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Free and legal MP3: Papercuts

Reverbed nostalgia, w/ something extra

Papercuts

“Do You Really Wanna Know” – Papercuts

I have recently discovered that not everyone here realizes that the three songs selected each week are not merely handpicked for inclusion but also packaged together in a particular order, intended ideally to be listened to in little sets of three. Well it’s true. And if you don’t have time for that this week, at the very least check out the segue between They Might Be Giants and Papercuts this time around. Is that pretty cool or what?

For all its diaphanous reverb and sweet nostalgia, “Do You Really Wanna Know” has a tough little core that pushes the song, for me, past some of my built-in “twee” alarms. Some of the latent toughness I attribute to its assertive beat, some to the emphatic double-time bass at the bottom of the mix. But in the end it’s probably Papercuts front man/master mind Jason Robert Quever himself who unexpectedly sells the song’s clout. For all of his whispery tenor-ness, Quever finds an extra edge in the chorus; that’s where I really bought in to what’s going on here. The melody gets all girl-group-y while his voice loses the whisper (sort of) and gains traction. The quivery guitar-solo thing he then does before the next verse is actually odder than it sounds if you’re not paying attention.

Papercuts is a band with just one permanent member—the San Francisco-based Quever—and four albums now under their/his belt. “Do You Really Wanna Know”—no question mark—is from Fading Parade, which was released last month, on Sub Pop Records. MP3 via Sub Pop.

Free and legal MP3: Low

Simmering and hymn-like, w/ a heartbeat pulse

Low

“Especially Me” – Low

Given that this is Low, a band with a longstanding predilection for, shall we say, leisurely-paced songs (don’t call it slowcore, at the band’s request), nothing unfolds too suddenly here. But I’m immediately engaged by the heartbeat pulse that wanders in at :07 and stays with us the rest of the way (with a five or six second break late in the song; listen for it)—it gives us both the tempo and the tension upon which “Especially Me” is constructed.

But note how that pulse is accompanied by a triplet rhythm, each beat of the measure divided swayingly into three. This complicates the tension nicely, and contributes to the hymn-like nature of the deliberate melody drummer Mimi Parker intones. The song simmers; a cello is incorporated beautifully into the apprehensive flow. The cumulative effect of the succinct, thrice-repeated chorus (note the lyrical change in the third iteration), with its gathering harmony, is at once hypnotic and cathartic; the titular phrase, with its casual (but not) addition (“and probably you”), sits at the musical center of the song. Something is being partially explained, partially released, something still is left unsaid, and the grave weight of a relationship seems to hang in the balance. I don’t need to know exactly what’s going on; the words and the music in combination convey emotion beyond pure narrative.

Low was here back in 2005 for the terrific song “California” (it’s still online, check it out) from The Great Destroyer. The trio has a new bass player since then—Steve Garrington, who joined the husband-wife team of Parker and Alan Sparhawk in 2008, the year after the Duluth band’s last release, Drums and Guns. “Especially Me” is from C’mon, which was released this week on (them again) Sub Pop. MP3 once more via Sub Pop.

The Tyranny of Novelty

A press release received yesterday afternoon informs me that Ben Folds, Amanda Palmer, Damian Kulash of the band OK Go, and writer Neil Gaiman (Palmer’s husband) will be writing and recording eight songs in eight hours on Monday April 25 at Boston’s Berklee College of Music, and will release them 10 hours later. This exercise, or game, or what-have-you, is part of a music conference called Rethink Music being held in Boston that week.

The album will be released via Bandcamp and, says the press release, the money generated from the first week of downloads will benefit a Boston non-profit called Berklee City Music, which provides free music education to teens who would otherwise not have any.

It’s a feel-good story. So why don’t I feel so good?

Look, I love Ben Folds, I like Amanda Palmer too, and I know we’re in a cultural moment in which innovation turns heads largely because no one knows what’s going on any more. I get it. And we’re supposed to see this kind of thing and say, “Wow! That’s so cool! Get a load of how record companies are becoming superfluous to building buzz and distributing music!”

(I know I’m supposed to say that last part because the press release told me to: “Like Radiohead did recently, this group will show how record companies are becoming superfluous to building buzz and distributing music.” See?)

