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Free and legal MP3: Sarah Kirkland Snider (Shara Worden-sung orchestral drama)

Part of a song cycle inspired by the Odyssey, “This Is What You’re Like” is an adroitly constructed composition for female voice, chamber orchestra, and electronics that treads the sometimes blurry line (in New York City, anyway) between indie pop and art song.

“This Is What You’re Like” – Sarah Kirkland Snider (featuring Shara Worden and Signal)

Part of a song cycle inspired by the Odyssey (let’s hear it for the classics! anyone?), “This Is What You’re Like” is an adroitly constructed composition for female voice, chamber orchestra, and electronics that treads the sometimes blurry line (in New York City, anyway) between indie pop and classical ensemble piece.

For all its stringed drama, layered presentation, dynamic changes, and uncertain chords, however, this is a song that does not forget that it is in fact a song—an impressive accomplishment for a classically trained composer, who would be excused if she had had all semblance of recognizable melody and structure knocked out of her in graduate school. But no: the Yale School of Music-educated Snider anchors the intermittently dense proceedings with a recurring, bittersweet melodic refrain that I’d call a chorus except that she plays with it each time so it’s never quite the same twice. It’s a lovely and affecting melody, with an enticing added beat in the second half, as the lyrics change (the first time we hear it) from “This is what you’re like,” to “This is what you once were like.” I especially like the refrain’s second visitation, when the lyrics change and the melody is almost but not quite swallowed by surging, dissonant orchestration. The song benefits greatly from Shara Worden’s dusky, charismatic presence; her eclectic background makes the My Brightest Diamond singer a natural for the project.

The overall work is called Penelope and debuted as a multimedia theater piece with music by Snider and lyrics by the playwright Ellen McLaughlin back in February ’08. It’s progressed through a number of revisions and performances since then; the song cycle version, featuring the ensemble Signal, premiered in May ’09 but even this was altered once Worden got involved. The first performance of the work in its current form came in April of this year; the long-awaited album will be released in October on New Amsterdam Records, a NYC-based label co-founded by Snider and dedicated to presenting the works of composers and performers “whose music slips through the cracks between genres,” says the web site.

Free and legal MP3: The Vaccines (catchy lo-fi goodness)

“If You Wanna” – The Vaccines

Joy Division meets—somehow—the Ramones. Don’t ask, just listen, it works. This is not a “composition”‘; this is not complex; it’s muddy and lo-fi (the band says it’s a demo, actually) but the spirit is shiny and polished and yikes is it catchy in the best possible way. And can I take a moment to rant about how badly the word “catchy” is misused in the age of internet music writing? Something isn’t “catchy” just because the singer repeats himself over and over, or just because the tune is like a nursery rhyme. Just because something gets stuck in your head doesn’t mean it’s catchy; it could be irritating and do that too. Something is catchy if the melody is smart, reasonably short, and somewhat familiar-sounding. Of course it’s a fine line between familiar-sounding and same-old, same-old. Catchy songs usually walk that razor’s edge with flair.

Oh and let’s underline the “smart” part. Others may disagree, but here in Fingertipsland, being dumb or badly-written disqualifies a song from being catchy. (And I mean dumb dumb, not smart dumb, like the Ramones were.) To me, catchy is a glowing word, the sign of a pure pop song; I don’t debase the word by using it on dumb shit. So, okay, “If You Wanna”: brilliantly gloriously catchy. With noisy guitars. The chorus sounds like an old friend but there’s a twist in the air here. Maybe it has to do with how the rhythm shifts from the Raveonettes-like drive of the verse, with its equally distributed beat, to the backbeat-heavy chorus, with such a strong emphasis of the two and four beats that you feel blown halfway back to a far more innocent time than ours (“It’s got a backbeat/You can’t lose it…”). Note how this shift coincides with the audible innocence of the song’s narrator, who seems certain that all be well should his lost lover, who obviously left of her own accord, suddenly decides she made a mistake. He sings hopefully; you the listener know there’s no hope.

The Vaccines are a brand new band from the U.K.; I can find no specific information about them anywhere—they just joined Facebook last week, for crying out loud. Thanks muchly to the fine fellows at Said the Gramophone for the head’s up on this one. MP3 via the band, at Soundcloud.

