Category: MP3s

Free and legal MP3: Orenda Fink (unhurried and mysterious)

Smoky with simmering passion, “Ace of Cups” is a minimal yet enticing brew of contradictions.

Orenda Fink

“Ace of Cups” – Orenda Fink

Smoky with simmering passion, “Ace of Cups” is a minimal yet alluring brew of contradictions, beginning with the way this clearly articulated song of precise, simple words and sentences adds nevertheless up to an oracular mystery. The “you” addressed in the lyrics is at one point a man, another point a woman. The ocean and/or sea seems at once a place that beckons and threatens. Likewise love is sung about as a force at one moment dangerous, another moment redemptive. Finally, Fink herself sings with a calm lucidity even while delivering the repeated lyric in the chorus, “You can fill up my cup/I’ll take it cool, I’ll take you rough.”

The music, meanwhile, is unhurried and contained, its gentle sheen contradicted subtly by two separate varieties of fuzzed-up keyboards—the soft, blurry sound you can hear at the end of the lines in the verses, and then the harsher, higher-pitched, buzzier synth that punctuates the chorus. Even the guitar solo (2:51) implies more than it reveals; a repeating III interval, its minimalist yearning continues into the rest of the song, adding a pining solidity to the chorus’s final repetition.

Some knowledge of the titular tarot card clarifies a little, but not much. The Ace of Cups is a card associated with emotional expression, including the possibility of love and intimacy, but typically with spiritual undertones. The love we are ultimately opened to with the Ace of Cups is love in the broadest sense, rooted in love of self and extending into love of life in all its facets. But, just as tarot cards themselves resist one easy interpretation, so too this “Ace of Cups.”

You’ll find the song on Fink’s forthcoming album Blue Dream, to be released in August on Saddle Creek Records, where it is now available for pre-order on CD and on vinyl. This is Fink’s third solo album. She remains best known as half of the duo Azure Ray, but on her own has been a Fingertips favorite over the years, featured here in 2005 (for the still-stirring song, “Bloodline“) and again in 2009, and also as half of the duo O+S, who were likewise featured in 2009. Thanks to Largehearted Boy for the lead.

photo credit: Bill Sitzmann

Free and legal MP3: Sam Roberts Band (quasi-funky neo-psychedelia)

An assured piece of quasi-funky neo-psychedelia, complete with ear-grabbing guitar licks and a brain-sticking chorus.

Sam Roberts Band

“We’re All In This Together” – Sam Roberts Band

I would understand if Sam Roberts feels he was born in the wrong time and place. His accessible, smartly-produced, effortlessly melodic brand of rock’n’roll would’ve been all over the radio 40 years ago. Today, such music struggles for air. And it’s not like SRB is selling nostalgia; their songs have as crisp and contemporary a sound as music can have in 2014 while making no effort to pander to the EDM crowd. Good thing these guys happen to be from Canada, where they have a good strong following, and where popular taste remains admirably catholic, at least compared to what goes on here in the U.S.

“We’re All In This Together,” in any case, is an assured piece of quasi-funky neo-psychedelia, complete with ear-grabbing guitar licks, a brain-sticking chorus, and the buoyant vibe of a quintet still happy to be playing together. (I love, as one example, how the spiffy lyric “It’s a phenomenon/That goes on and on” [1:23] is so casually offered and moved on from; this is a band used to having tricks up its sleeve.) While the verses sound like a sped-up retake of David Essex’s “Rock On” (not a bad thing!), the song breaks open on the unexpectedly aspirational chorus, which—neat trick—encourages joining in both literally and figuratively, working as an almost touching reminder in our hyper-partisan times. I mean sheesh, yes. We are: in this together. How oblivious or narcissistic do you have to be to disregard this most basic truth? And sorry. Didn’t mean to get all soapboxy. It’s just a pop song. Have fun.

“We’re All In This Together” comes from the fifth Sam Roberts Band album, entitled Lo-Fantasy, which was released in February on Paper Bag Records, but lacked any free and legal downloads until recently. You can grab the song above, as usual, or download it via SoundCloud. The band was featured previously on Fingertips in 2006.

