place

Eclectic Playlist Series 3.09 – October 2016

I’ve been pretty much only thinking about one thing lately and I am not enjoying that this is all I can think about, in fact it is disturbing me at a deep psychological level. Talk about transcendental blues. And I am trying not to personalize it and say there’s just this one man I’ve been thinking about pretty much all the time because in the end it’s not him. It’s not him. It’s the people who believe him. This is the freaky place we’re alone in, you and I, though not entirely alone. We are alone together, wondering who these freaky people are, are they our neighbors, are they our friends, our family?; what world are they looking at that they see what they see, believe what they believe?; how far have we come from where we thought we were heading all this time? We are alone together, you and I and all of us who understand that we are humans together, that being darker or lighter or thinner or fatter or from one place or another place doesn’t add up to trouble and stupidity but to strength in our amazing diversity. What ails these people, how afraid and wounded and uninformed have we let our fellow citizens become? And how certain they now are in their unseeing, in their not-knowing, who accuse the tolerant of intolerance, the wise of ignorance, the compassionate of depravity?

And yet. Think of the good that exists, think of the positive energy we have here on the side of humanity and respect, on the side of love and understanding. Sometimes I think that the terrifying energy we’ve seen unleashed by the amoral swindler currently doing business as the Republican candidate for president of the United States is somehow required by the universe as a kind of balancing out, yin-yang-ishly, for all the amazing progress we have made, interpersonally, in so many gratifying ways, over the last few decades. The trick is not to lose sight of the light, even as the dark persists, and wants to yell at us and call us names and beat us up and keep us down.

Here is a playlist for listening to alone but together, a group of songs that for mysterious reasons are stronger together. Just like us.

“The Magnificent Seven” – The Clash (Sandinista, 1981)
“Longer” – Lydia Loveless (Real, 2016)
“Autumn Sweater” – Yo La Tengo (I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One, 1997)
“Les Filles C’est Fait Pour Faire L’amour” – Charlotte Leslie (single, 1967)
“Mr. Understanding” – Pete and the Pirates (Little Death, 2008)
“You’ve Been in Love Too Long” – Bonnie Raitt (Takin’ My Time, 1973)
“Bodies” – Farao (Till It’s All Forgotten, 2015)
“Since I Held You” – The Cars (Candy-O, 1979)
“T.H.E. Cat” – Al Hirt (The Horn Meets the Hornet, 1966)
“John Paul’s Deliveries” – Nathan (Key Principles, 2007)
“Christine” – Siouxsie and the Banshees (Kaleidoscope, 1980)
“To a Forest” – They Might Be Giants (Phone Power, 2016)
“Leavin’ This Town” – Terri Binion (Leavin’ This Town, 1997)
“To Be Someone” – The Jam (All Mod Cons, 1978)
“I Got a Feeling” – Barbara Randolph (single, 1967)
“The Opera House” – The Olivia Tremor Control (Dusk at Cubist Castle, 1996)
“Transcendental Blues” – Steve Earle (Transcendental Blues, 2000)
“Kimberly” – Patti Smith (Horses, 1975)
“Don’t Let It Trouble Your Mind” – Rhiannon Giddens (Tomorrow Is My Turn, 2015)
“Everybody Knows” – Leonard Cohen (I’m Your Man, 1988)

Free and legal MP3: The Burgeoning (inventive and accessible rock’n’roll)

There’s something that almost doesn’t compute here, this sense that these four dudes from Philadelphia have figured out some new way to make old-fashioned rock’n’roll.

“Beautiful Rampage” – The Burgeoning

Instantly likeable, and it only gets better. Guitars like you haven’t heard in a long time, first of all: an adept, introductory one-two punch of scratchy atonal rhythm and keening lead. It’s a four-piece band and you can hear the four pieces, there’s space in the mix, and there’s order and authority, but expressed in the most casual manner. There’s something that almost doesn’t compute here, this sense that these four dudes from Philadelphia have figured out some new way to make old-fashioned rock’n’roll. There are hooks, there are the good chords, there’s a lead singer who takes charge without showing off, there are some squiggly moments nearly beyond earshot.

