Category: MP3s

This Week’s Finds: September 18-24 (Constantines, Carter Tanton, The Homesicks)

“Love in Fear” – Constantines

Stay with this one awhile. It starts with an uncomfortably jerky sense of time, as if the rhythm section is somehow trying to play two different songs simultaneously. For the entire first minute, the ear is given neither a firm beat nor a rooted melody to hold onto. Notice the keyboard relatively far down in the mix; its nuanced accents and jazz-inflected harmonics come to the fore a bit later. After a minute of this off-centered minimalism, the beat seems to coalesce—it remains syncopated and skeletal, but something’s gathering, you can feel it, and sure enough, at 1:30, the drummer finally joins force with the bass and the guitars, and the song blossoms in a depth-laced, truly satisfying way. (Check out the chord progression in the chorus linking the phrases “What hangs above” and “when we love,” it’s just about worth the price of admission right there.) Everything backs off again a half-minute later for a stripped-down bridge before returning with yet greater intensity and spirit for the home stretch. Now a Toronto-based quintet, Constantines was founded in Guelph in 1999. “Love in Fear” comes from the band’s forthcoming third CD, Tournament of Hearts, to be released next month on Sub Pop Records; the MP3 is via Better Propaganda.

“Eloquence” – Carter Tanton

Baltimore’s Carter Tanton has been recording his own music since he was 15, but that doesn’t come close to explaining how he projects such a strong and knowing musical presence at the still-precocious age of 23. “Eloquence” has a grand yet grounded urgency about it, which you can hear in both the assured, time-tested rhythm of the crisp acoustic guitar work and the keening timbre of Tanton’s voice, which strikes me as an unexpected cross between Matthew Sweet and Richard Thompson. With the timeless vibe of a full-throttled blues stomp, “Eloquence” manages at the same time to sound very of the moment, fresh, and relevant. The song can be found on Tanton’s Birds and Rain CD, released in July on Park the Van Records–which, I should note, is based in New Orleans, so let’s hope they’re all okay down there. The MP3 is hosted by Devil in the Woods, a small California-based label that apparently helps Park the Van sell some of their releases. Thanks to Largehearted Boy for the lead.

“Michelle” – the Homesicks

Fetchingly melodramatic (see below*), nicely-produced indie rock from Israel, the sort of song where the ’80s-style hooks pile up so flagrantly, one on top of the other, that my new wave-friendly heart ends up melted in a happy little puddle. Any number of the usual suspects are mushed together here–Joy Division to Bowie to Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark to the Pixies and then some–with great good verve and awareness. At the same time, the sampled-sounding synth riff that emerges at around 2:50 sounds like something that might only emerge from a Middle Eastern band. Occasionally globalization has its charms. The Homesicks are an unsigned five-piece band based in Tel Aviv; the MP3 comes from an intriguing-looking but largely Hebrew Israeli web site called Blind Janitor that I unfortunately can’t make heads or tails of. Thanks very much to visitor Moran for the lead on this one. (*Shortly after posting this today, I noticed that last week I had described the Fleeing New York MP3 as “endearingly melodramatic.” Busted! I’ll admit I struggle as it is not to over-use certain favorite words when writing here week after week, but that’s a bit too much repetition too soon, don’t you think? Let’s call this one, perhaps, “almost but not quite over the top,” or something to that effect. And consider it another sign of life without a copy editor.)

This Week’s Finds: Sept. 11-17 (Orenda Fink, Fleeing New York, Tom Vek)

“Bloodline” – Orenda Fink

Orenda Fink means business. One-half of the the delicate Georgia duo Azure Ray, Fink, on a new solo CD, displays a striking new musical persona: tough, propulsive, and vibrant. This is indie rock at its most inclusive—revealing, in other words, a universal, accessible heart; and in so doing revealing that at the end of the day, the most salient labels are simply “good” or “not good.” “Bloodline” is very good indeed, a soaring, memorable shot of powerful pop, its chugging, fuzzy-bass-heavy verse and shimmering chorus together hinting at something both menacing and transcendent. Fink has a resilient, familiar voice, with none of the fragile breathiness of her Azure Ray partner Maria Taylor (not that there’s anything wrong with fragile breathiness, mind you!). When a song comes from seemingly nowhere and cuts to the quick like this, I am assured yet again of the universality of good music, despite the efforts of too many present-day indie rock zealots (be they fans, musicians, or critics) to protect their strange, isolated turf from perceived intrusions via over-thinking and under-listening. Someone like Ms. Fink can arrive and slap us to attention: when you have something to say, labels spontaneously combust. “Bloodline” can be found on her album Invisible Ones, released last month on Saddle Creek Records. MP3 via Better Propaganda.

