Category: MP3s

“Candles” – Sunset Rubdown

Intricate and engaging

“Candles” – Sunset Rubdown

A dash of compositional complexity in an otherwise catchy song is my kind of good time. The Montreal band Sunset Rubdown, fronted by Wolf Parade’s Spencer Krug, emerges from a long hiatus to offer this syncopated bit of what sounds like prog pop, which is apparently a (minor) thing. It’s intricate, engaging, and does its business in just over three minutes. Prog pop!

The first thing to notice is the stop-start-y keyboard lines, which both introduce and underpin the song. A heavy bass tone adds deep ground while the flowing, descending melody of the verse, working on top of and against the ascending keyboard figures, gives the song its signature feeling of compelling intricacy. Another feature that pits one characteristic against an oppositional counterpart are the backing vocals provided by keyboardist Camilla Wynne, which add warmth to Krug’s edgier tone. Just as you’re getting the hang of it, and perhaps noticing that there’s no guitar involved, the edifice pretty much breaks down halfway through (1:29) via a short, muddy bridge that makes a veiled reference to the pandemic. Order returns when the keyboard lines re-establish themselves (2:02) and accompany us to the end, with a cheeky few plinks on the piano seeing us out.

Spencer Krug first made his mark on the indie rock scene at the head of the band Wolf Parade, which launched back in 2003, and has been active as recently as 2022. He debuted Sunset Rubdown in 2005, initially as a solo project but soon enough as a band, only to put it to bed by 2009, despite critical acclaim for the three full-band albums. “Candles” was originally recorded in 2020 as a solo effort by Krug, but when the band found themselves reunited–minus a guitarist–they decided to give the song another go and this is what happened. “Candles” is the third track of nine on the band’s new album, Always Happy to Explode, which was released last month. You can listen to it, and buy it, on Bandcamp.

“Condensation” – Sports Team

Sloppy-tight vibe

“Condensation” – Sports Team

So here we’re back to a standard backbeat (see previous review for context)–although maybe not quite. The emphasis is on the two and the four, the very definition of a backbeat, but at the same time the beat also manages, somehow, to swing. I think this has to do with the way lead vocalist Alex Rice toys with the melody, regularly hitting his marks ever so slightly ahead of the actual beat. (Don’t try this at home; it’s harder to do than it seems.) Consider it part of the song’s sloppy-tight vibe–just like the lyrics themselves, in the verse, which spill out in something of a stream and yet, if you pay attention, scan perfectly with the energetic melody.

Somewhat unusually, Sports Team is a six-person band, and everyone is surely doing something here, in service of the crowd-friendly ambiance, although it’s difficult to know who’s doing what when. There are melodic leaps, horn charts, gang-style backing vocals, keyboard glissandos, you name it. (There’s even a reference to “fingertips,” which I can’t help hearing.) Enough is happening such that we only get the verse melody twice, as the song’s busy construction provides us with what sounds like not only a pre-chorus and a chorus but, potentially, either a two-part post-chorus (is that even a thing?) or a post-chorus and a bridge. We can leave the structural analysis to more exacting minds than mine; I’ll take the welcoming beat and agile melodicism and be quite happy.

Based in London, Sports Team was founded in 2016, when five of the six bandmates were studying at Cambridge University. “Condensation” is a track from their forthcoming third album, Boys These Days, slated to arrive in February.

“Broken Ceilings” – Morgan Swihart

Simmering with intention

“Broken Ceilings” – Morgan Swihart

Smoky and deliberate, “Broken Ceilings” simmers with intention, unfolding on top of a wide-ranging if elusive instrumental palette. The drums are front and center, the electric guitar occasionally steps forward, a piano vamps a bit and disappears; strings, too–or synthesized strings?–provide texture and drama; an athletic bass line lends subtle movement. Are there horns, actual or digital, in here too? No matter. It turns out to be far less about individual lines and more about how the amalgam produces a swelling, wall-of-sound feeling, of a sort you might get from putting a rock band into a blender with a small orchestra. (Don’t try that at home either.)

