Category: MP3s

“Ghosts of York” – As Tall As Lions

“Ghosts of York” manages the clever trick of being both atmospheric and emphatic, combining the feel of a more noodly type of guitar rock with the smart, concise dynamics of a great pop song. Look at the ground covered here, so quickly: we get an introspective guitar line for all of 13 seconds before the vocalist sings a slow, emotive section for maybe another 15 seconds, and then, bam, the drummer hits the ground running, yet with everything around him still feeling restrained; at the same time you may notice a wall of sound building the energy towards something bigger. This is already engaging, very much so, but these guys have barely started. Just past 50 seconds, the sonic tension cracks open into a clear, decisive melody (note the nice use of octave harmonies right here), and even this is just a set-up for the central hook at 1:06—the melody there featuring a deeply pleasing modulation from a minor chord to the major chord one full step below. (There’s probably a name for that, theory-wise, that escapes me.) This is the part that completely slayed me, and even after this there’s more, including a bridge with a trickier time signature, then a dramatic building-back of the wall of sound, and then a combination of the time tricks and the wall at the very end. Good stuff. As Tall As Lions is a foursome from Long Island; “Ghosts of York” is a song from the band’s self-titled debut CD, released last week on Triple Crown Records. The MP3 is available via Insound. (This is no longer a direct link; go to the Insound page linked to above and you’ll see the download button.)

“Heartbeat” – Angela Desveaux

Sometimes there’s little as satisfying as a good old-fashioned song—nicely unfolding melodies and a sense of verse-chorus-verse structure, confidently presented, with an assortment of little touches so perfect that you barely even notice them. Because she does this so well, and because there’s an air of alt-country about her, and because she’s from Canada, Montreal’s Angela Desveaux may have trouble escaping Kathleen Edwards comparisons, but hey, all up and coming musicians are going to be compared to somebody, and Edwards is one of the very best singer/songwriters of our day—good company, says me. I think you know you’re in the hands of a true talent when there doesn’t necessarily seem like there’s anything unusual going on, and yet you’re hooked anyway. Desveaux here has hit upon a simple-sounding but resonant underlying motif: that basic 5-4-3-4-3-4 melody that drives the song, sung in that gently swinging rhythm, with her friendly, reedy voice the perfect accompaniment. Songs like this develop in ways that seem pretty much inevitable, even when they aren’t at all. For instance, despite my assurance about verse-chorus-verse structure, Desveaux here actually throws something extra between the verse and the chorus that’s like a pre-chorus–a great hook in its own right, and not a bridge. And it doesn’t matter; it all seems precisely as it should be. Listening to it, I feel the world, if only for four minutes and twenty-six seconds, is also precisely as it should be. Quite a feat during these unsettling times. “Heartbeat” is available via her web site, a stand-alone song. According to the site, an album is coming soon.

“Burn This Flag” – Boy Omega

Well it’s been at least a little while since we’ve dipped back into the Swedish talent pool, so here’s Boy Omega, the working name of a certain Martin Henrik Gustaffson. To begin with, do yourself a favor and try to listen to this straight out of “Heartbeat”—the segue is rather striking, if I do say so myself. Even as it’s driven by an acoustic guitar, “Burn This Flag” starts out all itchy and unsettled, a feeling augmented both by Gustaffson’s Robert Smith meets Conor Oberst vocal style and by the blippy-scratchy percussive accents. I am slowly but surely realizing that I love much of what electronica has to offer, sound-wise, when musicians bring it structurally into something resembling a song rather than presenting it in a relentless, beat-oriented setting. Gustaffson here crams a lot of know-how into a relatively short space: strong instrumental hooks, crisp production, an incisive melodic theme, and unexpected sounds, among other things; unusually for me, I’m left here feeling as if the song could actually have been longer than it is. That’s almost always a good sign. “Burn This Flag” is from Boy Omega’s forthcoming EP, The Grey Rainbow, scheduled for an October release (in Europe) on Riptide Recordings, a German label. The MP3 is via the Riptide site. Hat’s off to the consistently enlightening Getecho blog for this one.