“Hollywood Bowl” – Fleeing New York

Wacky, bashy, endearingly melodramatic Brit pop disguising itself as some sort of Motor City stompdown. This song has a bit of everything: smashingly crisp guitars, group chanting, rumbly pseudo-Western verses, boy-girl lead vocalists, and a truly loopy update on the old “wall of sound” idea, aided and abetted by some unhinged slide guitar work. For a trio, the Southampton-based Fleeing New York do create quite the sonic fuss. And then there’s the ’65 Beatles harmonics that kick in around 2:25, at once out of the blue and perfectly obvious. “Hollywood Bowl” is the latest single from the band, which has one mini-album to its name thus far. The MP3 is available via the groovy British site Drowned in Sound.

“I Ain’t Saying My Goodbyes” – Tom Vek

Hey, kids—the robots are having a dance party in the anvil factory. Cool! Against a clanging beat, the London-based multi-instrumentalist Tom Vek has constructed a disarmingly catchy bit of post-post-punk pop, or some such thing. Adding delicious layers of texture to the Gang of Four-style metallic slashing that underscores the song, Vek wins me over most of all, rather unexpectedly, with his singing. He’s got a strong, dry voice, with a hint of a funky sort of roundedness to it; even as he takes us musically through some of the itchy anxiety-land settled in earlier days by David Byrne and Adrian Belew-era King Crimson, it sounds differently compelling with the 24-year-old Vek singing vague, husky lines such as “I know I’m wasting precious time” and “All these young men obssessed with death.” “I Ain’t Saying My Goodbyes” is a track off Vek’s debut full-length CD, We Have Sound, released in the U.K. this past spring and scheduled for a U.S. release on Startime International next month. Thanks once again to the fine fellows at 3hive for the lead. MP3 now via Better Propaganda.

This Week’s Finds: Sept. 4-10 (Barry Thomas Goldberg, Band of Horses, Annie Hayden)

“Remember New Orleans” – Barry Thomas Goldberg

Not even the world-weary Goldberg, who already sounded like he’d seen it all before, has seen anything like what happened here in the U.S. last week. To my ears, he hits an appropriate combination of sobriety and passion on this simple, ragged, emotional tribute to a devastated city. It’s mostly a subdued acoustic guitar and Goldberg’s effective Waits-via-Springsteen voice, but there are some subtle instrumental homages added along the way–a quietly menacing piano below (can’t have New Orleans music without piano), sad strings above (striking me as a conscious nod to Randy Newman), and even a slowed-down “City of New Orleans”-ish harmonica flourish. The song is available via Goldberg’s web site. The veteran singer/songwriter has furthermore decided to contribute the profits from his three CDs to the American Red Cross, to assist the massive relief effort. Thanks again to visitor Paul for the head’s up.



“Funeral” – Band of Horses

Geez maybe I’m working thematically this week. In any case, Band of Horses is a Seattle-based outfit with a firm grip on an emerging ’00s sound that I think of as Neil Young meets Radiohead (so, okay, we need a better name for this): a ghostly, left-of-mainstream blend of ache and atmosphere, part acoustic and part electric, featuring keen melodies and a slightly wobbly high-pitched tenor. Songs that start out too quietly usually make me antsy, but “Funeral” redeems itself the minute vocalist Ben Bridwell opens his mouth, less for the quality of his voice (which I do like) than for the arresting melody–a melancholy line that descends with one half-step ascent before the end, a line in fact so melancholy it needs only one, final minor chord to create a suffusing minor-key aura. When the fuller band kicks in, crisply, at 1:23, supporting the same ongoing melody, the piece acquires a history-laced depth, like something from the Band’s catalog (a feeling reinforced by the Rick Danko-like “oo-oos” falsetto-ing in the background). Signed to mighty Sub Pop Records, Band of Horses has yet to release a CD, but four demos (including “Funeral”) are available via the band’s site. Thanks to the good folks at 3hive for the lead.



