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Free and legal MP3: Manwomanchild (Peppy, sly, sing-song-y)

The lyrics scoot along with a lively sort of insouciance, matching the music’s peppy electronic vibe.

“Change the Channel” – Manwomanchild

Longstanding and/or thorough readers of these virtual pages may have noticed that for all the details I cover in reviews, I don’t comment all that often on lyrics. There’s a simple reason: I don’t usually pay a lot of attention to the words in a song. Which may be strange, but I guess I just approach a song as sound, in which case the words too are more “sound” to me than “story.”

Every now and then, however, lyrics just start rising to the surface, without my making any effort to notice them. This is almost always a sign of a good song, and (oddly? logically?) it almost always happens with songs in which the words end up being pretty much inscrutable: i.e., I finally notice words and even so I don’t know what they mean.

Anyway: “Change the Channel” turned out to be that kind of song; as I kept listening, I began to notice the lyrics, which scoot along with a lively sort of insouciance, matching the music’s peppy, concise vibe. The sing-song-y landscape, full of descending melody lines and agile bass playing, is reminiscent to me of early Talking Heads, minus the nerdy anxiety. Manwomanchild’s master mind David Child is more 21st-century chill than new-wave angsty, but his words still push their way forward, many offering the bonus of perfect rhythmic scanning:

We are the workshop elves
The ones who went back to the scene of the crime

I’m at the end of my rope
Just like a joke that nobody wrote

I tried to make you a star, but it’s hard
And the project got the best of me

These lyrics offer the additional pleasure of monosyllabicism (to coin an awkward term): most are humble, one syllable words. This is harder to do than it looks. Completing an increasingly delightful package here are the backing vocals, which often involve same-note harmonizing but over time expand into appealingly lackadaiscal intervals, as if Child is making up his vocal chart along the way. When he breaks into what sounds for all the world like a Tom Petty imitation around 3:02, that seems even more likely.

“Change the Channel” is a song from the second Manwomanchild album, Awkward Island, which was released at the end of June. You can listen to the whole album via Bandcamp, and buy it there too, for just $5. Thanks to David for the MP3.

This thing that we do

Eclectic Playlist Series 3.07 – July/August 2016

Let’s start as unfashionably as possible—say, a nuanced, thoughtful, beautiful Jackson Browne song from the mid-’70s. I wasn’t sure where it would all go from there but I can see that the West Coast kept reasserting itself, in various guises. In the end, a distinct if unconscious dialogue emerged between Britain and the U.S., between idealism and resignation, between joy and melancholy, all the back and forth we internalize and externalize every day, invisibly. Do I cast my fate to the wind? Do I learn to let go? Do I stay a little longer? Do I review the situation? (And how’s *that* for a cover, by the way, Oliver going all swinging London?; too bad the single got canned before release when the record company went out of business.) Underneath it all I think most of us just want to be Kate, too.

“Your Bright Baby Blues” – Jackson Browne (The Pretender, 1976)
“Skeletal Blonde” – The Awkward Stage (Slimming Mirrors, Flattering Lights, 2008)
“Anchorage” – Michelle Shocked (Short Sharp Shocked, 1988)
“Big Me” – Foo Fighters (Foo Fighters, 1996)
“How Are Things in California?” – Nancy Sinatra (single, 1970)
“Shoot My Mouth Off” – Bread & Butter (Bread & Butter, 2015)
“Cast Your Fate to the Wind” – Vince Guaraldi Trio (Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus, 1962)
“Airport” – The Motors (Approved By The Motors, 1978)
“Nobody’s Empire” – Belle & Sebastian (Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance, 2015)
“I Can’t Let Go” – Linda Ronstadt (Mad Love, 1980)
“Dance of the Dream Man” – Angelo Badalamenti (Music From Twin Peaks, 1990)
“Nothing Stays the Same” – Elastica (The Menace, 2000)
“Reviewing the Situation” – Jacki Bond (unreleased single, 1967)
“Kate” – Ben Folds Five (Whatever and Ever Amen, 1997)
“In Deep Water” – Dot Allison (Exaltation of Larks, 2006)
“Louder Than Words” – Pink Floyd (The Endless River, 2014)
“West Coast Blues” – Wendy Waldman (The Main Refrain, 1976)
“You’ve Got Your Troubles” – The Fortunes (single, 1965)
“Please Let Me Stay a Little Longer” – The Dirty Dozen Brass Band (Funeral for a Friend, 2004)
“Invisible” – Alison Moyet (Alf, 1984)

Free and legal MP3: People and Stars (’60s-esque, shuffly indie rock, w/ horns)

With its ’60s-esque, shuffly optimism and good-humored horn charts, “You’re Not Alone” feels like a wondrous balm during a stupidly fractious season.