But I’m not going to do it because there’s a part of this story that makes me sad. We have succumbed to the tyranny of novelty, and music will take a beating until we wake up from this collective trance in which we’re all only chasing the newest, “nowest” thing, in which the only values we can agree upon are buzz generation and viral success. In this environment, a unique real-time experience is worth paying for simply because it is a unique real-time experience.

We hear it over and over again (even though it is not yet precisely true): people don’t want to pay for recorded music. And what is recorded music? Music that has been thoughtfully written and crafted into a purposefully created finished form over the course of weeks or months.

What will people pay for? They will apparently pay for the output of celebrity musicians thrown together to complete the reality-show-like task of writing a song an hour over the course of one afternoon and evening.

I have nothing against the idea of unique real-time experiences, except, maybe, when they have shoved the possibility of thoughtful, purposeful creation off the stage entirely.

If the music industry is struggling and shrinking, maybe it’s not because of piracy after all, and maybe it’s not because of dinosaur business models that don’t know how to change. Maybe it’s because we’re busy finding every possible way we can to foster the novel over the good. Maybe it’s because, led by the harsh visions of this generation’s digital ideologists, we have come to believe in a world of innovation without end.

It’s actually a logical enough place for the music industry to end up. This is one industry that has shamelessly relied on novelty from the day that the wax cylinders first arrived in cardboard boxes in music stores. Fads have been fostered over and over again towards the crass end of selling crap to people who for one reason or another have been eager to buy it.

But as long as there was also the potential for quality recorded music being produced and marketed, the novelty crap was just something that came with the territory. In the future some insist we are moving toward, in which no one pays for recorded music at all, the side effect has suddenly become very clear, thanks to this otherwise harmless trade show promotion.

We are left with music as novelty, music as short-attention-span fodder, music as a means to the perpetual end of pay-attention-to-me.

And yes, of course, musicians in general have always been an attention-seeking contingent. In the past, the music was offered as proof that someone was worthy of the attention they were seeking. And we the audience stopped paying attention if the music didn’t ultimately warrant it.

Now the veil has been lifted. (A certain teenager with a song about a day of the week has helped too.) Without even a little pretense left that we are interested in quality or have any intention of paying for it, musicians are free to seek attention for the sake of seeking attention, and prop the mechanism up with all the perpetual novelty they or their publicists can conjure.

If this sounds like fun for you then you are potentially in for a golden age. Anyone who loves to crow about how the traditional recording industry’s so-called cash cow (namely, recorded music) has been tossed on the scrap heap of bygone products, welcome to your future.

The rest of us, however, may sincerely want to avoid this future. I have no interest in propping up dinosaur business models or perpetuating an industry that has thrived on unfair practices.

But I would also much rather pay for the output of an artist who has thought long and hard about his or her art and can offer an end product enlivened by quality and care, heart and soul, than for the titillation of one passing moment in time, however unique, however novel.

April Q&A: Laura Stevenson

Laura Stevenson tackles the Fingertips Q&A–five questions about coping and maybe even thriving as a musician in the digital age.

Laura Stevenson (with her band, the Cans) had a song featured here yesterday in the early afternoon, was asked if she might like to do the Fingertips Q&A later in the afternoon, and returned with her answers shortly before midnight, while she was otherwise getting ready to leave town on a seven-week tour.

Her accessibility, I think, relates to something else she says in answering the questions. For all her organic sound and heartwarming vibe, Stevenson is a thoroughly 21st-century musician, which is to say her career post-dates the MP3. “I don’t know first-hand what it was like for a musician before this technology existed,” she says, which surely gives her a different take on these recurring questions about music in the digital age than many who have been here before.

Stevenson is heading on tour to support the impending release of her new album with the Cans, Sit Resist. Her 21st-century cred notwithstanding, she remains a believer in the album as a means of expression, and there is no better evidence for that than Sit Resist—a strong and engaging piece of work that registers far more powerfully as the specific series of songs that it is than any one of its songs does on its own. The album will be released later this month on Don Giovanni Records.

Laura Stevenson

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?

A: I think there’s no stopping people from getting music. And I’m psyched that people can share things that they love with other people so easily. I recognize the fact that it completely changes the way people live as musicians, but I still think it rules. And it’s not like it changes it for the worse in every case—it exposes people to your band, it makes them want to come see you play and be a part of what you’re doing.

I guess I don’t know first-hand what it was like for a musician before this technology existed, so I just accept it without looking back fondly on the money I used to be making. What you have to do now is tour like a maniac and be glad that there is still a vinyl culture—especially in the community of bands and fans that we are grateful to be a part of.

