Category: MP3s

“Parallel Lives” – La Scala

We can all use a big heaping dollop of melodrama with our pop every now and then, and La Scala is happy to deliver. (Even the name of this Chicago band implies something larger than life and over the top.) Up above the introduction’s searing, machine-gun guitar line and the ’80s dance beat, listen to that second guitar plucking out a homely, vaguely East European motif. Or maybe it’s not a guitar, as it sounds like a bouzouki or some such old country instrument; in any case, this is the best kind of musical melodrama—the kind that has you smiling for potentially unknown reasons.

Like for instance the verse. Listen, in the second half, to how singer Balthazar de Ley and one of the guitars “harmonize” in a crazy sort of way–the guitar plays a line completely in sync with the melody rhythmically, but squonking all over the place harmonically. It’s kind of wacky but also subtle–you might not notice, but, again, it creates an enjoyable mood. And then there’s that resplendent, two-part chorus, at which point this song truly sounds like some great early ’80s post-new wave hit, an impression furthered by de Ley’s familiar-sounding voice, which has the throaty warmth of one of those dreamy New Romantic-era singers.

De Ley by the way grew up both in Paris and in Champaign, Illinois, which may at least partially account for the intriguing, old-world sensibility laced into the band’s sound. La Scala was just formed last year. “Parallel Lives” is from their first EP, The Harlequin, to be released next week by the Chicago-based Highwheel Records.

<"My Father" – Raise High the Roof Beam

And now we get the antidote to sweeping, driving melodrama: the vulnerable, acoustic-based “My Father,” from singer/songwriter Thomas Fricilone, also Chicago-based, doing Salinger-inspired musical business as Raise High the Roof Beam. I find myself engaged right away by the broken descent of the opening riff—we begin with a standard downward progression but what’s less standard is how it stops and hangs out at the third note, two notes short of the resolution. We suspend there for the same length of time it took to get us there, and then the resolution is turned upside down: after hearing 5-4-3, and hanging out on 3, we then get 1-2 rather than 2-1. It’s all very simple and clear but interesting, and implies overturned expectations or unexpected conclusions, themes that bear out lyrically as the song unfolds.

Fricilone has a quavery voice that does not always stay on pitch, but in the particular musical setting he gives himself here the end result is gracious and affecting. For all that it may sound at first like a simple acoustic-guitar strummer, there’s actually a nimble array of instruments weaving together, including piano, ukelele, eletric guitar, maybe a melodica, and perhaps a synthesizer. Fricilone also double-tracks his vocals here, which I think gives them extra potency, and maybe compensates for the pitch variation, while maintaining the underlying fragility that serve the lyrics especially well: “My father told me I’d be late for life/That’s okay ’cause I think that waiting’s all right/I avoid the news for things that I might fear/My father tells me all the things that I don’t want to hear.”

“My Father” is a song that will appear on Raise High the Roof Beam’s Family EP, a work that is still in progress. MP3 courtesy of Fricilone’s web site.

“Pull Me Out Alive” – Kaki King

Dipping for the first time into the new SXSW MP3s, I’ve pulled out a plum, and an unexpected plum at that. Kaki King is a musician known initially for her ear-opening acoustic guitar virtuosity, which she has had a tendency to put on display in songs that are maybe a little complicated. Even as she has expanded her sonic palette over the past couple of years, and started singing on her songs, she has not previously focused her music quite so pointedly. But for her soon-to-be-released Dreaming of Revenge CD, King had producer Malcolm Burn at the board. Burn has worked with everyone from Bob Dylan and Patti Smith to Emmylou Harris and the Neville Brothers; he apparently told King, “If someone can’t be sawing a log in half and whistling along to the song, I don’t want it on the record.” Thus has King’s music taken a turn towards the accessible, shall we say.

And it doesn’t sound like a bad thing to me. Accessible doesn’t mean uninteresting, or bland. “Pull Me Out Alive” alternates itchy, idiosyncratically propulsive verses–check out the way her vocals are layered (starting around 0:29) to sound like a slightly out-of-sync conversation–with a drony, dreamy chorus that finishes on a wonderfully unresolved chord. I find the instrumental break at 2:10 particularly interesting; employing an intriguing blend of electric and electronic sounds, it nevertheless strikes me at its core as something she might previously have used at the center of one of her acrobatic and percussive guitar displays. While those who latched onto King for her instrumental mastery may be disoriented by a song like this, I kind of like it. And I assume she still does play the guitar now and then. I guess we’ll find out when the CD comes out next month. That’ll be on Velour Recordings. MP3, as noted, via SXSW, and this one may in fact be exclusive.

“Power Lines” – the Interiors

I can’t make out what they’re singing about, and the title doesn’t necessarily imply a fun time, but the music is extremely good-natured, in an early Talking Heads-ish sort of way–the stuttering drumbeat, creative bass playing, swooping melody lines, and singer/guitarist Chase Duncan’s amiable, wide-mouthed vocal style (sounding quite a bit like Dave Matthews doing a David Byrne imitation) all contributing to that sensation. One of the things that I think makes the rhythm here so ear-catching is the dynamic interplay in the rhythm section: listen in the introduction and the verse to the stark difference between the steady, clockwork bass and the changeable drum pattern. Interestingly, the bass breaking free of its strict pulse is more or less what creates the chorus, as the melody itself does not alter that much.