“La Cage Appat” – Peppertree

So how much fun is this song? We get, out of the gate, a wonderful, mysterious tension built by a question-answer style alternation between a gently strummed electric guitar and a chimey organ. This kicks open into a melodramatic series of now-the-guitar-is-chimey chords, then pulls back again into a restrained verse, in French, reinforcing the song’s engaging sense of back-and-forth, of doing this then that, being here then there. See too how the musical accent is all off the beat, which generates more tension (listen to the guitarist to get the clearest sense of what’s driving the song rhythmically here, that ringing line you can hear between all the regular beats). Where it’s leading is to the heart-opening chorus, and I know exactly when this song lodges in my gut: it’s the surging-up melody in the (I think) third line, at about 1:06; and it’s not just the melody surge, it’s the chord underneath: listen to how suspended and unresolved that baby is. I love this a lot. There’s a great culturally far-away sound (to my American ears) that I’m also loving all the way through—some antique French-Canadian essence seems to be driving this thing, a sense reinforced by the unexpected “ba-ba-bas” singer Patrick Poirier unleashes near the end. And it’s all done in three minutes. Most excellent. According to Babel Fish I see that Poirier actually means “pear tree,” and I don’t doubt there’s a joke there, as the Montreal-based band displays quite the quirky sense of humor on its still-sketchy web site. “La Cage Appat” is the lead track on the band’s debut CD, self-released (I think) last year. The MP3 is available via the band’s site, and came to my attention thanks to the fine feathered folks at 3hive.

“Take Me Back” – Furvis

While the Peppertree song knocked me out right away, “Take Me Back” won me over steadily, over time. I think maybe the bashy guitar onslaught at the beginning blinded my ear (if I can engage in a bit of willful synesthesia) to the tune’s nicely constructed subtleties. The first verse is sturdy and amenable, four repetitions of a four-measure melody (three, really, with a guitar “coda”), until after the fourth time around, where we suddenly modulate through a couple of new chords, hit a brisk hand-clap, then go back into the verse. But things are now different: the melody this time extends into all four measures, and runs together to join the segments, including the end bit with the modulation and hand-clap. And then we get a sort of aural clearing—the insistent guitars peel back, as the chorus is sung against an acoustic rhythm guitar and lead electric guitar that sounds distorted into a steel-ish tone, while the melody takes some nice Wilco-y detours. And yeeks the more I dryly describe this the less interesting it probably sounds. My advice is listen, a few times. Furvis is a young quartet from the Boston suburb of Newton, with one self-released EP to its name so far. “Take Me Back” is one of the band’s as yet unreleased songs; the MP3 is available via their web site.

“Lonely Land” – Trentalange

Barbara Trentalange has a voice, all smoke and ash, made for singing about barstools and shotglasses and no-good men and infinite gazes. It’s a blessing and a curse, actually—because, I mean, really, how seriously can we take this slightly too cliched tale of a shadowy figure in a bar? Well, maybe not all that seriously—until my friend the chorus arrives, and oh boy: the soaring harmonies, the grand sad elegance of the melody, the despondent cello (which arrives the second time through) all work to transform, basically, everything. This song sticks with me, hard. On top of that, the chorus also yields a lyrical gem—the story of a woman meeting a shady man in a bar may seem a cliche, but the catch phrase “Follow me to lonely land” is brilliant in its catchy concise complexity—just want I want from a good pop song. So if “Lonely Land” does indeed walk that sometimes fine line between cliche and transcendence, perhaps it’s doing so, to interpret this generously, to teach us that transcendence may yet be a heartbeat away, even when we least expect it. In any case, Trentalange is the latest project from Barbara Trentalange, formerly the lead singer of a Seattle-based band called Spyglass; she also toured in a recent incarnation of Crooked Fingers. “Lonely Land” is a song off the forthcoming CD, Photo Album of Complex Relationships, scheduled for an October release on Coco Tauro Records. The MP3 is available via her site.

“Gone Gone Gone” – John Ralston

This one may start like just another weepy, acoustic ballad, but John Ralston has much more up his sleeve than weepy balladry, of the sort often practiced by the current pack of jam-band-inspired troubadours. First, when the full band kicks in after 19 seconds, the strength of the original melody becomes surprisingly evident. What sounded tinkly and precious with just an acoustic guitar playing now sounds vigorous and involving. I think it’s the drummer in particular: that just off the second beat accent he throws in, which adds unplaceable depth while likewise playing nicely off the ascending bass line. But then there’s also the fact that having a band to sing against brings something meatier out in Ralston’s voice, which veered towards the over-senstive (cute?) before the band rescued him. The real killer is the chorus, which sizzles with spirit, his voice transforming in its higher register into an instrument of power and bite, complete with a nicely emoted expletive (watch out who’s around when you listen). “Gone Gone Gone” is from his debut CD, Needle Bed, re-released in June on Vagrant Records after an earlier self-release. The MP3 is via his site.

