jeremyfingertips

Free and legal MP3: She and the Sun (voice and guitar, w/ enhancement)

Although obviously electric, the guitar has an organic glow to it, ringing with a palpably physical vibration, so different from the flat sounds that too often emerge from today’s laptop music.

“Bad Lover” – She and the Sun

At first, I’ll admit, this sounded a bit unvarnished for my tastes. But “Bad Lover” wins me over through the hypnotic power of its central motifs, not to mention the appealing, unaffected tone of lead singer Melissa Ahern. And even though I’m not sure I am on board with all of the production decisions made here, in the end, count me as a fan.

I think it’s that lovely descending guitar melody, itself comprised of delicate, ascending arpeggios, that worked steadily on my resistance. Although obviously electric, the guitar has an organic glow to it, ringing with a palpably physical vibration, so different from the flat sounds that too often emerge from today’s laptop music. I love how the guitar plays in and around the beat with almost a sense of swing, as its melody repeats and repeats through the length of the song. Note too that each iteration sounds distinct and handmade, with subtle variations in how the notes are being played and enhanced. With just the guitar playing, a sparse beat, and Ahern singing her counter-melody, we’ve got pretty much of a win right there.

But there is in fact more. For one thing, keep an ear on the bass, which asserts a melodic presence in the chorus starting at 0:55. A second guitar sound enters just after the two-minute mark, and this is when the song for me acquires a sense of rootedness. The second guitar scuzzes up the soundscape at first, comes front and center for a short instrumental, then grounds the rest of the song in the hint of its droney edge. At 3:22, the two guitars at last enter into direct relationship with each other, and their interactions, while not flashy, provide splendid closure to a subtly powerful piece. I don’t think these guys are perfect yet (and who is?), but there’s something wonderful, already, in the music of this still-developing duo.

Ahern and bandmate Andy Stack are half-siblings. Originally from Western New York, they are now based just outside New York City. “Bad Lover” is a song from their debut album, which they self-released with the help of the fan-funding sit RocketHub. You can listen to the album and/or purchase it via Bandcamp.

Free and legal MP3: Bromheads (sharp, economic neo-post-punk)

Something in this song’s scrappy immediacy and complex simplicity brings me back to the post-punk glory days of the late ’70s.

“Holding the Gun” – Bromheads

With its tricky way of counting out 4/4 time, “Holding the Gun” grabs hold of the ears quickly and does not let up for two minutes and sixteen seconds. Something in its scrappy immediacy and complex simplicity—and yes also the itchy guitar sound—brings me back to the post-punk glory days of the late ’70s. But nothing about this song wallows in nostalgia. It’s too playful for that. Playfulness is incompatible with nostalgia. I just made that up but it sounds about right.

The beauty of Bromheads’ particular brand of light-heartedness is that it’s all between the lines, if not completely intangible. The words vocalist Tim Hampton is singing aren’t jokey or humorous and yet, in and around the words, something about his delivery makes me smile. Same with the odd rhythms, which allow the song’s most accentuated moments to happen halfway between beats—it isn’t funny but it makes me smile. That’s one of the best things music can do, in my book: make you smile but not because it’s funny. This whole song is kind of like that, and it’s so short that there’s no point in my going on any further about it.

Bromheads are two guys (Dan Potter is the other) who used to be called Bromheads Jacket when there were three of them. A duo since 2009, they are based in Sheffield. They released 12 free singles in 2010, which were then collected on a CD called The Lamp Sessions. “Holding the Gun” is the title track from their new EP, which was released at the end of October. You can download the song via the link above, as usual, or go to the band’s SoundCloud page for the download, and to hear more songs.

Free and legal MP3: Ace Reporter (mesmerizing & melodic)

A paean to sheer melody, “Untouched and Arrived” is lean, shiny, and compelling.

“Untouched and Arrived” – Ace Reporter

A paean to sheer melody, “Untouched and Arrived” is lean, shiny, and mesmerizing. There is no fat here, no distracting complications. A straightforward rhythm guitar strum introduces the song, then disappears. There is one verse melody, repeated twice in each verse, and one chorus melody, repeated four times. A semi-bridge is constructed from the repetition of the title phrase, previously employed in the chorus. And that’s really all we’ve got here, and if it’s somehow enough, that tells you how strong these melodies are. The song engulfs me; it is pure pop at its most intoxicating.