And those guitars, which get an invigorating chance to stretch out, as the lead guitar’s solo at 1:50 burns directly into the rhythm solo (2:07), now a lead in its own right, and what a searing and inventive and expansive solo this turns out to be, all the way to 2:40. So much territory we seem to cover in a song that still manages to wrap up at 3:25. And I mentioned hooks, didn’t I? Check out the chorus (which doesn’t sound like a chorus) sprung upon us, casually, at 0:55, with improbable, melodic leaps that stick in your head because maybe you’ve never heard them before, or maybe you have and have just forgotten because most pop songs use the same friggin’ chords over and over and over. And few operate with such a tight and creative rhythm section, because too many rhythm sections these days are digital afterthoughts. Music has been suffering. But not here.

Founded in 2011, The Burgeoning features brothers Logan (vocal, rhythm guitar) and Alex (bass) Thierjung, Mark Menkevich (lead guitar), and Brandon Bradley (drummer). “Beautiful Rampage” is a song from their debut EP, Loud Dreams, which is due out in late October. Check it out on Bandcamp when the time comes.

Free and legal MP3: Sara Melson (oceanic beauty)

Melson has an arresting voice, at once very direct, in a Jenny Lewis sort of way, but with a subtle, engaging quirkiness to it, a muted theatricality of tone.

“El Matador Beach” – Sara Melson

Gentle and elegant, “El Matador Beach” unfolds slowly. Melson has an arresting voice, at once very direct, in a Jenny Lewis sort of way, but also with a subtle, engaging quirkiness to it, a muted theatricality of tone. Her voice feels particularly central to the developing song since it proceeds without percussion for 1:45; the most concentrated sound we hear during this slow build-up is Melson’s self-harmonizing in the chorus (1:12), and the effect, over the song’s oceanic sway, is angelic.

When the drumming starts, syncing beautifully with the melodic bass line, the tidal feeling expands out of the lyrics directly into the music, accentuated by the way the hypnotic chorus expands to fill most of the song’s second half. It almost prompts inexplicable laughter, a kind of bittersweet spiritual delight, to hear a song this committed to beauty in this most un-beautiful year.

Sara Melson is a singer/songwriter based in Los Angeles. Following her graduation from Harvard she became a successful television actress in the ’90s, appearing on shows like Frasier and Beverly Hills 90210. But over time, stifled by the cliched characters she was playing, she found music to be a more fulfilling way to be an artist, happily trading mainstream success for the chance to express herself authentically. (And what a better place the world might be if everyone felt this way.)

“El Matador Beach” is the first track on Melson’s new album Safe and Sound, her third full-length recording, released earlier this month. You can listen to it in full as well as buy it via Bandcamp. MP3 via Magnet Magazine.

Free and legal MP3: Work Drugs (mellow groove w/ depth & distinction)

“Roll” tosses you onto a featherbed of chill without so much as mussing your hair.

“Roll” – Work Drugs

“Roll” tosses you onto a featherbed of chill without so much as mussing your hair. And yet the song also quivers with a fidgety unease, and therein, to my ears, lies the depth and distinction. It’s easy enough (although not really) to lay down a smooth beat and offer up some whispery vocals and call it a day. “Roll” starts there but heads into more stimulating corners. An initial hint is found in the bass line, in the way its staccato bursts at the beginning of each measure melt into mellower iterations at the back end. It’s a nuanced, subtly unsettling effect.

Then there are lyrical phrases, which, when rising to the listener’s awareness, do not exactly say “Let’s party,” for instance, the opening salvo: “If you want to take me out, shoot to kill,
You better burn this city down.” And probably best of all, there’s a saxophone, and the kind that sounds like the player is standing underneath a streetlight on a moonless night. Notice how it slips all but unnoticed into the background at 0:42, initially providing only muted accents before, one-third of the way in, the signature riff is blown (1:15), instantly turning the song’s introductory motif, originally laid out on synth, into something nearly heroic. Of course this was made to be a sax riff. And yet who would have anticipated that at the beginning?

Work Drugs, previously featured on Fingertips in March 2015, is the duo of Tom Crystal and Ben Louisiana (although live the band expands to four or five). Based in Philadelphia (second Philly band of the month here; go Eagles), these guys are awfully hard-working for being so mellow: “Roll” is a song from their eighth full-length album, Method Acting, released in August. Their first album came out in 2011; you do the math.

You can check out their entire catalog on Bandcamp. Alternatively, you can listen to a whole bunch of Work Drugs songs on their SoundCloud page; many of them are available there as free and legal downloads.