“Weather” – Annie Hayden

At least a happier-sounding song, even as the theme remains. And the happier sound is largely due to the karmic lift afforded by Annie Hayden’s cheerfully crystal-clear voice (the lyrics, however, are not particularly upbeat, from what I can tell). “Weather” begins with a coy Hayden singing off the beat established by the piano, then moves briskly into a tune at once sweet and driving, steel guitar accents and sustained harmonies adding a rolling-field openness to the proceedings. Hayden’s background is as indie as it gets (she spent the mid-’90s in a New Jersey-based band called Spent), but I applaud the polish she brings to the song; to my ears there’s a lot to be said for musical prowess, at both the instrumental and production level. (Listen for instance to the masterful subtlety with which the plucked notes are articulated during the guitar break in the middle of the song.) Not that “Weather” doesn’t have a fetching quirk or two–such as the charming way the song hesitates just past the minute mark, how that short burst of drumbeat drops us briefly into near-nothingness before she catches us and brings us back to the steady, yearning groove. “Weather” is a song from Hayden’s long-awaited second solo CD, to be released next week on Merge Records. MP3 via BetterPropaganda.

This Week’s Finds: Aug. 28-Sept. 3 (Slow Dazzle, Engineers, Troubled Hubble)

“Fleur de Lis” – Slow Dazzle

Stylish, echoey guitar-laced synth pop with an interesting sort of urban-cowboy flair. Blessed by both atmosphere and motion, “Fleur de Lis” features a slinky melody and sneaky lyrics, delivered with weary-innocent panache by Shannon McArdle. I love how many distinct types of sounds this NYC trio blends into an organic whole: spacey synthesizers, lonesome-desert lead guitar lines, puffing keyboard accents, rattlesnake beats, and (best of all) a loopy sort of backwards-sounding guitar that steals the show at 1:37. Slow Dazzle features two-thirds of the songwriters in the neo-folk-rock-ish outfit the Mendoza Line (McArdle and Timothy Bracy); “Fleur de Lis” is the lead track from the CD The View From the Floor, released in June on Misra Records. The MP3 is available via the band’s site Misra.



“Come In Out of the Rain” – Engineers

Large and dreamy, “Come In Out of the Rain” is a shiny example of how much the so-called “shoegaze” sub-genre owes to a sub-genre that might otherwise seem at the opposite end of the sub-genre spectrum–namely, power pop. (Which only goes to show how insipid is the internet-propagated need to sub-genre-ize everything, but that’s another story.) But listen to the beautiful tangent the melody takes from 0:48 through 0:53, which I know in my gut is a power-pop sort of embellishment, even as I can’t possibly begin to explain why this is, and how it works within this spacious, grandly-textured sort of down-tempo anthem. I’m also hearing a good bit of early Tears For Fears here–partially because TFF doesn’t get enough credit for pioneering the accessible end of the shoegaze/dream-pop sound, and partially because Tears For Fears producer Dave Bascombe apparently had a hand in the mix on the Engineers self-titled debut CD, from which this comes. The CD was released in June on Echo Records; the MP3 is available through Insound.


“Ear Nose & Throat” – Troubled Hubble

A particularly crisp and tasty iteration of the time-honored tradition of rock songs with one-note verses, “Ear Nose & Throat” is, perhaps, the first of these to work the word “otolaryngology” into the torrent of words usually unleashed in such circumstances. I especially like the combination of snare-free drumming and metallic guitars, which creates a satisfyingly crunchy-rhythmic environment for the medically-oriented lyrical overflow. One of the cool things about this sort of song, when done well, is how the lyrics flow past impressionistically, telling not a linear story but still achieving a certain sort of wholeness. Troubled Hubble is a quartet from outside Chicago with six self-released CDs (three full-lengths, three EPs) to their name before Making Beds in a Burning House was released in May on Lookout Records (and apparently on Eenie Meenie Records too, somehow; sometimes–often–the indie-rock scene is too complicated for its own good). The MP3 is available via the band’s site. Thanks to BLCKYLLWBLCK for the lead.