The song launches, minus introduction, straight into the verse’s melody, with its languorous ascent, Swihart’s resonant voice extending her notes out there on the borderline between shy and coy. You can sense from the start that the song is aiming in the direction of Big, and cumulatively, we get there, even as Swihart seems surely to be holding something back, in a good way. I’m an ongoing fan of restraint, and, counterintuitively, that’s what is ultimately on display here, despite the buildup, the eventual volume, the unbridled bashing of drums. You can hear it in the way the melody ongoingly steps down to resolve, in the spaces Swihart leaves from line to line, and, a closing touch, at the very end, in the way she modestly slides away.

Morgan Swihart is a singer/songwriter based in Brooklyn. “Broken Ceilings” is a song from her short, appealing album of the same name, released in June. You can check it out on Spotify. A previous album, The Grave, was released last year.

“Rob Me Blind” – Sweet Unrest

Cheeky, catchy neo-Britpop

“Rob Me Blind” – Sweet Unrest

“Rob Me Blind” is a brisk, charming bit of neo-Britpop, with ukulele. Owing something to the Strokes and/or early Cure, the London-based Sweet Unrest smash a lot of melody and guitar into three minutes, including a closing section that all but flies off the rails before getting tidily swept back up into the song’s stalwart instrumental hook and sweet “ooh-oohs,” and leaving me with a smile on my face, even as I’m not at all sure what all they’re singing about or why I’m smiling.

The same sweet “ooh-oohs” are in fact the first thing we hear, and the aforementioned ukulele. Normal enough instrumentation–guitar, bass, drums–then lead us into the song’s head-bopping rhythm and clipped, sing-song-y melody, delivered by a very British Jack River. But something feels a little off kilter here, in a good way. I like the ear-catching “hiccups” in the melody (e.g. 0:49-0:59); the dreamy background vocals heard shortly thereafter are at once lovely and kind of wacky. And what these vocals are accompanying is the song’s most incisive element: the ringing lead guitar line (first heard at 1:02). Hearing it prompted the realization that this sort of guitar line, which functions as a full-fledged hook, has all but disappeared as the 21st century has aged; it’s concise, melodic, up front, and emerges unexpectedly but organically in the song’s middle section. As for River’s semi-unhinged vocals in the song’s final third, they align with the band’s embrace of a certain amount of commotion, and for me the payoff is the falsetto note Rivers hits in the middle of the carrying-on (2:18), a pitch-perfect melodic enhancement at a surprising moment.

Self-proclaimed fans of classic poetry, Sweet Unrest derived its name from the Keats poem “Bright Star.” Following their self-titled debut EP in 2023, the band has released four singles in 2024, of which “Rob Me Blind” is the most recent.

“Tamarindo Sunsets” – Sam Weber

Tender, melancholy solace

“Tamarindo Sunsets” – Sam Weber

With its feathery piano playing, gently emotive vocals, and lovely melodies, “Tamarindo Sunsets” feels like slow, melancholy solace in a moment overwhelmed here in the U.S. by rapid-fire digital idiocy. The lyrics are precise but evade direct comprehension. The singer sings from a place of hurt; the titular phrase are the first words we hear but they don’t recur. Tamarindo is a beach town in Costa Rica, and (maybe?) stands in for something more enticing in the imagination than it turns out to be. In addition to the soft, evocative piano, I’d draw your attention to the muted bass notes, so velvety they all but melt into the song’s tender ambiance.

The repeated lyric that sticks most obviously out is the singer’s claim to be “going offline ’til the end of time,” which I’ll admit sounds more and more like a lovely idea. I can’t be sure of singer/songwriter Sam Weber’s intent here but it feels like an example of failed will in the face of life’s disappointments. Who after all can go offline ’til the end of time? Especially as the song’s narrator still wants to know what’s going on (“When there’s something new/Can you text it to me?”)

