MP3s – Page 39 – Fingertips

Free and legal MP3: Johnathan Rice (concise midtempo charmer)

Johnathan Rice is the rare 21st-century singer/songwriter who is making a career of it without gathering much in the way of blog buzz and hipster worship.

“My Heart Belongs to You” – Johnathan Rice

There’s something unabashedly old-fashioned about “My Heart Belongs to You,” from its sentimental title to its easy-going, midtempo melodicism. There’s something old-fashioned about Johnathan Rice as well, being the rare 21st-century singer/songwriter who is making a career of it without gathering much in the way of blog buzz and hipster worship, relying instead on more, shall we say, professional tastemakers such as actual music publications and real-life music supervisors (his earliest marketplace breakthrough came via song placements on The OC and Grey’s Anatomy). Instead of worrying about his social media presence he has spent time doing things like playing Roy Orbison in the Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line. (I will note however that Rice is indeed a dry and entertaining Twitterer, so it’s not like he’s living in 1974.)

In any case, this song is terrific. Check out how quickly it hooks us via solid songwriting chops—the verse adjoins four initial measures of pleasing, run-on melody lines with four follow-up measures of breath-catching, in which the melody is related, but different, and if anything, even catchier. It’s an easy step from there into a two-part, four-measure chorus, which resolves all melodies and leads us, with some gratifying “oo-oos,” back to the beginning. The conciseness of Rice’s craft is a joy to behold; he does not muddy a good thing with a tacked-on bridge, creating drama in the last third of the song instead via the rarely-used tool of a false ending.

Rice was born in Virginia but raised partially in Scotland, his parents’ native country. He moved from Virginia to New York City at the age of 18 on September 9, 2001; his first album, Trouble is Real, was released in 2005. A tour highlight for him that year was opening for R.E.M. in London’s Hyde Park in front of 80,000 people. In 2006, he joined Jenny Lewis’s touring band, and the two of them have had a close working (and personal) relationship ever since, including a lot of songwriting together. In 2010, the two formed the duo Jenny and Johnny, and released an album of the same name. “My Heart Belongs to You” is from Rice’s third solo album, Good Graces, which is coming in September on SQE Music. MP3 via Magnet Magazine.

Free and legal MP3: Shelby Earl

Seattle singer/songwriter takes a star turn

“Swift Arrows” – Shelby Earl

With its slow, triplet-induced swing, “Swift Arrows” nods in the direction of the ’50s while staking out idiosyncratic 21st-century territory all its own. I don’t think I overstate my case to say that Shelby Earl has one of the best voices I’ve heard in my 10 years on call here at Fingertips—soft and hard and sweet and strong all at the same time, it’s a voice that does nothing obvious to call undue attention to itself, which makes her able, delicious yet elusive tone all the more effective, to my ears.

And she’s not just a voice; she’s an impressive songwriter too. I hear the song’s greatness pivoting on the moment when the titular phrase enters. The fuller phrase Earl sings is “one poison-tipped swift arrow,” but listen both to how the song is written and to how she negotiates the phrasing: the words “one poison-tipped” swoop dramatically, in relative alignment with the beat, while “swift arrow” veers irregularly, almost a melodic afterthought. And yet these last words grab the ear in a most affecting way, which I think has to do with how, as a singer, Earl manages on “arrow” to accentuate the first syllable (as one would merely speaking it) while extending the second both out and upward. This strikes me as tricky, and while I’m not sure she gave this any particular thought, it is the moment I return to over and over again. Beyond the singing and the songwriting, I’m likewise enjoying Damien Jurado’s production, with its curious union of the minimal and the baroque. There are strings, woodwinds, and deep dramatic bells and drums in the mix, and sometimes the sound rises to challenge—perhaps even to bait—Earl’s voice, but more often than not we’re just hearing those basic piano triplets in the background. The song even reduces to silence at one point (2:01). The end result is something both familiar and a little odd. Works for me, to say the least.

