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Free and legal MP3: Yo La Tengo (in all their blurry/fuzzy glory)

There’s no particular point in trying to parse this song; better to let it wash over you, repeatedly.

“Stupid Things” – Yo La Tengo

Now then, everything I just said about elusive songwriting? Um, maybe never mind. Yo La Tengo is back in town and they are long-reigning masters of elusive pop songs. They may have partially invented the genre. The blurry singing, the fuzzy background, the vehement guitars, the incomprehensible lyrics? It’s all here. And damn if it isn’t pretty lovable somehow.

There’s no particular point in trying to parse this song; better to let it wash over you, on repeat, the way the droning guitar washes over the noodling guitar in the introduction. It’s jarring at first but it works. Over time you may register how the fleeting dissonances and the modest melodious moments congeal into one hypnotic whole. Ira Kaplan whispers his way around a tune that does its best to hide its moment of gratifying resolution. While the guitars seem often to be playing in another song altogether, it’s their long, lyric-free interlude—beginning around 3:18—that to me anchors the song, and renders its mysteries mysteriously meaningful. This episode starts as two plicky, plunking guitars soloing against each other, but at around 3:34 the lower of the two begins an anvil-like repetition of one chord, with one dissonant hiccup at 3:49. The solo guitar, at once meandering and forceful, all but stumbles into a truly satisfying resolution (4:05) and after that, the song just makes sense. The chorus melody had itself given us a taste of resolution back when first heard (1:54) but note how much richer it seems the second time (4:37), reinforced by the synthesizers that join the song for the home stretch.

“Stupid Things” is from the new Yo La Tengo album, Fade, which was released this month on Matador Records. This is their 13th studio album. MP3 via Epitonic. For those keeping score at home, Yo La Tengo has been featured on Fingertips four previous times, most recently in July ’09.

Free and legal MP3: The Lawlands (sedate, assured, & poetic)

Sedate and assured, with two simple verses, no chorus, and an unexpected poetic kick.

“Youth” – The Lawlands

Front man Anthony Ferraro is crooning—there’s no other word for it—but he does so with a wondrous light touch: the rare crooner who sounds like he is singing actually to communicate, rather than to hear the sound of his own voice. (Ouch, regarding all the other crooners, but true, -ish.)

The sedate, assured “Youth” plays out as two simple verses, with no chorus; each verse cycles twice through a melody that is gentle but resolute, unfolding over a double-time rhythm section and a gliding series of open chords. The song’s musical core is I think best understood and reflected by the 35-second instrumental break after the first verse, with a chiming lead guitar line landing more often than not on semi-dissonant notes, creating that open-chorded feeling. There’s a sense of flow, and exploration, and ineffable yearning, and (important) exquisite craftsmanship; I feel I could sit in this space for a long time. But the best is yet to come, as the second verse’s final lyrics open out into unequivocal poetry:

It’s strange, the child that I put to rest
Is beating on the walls of my head
And shouting I’m not finished yet

I call this poetry because any attempt to explicate the meaning would require far more words than the lyric used to get there itself. And because there’s an apprehension (both meanings) in these lines that’s almost thrilling to discover. The song finishes with Ferraro repeating one wistful question—“Where is everything I’ve read about?”—which on the one hand brings good old Morrissey (another crooner!) to mind, with echoes of a famous question he asked only in the song’s title (“How soon is now?”). But here I think we transcend that earlier song’s mopey, unripe concerns. This is pretty deep stuff.

Ferraro has been previously featured on Fingertips for a song he recorded as the one-man project Astronauts, etc., in October 2012. Note that at the time I called his voice a “soothing tenor,” but I guess that was more like a “soothing falsetto.” The Lawlands is a Bay Area band that he joined not long ago when their previous lead singer left the country. From left to right in the picture, you are looking at Drew, Alex, Shaun, and Anthony. “Youth” is available as an MP3 through the link here, or via the SoundCloud page, which also offers up the lyrics and, of course, the opportunity to comment on the song directly to the band.

Free and legal MP3: Harper Simon (strong, graceful rocker w/ E. Smith air)

With an air of Elliott Smith about it, “Bonnie Brae” feels delicate even when rocking hard.