Q: There’s a lot of talk these days that says that music in the near future will exist in the so-called “cloud” and that music fans, even if paying, will not need to own the music they like any longer, since they will be able to simply listen to everything on demand when they want to. How do you feel about this?

A: I think it sounds like a paradise where no one owns anything and everyone shares and everyone is equal. Sounds pretty incredible…except when you think about the jerks that run the site—they just kick back and collect. If it was completely free then I think it would be a lot more fair for everyone. No one should profit off of that if the artist doesn’t.

Q: How has your life as a musician been affected—or not—by the existence of music blogs?

A:I don’t read music blogs but my band mates do and so do a lot of other people, I guess, because it has been a great way for people to find out about us. I just get afraid of some of the sites that have too much sway, that dictate what is cool and what isn’t. I think it pressures people into liking something that kind of sucks. It’s an emperor’s new clothes kind of thing.

Q: What are your thoughts about the album as a musical entity–does it still strike you as a legitimate means of expression? If listeners are cherry-picking and shuffling rather than listening all the way through, how does that affect you as a musician?

A: We still really believe in an album as a whole, I think that a lot of artists are surrendering to the death of the album and not putting the energy into creating one anymore. It’s just a collection of singles mish-mashed with filler, and that’s really a shame. We put this record together with the intention that it should be listened to from start to finish. I know people are going to listen to it however they choose, we just did this for the ones that still want a thoughtful record that they can experience all the way through.

Q: With the barrier to entry drastically lower than it used to be, there is way way 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?

A: I used to try to ignore it but when we were at South by Southwest it was something that became crushingly obvious. It was scary reading the booklet that listed all the bands and realizing that each of those band names that I’ve never heard of and probably will never hear represented people that know that the only thing in the world they want to do is play music and make people know who they are because this is what they were put on this planet to do. And that’s scary because that’s me! And people skimmed over my name because it was just another bunch of words on a page.

Free and legal MP3: Almost Free

P
ower pop gem w/ multi-decade inspiration

Almost Free

“Really Don’t Know (About You) – Almost Free

So on the surface, this one is a brisk and catchy bit of power pop, or something like it. The sing-along-style chorus, turning on the repetition, across the beat, of a mundane phrase (“really don’t know”), nails it as a chewy little piece of ear candy to be sure. But “Really Don’t Know (About You)” is a good deal more than that if you care to investigate.

Listen, to begin with, to the introduction, with its ear-catching combination of a nimble beat and an unusual interval, as Andy (not Andrew) Bird, grabs his guitar high up the neck and itches out a reiterating major sixth interval in a loose, ever-evolving manner. This sixth—nine half steps—is an notably wide leap between two notes in a pop song and even though it’s a consonant (i.e. not dissonant) interval there’s something fluid and unsettled about it. The introduction’s music haunts the rest of the song. Meanwhile, the melody in the verse then turns around and features downward leaps, while likewise touching most of the notes in the scale before it’s done—usually the sign of savvy songwriting. (A nice, related touch is how the guitar itself runs up the scale in between the chorus and verse [1:05].)

When we get to the aforementioned chorus, the song solidifies and expands and—this is the real trick to listen carefully for—marries five decades’ worth of influences into a hook casual enough to have been born in a ’60s garage yet grand enough to stand with any new wave or post-punk anthem. Here is a song, furthermore, informed by the Smiths’ seminal ’80s work as well as by the ’90s britpop that followed, even as it keeps wanting to sound like something from 1977…except for all that 21st-century guitar work and scronky noise. All in all what’s happening here is enough to blow a Pandora algorithm’s mind (if only a Pandora algorithm had a mind). I like.

“Really Don’t Know (About You)” is from Almost Free’s In/Out EP, due out in June. The Detroit-based trio has been playing together for seven years, with one full-length album released to date, back in 2009.

Free and legal MP3: Eatliz (meaty prog-pop from Israel)

Alternately spacily contemplative and grindingly heavy (there are three guitarists at work; watch out!), “Sunshine” offers up some of prog-rock’s sonic vocabulary while avoiding veering off into anything too baroque.

Eatliz

“Sunshine” – Eatliz

Sometimes I’m just in the mood for something a bit less straightforward, a bit less three-chord-y. But I still want melody; I still want the sense of a band making an effort to engage the ear, versus a band so wrapped (and/or rapt) in its vision that all effort to connect is left to the audience.