On guitar, Duncan adds a handsome depth to the chuggy ambiance, with rounded, semi-drone-like tones and ringing arpeggios. No doubt he’s very happy to be doing all this, after a freak accident last year required the amputation of a fingertip. (Of all things.) This happened the day after the Chicago-based trio had signed with the record label 54°40′ or Fight. The band had to take most of last year off while Duncan, thankfully, recuperated. Their self-titled label debut is slated for an April release. MP3 courtesy of the band’s site.

“Bodyguard” – Dawn Landes

“Sultry” and “banjo” are two words not normally encountered within the same sentence. But Dawn Landes, the Louisville-born, Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter, is one those 21st-century musicians who appears comfortable juxtaposing sounds, vibes, and emotions–while happily emerging with a firm voice of her own, rather than a pointless mashup. (Not all 21st-century musicians are as fortunate. Just saying.) So here, then, we get a minimalist groove, some almost trip-hoppy but organic aural space, Landes’ pretty yet matter-of-fact voice (a disarming blend of deadpan and sultry), and yes, somehow, too, a banjo.

Anchored by its deep, unhurried bass line, “Bodyguard” unfolds in its own world, both musically–beyond the banjo, don’t miss the sleighbells in the distance–and lyrically: “I had a dream that we were robbed/They took the moldings off the walls/Erased our signatures from things.” Those are remarkable opening lines, I think, for their concrete, casual leap into the surreal, beautifully served by a melody spanning a full octave. Landes here is mining an actual, terrible real-life incident (not an intentional theme, this week, honest!): her apartment was in fact broken into, and they took her stuff (though not, I imagine, the moldings), including her laptop and hard drive, which at the time contained the only copy she had of her entire new album, then ready for production. Gone and not coming back. She didn’t try to re-create it; “I just started over from scratch,” she has said. “I wrote ‘Bodyguard’ in the kitchen while waiting for the police to show up.” I hear something of the incomparable Jane Siberry both in Landes’ vocal presentation (Sib fans note her abrupt “Where’ve you been?” at 3:22) and in something inscrutable residing deep down in this strange but hypnotic song.

“Bodyguard” is from the CD Fireproof, which was recorded live in a single day in an old fire station in Brooklyn. The album will be released next month on Cooking Vinyl; MP3 via Cooking Vinyl USA.

“Sarah’s Game” – the Loved Ones

Musical genres are a funny thing. As labels, some are very broad and more or less indispensible–say, blues or jazz or reggae–in that they clearly describe a distinct universe of music, while leaving lots of room for variation. Many others make an effort to slice and dice music into narrower and narrower sub-universes (jangle pop, anyone? folktronica?), with the unfortunate end result of implying many more boundaries than there need be, especially within the broad, theoretically embracing kingdom of rock’n’roll. (To me, the only sensible boundary to make is between good music and bad music, but we’ll leave that for another time.)

I bring this up because the Loved Ones, a quartet from Philadelphia, are supposedly a punk rock band on a punk rock record label. The band’s previous releases, a 2004 EP and a 2006 full-length, were hailed as fine punk rock by people to whom such things matter. Punk rock, it turns out, is a genre particularly resistant to boundary crossing. Punk rock fans often start to get suspicious if the music gets too “catchy” or “melodic” (which is exactly, by the way, when it starts becoming actual music rather than unprocessed noise, but we’ll leave that for another time also). So I don’t know what the punk rock purists will make of “Sarah’s Game,” but to me, this is a great listen: simultaneously harsh and focused, passionate and engaging, with a powerful melody, nicely crafted lyrics (note the internal rhymes), careful musicianship (the two guitars work impressively together), and even a harmony or two. God forbid!

“Sarah’s Game” is from the CD Build & Burn, which comes out this week on Fat Wreck Chords. MP3 via Fat Wreck Chords.

“Power” – Nick Jaina

A brisk but elegiac piano sequence, underscored by some spooky strings, leads us directly into the intriguing melody of this new song from the Portland, Ore.-based singer/songwriter Nick Jaina. I’ve been trying to put my finger on just what makes the tune so compelling, and I’m thinking it has something to do with Jaina’s prominent use of semitones, or half steps, which is not something you hear a lot of in indie rock, or classic rock, or any other kind of rock or pop for that matter. The half step is the smallest commonly recognized interval between notes in Western music, and the most dissonant when played in combination. When related within a melody, however, strange and wonderful moods emerge. Listen to how the notes he sings on the words “of the moon” (0:34) and “sacred tune” (0:37) sound so divergent, so firmly separated, and yet lo and behold they are only a half step apart. The illusion is achieved by his returning, in between, to the same notes he was singing leading into the “moon” part. So what we’re hearing is not just the half-step difference in the end notes but the significant difference in sonic relationship between the top and bottom notes in the two segments (i.e. the “moon” segment and the “tune” segment). More semitones are used, in sequence, as the melody line resolves (0:38-0:42).

And I know, this kind of thing sounds neither exciting nor, often, comprehensible in an attempted written explication. And worse, with pop music in particular, I’m always caught in the awkward position of claiming treasure in a seeming musical trifle. What I describe here, after all, is no stunning revelation in music theory land. But the very thing that causes many classical aficionados to stiff at the simplicity of pop music is, I would contend, pop’s very strength–what Proust, of all people, referred to as “the magic appeal to the imagination” found in things that those interested only in “intellectual weightiness” would condemn as “frivolous.”