“Bonnie Brae” – Harper Simon

Okay, it’s a first-world problem, but to be the son or daughter of a famous musician seems a no-win situation. Both nature and nurture are on your side, and yet if you dare seek a musical life of your own it’s hard to catch a break from the hive mind. When your mother or father is a landmark figure (Bob Dylan, say; or John Lennon; or, as here, Paul Simon), the kneejerk judgments will always find you lacking in comparison. (But who, pray tell, isn’t lacking in comparison?) So it’s natural for the grown child to want to create some distance from the parent. Especially as they age into full adulthood themselves (the younger Simon is himself 40). And it’s natural for sympathetic and/or hip music writers to want to try to be nonchalant and not even mention the connection (I’ve seen blurbs on Simon that do not mention his father, for instance). This second generation does deserve to be heard on their own, absolutely. And yet: shouldn’t offspring of beloved talents be all the more embraced because of who their parents are—shouldn’t their genetic gifts predispose us to welcoming their musical efforts? It’s a conundrum.

Sometimes, to be sure, the nature part of it is kind of spooky—Dhani Harrison went through a phase maybe 10 years ago when he looked like he just walked off the set of A Hard Day’s Night; and there was that almost too-successfully Lennonesque “Valotte,” by Julian, back in the day. With Harper Simon here, the bond to his dad is un-obvious; given his serious but feathery voice you might instead be inclined to think his father was Elliott Smith. That link is at least semi-purposeful; Division Street, the album on which you’ll find “Bonnie Brae,” was produced by Tom Rothrock, who co-produced Smith breakthrough albums, Either/Or and XO. “Bonnie Brae,” like some of Smith’s work, feels delicate even when rocking hard; better yet, it moves with strength and grace through its entire four-plus minutes—there are melodies and sub-melodies, there are sharp instrumental motifs, splendid guitar work, and there is a brilliant chorus that manages to be subtle and conspicuous at the same time.

Division Street marks a sharp new direction for Simon. His recording debut came in 2008, in a collaboration with step-mom Edie Brickell; they called themselves The Heavy Circles and if it played pretty much like an Edie Brickell solo record, there was nothing necessarily wrong with that (note: they were featured here in January of that year). His solo debut came in ’09, in a self-titled singer-songwriter-y album that was recorded in Nashville and had a bit of an alt-country feel. This one does not. His stated aim was to make a rock’n’roll album that he could enjoy listening to, and towards that end enlisted some significant friends, including Pete Thomas on the drums (from Elvis Costello and the Attractions and/or the Imposters), Nikolai Fraiture on bass (the Strokes), and Mikael Jorgensen on keyboards (Wilco). The album is due out in March on Play It Again Sam Records. MP3 via Magnet Magazine.

Free and legal MP3: Lisa Germano (gorgeous, sad, peculiar)

She sings in sighs; it seems you hear her every breath.

“And So On” – Lisa Germano

Lisa Germano is rivaled only by Tom Waits when it comes to the ability to insert sad, majestic melodies into squirrelly settings. Her songs tend to feel fractured, half-discarded. She sings in sighs; it seems you hear her every breath. In many if not most of her songs, she creates the disconcerting sense that much more is going on than either the words or the music quite reveals.

“And So On” is classic Germano—delicate and peculiar, gorgeous and heart-rending. Beginning with an unadorned piano and voice lament, the background shifts at 0:41 when Germano breaths out the words, “Oh, animals,” and that’s what we get—a barnyard full of chickens and cows and such, suddenly doing their thing in the background. “I just don’t want to know/The places people go,” Germano then sings, a line that seems somehow both to clarify and baffle; and by the way, check out both that chord under the word “places” and the lovely resolution it leads to, briefly. What a short and unusual journey this is. The chorus simply repeats the title phrase, as if its principal section was somehow excised and we are left both musically and lyrically with the afterthought. An acrobatic bass line temporarily wrestles the background spotlight from the animals, but they return in force the next time around. Are the animals the chatter that we try to fill our head with after a loss? Are our inner voices as confused and helpless as the voices of those without language at all? Are our emotions best expressed without words?

So far I’ve only got questions, no answers. But note that “And So On” is a song from a new album, called No Elephants, which is intended to be listened to as a whole, with a beginning and middle and end. The song is third from last. So on the one hand we are missing context but on the other hand, Germano is never all that straightforward—consider that she saw fit to put this song out there on its own, after all—so I’m guessing the entire album will likewise prompt more questions than answers. No Elephants is due out next month on Badman Recordings. MP3 again via Magnet Magazine. Site-related trivia note: Germano’s “It’s Party Time,” in May 2003 (note Web 1.0 format!), was the first song featured on Fingertips. She was also here in 2006.