“Swift Arrows” is the title track to Shelby Earl’s second album, and I can confidently report that she is the real thing, a bona fide star, at least here in the Fingertips firmament. She was previously featured in October 2011 for the song “Evergreen,” and also stopped by for an notably thoughtful Q&A the next month.

The MP3 is no longer available but you can listen to the track here, via SoundCloud:

Free and legal MP3: Jay Arner (both pensive & anthemic)

Brisk, concise, and allusive, “Don’t Remind Me” is a fine song for any lingering summer evenings that remain, while hinting at the chill yet to come.

“Don’t Remind Me” – Jay Arner

Vancouver multi-instrumentalist Jay Arner here performs the estimable trick of creating a pensive anthem. The pensiveness is heard in the song’s continued reliance on both minor and suspended chords, as well as in Arner’s naturally reticent singing voice. Even the title is oddly introspective for a command, as well as ambiguous: when you tell someone “Don’t remind me,” you are typically talking about something you’re already dwelling on; on the other hand, spoken seriously, the sentence can nearly be a threat.

The song’s stellar chorus serves as a pithy distillation of the entire composition, its air of yearning, sing-along-iness at once undermined and enriched by something more slippery and reflective. Arner keeps his voice mixed a little bit further down than we might hear in a typical anthemic rocker, and even in the chorus keeps finishing his melodic lines on top of one of those suspended chords of his. He even buries the power-poppy lead guitar line nearly below audibility, forcing the ear to listen for something it may not even realize is there. Brisk, concise, and allusive, “Don’t Remind Me” is a fine song for any lingering summer evenings that remain, while hinting at the chill yet to come.

Arner has previously made a career from being in bands and/or producing and/or remixing other people’s music. His self-titled solo debut was released in late June on Mint Records. I like that “Don’t Remind Me” is the seventh track of ten; that alone speaks to Arner’s thoughtfulness. You can download the song the usual way, via the link above, or head to SoundCloud and contribute some bandwidth back to Fingertips by downloading over there.

Free and legal MP3: This Much

Folkie-ish shuffle, w/ deft charm

“Decision” – This Much

Easy-going, folkie-ish shuffle with a discursive air and a sneaky kind of charm. Acoustic guitars strum and pluck their way through a rhythm at once sure and waffly—the melodies solidify in and around a fair amount of blank space, while 4/4 measures appear either to get expanded (6/4) or tacked onto (2/4) in patterns that defy casual comprehension. Even so, “Decision” rolls along with a bemused unflappability, employing along the way one of the better non-hook hooks I’ve heard recently—the “you can use a kick in the back” line in what appears to be the chorus (first heard at 1:15). I love the harmonies on “you can use” and I love how the melody drops abruptly on “the back” the first time; and then I love how it doesn’t drop down the next time we hear it (2:12). Note too how the song concretely embodies the angst of decision-making via the very structure of the song, as the music and lyrics combine to prolong, in a fetchingly awkward way, the words “to make the right decision.”

In the process, this is a good example of a song that you can understand without really understanding. I have no idea what’s going on subject-wise even while I kind of do. I don’t think it’s possible for a bad song to affect this, so if nothing else, that proves that this is a good song. Music appreciation made easy! Kind of.

This Much is a self-identified “musical project” based in the Boston area, spearheaded by singer/songwriter (as well as guitarist, pianist, mixing engineer, and recording technician) Terrence Mulhern, with friends John Stricker and Denny Kennedy on bass and drums, respectively. “Decision” is from a self-released two-song EP the band issued in July. You can listen to and download both “Decision” and the second song, “Spiral,” via SoundCloud, and comment there directly to the band. “Decision” is also, of course, available above in the usual manner.

Free and legal MP3: Dungeonesse (gauzy integration of robotic & organic)

“Nightlight” combines a sweeping, Annie Lennox-like sheen with a compressed, laptop-rock sensibility, and lives to tell about it.