“Odi et Amo” – Jóhann Jóhannsson

What we have here is a Latin poem from the first century B.C. set by an Icelandic composer to a string quartet and piano, with, oh yeah, a computerized voice “singing” the words. I invite you not to run away but listen once, twice, maybe three times, and see if you don’t become as mesmerized as I now am by the unearthly ambiance, the spellbinding combination of organic instruments, heart-rending melody, and subtle electronics. The vocal range is what classical people would call a “countertenor”; we can just call it “really high, but still male.” The poem is short, a so-called “elegiac couplet”; it’s repeated twice, with a plaintive yet tense instrumental break between. The words translate, roughly, to: “I hate and I love. Why do I do this, perhaps you ask?/I do not know. But I feel it happening, and I am tormented.” Remember, this is a computer singing. The effect is startling, both intellectually and emotionally. While getting his start as a rock guitarist, like everyone else, Jóhannsson quickly expanded his artistic scope beyond “guy in a band” to “avant garde guy with projects”–said projects including something called Kitchen Motors (“record label, think tank, art organization”), an ensemble called the Apparet Organ Quartet, and a dance/music collaboration called IBM 1401, A User’s Manual. “Odi et Amo” is from Jóhannsson’s first solo CD, Englabörn, which was released in 2002 on Touch Records. Thanks again to the delightful Getecho blog for the lead. Jóhannson’s next CD will be a recording of the music from IBM 1401, rewritten for a 60-piece orchestra, due out in October on 4AD.

“Pillbox” – Tomihira

Returning to a more expected context now, but still dreamily so, Tomihira being a San Francisco trio favoring a dreamy-droney-distorty guitar sound that makes everyone have to mention My Bloody Valentine so, there, that’s out of the way. “Pillbox” has a lot of things going for it, to my ears: an immediately distinctive instrumental hook, a delicate melody, a delicate melody set against some heavy guitar work (better, often, than a delicate melody on its own), a throaty vocalist, and a lower-register lead guitar solo, to name a few of them. Trodding the classic I-IV-V chord path, the song, gliding along without any obvious sort of chorus, oozes a crafty, slinky authority, with its syncopated beat, atmospheric guitars, and that sexy lead singer (Dean Tomihira, who lends the outfit his name). “Pillbox” is a song off the band’s debut CD, Play Dead; the song is one of six free and legal MP3s the band has available on its web site. They also offer you the entire CD for only $5, in case you like what you hear.

“To Go Home” – M. Ward

Smart, sharp, and exceedingly well put together, “To Go Home” presents the formerly sleepy-voiced M. Ward in an appealingly band-like and energetic setting. And let me stop and put a good word in here for exceedingly well put together recordings. Not enough people, I don’t think, speak up for them, as the indie world in particular has been often hijacked by lo-fi zealots pushing a radical (and often unlistenable) agenda of naive, accidental-sounding songscapes. But making a lo-fi recording is simply an aesthetic decision, not a moral one, and no less or more artificial a construct than a smartly produced recording. And I guess I’m digressing. Me, in any case, I listen to the opening measures of “To Go Home,” with their rousing wall of acoustic sound, spacious drumbeats, and next-room piano chords, and I’m smiling before anyone starts singing. (“Well put together,” I nod to myself.) When M. opens his mouth 45 seconds in, I’m further engaged by his roughed-up, reverbed-up voice, full of musical spirit in a way I hadn’t heard before. The fact that Neko Case is also one of the people who eventually sings has me smiling all the more; her seasoned brilliance is a blessing everywhere she goes. “To Go Home,” a Daniel Johnston song, is the second track off Ward’s upcoming CD, Post-War (yeah, I wish), slated for an August 22nd release on Merge Records.

