MP3s – Page 43 – Fingertips

Free and legal MP3: Low

Not slow this time but quite, actually, low

Built on a creamy, low-end, guitar-driven groove, “Just Make It Stop” immediately contradicts itself with music that sounds like it could pretty much keep going forever. With a prominent, recycling major-to-minor key modulation adding to the momentum, the song does not even stop to acquire a separated chorus—one melody services both chorus and verse (“I could tell the whole world/To get out of the way” indeed.)

There is something seductive here in this rich, brisk song that revels in its lower-register grace. Not only does Mimi Parker’s dusty alto dominate, but the entire piece seems to rest down below where most rock songs want to live. Rock’n’roll catharsis stereotypically happens at the shrieky end of things: guitar solos so far up the neck the fingers are really on the body; singers throwing their heads back to emit glass-shattering howls. Since its beginnings as an inadvertent “slowcore” pioneer, Low has never been about such flagrant drama, preferring to find a different kind of thrill in spaciousness of various kinds—slow tempos, thoughtful structures, uncrowded arrangements. Even as they’ve broadened their sound over the years, there remains an alluring awareness of space in the band’s music, even when the tempo in this case has us tapping our toes rather than closing our eyes. Not too many other bands would think of, never mind get away with, the skeletal instrumental break we get here after the song’s opening chorus (1:00), in which the instrumentalists play as if each waits for someone else to take the lead. The second time we get to this break (2:17), there’s what we waited for: a piano pounding out a gut-satisfying left-hand melody, grounding the song down in that deep place it’s been in the whole time. (They don’t call themselves Low for nothing.)

“Just Make It Stop” is from the album The Invisible Way, coming out next week on Sub Pop Records. Produced by Jeff Tweedy and recorded in Wilco’s Chicago studio, it is the band’s tenth album; the Duluth trio is now in their 20th year together. Longtime Low fans note that Mimi sings lead on five of 11 songs this time around—welcome news for most, as she’s usually up front for just one or two per album. MP3 via Sub Pop. If you go to Low’s page on the record label site, you’ll find eight other free and legal MP3s to download, including two that were previously featured here (in April 2011 and in February 2005).

Free and legal MP3: Liam Singer (beautiful, intelligent, unusual, accessible)

A complex, expertly composed pop song, as artful as it is accessible.

“Stranger I Know” – Liam Singer

Gifted and accessible, Liam Singer is the kind of musician for whom Fingertips exists. We are assaulted by endless sound, we are inundated by generic, laptop-fueled creations, we have abandoned meaning for virality and melody for sensation, and yet even here, in this crazed inferno, exist some (hat tip to old friend Italo Calvino) who are not inferno. I try to find these folks every week or so, to give them space and help them endure, and Liam Singer pretty much epitomizes the mission.

Here’s a guy who can begin with a keyboard refrain all but Bachian in its playful convolution (in what appears to be 6/4 time no less), find a melody to sing on top of the refrain, add a chorus too severely syncopated ever to sing along with, float woodwinds and angelic backing vocals through the artfully conceived soundscape, use a cello without showing off, and wrap the whole enterprise up in less than three minutes. And it’s seriously beautiful. As the lyrics glide in and out of comprehension, there’s an air of something out of time here. The title refers not to a “stranger I know” but is the beginning of a sentence addressing this stranger, and as such conveys the flavor of some centuries-old ballad (an impression reinforced by the apparent use of the pronoun “thy”). At the same time there’s something not only modern but brand-new seeming in the song’s sprightly lift and distinctive construction. A winner start to finish.

“Stranger I Know” is the first track made available from the album Arc Iris, which is scheduled for release in July by Hidden Shoal Recordings. Singer was born in Oregon and is based in Queens, NY; this will be his fourth album. He was previously featured on Fingertips in September 2010. MP3 via Hidden Shoal.