“Nightlight” – Dungeonesse

“Nightlight” combines a sweeping, Annie Lennox-like sheen with a compressed, laptop-rock sensibility, and lives to tell about it. An explicit verse-chorus structure is surrendered in favor of an interwoven A/B/sort-of-A structure and a succinct, recurring, cumulatively magnetic melodic hook: that five-interval leap we hear right near the beginning (0:06), and repeatedly throughout. Singer Jenn Wasner—well-known in indie circles as half of the Baltimore duo Wye Oak—sets free her inner blue-eyed-soul singer, giving voice in this side project to a fuller, deeper, more melismatic vocal style than employed in her home band, in which she has typically sounded duskier and reverb-ier.

I find the song’s integration of the robotic and the organic continually compelling. At the beginning, Wasner croons over a dry, snapping electronic beat. The percussion disappears in section two (0:45), which is driven instead by a double-time melody and reverberating, fairy-tale synths. Some programmed rat-a-tats transition us into a hazy third section (0:57) that is a close relative to section one but featuring wily keyboard runs that emerge so seamlessly from the electronics as almost to manifest unnoticed. The few measures of piano-like presence that follow seem both natural and dreamlike before melting back into electronics as the first section is reintroduced—although this time (1:19) minus the aforementioned snapping beat, which lends an elusive softness to this gauzy yet substantive composition. More clearly electronic percussion returns for a final iteration of the third section, the piano work now replaced by a rich interlacing of harmonies and wordless backing vocal lines. The song might have faded out here; instead, the double-time second section is brought back as a kind of coda, and when Wasner takes its final words up an octave, we arrive at a suddenly satisfying and unprogrammed conclusion.

Dungeonesse is a collaboration between Wasner and singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist/producer Jon Ehrens, who has been involved in a number of bands, including White Life and the Art Department. Wasner and Ehrens composed the songs for Dungeonesse remotely, with the originally Baltimore-based Ehrens relocated to L.A. and Wasner on tour with Wye Oak. The duo’s self-titled album was released in May on the Bloomington, Indiana-based label Secretly Canadian. MP3 via Secretly Canadian.

Free and legal MP3: Brandon Thomas De La Cruz

Powerful simplicity

“White Roses” – Brandon Thomas De La Cruz

“White Roses” is as simple as a song is likely to be in 2013—a plainly strummed acoustic instrument, a delicate tenor voice, three verses and three choruses, over and done in three minutes, sixteen seconds. The lyrics too are plainspoken in the extreme; De La Cruz has a previously explicated talent for compositional austerity, otherwise known as having a way with one-syllable words. (For instance: in the last version of the chorus, 20 of 22 words have one syllable; the other two are “roses” and “listen.”)

Now then, simplicity doesn’t guarantee quality any more than complexity does. But the high-wire act of coming to us with just a nylon-stringed guitar and a voice and a satchel full of plain words is itself impressive; that De La Cruz manages to add genuine beauty into the equation renders the end product all but breathtaking. To begin with, the melody is gorgeous, and deceptively deep. The entire verse and chorus is one unbroken melody line, with an elegant transition that leaves the verse unresolved and sets up the chorus’s beautiful inevitability, complete with a lovely bit of major/minor drama—how the uplifting “I still saw it was you” part (0:44) veers into the minor-key “coming through” (0:48) addendum, before cycling resolutely back to a gentle major key.

And perhaps the most beautiful thing of all here are the female harmony vocals. Four singers are credited, and they slide into place so gracefully, only in the chorus, and sing with such sweet subdued finesse, and are so apt in tone and intent, that you might almost miss them even as they are fully audible and perhaps the song’s greatest asset.

“White Roses” is from the album Common Miracles, which De La Cruz released at the end of May. You can hear the whole thing on Bandcamp, and buy it there on a name-your-price basis. You can download “White Roses” via the link above, as usual, or do it via SoundCloud, where you can leave a comment directly for De La Cruz, if you so desire. The Southern California-based singer/songwriter was featured previously on Fingertips in January 2011.

