jeremyfingertips

Free and legal MP3: The Blank Tapes (impeccable song, classic sound)

Lo-fi recording master Matt Adams takes his Blank Tapes project into a full-fledged recording studio for the first time. Goodness ensues.

“Coast to Coast” – The Blank Tapes

Previously known for his home-recorded-onto-cassette output (and quite a lot of output it was), Matt Adams has taken his shape- (and location-)shifting lo-fi project The Blank Tapes into an actual recording studio, solidified it into a permanent band, and given us an impeccable helping of rock’n’roll goodness in the process.

Adams has always had a knack for songwriting; to my ears, it’s a pleasure to hear a song of his given the width and depth that lo-fi recording really can’t deliver. But it’s not like he’s turned into Beyoncé or anything—a fuzzy sense of the homemade and hand-crafted very much remains, and completely serves a song that pays homage to the garage-y side of classic ’60s rock while avoiding the feel of a hollow knock-off. Hints of the Zombies, the Kinks, CCR, and/or the Guess Who are sprinkled in and around “Coast to Coast,” which is additionally full of splendid touches of its own, both small and large—the minor-key wordless vocal introduction to the major-key song; the fleeting Spector beat in front of the chorus; and (my favorite) the extended bridge that offers not only an aural change of pace but unfolds into a very satisfying coda section (2:48). When the ear is taken on that effective of a side trip, hearts are usually won over.

Adams has spent musical time in both San Francisco and Los Angeles. The latest incarnation of the Blank Tapes is an L.A.-based trio featuring D.A. Humphrey on bass and Pearl Charles on drums. “Coast to Coast” is the first available song from the album Vacation, which is due out in May on Antenna Farm Recordings. You can download the song via the link above or from SoundCloud. Thanks to Largehearted Boy for the head’s up.

Free and legal MP3: Grave Babies (fuzzy, loud, & accessible)

The fuzzy, voluminous surface can’t disguise the catchy song lurking beneath, and obviously doesn’t want to.

“No Fear” – Grave Babies

The fuzzy, voluminous surface can’t disguise the catchy song lurking beneath, and obviously doesn’t want to. Listen, right at the start, to how that ominous electronic swell that opens the song delivers us first into a goth-y electronic beat and then into an instrumental melody—some kind of processed guitar, maybe?—with enough soaring and plummeting desire to break your heart (and don’t miss the extended “wrong” note it almost but doesn’t quite end on, at 0:36, which seems about perfect). This melody—succinct, well-crafted, and affecting—tells you just about everything you need to know about “No Fear,” and immediately sets it apart from the endless number of tunes I hear these days with long, introspective introductions in which nothing friggin’ happens.

And okay, I’ll avoid that particular soapbox for now (just barely), and get back to the various extroverted pleasures “No Fear” offers, which include: the way front man Danny Wahlfeldt sings from within a chorally muffle of distortion, which is oddly captivating for no good reason; the way the introduction’s fetching melody returns, in abbreviated form, in the middle of the song (1:31), something you don’t hear much of today largely because few songs bother with instrumental melody lines; and the general way Grave Babies here unites a variety of disconnected rock’n’roll genres from the ’80s and ’90s and ’00s, not all of which have been known for their pop sensibilities, into something concise and accessible.

“No Fear” is from the album Crusher, the band’s second, coming later this month on Hardly Art Records. Note that Grave Babies are not to be confused with the band Brave Baby, which was featured here in December.

photo credit: Angel Ceballos

Free and legal MP3: Mr. Jenkins (slow, odd, endearing)

As quirky and rumpled as a song can be while still possessing genuine pop spirit.

“Suddenly, I Don’t Feel So Afraid” – Mr. Jenkins

As quirky and rumpled as a song can be while still possessing genuine pop spirit. The unusual combination of being both slow-moving and short is but one of its oddnesses, as well as one of its charms. Note how the slowness feels almost unnatural, more trippy slow-motion than merely downtempo.

