jeremyfingertips

Free and legal MP3: Red Morris (pyrotechnic old-school instrumental)

The classic-rock familiarity of his sleek and fiery guitar tone is “Lady Rose”‘s fearless center and ongoing inspiration.

“Lady Rose” – Red Morris

Dramatic, and dramatically old-school, “Lady Rose” is an electric-guitar-driven instrumental, with castanets. I love castanets. I also love little time-signature tricks such as what you’ll hear in the opening melody, the alternating 6/4 and 4/4 measures that give the guitar line an asymmetrical bit of juice. And if that particular trick soon disappears, as Maurizio Parisi pretty soon dives too far into his pyrotechnics to worry about changing time signatures, oh well. The castanets stick around, so you should too.

Parisi, using the performing name of Red Morris, is a guitarist from Brescia, in northern Italy. He claims the likes of Santana, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and Cream as inspirations. What I think I’m enjoying most of all is the sonic space in which he enfolds us, a steadfast march that develops as a kind of theme and variations: first we hear the grounding melody, then Parisi goes increasingly to town with his fingers and hands. The classic-rock familiarity of his sleek and fiery guitar tone is “Lady Rose”‘s fearless center and ongoing inspiration. Electric guitars may be going the way of the dodo bird in popular music but that’s just about trends and fads, not truth; there’s no reason to be finished with the electric guitar any more than we should ever be finished with the piano or the violin.

“Lady Rose” is the title track of Red Morris’s debut album, released back in September. MP3 via Insomnia Radio.

Free and legal MP3: YAST (awesome mix of noise and melody)

“I Don’t Think She Knows” – YAST

Equal parts noise and melody, “I Don’t Think She Knows” is an awesome slice of 21st-century rock’n’roll, from a land (Sweden) that hasn’t given up on the genre quite as much as we have here, alas. But with this kind of thing still crossing the border, I can yet find my happy place—until, at least, a future president sees fit to seal everything and everyone out and all of us left here just end up shouting each other to death. Did I say shouting? I meant shooting. Or, better, shouting and shooting: that’s the American way.

But I digress. And present “I Don’t Think She Knows” as the kind of song that can (maybe) take your mind off the parade of unmitigated lunacy currently passing as normal here in the ever-amazing (not necessarily meant in a good way) United States. Launched off a yearning, fuzzed-out two-note guitar riff, scuffed up by noise and reverb, “I Don’t Think She Knows” succeeds with a lovely, minor-key verse melody, a wordless chorus, stellar guitar work, and a healthy dose of impenetrable commotion. That juxtaposition of identifiable guitar lines and blurry hubbub is, to my ears, one of the things that gives the song its sharp appeal. And don’t lose sight of the nimble bass line either; even when all hell breaks loose (e.g., 3:06), the bass keeps us grounded structurally and sonically. We know we’re in a pop song, which every now and then is still a good place to be. Especially when the shouting and shooting starts.

YAST was formed by three musicians from the Swedish city of Sandviken in 2007, and became a quintet after moving to Malmö for its more music-oriented culture (although the two new members were also, as luck would have it, from Sandviken). The band released its first single in 2012, its first album in 2013, and a second album in September 2015, called My Dreams Did Finally Come True, which is where you’ll find this song. If you want a higher-quality .wav file, visit Adrian Recordings on SoundCloud.

With the moon round his waist

Eclectic Playlist Series 3.02 – February 2016

If there is another playlist somewhere with Pere Ubu, Madonna, Shostakovich, Bettye Lavette, and Foreigner on it I’d like to see it.

So, okay: the Shostakovich. I have yet to venture into the Classical Music realm here, but of all the short Classical pieces I know, there are few that rock as hard as this crazy little piece from 1925. Do your best to give it at least 60 seconds, so you can see what happens when the strings really start driving it. If you don’t like the thing soon after that, well, that’s what the “skip” button is for. But hey, it’s the Eclectic Playlist Series, is it not?: ideally no music should be preemptively disqualified here merely for the matter of genre.

