Quirky and intense, “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” has the core of something weathered and true—an old Dylan song, perhaps, or maybe even Woody Guthrie. (Or maybe simply the Indigo Girls; cf., “Three Hits.”) In any case, if the melody is tried and true, it is offered with such an unrelenting edge—Furman is let us say an unhinged singer—as to blossom into something as yet unheard, not to mention powerful and inexplicably moving.
The arrangement provides an able assist, as an elusive array of instruments deliver commentary and motifs in and around the acoustic-guitar backbone. I hear at the very least a variety of woodwinds, each playing careful, intriguing parts. Often when the “chamber pop” begins, indie-rockers veer towards kitchen-sink arrangements. Here we get the unusual combination of complex and restrained; Furman, in his first foray as a solo artist, has figured out a way to welcome his unorthodox background players without giving them the run of the store. If anything, he has unexpectedly expanded the sonic palette of the impassioned folk singer.
Furman has fronted his band the Harpoons since they were students at Tufts University in 2006; with three albums under their belts, they remain a going concern, even with this upcoming solo record, entitled The Year of No Returning. Previously based in Chicago, post-Boston, Furman has recently moved to San Francisco. His album will be self-released next month. It was funded via Kickstarter. Thanks to Largehearted Boy for the head’s up. MP3 via Consequence of Sound.
We go from a song marked by unexpected instrumentation to a song all but devoid of instrumentation. And yet it still registers as unexpected, because all we have here is electric guitar, bass, and voice. In my experience, it’s very difficult to pull off a song in which electric guitar and voice are the primary elements, way more difficult than if the guitar is acoustic. (I will resist sidetracking onto why this is so but trust me on this one, it’s so. That’s why you don’t hear a lot of people even trying to do this.)
But wow, it works to extraordinary effect here. Madeline (last name Adams, but she doesn’t use it) exploits the electric guitar’s ringing quality, and gives it to us in a manner we don’t often hear it—slow and deliberate, as the guitar is used mostly to describe a series of minor-key arpeggios. I like that this is very clearly designed for electric guitar, not simply a refried acoustic pattern. The bass, meanwhile, after its solo in the unhurried introduction, offers a simple, repeated, five-note line; you barely know it’s there but its punctuation anchors this slow and willful song. Lyrically, “30 Days” simmers with the drama of an unreliable narrator, a woman who seems only partially aware of her troubles, whose sad and seductive declarations sometimes lack connective tissue: “I had a good man who loved me all the same/And lord knows waking is the saddest thing of all.”
Madeline is from Athens, Georgia, although she left there as a teenager, landing in Bloomington, Indiana to record for the punk-oriented Plan-It-X label. She made her first album at 17, in 2002. By 2005 she was back in Athens, releasing multi-faceted albums for Orange Twin Records and working with the Elephant 6 Collective. “30 Days” is from the album B-Sides, which gathers a number of unreleased tracks from her previous albums into one package. B-Sides was released digitally this month by the Athens-based This Will Be Our Summer Records, which was founded just last year.
Like a soundtrack to a malevolent carnival, “Weight of the World” is part bounce, part menace. Shayfer James has a theatrical baritone—rich and emotive, with a flair for phrasing; to enjoy this one you’ll have to be okay with a singer you can hear breathe and just about can see spit. But what the song may lack in subtlety it makes up for, I think, in exuberant catchiness. The swinging, syncopated chorus is all but irresistible, with its cavorting melody, inexorable chord progression, and those ghostly moans in the background.
Underneath it all James blends the cabaret and the barrelhouse with his vampy piano work. Even after all these years, tinkling authentic ivories remains a rare skill in rock’n’roll, and almost always lends a bit of show biz to the proceedings. Which I mean as a compliment, just to be clear.
James is a New Jersey-based singer/songwriter who actively cultivates the charismatic/mysterious rogue image—a kind of Tom Waits for the new millennium, complete with fedora. (His online bio labels him “the portrait of vagabond royalty.”) It’s a tricky posture for a youngster from the suburbs but he does have both unconventional family history (his oldest sibling is six years younger than his mother; long story) and impressive stage presence; there’s a good chance that if he sticks with it, he’ll grow into the part.
“Weight of the World” is the lead track on Counterfeit Arcade, an album James self-released at the end of November, his second full-length release. You can both listen to it and buy it via Bandcamp.
When Sara Radle sings, here, repeatedly, “I’ll do this without you,” she means it. She plays all the instruments on all the songs on her new album, Same Sun Shines, and she likewise engineered and mixed the record herself. She says she did it basically as an incentive to learn Pro Tools, the powerful but challenging digital recording software program. Apparently she picked it up just fine.