At times spacily contemplative and at times grindingly heavy (there are three guitarists at work; watch out!), “Sunshine” offers up some of prog-rock’s sonic vocabulary while avoiding veering off into anything too baroque. Notice, for instance, that for all the rhythmic hijinks on display, the song never strays from its 4/4 beat. Front woman Lee Triffon, meanwhile, sings effectively both at the whispery and the shouty ends of her delivery, avoiding histrionics in both cases. Note the saxophone’s unexpected entrance at 2:04, because the song’s single instrumental spotlight will shine on that under-utilized instrument a minute and a half later, as we are then treated to 40 seconds of rough-toned, reverbed honking. It sounds like early Psychedelic Furs working up a Thelonious Monk tribute.

Eatliz is a six-piece band from Israel, formed in 2001. (In Hebrew, the name apparently means “the butcher shop.”) “Sunshine” is from the band’s debut album, Violently Delicate, which was released in Israel and four European countries in 2008. Their second full-length, Teasing Nature, either came out late in 2010 or is coming out this summer—the web (get used to it) offers contradictory information. The band is currently wrapping up its first-ever North American tour, which started last month at SXSW.

Free and legal MP3: Laura Stevenson & the Cans (engaging songwriting, genuine performance)

“Master of Art” is no internet sensation, no technology-friendly song-as-trinket to engage those attracted, like crows, only to shiny things they can dive for and tweet about. Above and beyond the solid songwriting (and of course you do need really good songs), there’s something genuine going on here, something homemade and unprocessed that’s incredibly heartwarming.

Laura Stevenson and the Cans

“Master of Art” – Laura Stevenson & the Cans

I don’t tend to be very album-oriented here, as regular Fingertips visitors are well aware. I’m just looking for good (free and legal) songs week to week. I don’t seek albums; if nothing else, I just don’t have much time to listen to them.

Every now and then, however, I manage to let my guard down. An album slips through. I listen, get drawn in, and, sometimes, at least temporarily, am returned to those ancient days when that was how we processed music—album by album. Not even sure how I happened to decide to sit and listen to the entire Laura Stevenson and the Cans album, Sit Resist, but I’m really glad I did. Stevenson’s isn’t the kind of musical personality—and, to my discredit, I’ve almost forgotten such people existed—that is fully contained within the context of any one particular song. With her kittenish voice—happy with songs that swing, whisper, or stomp—and her tendency to call upon noise or gentleness from her band at a moment’s notice, she really comes to life in the context of an album’s worth of songs.

That said, “Master of Art” is itself a terrific effort, and a good introduction to what she’s up to, showing off both her pensive and her ardent sides in one four-minute package. The intro’s Phil Spector beat surely got my attention (I’m a sucker for the Phil Spector beat), but the song doesn’t wallow in it, using it as a springboard rather than a crutch. I’m still absorbing the lyrics but I think it was when I heard her sing, “You should know/That I am often difficult” (1:11) that I knew she had me. The depth of character in her voice there is unteachable.

Free and legal MP3: The Unthanks (brilliant folk revivalism from the UK)

Pleasantly off-kilter and yet still lovely folk revivalism from a pair of sisters from the English countryside.

The Unthanks

“Queen of Hearts” – The Unthanks

Pleasantly off-kilter and yet still lovely folk revivalism from a pair of sisters from the English countryside. “Queen of Hearts” is a traditional song, first recorded by Cynthia Gooding in 1953 and brought to a wider audience by Joan Baez 10 years later, and the Unthanks honor the song’s heart but expand its soul with their uncanny gift of arrangement.

From the glockenspiel’s carefully tinkled opening notes (and note the odd tension the trumpet quickly introduces) it is clear that we are in exquisite musical hands. Keep your ear on the bottom of the mix, as it’s the drumbeat—resolutely minimal, reinforcing the song’s rapt sway—and its bass partner that lend the song its peculiar sense of magical menace, or maybe menacing magic. The interaction of the players—piano, trumpet, strings, percussion—is all but three-dimensional; they sound like they’re playing with each other both musically and spatially. Notes and chords are both thrillingly precise and yet seemingly just come upon. (A favorite moment: the chord that appears on the word “my” smack in the center of the song, at 2:13, on the line “If my love leaves me what shall I do?”)