“You’re Not Alone” – People and Stars

With its ’60s-esque, shuffly optimism and good-humored horn charts, “You’re Not Alone” feels like a wondrous balm during a stupidly fractious season. And for all its bright-eyed presence, one of the best things going on here is the melancholy that simultaneously weaves through this soul-satisfying song. From the dusky catch in vocalist Amanda Tate’s voice (I hear here a lovely echo of the late great Kirsty MacColl) to the minor-key moments etched into the catchy chorus, “You’re Not Alone” comes across less as mindlessly rosy than sensibly wistful about life’s beauty in and around its unpreventable angsts.

Doesn’t the song’s very title aptly capture the underlying poignancy of our shared adventure?: it’s not “I’m With You” or “We’re in This Together” it’s “You’re Not Alone”—which cheers us even while acknowledging what may well be every thinking, feeling human being’s most primordial dread. Another sign of the song’s enjoyable thoughtfulness is the instrumental break we get at 2:22, a tamped-down, philosophical pause in the middle of an effort to otherwise rouse us a bit more head-bobbingly. I always appreciate unexpected musical turns of events like that.

People and Stars is the duo of Tate and David Klotz, the latter a former member of the LA-based band Fonda. Klotz, furthermore, has developed quite a resume as a music editor for television, with credits including Game of Thrones, American Horror Story, and Stranger Things. “You’re Not Alone” is the duo’s first release, in advance of an EP slated for later this year. MP3 via Insomnia Radio Network.

Free and legal MP3: Sea Span (glistening synth pop w/ a summery groove)

A glistening synth pop delight with a rock-solid core, “Tired of Winning” is one of those effortless-seeming songs that is not nearly as easy to put together as it looks, or sounds.

“Tired of Winning” – Sea Span

A glistening synth pop delight with a rock-solid core, “Tired of Winning” is one of those effortless-seeming songs that is not nearly as easy to put together as it looks, or sounds. It is also one of those songs that illustrates how central a singer’s voice is to the success or failure of the end result, a fact that is strangely overlooked at the indie rock level. By which I mean: there are way too many bands out there whose music I just can’t take seriously (sorry!) because the singer has a voice that I will simply call “unpleasant,” to cover an array of sins. And I don’t mean that a voice has to be as pretty as James Benjamin’s voice is here, with Sea Span, but I do mean that if you are singing in pursuit of some kind of public following your voice has to have some significant singerly qualities to it. Tom Waits is a great singer so, you know, I cast the net wide in terms of aural characteristics. Singers I can’t warm to are those without presence and/or without character and/or without a palpable sense of sonic purpose in their tone. More bands than you may realize disqualify themselves right there.

In the meantime, however, yes, Benjamin has a lovely voice used to lovely effect here, so much so that I can not only overlook the vocal manipulation I believe I’m hearing, I can (gasp) applaud its tasteful usage. And maybe that’s all I’ve been waiting for when it comes to auto-tune and related processing effects: for singers to learn to use them as honest sonic enhancements versus either cynical corrections or pandering nonsense. Here amid the summery groove and simple melodicism of “Tired of Winning,” whatever Benjamin is running his voice through adds to the ethereal momentum of the composition, furthering the song’s cause versus distracting from it. At least, to my ears.

“Tired of Winning” is the fifth of six singles that the Philadelphia-based Benjamin has released in 2016 under the name Sea Span. It came out in May. The first five singles are all available to listen to and purchase via Bandcamp; additionally, four of them, including the latest, “Refugees,” can be listened to and downloaded, for free, via SoundCloud. Thanks to the artist for the MP3. And note that the fact that I have previously been watching CSPAN all week and live here in Philadelphia has no bearing on my selection of this song at this exact time; and that rather than being tired of winning I am terrified of losing. But that’s probably another song.

Free and legal MP3: Wesley Fuller (melodic indie rock, seductive chorus)

Melodic, creative, and eminently satisfying, “Melvista,” is as assured a slice of 21st-century indie rock as I’ve heard in a while.