And of course software skills may be necessary in 2012 but they are not sufficient. You need a good song, and “The Pins,” both winsome and involving, is very good indeed. Listen to how much Radle keeps things moving here, with a deft series of melodic twists, chord changes, tempo shifts, and, for the heck of it, wacky guitar effects (see the instrumental break, 2:42 onward). A sense of humor remains an underrated tool in the songwriter’s arsenal.
One particular way Radle surreptitiously generates movement is through a sort of “sub-sectioning” of the song—there’s not just a verse and a chorus, but both the verse and the chorus have two distinct melodic sections. Each interrelated segment is never much more than 15 seconds long throughout the first half of the song. (The second half of the chorus expands to 30 seconds the last two times we hear it.) This really grabs the ear and gives the sense of continual development. The melodies have a clean Brill-Building-y esprit, and the entire thing feels so effortless that one would never suspect the very real effort that Radle exerted—mastering the software, playing all the parts, mixing it all together; the breeziness of the end result is indeed a noteworthy aural illusion. And can I open the year with another mini-rant about those people who must always complain about nothing being “new” in music any more? What a constricted idea of “new” such folks have. “The Pins” is surely something new, something that could not have existed 10 years ago.
It is one of 10 tracks forthcoming on Same Sun Shines, which will be self-released next month. The Texas-born Radle has been based in Los Angeles since 2005, when she joined Matt Sharp’s band The Rentals for a few years. This is her fifth solo album.
This one came in too late to post prior to year’s end, but it’s also too good to let slip by. Download, tuck it away, and be pleasantly surprised to find it when you go looking for under-played holiday songs next time Christmas rolls around.
A newly-minted instrumental with an old-school air, “Free Christmas” offers a stately, lower-register electric guitar melody over a lilting acoustic guitar setting. Without any words beyond Marr’s whispered introduction, and without either blatant lifts from well-known tunes or sonic cliches, the music, almost magically, feels like Christmas. You can just about hear the sleigh bells, even as there aren’t any in the mix. I think what does the Noël-ish trick here is how the melody culminates in that five-note, choir-tinged descent (first heard at 0:58). Coming down the scale like that evokes Christmas music in the gentlest way, even as the song otherwise seems to operate with its own vibe. While there’s nothing here to directly recall Vince Guaraldi’s famous “Charlie Brown Christmas” music, what “Free Christmas” has in common with Guaraldi’s marvelous compositions is a willingness to be its own aural world first and foremost. It’s less “I’m writing Christmas music” and more “I’m writing music and I’m inviting Christmas into it.”
In any case, I’d definitely invite this one into your 2012 Christmas mix. You’ve got plenty of advance notice. As for Marr, this free and legal MP3 appears to be a sign that his reunion with the Healers, a band he fronted in the early ’00s, will remain a going concern. He had reassembled the group, with personnel changes, this past fall, for two shows in the UK and one in NYC. (Smiths songs were played, it should be noted.) Here’s hoping for some more Marr this year, as he seems to have left the other bands he was part of and perhaps aims, at last, for a bit of front man glory.
Lovely and deliberate, “Tuck the Darkness In” turns cathartic before its five minutes are done. The key to the transformation is the song’s determined pace, which does not change from beginning to end. As minimal and serene as the arrangement feels at the outset, this is a toe-tapper from the get-go—the music truly seems to enter the body as soon as the drum and guitar begin their joint, muted cadence five seconds in. Close your eyes and bob your head and torso to the rhythm here. You’ll see.
And then we get this interruption, this tension and suspension that glides into the song at around the two-minute mark, which becomes a bridge (a suspension bridge?) rife with the sense of something about to happen but not yet happening. Each lyrical line here begins with the preposition “before” (“Before the hours took over,” et al), which reinforces a sense of incompleteness and mystery; we’re never given the countervailing thought directly (what? what happened before the hours took over?) but the weight and intent of the whole song gives it to us indirectly. The song is a striking and poetic meditation on mortality. Live and pay attention, now, is the message. It’s all we ever have.
The bridge seamlessly re-engages the heart of the song at around 2:50, the drumbeat now insistent, backing harmonies added. The sound expands, with electricity and ghostliness; the melody, anthemic all along, brings us home. This is thoughtful, powerful stuff.
Bowerbirds is a Raleigh-based duo that has had (and maybe will yet have) more members at other times. The band was previously featured on Fingertips in 2007. “Tuck the Darkness In” is the first song available from the forthcoming album The Clearing, which will be here in March on the Dead Oceans label. MP3 via the record company.