And, yes, Madonna. I always liked “Borderline,” a song that got quickly overshadowed by her impending Madonna-ness. I wish she hadn’t quite so quickly ditched the subtle musicality and low-key hookiness on display here. Yes it’s got an ’80s pop sheen but also some really nice melodic and harmonic moments. And this was so early in her career that I remember they played it on alternative rock stations. Those were the days.

“Frederick” – Patti Smith Group (Wave, 1979)
“Pony” – Charlie Hilton (Palana, 2016)
“The Trains” – The Nashville Ramblers (single, 1986)
“Run” – Kathleen Edwards (Asking for Flowers, 2008)
“Riding on the Back” – Francis Dunnery (Let’s Go Do What Happens, 1998)
“The Dark End of the Street” – James Carr (You Got My Mind Messed Up, 1967)
“Blue Morning, Blue Day” – Foreigner (Double Vision, 1978)
“Venus” – Anaïs Mitchell (Young Man in America, 2012)
“Oh L’Amour” – Erasure (Wonderland, 1986)
“Let Me Down Easy” – Bettye LaVette (single, 1965)
“Fix Me Now” – Garbage (Garbage, 1995)
“Sacred Heart” – Cass McCombs (PREfection, 2005)
“Bus Called Happiness” – Pere Ubu (Cloudland, 1989)
“Last Night” – The Mar-Keys (single, 1961)
“Keeps My Body Warm” – Abra Moore (Strangest Places, 1997)
Scherzo in G Minor – Dmitri Shostakovich (Two Pieces for String Octet – Opus 11, 1925)
“Unconscious Melody” – Viet Cong (Cassette, 2014)
“Borderline” – Madonna (Madonna, 1983)
“Darlin'” – Beach Boys (Wild Honey, 1967)
“John Saw That Number” – Neko Case (Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, 2006)

Free and legal MP3: Chris Storrow (updating a bygone sound, with horns)

“Raised the Bar” is as we speak blaring out of Top-40 radios everywhere in some alternative world in which politicians compromise and people still use taxi cabs.

“Raised the Bar” – Chris Storrow

With its anthemic horn charts, melodic bass line, and a retro-y, bittersweet bashiness, “Raised the Bar” is as we speak blaring out of Top-40 radios everywhere in some alternative world in which politicians compromise and people still use taxi cabs.

Let’s start with a hat tip to the introduction, which not only gives us those groovy horns right out of the gate but seems to accomplish a whole lot in a short time. After just 10 seconds not only does the song take off but it feels we are already smack in the middle of things, thanks to the ear-catching sixth interval on which the verse melody quickly hinges (it’s there in the second and third notes we hear). That’s one good way to write a song, for those who need more than rhythm to get the spirit fluttering. Another good way is to employ most of the notes of the scale in your melody, which “Raised the Bar” does in the chorus, skipping just one note out of eight (counting the home note in both its lower and upper registers). (End of music theory lecture.)

The bygone feeling in the air here is, according to press material, no accident—Storrow set out on this new album to write straightforward songs in the tradition of the hits one might have heard on AM radio in the 1960s. Based in Montreal, Storrow worked on these new songs with a number of notable Canadians, including musicians from the Fingertips-featured bands Stars, the New Pornographers, the Dears, and Young Galaxy, in addition to the multi-faceted singer/songwriter Patrick Watson (himself featured here back in 2006).

“Raised the Bar” is the second track on Storrow’s new album, The Ocean’s Door, released earlier this month. You can listen to the whole thing and buy it via Bandcamp.

Free and legal MP3: Swaying Wires

Finnish Americana

“Nowhere” – Swaying Wires

Melancholy yet upbeat folk rock, “Nowhere” is buoyed by graceful melodies and an even more graceful vocalist, in front woman Tina Karkinen. It is in fact the combination of the rough-edged electric guitar work and Karkinen’s easeful vocal tone that gives me such a good feeling as this song unfolds, and accentuates the impression that there is not any one thing that makes “Nowhere” stand out but rather its nuanced elements working together.