Free and legal MP3: The Veils

With a terrific, “surprise” hook

“Through the Deep, Dark Wood” – The Veils

“Through the Deep, Dark Wood” is one of those terrific, unusual songs in which the principal hook arrives, like an unannounced special guest, after you thought you’d heard everything the song has to offer. Given the way pop songs tend to be underwritten, combined with the song title’s implication, my ear was initially convinced, as the song unfolded, that the chorus would be nothing more than the phrase “Through the deep, dark wood,” repeated a couple of times, ending with that vigorous, ascending moment at 0:52. Such things pass for choruses all the time, and this one seemed properly dramatic, if minimal. I could all but hear the instrumental bit that would follow to bring the song back to the next verse.

How satisfying to find that this was just the prelude to the song’s true center, which turns out to be the actual chorus that launches from the last repetition of “deep, dark wood,” with its churning, classic-rock chord progression and ear-catching melodic turning point on the repeating phrase “I can’t go back.” And, see, if they had called the song “I Can’t Go Back”—which is the most-often heard phrase, as song titles typically are—I would first of all have been less surprised by the chorus, and maybe even less delighted? Music is a mysterious thing; mysteries, even unelaborate ones, always enhance the experience.

“Through the Deep, Dark Wood” is a song from the album Time Stays, We Go, set for release in April on the band’s own Pitch Beast Records label. The Veils formed in 2001 and recorded their first album in 2004. With Finn Andrews at the helm, band mates have come and gone; in its latest incarnation, The Veils are a quintet. MP3 via Magnet Magazine. You can read more about the band in previous entries here on February 2007 and April 2009.

Free and legal MP3: Kacey Johansing (mellow surface masks complex composition)

The song is rooted in the silky-deep tone of the guitar but nothing is really as easy-breezy as the mellow sound implies.

“Enemy” – Kacey Johansing

Fluent and assured, “Enemy” casts a compelling spell with minimal fuss—a deftly picked electric guitar, a smoky soprano (perhaps mezzo?), and artfully arranged backing vocals are just about all we get. The song is rooted in the silky-deep tone of the guitar but nothing is really as easy-breezy as the mellow sound implies. Listen to how the opening riff starts away from the tonic—a subtle jar to the ear—and then to that tiny rhythmic hiccup it offers at 0:06.

The whole song is like that, its mellifluous surface masking twists and misdirections. The central melody—languid, descending, black-note-dominated—recycles equivocally through a song that doesn’t seem to have either verses or a chorus. Lyrical lines are typically repeated, and long stretches of wordless vocals are employed, enhanced by silvery choral layers. And then, approaching the song’s midpoint, a new lyric starts, without repeats this time, which has the effect of making the lines stand out more rather than less. It feels like we’ve arrived at the song’s unexpectedly powerful nucleus (“You don’t trust/You won’t love/Nothing will ever be good enough”), the backing vocals now emerging in the worded section too, and before the mind can quite absorb this development, Johansing glides back into a repeating line (“You can find a balance, achieve a balance”), the echoey but disciplined backing vocals now get to sing their first actual word (“balance!”), and the effect is almost startling. Soon after, the opening riff returns but with the guitar’s tone rubbed raw and harsh (2:11). There is more going on in this song than a casual listen will uncloak.

Johansing is a San Francisco-based singer/songwriter who has been involved in a number of Bay Area projects, including the bands Geographer and Honeycomb; she is currently, also, half of the experimental folk duo Yesway. “Enemy” is from Johansing’s second solo album Grand Ghosts, which was self-released at the end of February. You can stream the whole thing, and purchase it, via Bandcamp. Meanwhile, over on her SoundCloud page, two other songs from the album are available for free and legal download. Thanks to the artist for the MP3.

Free and legal MP3: Meg Mac (retro soul w/ old-school flair)

Songs that can make you clap and move while fiddling with time signatures are generally songs to be admired.

“Known Better” – Meg Mac

Just too damn charming to quibble about anything that might, here, be so quibbled. Is Meg Mac aiming to split the difference between Adele and Amy Winehouse? Could be. And why not? There’s a real musical sweet spot to be found there, and here, in this knowing piece of first-rate retro-soul. What lights this on fire to me is the song’s stompy, asymmetrically-placed piano riff, which plunks itself down between beats, creating a powerful stutter, both tripping the song up and launching it further at the same time. Songs that can make you clap and move while fiddling with time signatures are generally songs to be admired.