Free and legal MP3: Armand Margjeka (brisk pace, laid-back vibe)

Combining a brisk pace with a laid-back vibe, “Hummingbird” likewise merges a warm acoustic aura with electronic effects.

Armand Margjeka

“Hummingbird” – Armand Margjeka

Combining a brisk pace with a laid-back vibe, “Hummingbird” likewise merges a warm acoustic aura with electronic effects. Margjeka processes his voice in a megaphone-y way that manages to bridge all these polarities: he sounds at once urgent and relaxed, confessional and remote.

Ultimately it is the narrator’s brain being compared to the titular creature here, which explains the song’s rapid pulse and the jittery guitar sound that first surfaces in the background at 0:52 and comes back, in the foreground, around 3:10. As motion-oriented as the song is, there’s also a kind of serenity about its focused, recycling melodies and its deliberately placed sounds—again a kind of echo of the hummingbird, which flutters its wings faster than the eye can see even while floating carefully in one place. I am especially drawn to the insistent verse melody and its upturned conclusion, the ongoing repetitions of which accumulate in my awareness with an edgy kind of poignancy.

Margjeka was born in Albania, and was schooled in the basics of rock’n’roll, not to mention English itself, through recordings and videos that made their way into the country in the post-Wall ’90s. At 18, he emigrated to the U.S. and eventually settled in Birmingham, Alabama. After recording two EPs with an alt-country band called Buffalo Black, Margjeka released the solo album Margo Margo in 2011. “Hummingbird” is the title track to his sophomore release, coming out next month via both PIPEANDGUN and Communicating Vessels. MP3 via Magnet Magazine.

Free and legal MP3: La Sera (unrestrained, guitar-driven rock’n’roll)

With the succinct, thunderous drive of mid-career Blondie, “Losing to the Dark” is catchy, unrestrained, guitar-driven rock’n’roll the likes of which are not often heard here in 2014.

La Sera

<a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/fingertips-free-legal-mp3s/2014/La_Sera-Losing_to_the_Dark.mp3&quot; – La Sera

With the succinct, thunderous drive of mid-career Blondie, “Losing to the Dark” is catchy, unrestrained, guitar-driven rock’n’roll the likes of which are not often heard here in 2014. From the feedback-friendly, multi-part introduction through the ear-catching major-minor shift in the pre-chorus and on into the fiery guitar solo, this one is three-plus minutes of adrenaline and purpose.

La Sera is the performing name of Katy Goodman, the bass player for the recently disbanded Vivian Girls, and while in the past looking to the ’50s and early ’60s for melodic inspiration, Goodman leaves the dreaminess behind for a shot of unblinking, contemporary reality. The title scans precisely to the Adele hit “Rolling in the Deep,” and as such (it’s a stretch but bear with me) I can’t help viewing this as a punked-up bookend to that song. Both singers mourn a failed relationship. While Adele is defiant to the point of vengeful, focused on the potential that has been cast aside, Goodman sees the loss as a morality play. Her erstwhile lover consumed by bad behavior, she starts sarcastic (“How ’bout you have another drink/So you can pass out in the back seat of my car?”), offers the faux sympathy of “What a pain it must be/To have to only be with me” at the song’s emotional and melodic fulcrum (first heard at 0:48), and then just lashes out at the real enemy, which isn’t the guy at all but human frailty itself. Adele is done with her lover because she’s better than him; in this song, the narrator is just as pissed off but also, in a weird way, more understanding. There’s a feeling of “There but for the grace of God go I” in here, which makes me think that maybe it’s Katy Goodman who is actually rolling in the deep.

“Losing to the Dark” is the lead track from the third La Sera album, entitled Hour of the Dawn, which comes out next week on Hardly Art. La Sera was featured previously on Fingertips in November 2010.

Free and legal MP3: Papercuts (rich, delicate, orchestral)

The richly delicate “Life Among the Savages” hints at what Brian Wilson might sound like if he were a 21st-century indie rocker.