After a sparse, deliberate introduction, the song opens with its chorus—good move in a sub-two-minute number, I’d say—and the melody, though sluggish, is playful. Listen to that little speeded-up phrase (around 0:21), the second iteration of “I don’t feel so”: there’s something Bacharachian in there, and yet it almost creates cognitive dissonance in this swimming-through-jello vibe. The lyrics are incomprehensible globally, but pregnant phrases register, and it could be that the chorus’s use of repeating, understandable lyrical phrases matched against asymmetrical musical phrases is what lends such force to the tune:

Suddenly I don’t
I don’t feel so strange
I don’t feel so afraid anymore
You surely feel it too

First comes the immediately repeated “I don’t”s, and then that third one fitting now into the syncopated double-time flourish, leading next into the completely artificial way the “afraid anymore/You” break scans, and as much as I am by and large a proponent of lyrics that scan naturally, in this case, I find myself delighted.

Nick Jenkins is an experimental drummer-composer-illustrator who has been involved in a wide range of musical projects—alternative rock, jazz, alt-country, contemporary classical, you name it. As a solo performer he has been recording as Mr. Jenkins since 2006—32 releases and counting. Most have been EPs, and while the total includes a seven-volume series (Samples) each release of which presents simply and only the 12 notes of the standard chromatic scale as represented by one particular type of sound producer (wine bottles, cell phones, et al), the rest of them feature full-fledged songs, usually instrumentals, and often with endearing tiles such as “Love is Not Thinking” and “It Would Be So Much Easier If I Could Just Swim Across.” “Suddenly, I Don’t Feel So Afraid Anymore” is from the album of the same name, released in November 2012 (although this is a remixed version of the original); you can check the whole unusual thing out on Bandcamp. This new verseion came to my attention via a free and legal sampler just released by the record company, Hearts and Plugs, on whose roster you’ll also find the Fingertips-featured bands Elim Bolt and Brave Baby (not to be confused, conversely, with Grave Babies!).

Free and legal MP3: Connections (stellar lo-fi power pop)

“Mall Lights” is one of a series of lo-fi power pop gems on the band’s debut album, Private Airplane.

“Mall Lights” – Connections

In classic science fiction, everything in the future was always new. Even though the present moment of our actual experience always incorporates sights and sounds and objects and ideas from generations, even centuries, gone by, that reality was typically overlooked by writers and directors creating imaginary futures in science fiction novels and movies. Blade Runner notably shattered that perspective, and things have been a little better since. But the idea that the future must somehow be purely new, jettisoned of all previous history, remains a resolute mindset among a certain type of cyber zealot—the one who likes to stomp around calling anyone with any interest in attitudes and artifacts from the pre-digital age a “dinosaur,” a “Luddite,” or “afraid of change.” This person is a buffoon. Real-life human society does not discard its past whole-hog; the only way we truly grow, collectively, in fact, is to learn from our past, and, quite often, to preserve helpful ways of being and doing precisely because they will help us even in the face of changing circumstances.

And so, you see, for all of the new sounds and innovative devices that have flooded the music world over the last 15 years, and for all the new micro-genres they have generated, there will always, in our lifetime at least, be people somewhere making music like this—people who plug their guitars into their amps and have a go at it. A lot of these people will produce music too redundant or too derivative or too uninspired to be worthy of attention. But then there will be the occasional band like Connections, a quintet from Columbus, Ohio, who plug their guitars into their amps, set up their drum kits, and wowee—the ears smile, the heart gladdens, and for two minutes or so at a time, all is right with the world. “Mall Lights” is one of a series of lo-fi power pop gems on the band’s debut album, Private Airplane. What makes this one work particularly well above and beyond the jangly guitars, resolute backbeat, and fuzzy ambiance is the song’s all but unending hookiness. The verse grabs me immediately with its grounded, NRBQ-ish musicality, its major-minor shifts, and its adroitly employed power chords. And yet this is mere set-up for the sublime chorus, which artfully skips the first beat of each measure until (0:45) its tail section wraps the tune up with a brilliant bow.

Connections didn’t invent any of this stuff; I’m guessing that fans of Guided by Voices in particular will hear a lot of that Ohio institution’s work in the lo-fi poppiness on display here. Note that Connections features two guys from 84 Nash, a defunct Columbus-based band whose 1997 debut was released by GBV patriarch Robert Pollard’s Rockathon record label, as well as one guy from the band Times New Viking. But as with any good music, however influenced by past masters, the end product transcends its roots. This is time-tested music produced by time-tested musicians, and the world is a better place for it.

Private Airplane was released in January on Columbus-based Anyway Records. Thanks to the band for the MP3, which is a Fingertips exclusive at this point.