“Untouched and Arrived”‘s silvery conciseness may be due to its unusual birth story: Ace Reporter mastermind Chris Snyder spent 2010 writing, recording, and posting one new song every day. He called it the threesixfive project, and however he managed to do it, he emerged at year’s end with an impressive cache of songs to mine for future recordings. “Untouched and Arrived” appeared on day 75. While the production has been altered from the original version, the song is pretty much intact. I can imagine if one is in the middle of writing a new song every single day, for an entire year, there would be limited inclination and/or energy for undue fuss and complication. Snyder had a killer tune at the end of the day, and he resisted the urge to mess with it.

You can hear a few dozen of the threesixfive songs on the project’s web site. They are surprisingly engaging, and I say that as someone suspicious of any kind of song-a-day gimmick. In 2011, Snyder made four EPs from the threesixfive material. The debut Ace Reporter full-length album, Yearling, likewise drawing from the 2010 mother lode, was recorded last year and will be released in February on the Brooklyn-based label Ooh La La Records. Thanks to Magnet Magazine for the MP3.

Free and legal MP3: Nels Andrews (wistful, nicely textured, w/ backbone)

A wistful 3/4-time shuffle with mysterious narrative force.

“Barroom Bards” – Nels Andrews

A wistful 3/4-time shuffle with mysterious narrative force, effortless melody, and a cumulative intensity. Bearing an attractive vocal and stylistic resemblance to Michael Penn, Andrews sings with the kind of offhand command not as common as it ideally should be—durable, concrete words flow from his mouth on top of crisply arranged textures via a strong descending melody; he’s afraid of neither putting his voice front and center nor of giving us many other agreeable sounds to listen to. I especially like the interplay between the mandolin and the electric guitar, which are not ordinarily instruments that seem to nod too specifically in the direction of one another. Here they both add thoughtfully to the underlying acoustic guitar strum; this feels less like mere accompaniment than orchestrated composition.

And this is another one of those songs that does not reveal itself to me in terms of narrative, no matter how many times I listen. I either can’t figure out who Poor Sweet William is and what he’s done or maybe I just don’t want to; there’s a part of me that craves the spellbinding versus the manifest. Andrews’ clear baritone and his often arresting word choice (I love: “I grew long then cut off my hair”) are all that I need.

“Barroom Bards” is a song from the album Scrimshaw, Andrews’ third, due out this month in the US. The Santa Cruz-based Andrews has for some reason had much more success in Europe than the US to date; the album has been out there since this past spring, and garnered fine notices. Scrimshaw was produced by Todd Sickafoose, who has worked previously with Andrew Bird, Ani DiFranco, and Anaïs Mitchell, among others. Thanks to Largehearted Boy for the head’s up.

Free and legal MP3: Elise Vatsvaag (sparse and elegiac, w/ strings)

After the real-life storm that affected so many people in the Eastern U.S. last week, we can all use a bit of restraint and sweetness.

“After the Storm” – Elise Vatsvaag

This song was nearly featured last week, but it didn’t fit in the mix quite right so I put it aside for a week and now look.

Sparse and elegiac, “After the Storm” uses what sounds like a full-fledged string quartet to generate volume and intensity in a song that otherwise secures its power from restraint and sweetness. After the real-life storm that affected so many people in the Eastern U.S. last week, we can all use a bit of restraint and sweetness.

Nothing has ever been this clear before
After the storm I have no fear at all
No fear at all

Vatsvaag is Norwegian and while her lyrics occasionally betray a non-native-speaker’s tentative syntax, the overall effect, almost counter-intuitively, is one of poignant authenticity. She sings with a clear tone but also without much sustain (i.e., she doesn’t hold her sung notes for long), which lends a soft-spoken intimacy to her delivery. The song has a traditional structure—verse, verse, pre-chorus, chorus, repeat with bridge—but her tender, affecting melodies expand gently beyond the typical eight measures in the pre-chorus and again in the chorus, which then melts into the instrumental tumult provided by the strings. This shows yet again that a song cannot be reduced merely to its words, and that it’s almost always the subtle musical effects rather than simply a turn of phrase that sends the impact of a song from the head to the heart.