From its old-school intro—not instrumental vamping, but a slow, otherwise unused vocal melody—“Known Better” oozes both ardor and aptitude. There are knowing chord changes (not just the dramatic one at 0:39 but the subtler set-up, after the words “back someday” at 0:34), there are skillful production effects, such as the shot of processed vocals at 0:50, and most of all there are the songwriting chops that put this all together so spiffily, with that piano riff ever at the center of things. For a short piece of pop, the song is not satisfied standing still. The second iteration of the verse uses a somewhat different melody, and there seem to be not one but two different bridges, including that one in the middle with the hand-claps and an ear-catching switch to 6/4 time. The use of a refrain line instead of a full-fledged chorus helps keep things moving, and never underestimate the effectiveness of expertly placed “ah-ah-ah”s.

All through, Mac (neé McInerney) sings with panache, perhaps a bit thinly, but I hear someone who is still finding her voice. She’s 22, from Melbourne, and this appears to be her first release of any kind. MP3 via TripleJ, the Australian music site.

photo credit: Tanaya Harper

Free and legal MP3: Lapland (lush electronics)

Warm and blippy, “Unwise” floats in a gently pulsating womb of sound.

“Unwise” – Lapland

Warm and blippy, “Unwise” floats in a gently pulsating womb of sound. There’s a ghostly wash in the background, a quivery layer of synthesizers in the middle, and a simple, gorgeous melody holding the piece together from the top. My ear at first was particularly drawn to the marimba-like synth that ambles its way into a recurring instrumental melody through the course of the introduction. In trying to follow its logic, I bumped into two aural peculiarities. First, there’s an actual guitar in here. Could be wrong about that, but there sure seems to be something scratchy-strummy going in in the middle of the mix. (After listening many different times I finally realized it’s most apparent right in the song’s opening seconds. Somehow I had missed that.) Second, for all the song’s rhythmic allure, there is little if any percussion. This is where electronic sounds can get so fascinatingly nebulous—that fine line between “beat” and “note” that we’ve been living with for the better part of 20 years. Somewhere in this song’s subtle pulse, sounds are rippling with percussive intent, but the amount of what might directly be called percussion is minimal.

Vocally, Josh Mease, the master mind behind Lapland, has borrowed from the Bon Iver school of whispery beauty, minus the claustrophobic edge of the excessively falsettoed. There is in fact a falsetto vocal line here but listen to how it dissolves into the upper end of the mix—as soon as you seek to nail it down, it seems almost to disappear in the woolly ambiance. The lyrics as well are mixed to dissolve upon reaching the ear; after the opening couplet—“I’ve been unwise/Fooled by your disguise”—the songwriter’s words seem subtly to float off into a kind of dream state. And note that this is the third song this week without a real chorus; here, we are hooked by the sturdy interaction of the two basic melody lines that alone support the entire enterprise. (The transition point, first heard at 1:00, is perhaps the song’s most prominent “moment.”)

Mease is a Houston-born, Brooklyn-based musician who put out a solo album in 2009 under his given name but here in 2013 reinvents himself as Lapland. The self-titled “debut” album arrives later this month on the artist-run Brooklyn label Hundred Pockets Records.

photo credit: Susan Pittard

Free and legal MP3: The Bicycles (breezy yet substantial)

“Sun Don’t Want to End” is nearly as good as a truly breezy song can be (angst-ridden songs that merely sound breezy don’t count).

“Sun Don’t Want to End” – The Bicycles

One of the more difficult songwriting challenges in the pop world is how to write a song that’s breezy on the one hand but substantive enough to be worth listening to on the other. Go too easy-breezy on us and the thing floats away from the ear, substance-free (and often insipid and annoying to boot). Another way to go of course is to write a song that sounds breezy but is actually full of angst. That can deliver the substance to be sure, but it’s sort of cheating, no?