Free and legal MP3: Elsinore (well-crafted & melodic, w/ strings)

“Lines” offers a sense of the richness about to unfold before, even, the melody begins, in a flowing introduction that features a leisurely but nimble progression of eight chords. This song is clearly going places.

“Lines” – Elsinore

In a photography class I took some years ago, I learned that a satisfying black-and-white photograph is very likely to include the full range of the black-to-white spectrum, from the blackest black to the whitest white but also including many different in-between grays. I suspect, lacking of course any empirical evidence, that something similar is involved with music. For me, anyway, melodies that manage to hit the top and the bottom of the octave, while also employing most of the in-between notes, feel richer and often more meaningful to me than stingy tunes that stay within a more constrained range of notes.

“Lines” offers a sense of the richness about to unfold before, even, its full-spectrum melody begins, in a flowing introduction that features a leisurely but nimble progression of eight chords. This song is clearly going places. Ryan Groff has a crooner’s timbre and engages that ambling, string-festooned melody with a dreamy, charming nonchalance. (For the record, I’m hearing seven of the eight notes in the scale, many used more than once.) There’s that nifty chord shift in the middle of the verse (first heard at 0:15) that each time snaps the ear to attention even as nothing in particular announces it; it is not attached to either melody or lyric; and Groff lets it slide right under him, every time, most casually. The strings grow insistent, the guitars take the song back at 2:28, and the harmonies, suddenly all Brian Wilson-like, sing us up to the pensive coda. This is not some song someone dashed off on the back of a napkin in a bar.

Elsinore is a quartet from Champaign, up and running since 2004. The connection to Denmark and/or Hamlet is unaddressed by any promo material I could find. “Lines” is from Yes Yes Yes, the band’s third full-length album, released last week on Parasol Records.

Free and legal MP3: Icarus Himself (minimal, idiosyncratic trio)

That’s apparently something called an Omnichord that produces that distorted, tingly, music-box-like chiming that opens “Digging Holes.” It is among a number of unusual items this Madison-based band has in its musical bag of tricks.

“Digging Holes” – Icarus Himself

A teardrop-shaped plastic box called an Omnichord is the particular electronic gizmo creating the distorted, music-box-like chiming that opens “Digging Holes.” Introduced in 1981, it’s a homely thing, filled with slanting rows of small buttons, but also a then-futuristic “touch plate,” for mimicking strumming; and yet it is not the only unusual item this Madison-based band has in its musical bag of tricks. A baritone guitar is another—this being a low-voiced six-string that can sound like a bass but also be played like a regular guitar. Front man Nick Whetro’s minimally oriented sense of arrangement is yet another and probably the most important of the band’s idiosyncratic aural facets.

“Digging Holes” has one line of melody—it’s what the Omnichord sketches out at the beginning—and this is what we hear in and around offbeat accompaniment that veers from a reggae-like organ shuffle to Balkan-style trumpet and back again. The song develops slowly, but the stark interplay between the organ and the baritone guitar is oddly inviting, and when the “normal” guitar joins in, along with the faintest drumbeat, about a minute in, its offhand lead lines over the underlying syncopation feel for a moment as if this is all the song needs to be about. And, in a way, because the song itself barely exists—is the one repeated melody line a verse or a chorus or neither?—we really are captured, throughout, by necessarily passing moments, by sounds that appear briefly and move on (a series of four percussive slaps we hear between 1:46 and 2:00; the gate-shutting guitar sound that precedes the trumpet solo at 2:46; et al). Even those elements that persist a while, like the trumpet, or the ghostly, intermittently heard slide guitar, have the effect of being somehow apart from the song, adorning its minimalist skeleton but never supplanting it.

Icarus Himself is Whetro on vocals, guitar, trumpet, and sampler, Karl Christenson on the baritone guitar and Omnichord, and (so newly added to the lineup he’s not in the pictures yet) drummer Brad Kolberg. “Digging Holes” is a song from the band’s Mexico EP, which was released in May on Science of Sound. MP3 via Science of Sound.