Vatsvaag has been releasing a series of free to download songs throughout 2012. The first four were then gathered, earlier this year, into an EP called This Is Not My Music #1; after the second four have been released (song number 8 arrives later this month), This Is Not My Music #2 will be released. “After the Storm” was the seventh song, released in October.

photo credit: Erik Sæter Jørgensen

Free and legal MP3: dEUS (hard-driving, catchy, w/ speak-singing)

No-nonsense rock’n’roll, both hard-driving and melodic, and yet too with an almost gracious sense of purpose.

“Ghosts” – dEUS

No-nonsense rock’n’roll, both hard-driving and catchy, and yet too with an almost gracious sense of purpose. The opening keyboard riff sounds like a regular old piano, and gives the song an old-school swing that brings to mind the kind of radio-friendly rock made in the ’60s that was not itself Motown but existed only because Motown existed, if that makes sense.

And yet “Ghosts” is hardly a nostalgia trip; the feeling is more timeless than retro, more hybrid than homage. Front man Tom Barman speak-sings the verse in a way that both grabs the ear and fully informs you that he is not a rapper. (I don’t mean that as a criticism, just as an observation that rock singers have a particular way of speak-singing lyrics that is its own kind of thing.) The speak-singing interrupts the flow created by the catchy keyboard riff, drawing the song in on itself, creating both tension and anticipation—it is only a matter of time before that piano line returns, and when it does it finds itself in the center of the chorus, as much a part of the hook as the actual melody. The song’s last two minutes—right after the line “So chase the ghosts away ’til they’re gone”—crank up the drama and the noise as the band tips its hat more directly to its roots as an experimental outfit influenced by the likes of Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart. (I like the “hoo! hah!”—but sometimes also just “hoo!”—exclamations that now begin to interject into the proceedings.) And then everything just stops as if accidentally deleted.

Based in Antwerp, Belgium, dEUS was founded way back in 1991, but has recorded only seven studio albums to date, including two in the last two years. The only other remaining original member besides Barman is Klaas Janszoons, who plays keyboards and violin. The band, complete with its odd typography, remains relatively unknown in the U.S.; their records have only been sporadically released here. “Ghosts” is from the album Keep You Close, which came out a year ago in Europe. That album and 2012’s Following Sea were both released in the U.S. for the first time this fall, on the label [PIAS] America.

Free and legal MP3: Allo Darlin’

Brisk, jangly, and wistful

“Northern Lights” – Allo Darlin’

Brisk and jangly, “Northern Lights” appears indeed to move too quickly for its own lyrics, as sweet-voiced Elizabeth Morris has repeatedly to squeeze extra syllables into tight aural spaces. The effect is somehow fetching. Listen, for example, to how she sings “suddenly came apart” (0:43), or how she handles the opening part of the lyric “And it makes me feel so alive” (1:09). The melodies, meanwhile, with their mid-stride minor-key modulations, have an undertow of wistfulness about them.

The song’s musical and lyrical fulcrum, to my ears, is the chorus lyric “This is the year we’ll make it right,” first heard at 1:12. The chorus presents us with a speedy gallop through a repeatedly descending, vaguely Christmasy melody line, its first two lines covering the same basic interval in such a way that the second line is subtly accentuated. The second time we get to the first two lines, in the second half of the chorus (is anyone still with me??), this moment feels extra-accentuated. And this is where we are when we get to “This is the year we’ll make it right.” And wouldn’t you know that everything else, moving forward, about the song—the “wait for me!” pace, the sweet-voiced singer expressing hopes and dreams, the lower-register guitar melody (consciously or not echoing the Blondie classic “Dreaming” starting at 1:23)—pretty much says hmm this also may not be the year you’re going to make it right. But, you can keep dreaming. (As luck would have it, Blondie will yet have the last word this week; see below.)

Allo Darlin’ is a London-based four-person band split between Brits and Aussies. “Northern Lights” is the third single from the band’s second album, Europe, which was released back in May on Slumberland Records, but the first I’ve found as a free and legal MP3. Thanks to Largehearted Boy for the lead. You can download the song via the title above, or at the record company’s SoundCloud page. The band was featured previously here in October 2010. The three gentlemen in the band are still wearing the same shirts.

Free and legal MP3: Chamberlin (smartly reimagined Paul Simon cover)

Brilliantly re-arranged to highlight the original’s strange and moody lyrics.