This Week’s Finds: August 14-20 (British Sea Power, The Scribbled Out Man, New Buffalo)

“Please Stand Up” – British Sea Power

Immediately spacious, majestic, and heart-warming, “Please Stand Up” updates a late ’70s/early ’80s sound not often aimed at, even in today’s rock flea market, in which past styles are rummaged through with the speed and tenacity of the experienced bargain hunter. British Sea Power’s vocalist, a chap who goes by the name of Yan, sings with great, husky Bowie-ish bravura, but what really nails things down here is the clean, melodic guitar line (courtesy of a chap who goes by the name of Noble) at the center of the sound. Playing both carefully and fiercely, Noble offers sweeping, middle-register intervals that seem always to yearn upward; and he knows how to lay back, never unduly asserting his sound and in so doing anchoring everything around him. “Please Stand Up” is from the band’s second CD, Open Season (Rough Trade), which sort of blew by me when it was released back in April, but judging from this song I think I will find myself a copy post haste. The MP3 is available via Insound.

“Heroics” – The Scribbled Out Man

Some songs are inexplicably endearing and this is one of them. But let’s see, there must be a way to quantify the feeling, at least a bit. Certainly the stuttery guitar riff is fetching from the get-go; and the casual way electronics are used to create atmosphere without overwhelming the soundscape, very nice; and the way singer/songwriter/guitarist Paul Linklater flips into falsetto without warning, as the song builds, gotta love it; and then the way the whole song is just this accumulation of largely indecipherable lines, emerging relentlessly and with increasing (but controlled) frenzy. It’s all very cool. The Scribbled Out Man is a four-man Canadian band fronted by Linklater, and includes drummer/cellist (not to mention engineer/producer) Don Kerr, who has worked with the great Ron Sexsmith. The band formed in 2003; its first full-length CD, All Different, was released last year on the net label Zunior.com. “Heroics” comes from the CD; the MP3 is available via the band’s site.

“Recovery” – New Buffalo

Snappy, airy, off-kilter pop from Australian singer/songwriter Sally Seltmann, who for whatever reason records under the name New Buffalo. Underscored by pipey keyboards and electronic handclaps, “Recovery” features a subtly wondrous mix of unexpected sounds, from ’40s-style choral harmonies and sampled horn flourishes to a brilliantly textured wash of harp-like synthesizer. Seltmann’s voice on its own has a compelling fragility, as if any note she tries to hold might abruptly crack; and yet she also sings back-up harmonies with heavenly gusto. The overall effect is something at once strange and familiar, wispy and solid. “Recovery” is the lead track on the second New Buffalo CD, The Last Beautiful Day, released overseas last year and slated for a North American release next week on the Canadian label Arts & Crafts. Seltmann wrote, arranged, and produced the CD on her own, and performed it almost entirely by herself. The MP3 is available via Seltmann’s site.

This Week’s Finds: August 7-13 (Thee More Shallows, Mercury Rev, Brandi Carlile)

“Freshman Thesis” – Thee More Shallows

A spacey synthesizer noodle leads into a classical violin motif, but notice from the start the strict, punctuating beat (laid out by an accompanying violin): as many changes as the song takes us through, the clock-like beat remains constant, central, sometimes upfront, sometimes implied via syncopation, eventually yanked into a searing metallic shuffle but still always there. You can tap your finger on your desk steadily throughout the song; I’m not sure why this characteristic engages me so but so it does. There is plenty else, however, to appreciate here, from singer Dee Kesler’s plainspoken voice, and the words he sings (example: “Before I spoke in riddles I was worried someone would hear me/Now I know that no one really listens so I will just speak clearly”), to the lovely yet urgent texture created through the interweaving of bass, drum, programming, and the recurring violin. What hooked me for good was how unexpectedly the song is opened by melody from 1:30 through 1:45–what sounded to that point like an intriguing bit of minimalism is deepened by a precise series of delightful musical steps. And then somehow the pretty precision is itself deepened by the slashing coda. (A great touch at the very end: the beat finally stops, but the violin, briefly, endures.) “Freshman Thesis” is the third song on More Deep Cuts, the second Thee More Shallows CD, released last month on Santa Clara, Calif.-based Turn Records. The MP3 is available via the Turn site.