Free and legal MP3: Like Pioneers (Americana-ish, from Chicago side project)

“Gift From a Holiday” – Like Pioneers

While many great songs catch your ear through an obvious hook, others employ something I’m inclined to think of as a “moment”—a time and place in the song that sticks with you, that you look forward to each time you hear it, but yet is not big and bold and catchy enough to think of as a hook. Songs with moments rather than hooks can sometimes be even more alluring, because on the one hand the appeal is slightly more mysterious and on the other hand the end result can maybe seem more, I don’t know, organic—in that sometimes a big hook, however good it is, draws almost too much attention to itself. A moment, such as I’m trying to describe it, seems to flow straight from the energy of the song, whereas a hook, perhaps, flows sometimes too obviously from the mind of the songwriter, if that distinction even makes sense.

In any case, I hear the loose-limbed, Americana-tinged “A Gift From a Holiday” as a song with a moment, and that moment is in the casually delivered chorus, specifically that part of it when the rhythm of the lyrics changes, and orients for an extended line into three-syllable clumps (e.g. “wooden bench,” “left you on,” “crumbling”—and yes that last one is not strictly three syllables but is here pronounced that way). It’s an arresting moment, seeming to arise naturally from the story, and yet also with an air of oddness about it. What prompted that change, and how did this turn into the chorus? And what a strange chorus it is, lacking the sort of short, repeated phrase one expects, instead using two complete sets of lyrics with the same music, meaning we get another round of those syllable triplets (“picked me up,” “dragged me home,” et al), even more definitive-sounding this time. And not content for one good moment, “A Gift For a Holiday” offers another, beginning at 1:56, and it’s longer but still not really a hook. Here, the song shifts into a new section, neither chorus nor verse, with a sing-songy, declarative melody that repeats for 40 seconds before leading us into the extended instrumental section that becomes the song’s finale.

And maybe we can rightfully expect moment- rather than hook-songs from a project like this one, which gathered six musicians from a variety of Chicago-based bands (including Bound Stems and Chin Up Chin Up) over a couple of winter weekends just to make music, have fun, and see what happened. As it turned out, an album happened, which they called Piecemeal, reflecting the project’s makeshift origins. Released digitally this week via Abandoned Love Records, the album has also been available directly from the band via Bandcamp, where you can name your own price. MP3 via Abandoned Love.

Free and legal MP3: Kim Taylor (strong, nuanced singer/songwriter fare)

Kim Taylor doesn’t appear at first glance to be doing anything that thousands (millions?) of other people also do: play guitar, sing songs, release albums.

“Little Miracle” – Kim Taylor

Kim Taylor doesn’t appear at first glance to be doing anything that thousands (millions?) of other people also do: play guitar, sing songs, release albums. I have no doubt that the so-called “freak folk” movement—of which she is most definitely not a member—was begun at least in part as a way for a guitar-toting singer/songwriter to stand out in the pack. I mean, there are only so many chords, only so many ways to say that love goes bad over time. Sounding bizarre and off-kilter at least spices things up, and it’s (let’s face it) a lot easier than figuring out how to stand out the way that Taylor does: by writing arresting songs and singing them with spirit and nuance.

“Little Miracle” grabs attention from its first strummed chord, which carries a bit of dissonance with it, beginning the song slightly off its own home key (always an effective move). The dusky urgency in her voice demands even more attention—as, it must be said, does the opening line. Just about the surest way to have a listener’s eyes glaze over (well, this listener, anyway) is to start immediately singing about yourself. Because at that point, out here I’m like, “Well, who are you, and why do I care?” Taylor hits the ground singing about something else: “This is not the end, is not the end,” and of course we don’t know what isn’t the end of what, but that doesn’t really matter. And now we can see the value of the musically uncertain landscape we’ve been thrust into, as it mirrors and enhances the lyrical uncertainty. She’s making what sounds like a firm assertion but she has to say it twice, which undermines her conviction. Likewise she plays with the melody, offering subtle variations of the primary phrase that both give the impression of spontaneity and augment the song’s lingering irresoluteness. The lyrics, meanwhile, end up offering only the barest sketch of narrative; far more drama is happening between the lines than in the words. (I happen to like when songwriters use very simple words and yet still don’t reveal exactly what’s happening.) And don’t by the way miss the smart, unexpected organ break (1:25), which likewise adds layers of impact to this brisk, appealing song.