Brendan Harney and Scott Levesque, of the Boston-based band Wheat, answer five questions about the state of music in the digital age. It’s the first Fingertips Q&A of 2012.
Wheat should probably not even exist at this point. Founded in 1997, the Boston area band has been around long enough to have experienced all the ebbs and flows one expects to see in the career of idiosyncratic, independent bands—the roster changes, the unanticipated hit song, the squabble with the major record company—without, yet, the end result of the group just giving up and going away. If anything, Wheat’s brain trust of Brendan Harney and Scott Levesque seem readier than ever to be doing their difficult-to-describe thing, for whomever is left out there that wants to hear it. I can’t help feeling that the world is a better place as a result.
The band’s most recent full-length album is 2009’s White Ink, Black Ink. But this fall, Wheat announced the intention of releasing three double a-side singles in advance of a sixth album, which will come later in 2012. The first single included the song “House of Kiss,” which was featured here on Fingertips last month. The second single will be arriving this month. In the middle of this flurry of activity, Harney and Levesque were kind enough to stop by, virtually, to tackle the Q&A questions. Both contributed to the answers, as you’ll see.
The Fingertips Q&A, for the uninitiated, is a recurring feature. More than 30 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. So-called experts and futurists have far too loudly dominated this discussion for too long.
That's Scott Levesque (left) and Brendan Harney (right) in the foreground; Luke Hebert can be seen on the drums in the back; photo credit: Beth Freeman Doreian
Q:Let’s cut to the chase: how do you as musicians 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?
A:(Brendan) Well, that’s the big issue facing artists these days – is kinda like, “if it’s digital and on the web, it’s free.” So, as producers of music (and the same goes for movies, books, etc.), we have to be super careful that we just don’t give the store away. The average consumer of music out there probably has no idea what goes into making a finished product in terms of songs. It not only takes a tremendous amount of time, but also money. So, the bottom line is: if it’s free the bottom will come out completely as far as quality goes. And, no, i don’t think it’s destined to be free. It’s intellectual property, and once it becomes generally understood by those who make music that there needs to be an avenue for compensation, artists will find ways to kinda keep there music out of “free land.” You’re already seeing it—look around and more and more artists post partial songs/videos instead of the whole thing. And physical product is evolving various forms of art and hand-made stuff, etc.
(Scott) I think people shouldn’t download anything that’s not for sale, period. Not like a buddy sending you an amazing mp3, but like you know, a big mass portal thing. It’s a totally new realm. It’s basic thievery and under-handedness. And not the cool robin hood type liberation of wealth from the evil giants in all cases. All an artist has is concept. Some of them are worth paying for. I mean if a guy makes a nice chair, shouldn’t we have to pay him if we like sitting in it over and over again? I buy digital music for some things, but i love objects more. I build shelves in order…I don’t believe I’ve ever flipped through a single pdf of liner notes. I love books! I love the cover, the binding…I love the soul of the object! I can almost feel all of it in my hands when I hold it. It gives home to the gravity of the music, a place to hang your adoration with some books and records. Viva la object!
Q:What do you think of the idea that music is destined for the “cloud”?
A:(Brendan) To me it sorta slowly is taking the beauty and mystery out of the experience. And I truly believe that eventually that will become clear to everyone who loves music. I know this: when I was growing up and first started to buy and collect music for myself, it was important for me to feel that I wasn’t just grabbing whatever blew my way—that I was instead carving out an identity with my music choices. Again, even now, you’re seeing a desire (from a small fraction, granted) for this kind of experience, even in this “everything free and now” cyber world. People will just simply make spaces to create and consume that are not part of the mainstream digital world. Music is rebellion and when this digital world truly becomes (if it’s not already) the “powers that be,” people of all ages will start to rebel against it.
(Scott) Can I get an amen…?
Q:How have your lives as musicians been affected—or not—by the existence of music blogs?
A:(Brendan) I like the music blogs, personally. I like the various and sundry voices. I don’t think it’s ever good when there are one or two sources of music criticism and everything is judged by that. I mean it’s crazy to think of one person’s opinion of a record sorta deciding for everyone whether it’s good or not. But, you never know, because even on the web there have become a few “voices” that have become arbiters of taste. It’s pretty zany!
(Scott) Yeah, I think it’s totally all kinda the same thing, meaning: good taste and refined desire will always get into the mix on a pretty high level. There are some super hip folks both turning people on to new junk, as well as providing a healthy and mutual agreeable platform for artist, writers, musicians, etc. to produce, promote, connect, etc. There’s always more junk, but that’s just basic math.
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?