“Melvista” – Wesley Fuller

Melodic, creative, and almost giddily appealing, “Melvista,” is as assured a slice of 21st-century indie rock as I’ve heard in a while. Despite its retro-y veneer, and Fuller’s obvious embrace of a certain sort of ’60s/psychedelic look, “Melvista” gushes with contemporary flair. Even the Beatlesque chord progressions at the center of its seductive chorus (first heard around 0:35) feel tweaked and updated in some ineffable and ebullient way. Also, check out the drumming, which manages to feel very ’60s and very ’10s at the same time.

So, do understand that by “contemporary flair” I do not mean the addition of meaningless aural frippery in the cynical pursuit of distracted teenagers—I’m talking instead about an awareness of how the present moment is always a cumulative outgrowth of history rather than some kind of context-free instant of existence driven by lizard-brain reflex. Being willing to funnel sounds of the past through one’s 2016 consciousness (not to mention one’s 2016 audio equipment) is in my mind a far more reliable way to create something truly of the here and now than a slavish adherence to sound-fads of any particular moment. This is exactly why music that too rigidly clings to production choices that are very “now” paradoxically becomes the music that sounds most dated in another five or 10 years.

That said, slavish adherence to past sounds is of course an equally if not more unconvincing way to sound current. Maybe one of the reasons “Melvista” song escapes the gravitational pull of its inspirations is how effortlessly Fuller combines the sounds and vibes of distinct subgenres into a cohesive whole. Which is to say that “Melvista” is not merely Beatlesque—its roots can be found as well in glam rock, garage rock, and (here’s kind of the kicker) new wave. As a matter of fact, the song unfolds as a bit of a history lesson, its British invasion elements craftily transformed in plain sight by new wave injections beginning at 2:08: first, the verse is reimagined with a Cars-ish minimalism; next comes that synth-like guitar line (2:29), which culminates and then closes out the song, the likes of which ran through any number of late-’70s songs on both sides of the Atlantic and doubtlessly in Australia as well.

Originally from Perth, where he played in a series of bands, Wesley Fuller moved to Melbourne a couple of years ago. “Melvista” was his first release as a solo artist, initially out in February as a single and in July resurfacing as the title track on his debut five-song EP, released by the London-based 1965 Records. Thanks to the good folks at the Powerpopulist blog for the head’s up here, and thanks to the Austrlian music site Triple J Unearthed for the MP3.

How could it come to this?

Eclectic Playlist Series, 3.06 – June 2016

What makes for a great cover version is a mysterious thing. The original song in theory has to be great, but that isn’t always the case; sometimes the cover version is what makes a previously forgettable song abruptly great. Furthermore, the new version in theory has to be a notable re-conception; but then again, sometimes the new one is pretty straightforward and similar-seeming. I think maybe the single through-line most great covers have in common is summed up in the word “character”—a pretty much ineffable way of describing the presence and vigor the singer brings to the moment-to-moment moments of the song. I have no particular further explanation for why Eliza Gilkyson’s version of World Party’s “Is It Like Today” feels so momentous. It’s her voice, her phrasing, her arrangement, all adding up to character. Lots and lots of character. You may or may not hear the same thing but I’m at least giving you the chance, and that’s something.

Meanwhile: has Elvis Costello written a better song that no one knows than “Crimes of Paris”? I’m open to other ideas but I’m thinking no, he maybe hasn’t. I’m also wondering how Stevie Wonder managed to make something that sounds like a harpsichord not make me run away screaming. Usually harpsichords send me running away, screaming. This playlist is full of such minor mysteries. I’m not sure why Haley Bonar isn’t a bigger deal. I’m not sure why Norah Jones is so consistently alluring. And think about this: “The Wheel and the Maypole,” closing things out here, with its improbably catchy two-part chorus, was the last song on the last album that the band XTC ever released. Always leave ’em wanting more—a great philosophy so few properly represent.

Oh and p.s.: this is a different Robert Johnson. Not sure how a mid-’70s white guy figured he could make things fly career-wise with that name. Even if it is his actual name. On Wikipedia he gets the middle initial “A.,” but still. And “Leslie” cops a guitar line from “Apache.” But still.