Then again, maybe I’m all wrong. Maybe the song is compelling because Jaina was playing on Elliott Smith’s old upright piano. Jaina was the last person to play it before it was given to the Experience Music Project in Seattle. Or maybe it’s compelling simply because Jaina–itinerant, whimsical, a former archaeology student–is himself compelling, in a quirky sort of way. “Power” is from the CD Wool, Jaina’s second, and his first for the Hush label. (He recorded the vocals for the album in his kitchen, “refrigerator unplugged so as to be quiet, food slowly spoiling,” according to his web site.) Expect Wool in early March. MP3 courtesy of WFMU.

“Warning” – Wye Oak

This is an unusually breezy-sounding setting in which to encounter such fuzzy/droney guitars. And yet therein lies a good part of the appeal. So here we have vocalist Jenn Wasner, lightly, airily singing the sing-song-y tune to a perky, march-like beat, and listen to what-all is going on around her: extended drones of feedback-laced guitars, rising and falling according to their own logic, existing in their own time and space. Seriously, after the lead guitar offers a fuzzed-up version of the main melody in the introduction, we don’t hear anything straightforward out of the guitars for quite a while. Try listening to this and imagining the song without either the vocals or the drums and you’ll see how driven by entrancing noise the piece actually is. I particularly enjoy the instrumental breaks, which begin with a vague effort to give us the opening riff again, but it never manages to emerge completely amidst the semi-chaos; the second and longer of the two breaks, beginning at 2:04, has the happy Yo La Tengo-ish capacity to sound simultaneously crazed and cozy.

Listen also to the shifty time signatures. The sing-song-y, march-beat-ed verse is given a rhythmic tweak by a dropped beat in the fourth measure. This creates an extra dollop of semi-chaos in the instrumental sections connecting the verses, during which the beat of the entire song seems to have been misplaced. And then the chorus, or what passes for a chorus here, re-establishes some sonic order but all of a sudden, somehow, we’re in 6/4 (or 6/8?) time. For all the noise, this is one smooth song.

You’ll find “Warning” on the CD If Children, slated for release in April on Merge Records. The Baltimore duo Wye Oak, by the way, was until earlier this month a band called Monarch; a self-released version of If Children was put out originally last year under the old name. The change was prompted by the existence of (at least) two other bands named Monarch, and was no doubt connected to their Merge signing. The Wye Oak, you may as well know, was the honorary state tree of Maryland–it was a specific tree, of great renown, that was believed to be more than 450 years old when it was, alas, destroyed in a storm in 2002.

“Sad Songs” – the Pendletons

I’m never sure quite how or why it happens, but sometimes a song that seems at one level a pretty basic genre exercise at another level rises way above that for me. “Sad Songs” is an excellent example. A stompy, country-tinged garage rocker, there’s something in the basic vibe that sounds like it’s been cycling through rootsy musical ensembles since the dawn of time. Or at least since the 1950s. When the melody is so strongly rooted in a classic rhythm like this (Johnny Cash, anyone?), that’s a sign of a genre exercise. And there’s nothing wrong with that; it just doesn’t tend too often to inspire a melody-oriented listener like me.

But here are four relative youngsters from Athens, Georgia, cranking it up and cranking it out and what do you know?: it’s a blast. Why? No doubt the appeal has something to do with the energy of the playing. Check out, for instance, the speedy, stuttering guitar riff that anchors the end of each verse, at the “no no no” part (for instance, at 0:30)—it’s done with this tight-loose sort of accuracy that conveys an image to me of everyone in the band moving up and down in unison to the stutter of that little lick, in a manner at once comical and serious. And listen by all means to drummer Ben DuPriest, who bashes and bangs and still keeps a train-like pulse; he manages to sound rowdy and polite at the same time. Oh, and don’t miss (e.g. 0:39) the thrilling, brilliant mini-rolls (are these paradiddles? I’m not up on my drumming lingo) that he uses to puncutate each lyrical line in the chorus, except the last. Maybe that’s what’s doing it for me. The (maybe) paradiddles.

“Sad Songs” is from the Pendletons’ debut CD, Oh, Me!, which was released electronically this summer on the digital label Indie Outlaw.

“Boys” – the Autumns

Riveting, dramatic, slightly breathless, and thoroughly satisfying, “Boys” is the perfect soundtrack somehow to a crisp blue January day, even if the band is named the Autumns, not the Winters. The song opens with a distinctive drumbeat that launches us into an edgy, unusually dynamic melody. The edginess comes from two elements: first, the melody appears to start off the tonic–that is, the tune begins within a chord that is somehow not home base, which is an unusual circumstance, especially in a pop song; second, the melody never in fact seems to settle in a place that feels centered. The third and fourth measures are the closest we get to a “home” feeling, harmonically, and even there it’s vague and fleeting; after that, the melody in the verse springs from an almost startling series of chord changes.

And the band is really just getting started at that point. The chorus continues the kinetic vibe: an angular guitar chord–another off-center thing–leads us into a soaring section in which singer Matthew Kelly, leaping up a minor sixth (0:26), shows off a formidable falsetto; here the melodic momentum is such that it seems to be dragging Kelly along with it, the way the tide moves the water but is not the water: up and down he goes, in and out of his upper range, and in and out of singing actual words–the lyrics break for a stretch of wordless syllables right in the heart of the chorus (which themselves mirror the underlying drumbeat), and the effect is of a song overcome by its own fervor.