“Vermillion” – Mercury Rev

At once glittering and mysterious, “Vermillion” offers an instantly unique amalgam of sounds, combining the swift beat of an airy pop song with the chiming, floaty atmosphere of something still and new agey and, occasionally, the churning insistence of beat-driven electronica. It’s up to Jonathan Donahue—he of the thin-high-wavery voice and idiosyncratic phrasing—to connect it all, but thanks in large part to the sturdy, inspiring melody of the chorus, he does. I have not personally followed Mercury Rev’s career as it has wound along from the late ’80s through the present day, so I won’t trot out the apparently usual suspects when talking comparisons and influences; me, I hear echoes of glittery-mysterious bands of old, from Supertramp (remember “The Logical Song”? I’m betting Donahue does) to the Blue Nile. “Vermillion” is from The Secret Migration, released in May on V2 Records; thanks to Largehearted Boy for the lead.

“Fall Apart Again” – Brandi Carlile

Do you know how, in a great recipe, two flavors can be combined in such a way that you can clearly discern both of them even as they intermingle to create a new, distinctive taste? Thus does this 23-year-old from rural Washington state marry the throaty depth of Lucinda Williams to Emmylou Harris’s heavenly smoke. While I might wish for a somewhat more distinctive vehicle, song-wise, for this heart-searing voice, well, what the heck–she’s only 23. Besides, if “Fall Apart Again” is not breaking any songwriting ground, that’s really part of the point with Carlile, who admirably seeks a timeless vibe and pretty much hits it. I can keep listening to this because her voice is an ongoing revelation. As much as I’m cringing in advance of what Columbia Records may yet unleash in the effort to make Carlile bigger than Lucinda and Emmylou combined, I have to give the label credit first of all for signing her and second of all for (amazingly) allowing an actual full-length free and legal MP3 to represent her work on the web. So put aside, as I did, some preconceived notions (major label? country twang? professional production? Rolling Stone “artist to watch”? “Brandi”???) and check her out. “Fall Apart Again” is from the debut CD, released in July on Columbia’s Red Ink imprint.

This Week’s Finds: July 31-August 6 (the dB’s, the Spinto Band, Holopaw)

“World to Cry” – the dB’s

Listen to the opening salvo, just that first three seconds of guitar. No point in even trying to describe the sound (rubbery-chimy-dissonant-melodic?; like I said, no point), and the delicious sense of anticipation generated as it leads smack into the concise lines and elegant modulation of the rest of the intro. And then Peter Holsapple opens his mouth and there it is, the dB’s are back. Who’d have thought? Alternative before there was alternative, indie before there was indie, the North Carolina-born, NYC-generated dB’s pioneered what became known by the genre police as “jangle-pop”: a post-punk (late ’70s, early ’80s) reformulation of ’60s folk rock with chiming guitars and stellar melodies. These are indeed the dB’s in their original formation–Holsapple, Chris Stamey, Will Rigby, and Gene Holder: the same guys who recorded the first two (some might say classic) dB’s albums, Stands for Decibels and Repercussion. While this song might not on its own give you a sense of how resplendent this band could be back in the day if you don’t already know who they are, neither (I don’t think) will it disappoint you if you do already know who they are and what they were. The guitar riff from the opening three seconds spreads out as a recurring melodic anchor; Holsapple’s sweet-weary vocal style is as charming as ever; and the song displays characteristic dB’s smarts through its effective alternation of major and minor chords and 6/4 and 4/4 measures. “World to Cry” is one of an album’s worth of songs the band recorded in Hoboken in January; while they await a record deal, the song is available as an MP3 on the band’s site.


“Oh Mandy” – the Spinto Band

Radiohead meets the Electric Light Orchestra at Adrian Belew’s house. From the neat staccato dissonance of the opening measures through its gorgeous chords and sprightly vibe, this is one brilliant piece of 21st-century pop, the simplicity and directness of its surface producing a song shot through with depth and strength. Notice for instance how the verse and the chorus are pretty much identical, musically, then notice how this similarity is used to ravishing effect when the song breaks off for an extended bridge at 2:00: the musical tension builds and deepens as the bridge shifts at 2:21—it seems as if we’re heading back to the verse but instead the song veers a couple of times into a new, neatly unresolved chord before triumphantly returning to the verse at 2:36 with more urgent instrumentation and a wonderful new vocal harmony. This young seven-piece (!) band from Delaware—which has been recording since the band members were in middle school—has a sparkling future if this is any indication. “Oh Mandy” is from the band’s debut full-length, Nice and Nicely Done, released last month on Bar-None Records. The MP3 is available via Spintonic.net. Many thanks to Bruce at Some Velvet Blog for the lead.