Free and legal MP3: TV Girl (21st c. DIY becomes classic rock’n’roll)

While the muddy/scratchy DIY ambiance feels solidly of the moment, there’s something around the edges of this boppy, summery song that comes across as pure classic rock’n’roll.

“She Smokes in Bed” – TV Girl

While the muddy/scratchy DIY ambiance feels solidly of the moment, there’s something around the edges of this boppy, summery song that comes across as pure classic rock’n’roll. The effortless, half-time verse melodies are a good start—while the music chugs along with a misleadingly busy feeling (there aren’t really that many sounds in play), the lyrics offer an unhurried narrative on top, buffeted by the ever-underrated trick of octave harmonies. Note the verse has two separate but related melodic sections, which keeps the ear engaged, and sets up the simple chorus with its one (titular) lyric and then those carefree but carefully constructed wordless lines that follow. Another small sonic touch that delivers a nice payoff to my ear is that slightly misaligned keyboard or synth sound that hovers in the distance, particularly in the intro and the chorus. It barely registers unless you’re listening carefully, but it adds materially to the aural palette.

For all its easy-going charm, “She Smokes in Bed” appears to take a tragic lyrical turn; while the words here tend to be swallowed by the mix, there’s no missing that the last visit to the chorus changes the verb to the past tense.

TV Girl is the San Diego-based duo of singer Brad Petering and singer/guitarist/keyboardist Trung Ngo, who grew up in the same neighborhood and went to high school together. They released their debut, self-titled, sample-oriented EP in 2010, which included an internet buzz-track (“If You Want It”) that got scrubbed from the web for its illegal use of samples from the old Todd Rundgren standard “Hello It’s Me.” A second EP followed in 2011, and then a full-length in 2012—The Wild, The Innocent, The TV Shuffle—that the band called a “mixtape” and gave away for free due, again, to its sample-reliant construction. “She Smokes in Bed” is a song from TV Girl’s new five-song EP, Lonely Women; this one is for sale and appears less obviously built by sampling. (Note that there is nothing inherently wrong with sampling but there is something inherently wrong with copyright infringement.) (Don’t get me started.) You can listen and purchase via Bandcamp. Thanks to the free and legal MP3 veterans at 3hive for the head’s up, and the download.

Free and legal MP3: Pure Bathing Culture (Portland duo making warm & graceful music)

Here is a crafty duo from Portland—Daniel Hindman on guitar, Sarah Versprille on keys and vocals—that appears to understand the power of restraint

“Pendulum” – Pure Bathing Culture

Immediately warm and welcoming, “Pendulum” punctuates its laid-back opening groove with a concise guitar riff—but only twice. It’s a sturdy, time-honored three-chord descent, the kind of riff with which a typical rock band might pound you into submission. Here, then, is a crafty duo from Portland—Daniel Hindman on guitar, Sarah Versprille on keys and vocals—that appears to understand the power of restraint; they use the riff only in the intro and in the chorus and each time we hear it repeated just the two times. Instead of walloping you with it, they caress you.

And then there’s the matter of singer Versprille, and the sweet vigor with which she sings. Even through a smeary blanket of reverb, her voice has a cloudless purity. It too feels like a kind of caress. Oh, and when we only heard the riff twice in the introduction, it was followed by an ancillary instrumental melody gliding gracefully down and partially back up a full octave. That turns out to be the climactic melody line in the chorus, and as in the intro, it follows those two iterations of the riff; but see here how the riff now weaves itself artfully below the emphatic melody line. The entire song, upon repeated listens, feels like one grand and artful weave, and Hindman’s guitar lines turn out to be just as much the cause of delight as his band mate’s vocals.

“Pendulum” is a song from the duo’s full-length debut, Moon Tides, due to arrive in August on Partisan Records. The pair previously released a four-song EP in 2012, and was featured here for the song “Ivory Coast” last May. Thanks to Lauren Laverne over at BBC Radio 6 Music for the head’s up.