Perhaps long-time Fingertips visitors remember the L.A.-based Autumns from three years ago, when they were featured here for the song “Slumberdoll.” That was darn good; this is truly great. “Boys” is a song from the CD Fake Noise From a Box of Toys, the band’s fourth, which was released in the U.K. in the fall, and is slated for a U.S. release in April on Bella Union.

“Bag of Hammers” – Thao With the Get Down Stay Down

Thao Nguyen has a woolly-textured, back-of-the-throat sort of voice that brings to mind Erica Wennerstrom of the Heartless Bastards. Thao has an airier air about her, however–a feeling supported by the cheery banjo with which she chooses to accompany herself and the sprightly, slightly cockeyed rhythm that bounces us along. The jaunty guilelessness on display in fact puts me in the mind of the sound pioneered by Talking Heads in their early recordings: this sense of simple yet off-kilter music that surprises even the people playing it, as they play it.

Nguyen, from Virginia, released her first CD in 2005, a solo effort entitled Like the Linen. The disc eventually found its way to Tucker Marine, who plays with Laura Veirs and has produced the Decemberists and Sufjan Stevens. And now, also, he has produced We Brave Bee Stings and All, Thao’s second full-length, recorded with her band, to be released later this month on Kill Rock Stars (that’s a record label). “Bag of Hammers” is the album’s second track.

“Him” – Biirdie

This one features both a classic-sounding melody, almost folk-like in its sturdiness, and an ongoing urge to deconstruct it. Sometimes oddball electronics wander in. Other times, the band grinds itself more or less to a halt, just when you were air drumming to the Phil Spector-ish beat. The bass, meanwhile, seems to come and go, and when present opts often for extended notes rather than a typical, rhythm-oriented pulse. And how often does the worn-out sounding male vocalist get a sweetly harmonizing female vocalist to sing with? Not very often is the answer.

So this trio calling itself Biirdie—oops, another L.A. outfit this week—kind of makes you listen more than once. Much the way their name kind of makes you look more than once. In the old days, by the way, I’d find the oddly-spelled name somewhat irritating. But here in the Google Age, the name is a boon: search on “Biirdie” and you pretty much get stuff about them and only them. However accidental the origin—they had wanted merely to be Birdie but there was already a Birdie band—the strategy appears sound. I fear a trend coming on.

You’ll find “Him” on the CD Catherine Avenue, coming out this week on Love Minus Zero Records.

“Cherry Tulips” – Headlights

At once delicate and sturdy, quirky and poppy, summery and somehow wintery too, “Cherry Tulips” embraces a seemingly endless series of opposites—in addition to containing the aforementioned dialectics, the song strikes me likewise as both lo-fi and polished, retro-y and current, crisp and echoey. And if that’s not enough, singer/keyboardist Erin Fein manages to be at once airy and substantive, both forthright and mysterious.

Or maybe I just can’t make up my mind today.

I do know that I’m enjoying this one without reservation, from the shadowy opening heart-throb pulse through the sped-up Motown rhythm and maybe most especially the soaring, melodic, call-and-response payoff in the chorus, which enlarges the song in a way I can only describe as florally. Headlights is a trio from the Champaign, Illinois area; “Cherry Tulips” arrives in advance from the band’s second CD, Some Racing, Some Stopping, scheduled for release next month on Polyvinyl Records. MP3 via Polyvinyl.


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“Gila” – Beach House

Sometimes it’ll be one melody that does it, one melody that is robust and agreeable enough to hang a song upon. And “Beach House,” a languorous new song from the Balitmore duo Beach House, gives us that melody as its opening salvo, the first thing we hear from singer Victoria Legrand’s mouth: a dreamy, downward-tending progression that’s actually two lazily swinging four-note descents tucked into one another. Drenched in reverb, steamy organ, and unplaceable atmosphere, the melody hooks me for good the second time, when the upturn at the end disappears; the simple act of staying on the same note one extra time changes the chord, the mood, the trajectory of the song on the spot (compare 0:25-0:26 to 0:32-0:33 and see if you feel it.)

Now normally I’m not sure I enjoy songs with quite this much blurry reverb, but I realize in listening that it’s not the blurry reverb that bothers me per se, it’s the tendency for songs with a lot of blurry reverb to be blurry through and through–indistinct melody, hazy structure, vague instrumentation, vague everything. “Gila” is exactly not that; it’s as precisely crafted as they come, in which case the smeary touch of the reverb offers an enriching counterpoint, in maybe the same sort of way it works when a happy-sounding song has sad lyrics, or a song with fast underlying rhythm has a slow melody. Listen in particular to the guitar, which plays chord-free accompaniment throughout, offering nicely-etched lines that curl in and around the vocal melody.

“Gila” comes from the band’s forthcoming CD, Devotion, which will be released next month on Carpark Records. MP3 courtesy of Pitchfork.

“Henri” – the Heavy Circles

In one of the more unusual multi-generational (but not really) musical couplings in recent memory, Edie Brickell has teamed up with her stepson, Harper Simon, to put out an album as an entity called the Heavy Circles. Simon is Brickell’s husband Paul Simon’s son from his first marriage, and I said multi-generational “but not really” because as it turns out, Brickell is only six and a half years older than stepson Simon, who’s 35.