“You Can Call Me Al” – Chamberlin

So it seems that Chamberlin guitarist Ethan West was driving down the New Jersey Turnpike one day, not exactly in the best mood, and heard Paul Simon’s “You Can Call Me Al” on the radio and was struck all of a sudden by how strange and brooding the lyrics are, despite the upbeat vibe of the music. He and the band, with a history of covering unexpected songs, decided to try to rearrange the things accordingly. And boy do they. These guys kill right away with their conversion of the original’s bouncy synthesizer riff into a wailing guitar (0:13), distilling Simon’s four full, cheerful iterations into a lead line that takes us through the motif just one and a half times, leaving us edgy and unresolved. Singer Mark Daly dives into the lyrics—previously sung so drolly by Simon—with a moody disquiet, sounding like an outtake from the first Counting Crows record.

Everything falls into place from there; this version has an instant, enviable inevitability about it. I love the effortless tension the band introduces in the chorus, as the familiar but still inscrutable line “If you’ll be my bodyguard/I can be your long-lost pal” is sung not with a wink and a skip as Simon did it but with a kind of harrowing plea (starting at 1:08), as a gathering drum beat sets up a stretching out of the word “long” that mirrors the original but in an utterly transformed context and culminates in the return of the central instrumental motif, now an unmitigated howl. Don’t miss as well how the band converts Simon’s cheerful “na-na-na-na” break into a slowed-down, cleared-out instrumental in which the percussive bass line in the original becomes a ghostly, intermittent clatter of drum sticks. If everyone affected cover songs with this much skill, no new songs might ever more have to be written.

Chamberlin is a five-man band from Vermont that was founded in 2010. They have released one album and two EPs to date, the most recent release being their Look What I’ve Become EP, which came out in September. “You Can Call Me Al” is a separate song, newly released. Thanks to the band for the MP3. You can download above the usual way, or visit the band’s SoundCloud page for streaming and/or downloading and/or commenting directly to the band. Be sure also to check out the band’s web page, where you can listen to the entire EP, download a song from it, and find tour dates for its fall tour, just underway.

Free and legal MP3: Blondie (spacey, w/ heavy guitar & potent melody)

A spacey, meditative thing with a heavy-guitar core, the song features Harry in dreamy mode, voice further altered by distortion–an effective sound for late-era Blondie.

“Bride of Infinity” – Blondie

The legendary NYC rock band Blondie has been around long enough to have had by now not one but two different reunion incarnations. The first came in 1997, with the unexpected release (and success) of No Exit. The reformed band, featuring four of the original six members, took six years to record a follow-up, the smartly-titled but less successful The Curse of Blondie. Shortly thereafter, they lost original keyboardist Jimmy Destri to rehab. Another hiatus ensued, until the remaining threesome—Debbie Harry, Chris Stein, Clem Burke—were roused into action by the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the release of the group’s breakthrough album, Parallel Lines, in 2008. Word at the time was that the band, reformed with two new members, was working on a new album, which eventually became 2011’s Panic of Girls, another mixed bag at best.

So what’s a long-time fan to do? Blondie in their heyday were sensational, but their heyday was 30 years ago. It’s weird enough when our rock heroes grow old but it’s one thing when they’ve been making an effort to stay in the musical stream of things, so we can kind of (sort of) get used to their aging (Paul McCartney and Bob Dylan and Paul Simon are the models here). It’s another thing when they disappear for 20 years or so and then come back and say “Here we are!” when it’s not at all clear who “we” are, and where exactly “here” is. I found one song on The Curse of Blondie I’ve wanted to listen to more than once or twice (“Rules For Living”). Panic of Girls struck me as okay but unremarkable, but maybe I’ve haven’t given it enough of a chance. Thing is, I’m not sure I’m as happy, yet, listening to Debbie Harry’s 65-plus voice as I was her 30-something voice; the change is subtle but noticeable. But I’m going to stay with her still because, well, she’s Debbie Harry for crissake.

And so, finally, we arrive at “Bride of Infinity,” one of three songs the band abruptly released as free and legal MP3s this month. A spacey, meditative thing with a heavy-guitar core, the song features Harry in dreamy mode, voice further altered by distortion. This is an effective sound for late-era Blondie, especially when coupled with the kind of strong melody that made their best songs so deeply pleasurable. This one is an unusual six measures long, with an instant repetition; thoughtfully-paced, the melody glides fully up and down the scale, using all eight notes (where one and eight are the same note, an octave apart), which is both graceful and uncommon. There is no chorus, just two instrumental breaks in between the three run-throughs of the verse, and get a load of that second instrumental break (2:20), an understated world-music hoedown featuring what sounds like a sitar and some alternative percussion. Blondie was always at its best when flaunting a humor so deadpan you can’t always be sure it’s even there.