“Major Arcana” – the Isles

If Neil Finn had been in the Smiths, they might’ve sounded something like this. Certainly, Isles vocalist Andrew Geller does not mind bringing Morrissey to mind, both in voice and (this is what nails it, actually) in the melody lines he sings. And let me quickly add that there’s nothing wrong with this. The Smiths had truly one of the most distinctive band sounds in the history of rock’n’roll; by merit, they should in fact have produced a lot more Smiths-esque bands in their wake than have yet risen to prominence. It was a sound that was never just about Morrissey’s voice—it was Johnny Marr’s guitar, of course, and most of all those melodies that always sounded like they were composed mostly of black notes on the piano: those odd and relentlessly minor-sounding intervals Morrissey just couldn’t help singing. Geller’s doing that here too. At the same time, the song has a crisp pop know-how to it, which is where the Neil Finn part comes in. I like for instance, the unexpected “oo-oo-oo” flourish at the end of the chorus. Not Smiths-like at all, that. “Major Arcana” is the lead track on Perfumed Lands, the band’s debut CD on Melodic Records, set now for release next month in the U.K. and in October in the U.S. Interestingly, Melodic Records is based in Manchester, in the U.K., exactly where the Smiths are from; the Isles however are from New York City, of all places. Thanks to the gang at 3hive for the head’s up.

“In Every Direction” – So Many Dynamos

Every now and then I find myself attracted beyond reason to the sort of deadpan speak-singing So Many Dynamos vocalist Aaron Stovall employs in this simultaneously skewed and tightly presented song. For me, the tight presentation is key, and this song is as blistering and disciplined, with its two-guitar assault and time-signature tricks, as it is slightly unhinged. A good microcosm of the song’s idiosyncratic allure is the instrumental break at 2:03, which starts out sounding like they’re unplugging the guitars, knocking over the amps, and heading offstage, but instead leads into a guitar line with an incisive melodic theme that sounds like it must’ve been at the heart of the song all along and yet actually wasn’t. Before long a chorus of voices is joining in and I have no clue what’s going on anymore, but at this point perhaps it’s time to chuckle at the band’s palindromic name and call it a day. “In Every Direction” is a track from the St. Louis-based quartet’s second full-length CD, Flashlights, to be released in September on Skrocki Records.

“This Life” – La Rocca

A comfy stomp of a piano riff leads, brain-buzzingly, into a song as brash as it is cheerful, as expansive as it is, also, introspective. This young Irish band will bring some inevitable early-U2 comparisons, both for the country of origin and for singer/guitartist Bjorn Baillie’s semi-resemblance to a young Bono. But the comparison doesn’t hold for long, to my ears. There’s some deep-seated, rather un-U2-like awareness of down-and-dirty classic rock suffusing the groove these guys lay down here, to begin with. And anyway, this quartet isn’t quite so Irish as all that—one of them is from England, they started playing together in Cardiff (in Wales, you know), and have actually been living in L.A. for a while now. “This Life” is a track from the band’s debut full-length CD, The Truth, due out in August on Danger Bird Records. The MP3 is courtesy of the Danger Bird site.

“Too Much Space” – Lisa Germano

With its sad, rich, reversing arpeggios, “Too Much Space” has the beautiful-doleful vibe of one of Tom Waits’ ballads-gone-awry. Germano’s voice of course is far prettier than his (whose isn’t?), but she’s got a deep ache in it as well, and offers idiosyncratic touches that give the proceedings a Waitsian sense of the off-kilter. Her evocative violin adds one mournful flavor; the feedbacky guitars that enter in the second half of the song—screaming like disintegrating aliens during certain moments—add another perhaps less expected one. Having written personally, almost uncomfortably, about love and addiction on previous albums, Germano is apparently tackling death this time around, on her wonderfully-titled In the Maybe World CD, to be released next week on Young God Records. She’s traveled a long and winding road since her commercial heyday as John Mellencamp’s violinist, but it seems one of her own choosing and I for one hang on her every word at this point. The MP3 is available via the Young God web site. Many thanks to the sabas.jud.as blog for the head’s up.

“Postcards From Italy” – Beirut

Probably not enough rock songs begin with a strumming ukelele. And that’s not nearly the most charming/unexpected instrumental flourish in Beirut’s bag of tricks. You get horns, you get tambourines, you get a brisk two-step rhythm, you get appealingly old-fashioned melodies, and best of all you get singer/mastermind Zach Condon, all of 20 years old (actually 19 when he recorded this), sounding for all the world like a cross between Rudy Vallee and Morrissey. So, yes, it’s kind of another one-man-band thing, but Condon first of all believes solidly in organic instruments (no laptop rock for him), and he also believes in recruiting talent—Neutral Milk Hotel’s Jeremy Barnes, most notably, who offers up a serious hodgepodge of old-country percussion, crucial to the endearingly Eastern European sound Condon has almost inexplicably concocted. Condon is from Albuquerque and now lives in Brooklyn; he left college after one day and went instead to live in Europe. In Amsterdam he was accidentally exposed to Balkan brass music (it’s a long story) and the rest is now indie-pop musical history. “Postcards From Italy,” careening around the blogosphere since the spring, is a track off Beirut’s debut CD, Gulag Orkestar, released in May on Ba Da Bing! Records. The MP3 is available via the band’s site.