And here they are, serving up an offbeat, atmospheric homage (it seems) to French painter Henri Matisse, describing Matisse’s imagery via a hypnotic rhyme scheme over a circular, spy-movie motif, fleshed out with some cinematic synthesizers and the barest touch of crunchy guitar. I’m not sure there’s any more point to it than there was when the elder Simon sang rapturously, and surreally, about René Magritte back when Brickell was a teenager. But it draws me in and then—nicely—lets me go, without fuss. Songs under three minutes always score extra points with me.

But: combine the son of a ’60s and ’70s icon with a woman most often considered an ’80s one-hit wonder and the cool factor is way low on this one; I’ll be surprised if the blogosphere pays much positive attention. But I’ve always admired the clear-voiced Brickell as a singer; maybe this collaboration will help her shed her outdated public identity.

The self-titled CD, to be self-released on a label called Dynamite Child, is, yet again, due out next month.

“On the Chin” – Grey Race

I’ll start the new year with a couple of songs that are not really new at all—a reminder that a song is always new if you haven’t heard it yet. “On the Chin” begins with a straightforward eighth-note riff linked by an amplified acoustic guitar-neck sound, which emerges after the riff is heard the second time. If it’s gratuitous, movement-wise (the guitarist doesn’t really need to run his fingers up and down the neck like that), percussively, it’s at the center of the riff, quietly threading through the song and tacitly foreshadowing the later emergence of actual stringed instruments in the mix. And, what the heck, because I’m a foreshadowing fan, I hear in that slidy sound, additionally, a hint of the vocal intervals that singer Jon Darling will soon be leaping with his pliable tenor–intervals topped by notes he has no business hitting with such glee.

The string players who enter during the bridge (at around 2:07) and step briefly but incisively to center stage for the subsequent return of the chorus (2:39) probably have no business in the song either but the thing is so judiciously assembled it makes perfect sonic sense at that precise moment.

“On the Chin” has been floating around the blogosphere–just barely–since June, when the Brooklyn-based trio’s first EP was released; the subsequent Grey Race album containing the song, entitled Give It Love, was released in September on Unfiltered Records.




“Une Américaine à Paris” – Rupa and the April Fishes

Born in the Bay Area to Indian immigrant parents, Rupa Marya spent a good amount of her childhood in both Northern India and France, which at least partially accounts for the zesty, gypsy-inflected sound she coaxes out of the April Fishes, an ensemble featuring a guitar, a cello, a trumpet, drums, upright bass, and accordion. Singing in fetching French, Marya mixes musical cultures in a way that may sound pastiche-like to purists but sounds vibrant and beguiling to me, thanks in large part to the song’s simultaneously energetic and intimate vibe. (That’s a more unusual combination than it may initially appear.) Marya herself strikes me as a preternaturally charming vocalist; listen to how musical she sounds when she’s trying not to sing so prettily (that speak-singing section beginning at 1:38) and see if you are charmed as well.

Note that if you are at all insecure about your accomplishments to date on the planet Earth, you may not want to know that Marya, singer/songwriter, guitarist, and driving force behind Rupa and the April Fishes, is a musician at night and an honest-to-goodness M.D. doctor during the day, currently on the medical faculty part-time at the University of California at San Francisco. She has also worked as an independent radio producer, in between medical school and going to work as a physician. But remember that this is not a competition; admiration is the proper response to someone this talented and driven. “Une Américaine à Paris” is from the debut Rupa and the April Fishes CD, Extraordinary Rendition, originally self-released on Bateau Rouge Records last January and scheduled for an international release in April on world music label Cumbancha Records.




“The Silence Between Us” – Bob Mould

A bracing shot of earnest, subtly melodic rock’n’roll, “The Silence Between Us” ranks up there with the best of Mould’s solo output. Lionized for his role as Hüsker Dü lead man, Mould has been an inveterate blogger but spotty solo artist, recording infrequently and often steering clear of the guitar-based blitz of his first group and its more commercially-capable successor, Sugar.

There is no reason to expect again from Mould anything resembling the gut-deep fury of Hüsker Dü; so while I’m not hearing the volume or speed associated with that seminal band, what I am connecting to across the years is Mould’s willingness after a good long while to put some meaningful electric guitar back into his songs, while at the same time maintaining a precision in songwriting characteristic of his best work (and often, I think, missing when the volume gets cranked too high, particularly in his post-HD material). This one does nothing fancy, but some well-timed melodic intervals and chord detours lend “The Silence Between Us” an almost noble sort of stature. The guitar solo that begins at 2:20 is worth the download alone, offering a succinct balance of brain and brawn, complete with a nifty electronic coda.

“The Silence Between Us” will be found on Mould’s forthcoming CD, District Line, slated for release early next month on Anti Records. MP3 courtesy of Spinner.

“In the Rain” – Marqui Adora

Marqui Adora is a quartet from Miami who do not otherwise sound like this. And while there’s nothing wrong with the early U2- and Cure-inspired material the band more typically produces, I find myself smitten by the easy-going, old-fashioned swing of this unabashedly tuneful little song.