Free and legal MP3: Beat Radio (noisy, friendly)

A bendy, metallic swirl of guitar and drum and semi-intelligible lyrics and that manages to leave you feeling kind of smiley after all.

“Hurricanes, XO” – Beat Radio

“Hurricanes, XO” presents a bendy, metallic swirl of guitar and drum and semi-intelligible lyrics and manages to leave you feeling kind of smiley after all. I hear something of Neutral Milk Hotel in the fuzzy/tinny hubbub, as well as in the off-kilter approach to anthemic rock’n’roll. The song creates an agreeable racket, anchored by melodies both offhanded and expert and electric guitar work that hides its monumentality behind a veneer of distortion.

Beat Radio front man and general master mind Brian Sendrowitz mixes his voice down into the middle of the storm here, which on the one hand seems appropriate—we may not be supposed to catch all the words blowing by—but on the other hand, hey, we can’t catch all the words blowing by! And they seem pretty intriguing. You can cheat by reading the lyrics yourself on Bandcamp but then again, I’m not sure the song makes any more literal sense that way. In fact, straining to understand random phrases is almost more engaging, which could be why it was produced the way it was. I don’t quite know what “And if I write a seasick waltz/Or disappear to shopping malls” means but I like the sound of it.

Sendrowitz, based on Long Island, has been recording as Beat Radio since 2005. All the while it has been less an abiding band than an occasional getting-together of friends and collaborators; right now the only official members are Sendrowitz and drummer Brian Ver Straten. “Hurricanes, XO” is the lead track from the fourth, forthcoming Beat Radio album, Hard Times, Go! I like the title’s open-ended double meaning: it’s either telling hard times to skedaddle or, maybe, telling all of us that hard times can bring it on, we can take it. The album is coming later this month on Awkward for Life Records, a label Sendrowitz runs with his wife. He describes the album as one that “sonically and thematically falls between Bruce Springsteen’s Darkness on the Edge of Town and Robyn’s Body Talk. Alright then. Note that Beat Radio was previously featured on Fingertips back in 2006.

Free and legal MP3: La Luz (slinky, surfy, reverby)

A slowed-down girl-group number with both nostalgic flair and the spark of unfamiliarity.

“Call Me in the Day” – La Luz

Current indie rock nodding aurally to late ’50s or early ’60s rock’n’roll has become commonplace, although I’m still getting a kick out of it, because first of all I never anticipated it and second of all it’s a fun sound, especially for anyone who likes a good tune with his or her music. Many of the melodies that pre-Beatles songwriters wrote sounded resolutely similar to one another but melodies they were, and if a new generation of musicians sees fit to excavate the vibe to see what charms may remain, I for one will not wag my finger and scold them for not being “new” enough.

“Call Me in the Day” is a kind of slowed-down girl-group number, the days-of-yore production limitations mimicked here by the reverb-enhanced lo-fi setting; add the slinky bass and the punctuation of echoey, low-register guitar riffs, which bring surf-rock undertones to the proceedings, and all sorts of nostalgia is in the air. And yet a spark of unfamiliarity shines through. First, the rhythm section grabs the ear, the way the old-school bass line is paired with a humble but decisive snare drum, the drum less supportive than finding its own way in the empty spaces. This brings a band awareness to music that had been previously crafted by non-performing songwriters. And what really snaps me to attention are the harmonies, beginning at 0:39. There’s something abruptly pure and clean about the sound of the two women here singing together that both transcends the muddier feeling of the production and ties it all together. The interplay of the voices now justifies the song’s leisurely pace. It just feels good. And then comes an 80-second instrumental break, and by then I’m so on board with the slinky groove that this feels good too. I’ve talked in the past about the pleasures of finding latitude in short songs by cutting back on verses and adding instrumental breaks; this is an upstanding example of that.

La Luz was founded in Seattle just last year. Their first recording was the EP Damp Face, which was released in September. “Call Me in the Day” is the lead track; it was recently made available as a free and legal MP3 via Fullerton, Calif.-based Burger Records, which this week re-released Damp Face as a cassette. You can hear the whole EP, and purchase it, via Bandcamp.

Free and legal MP3: Cliff Dweller (archetypal American sound, slightly unhinged)

With its classically American sound, “Peace in the Valley” all but force images of prairies and big skies and dusky campfires into your brain.