“Ta Douleur” – Camille

Here’s a song that’s simultaneously really funky and really cute–and let’s face it, not a whole lot of funky music over the years could also be called cute. Camille (she’s from France, where it’s pronounced “cam-EE”) is best known in the U.S. for being one of the alluring voices on the oddly appealing Nouvelle Vague CD (the one where ’80s new wave singles were reimagined as bossa-nova-tinged lounge songs); over there she quickly parlayed the success into a high-flying solo career. I love the timbre in her voice, and how willingly she stretches it in all directions–down so low the notes reduce to a dusky whisper, up high for accents sweet and sailing. And then of course there’s when she abandons singing altogether for a wide range of percussive sounds, which come in an impressive range of gasps, raspberries, and unnameable ululations. Voice and hand-claps in fact make up most of the “instrumentation” here, prompting the music critic community to a) immediately compare her to Björk (because of Medulla, the Icelandic wonder’s a capella album) and b) dismiss her as a simple-minded Björk knockoff (largely because Medulla is an often difficult listen while Camille’s music strikes everyone as catchy and pleasant). Never mind most of these same critics at the time berated Björk for her self-absorbed difficulty. Never mind that Björk (whom I love dearly by the way) did not invent percussive a capella singing. I invite one and all, as always, to listen with ears; it’s no crime to succumb to charm, and almost impossible, I think, not to during the closing half minute when a quiet bridge section turns into a wide-open, beat-crazy hoedown, complete with (I think!) trombone. “Ta Douleur” comes from the CD Le Fil, which was released in 2005 in France on Virgin France; it was released in the U.S. earlier this month on EMI’s Narada label. Thanks again to Getecho for the lead.

“Kurt’s Theme” – Foma

As intense and urgent as it is likewise good-natured and ramshackle, “Kurt’s Theme” features a melody that I fear will lodge in your head rather too firmly after you’ve heard it a couple of times. With prominent strings and a profusion of minor chords, the song might veer towards melodrama were it not for a concurrent sense of playfulness that gives me the sense of its having been constructed with masking tape and styrofoam (I mean this in a good way)–the different elements jammed against each other in the hope that it all somehow holds together. Hear that portentous orchestral drive? Oops, it stops on a dime for a quiet section suddenly sung by a female vocalist, which leads into a pretty section with a plaintive violin motif, which (oh no!) runs headfirst into a peremptory blast of spastic guitar. That kind of thing. Foma is sort of a band, and sort of not a band, anchored by Edward Burch and based in the happening musical town of Albuquerque, New Mexico. “Kurt’s Theme” is a song from the quirky concept CD Phobos, recorded with seven musicians and released locally this spring on Little Kiss Records, an Albuquerque-based label. The release went nationwide earlier this month. The MP3 is available via the band’s site.

“Second Best Death” – Maybe Smith

So we’ve heard the staticky, squeaky-clackety electronics before, we’ve seen the one-man, laptop-generated bedroom rock thing before, and let me first say that there’s nothing wrong with having heard something before. So-called “innovation” is way overvalued in our 24/7 world; we all want the newest, while overlooking the fact that a far more important value than “new” is “good” and that they are not always the same. But then the lap steel guitar comes in and okay, I’ve got to hand it to Colin Skrapek, the Canadian here doing musical business as Maybe Smith: that’s a new one. But (remember, this is more important) it’s good, too. What’s even better is the entire song, with its lovely melodies, touching harmonies, and subtle hints of Elvis Costello in his songwriting heyday–in word choice, vocal tone, and musical sturdiness alike. “Second Best Death” is the title track to a seven-song EP released earlier this year on his own, Saskatoon-based Sir, Handsome Records. The MP3 is available via the Sir, Handsome web site. Much obliged to Sixeyes for the lead.

