MP3s – Page 19 – Fingertips

Free and legal MP3: Christine Fellows

Joyful/serious protest

“Unleashed” – Christine Fellows

The plucky ukulele riff that opens this one, as steadfast and persistent as ukulele riffs often are, hints not at the muscular romp to follow. But after the intro and a preliminary uke-backed verse, the band kicks in, and drives “Unleashed” forward with a gleeful vigor. That terrific bit of syncopation she dishes out at the end of each short verse—spelled out first in the ukulele prelude, starting at 0:20—adds to both the glee and the vigor.

“Unleashed” appears to be about rising up in resistance to injustice, and if so, it is surely one of the friendlier-sounding protest songs I’ve heard. The ukulele helps, to begin with. But Fellows herself has one of those congenial singing voices, a singing voice with the approachable tone of a speaking voice. It’s actually perfect for a protest song; she makes you inherently want to join in.

The lyrics add to the welcoming vibe. She positions resistance to tyranny as not merely humane but joyful; one line that stands out, both for its tone and its content, is: “We enrage our enemies/With rousing elegies.” I could not help but think of President Obama here, how the right wing extremists could listen to his eloquent calls for justice and respond only with unheeding rage. Fellows frames this crazy-making situation with such good-natured zest that it reinforces the important idea that we are not responsible for the reactions of others, only for our own actions. Which means: keep it up with the rousing elegies.

If “Unleashed” is a resistance pep talk, the Winnipeg-based Fellows doesn’t, in the end, shy from somber reality. Her final words, over a portentous drone from the cello, are “And the tide is rising.” On the one hand, she may be referring to the tide of the resistance, but the words unflinchingly bring climate change to mind. In other words, the tide of resistance had better be rising, and soon. She can rouse us into action with a good-spirited zing of a song but let’s remember the stakes.

“Unleashed” is a track from Roses on the Vine, Fellows’ seventh album, in a recording career dating back to 2000. She was actually one of the earlier artists featured on Fingertips, appearing back in August 2004. Her new album, released last month, is available in name-your-price fashion via Bandcamp.

photo: Lesandra Dodson

Free and legal MP3: Johnny Marr (irresistible minor-key goodness)

“Hi Hello” – Johnny Marr

Do you sometimes want to hear somebody just make music? Somebody who’s been around and knows what he or she is doing? Do you want to listen to someone who isn’t trying to be the latest sensation, who isn’t after clicks and follows? If so, try this one. It’s Johnny Marr, it glides along in a lovely and slightly dark way, it’s got guitars, it’s in a minor key. What more do you need?

Johnny Marr as I assume you know used to be in the Smiths, and as such was the architect of their distinctive, minor-key-jangly-chimey sound. “Hi Hello” works a bit of that ground, but here the ground is knowingly smoothed over—mellowed with age, perhaps, and/or not as concerned with sounding so rigorously different as the Smiths were. But hell, by now, Marr has spent a whole lot more time not being in the Smiths than he spent being in them. A good amount of that time found him landing as a guitarist in a series of previously existing bands (The Pretenders, The The, Modest Mouse, et al.); outside of a 2003 album credited to Johnny Marr & The Healers, the solo efforts have only recently been sprouting up—one in 2013, one in 2014, and this new one in 2018. Which is all to say he’s still relatively new to the front-man role, still finding his I’m-the-center-of-attention voice. He does a good job here expanding his vocal range with an effortless leap into and out of falsetto that kind of slyly turns into the song’s principal hook. And I could be entirely imagining this, but the short instrumental motif we hear at 1:48 sounds like an oblique reference to the old hymn “Hey Ho Nobody Home,” which itself might not be completely irrelevant to the title and lyrics here. Or I could be entirely imagining this.

“Hi Hello” is the fourth track from Marr’s album Call the Comet, which was released in June. MP3 via The Current.

(Note that MP3s from The Current are available in files that are 128kbps, which is below the iTunes standard of 192kbps, not to mention the higher-def standard of 320kbps. I personally don’t hear much difference on standard-quality equipment but if you are into high-end sound you’ll probably notice something. In any case I always encourage you to get the MP3 for the purposes of getting to know a song via a few listens; if you like it I still urge you to buy the music. It’s only right.)