A:(Brendan) Totally a benefit. You can really present yourself and your work the way you intend without any filtering or morphing by outside influences. It does take some extra time, but it can be truly meaningful and cool to have a running dialog with fans.
(Scott) It’s cool being in touch with folks. I mean, I don’t invite folks in on my writing process. People vote w/ their feet anyway. I and most people I know that do stuff are too busy to let junk like that distract anyhow. It has broken down a few bogus walls in the process between bands and fans but that’s a good thing. Plus, there’s always an off button.
Q:There is clearly way more music available for people to listen to these days than there ever used to be. How do you cope with the reality of an over-saturated market, to put it both economically and bluntly?
A:(Brendan) Yeah, that’s tricky. There’s just soooooo much stuff out there right now. And, as with mostly everything—mostly everything is average at best. I honestly find it hard myself to wade through it. And, you know, that’s another downside to the “cheap and easy.” When it’s cheap and easy, the result usually is crappy. But, you know, that’s the way it is right now. What kinda helps to separate it all is live music—you still have to be able to bring people together physically to advance as a band. And that really, over time, cuts a lot of the waste right outta there. Cream still does rise to the top; that hasn’t changed at all. The bands that people are excited about today are there for a reason—they’re better than most.
(Scott) And it’s not just other music. People, now more than ever, have way many more options as to where and what to do with their time and money. Hip blogs are one way to escape the chaff, but I agree with Bren: good songs, ideas, concepts, etc. will always exist and re-exist. But maybe with just a slightly smaller share of the market.
Fingertips’ top 10 favorite free and legal MP3s of 2011.
Here in week 52, the last Fingertips post of the year takes you through my top 10 favorite free and legal MP3s of 2011. If you missed favorites 11 through 20, you can see them in last week’s post.
To be considered for the list, songs had first of all to have been featured on Fingertips during the year 2011, 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.
As with the first part, I’m going here in super-suspenseful reverse order. Without further ado….
Part one of the annual two-part presentation of the year-end Fingertips Favorites list.
Either a great way to catch up with some good songs you might have missed, or an excellent argument starter, the annual Fingertips list of favorite free and legal MP3s of the year is now online. 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 these last two weeks 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 2011, 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, but in reverse (for suspense, you see). Stand on your head if you prefer them in the proper order. Next week I’ll be back with the top 10.
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.
Born as a trio, featuring identical-twin sisters Alejandra and Claudia Dehaza, the Brooklyn-based School of Seven Bells found duo-hood forced upon then when Claudia announced in October of last year that she was leaving. While Alejandra was the songwriter of the two—she and guitarist Benjamin Curtis compose the band’s music—there was concern (by me, anyway) that the twosome version of SVIIB would suffer in comparison. The twin-sister harmonies were central to the band’s presentation; Curtis, in fact, told NPR in 2008 that the sisters’ precise, heavenly vocal synthesis was “the most important part of School of Seven Bells,” adding: “Everything else is accompaniment, you know, in my opinion.”
But life goes on: as it turns out, the instantly seductive tone of the Dehaza voice, at once sweet and searing, remains intact, and Alejandra does a splendid job now harmonizing with herself. How this will work in performance remains a question, but the duo version of the band, recorded, sounds pretty much the same as the trio—which is a fine thing for a band with such a distinctive sound to begin with. While the label-fixated blogosphere tosses SVIIB quickly into the dream pop or shoegaze box, this is a band that from the start has been blessed with a truly individual sound: a whirly, driven amalgam that floats airy atmospherics over a guitar-heavy core, while featuring a harmonic language that does not always feel Western and lyrics that veer towards a mystical kind of incomprehensibility.
“The Night” has an itchy vibe; launching from a sparse, uncentered interplay between two opposing guitar sounds, the song takes off at a running clip and yet also fosters an ineffable tension. Listen carefully and you’ll see how few chords are employed here. If I’m not mistaken, we may not have a chord change until 1:20. Note the lyrical clue at 0:50, when, still on the opening chord, Dehaza sings, “You’ve frozen my thoughts/You’ve frozen me out/I’m in the same place you left me baby.” We go from there into the chorus and still the music, almost claustrophobically, refuses to offer a chord progression for yet another 20 seconds. We have been set a purposeful, musical trap, and the song ultimately delivers, but for reasons which defy explicit description. Chalk it up to the same alchemy that allows SVIIB to craft its unique sound from the same ingredients theoretically available to everyone else.
“The Night” is the first track the duo has made available from their upcoming album, Ghostory, which is due in late in February as a joint release by Vagrant Records and Ghostly International. MP3 via Pitchfork. School of Seven Bells were featured previously on Fingertips in 2008.
Fingertips 