And while there is something of the archetypal lonely West in the air, there’s also something unsettled about this song, something that doesn’t want to be entirely constrained within the strummy conventions of so-called Americana. Swaying Wires is from Finland, for one thing, so their take on this kind of music is legitimately unconventional. If you listen closely you’ll see that the song builds mutably—there are wordless breaks between verses and then the verses themselves change musically with each iteration. One of the song’s most intriguing vagaries happens in the chorus, which on the one hand is rooted in a melody that circles with a gratifying momentum, but on the other hand goes harmonically off the rails in two different places—first in a subtle way (at 2:04; listen to the underlying chord around “made to last”) and then more unsettlingly (at 2:20, in and around the phrase “in a silent movie”). The juxtaposition of Karkinen’s cozy voice and these moments of quiet but willful dissonance is mysterious and persuasive, underscored by that hammering electric guitar. The song compels (and rewards) repeated listens.

Swaying Wires is a quartet from Turku, on the southwest coast, Finland’s oldest city and former capital. You’ll find “Nowhere” on I Left a House Burning, the band’s second album, which was released in January on the Brighton, UK-based indie label Battle Worldwide. MP3 via Insomnia Radio.

Free and legal MP3: Shiv Hurrah (gentle, stately DIY)

Shiv Hurrah mastermind David Bechle has a hint of songwriting genius about him, as far as I can tell.

“Girl in the Snow” – Shiv Hurrah

So this one is gentle in a grounded way that most quiet lo-fi songs don’t tend to be; too often gentle in lo-fi land tends towards the inordinately twee. And not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I am super impressed with the poise and sense of purpose on display here. And most of all with the melodic wallop. Shiv Hurrah mastermind David Bechle has a hint of songwriting genius about him, as far as I can tell. (His song “Oh Oh Oh,” featured here in 2010, was a brilliant diamond in the rough, offering up one of the best melodies I’ve yet encountered here on Fingertips.)

“Girl in the Snow”‘s simple, palpable power is reinforced by the odd but decisive choice to bring a clarinet into the mix. Even more oddly, it’s an instrument that Bechle himself had never played but in this case borrowed an instrument, learned the part, and played it himself anyway. I am far more in awe of that than I will ever be by a beat someone makes, but that’s just me being old-school again.

When last we left the Rochester, NY-based Shiv Hurrah in 2010 they were kind-of/sort-of a band, but in the years since the project has become Bechle’s baby, even as his former band mates remain good friends and are intermittently available for ideas and input. The new Shiv Hurrah album is Bechle’s second; it’s called Antiquarios and is available to listen to and purchase via Bandcamp. And, if you must know, because I needed to, the project name is a play on the renowned Bollywood songwriting tandem of Shivkumar Sharma and Hariprasad Chaurasia, who are known as Shiv-Hari.

Thanks to the band (i.e., David) for the MP3.

Free and legal MP3: Cotton Mather (lost-lost Texas power pop band returns)

Here’s Cotton Mather’s front man Robert Harrison asking the musical question: is it still power pop when the hooks are this subtle and/or convoluted?

“The Book of Too Late Changes” – Cotton Mather

As regular readers of Fingertips know, I have an eternal musical soft spot for the elusive genre of power pop. My devotion is rooted in the genre’s unabashed melodicism, drive, and, for lack of a better word, song-iness—which is to say power pop doesn’t strain against the conventions of songwriting, it embraces them. As such, power pop has long offered me a safe space from which to observe forces at work on our musical culture that are far beyond any one person’s control. As I see it, music’s long-term destiny as a mass medium has involved a concurrent movement towards compositional simplification on the one hand (think Brahms to Beatles to Bieber) and movement away from beauty on the other (think of classical music’s embrace of atonality, and rock’n’roll’s evolution into beat-driven performance—which can of course be wonderful and compelling but does not usually care about or aim for the value of loveliness). Power pop, of all genres, seems to me to say: “This may not be complicated but it’s still gorgeous.” Oh and you can often dance to it.