“Numbers With Wings” – The Bongos (Numbers With Wings, 1983)
“La Cage Appat” – Peppertree (Peppertree, 2006)
“Frozen Garden” – Emily Jane White (They Moved In Shadow All Together, 2016)
“Solitary Man” – Neil Diamond (The Feel of Neil Diamond, 1966)
“Leslie” – Robert Johnson (Close Personal Friend, 1978)
“Find Him” – Cassandra Wilson (New Moon Daughter, 1995)
“Hometown” – Haley Bonar (Impossible Dream, 2016)
“5-7-0-5” – City Boy (Book Early, 1978)
“Last Innocent Year” – Jonatha Brooke (10 Cent Wings, 1997)
“(Come ‘Round Here) I’m the One You Need – Smokey Robinson & the Miracles (Away We a Go-Go, 1966)
“Crimes of Paris” – Elvis Costello & the Attractions (Blood and Chocolate, 1986)
“Is It Like Today” – Eliza Gilkyson (Paradise Hotel, 2005)
“Free” – Stevie Wonder (Characters, 1987)
“I Wanna Be Your Lady” – Shannon Wardrop (Cloud Nine EP, 2015)
“Season’s Trees” – Danger Mouse & Daniele Luppi, featuring Norah Jones (Rome, 2011)
“‘Cello Song” – Nick Drake (Five Leaves Left, 1969)
“Mirror Star” – Fabulous Poodles (Mirror Stars, 1978)
“The Real World” – The Bangles (The Bangles EP, 1982)
“Trust in Me” – Holly Cole Trio (Blame It On My Youth, 1992)
“The Wheel and the Maypole” – XTC (Wasp Star (Apple Venus, Part 2), 2000)

Free and legal MP3: Lost Woods

Brisk, melodic, ’90s-ish guitar rock

“Vodka Ocean” – Lost Woods

Something relaxes in me as I listen to “Vodka Ocean.” And it has nothing to do with the song’s lyrical content (about which more later). It’s the straightforward palette of traditional rock’n’roll—guitars, bass, drum. And maybe more than that: it’s the clarity of two distinct guitars interacting. That’s one of the sounds that the digital age has drained from our cultural commons and I don’t recall that we took a vote on this. You can hear it in the introduction, and during the instrumental breaks, the way both guitars find their own lead lines, working in a way that is at once complementary and also independent—it’s as if the guitars aren’t necessarily listening to each other but merely trusting that the other one is going to be in a sympathetic place.

And as I keep listening I detect an extra element buttressing the two-guitar attack, and probably rendering it all the more ear-catching, and that’s the bass. Urgent and creative, the bass functions nearly as a third guitar for all its melodic inventiveness. It even gets a fuzzed-out solo (1:55), not something you hear everyday.

Oh and as for those lyrics apparently the song grew out of an unfortunate bit of overindulgence at a music festival, after hearing that Frank Ocean had cancelled. Further details are probably best overlooked, but any band that can turn such an incident into a song this assured and engaging is worth keeping an eye on, says me.

Lost Woods claims inspiration from early ’90s indie rock and I am not only hearing that generally but I am finding myself thinking specifically, and fondly, of the trio Dada (known best for “Dizz Knee Land” but their 1992 debut was chock full of incisive tunes). “Vodka Ocean” is the third Lost Woods single; an EP is on the way.

Free and legal MP3: Florence Glen (smartly expressed, acoustic-based)

Everything is crisp and succinct, even as more instrumental diversity is involved than one might initially expect in an intimate, singer/songwriter setting.

“Let Me Run” – Florence Glen

I’ll be the first to admit there’s a fine line between acoustic-based singer/songwriter music that inspires and acoustic-based singer/songwriter music that bores. The basic sonic atmosphere is pretty much the same—guitar, voice—and yet some songs fly and some songs sink.

“Let Me Run” is a flyer, and one of its primary assets is its simplest: this song is super concise. Check out the introduction—we hear one iteration of the deftly-played central guitar lick, seven seconds in all, and then a three-second pause, and then we’re right into the verse. This is not the trivial detail it may at first seem; precisely because acoustic-based songs are often stripped of most aural texture they really should progress without delay. Many don’t; Glen wins our hearts and ears quickly by simply opening her mouth. In all, the song runs but 3:05—a healthy length, to my ears.

But “concise” doesn’t just mean “short”; it means intelligently compressed and expressed. One of “Let Me Run”‘s finest features is its production quality, in terms of both clarity and variety of sound. Everything is crisp and succinct, even as more instrumental diversity is involved than one might initially expect in this singer/songwriter-y setting. In addition to percussion we get adroitly incorporated strings and even, I think, a tasteful hint of electronics. Nothing intrudes and yet we are soon enough in the middle of a fully formed composition.

Best of all is the natural instrument on display—Glen’s dusky alto, with its fetching lilt (counterbalancing the darker tones of her lower register) and a rhythmic precision built into her enunciation (I am for some reason especially taken with how she sings the word “together” at 0:52).