Free and legal MP3: Cheshires (ramshackle, melodic indie rock)

Buried in the substructure of this ramshackle forkful of indie rock goodness is a full-fledged classic rock song that’s just kind of messing with us.

“Love This Feelin'” – Cheshires

Buried in the substructure of this ramshackle forkful of indie rock goodness is a full-fledged classic rock song that’s just kind of messing with us. The melody is casually awesome. The same-note harmonies accentuate the song’s effortless catchiness. The chorus does that half-time thing that is as pleasant as it is elusive. There are not one but two off-kilter a capella breaks. There’s the way that the titular lyrical phrase scans properly for speaking but awkwardly (in an endearing way) for singing.

Best of all, there’s that gut-level, lower-register guitar riff that introduces the song and then waits its turn for reappearance. And waits. It partially returns in the chorus, first at 0:45, but in slightly altered, truncated form. The third time around we hear it nearly fully formed, at 2:26, enough to feel like an old friend, but still mixed down and incomplete. And so somehow this beefy, ’70s-tinged guitar riff is at once the backbone of the song and its missing piece. Nice trick!

“Love This Feelin'” is a song from Cheshires’ self-titled debut album. The L.A.-based trio is billed as a kind of resurrection of the ’90s indie band Remy Zero, as it features Remy Zero himself (birth name Shelby Tate), singer/songwriter Louis Schefano (original Remy Zero drummer), and multi-instrumentalist Leslie Van Trease, who put time in with Remy Zero when they toured. The album was released earlier this month. You can listen to it via SoundCloud and buy it via iTunes.

I’m holding my breath

Eclectic Playlist Series 3.08 – September 2016

September is the melancholy part of the summer, the summertime we never remember or conjure when we use the word “summertime.” It’s either still too warm for all the things we now have to do or abruptly too cool when we’re not quite ready for it. For no reason I can quite put my finger on this is a playlist for this time of year, and for 2016 in particular, when we are collectively holding our breath to see which way we’ll go, what new world awaits us. Be brave while acting breezy. Beware of snakes. Believe in miracles. Etc.

As for specifics, we begin with a song from the 1958 album that is generally credited with being the first bossa nova album, Canção do Amor Demais, and a song that features the guitar work of João Gilberto, who almost single-handedly created the bossa nova sound. Consider it here a fond if complicated post-Olympics farewell. If you haven’t previously come across Chris von Sneidern, purveyor of power-pop-oriented indie rock before anyone called it indie rock, there is a 2009 documentary called Why Isn’t Chris von Sneidern Famous? that makes an effort to understand why mainstream success can elude very talented musicians. Not that we needed a movie to alert us to that particular news flash. Then, the other side of the coin—the musical recluse, two of whom populate the playlist this month: the semi-legendary Canadian songstress Mary Margaret O’Hara, who recorded one album in 1988 and pretty much left it at that, and the anonymous Swedish singer who took the pseudonym Sally Shapiro. The singer’s musical partner, Johan Agebjörn, acknowledged “Sally”‘s disinclination for the business in 2009, writing in a blog post, “What if you just want to be a normal person with a normal job, record songs in the weekends, and spend the holidays picking blueberries instead of going on tour?” After 10 years of intermittent music, Sally Shapiro quit once and for all.

And then, somewhere in between famous and reclusive we have Look Park, which is the name Chris Collingwood has given to his solo project. For at least some of you, Collingwood’s voice should be easily identifiable as the long-time lead singer for Fountains of Wayne. But the man has had a checkered history of being ready and willing to record. You can’t rush things, or force them onto the right track. In the end, you have to do what you want to do, and the trick isn’t that it always comes easily but that it should always sound like it does.

“Outra Vez” – Elizete Cardoso (Canção do Amor Demais, 1958)
“Open Wide” – Chris von Sneidern (Sight & Sound, 1993)
“If You Should See” – Wye Oak (Tween, 2016)
“Tales of Brave Ulysses” – Cream (Disraeli Gears, 1967)
“Anything, Anything (I’ll Give You)” – Dramarama (Cinéma Vérité, 1985)
“Benton Harbor Blues” – The Fiery Furnaces (Bitter Tea, 2006)
“Betcha By Golly, Wow” – The Stylistics (The Stylistics, 1971)
“Breezy” – Look Park (Look Park, 2016)
“Tony Adams” – Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros (Rock Art & The X-Ray Style, 1999)
“Anew Day” – Mary Margaret O’Hara (Miss America, 1988)
“Divers of the Dust” – Marissa Nadler (Strangers, 2016)
“Right Track” – Billy Butler (single, 1972)
“Love Doesn’t Just Stop” – Standard Fare (The Noyelle Beat, 2010)
“Rattlesnakes” – Lloyd Cole (Rattlesnakes, 1984)
“Which Way” – The Sorrows (single, 1968)
“Slow Dog” – Belly (Star, 1993)
“Miracle” – Sally Shapiro (My Guilty Pleasure, 2009)
“Any Way That You Want Me” – Evie Sands (Any Way That You Want Me, 1969)
“Do Anything You Wanna Do” – Eddie & The Hot Rods (Life on the Line, 1977)
“New World” – Björk (Selmasongs, 2000)