“Peace in the Valley” – Cliff Dweller

I am not sure how or when there developed music that innately sounds “American” but it happened. And if the composer Aaron Copeland didn’t himself invent the sound he surely perfected it. Note that this has little if anything to do with the genre of music that has been called Americana; in fact, I believe the only songwriter in the rock’n’roll world who has tapped into that quintessential American-music vein with regularity and brilliance has been Randy Newman (see “Louisiana 1927,” see “Dixie Flyer,” see “My Country,” et al). “Peace in the Valley” immediately aligns itself with this sound; the opening melody and chord progression all but force images of prairies and big skies and dusky campfires into your brain. A cumulative sense of homespun gospel adds to the pioneer sensibility.

Where “Peace in the Valley” veers from this archetypal sound is in the details, which register as somewhere between subtly disheveled and overtly unhinged. Orchestral instruments play (sometimes squeak, as per 1:10), but with ramshackle discipline. You kind of wait for the whole thing to unravel, but it doesn’t. This adds to the power. The vocals, when they come, via Alex Jacob (who does musical business as Therapies Son) and Ella Hatamian, are whispery-fragile (him) and sturdy but plain-spoken (her). Soon they are backed by a swelling choir, in which context Jacob suddenly begins to sound—intentionally or not—a bit like Randy Newman himself. After one verse and one visit to the chorus, the instrumental ensemble reasserts control, takes the rhythm up a notch, and culminates in a violin solo that out-ass-kicks most electric guitar solos in our electric-guitar-deprived day and age. All in all I’m not exactly sure what I just sat through but I enjoyed it.

The larger context is unhelpful. Cliff Dweller has been identified in its press material as a “sonic and visual project” by an LA-based artist named Ari Balouzian, himself a classically-trained violist and composer, as well as a film scorer. He is also (there’s more?) a seventh-generation master shoemaker, working for the Burbank-based company Cydwoq, founded by his father. Cliff Dweller, as an art project, has something to do with Cydwoq but at this point—a personal short-coming, I’ll confess—my intellectual eyes glaze over. I remain unconvinced by projects with aims both large-scale and obscure, and have not as yet mustered the musical patience to listen to the 19 mostly instrumental songs that comprise Emerald City, the album on which you’ll find “Peace in the Valley.” Feel free to sample the whole thing yourself, however, via Bandcamp; your mileage may very well vary.

Free and legal MP3: Mice Parade (slinky, off-kilter indie pop)

There is something ongoingly makeshift about this song, as if these are the folks who wandered in and started playing, while waiting for the rest of the band to show up.

“Contessa” – Mice Parade

I immediately enjoy this song’s slinky, semi-minimalist setting—we are shuffled into an offbeat unfolding of 4/4 without a lot of fuss. There is something ongoingly makeshift about this song, as if these are the folks who wandered in and started playing, while waiting for the rest of the band to show up. Front man Adam Pierce, also the drummer, is the first singer we hear, but his half-hidden vocal is really just a tease; the song becomes the property of second vocalist Caroline Lufkin as soon as she opens her mouth (0:42). She’s got one of those voices that feels both gentle and piercing (no pun intended; well, maybe partially intended) at the same time. Their voices work especially well together (although I’m still not sure how his voice ends up quite so mixed down on his last lead line, at 1:12—seems either a mistake or a private joke).

“Contessa” furthermore continues a streak of songs here featuring a compelling instrumental section. It starts as what seems like a standard, post-chorus instrumental break (2:44), although its cool keyboard lines and fractured drumming make it not all that standard in the first place. Around 3:06 it gathers force and leads us, via some extended percussive tension, into a second instrumental episode, this one featuring a lazy series of keyboard lines and (I think) distorted guitar blurps over a repeating but difficult-to-digest drumbeat. We seem to have stumbled upon some very odd sort of jazz combo, and while waiting for the song to re-establish itself, I looked at the clock and realized we’re running out of time. The song just fades. I kind of liked that, for whatever reason.

Based (where else?) in Brooklyn, Mice Parade is one of those “only in indie rock” kinds of outfits—an experimental post-rock ensemble with fluid membership and shifting sonic affiliations that tools along for years in relative obscurity. The constant has been Pierce, previously known (maybe) as drummer in the band The Swirlies. Mice Parade records have been coming out semi-regularly since 1998, with titles like The True Meaning of Boodleybaye and Bem-Vinda Vontade. “Contessa” is the second to last track on the new Mice Parade album, entitled Candela, which was released this week on Fat Cat Records.

photo credit: Oleg Pulemjotov

Free and legal MP3: Laurelin Kruse (rich and slow and ghostly)

For a sparsely instrumented song, the vibe is rich and dark.