Free and legal MP3: Calva Louise (ferocious & fantastic)

Concise and ferocious, “I Heard a Cry” is almost ridiculously appealing—two minutes and sixteen seconds of crunchy guitars, headlong momentum, and subtle craft.

“I Heard a Cry” – Calva Louise

Concise and ferocious, “I Heard a Cry” is almost ridiculously appealing—two minutes and sixteen seconds of crunchy guitars, headlong momentum, and subtle craft that can reaffirm one’s faith in humankind, if that doesn’t sound too grandiose. But what the heck: we need it right about now. To my ears, there’s something Clash-like in the brash meeting of power and grace on display here, with the added bounty of Jess Allanic’s arresting vocals, in their varied guises, from garage-rock yelping to soaring “ooh-oohs” to sultry asides and smartly articulated pronouncements.

At the center of the proceedings are two things: first, a sing-song-y guitar riff, which we hear initially in a searing, almost bag-pipe-y rendering and then later, to keep us on our toes, in an acoustic translation; second, the demarcated five-note melodic descent that the verse coalesces around (first heard at 0:26)—a moment that each time seems nearly to stop the song in its tracks but instead launches it into further commotion. Keep listening and you’ll hear all sorts of other touches, including unexpected forays into interlocking melodies, sudden interjections (check out Allanic’s “Hey!” at 0:49), ear-bending guitar effects, and, even, a brilliant chord change in the middle of where you’d never think to find it (1:40).

Calva Louise is a new-ish band from London, and all but the definition of a 21st-century power trio. This is their second single. A debut full-length album is expected in early 2019.

Free and legal MP3: Annie Dressner (UK-based expat singer/songwriter)

“Falter” – Annie Dressner

Annie Dressner has one of those plainspoken voices that sounds like she’s singing and not singing at the same time. It works especially well with a song like “Falter,” which itself is simultaneously simple and maybe not so simple. An obvious complication is the time signature hiccup that Dressner employs in the intro and the verse, before allowing the song to slide into a more familiar groove.

Less obvious is the push/pull of the lyrical content. The song reads to me as a poignant testament to our imperfect lives. What might initially sound like a pep talk to the self (“Stop wasting time! Get to the finish line!”), comes across to my ears as a bittersweet recognition that there’s something inevitable to our falling short of our dreams, and that we go on anyway. The wisdom we gain through aging and perseverance may be more valuable than what we thought we wanted as young dreamers. Perhaps I’m reading more into it than is there? I’d like to think not. The hints I see suggesting the more complex reading are sprinkled throughout; if I try to explain in detail this would get too long, and potentially embarrassing, as I could well be off base. Let me just note that the title is, in fact, “Falter”: the apparent weakness itself, not the pep talk. Also, the chorus launches off the plaintive question “Can’t you get it right?”; expressed with the implicit negative, it becomes rhetorical: no, we can’t get it right. We’re human.

More to my usual concerns—I don’t often get caught up in lyrics but it could be that distinctive quality in her voice that focused me in this direction—the chorus is propelled by a wonderful feeling of musical inevitability, having to do with the unresolved chord at the outset, and the series of chords that bring it invincibly to resolution. I like too the unhurried, almost mournful guitar solo (starting at 1:58) that inserts itself between two iterations of the bridge, delaying the payoff of one last chorus, and (perhaps) adding subtle irony to the words “almost at the finish line,” since she ends up singing that twice.

Annie Dressner was born and raised in New York City; she moved to the UK in the early 2010s. Her new album, Broken Into Pieces, was released last week. You can both listen to it and buy it via Bandcamp. Thanks to Annie for the MP3.

Free and legal MP3: Hatchie

Catchy dream pop

“Sure” – Hatchie

Breezing in on a vibe that explores the overlap between the Cranberries and the Sundays, “Sure” overflows with melody and nostalgia. And yet, the magic trick here is that Hatchie mastermind Harriette Pilbeam manages to put forth her music in a crisp, contemporary package. Which doesn’t (thankfully) mean she’s pandering to any of today’s all-but-unlistenable trends (over-processing, mindless digital rhythms, affected vocalizing). This is as solidly constructed a piece of music emerging from the remnants of the pop-rock spectrum as one can hope to encounter in the ongoing nightmare that is the year 2018.