Free and legal MP3: Goldenboy

Smart and familiar

“Starlight Town” – Goldenboy

So everything’s kinda sorta interrelated this week. The piano connects “Starlight Town” to “And So On” (upbeat now rather than downcast) and Goldenboy front man Shon Sullivan used to play with Elliott Smith, bringing us back to Harper Simon. As for the unexpectedly potent Billy Joel melody echo at 0:48, while that doesn’t directly couple with the week’s other songs, it does relate to an overarching theme on Fingertips, as true this week as most: that music doesn’t have to “break new ground” to be both good and, still, in its own way, new. Sullivan himself is big into this idea; indeed, he has coined a term for it: “The New Familiar,” which, according to the band’s Facebook page, is “a genre of music of which the melodies, rhythms, & arrangements of pop rock songs are reminiscent to those of the past but blended in such a way & paired with a brand new sound & attitude.”

While his coinage may not catch on, and the syntax can use some work, the underlying credo is a sturdy one. Cultural critics can wring their hands about music somehow not being “new” enough anymore, but in the end such an attitude is closet nihilism, and nihilism is a dead end. We’re alive now and there is absolutely no reason to assume that we have collectively lost the ability to create worthwhile music, and no reason to assume that to be worthwhile, music can’t sound, well, familiar. “Starlight Town” is a smart, crisply-crafted tune, with a central piano lick, some hard-working violins, and an elusive air of the late ’60s or early ’70s about it. I’m finding something about the mix to be delightful, maybe in the way it manages to seem at once blurry and sharp, and how that circular piano line functions somehow as both the song’s teaser and its cornerstone.

Goldenboy is based in Diamond Bar, California, an enclave in the greater Los Angeles area. You’ll find “Starlight Town” on an album called (you got it) The New Familiar, which came out in November on Los Angeles-based Eenie Meenie Records. And, as the last knot in tying the week’s selections together, this one too is available via the good folks at Magnet Magazine.

Free and legal MP3: Katie Von Schleicher

Mid-tempo rocker, recorded analog & live

“When The Rain Comes” – Katie Von Schleicher

There is something deep and mysterious at work here in this simple-sounding mid-tempo rocker, and the depth and mystery is rooted in the by now strange and wonderful fact that “When the Rain Comes” was recorded live, on analog equipment, in one take. There is nothing whatever wrong with all the technology being employed in the 21st century to make music but someone has to make it clear that what can be done with our digital tools are many different and potentially enjoyable things but one thing they cannot do, can never do, is what Katie Von Schleicher and friends do here. She and her band of living, breathing, flesh and blood human beings are singing and playing in a room together. Nothing replaces the fire of that. Even when a song unfolds in a kind of a lazy way, even when a song’s coolest hook are a bunch of “la-la-la”s, there is fire here, a fire lit by the inexplicable things that happen when human bodies and souls and voices share time and space together, and when the tools are in the service of capturing the shared effort, not manipulating it.

“When the Rain Comes” is the lead track from Silent Days, a seven-song mini-album recorded at the Soul Shop, an all-analog studio in Medford, Mass. built in 2007 into a 160-year-old barn that had previously housed a piano restoration shop. According to the studio’s web site, “We strive for a clean, open, live sound that truly captures the experience of musicians moving air within a room.” Exactly so. Listen to the vocals—both Von Schleicher’s offhanded lead and the unexpected grandeur of the harmonies in the long-delayed chorus (3:12)—and feel the concrete sense of depth and breadth (and breath) that saturates the recording. And then, best of all, the guitars: both Will Graefe and Gabriel Birnbaum, members of the band Wilder Maker along with Von Schleicher herself, are listed as guitarists here so I don’t know who’s who but I love the kind of guitar sound you hear squirting briefly to the forefront at, say, 0:49 or 0:58—a sound both muted and ringing, a melodious sound that carries within it the flavor of dissonance. A deft, off-kilter solo emerges at 1:50 (Graefe in this case), with the air of notes being decided upon moment to moment, which may almost be true—in addition to the songs being recorded live and in one take, the entire album was recorded in just a few days, without any demos, any pre-written arrangements, any rehearsals. This is hardly a formula that guarantees success but in this case, the gods were smiling. Fine stuff.