Sprung off a nostalgic descending guitar lick and pop’s most basic chord progression, “In the Rain” succeeds to a great extent on the vocal flair of Danny Ashe, whose airy tenor echoes the doo-wopping crooners the song so fluently evokes. Reigning in a bit of the drama he employs for Marqui Adora’s neo new wave sound, Ashe floats himself casually atop “In the Rain”‘s loping beat; I find that I can’t quite tell if he’s lagging behind or pushing ahead but in either case his knowledgeable, unexpectedly silky singing lends subtle substance to a tune that drummer Joe Shockley says was inspired by the movie That Thing You Do! and “a love of 50’s and 60’s pop.” I suggest the world would be a better place were we all inspired every now and then by That Thing You Do! and a love of ’50s and ’60s pop. The MP3 is free via the band’s site—as, in fact, is all of Marqui Adora’s music.

“You Cross My Path” – the Charlatans

Smart, driven, atmospheric rocker from a veteran British band. I really like how this manages to be at once trippy and succinct. True to their “Madchester” roots, the Charlatans give us a nice shot of psychedelic keyboard washes (I especially like the burbly buildup into the chorus you can hear starting at 1:19); but even so, the song surges forward with fierce clarity, anchored by a powerful bridge, with its double-time, adjacent-note melody.

The fact that the Charlatans are still active doesn’t fit neatly into the current decade’s internet-driven view of pop music—the relentless need by online music sites and writers to dissect rock into micro-genres and leave everything behind for the next new thing. The Charlatans (who must officially place “UK” after their name here in the U.S. because of a long-defunct ’60s band with the same name) came initially to prominence in the aforementioned Manchester music scene of the late ’80s and early ’90s; their second single, “The Only One I Know,” from 1990, survives as one of the quintessential hits of that short-lived era.

Scenes rise and fall, usually taking bands with them. The Charlatans, however, managed to effect what was seen as a comeback in the mid-’90s, and now, look, it’s even 10 years later and they’re still doing what they do. And now, Radiohead-ishly, they’re giving it away: the band has decided that it will offer its next album free online. “You Cross My Path” was the first single, made available in October via both the band’s site and the British music site Xfm. A second song, “Oh Vanity,” will be available next month. The as-yet untitled album is slated for a March release.

“Country From the Dome Car” – Brooke Miller

On the one hand a straight-ahead piece of countrified rock, “Country From the Dome Car” is likewise a fetchingly elusive sort of song, centered around two divergent guitar sounds–sprightly acoustic; fuzzy electric—and a resolutely unresolved melody.

I definitely think that latter aspect is what hooked me: each line of the chorus ends by veering away from a sense of musical groundedness. Listen to the notes she sings at the end of each line—the words “everyone there,” “in my hair,” “engineer,” and, most prominently, “out of here,” at the end. Not once does the melody resolve. That she is employing a so-called “half rhyme” here—every line ends with the same consonant sound—is a subtle counter-effect; likewise the rollicking, rail-inspired rhythm provides a regularity that the melody beguilingly undermines.

Miller is a singer/songwriter from Prince Edward Island, now living in Ontario. “Country From the Dome Car” is based on the experience she had participating in a unique, three-day on-train folk festival that traveled from Toronto to Vancouver a few years ago. The song can be found on her 2007 CD You Can See Everything, which was originally released in July and was subsequently picked up for a digital re-release via Sony/ATV.

“Walk in the Woods” – Shipwreck

As Stephen Sondheim cautioned us some time ago, going into the woods is never a straightforward enterprise. Something lurks, shadows predominate, and change—not initially for the better—is always afoot. And even though the cryptic lyrics here do not describe anything overtly terrible, “Walk in the Woods” drips omen and portent, from its itchy, hihat-driven beat to Harman Jordan’s deadpan baritone to the wailing lead guitar that quite literally becomes a siren as the plot thickens.

The latent creepiness may be rooted most of all in the song’s structure, of all things. There are verses but no actual chorus—instead, there are lyrical lines that are repeated twice in succession; the first line that’s repeated this way comes back at the end, but the other two are never heard again. On the one hand, this kind of forces us to wonder if there might not be some hidden meaning in the words (or in some cases, to wonder why we still can’t quite understand the words even hearing them twice in a row)–a feeling enhanced by the mysterious phrases that are in fact discernible: “sparrows in a yellow sky,” “thunder is a lullaby,” et al. On the other hand, we are given nothing solid to hang onto. A chorus typically grounds us in a song–in “Walk in the Woods,” the ground keeps shifting. We don’t even get much melody, as the verses are almost spoken-sung. And yet, rather marvelously, we get plenty of drama, all in a swift 3:14.

Shipwreck is a quartet from Champaign, Illinois. “Walk in the Woods” was out earlier this year on a self-released EP; it has emerged again on the band’s first full-length, entitled Rabbit in the Kitchen With a New Dress On, which was released on None Records (a so-called “sub-label” of Polyvinyl Records earlier this month. MP3 via the band’s site.

“Heaven” – Club 8

Cheerful bongos and a melodic bass line propel this dreamy, resplendent slice of Swedish pop with insouciant authority. It’s hard not to like a song with bongos (or a melodic bass line, for that matter). It’s also hard not to like a song this resolutely tuneful, particularly when said tune is delivered by Karolina Komstedt, whose voice is imbued with a sublime sort of weary vibrancy that makes me hang on her every sound–and I do mean every sound, since I’m finding I’m quite enjoying, even, the way she breathes. Listen, for instance, to her potent intake of breath at 0:45, in advance of launching into the lustrous chorus, sounding as much like a sigh as a breath–I mean, how weary/vibrant is that?