Free and legal MP3: Dark for Dark (upbeat yet melancholy)

Upbeat yet melancholy, “Sweetwater”‘s power is cemented by its ear-grabbing if bittersweet chorus.

“Sweetwater” – Dark for Dark

Lap steel, banjo, and tenor guitar: this here is a country song. Sort of. The instrumentation suggests it, but as soon as Rebecca Zolkower opens her mouth, the song veers in a somewhat different direction. Zolkower sings with the unadorned charm of a dorm-room folksinger; for me, her plain and pretty tone brings Suzzy Roche to mind, a connection reinforced by the band’s composition—Dark for Dark features three women, and three female voices in confident and determined harmony with one another.

“Sweetwater” is upbeat yet melancholy, with brisk, poetic verses and a power cemented by an ear-grabbing chorus, in which, first, a jaunty melody (tracing a B major chord in a I-V-III pattern) is matched to what may be our language’s most desolate phrase (“And when I die”). But then: both the lyrics and melody slide almost out of hearing, and background singers Jess Lewis and Mel Stone proceed to echo words we didn’t quite hear when Zolkower first sang them. It’s an odd but engaging few moments. The front woman comes back to the foreground on the last phrase (“in the ground”) in a catching-up-from-behind manner that provides almost as endearing a closure as the follow-up surely does: the wordless “bah-bah” exchange between lead and backup singers through one more melodic run-through of the chorus, minus the elusive sections.

And, as often happens here, reading about it is more complicated than listening to it. Hell, the song is only two minutes twenty-eight seconds. I suggest listening.

Dark for Dark was founded in 2012, but all three members are veterans of the Halifax music scene, and Zolkower and Stone were previously together in the band The Prospector’s Union. Zolkower got the name for the band while reading The Hobbit a few years ago, and kind of laughs now at how inapposite the name is for the kind of lovely music the eventual band eventually created. “Sweetwater” is the second track on the group’s debut album, Warboats, which was self-released last month. You can listen to the whole thing, and purchase it, via Bandcamp.

Free and legal MP3: EP’s Trailer Park (nostalgic sing-along from Sweden)

An airy, agile flute line sets the tone early, launching “Cynical Lover” into a partly-sunny haze of nostalgic piano chords, swaying melodies, and rich harmonies.

“Cynical Lover” – EP’s Trailer Park

An easy-going sing-along with the air of the ’70s about it. And no banjo or pedal steel at all, as those instruments were banned before the recording started. It was one of 12 “dogmatic rules” the band posted in advance, and apparently obeyed. The list is too good not to reproduce here:

1. A ban on all things Beatles
2. A ban on Pedal steel, banjo and mandolin
3. Vocals is the finest instrument
4. No alcohol or sweets in the studio
5. Acoustic instruments should go before electric
6. No guest singers or duets
7. The drums should sound like drums
8. The vocals will be sung shirtless
9. The coffee should be taken on Mellqvists and lunch at Rosen
10. Short songs should go before long songs
11. Beautiful is good
12. At least one murder ballad

An airy, agile flute line sets the tone early here, launching “Cynical Lover” into a partly-sunny haze of nostalgic piano chords, swaying melodies, and rich harmonies. Front man Eric Palmqwist sings with a fragile kind of assertiveness (I hear Rick Danko in this somewhere), and while his unschooled tenor is not the kind of voice one expects to hearing backed by close, invigorating harmonies, it all seems to work, and definitely urges all but the most impassive listeners to join in on the chorus.

Palmqwist started up EP’s Trailer Park in 1999 after his previous band, Monostar, called it quits. This new effort was designed as a kind of revolving-door ensemble, with a variety of musicians passing through the “trailer park” over the years, including Tobias Fröberg (previously featured here) and Björn Yttling from Peter, Bjorn & John. Two of Palmqwist’s three sidemen this time around remain from the last EP’s Trailer Park album, in 2010. “Cynical Lover” is from the outfit’s fourth album, which is self-titled, and was released in Sweden at the beginning of the year; the song was released as a single last month. You can listen to the full album on SoundCloud.