“Curious” – Holopaw

This is indeed a curious song, from a curious, difficult-to-describe band. One of the oddest things about “Curious” (besides perhaps singer/songwriter/guitarist John Orth’s unearthly tenor) is how short it is—its delicate, stringed setting and offbeat melody (bringing early Genesis to mind, of all things) speaks of a song that wants to spread out, offer instrumental breaks, bridges, and other ornamental accoutrements. And yet somehow we go from beginning to end in about two and a half minutes. No matter: set your MP3 players on “repeat” and let it cycle through a few times in a row, which seems to be the best way to grasp the underlying solidity of this sprinkly, evanescent, haunting song. My ear was hooked for good by the melody line that begins for the first time at 0:36, and in particular the chord change at 0:39, but that might have been on my third or fourth listen. Holopaw is a band from Gainesville, Florida, named after another Florida town that no one in the band is actually from. “Curious” is a song off Quit +/or Fight, the band’s second CD, slated for release next week on Sub Pop Records. The MP3 is available via the Sub Pop site.

This Week’s Finds: July 24-30 (Annie Gallup, The Deathray Davies, Levy)

“Down the Other Side” – Annie Gallup

Annie Gallup is a fierce writer, a teller of ravishing, compact stories, as funny and sensual as she is literate and subtle, and a vibrant peformer, with an idiosyncratic but immediately accessible, deeply expressive way of kind-of-talking, kind-of-singing her songs. While it’s easy to keep all the emphasis on the words and their delivery (and too readily pigeonhole her as some sort of neo-beatnik folksinger), I am continually impressed by the music as well, which seems at once casually created and intensely crafted, at once sparse and rich; and she may not get too loud but without question she rocks. “Down the Other Side,” for instance, has a swampy, seductive beat and some inspired electric guitar playing, even as the instrumentation is so spare that some of the percussion, it seems, is done by mouth. And yet it’s true that with Gallup, we’re never too far from the lyrics, like these: “Red-tailed hawk and a small white cross/ High on the Great Divide/ Drive on by until the tears I cry/ Roll down the other side”: yikes, to explicate them further takes away their breathtaking poetry. She is the real thing, yet also the single most mysteriously overlooked singer/songwriter I’ve probably ever come across. Swerve, her magnificent 2001 CD, came and went without a trace–I discovered it only as it called to me from the corner of my local library where they sell used books and, occasionally, CDs. Finally she has a follow-up–Pearl Street, her fifth, released on Fifty Fifty Music, oh, in April. (I hadn’t heard.) This is where “Down the Other Side” is from. (The MP3 is hosted on the Fifty Fifty site.) I just checked and found it was (no joke) the 97,854th best-selling CD on Amazon, where all five CDs of hers have now received a total of 7 reviews, at least two by the same person (a friend of hers, apparently). The world isn’t fair, I know, but sometimes it really really isn’t fair.

“Plan To Stay Awake” – the Deathray Davies

Compress “I’ve Just Seen a Face” and “It’s the End of the World as We Know It” into two minutes and five seconds and here we are, listening to the latest fuzzy blast of power pop from the Dallas outfit named after the storied leader of the Kinks. This is as straightforward a rock song as can be imagined–a hurried tumble of words in the verse, a two-line, sing-along chorus repeating the title twice–yet it positively bristles with spirit and panache, proving yet again that the true power of music is suggested but never completely encompassed by its concrete components. Much like life itself, if I may broaden the metaphor. The Deathray Davies were born in the late ’90s as the jokey stage name under which John Dufilho performed solo material that he couldn’t use with Bedwetter, the band he was in at the time. He wrote, sang, and played everything himself on the first Deathray Davies CD in 1999. Dufilho is still the writer and singer but by the third CD in 2002, the Deathray Davies had morphed into an actual band. “Plan to Stay Awake” is from the The Kick and the Snare, released in May on Glurp Records. The MP3 is available via the Glurp site.