“Let Me Run” is a song from Glen’s EP Spread Them Eggs, released in May. You can check out the full EP on SoundCloud. Glen is based in London. This is her first fully-produced recording; a previous, self-recorded digital EP came out in 2013.

Free and legal MP3: Kauf (hypnotic, groove-based melancholy)

“Through the Yard” exists at a nexus we might not otherwise have noticed, joining world music to 21st-century electronica to late-era Roxy Music.

“Through the Yard” – Kauf

And now, as if to prove that neither conciseness nor organic details are the only tools in a performer’s toolbox, here is the nearly seven-minute-long “Through the Yard,” buttering your ears with its smooth hypnotic charm and groove-based melancholy. Music is more than ever a wide world, easily discerned when commercial radio stations are turned down.

Existing at a nexus we might not otherwise have noticed, joining world music to 21st-century electronica to late-era Roxy Music, “Through the Yard” launches off an ascending pentatonic scale, affected via synthesized woodwinds. Pentatonic scales, with five notes versus the usual seven, produce intervals with a far-away, vaguely non-Western feeling. And if the riff’s persistence here grounds the song in an open-ended inquiry, the lyrics further the effect, with Kauf mastermind Ronald Kaufman singing a series of clipped phrases rendered mysterious via beginnings and endings that are swallowed or otherwise indecipherable—we pick out words but not concrete meaning. It seems no accident that the song’s most-repeated lyric, “If you make a little noise,” is inherently unresolved: if you make a little noise, THEN what? I don’t think we find out.

The song, nevertheless, delivers a certain kind of arc. At first, “Through the Yard” is held together by its riff, its smartly assembled percussive sounds, and the layered allure of Kauf’s half-rich/half-disaffected vocals. A fuller-fledged electronic beat emerges at the three-minute mark. And while the first half of the song revolves around what feel like verses, the second half, after the underlying beat comes forward, employs subtler, higher-register melodies, with an upward-floating feel, and matches them against more insistent sounds below (for instance, that off-kilter line repeated by a trumpet-like synth first around 3:40, and more insistently again around 4:30). Through it all I feel drawn to how Kauf presents as both disconsolate and upbeat at the same time. I identify that as the Bryan Ferry element here.

“Through the Yard” is slated to be the final track on Kauf’s debut album, Regrowth, slated for release later this year. In the meantime, you can check out two other tracks at his Bandcamp page. Kaufman is based in Los Angeles. Thanks to the artist for the MP3.

MP3 no longer available as of August 2016.

photo credit: Daniel Trese

Free and legal MP3: Mark Tulk (plaintive but upbeat, piano-driven)

A fetching constant throughout is Tulk’s warm, strong singing voice, with a tone at once earthy and buoyant.

“Universal Code” – Mark Tulk

While tinged with a bittersweet air “Universal Code” likewise comes across as friendly and comforting. Piano-based rock music can have that effect on me, I think. Maybe it’s just because I grew up playing piano, and hearing a good amount of piano music in the house. Or maybe—just maybe—there is something built into the sound of a piano, perhaps its unique capacity to be at once melodic and percussive, that feels human-scaled and reassuring.

More to the point, see what Tulk is doing with the piano here—two things I am noticing in particular: first, the incisive, eighth-note motif that opens the song, with its accents on the one and two beats (at once basic and somewhat unusual), right away asserting the instrument’s rhythmic potency, and racing the pulse a bit; second, the song’s central chord change, heard first at 0:14, which is a homely but affecting up-step from G major to A minor. Written into the right context, moving up just one tonal interval can be a poignant thing. Which is to say he had me at hello, basically.

Which is not to say there are not engaging elements throughout, of course. The instrumentation is deftly done—the song expands beyond its piano foundation, with subtle electronic flourishes and offbeat vocal layering, without losing its piano-centric-ness, which seems its own sort of accomplishment. And then what’s this?: a coterie of reed instruments sidle in somewhere along the way, and become undeniable past the two-minute mark. An appealing constant throughout is Tulk’s warm, strong singing voice, with a tone at once earthy and buoyant.

“Universal Code” is the lead track on Embers, Tulk’s third full-length album, released in March; he has also put out two EPs. You can listen to the entire album as well as purchase it via Bandcamp. Born in Australia, Tulk, who identifies himself on his web site as a “writer, philosopher, and musician,” is based in Boulder, Colorado. MP3 courtesy of the artist.