“Colorguard” – Division Day

An insistent drive, accentuated first by a wash of reverberating synths and then a searing guitar line, gives “Colorguard” some good hard substance; at the same time there’s a great warm softness at its core too, in the form of singer Rohner Stegnitz’s dulcet tenor, and the beautiful repeating melody in the chorus. There’s nothing too complicated going on here, but that’s really part of the effectiveness of this song. What I like is how I can clearly hear its various parts–the subtle, affecting octave harmonies once the second verse starts, the clear contribution of the bass, the clean, stratospheric lead guitar lines. I’m thinking that a lot of times, this sort of song (whatever sort of song it is) and this sort of music (again, whatever you might call it) often gets harmed by a sort of “piling on” that goes on in the recording studio. Great structures of amorphous sounds are constructed, and it can be cool in its own way, but sometimes it’s cool too to be able to hear everyone. The stronger the song, the more it’s okay. Division Day is a quartet from California; “Colorguard” is a song off the band’s debut full-length CD, Beartrap Island, self-released this spring. The MP3 is via the band’s site.

“Harrowdown Hill” – Thom Yorke

I don’t know if I’ve ever heard such a funky riff used at the core of such an un-funky song; this is not nearly the most significant thing going on, but it may be the easiest to notice; and it may be more significant than it at first seems. What Yorke is doing here is as mysterious as it is marvelous, combining disparate elements (funky guitar, programmed beats, sustained synthesizer, tense lyrics) into a completely cohesive and moving piece of music. (The song addresses a tragic, Iraq-related controversy in the U.K., involving a former UN weapons inspector who apparently killed himself–though some believe otherwise–after unintentionally finding himself in the middle of a political scandal.) In taking a much-publicized break from his day job as Radiohead’s frontman, Yorke has, to my ears, redefined the idea of what a singer/songwriter–it feels weird to call him that but that’s what he is here–can do. “Harrowdown Hill” has the beating (and aching) heart of a traditional, organic song, and yet is presented in an all-out, 21st-century sonic landscape. Two aspects of the song strike me as key to its haunting success: one is the synthesizer that plays an offbeat but continuous pattern of single notes sustained typically for seven or eight seconds at a time, in a muted yet majestic, organ-like tone; the other is Yorke’s voice, which is rather naked and up front, draped with maybe a slight echo to fit in to the electronic vibe but also fragile and shakily human. “Harrowdown Hill” is a track from Yorke’s highly-anticipated CD, The Eraser, to be released in July on XL Recordings. MP3 available via Ampcamp.

“Scene It All Before” – the Minor Leagues

Any band seeking to sound like “Ray Davies fronting the Clash with Phil Spector on production” (as per the web site) is going to get my attention quickly, and that is apparently what singer/keyboardist Ben Walpole has in mind for the Minor Leagues, give or take the quartet’s own individual sense of do-it-yourself quirkiness. In any case, “Scene It All Before” is a breezy yet satisfyingly chewy morsel of pop goodness, from its nostalgic horn charts to its grand swinging chorus and its intermittently goofy background vocals. Like any number of great old Kinks songs, this one has three solid, well-put-together parts; I particularly like how the melody in the chorus spills over its expected container, blurring the distinction between measures in a loose-limbed and agreeable way. And I will say that Walpole does manage to sound eerily like a cross between Davies and Mick Jones–especially eerie for a guy from Cincinnati. “Scene It All Before” is a track off the CD The Pestlience is Coming, which was self-released last week. The MP3 is available via the band’s site.

“Benton Harbor Blues” – the Fiery Furnaces

A brother-sister band known for idiosyncratic experimentation here delivers a delightful piece of almost classic-sounding pop (copping the keyboard and/or bass riff from the Four Tops strikes me as a neat touch). The fact that the Furnaces have revealed the capacity to spin out something this traditionally appealing (even if it is a remix) changes everything, to me. It’s just like knowing Picasso could draw beautifully when he wanted to; that he could and chose not to makes all the difference. In any case, everything else I’ve heard from the Fiery Furnaces (which I may go back and listen to again) has struck me as almost perversely odd (music critics like to call this “challenging”). But here they are, chugging to a keyboard-filled Motowny groove sounding both at home and still (if you listen closely) satisfyingly edgy. The drums have a pasted-on electronic itch to them that tells you this is more than a nostalgia trip, and singer Eleanor Friedberger’s delicious, drip-dry delivery has no reason to sound so good in this context but boy does it. Don’t miss the mini keyboard concert that arrives at around 1:56, which features both ghostly flourishes and an organ-like series of ascensions and descensions. “Benton Harbor Blues” is, from what I’ve read, pretty much of an anomaly on their latest CD, Bitter Tea, which was released in April on Fat Possum Records; the rest of the disc is apparently still odd, including the original version of this same song. The MP3 is available via Fat Possum Better Propaganda.