I’m hearing a coy type of syncopation as one of the keys to this song’s earworm-y success. After the chiming, guitar-filled intro, the drums kick in at 0:22, and if you listen you’ll see that we get a direct second beat but in place of an equally accented fourth beat (which would be the classic backbeat rhythm), there’s a stuttered, off-center accent. This manages both to move the song along and to play with the flow in an agreeable way. Added to this is the way the lyrics in the verse begin only on the second beat of the measure, which creates a pleasant, head-bobbing lag, the hesitation pulling us forward rather than backward. Resolution comes with the sturdy descent of the chorus, melody now planted on the first beat, even as the drumming underneath stays with its offbeat swing.

And hey that’s a rather wordy explication; I could also just say: it’s really catchy.

Pilbeam is from Brisbane, which partially explains her easy way with this type of melodic, history-embracing music—Australia is one of a handful of countries (Sweden is another) that has figured out how to maintain cultural interest in rock’n’roll’s organic development long after the combined machinations of the mainstream American music industry and fad-obsessed internet crowds have left it for dead. “Sure” was originally released as a single in November 2017, and became more widely available with the release of her Sugar & Spice EP in May 2018. Hatchie is finishing up a US tour as we speak, with dates upcoming this month in LA and Brooklyn, among other places.

Free and legal MP3: Perry Serpa (feat. Scott McCaughey)

Sharp, creative rocker w/ back story

“And You Are?” – Perry Serpa (feat. Scott McCaughey)

So this is a crazy-great concept, but also a crazy-challenging one: take an imaginary album, laid out track by track in a popular novel, and actually write it and record it. This is what Perry Serpa decided to do with the fictional album Juliet, from Nick Hornby’s popular and affecting book Juliet, Naked. The book involves a deep dive into music fandom, among other things, and centers around a reclusive singer/songwriter of Hornby’s invention named Tucker Crowe. Near the beginning of the novel, Hornby invents for us the Wikipedia entry for Crowe’s 1986 masterpiece, Juliet, which includes a track listing for the album. These are the songs that Serpa set about to write.

Not too intimidating a project, huh? Write music good enough to stand in for a fictional masterpiece? Plus there’s already been a movie made of the album, which came out earlier this year. (The movie, however, only created two of Juliet‘s ten songs.) “For better or for worse, I led a fifteen-plus piece band for almost twenty years, so I’m no neophyte when it comes to foolish, time-consuming, lofty creative pursuits,” Serpa told me via email. So here we go: “And You Are?” is the opening track on the imaginary album, so likewise opens Serpa’s. And what a wonderful, evocative piece of retro, semi-baroque folk rock it is. Seeking to create from scratch an album from 1986 gives Serpa all the artistic license he needs to willfully ignore that the 21st century ever happened to rock’n’roll; not always a bad thing, says me. Half Dylanesque harangue, half R.E.M.-like invocation, “And You Are?” swirls around an ascending string motif that adds a textured hook without taking away from the song’s electric edge; I especially like it when the guitar gains ground in the second half of the song, eventually mingling its own lead in and around the recurrent strings.

Not all the tracks from Juliet are specifically discussed in Hornby’s book, but some not only are described in one way or another, they are given a lyric or two. For instance, the first line of “And You Are?” was straight from the novel: “They told me talking to you would be like chewing barbed wire with a mouth ulcer.” The next line, however, is Serpa’s: “But you never once hurt me like that.” Serpa says this kind of writing was “fun as shit to do.”

The real album that Serpa has made based on Hornby’s imaginary one is, cleverly enough, entitled Wherefore Art Thou?: Songs Inspired by Nick Hornby’s Juliet, Naked. And it’s even cleverer than you might think; the imaginary Wikipedia entry mentions a 2002 tribute album to Juliet that was called, yes, Wherefore Art Thou?—which was not merely a Shakespeare allusion but a reference to the fact that in this fictional world, Tucker Crowe had disappeared after he released Juliet, and more or less hadn’t been heard from since. One final, meta twist relevant to Serpa’s project: Scott McCaughey, who sings lead on the song I have for you here, was founder of the Minus Five, one of the bands Hornby mentions as recording a song for the imaginary tribute LP.