“Tamarindo Sunsets” is the lead track on Clear + Plain, Weber’s fourth album, released last month. He also has an EP and a couple of singles. You can check everything out on Bandcamp.

“July 4” – Mondo Cozmo

Moody & purposeful, with that Hal Blaine beat

“July 4” – Mondo Cozmo

I’ll admit I’m a sucker for the Hal Blaine drum beat (think “Be My Baby”), but that’s not the only thing going for the moody, purposeful “July 4,” from the new Mondo Cozmo album. There is a clear whiff of Springsteen in the air here as well–in an encouraging, homage-y way rather than a retread-y way. The title is part of it (July 4 might be seen as referencing two different Bruce tunes) but there’s also Cozmo’s world-weary, determined vocals, which build from a Nebraska-esque mumble/whisper to the higher register urgings of the chorus. One might also consider the song’s narrative a bit on the Boss-y side–an elusive story that appears to involve ne’er-do-wells in over their heads. And oh yeah there’s a river in here too.

While the song simmers with its persistent beat and offers partial build-ups, note that we never get any Bruce-style, full-throated deliverance. Instead, the chorus keeps to the same steady thump while the verse melody is inverted but retains the disciplined, in-between moments, now augmented with some sonorous synth flairs in the background. Keep an ear on those synth sounds moving forward–beginning around 1:57 they have this lovely way of sustaining notes before and through the verse that are not part of the underlying chord, providing a background hint of atonality that, somehow, grounds the music all the more resolutely. And then, as the song approaches a would-be climax, the sound peels back at 3:18 with some distant asynchronous arpeggios, leading us, unexpectedly, into something that sounds like a children’s chorus, delivering a poignant series of wordless “ahs.” We get one more taste of the chorus to wrap things up, and while I’m not sure much has changed it sounds all the more heroic this last time through.

Mondo Cozmo–birth name Josh Ostrander–is a singer-songwriter/producer based in Philadelphia. He began recording as Mondo Cozmo in 2016; “July 4” is a track from It’s PRINCIPLE!, the fourth Mondo album, released at the end of August on Last Gang Records. MP3 via Last Gang. Ostrander was previously featured on Fingertips in 2007, when he fronted the band Eastern Conference Champions, who played together from 2005 to 2015.

“You Know What You’re Doing” – Orbis Max and Tim Izzard

Smartly crafted, accomplished pop rock

“You Know What You’re Doing” – Orbix Max and Tim Izzard

This is a community service announcement to remind you that there are plenty of interesting and accomplished people doing interesting and accomplished things, online, that do not attract the attention of the viral-infatuated masses and/or clickbait-oriented websites. I would venture to say that some if not most of these people may be entirely satisfied avoiding the harsh glare of virality. At least, I hope they are. Me, I remain maddened as ever by our collective penchant for assessing worth via instant popularity. And I grow increasingly intrigued by talented souls plying their trade in the relative dark.

Take Orbis Max, a so-called “internet recording collective” that, as it turns out, long predates the internet. Launched as a regular, in-person band in California back in the 1970s, Orbis Max band members drifted into different locations over time, but re-formed once the internet made recording separately from a distance a viable option. The band retains two original members, has four ongoing bandmates, while also working collaboratively with a rotating cast of outside musicians as the spirit moves. And no, they are not setting the world on fire in terms of streams and views. But they put together something like “You Know What You’re Doing” and yes, it’s clear from the opening guitar riff, jaunty and melodic, that Orbis Max themselves know what they’re doing. The melody, with its well-placed minor chords, shimmers with an early-rock’n’roll nostalgia even as it sounds fetching in the here and now. Dw Dunphy’s vocals are at once sturdy and vulnerable, with the tone of a classic rocker wandering into vaguely unknown territory.