You can stream and/or download all three new tracks via the band; one of them is a cover of the David Essex nugget “Rock On.” Note that I’m offering the MP3 above as usual but I will encourage you to use the widget below for downloading because I’m not actually sure I should be hosting this but I felt compelled to. Having Blondie on Fingertips is an honor.

Fingertips Q&A: The Ampersands

The FIngertips Q&A returns with Aaron McQuade and Jim Pace, who make music together as The Ampersands.

The Ampersands are a duo that make zippy, perceptive, carefully constructed indie pop grounded in the aural universes of smart-pop progenitors Fountains of Wayne and They Might Be Giants. You may remember these two from the song “Try This,” which was featured here last month. If not, perhaps you are not paying close enough attention.

Multi-instrumentalist Aaron McQuade and guitarist Jim Pace have been making music together for more than half of their lives at this point. They both do the singing and the writing and they both were kind enough to sit down and take a crack at the the Fingertips Q&A questions. Actually I don’t know if they were sitting down. But here are their answers. Aaron’s come from New York City, Jim’s from Providence, where they are, respectfully, based.

Note that the duo’s new album, This Is Your Adventure Too, is coming out on October 30th. Check it out via its smartly-designed web site.

The Fingertips Q&A, for the uninitiated, is a recurring feature. More than three dozen artists to date have participated. The Q&A’s sole intent is to allow actual, workaday 21st-century musicians a forum for discussing the state of music in the digital age. I’m tired of hearing mostly from so-called experts who by and large have huge vested interests in their “future of music” pronouncements.

Q: Let’s cut to the chase: how do you as a musician cope with the apparent fact that not everybody seems to want to pay for digital music? Do you think recorded music is destined to be free, as some of the pundits insist?

AARON: Depending on where you are on the issue, the operative word there could either be “destined” or “doomed.” Free digital content can certainly lead to increased awareness, greater buzz, and ultimately, a big spike in legitimate sales (Google “4Chan Steve Lieber” for an example). Unfortunately, that free digital content is usually not provided on a volunteer basis by the producers of said content. Honestly, I personally would probably feel differently about it if Jim and I were more than two dudes, or if we lived within a few hundred miles of each other. That way we could play regular shows, and I’d be a lot more willing to provide free content to build buzz and drive people to those shows.

From where I sit, the fact that anything that can be digitized is destined/doomed to be free is both good and bad. If someone pirates our record, and someone else downloads it for free, I wouldn’t really blame them, because nobody’s heard of us, and who’s going to drop money on a record completely sight-unseen? (or “sound-unheard?”) But if they get it and love it, I’d be pissed if they didn’t then go and legally buy a copy—or at least legally buy our last record. I would be lying if I said I’ve never obtained digital content that wasn’t completely on the up-and-up. But I’d also be lying if I said that those few downloads haven’t led to hundreds of dollars in legit sales that I’ve given to the things I’ve discovered. That doesn’t make it moral, and it certainly doesn’t make it legal, but I don’t think it should be left out of the conversation either.

JIM: Probably in the same way I cope with the fact that nobody wants to pay for anything. The issue isn’t that people are willing to get something for free (even if it isn’t 100 percent legal), but that it’s incredibly easy to download music and software illegally. And there are (almost) no repercussions. I don’t think someone who regularly downloads Microsoft Windows and Office torrents would ever steal that same software from a Best Buy, because there’s a ton more risk involved there and the reward (saving one or two hundred dollars) is not worth it.

Per Aaron’s response above, I’d be ecstatic if someone pirated our album, and then immediately disappointed if that didn’t lead to them buying the album legitimately. I’d counter the “recorded music is destined to be free” theory with this: Why should it be free? Because you want it to be? It’d be great if stuff was free, but people have to make money to eat and drink and live. Arts need to be supported, and the support of music is done partly through buying someone’s recordings.

Q: What do you think of the idea that music is destined for the “cloud”? How do you, as both a musician and a listener, feel about this lack of ownership, about handing a personal music collection over to a centralized location?