Von Schleicher is a singer/songwriter based both in Boston and Brooklyn. Before Wilder Maker she was in the band Sleepy Very Sleepy. I thank her directly for the MP3. You can hear the whole album as well as purchase it via Bandcamp.

photo credit: Dianne Lowry de Ortega

Free and legal MP3: San Fermin (intriguing, energetic chamber pop)

A smoother, poppier version of “Stillness is the Move” by the Dirty Projectors, “Sonsick” succeeds both because of and in spite of its debt to the earlier song.

“Sonsick” – San Fermin

A smoother, poppier version of “Stillness is the Move” by the Dirty Projectors, “Sonsick” succeeds both because of and in spite of its debt to the earlier song. The similarities are enough to be disconcerting, and yet San Fermin mastermind Ellis Ludwig-Leone seems less interested than Dave Longstreth in being difficult. I consider this a good thing. I liked “Stillness is the Move” quite a lot, but noted at the time that it was one of the more approachable things Dirty Projectors had recorded, and even so was still pretty thorny. “Sonsick” is the work of someone who doesn’t shy from accessibility.

Maybe it’s because Ludwig-Leone is a full-fledged contemporary classical composer as well that he approaches pop for what it is, or can be: a chance to make music people can listen to without an advanced degree. Not that “Sonsick” isn’t its own kind of interesting. (Take note, hipsters of all persuasions: music can be rich and approachable at the same time!) I’m entirely enjoying the more fluent melodic choices Ludwig-Leone makes in the verse than did Longstreth, and find the appearance of an honest-to-goodness sing-along chorus all but intoxicating. Holly Laessig and Jess Wolfe, who sing together in the duo Lucius, add energy at once lovely and intense to a story that feels elusive but emotional, not purposefully nonsensical (as was “Stillness”). And do yourself a favor and keep your ears on the arrangement. Ludwig-Leone’s use of horns is novel if not unique in a pop setting; they sneak in via sustained background notes, and are used throughout in a flowing, textural way rather than in “horn chart” flares and bursts. Woodwinds glide in too as some point, creating the feel of a pocket orchestra by the end of the piece.

Officially, San Fermin is a “band” of three singers and one composer; the music on the album is all performed by hired guests. The third singer is Allen Tate, Ludwig-Leone’s friend and long-time collaborator; they met at 16 in rock’n’roll camp and were previously performed as a duo called Gets the Girl. Ludwig-Leone, 23, studied composition at Yale and has worked as an assistant to composer Nico Muhly. “Sonsick” is a song from the group’s self-titled debut album, to be self-released next month. Judging from the imposing bull adorning the album cover, I’m guessing that the band took its name from Pamplona’s famous annual festival. MP3 via Spinner.

Free and legal MP3: The Reflections (brisk, well-crafted, minor-key)

Brisk and engaging; keep this on repeat for a while and it just about hypnotizes you.

“Disconnected” – The Reflections

Sometimes the wisdom and splendor of a song can be hidden and/or encapsulated in the smallest gesture. Case in point: the second line in the opening verse of “Disconnected,” which begins at 0:41. And it’s not even the line itself but the rhythm of the delivery that I’m talking about. Front man Darian Zahedi sings, “Lost your grip on what you’ve been holding,” and the words skip out with casual, percussive cogency—“what you’ve been” is colloquialized to “wha’cha been,” and it’s the hurrying of the “what” and the in-between-beat swallowing of the “you” that makes the line inexplicably delightful. We had been delivered, following a ghostly pre-introduction, into a driving, minor-key rock song of uncertain lineage—there’s something early-’80s about it and also something early-’00s—but it’s this skippy little delivery that told me that this band was making its own, smartly-executed contribution to whatever you want to call the genre in which this brisk, engaging song is housed. I vote for “rock’n’roll.”

A similarly effective small-but-large gesture follows when the song leaves a lyrical blank at 0:53, after “disconnected and mishandled,” and fills it with a brief, plaintive piano chord. All the better that that same phrase emerges one line later to be employed in (and as) the chorus. It all seems so nonchalant and yet fully engineered. Another little detail to notice: in the second verse, the second line is sung minus the “skip” we heard in the first verse, but with the same kind of conversational phrasing (so easy to aim for and difficult to affect), and now (a bonus) with an ear-catching internal rhyme (1:28): “From a voice so near you almost hear it in your mind.” There are of course some larger good things going on too, here—the repeating ghostly “voice” (synthesized?) that propels and unifies the song, the centrality of an unadorned piano, the feeling of discrete aural space in an age in which mixes too often turn to DIY mush. Most of all I love how unfussy everything seems; the song proceeds in a “just so” kind of way; even the guitar solo (2:56) seems to float in with a fetching combination of diffidence and authority. Keep this on repeat for a while and it just about hypnotizes you.