“Anti-Anti” – Snowden

Hard-driving and precise, “Anti-Anti” displays some characteristics of what is too typically (and unfortunately) called “post-punk” (its own sort of “town that makes no sense”), but I like the sonic elements this Atlanta-based quartet brings to the sound, including maybe most of all that beat-breaking synth-like guitar line (or is it a guitar-like synthesizer?) heard first at the end of the intro, and later on as well. Okay, perhaps it seems like a small and potentially random touch, but as it resurfaces it becomes its own sort of left-field hook in the context of the fuzzy, slashing, quasi-funk on display. Singer Jordan Jeffares sounds at once breathless and blase–an unusual, even uneasy combination–and the lyrical snippets that smack you as they go by only add to the vague tension. “Anti-Anti” is the title track to the band’s debut CD, scheduled for release in August on Jade Tree Records. The MP3 comes via the Jade Tree site.

“Death of the Party” – the Keene Brothers

Sounding like Michael Stipe’s long-lost brother, Robert Pollard has out-R.E.M.’ed R.E.M. with this lovely but typically inscrutable song. Just go ahead and try to listen to and make sense of the lyrics, if you can even understand them. But no matter at all: when the smoothly jangly verse opens into the chorus, it’s like being bathed by sunlight after a cool rain. Pollard, for the uninitiated, spent years as the prolific mastermind behind the Ohio-based proto-indie band, Guided By Voices. I couldn’t make heads or tails of those guys most of the time; I was pretty sure that among the 30 or so tracks on each of their 900 albums were buried treasures I’d never have the fortitude to discover. Since GBV disbanded in 2004, Pollard has merely gotten more spread out, but no less prolific, and no more understandable. “Death of the Party” is a song from the album he recorded with the relentlessly unknown but highly regarded Tommy Keene under the name of the Keene Brothers, entitled Blues and Boogie Shoes; this is however merely one of three collaborative CDs Pollard is simultaneously releasing this month as part of something he calls the “Fading Captain” series. He’s lost me logistically, but musically, for this one, I’m right on board–it’s a beauty. The MP3 is hosted via the old Guided By Voices web site, which still operates. Inscrutably.

In honor of Memorial Day here in the U.S., and honoring too a personal need to take some space and regroup a bit, there will be no weekly update next week (the week of May 28-June 3). The site will be up and running as of May 29 but I will use the week to tend to many things that need tending, taking the week off from the three-song update. The next “This Week’s Finds” update will appear on Sunday, June 4. Be sure to keep visiting for other updates and news!

“Lovers Who Uncover” – the Little Ones

The introduction is all I need with this one: the ascending, slightly distorted ringing guitar doing that fast alternating one-two rhythm thing–well, just forget the description, I’ve already mutilated the pop beauty of it all. And, sure, it’s simple stuff at its core, three adjacent notes, just me-fa-sol in disguise, but they ring out an eternal truth, and if you’re a high-quality pop junkie you know transcendence when you hear it. So okay yeah then there’s more to the song than the introduction of course, and the next thing I love to death are the vocals. I don’t really know who’s doing what, the Little Ones being an L.A. band that doesn’t relinquish a lot of personal information, but whoever is singing has that keening high-register voice that sounds full of substance, like a lower voice, rather than airy and irresolute, like many falsettos do. And what, class, is the most unusual thing going on in this shiny happy little number? There’s no chorus to speak of. Go figure: power pop with a killer verse, not a killer chorus. Who’d have thought? “Lovers Who Uncover” is a song from the band’s self-released debut EP; the MP3 is available via the band’s site. Thanks to Bruce at Some Velvet Blog for the lead.

“With My Eyes” – Our Lady of Bells

Another great intro, this one beginning with an acoustic guitar picking out alternately major and minor chords in three-quarter time, soon to be joined by what sounds like both an electric guitar and a bass, each plucking incomplete phrases in musical proximity, setting a subtly tense stage for a really nice lead guitar line, chiming out its syncopated theme with bittersweet majesty. Guitarist and songwriter Jules Gimbrone sings with an air of regret and entirely without pretense, letting the strength of the timeless, sea-charged melody pull us along, rough spots in her singing voice be damned. Her singing is but a part of an air of unpolishedness that hard-nosed lo-fi folks may actually see as a positive; I tend not to in general, but the material is compelling enough to keep me with it–the song acquires a weary and quite beautiful momentum as it rolls along. I suspect the group has much to offer moving forward. Based in Northampton, Massachusetts, Our Lady of Bells began in 2004 as a duo and has added three members along the way. “With My Eyes” can be found on the band’s first full-length CD, Forgetting the Way Home, released earlier this month. The MP3 is via the band’s site.