But now here’s Cotton Mather’s front man Robert Harrison asking the musical question: is it still power pop when the hooks are this subtle and/or convoluted? Normally power pop is a brisk swatch of ear candy, buoyed by an ineffable sense of depth and yearning. “The Book of Too Late Changes” appears at first to be all angles and incompletions; follow the drumming alone and your head may spin a bit. You will in any case be hard-pressed to sing along. But, I say power pop nonetheless. In fact, I believe “The Book of Too Late Changes” represents an attentive reinvigoration of the genre, with as much punch and drive and melody as your grandfather’s power pop, and yet now with all sorts of tangential twists and turns, with glorious moments and motifs replacing sing-along choruses, all the while embracing the general jangly vibe the genre almost always celebrates. See if you hear what I hear.

Cotton Mather is a Texas band with a semi-legendary history; their 1997 album Kontiki was called “the best album the Beatles never recorded” by The Guardian, in the UK. But the band called it quits without fuss in 2003 (and were featured here on Fingertips that same year). Harrison re-emerged in 2007 at the head of a project called Future Clouds and Radar (likewise featured on Fingertips, in 2008). Prompted by a Kickstarter-funded deluxe re-issue of Kontiki in 2011, Cotton Mather re-formed and played some live gigs, first to support the album then just because. Eventually, Harrison was struck with the improbable idea of recording a 64-song cycle based on the I Ching. “The Book of Too Late Changes” is the first song to emerge from what is envisioned as a multi-record vinyl recording. For the time being, the songs will be released individually as they are recorded.

MP3 via Magnet Magazine.

The heart that sings before it breaks

Eclectic Playlist Series, 3.01 – Jan. 2016

The Eclectic Playlist Series resets again with the new year: all previously played artists are now fair game for the playlists here again. And good thing too, because even though I played David Bowie just last month, I really needed to hear him this month, in the aftermath of our losing this profoundly inspirational artist, and all-around Good Guy. And I wanted in particular to make musical, curational sense of the complex, moving, and generally astounding title track to his final recording, which you will find along the path of this month’s offering, aptly titled “The heart that sings before it breaks.” And this month I will let the music speak for itself, which is about the best thing music does.

“Church of the Poison Mind” – Culture Club (Colour By Numbers, 1983)
“Do I Love You (Indeed I Do)” – Frank Wilson (single, 1965)
“You Know It’s You” – Kirsty MacColl (Titanic Days, 1993)
“Tightrope” – Fanfarlo (Rooms Filled With Light, 2012)
“You Can’t Have Sunshine Everyday” – The Rattles (single, 1971)
“Breathe” – Maria McKee (Maria McKee, 1989)
“Blackstar” – David Bowie (Blackstar, 2016)
“Total Control” – The Motels (The Motels, 1979)
“#807” – Pieta Brown (In the Cool, 2005)
“Tender” – Blur (13, 1999)
“Soldier of Love (Lay Down Your Arms)” – Arthur Alexander (single, 1962)
“Toutes les Belles Inconnues” – Dawn Landes (Mal Habillée, 2012)
“The Goodbye Look” – Donald Fagen (The Nightfly, 1982)
“See Fernando” – Jenny Lewis (Acid Tongue, 2008)
“We Belong to the Night” – Ellen Foley (Nightout, 1979)
“Your Saving Grace” – Steve Miller Band (Your Saving Grace, 1969)
“It Could Be Sweet” – Portishead (Dummy, 1994)
“New York Morning” – Elbow (The Take Off and Landing of Everything, 2014)
“I Surrender, Dear” – Thelonious Monk (Brilliant Corners, 1957)
“Highway Song” – Aztec Two-Step (Aztec Two-Step, 1972)

Free and legal MP3: TW Walsh (fuzzy, well-crafted rocker)

“Young Rebels” – TW Walsh

I needed to hear little more than the distorted drumbeat of the song’s opening seconds to suspect impending goodness; by the time a chimey synth line is added on top (0:04) and a fuzzy bass underneath (0:12), I am all on board. On the one hand yes the intro is just 20 instrumental seconds, the song hasn’t really even started yet; on the other hand, sometimes, damn it all, you can judge the book by the cover. No one who puts together this effortlessly terrific an introduction is going to attach it to a mediocre song. It would unbalance the universe.