Kim Taylor, previously featured here in December 2005, lives in Cincinnati and actually runs a coffee house there (The Pleasant Perk, in the Pleasant Ridge neighborhood) when she is not writing, recording, or touring. “Little Miracle” is the title track to her new album, her third full-length disc, which is slated for a September physical release. (The MP3 version has been available since December.) Thanks to Kim’s management for the MP3.

Free and legal MP3: Cloud Cult (expansive, shimmery, optimistic)

A big bursting semi-ecstatic valentine to human potential, “You’ll Be Bright” tingles and churns and sparkles with earnest, offbeat energy as only this environmentally focused, biodiesel van-touring Midwestern ensemble can dish out.

“You’ll Be Bright (Invocation P. 1)” – Cloud Cult

We begin with front man/mastermind Craig Minowa singing ardently over an appealingly psychedelic accompaniment—on top of a simple acoustic guitar pattern there’s some kind of phasing or looping going on, but it sounds unusually precise, as if the bending of the notes is itself a sculpted part of the music. The introduction is an extended one, with lyrics that are idiosyncratic listings of categories and things, interspersed with the exhortation to “travel safely.” There’s a feeling of ritual and mystery in the air, as befitting a song parenthetically labeled an “invocation.”

Drums sneak in around the minute mark—I dare you to figure out exactly when—and the song breaks open at 1:12, with driving guitars and percussion and a new melody and chord progression. “I found stars on the tip of your tongue,” Minowa sings, and it’s all carefully constructed exuberance and uplift and mystery from there on in. The song unspools like a journey, with an expansive, circular feeling to it, and sure enough, by the end we have found ourselves back to the beginning, as the opening lyrics reprise amid all the shimmering clatter the band can muster.

Cloud Cult was previously featured on Fingertips in March 2008, and it’s worth going back to read that earlier review for some interesting background information on this most unusual, Minneapolis-based band. “You’ll Be Bright” can be found on the album Light Chasers, released digitally earlier this summer and due out on CD in September on the band’s own Earthology label; it’s their eighth full-length studio album in their 15-year career. ~~MP3 via Utne Reader‘s August Music Sampler.~~

NOTE: I did not realize, when featuring this, that Utne Reader only keeps its samplers online for the month in question. As a result, this song, unfortunately, is no longer available. For future reference, I will not feature Utne’s selections (although they’re good!), because I’d ideally like songs on Fingertips to be available for more than a few weeks.

Free and legal MP3: Chris Hickey (acoustic, stripped bare)

And this is probably the biggest high-wire act of all in popular music—having enough faith and guts and (let’s not forget) talent to hide behind absolutely nothing. It’s just your voice and just your fingers.

“Beautiful Struggle” – Chris Hickey

And here we have Chris Hickey, who strips himself even further down than Kim Taylor, previously, recording in his South Pasadena home with just an acoustic guitar and a handheld digital voice recorder (an Edirol R-09, if there are any gearheads out there). And this is probably the biggest high-wire act of all in popular music—having enough faith and guts and (let’s not forget) talent to hide behind absolutely nothing. It’s just your voice and just your fingers.

I first heard Hickey’s music when he sent word out last year about his album Razzmatazz, which was his first solo bedroom recording, a sort of re-emergence for a musician with a long, workman-like history but no breakthrough moments, commercially. He had had a go at new wave era punk-pop in the late ’70s, with his L.A.-based band the Spoilers, and also at mainstream neo-folk music in the mid-’80s, when he put out two CDs under his own name, before moving into other folk-like band projects and doing studio work with the likes of Michael Penn and the Indigo Girls. What Hickey has that is immediately apparent, and relatively rare on the present-day indie scene, is gravitas. Not tree-trunk heavy, mothball-laden severity, but a deep, engaged presence; Hickey’s voice in fact has something of the warn, trembly huskiness of the late Warren Zevon. It’s a voice one pays heed to, particularly when used in the service of such a delicate tune, such a piercing message.

“Beautiful Struggle” was written by Mark Addison of the briefly together, semi-legendary band the Borrowers, and appeared originally on their one and only CD, in 1996. MP3 via Hickey.

Fingertips Flashback: Rebekah Higgs (from November 2007)

I am as goofily entranced by this rambling, ramshackle, homespun groove of a song now as I was a few years ago when I first came across it.