“Mountain” – 1888

So it’s cool introduction week, it seems. Check this one out: all beats and twitches, but as I listen it manages to sound, somehow, like electronica done by hand, with organic instruments. (It may not be, but the itchy, clicky vibe has a particularly hand-hewn quality.) We are thereby led into a song that presents, to my ears, one of the most intriguing uses I’ve heard of electronica-style beats and/or samples in a song that really doesn’t sound like electronica at all. On top of a precise blend of well-placed tweets and twiddles and buzzings is crafted something else entirely, although I’m not exactly sure what this something else is. The ultimate impression is the kind of sonic deconstruction that brings Wilco to mind, even though this doesn’t really sound much like Wilco either. Check out that lugubrious organ coloring the deep end; and as for singer/songwriter Brad Rosenberg, there’s nothing remotely techno about him–he sounds like a guy from a rock band who doesn’t understand something that happened to him (like many guys in rock bands). Hailing from Norfolk, Virginia, 1888 was almost a collective rather than a band in its early days (late ’90s), with a rotating series of players coming and going as required, as the spirit moved, to record in the studio. Solidifying as a quartet to hit the road as a live act, the band now plans to release its first full-length CD later this year; “Mountain” is originally from an EP released in 2003 called Panda. The MP3 is up on the band’s site.

“The Gate” – Sam Roberts Band

There’s something expansively old-fashioned about the Sam Roberts Band—five scruffy Canadian guys with long hair and any number of beards, they seem to be doing rock’n’roll like it used to be done (this is not a jam band, thank you very much), without sounding quite exactly like any classic rock outfit you can put your finger on. “The Gate” opens slowly, building from an organ sustain, a psychedelic bass line, and a glistening guitar that approaches steadily with spidery noodlings. Around 1:10 it bangs into place, driving forward with a late-’60s/early’-70s vibe; Roberts himself has something of David Gilmour’s haunting vocal depth, lending a Floyd-like oomph to the semi-Steve Miller-y proceedings (listen especially to the vocals in the quiet bridge section that starts at around 3:12). “The Gate” is the lead track from the band’s new CD, Chemical City, being released in the U.S. this week under the Secret Brain/Fontana imprint, which I can’t figure out at all. The MP3 is available via Filter Magazine.

“Malherido” – Juana Molina

The wondrously subtle, subtly magical Molina was one of the very first artists featured on Fingertips back in 2003; arrival of new music from this acclaimed Argentinian is big news here. I think you have to slow down a bit to sink into her soundscapes; throw too many things in the multi-task pile while you’re listening and the song—all rubbery synths, skittery boops, whispery vocals, and stray animal noises—might not register at all. The breathy but sturdy character in her voice is one hand-hold into her world: she sounds rather scarily like two of my top five all-time female singers put together (that’d be Jane Siberry and Kirsty MacColl), and there’s a whole lot in the musical if not vocal vibe that reminds me of another (Björk). “Malherido” is a song from Molina’s upcoming CD, her third; it’s called Son (in Spanish: “They Are”) and will be released in early June on Domino Records. The MP3 comes via the Domino web site.

“Too Much Space To Walk Away” – Avocadoclub

As smooth, catchy, and vaguely disaffected as an old Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark single. This has all the earmarks of a great floaty synth-pop hit but the really cool thing is they’re not really using a heck of a lot of synthesizers; the acoustic guitars are actually more prominent. Most of the effect, I think, is coming from the layered majesty of Bendrik Muhs’ vocals, and the use of a New Order-style lower-register lead guitar line. Muhs has the ability to sound both pretty and weary, like Ben Gibbard doing a Lou Reed impression; his aching delivery of the sweeping chorus is big-time pop heaven. Avocadoclub is an English-language band from Berlin; there appear to be two guys at the heart of it, but they’ve fleshed out into a five-piece band for the debut CD. “Too Much Space to Walk Away” was the title track on the band’s second EP, released in 2002; it has shown up as well on the debut full-length, entitled Everybody’s Wrong, which was released in March on Firestation Records. Thanks much, yet again, to Getecho for the lead.