Ok so the introduction also lays the table for the first of the song’s two principle compositional enticements, which is the melody’s ongoing de-emphasis of the downbeat (i.e., the first beat of the measure). Check it out: the chimey synth starts up a half beat in front of the first beat, while the verse melody starts a half beat after the first beat, and later lines pick up a half beat before the measure’s last beat. And never mind whether any of this registers as a thing to you as a word description, the larger point is that all this shiftiness around the beat makes for a compelling listen, and renders the chorus (which at last begins right on the first beat; e.g., 0:56) all the more satisfying.

The second enticement is the melody’s relentless downward motion. After the melody at the beginning of the verse repeats once, to catch your attention, all melodic movement in the verse is downward from there. The chorus, likewise, is a descending melody, repeated once. This has a kind of primal appeal, much the same as the satisfaction of watching a ball you toss up in the air return back to your waiting hands.

TW Walsh is a musician and audio engineer who was last featured on Fingertips in 2011; you can read that entry for more biographical background. But know too that since then he suffered for a year and a half with a debilitating disease that was diagnosed inconclusively as chronic fatigue syndrome. Then, when he began to feel somewhat better, he broke his elbow. His 2011 album had been called Songs of Pain and Leisure. “Young Rebels” is the third track on his new album Fruitless Research, which arrives next month via Graveface Records, and was produced in collaboration with the Shins’ Yuuki Matthews (who has worked previously with Sufjan Stevens, Stereolab’s Laetitia Sadier, and David Bazan, among others).

Free and legal MP3: Death in the Afternoon (crisp economical Swedish funk)

If “We Don’t Have to Go Out Tonight” doesn’t single-handedly rescue the electric guitar in our knob-twiddling age, then we may just have to give the thing up for dead once and for all.

“We Don’t Have to Go Out Tonight” – Death in the Afternoon

If “We Don’t Have to Go Out Tonight” doesn’t single-handedly rescue the electric guitar in our knob-twiddling age, then we may just have to give the thing up for dead once and for all. There are the well-placed, slightly wobbly chords of the introduction; the crisp, economical riff accompanying the verse; and then, watch out!: the intertwining of the lead and rhythm guitar lines (1:04), a veritable ballet of funky precision. I’m just about hypnotized by all this. What was your question again?

And okay I’m not expecting miracles here. This is the kind of song that stirs up a tiny bit of dust in a couple of quick weeks (when blogs that need to be first with everything spit their PR-filled words onto the internet), then pretty much disappears (because those same blogs rush on to the next thing, and the next). (Don’t get me started on this, please.) So yes “We Don’t Have to Go Out Tonight” has been out for a few months. Sometimes (maybe all the time) it pays to reflect. I first heard this and it seemed pleasant but I wasn’t sure. Maybe I wasn’t in a good mood that day, who knows. So it sat around and I kept listening. One day it hit me that this song was really good. Those kind of muted lead vocals in the verse, that initially made me wonder what was happening? Turns out they are smartly redeemed by the clarity of the vocals in the chorus, when Christian joins Linda—and note how he sings backing vocals on the same note as the lead vocal for the first two lines, then offers one line of harmony, then a final line back on the same note. It’s a lovely, unassuming construction.

Much as Death in the Afternoon seems to be a lovely, unassuming duo (the aforementioned Linda and Christian, surnames missing in action). They are based in Halmstad, Sweden and take their name, for unknown reasons, from Ernest Hemingway’s treatise on the glory of bullfighting. Their self-titled debut album came out in October on the Stockholm-based Sommarhjärta label.