Komstedt and partner Johan Angergård have been recording as Club 8 since 1995; Angergård is also in the band Acid House Kings, which may account for the leisurely pace of Club 8 albums–The Boy Who Couldn’t Stop Dreaming, on which you’ll find “Heaven,” is the duo’s sixth in these 13 years. It was released in October on the marvelous Labrador Records, based in Stockholm and Malmö. MP3 courtesy of Labrador.

“Little 18” – Eric Matthews

Open on a brooding piano vamp featuring an unsettled chord or two, cue the husky-voiced crooner (“I think I sound like the rainy half of the west coast,” he says), and settle back and listen to a pop rarity: a song with a long, long, long melody line–more than 30 measures’ worth of continually developing melody, repeated twice with an instrumental break in between. This sort of melody is largely unheard of in rock songwriting, and is pretty unusual anywhere outside of classical music. (Even back in the days of so-called pop “standards,” while longer melodies were more common, they were still rarely if ever this long.)

Eric Matthews, as it turns out, is pretty unusual himself. Classically trained on the trumpet (that’s him on the horn during the break; as a matter of fact, that’s him on all the instruments), he knows his way around actual orchestral scores, while at the same time was turned on musically, in high school, by the dark sounds of the second half of the British new wave—by bands such as Tones on Tail, Echo and the Bunnymen, and the Smiths, music that would ultimately lead him to a pop rather than a classical career. Matthews definitely has the voice for it; perhaps the main reason his protracted melody is so engaging is the well-rounded depth of his singing. And yet it’s also, I think, ear-arresting to listen to a pop lyric—Matthews is here offering some hard-headed but hardly earth-shattering advice to some unnamed young woman—unfold in this uncharacteristic musical setting.

Matthews put out his first album back in 1994, while part of the duo Cardinal; two solo albums for Sub Pop Records followed in ’95 and ’97, after which he dropped out of sight until a 2005 mini-LP for Empyrean Records. A full-length followed in ’06. “Little 18” is a track from his forthcoming album, The Imagination Stage, due out in January on Empyrean, which is hosting the MP3. Thanks to Filter for the lead.

“Confidences Shattered” – Camphor

When bands get it right, they can make their music sound so easy and familiar that they don’t seem to be doing much of anything at all. This is one important reason why critics or bloggers or fellow musicians who would sniff at a band for not doing anything “new” are so misguided. Good music isn’t all about “new”; it’s about “good,” and sometimes–maybe a lot of times–this has not too much to do with sounding new.

Camphor is a marvelous case in point. There is nothing obviously new about “Confidences Shattered” but many a good and right and splendid thing. The crisp aural landscape is a major part of the appeal, capturing as it does a down-home sort of chamber pop with smashing clarity and precision. As the players play with skill, creativity, and restraint (a rare trifecta), the recording continually gives the listener the sensation of being in the room with them as they shift in their seats, adjust the grips on their instruments, and invent percussive accents. But the clincher here is Max Avery Lichtenstein’s marvelous voice, which has a gracious, gratifying depth (nothing against tenors but it’s nice to hear a baritone every now and then!); and he sings with impeccable timing. Check out how he phrases “whenever the mood strikes you” at 1:49; more subtly, check out how his words “left us broke” (starting around :42) give the instruments extra oomph in the spaces in between.

As with many indie bands in the ’00s, Camphor is the brainchild of one mastermind, who then enlists a bevy of sidekicks to flesh out the sound. Unusual in this case, however, is Lichtenstein’s background—he’s a film composer who has worked on the critically-acclaimed movies Tarnation (2003) and Home Front (2006), among others. “Confidences Shattered” is from his debut CD as Camphor, Drawn to Dust, which will be released in February on Friendly Fire Recordings. MP3 via Friendly Fire.




“Stains on Your Sweater” – Jong Pang

Okay, back to the tenors—in this case a tenor with such a soaring range that I had to double-check to be sure this was in fact a man singing. It is; he’s Danish musician Anders Rhedin, formerly of a band called Moon Gringo. Rhedin has been away from rock’n’roll for a few years, apparently immersing himself in world, folk, and classical music. But he’s back in the indie world and seems to be going by Jong Pang this time around.

“Stains on Your Sweater” announces itself with an unearthly fanfare before we even hear Rhedin’s keening vocals. An upward-yearning fourth interval repeats on an electronic keyboard, but listen carefully to what else is in there: an acoustic guitar, some industrial noise, and, if I’m not mistaken, either choral voices or electronically simulated choral voices. Half robotic, half medieval, this is quite a stew in which to cook a pop song. But it hardly needs be said that this is no normal pop song. Rhedin’s double-tracked voice enters 30 seconds in, singing about stains and sleeves and sweaters; and while the content is difficult to decipher what is clear is the deliberate repetition of words, creating a sort of slowed-down minimalist ambiance, reinforced by the reiterating fourth interval that continually informs the musical structure, even when the hammering keyboard riff disappears. I love the use of flat-out noise—you’ll hear an episode of it from 0:57 to 1:24–and how the song continues on otherwise, as if nothing untoward is occurring: the drumming keeps the beat, the chord progression progresses, and, best of all, a stubborn piano picks out a slightly desultory melody despite all the commotion.