The Reflections are a duo based in Los Angeles. Their debut full-length album is to be called Limerence and is scheduled some time in the first few months of 2013.

photo credit: Adam Goldberg

Favorite free & legal MP3s of 2012, part two

Back quickly with part two, before the year went and ended on me. These are some seriously good songs, these top 10 favorites. To the extent that some of these may or may not be widely recognized on other year-end lists shows you either how many really good songs came out this year or how hard it is for really good songs to attract a lot of attention in an age when people would rather spend time watching vaguely amusing dance steps. Or maybe both.

1. “Leave Your Body Behind You” – Richard Hawley (June 22)
Monumental, moving, inexplicably great piece of neo-psychedelia. Don’t miss it.

2. “Are You Gonna Waste My Time?” – Zeus (February 16)
How to be retro and of-the-moment at the same time. Not to mention awesome.

3. “Money” – Slowdim (April 20)
As well-built and uncontrived as a song can be. Not bad for a debut single.

4. “Birds” – Poor Moon (August 22)
Gorgeous Fleet Foxes side project, with lovely melodies and an uncanny arrangement.

5. “Harps” – The Sea and Cake (September 21)
Veteran Chicago band offers up a song as vague and noodly as it is arresting and memorable. Not sure how.

6. “Every Other Day” – Jonka (April 27)
Awesome, layered groove and serious vocal work.

7. “Ruin” – Cat Power (June 22)
Peppy yet fierce, and it grows on you.

8. “Born To” – Jesca Hoop (April 27)
Bewitching brew, full of spirit and artful artifice.

9. “When I’m Dead” – The Dead Heads (November 30)
Sublime combination of the primitive and the sophisticated: garage rock for the 2010s.

10. “The Devil Wears a Suit” – Kate Miller-Heidke (January 6)
Smart, beautifully crafted, and spine-tingling.

And that’s all, folks. Happy new year; we’ll start this up again next week….

Favorite free & legal MP3s of 2012, part one

The annual Fingertips list of favorite free and legal MP3s of the year, part one.

Call me old-fashioned but I like my year-end lists to happen truly at the end of the year. As I think we’re close enough now, I am hereby unveiling the annual Fingertips list of favorite free and legal MP3s of the year. If you’re visiting the site, you can access the entire list through one of the main “tabs.” For those accessing the site via RSS feed or email, I will be spending the last two posts of the year presenting the favorites in two separate lists of 10.

To be considered for the list, songs had first of all to have been featured on Fingertips during the year 2012, and second of all must still be available as free and legal MP3s. You can download any or all of them right here the usual way, or listen via the play button if you happen to be reading this directly on the Fingertips site. If my snappy one-sentence song summaries leave you wanting more, you can read the original reviews by clicking on the date next to each band name, which is the date of the original Fingertips post.

I’ll start, as tradition has it, with the list presenting my numbers 11 through 20 favorites. Next week I’ll be back with the top 10.

11. “Rivers” – Black City Lights (March 29)
This is all about delayed gratification. If you wait for it, the payoff is stirring.

12. “Bang” – Elin Ruth (November 30)
I for one never tire of this kind of retro-pop-soul, if artfully done. This is artfully done.

13. “Lord Knows” – Dum Dum Girls (September 21)
Reverb suffuses this classic-sounding ballad.

14. “Stop This Now” – The Hermit Crabs (September 6)
Lovely, melancholy music as only those bands from Glasgow know how to create.

15. “Observations” – The Raveonettes (June 29)
This now-veteran duo still showing us how it’s done.

16. “A Week of Good Health” – Panoramic & True (September 14)
Inexplicably appealing ensemble pop.

17. “Broke” – Sea of Bees (March 16)
As sweet and powerful as a simple-sounding song can be. Another great chorus, too.

18. “Farm Kid” – Elim Bolt (October 12)
Songs with catchy choruses are still being made.

19. “Generals” – The Mynabirds (March 22)
Protest songs are still being made; this one is particularly stompy and wonderful.

20. “Living in a Country” – Brave Baby (December 8)
Earnest, incisive rock’n’roll is still possible, and still being made.

Okay, that’s the second ten. If you like surprises, tune in next week for the top 10; if you need it all right now, you can go here, although be warned: you won’t get the incisive one-sentence summaries over on that page. I have to leave something for next week.