And what a smartly crafted song, the construction of which includes, by my estimation, not merely a robust bridge (in these bridge-deprived times) but a bridge that arrives early in the song, where the second verse might otherwise be. At this point, on the words “Even now” (1:08), the voices become layered, gang-vocal style, with an unexpected but congruous whiff of Springsteen in the mix. (Dunphy is based in Monmouth County, New Jersey; could be something in the water.) The early bridge, if that’s what it is, is in any case, aurally, part of the song’s ongoing sense of continuing development; listen in particular to the intermittent sprinkles of lead guitar (including an incisive coda) and to the changing nature of the backing vocals.

“You Know What You’re Doing” was co-written by guitarist Don Baake and guest musician Tim Izzard, who is based in the UK. Recurring core Orbis Max members are currently located in Texas, California, and the aforementioned New Jersey; other regulars are located in North Carolina, Arizona, and Liverpool, among other places. Dunphy is new to the band in the scheme of things, having joined in 2022, following a long stint as a singer/songwriter/one-man-band. “You Know What You’re Doing,” was released as a single at the end of March. A new single was just released on May 1, entitled “Fields,” which you can check out on Bandcamp. Thanks to the band for the MP3.

“Blue Tuesday” – Francis of Delirium

Propulsive and vulnerable

“Blue Tuesday” – Francis of Delirium

How is it that some singer/songwriters sing about their personal angsts and it comes across as kind of small and whiny while other singer/songwriters sing, as well, about their personal angsts and it soars into something weighty and inspiring? It’s a mystery. And obviously my personal perspective on any given musician is just my own, and often at odds with cultural consensus. But Jana Bahrich, who fronts the project Francis of Delirium, strikes me as the real deal. Nothing small and whiny about what she does.

From the ringing guitar and pulsing backbeat of the intro, “Blue Tuesday” propels us forward with itchy resolve. We are pushed directly into the middle of a story via the opening line’s unusual kickoff: “And it starts in the back of a cab.” This demonstrates the kind of stout assurance that supports the song beginning to end–an assurance perhaps best epitomized by the audacious slant rhyme upon which the chorus pivots:

It’s a blue Tuesday
I could use babe some of us

In another setting, in someone else’s hands, this (sort of) near rhyme might seem an awkward blunder; here it feels sly and subversive. She’s kind of daring you to call her on it and not caring if you do. Throughout, the 22-year-old Bahrich sings with a tone alternating between airy and grounded, between vulnerable and assertive. You buy what she’s selling; the underlying bash and drive leaves you almost no choice. This a concise song both musically and lyrically, with a seemingly straightforward meaning: the narrator is feeling down and desires her partner’s presence as a balm. But being down often leads to passive indecision, while in this case, the singer knows what she wants and asks for it, not something everyone has the presence of mind to do. She offers a second slant rhyme in the process, in the second half of the chorus: “It’s a blue Tuesday/I could use babe some of your touch.” It’s an even slantier slant, matching two syllables (“your touch”) against one in the previous line (“us”), so the lyrics scan differently too, with Bahrich hesitating on the second word, landing it on the backbeat of the next measure, sweeping us back into the song’s adamant flow.

Based in Luxembourg, Francis of Delirium was previously featured on Fingertips in April 2022. “Blue Tuesday” is a track from the outfit’s excellent debut album Lighthouse, which was released in March. I like by the way that the song is the fifth track on the album–another move, in a world of side-one, cut-one singles, that speaks to Bahrich’s underlying confidence. MP3 via KEXP.

(A sad side note: KEXP’s “Song of the Day” feature, which has fed Fingertips a significant number of free and legal MP3s over the years, has been discontinued. The MP3s they’ve uploaded still seem to be online at this point, but it’s unclear how long that will last.)

“Jacket” – Sam Evian

Affable, McCartney-like tunefulness

“Jacket” – Sam Evian

“Jacket” has an affable tunefulness about it, with a loose-limbed, Ram-like vibe bespeaking on the one hand singer/songwriter/producer Sam Evian’s long-standing adoration of the Beatles, and on the other the fact that he recorded this latest album in his idyllic-sounding studio in the Catskills, in a renovated barn, live on vintage tape–“No headphones, no playback, minimal overdubs or bleed,” in his words. The guitar sounds are straight out of the 1970s, as is the perky, midtempo, Nilsson-esque melody, with its easy-going wanderings up and down the scale.