“Stains on Your Sweater” is a song from the forthcoming Jong Pang debut, to be called Bright White Light, set for release in 2008 on a new European label called Tigerspring (so new it doesn’t yet have a web site). MP3 courtesy of Tigerspring.




“Seasons Greetings” – Robbers on High Street

And talk about getting something right. Christmas music is, as I’m sure I don’t have to tell you, something very easy to do, well, not right. The NYC-based Robbers on High Street, with their effortless Kinks-like flair, convert this strange musical relic—originally one of 200,000 “song poems” that were created over the course of 50 years during the last century (a phenomenon you can read more about here)—into its own sort of homely holiday classic.

Song poems were basically a scam. The idea was to lure people via small magazine ads (which originally promised income for songwriting) into paying good money to have their words converted into a recorded song with as little effort as possible, by uncredited industry hacks. This was not how to crack the Billboard Hot 100. A few years back, Bar/None Records released a couple of compilations of these original song-poem recordings, one of which was a Christmas album. “Seasons Greetings,” written by Raymond Moberly and originally performed by an outfit called Teri Summers and the Librettos, is a song filled with generic sentiment and lines that often don’t scan very well with the music. Robbers on High Street dive merrily in, giving it a Phil Spector-beated intro (cute) and latching breezily onto the song’s gleeful melody, which comes alive in a very Ron Sexsmith-y sort of way when relieved of the lounge-singer pseudo-swing of the original version. MP3 available via New Line Records.

“Small Town Crew” – the Brunettes

This one sounds pure and true and good—completely devoid of the “hmm, what’s the best way to sound cool?” sensibility that mars some of the music one hears from U.S. and U.K. bands in particular. The Brunettes are from New Zealand, so that partially explains it. But the key here, to me, is Heather Mansfield’s voice, which is heart-breaking if you listen carefully: gorgeous and imperfect, it’s a little bit breathy, a little bit raspy, a little bit almost-out-of-tune, a little bit era-free (she’s kind of ’60s but also kind of not), and maybe at its most fetching when reaching towards her upper register. Another boy-girl duo in this golden age of boy-girl duos, the Brunettes aren’t rigid about it; even as Mansfield plays keyboards, glockenspiel, xylophone, and clarinet(!) (her partner, Jonathan Bree, sings and plays guitar), the twosome is happy to bring in other players when it seems like a good idea, which can be almost any time at all, apparently. A trumpet wanders in about a third of the way through, offers some smart Bacharachy punctuation, then gives way to some (synthesized?) strings and ultimately (why not) an accordion–which later becomes part of an instrumental break featuring (for probably the first time in rock history) accordion, xylophone, and electronic percussion. It’s quirky but the bittersweet melody, anchoring guitar work, and Mansfield’s unerring voice keep everything brilliantly just so. “Small Town Crew” is from the CD Structure & Cosmetics, which came out on Subpop Records back in August. Not sure how this one passed me by at the time but, as the saying goes, better late than really really late. MP3 via Subpop.

“Time to Pretend” – MGMT

So you’re two freshmen goofing around with electronic music in college who end up forming a band more or less by accident. Goes without saying, therefore, that within four years, legendary producer Steve Lillywhite hears you and gets you signed to a four-record, six-figure deal with Columbia Records. Or not; but that’s what has indeed happened to Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden, who met at Wesleyan in 2002 and within months of graduating were shaking hands with major-label honchos. If this song is indicative, these guys do in fact have something interesting going–something, in this particular case, that merges thick, hairy, synth-driven beats with a quasi-cheesy, neo-glam-rock vibe and a wry take on life. Pushed along by a chipper, just this side of irritating synthesizer riff, “Time to Pretend” lays out a cliched story of rock-star decadence and flameout as something the band is simply “fated to pretend” rather than achieve. Amusingly, we can’t quite tell if they’re making fun of the musicians who’ve succumbed to this or the rest of us for our standard, humdrum existences–or, most likely, both. “Time to Pretend” is the lead track from the band’s debut CD, Oracular Spectacular, which came out digitally last month, available via iTunes; the CD will apparently be released next month. MP3 via Better Propaganda.

“My Oldest Memory” – Bowerbirds

Another song that has been around since the summer too, but in this case I’ve actually been listening to it for that long (unlike the Brunettes song, which I just recently discovered). “My Oldest Memory” resides on the least pop-like end of the Fingertips music spectrum; I’ve been transfixed since I first heard it by the eerie-Appalachian instrumentation, inscrutable lyricism, and elusive structure, but have been uncertain about the song’s apparent lack of hooks–just when I want the song to kick into something simple and solid, it instead recedes into its landscape-like, fiddle-based complexities, homespun percussion, and that abrupt non-sing-along-y sing-along section. This week, however, it more or less flung itself after “Time to Pretend,” daring me to push it away. I dare not. This song has legs, and deserves a good long listen at your end too. Bowerbirds is a trio from Raleigh featuring Phil Moore singing and doing some other things, Mark Paulson on violin and some other things, and Beth Tacular, an accomplished painter who also happens to play accordion and marching-band bass drum, while sitting. “My Oldest Memory” can be found on their debut CD, Hymns for a Dark Horse, which was released in July on Burly Time Records. Thanks way back when to Gorilla vs. Bear for the head’s up and the link.