I am as goofily entranced by this rambling, ramshackle, homespun groove of a song now as I was a few years ago when I first came across it. The MP3 was initially online via Higgs but when it disappeared, which made me sad, I got in touch with her and she said it was fine if I hosted it moving forward. So this one comes courtesy of the official Fingertips media library, as very very few of the songs here actually do.

Rebekah Higgs – “Parables”

[from “This Week’s Finds,” Nov. 12, 2007]

This one starts almost before the musicians have picked up their instruments. We hear tuning, we hear the singer warming up, and then we hear the song kick in, but listen carefully––in addition to the instantly engaging and well-textured groove, you’ll hear a layer or two of ghostly electronics echoing in the aural distance. Unlike many who have explored a mix of acoustic and electronic sounds (often a simple mashing of acoustic guitar and laptop effects), Higgs uses electronics with an orchestral flair, weaving beautiful howls and altered vocal effects into a down-home mix of guitar, drums, banjo, and strings. At the song’s center are a resilient, six-measure melody (the same for both verse and chorus) and Higgs’ breathy-scratchy, bumpy-yet-frisky voice. Together they can do no wrong; interspersed with noodly sections featuring the words “I will” amidst an eddying swirl of loops, indistinct sounds, stray lyrics, and banjo, the main melody returns each time like a trusty friend. The end result is hypnotic–the song is five minutes long but might as well be two or ten, time kind of becoming elastic in the hands of this 24-year-old singer/songwriter/guitarist from Halifax with a bright bright future. “Parables” is the lead track off her self-titled debut CD, given a remastered, Canada-wide release last month by Toronto-based Outside Music. (Higgs had self-released the CD in a limited release last year; the Outside version also contains two extra songs.) Thanks to Chromewaves for the lead.

ADDENDUM: After a couple of years of relative quiet, Higgs is up and running again; a new album, Odd Fellowship, appears to be on the way. A video for her new song “Drunk Love” was posted just a couple of days ago on YouTube, so what the heck, here you go:

http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/e7nxhWM-k_M&hl=en_US&fs=1?rel=0

August Q&A: Elf Power

The veteran Athens, Georgia indie band Elf Power will be releasing its 10th album next month, simply titled, after all this time, Elf Power. Making music together since 1994, the band has its origins in and around the now-legendary Elephant Six musical collective, which likewise gave birth to Apples in Stereo, Olivia Tremor Control, and Neutral Milk Hotel. In recent years, the band had begun collaborating with singer/songwriter Vic Chestnutt, who, sadly, took his own life last year. The band dedicates its new album to him.

Because the band has had such a long run—arising in the heyday of the CD age, continuing on into the MP3 era—I figured front man Andrew Rieger (pictured front and center in the photo) might have some interesting thoughts on the state of music here in the digital age. Turns out he’s the pithy sort, so it’s a quick read. Elf Power was featured on Fingertips back in March 2004, but the song reviewed back then, “Never Believe,” remains available via the band’s site as a free and legal MP3.

Q: Let’s begin by cutting right to the chase. Should MP3s be free across the board? Why or why not?

A: I like it when a band gives away a song or two as mp3s to let people hear a little bit of an album. I also like when a band streams their album online for a week or two, so people can hear the whole thing, and if they like it then maybe they’ll buy it.

Q: There’s a lot of talk these days that says that music in the near future will exist in the so-called “cloud”– that is, on large computer networks — and that music fans 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 like the idea. I love vinyl records, but all of these CDs are eventually ending up in the landfill, it’s very wasteful, so I like the idea of the cloud, and digital music in general as there’s no waste involved if you’re not manufacturing anything!

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

A: I like that people can now have music out there in the world much quicker, get the word out faster.

Q: What are your thoughts about the album as a musical entity–does it still strike you as a legitimate means of expression?

A: I think the album is great, 30 to 60 minutes is a perfect length to pay attention and become immersed in a piece of music. Any longer than that attention in the average human starts to wane.

Q: What is your personal preferred way of listening to music at this point?

A: I listen to vinyl records in my living room, CDs on a boombox, music on my laptop in my bedroom, and cassette tapes and radio in my car.