Papercuts

“Life Among the Savages” – Papercuts

The richly delicate “Life Among the Savages” hints at what Brian Wilson might sound like if he were a 21st-century indie rocker. Not that Papercuts front man and general mastermind Jason Robert Quever has quite as many idiosyncratic tools at his disposal as Wilson, but surely there is something Pet Sounds-y in the orchestral-minded, melodic yearning on display.

The opening verse melody, to begin with, is a concise gem of descending sweetness (0:06-0:09), and is itself part of a beautifully constructed eight-measure melody that seems simultaneously to resolve and retain suspense two or three different times. The melody is so well-developed that the song does without full-fledged instrumentation until the first iteration of the chorus at 1:08, and while the pulsing string arrangement distracts us from missing the band, when the sound does kick in, something in the ear relaxes. Combine that with a subtle uptick in vocal urgency here (listen to all the hard “c” sounds Quever hits between 1:16 and 1:22), and “Life Among the Savages” is pretty much all delight from this point onward—the verse the second time through now fully accompanied, the chorus getting an unexpected instrumental lead-in and an extra repetition, and the whole thing capped off by a tidy, dramatic coda.

The San Francisco-based Quever has been recording as Papercuts since 2004. “Life Among the Savages” is the title track to his fifth album, released earlier this month on the new L.A. label Easy Sound in the U.S., and via the London-based Memphis Industries label in the U.K. Papercuts was previously featured on Fingertips in 2011. Thanks again to Lauren Laverne at BBC 6 for the head’s up.

Free and legal MP Nap Eyes (guitar-driven groove, w/ simple charm)

It takes a special kind of song to manage to be so charming while stuck so pointedly in one groove, one melody, and, all too often, one repeated phrase.

Nap Eyes

“No Man Needs to Care” – Nap Eyes

Like a wayward Smiths song dismissed from the catalogue for being too good-natured, “No Man Needs to Care” has a determined jangly jauntiness to it and more going on with the guitars then its seemingly two-chord framework might suggest. And if “No man needs to care/About another man’s hair” is not a Smiths lyric it’s only because Morrissey never thought of it.

It takes a special kind of song to manage to be so charming while stuck so pointedly in one groove, one melody, and, all too often, one repeated phrase. I’m not sure even why I like this so much, except that I completely do. On the one hand it shows you what a strong beginning and a strong closing in a three-minute, fifty-second song can do for you: the opening lyric is an unexpected delight (“Well I was reading my book/Just so that everyone would come take a look”), the closing guitar freakout 24 seconds of noisy joy. In between, well, we get that personable, recycling guitar line, and front man Nigel Chapman’s insistent yet somehow still soft-spoken presence. He’s in our face but his face is reading his book. And if you pay attention you may see that he is hiding a much more involved story in his simple, repetitive lyrics. And can I say what a good strong so-retro-it’s-up-to-date rocker name that is, Nigel Chapman? Buy his records just because his name is Nigel Chapman.

Nap Eyes is a foursome from Halifax. They’ve been around a couple of years, and have two previous EPs to their name. “No Man Needs to Care” is a track from the waggishly titled Whine of the Mystics, their debut full-length, released on Plastic Factory Records in March. You can listen to the whole record on Bandcamp, and buy it there too, at a price of your choosing.

Free and legal MP3: Kim Harris (emotional ballad sung with soul and spirit)

A rare and wonderful instance of an audio recording and a video aiding and abetting each other in elucidating the power of both the song and the singer.

Kim Harris

“The Weight of it All” – Kim Harris

I am not inherently attracted to earnest piano-based ballads, let me make that clear. Neither am I inherently oriented to videos, as any number of you already know by now, by the sheer tiresomeness of my haughty disclaimers over the years. And yet here we are: an earnest, piano-based ballad that sold itself to me to a large extent on the strength of its video. (See? I do watch them intermittently. And post them; see below.) With the wisdom of (many) years, I have come to embrace these kinds of contradictions. Who the hell wants to be that consistent, anyway?