Free and legal MP3: Daisy Victoria (brilliant single from emerging UK talent)

As succinct and powerful a three-and-a-half minutes of pop music as I’ve heard this year.

“Animal Lover” – Daisy Victoria

I have already spoken admiringly of the young British musician Daisy Victoria both last year and the year before, but it turns out I was only getting started. Her latest single, “Animal Lover,” is flat-out brilliant, a thrill ride of vocal prowess, textural panache, and melodic zing. Releasing her inner Kate Bush, Victoria emotes with range and know-how; and yet, at the center of this smartly focused composition is something that sounds far more like rock’n’roll than most of what passes for 21st-century indie rock, thanks to the active, gut-level guitar work on the one hand, and the cathartic vigor of the chorus. It’s actually the first half of the chorus, rocking with beauty and precision, that I’m talking about specifically (first heard at 0:39), powered by Victoria’s extraordinary voice; the second half, meanwhile, extends at 0:55 into fully Bushian territory, with thumps and yelps to drive us along.

And then: listen with glee later on as the song concludes with the two halves layered on top of each other (2:58), something that arrives feeling at once unexpected and inevitable.

“Animal Lover” succeeds beyond my ability to say much more, as succinct and powerful a three-and-a-half minutes of pop music as I’ve heard this year. It’s the title track of a three-song EP, which will be released next week. You can hear a second song on SoundCloud. Personal thanks to Daisy for the MP3 and permission to post it here.

Free and legal MP3: The Minders (artisanal indie rock, w/ intrigue)

“Boiling the Ocean” – The Minders

Launching off a concise, Buddy-Holly-ish acoustic-guitar riff, “Boiling the Ocean” bottles an elusive variety of bygone rock’n’roll sounds into an artisanal blend that feels at once comfy and idiosyncratic. It’s a simple-sounding, toe-tappy song, it’s under three minutes, and yet there’s all this movement and depth about it, due to at least two elements I’ve uncovered with repeated listens.

First, the overall song structure seems normal at first (verse/chorus/verse) but bewilders (in a good way) upon closer inspection. The verses operate with two distinct and unequal parts, and after we spend time with the chorus (about more in a moment), we only revisit “part two”—part one, which opened the song, is never heard from again. The second complicating feature is the chorus itself (starting at 1:17), also in (at least) two parts, which feels like its own mini-adventure: advancing from the punchy, titular phrase and an indecipherable descending-line lyric that follows, it seems to keep receding from view, grounding itself in a notably unresolved moment (the minor chord that arrives first at 1:28 and the percussive episode that follows) before revisiting that chord (1:37) and sliding out the back door. What kind of chorus was that, exactly? No time to wonder: an assertive, repeating series of four guitar chords, with bashy drumming, provides aural slight of hand and brings us back to where we started. But not really. From here the song repeats in a truncated fashion, as we get only part two of the verse and then only part one of the chorus, with one strategic addition (the “I walk” line at 2:31) brought in from the otherwise complicated part two.

And that’s a lot of structural gobbledygook simply to say that the Minders have put together a dynamic little song here that feels both old and new, both catchy and ambiguous. And this is all a good thing.

“Boiling the Ocean” is a track that became available this spring as a download from the annual PDX Pop Now! Compilation; the song opens disc two of the 42-song offering, about which you can read more here. The album is released each year in conjunction with the PDX Pop Now! music festival, which happened last month. Note that the Minders are 20-year rock’n’roll veterans, initially springing from the renowned Elephant 6 collective. They have been based in Portland since 1998, and have a new album themselves due out next month, called Into the River. You can download a free and legal MP3 from that album, “Summer Song,” on SoundCloud.