JIM: I’m not sure I equate putting music onto the cloud with losing ownership. I mean, I guess the cloud can be hacked, but so can my computer, right? I think the fact that it allows you to download a song you purchased onto multiple devices is great. At least I think this is how it works for Apple, Amazon, etc…

AARON: This is going to be corny as hell, but art—and music in particular—has ALWAYS existed in “the cloud.” It comes down to how you define “ownership.” Is music a tangible commodity that can be owned by an individual and and distributed at will? Is music an experience, thoroughly unique every time, owned by he or she who is doing the experiencing? Some of both? All of both?

Q: Technology has become so all-consuming in the 21st century that it seems in a way to be overwhelming the very idea of music itself. How do you guys stay in touch with music versus the technology that surrounds music? Do you even feel as if that’s important, or has everything truly changed?

AARON: Technology that’s used to create, distribute, or consume music is, I think, inseparable from the music itself. To me, finding the right technology (or figuring out how to best navigate the technology you have) is just as important as writing the right chord progression, or finding the right place for harmonies to overlap. And of course, “right” is subjective. To some, music sounds better when it sounds as though no “modern” technology was used. Others think it sounds better when technology smoothes over all the imperfections. To most, it’s probably somewhere in the middle. Now, did we go and use auto-tune on this record? HELL YES WE DID! But we didn’t go nuts with it.

JIM: I think, in regards to technology, that everything has changed, but for the better. I think it’s analogous to television. Forty years ago, there were three channels. Then the technology came along that allowed everyone to have 500-plus channels. Yes, there’s a higher percentage of shitty TV out there, but the overall number of brilliant shows is way, way higher than it was 40 years ago.

In regard to music, Pro Tools has allowed everybody to make an album (see Ampersands, The). Again, there’s a higher percentage of shitty music out there, when compared to 15 to 20 years ago. But I think there’s a lot more good-to-brilliant albums out now that could/would not have seen the light of day. I actually don’t think having 5,000 songs on an iPhone detracts from the enjoyment of said music. I think it’s wonderful that someone can have their entire music catalog in their pocket, and on a device that can also surf the web and make phone calls!

Q: One obvious thing the digital age has introduced is the ease of two-way communication between artist and fan. Does this feel like a benefit or a distraction, or a little of both?

JIM: Sometimes I don’t know what to think about Twitter/Facebook. At times, I thoroughly enjoy a comedian, musician, writer, or actor I like releasing his thoughts into the ether. And then there’s the millions and millions of inane why-on-earth-do-you-think-somebody-would-care posts/tweets. Overall, though, I’d say if you want to get a sense of who these celebrities are, it makes sense to bypass the middle men (the press). That allows you to more quickly find out what Snooki had for breakfast (spoiler alert: gin).

AARON: While it does make it significantly more difficult to separate the art from the artist, I will say that as a fan, the ability to interact easily with artists whose work I admire is truly an incredible experience. As an artist, I can only dream about the day when people will feel the same way about interacting with me. I will say that I’ve gotten a few new twitter followers since putting my name on the album’s website (@AaronABCP) and I can almost guarantee that they’ve been seriously disappointed to discover that I only talk about Pokemon, comic books, and the Oakland Athletics.

Q: There is clearly way more music available for people to listen to these days than there ever used to be. How do you as a musician cope with the reality of an over-saturated market, to put it both economically and bluntly?

AARON: To us, it’s not a matter of “coping” with it, it’s a matter of taking advantage of it. Jim and I have been making music together for nearly twenty years, and we’ve only put out two full-length albums, both within the last four. If you want to become famous, the barrier is still just as high as it’s ever been—if not higher. You still need to devote 100 percent of your life to this career for many many years (90 percent of which is self-promotion) AND be insanely lucky to be in the right place at the right time, playing for the right set of eyes and ears. Even if all you wanted to do was make good music and maybe hope to make back the money you spent producing them, in the past you still desperately needed the luck factor, because recording was so prohibitively expensive. Today, if that’s your only goal, you don’t have to worry about luck being part of the equation.

JIM: I really can’t worry about the fact that there are X million bands releasing albums. The only thing we can focus on is our album. Let’s make it as good as possible. If the stars align and it gets noticed—great. If not, let’s make another. Everything else is out of our control.