And let’s not forget the central lure, which is the two sisters’ voices. Becky takes the lower road, Rachel, eight years senior, the higher, and the intertwining is such that they are hard to separate. Thankfully there is no need to. Unthank is their actual last name, by the way. And also the name of a village near where they grew up, west of Newcastle.

“Queen of Hearts” is from the album Last, the Unthanks’ fourth, which will arrive on the Rough Trade label in the US next month. MP3 via the Beggars Group. Thanks to Largehearted Boy for the lead.

Free and legal MP3: TV on the Radio (half stompy, half mellow)

Alternating between a stompy, fuzz-tinged verse and a silky groove of a chorus, “Caffeinated Consciousness” may well be aiming to reproduce the very feel of being juiced on caffeine: there’s the oh-wow-hey-pay-attention part and then there’s the I’m-just-gliding-along-as-smooth-as-can-be part. And they kind of fit together and kind of don’t.

TV on the Radio

“Caffeinated Consciousness” – TV on the Radio

In any case, it’s a curiously addictive vibe. As soon as the ear gets tired of the harsh, riff-heavy, sample-fueled first part, we slip with relief into the groovy second part, with its happy blend of mellow-funky guitars and pipe-organ-y synthesizers. When that gets maybe too easy-going (I’m wired, man, I need to bust up something), squonk we go, back into the noise. But it’s kind of a happy noise in its own way—“I’m optimistic!” sing/shouts Tunde Adebimpe, over a delightfully rubbery bass and (wait for it; it’s in the second half of the verse, not the first) a stuttery, metallic, low-register guitar melody that (okay, maybe I’m hearing things) wouldn’t sound out of place on a Grateful Dead record.

TV on the Radio has been doing musical business out of Brooklyn since way back in 2001. They were one of the earlier bands featured here on Fingertips, in 2003, for a song off their first EP called “Staring at the Sun,” back when they were still a duo. (And hey, it’s still available!) They are five men strong these days. “Caffeinated Consciousness” is a track off the album Nine Types of Light, the band’s fourth full-length, due out in April on Interscope. MP3 via Magnet Magazine.

Free and legal MP3: The Ladybug Transistor (fleet & melancholy, nostalglic & timeless)

Always with a vaguely nostalgic sound, The Ladybug Transistor by now operates kind of meta-nostalgically, since the band itself dates back to an entirely different musical age—born out of the Elephant Six Collective in 1995: pre-Napster, pre-MP3, very nearly pre-WWW.

The Ladybug Transistor

>”Clutching Stems” – The Ladybug Transistor

Always with a vaguely nostalgic sound, The Ladybug Transistor by now operates kind of meta-nostalgically, since the band itself dates back to an completely different musical age—born out of the Elephant Six Collective in 1995: pre-Napster, pre-MP3, very nearly pre-WWW. They disappear for such long stretches at a time that I’d pretty much forgotten what an appealing sound they have, all sad-sprightly and ’60s-pop-influenced. Belle & Sebastian comes to mind also; although different bands in many ways, there’s a common vibe, both atmospherically and melodically, between this Brooklyn ensemble and Stuart Murdoch’s Scottish gang. Both bands offer up a powerful kind of nostalgia that remains somehow, also, both of-the-moment and timeless.

What has me in love with this song in general is the juxtaposition of the rapid pace and the melancholy air, which is not a natural combination. The song’s fleetness also disguises its unusual construction: it seems to be built around a meandering, two-tiered chorus, without any otherwise repeating element in the song. I don’t hear a verse. What has me in love with this song in particular is the aforementioned chorus, which stretches beyond something simple and immediately singable, accumulating a quiet sort of grandeur as we are led to a truly wonderful melodic moment: front man Gary Olson singing, “And now that I’m not/It’s all coming apart” (first heard at 1:07). This is worth the price of admission. More goodness: the striking titular image, which implies an entire story in those two concrete words.

Always something of a free-floating outfit, the Ladybug Transistor has experienced any number of lineup changes over the years. One of them was tragic, as drummer San Fadyl, on board since 1997, died of an asthma attack in April 2007. The band has not recorded since then, until now. (Their last album, released in June 2007, had been recorded with Fadyl.) Three new members have joined three LT veterans; the end result is Clutching Stems, due out on Merge Records in June. The band was previously been featured in 2003 and 2007. ~~MP3 via Merge.~~