Now then, the video of “The Weight of it All” is actually a guitar version, the song stripped to its essence and performed, almost as if an afterthought, live and uncut on a residential Halifax street. (Yes it appears to be Halifax week here. Don’t knock it; the music up there is ever vibrant and worthy.) Taken together, the video and the sound recording highlight different aspects of Harris’s soul and spirit: the video places her in three-dimensional space, and gives us an immediate, visceral affinity with her rich, athletic voice; the audio, meanwhile, in slowing the song down, allows us to savor the depth and nuance of her presence and delivery in a more contemplative way. The song itself likewise benefits from this dual presentation. The sound recording scores via its sensitive, dramatic (but not over-dramatic) production, with percussion, pedal steel, and backing vocals used with precision, giving the slower tempo a vividness unmarred by the histrionics we are all too often subjected to when mainstream music aims for emotion. The video, on the other hand, finds its power in the guiding pulse of Harris’s resolute right hand and of course the appeal of her unassisted voice, rendered all the more touching as she stands in the street and we watch and hear cars go by, with unseen birds likewise adding to the soundtrack. When she is joined later and unexpectedly by a chorus of five singers, linked arm and arm just beyond the original frame of the video, the song’s cumulative force feels instant and fresh. (Don’t miss Harris’s not-quite-masked smile—around 2:33 in the video—as she anticipates the entrance of the chorus just before the rest of us either hear or see them, a moment of unpremeditated humanity that underscores the beauty and authenticity of the performance.)

Based in Halifax, Harris is originally from Newfoundland. “The Weight of it All” is a song from Only the Mighty, her debut full-length, released at the end of February. You can listen to the whole album, and purchase it, via Bandcamp. Only the Mighty was produced by Dale Murray, who, among other things, is a member of the band Cuff the Duke (featured here way back in 2005, the year Murray joined the band).

Free and legal MP3: Minor Alps (minor-key indie-rock drive)

Not only do are the musical instincts of Juliana Hatfield and Matthew Caws thoroughly interconnected, but their voices are so oddly similar that Hatfield has been quoted as saying that even she sometimes can’t distinguish between them on record.

Minor Alps

“I Don’t Know What To Do With My Hands” – Minor Alps

Minor Alps is the duo of Juliana Hatfield and Matthew Caws—Caws the front man from the band Nada Surf, Hatfield the long-time indie-rock/alt-rock goddess—and this is a duo in the most intertwined sense of the word. Not only do their melodic, ’90s-based musical instincts seem thoroughly interconnected, but their voices are so oddly similar that Hatfield has been quoted as saying that even she sometimes can’t distinguish between them on record. On this song, the vocals are shared throughout, and the verses are sung without harmony, accentuating the indistinguishability. This becomes especially interesting given the subject matter, which is the awkwardness between two people spending the evening together, getting to know each other, but wondering how to instigate physical contact. Having both the male and female voice speaking the same thoughts underlines the poignancy of the insecurity. It is a small-subject song enlarged greatly by lyrical discipline and musical straightforwardness. The subtle but definitive opening is the shift in the last verse, which moves the problem from the local to the global, a songwriting technique that never fails to move me:

I can’t decide on the channel
I’m just flipping around, maybe you can choose
Maybe some kind of monster
Maybe I just don’t know how to reach out

I love the graceful blurring of meaning in the third line, as the narrator seems to slip from talking about what’s on television to what may be the state of his/her heart and mind and being. This is further insinuated by the last iteration of the chorus, as the song ends, when the lyrics finally leave out the words “with my hands,” and the relentless minor-key drive of the music arrives at both apotheosis and long-delayed resolution.

The debut Minor Alps album, Get There, came out on Barsuk Records back in October without causing as much fuss as it might have; critics liked it but it never rose to buzz level here in the only place that matters, the internet. (Please add dripping sarcasm to that last sentence, if you haven’t already.) Thanks to the ever-discerning Lauren Laverne at BBC 6 for the head’s up on the more recent availability of this song as a free and legal MP3. You can download it above, in the usual way; but note that this one plus six others are currently available as free and legal downloads via NoiseTrade, where leaving a “tip” for the artists is also encouraged. Note that four of the songs on NoiseTrade are not on the album. Alternatively, the fine song “Buried Plans” (on the album) is available as a free and legal download via Barsuk Records.