For the record, Hornby himself has said, of Serpa’s smartly-hewn creation, “I’m happy to think that my book has somehow produced work this good.” Serpa has announced that a portion of the sales of the album will go to the UK-based charity Ambitious About Autism, which was co-founded by Hornby. Wherefore Art Thou? comes out October 5; streaming and purchase links are here.

Lastly: Serpa’s aforementioned 15-plus-piece ensemble, The Sharp Things, have been twice previously featured on Fingertips, in 2013 and 2014.

photo credit: Margaret Gaspari

Free and legal MP3: Mikaela Davis (harp-based midtempo rocker; it works!)

Davis’s harp insinuates itself into “Other Lover” so naturally that I find myself smiling a great big smile.

“Other Lover” – Mikaela Davis

I can’t claim exhaustive expertise about harps in rock’n’roll. (And I mean harp harps, not harmonicas.) Basically all I know is 1) you don’t hear them very often; and 2) Joanna Newsom made a splash with the instrument back in the ’00s, which intimated that the harp was going to become the next hip thing but I guess it hasn’t. Now as much as I admire Newsom’s instrumental skills (not to mention her opinions about Spotify, which she has called “a villainous cabal”; you won’t find her music there), I have yet to acquire a taste either for her voice (it’s one of those love-it-or-hate-it things) or for her elusive songwriting tactics, and because she plays the harp and has that voice and writes those songs I’ve kind of intertwined all those things in my head to the extent that Mikaela Davis can come along, play the harp in an incisively crafted rock song and I almost can’t compute the circumstance. Doesn’t a harp have to involve all sorts of other idiosyncrasy?

Apparently not. After immediately making its presence known with a dreamy introduction that feels half sumptuous, half portentous (listen to the bottom of the mix), Davis’s harp insinuates itself into “Other Lover” so naturally that I find myself smiling a great big smile. Who knew a harp could work like this, could be the easy, arpeggioed backbone of a catchy, invigorating tune? There’s so much to admire here, beginning with the song’s basic structure, which draws us in through the ongoing push/pull of its half-time/double-time melodies—first two lines of the verse in half time, second two in double time, followed by a chorus in which the half-time/double-time change happens within each lyrical line.

Another sign of a well-built song: the second verse is put together against a subtly different backdrop than the first verse, underscored by a new harp technique, as Davis leaves off some of the arpeggios for a staccato plucking that calls more attention now to the bass line (which may not actually be a bass, but in any case delivers a heavier-sounding bottom this time). (Fun fact: the word arpeggio is derived from the Italian word for “play the harp.”) This is a sign of the canny production on display throughout. As merely one example, listen to the sounds accompanying the end of the chorus, on the repeated words “run away” (first heard around 0:54): we’re probably getting a harp’s natural glissando in there, but it sounds subtly augmented, and fully aligned with the lyrics. A more direct example of this is in the bridge, in which this wonderful swelling arises in the background starting around 2:34, which sounds mostly vocal, both involving the harp and imitating it.

Mikaela Davis is a Rochester, NY-based singer/songwriter. Classically trained, she spent four years playing in the Rochester Philharmonic Youth Orchestra before going to study at SUNY Potsdam’s Crane School of Music. Halfway through college, she decided she’d rather write and perform her own songs than play in an orchestra. After graduating, she made an effort to forge her path in Brooklyn, but eventually landed back in her hometown, where she found her footing and her voice.

“Other Lover” is a song from Davis’s first full-length album, Discovery, released on Rounder Records in July, available here. She has two previous EPs and one single available via Bandcamp. MP3 via The Current.

Free and legal MP3: Neko Case (enigmatic brilliance)

Neko Case is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside of a voice.

“Hell-On” – Neko Case

Neko Case is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside of a voice. The more confident she has grown as a songwriter and singer over the years, the less clear her intentions, the more obscure her references, the more involuted her song structures. There is no explaining “Hell-On,” the title track to her new album, unless you are somehow blessed with an intuitive understanding of lines like this:

Just at sorrow’s waterline
I drape you on tomorrow’s plate
Ferrous, metal marrow spilling
Not yours but mine
I’m an agent of the natural world