Structure-wise, the song has a sneaky convolution to it, with a verse and chorus that sound somewhat but not precisely alike; it’s especially easy to get disoriented when a song starts with the chorus, as this one appears to. Bonus bewilderment points here for removing the first line of the chorus after one iteration, thereafter replacing it with a cheerful set of female-voiced “La-la-la”s. Lyrically this is one of those songs where the words are at once legible and incomprehensible: you can read along with the song and still have little sense of what’s transpiring. And then, in the middle, a verse pops as meaningful, even though it has no apparent relation to anything previously sung:

I trace it back and find a twisted memory
A loose end coming back to haunt me, it’s getting older and older
You know our trouble has a way of finding more
Like we were soldiers in a war so long ago

First off, he traces what back, exactly? We don’t know, pushed as we abruptly are into the middle of a thought without any context. Listen next to how perfectly “A loose end coming back to haunt me” scans with the music; it’s the parade of iambs in the lyrics that does it–except for the “it’s getting older and older” addendum, all the lines here offer perfect one-TWO stresses. The words glide effortlessly, all but forcing our attention to the stanza’s gloomy conclusion, contradictorily presented with the song’s ongoing peppiness. I’m not sure what it all adds up to–by the way, there’s not a single mention of a jacket–but it keeps me listening, and re-listening. Perhaps the song is being sung to an old jacket? Or by one?

Plunge, Evian’s fourth album, came out in March, and is the first he’s released on his own label, Flying Cloud Recordings. Collaborators on the album include El Kempner (Palehound, Bachelor), Adrianne Lenker (Big Thief), Sean Mullins, and Liam Kazar, among others. Meanwhile, Evian has for some years been an in-demand producer, having recorded albums with a wide variety of indie rock acts, including Widowspeak, Cass McCombs, Blonde Redhead, Cassandra Jenkins, Big Thief, and Hannah Cohen, who happens also to be Evian’s partner.

“Right Back To It” – Waxahatchee (featuring MJ Lenderman)

More tuneful thoughtfulness from K. Crutchfield

“Right Back To It” – Waxahatchee (featuring MJ Lenderman)

Katie Crutchfield is operating in an impressive groove in recent years; everything she touches strikes me as some version of awesome. Even as she is working with new collaborators–including, as seen here, MJ Lenderman, from the band Wednesday–she sounds as herself as ever on this song from her new album.

The banjo here quickly conveys a country flavor, but the deliberate pace of the finger-picking runs counter to cliched expectations. There will be no hoedown today; the mood is pensive, the melody earnest, alternating between double time and half time, as Crutchfield ponders the forces at work in relationships, albeit allusively, as is her wont. (Like many gifted songwriters, she always gives the impression that she knows exactly what she’s talking about even if the words defy straightforward understanding.) One particularly brilliant line, presented off-handedly, is: I lose a bit of myself/laying out eggshells, which is an eye-opening way to acknowledge one’s own contribution to an unhealthy interpersonal dynamic.

Lenderman’s harmony vocals add poignant texture to the chorus, which resolves–typically a downward movement–via a repeating ascending melody line. This sounds natural on the one hand, but registers as somewhat unusual. Chalk it up to her aforementioned songwriting prowess.

Katie Crutchfield is a solo artist performing since 2010 as Waxahatchee, with a rotating supporting cast. “Right Back To It” is a track from her eagerly awaited new album Tigers Blood, coming out this week on Rough Trade. This is Katie’s first solo album since the brilliant Saint Cloud, a release that arrived, on March 27, 2020, as an oasis of tuneful thoughtfulness in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. I leaned on it heavily during the lockdown’s disconcerting first weeks and months, and still revisit it regularly. MP3 via KEXP.

Waxahatchee was previously featured on Fingertips in May 2017.

photo credit: Molly Matalon