Free and legal MP3: Ages and Ages (anthemic group-sung indie rock)

An ambling, deftly-building piece of homespun wisdom that centers around a swaying, repeating, group-sung chorus. Slightly goofy yet genuinely inspiring.

Ages and Ages

“Divisionary (Do the Right Thing)” – Ages and Ages

The fine line between good-catchy and bad-catchy remains indistinct. And, of course, one person’s good-catchy may be another’s bad-catchy. But I do have two basic guidelines. First, there has to be an actual melody. Mindless repetition, or silly chanting, for me, is bad-catchy, not good-catchy. Secondly, there should be a sense of softness to counteract the unavoidable bluntness of aiming to be catchy in the first place. Neither ears nor minds generally speaking like to be bludgeoned without respite. And by softness I am not talking about volume; I simply mean I want to sense the humanity in the music. Lord knows the songwriting factories behind most of today’s Top 40 (arguably a more homogeneous-sounding Top 40 than at most other points in pop music history) have taken formulaic bad-catchiness to new heights (or depths), with robotic sheen and mercenary techniques obliterating any whiff of palpable human-being-ness.

“Divisionary (Do the Right Thing)” is an antidote to that kind of musical conception and delivery. An ambling, deftly-building piece of homespun wisdom, the song centers around a swaying, repeating, group-sung chorus that manages the neat trick of sounding both goofy and inspiring. While the song employs one recurring melody for both verse and chorus, it adds depth and interest via heedful instrumentation and a variety of counter-melodies that rise in conjunction with the chorus as the band forges onward with redoubtable exuberance.

The title track to the band’s new album, “Divisionary” has been floating around the internet for a few months, but only recently, to my knowledge, became available as a free and legal MP3, via NPR Music’s excellent SXSW-related cache of downloads. The album was released on Partisan Records at the end of March. Ages and Ages is a seven-member band from Portland, and were featured previously on Fingertips in August 2011.

Free and legal MP3: Rae Morris (moody, w/ simmering momentum)

Morris—21 and British—emerges here as a young Kate Bush for the Lorde generation, with an elastic tone that ranges from sweet to muscular.

Rae Morris

“Skin” – Rae Morris

“Skin” launches off an ear-grabbing tick-tock rhythm, glides into a precisely calibrated duskiness, and builds unerring drama and interest from the knowing interplay between an itchy drumbeat and melancholy, softly-voiced piano chords. Morris—21 and British—emerges here as a young Kate Bush for the Lorde generation, with an elastic tone that ranges from sweet to muscular, and an elusive speech idiosyncrasy (listen to her “r”s) that seems only to add character to her already formidable presence.

I am not sure whether to thank Morris or her producer (Ariel Reichtshaid, who has worked with everyone from Cass McCombs and Vampire Weekend to Skye Ferreira and Kylie Minogue), but I love how adeptly “Skin” transcends “girl-at-piano”-type rock music. Part of this has to do with how obliquely the piano is employed; it never goes away, but it is very much an ensemble player here, creating the sense that every chord that does come forward is there for a purpose, not just because the singer plays piano. And then there is the song itself, and its subtly indelible chorus, which would not be as effective as it is without its unusual setting. First, there’s a pre-chorus (first heard at 0:51), followed by a chorus involving two asymmetrical iterations of its central motif. The second time (1:12), the “We break the rules” melody is repeated, after which new lyrics blossom without warning into the song’s pivotal moment: “We break our hearts and pretty much everything.”

From the seaside city of Blackpool, in North West England, Morris was signed to Atlantic Records when just 19. “Skin” was released in January, available as a free download via SoundCloud, and will apparently end up on her debut album, scheduled for release this summer. Morris has been releasing a series of EPs since late 2013; the latest is due out next month. A new single from the forthcoming EP, “Do You Even Know,” is available to stream via via SoundCloud.