“Rotten Love” – Levy

A languid sort of majesty propels this oddly affecting song. Everything seems encased in an echoey, mournful blanket, from singer/guitarist James Levy’s forlorn voice to the soft, chiming synthesizer lines and, even, the ringing wall of guitar that never quite blazes through to the forefront. Nothing, in fact, seems quite to burst through, even as the song moves at a steady clip; when all is said and done, lyrics about smelling the rotten love are perhaps best heard cushioned by the aforementioned mournful blanket. Levy is a NYC-based quartet that’s been gathering an enthusiastic following since its founding in 2003; for the record, the band is intent on using all upper-case letters for its name but as luck would have it Fingertips usage policy (see web page yet to be written) forbids such silliness. “Rotten Love” was the title track on the band’s self-released debut in 2004 and will again be when Rotten Love is released in somewhat different form later this summer by the U.K. label One Little Indian. The MP3 is available via the band’s site.

This Week’s Finds: July 17-23 (The Double, Moonbabies, Mary Timony)

“Idiocy” – the Double

Psychoanalyze this if you must, but I’m a sucker for weirdness contained within some semblance of normalcy. It’s a difficult balance to maintain, for one thing–it’s much easier simply to be weird, or normal. And boy do our black-and-white assumptions about what is “normal” after all need a continual technicolor tweak. This is one reason why I love the new “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” movie so much, and it’s a good part of why I love this squawking piece of skewed but peppy pop from the Brooklyn-based foursome known as the Double. What on earth is guitarist Donald Beaman up to, first of all?: after a spacey intro dissolves into feedback, he draws the feedback out into the entire song, playing along without playing along at all, not in the wrong key (feedback doesn’t really come in a particular key) as much as in another aural space entirely. The effect is fascinating, especially as vocalist David Greenhill (prone to the occasional odd whoop himself) romps along as if he’s got a normal rock band behind him. He doesn’t; beyond Beaman’s subversive slashing, he’s got a keyboard player (Jacob Morris) with his own sort of weird distortion going, pumping a muffled, organ-like sound into the mix, often via happy, beat-skipping blurts. Check out the clearing created when Beaman abruptly leaves the scene at 1:22 for about a half a minute (not counting one four-second feedbacky smudge at around 1:34). Did he need a rest? A drink of water? No worries, he’s back with an indescribable vengeance for the song’s abrupt conclusion. Weird. But not. “Idiocy” is the first song made available from the band’s Matador Records debut, Loose in the Air, scheduled for release in September. The MP3 is available via the Matador site.


“War On Sound” – Moonbabies

Back to Sweden we go, and back to the duo Moonbabies (whose song “Sun A.M.” was a previous TWF pick). Multi-instrumentalist/vocalists Ola Frick and Carina Johannason have a happy facility with a variety of pop languages (including but not limited to electronica, folk rock, and power pop) and a carefree touch in the studio. I like for instance how the martial drumbeat of the introduction, matched against a buzzing sort of keyboard, is augmented (and humanized) by the prominently-mixed in-breaths from (I think) both singers which launch every other measure. The song strips back, sonically, for the verse, with Frick singing, in Beck-like tones, against a fidgety electronic beat, Johannson harmonizing dreamily in the background. Everything ultimately is a set-up for the glistening chorus, a brisk yet soothing shot of melody, harmony, and comforting keyboard riff where cliches are forgiven (“It’ll be all right”) as great chords glide by. Listen in particular to where we end up when Frick sings “where everything’s passing by”–how the chord shifts as the word “by” is extended: live in that moment and everything is always wonderful. “War On Sound” is the title track to an eight-song “mini-album” to be released next week on Hidden Agenda Records. The MP3 is available via Parasol Records, which is Hidden Agenda’s parent label; thanks to Pitchfork for the pointer.


“Friend to J.C.” – Mary Timony

Hailed in the ’90s as part of the D.C.-based trio Helium, which trafficked in the indelible sub-genre known as “noise pop,” Mary Timony veered in a quieter, quasi-medieval direction on two early-’00s solo CDs that puzzled some of her fans and exasperated her record company (the aforementioned Matador, as a matter of fact). Whatever the merits of her musical sidetrack, she decided a return to a harder sound was in order for her latest CD, Ex Hex, which was released–without a whole lot of fanfare–in April on Lookout Records. “Friend to J.C.,” the album’s second track, is an off-beat but rewarding piece of Liz Phair-ish indie-singer-songwriter-rock. A chiming guitar riff (backed by chimes, just for kicks) forms the song’s sort-of-center, but Timony is too idiosyncratic a songwriter to let anything feel settled or familiar. And that strikes me as central to her appeal: like a foreign film in which you’re never sure exactly where the story is going next, “Friend to J.C.” unfolds in its own, unformulaic manner. The closest thing here to a chorus is a section anchored by a series of four chords that seem not exactly to match the pitch of her voice–which somehow or other seems to be its own odd sort of hook. The MP3 is available via both her site and the Lookout site.