Say what? But: keep listening. You won’t understand it any better but you might grow to understand that understanding is besides the point. Case is indeed an agent of the natural world, otherwise known as a force of nature, and there is something in her haunted melodies and cryptic utterances that command not merely respect but something approaching exaltation. “Hell-On” begins like an oddball Waitsian waltz, tip-toes through an unremitting series of puzzling declarations before shifting time signature and tone at 1:52 and again at 2:24 before finding its way back to 3/4 time at 2:54 for a finish that matches the deliberately sung, vaguely off-kilter opening section. You listen once and you have little idea where you are or what she’s doing. Any sense it begins to acquire with repeated listens is sub-rational at best. She seems so determined in her opacity that she swallows the title phrase of the song beyond recognition (the lyrics at this point [3:27] go: “Nature can’t amend its ways/Boils hell-on and then replays”)—as a listener, then, your not knowing what she’s talking about is compounded by your not even apprehending the sounds she’s making.

A lesser artist might lose me here. (Alas, we live in a world dominated by lesser artists.) Neko is the real thing. I haven’t yet had the chance to listen to the entire album but what I’ve heard so far has wowed me; I’m pretty sure this is not nearly the best song on the album, but it’s the available free and legal MP3 (via KEXP) and you should still have it. Then go on to Bandcamp and listen to the entire album. Furthermore: please consider the radical act of buying the actual album for actual money (it’s only $8), in support of actual music.

Free and legal MP3: Laura Veirs

Lovely, warm, and rhythmic

“Everybody Needs You” – Laura Veirs

A Fingertips favorite from the earliest days, Portland-based Laura Veirs has been making wonderful, left-of-center singer/songwriter music since the dawn of the 21st century—since 1999, in fact, to be accurate. Probably most well-known in the wider world for her collaboration with Neko Case and k.d. lang on the 2016 album case/lang/veirs, Veirs held her own there with two powerhouse singers, because what she may lack in vocal brawn she more than makes up for with warmhearted presence.

“Everybody Needs You,” the second track on Veirs’ new album, The Lookout, springs to a rhythmic 4/4 groove, with a melody that feels at once syncopated and steady, lyrics a series of separated declarations over a starry, organic-sounding blend of acoustic and electronic sounds. Her voice is so friendly and nonchalant that you may not end up noticing that what she’s saying makes no sense that I can discern—that is, I can make out the words, most of them, but they don’t add up to something understandable. But, in a weird way, this somehow renders the song’s central, repeated message all the more poignant: “Everybody needs you”—no matter who you are or what you think you’re up to or whether we even understand you or not.

The Lookout is Veirs’ tenth solo album, including one of children’s songs. It was once again produced by Tucker Martine, who happens also to be her husband. If you’re not sure where to start when it comes to her many offerings, allow me to suggest 2010’s July Flame or 2004’s Carbon Glacier.

MP3 via KEXP.

Free and legal MP3: Thyla (incisive, guitar-fueled)

“Blame” comes instantly alive via chunky guitar and bass interplay and front woman Millie Duthie’s way with a scattershot melody.

“Blame” – Thyla

A burst of incisive, guitar-fueled rock’n’roll that takes various generations of harsh but melodic British rock (think Buzzcocks via Elastica) and funnels it into two minutes and fifty-six seconds of up-to-date SoundCloud streaming. “Blame” comes instantly alive via chunky guitar and bass interplay and front woman Millie Duthie’s way with a scattershot melody. The song keeps arriving and arriving, everything stitched ultimately together by the restrained but terrific guitar work that pushes melody through the cracks of Duthie’s assertive vocals.

Another thing to listen for: the bass solo, which the song clears itself out for at 1:28. And then best of all the guitar line that begins in the background and how it moves itself further into the front of the mix as the song develops, climaxing from 2:18 onward with a siren-like onslaught.

And look. Sometimes I get disheartened by the vacuousness of the songs that arrive in my inbox in all their beat-driven, viral-seeking glory (i.e., horror). You can’t make worthy music if you don’t know worthy music; even supposed subversives like the Sex Pistols and the New York Dolls had knowledgeable musicians in the band, even if they wanted you to think otherwise. And so a band like Thyla comes along and lights up my day—not because I require new music to sound like pre-existing music but because I do require music to be made with spirit and a greater purpose than a desire to accumulate Facebook likes. End of soapbox.

Thyla is a four-piece band from Brighton (UK). They formed in 2016 and are unsigned. “Blame” is their sixth single.