“Jupiter” – Laurelin Kruse

Languorous and fetching, “Jupiter” is all slow-motion swing and achy melody. For a sparsely instrumented song, the vibe is rich and dark. Kruse has a velvety, k.d. lang-ish voice and she plants it into something of a ghostly setting, with verses sung over a distinctive rhythm section—a nimble, deep-register thumping that’s either a very percussive bass or a very tuneful drum or, maybe, resourceful programming. There’s something of a cartoon graveyard in the sound, a feeling augmented by the minimalist guitar work and an evocative electronic crash or two. The verse takes its time. Do not be in a hurry.

A delicious wash of a drum roll (0:56) deposits us into the chorus, which offers a grand payoff, with that pining, melody and a busier but vague aural landscape that now seems to be incorporating some strings and a new guitar sound or two. This is wide-ranging, lonesome music, and I have no particular idea what she’s singing about (even with her apparent hint; see below), but those repeating words hit me, mysteriously, in the gut: “And seventy years/Is still too soon.” And then, those equally mysterious and yet more disconcerting parting words: “Keep your hat on.” Hit repeat. Keep listening. It’s hard to stop once you start.

I learned about “Jupiter” through a short email sent by Kruse herself. Yes, that’s sometimes how I find out about things. Needless to say I get kind of a ton of email and most of them either try too hard, or too little. This one hit a rare sweet spot. “I’m a girl from Colorado stuck in Brooklyn and this song is about how I’m always trying to get the hell home,” she wrote. Also: “It’s like a meteorite crashing into a Spaghetti Western.” Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t but I liked her email and I like this song. It’s from an EP entitled Winter in Mind that Kruse self-released earlier this month. You can listen to it, and purchase it, from Bandcamp. You can download “Jupiter” via the link above, or at Kruse’s SoundCloud page, where you can also leave a comment for her if that’s your idea of a good time.

Free and legal MP3: Elias Krantz (persistent, satisfying instrumental)

Persistent and satisfying, without calling undue attention to itself.

“Young Ends” – Elias Krantz

So the theory is that a good rock’n’roll instrumental should present the perfect balance between repetition and novelty. Which is to say that I just made that up. But it sounds reasonable, right? Repetition in an instrumental gives ears otherwise accustomed to hearing words something to hang onto. Too much repetition, however, is stupefying. That’s where novelty comes in. And note that novelty does not have to mean crazy wacky outlandishness. The novelty on display throughout “Young Ends” is pretty darned subtle all in all—an interesting change in a rhythmic pattern here, an unexpected additional sound there. I think that’s what makes this song so compelling, in fact. It’s doing its thing, in repetition, and yet without its arms and standing on its head still manages to feel like a satisfying journey.

The misleading guitar line in the introduction—misleading in terms of fitting with the time signature—sets the stage for a song that wants to stick with one basic melodic motif but still slyly hold your attention. The next sneaky trick is how the main melody shifts in space between its first and second iterations. This is going to be clunky to describe, but if you listen closely to the disciplined bass and drum, you’ll see that the melody aligns one way against that rhythmic accompaniment the first time you hear it (0:21) and a different way the second time through (0:42). I wouldn’t call this profound but it’s pretty compelling; it’s something you can sense without quite being able to put your finger on it. Sounds are used in similarly subtle ways, whether it’s the slightly higher than usual register of the bass (you can hear it in particular when it emerges in a clearing at around 0:40), the offhanded infiltration of the xylophone-like sound at 1:04, or the entirely unexpected arrival of what sounds like a harmonica at 1:54, which works itself more thoroughly into the soundscape a little later. Somewhere along the way, the tenacious bass finds a more upward-oriented line to play and the entire song feels opened. By the time the voices arrive (3:24)—as ever, subtly—something like redemption seems to be at hand.

Elias Krantz is a multi-instrumentalist from Sweden. “Young Ends” is the sixth of nine tracks on his second album, Night Ice, which was released on the Stockholm-based label Country & Eastern last year. A vinyl album has been more recently released. MP3 via the artist.