This Week’s Finds: July 10-16 (Islands, Kate Miller-Heidke, Get Him Eat Him)

“Flesh” – Islands

A dense, variegated rocker alternating time signatures, volume, and soundscapes to create a complex but memorable piece of (somehow) pop—almost as dense but way more memorable than this sentence, I should add. The introduction rocks and prickles in and out of a 7/4 beat like Television doing a Led Zep imitation; 50 seconds in, things quiet down as a mellowed-out electric guitar traces spare arpeggios before Nick Diamonds enters with his echoey and full-bodied tenor (Thom Yorke doing his Robert Plant imitation). This was already too much for me to absorb on one listen; my simple ears needed many repeats to begin to make sense of it, but along the way I caught melodies, chord changes, instrumental shifts, vocal qualities, and production touches that said “Keep listening.” During one of my later listens, I realized how the band uses the same post-introduction quiet section three-quarters of the way through the song to lead back to the music from the introduction, which ends up, palindromically, as the coda also. Cool, and maybe even brilliant. Islands is the name of a new side project formed by Diamonds (known as “Niel”) and Jaime Thompson (aka J’aime Tambour), who are two-thirds of the Unicorns, an eccentric, lo-fi Montreal band with something of a following.

“Space They Cannot Touch” – Kate Miller-Heidke

I think sometimes my ear not only needs charm and grace but also proficiency–unmitigated, unapologetic proficiency. From Miller-Heidke’s classically-trained soprano (used with a restraint almost unheard of in this age of “American Idol”-promoted histrionics) to her spiffy band’s exquisitely laid-back accompaniment (imagine Steely Dan as Joan Armatrading’s backup band), “Space They Cannot Touch” sounds like a song the indie-oriented ’00s cannot touch. Vocal comparisons to Kate Bush may be inevitable—Miller-Heidke has some of mighty Kate’s contained flutteriness and substantive breathiness–but her tone strikes me as purer, her ineffable idiosyncrasies more Siberry-ian, I’d say, than Bush-like. Be sure, by the way, not to miss the marvelous wordless flourishes of the song’s last 30 seconds or so. That this all comes from a 23-year-old Australian singer/songwriter is wonderful; I love how the rest of the world is more than ever feeding worthy music back into our bloodstream, compensating refreshingly for the black hole created by the American music industry’s abandonment of music itself as a virtue. “Space They Cannot Touch” is one of seven songs on Telegram, Miller-Heidke’s debut EP, self-released in April 2004 but not yet heard much in this part of the world. The MP3 is available via her site.

“Mumble Mumble” – Get Him Eat Him

Not that there’s anything wrong with a sparkling slice of quirky indie-rock mastery either–coming to us this time via a quintet from Brown University in Providence, a location not unknown for breeding quirky rock bands. “Mumble Mumble” is a short, spunky mixture of slashy guitars and tumbly words, held together by a good-natured melody, a knowing sense of production, and octave harmonies (gotta love octave harmonies). The chorus is particularly joyful, with its cascade of chord changes, nifty keyboard effects, and old-school Brit-pop allusions (both 10cc and Squeeze leap to mind). (In my musical-history-addled head, I see the song as a tribute both to Get Him Eat Him’s former name–they began life as Grumble Grumble, but changed when threatened legally by the both obscure and defunct space-rock band Grimble Grumble—and to the brilliant Tilbrook/Difford song “Mumbo Jumbo.” Even if it’s not.) Singer/guitarist/songwriter Matt LeMay sounds like a wiseass, but a self-aware wise-ass (he is, after all, credited on the bio page as “jerk, nerd, guitar”), which makes all the difference; many of rock history’s best singers have had the air of self-aware wiseass about them. “Mumble Mumble” is a song from the band’s full-length debut, Geography Cones, slated for release later this month on Absolutely Kosher Records. The MP3 is available on both the band’s site and the Absolutely Kosher site.