“Sun Don’t Want to End” is nearly as good as a truly breezy song can be, and the main reason, my ears tell me, is its stellar opening riff—a snappy, tappy ringing guitar that sounds like what you might get if you major-scaled the Smiths. It’s an incisive little jig, at once familiar and unplaceable, and trusty enough to serve as both a stand-alone introduction and melodic counterpoint to the verse. I like it when bands can weave together two melodies like that, one vocal and one instrumental—it’s an old-school move only to the extent that analog, three-dimensional music skills are required for this kind of boppy integration. From there we are delivered into an extra-breezy (not to mention super-quick) chorus with just the right touch of ’70s-radio suspended chords before being hooked back into the central riff, which, in slightly fleshed-out form (0:53) sounds now like a long-lost friend. The second verse plays with the melody in a satisfying, offhand way—the “Just be good to me/And I’ll be good to you” part, at 1:08—but it turns out we were indeed supposed to notice that, since the song closes on an extended jam featuring those very lyrics. And sure, if you want to be a spoilsport, you could complain that the song goes on for probably a minute too long in that vein, but hey, it’s breezy and fun and good: no need to rush these guys out the door, is there?

“Sun Don’t Need to End” is from the album Stop Thinking So Much, the band’s third, which is coming in April on Fuzzy Logic Recordings (Toronto) (vinyl, digital) and Aporia Records (CD).

photo credit: Christa Treadwell

Free and legal MP3: Polly Scattergood

Dark, swinging electro-ballad

“Wanderlust” – Polly Scattergood

A big dark swinging electro-ballad from a young British musician whose flair for the theatrical (“And when I shut my eyes, I can hear an orchestra playing,” she speaks) brings inevitable Kate Bush comparisons to the table. But dear Kate has rarely been inclined towards something quite so accessible and concise as “Wanderlust,” which offers its head-scratching moments (mostly spoken voice in this case) within the clipped confines of a three-and-a-half-minute pop song. Neither does Bush tend towards a sound as bottom-heavy as this, but there’s a sense of playfulness in the air that does nod towards KB—for all its deep force, that opening synthesizer line (in cahoots, I’m guessing, with a bass synthesizer) does have a frolicsome aspect, like maybe dancing elephants.

I find it interesting that a song called “Wanderlust” circumscribes itself so—listen carefully and you’ll see that the verse and the chorus, while coming across as distinct, are all but indistinguishable melodically. Could be this wanderlust is just as imaginary as that orchestra she hears with her eyes closed. What effectually differentiates the verse and chorus is production prowess: the verses are delivered with a whispery veneer, and without the gut-rumbling bottom of the synthesizer. I’m actually fascinated by the vocal effect that adds the breathy hiss of whispering to Scattergood’s singing voice. (See? I have nothing against vocal effects. At least not good ones.) I can probably find a metaphor that relates this effect to the song as well but I’ll spare you that (probable) stretch and just say I like it.

Polly Scattergood is a 25-year-old musician from Colchester, in the UK (where else, with that name, which is real). “Wanderlust” is a song from Arrows, Scattergood’s forthcoming follow-up to her 2009 debut. The album is due out in June on Mute Records. ~~MP3 via the estimable Chromewaves, one of the pioneer music blogs that remains up and running.~~

Free and legal MP3: The Blank Tapes (impeccable song, classic sound)

Lo-fi recording master Matt Adams takes his Blank Tapes project into a full-fledged recording studio for the first time. Goodness ensues.

“Coast to Coast” – The Blank Tapes

Previously known for his home-recorded-onto-cassette output (and quite a lot of output it was), Matt Adams has taken his shape- (and location-)shifting lo-fi project The Blank Tapes into an actual recording studio, solidified it into a permanent band, and given us an impeccable helping of rock’n’roll goodness in the process.

Adams has always had a knack for songwriting; to my ears, it’s a pleasure to hear a song of his given the width and depth that lo-fi recording really can’t deliver. But it’s not like he’s turned into Beyoncé or anything—a fuzzy sense of the homemade and hand-crafted very much remains, and completely serves a song that pays homage to the garage-y side of classic ’60s rock while avoiding the feel of a hollow knock-off. Hints of the Zombies, the Kinks, CCR, and/or the Guess Who are sprinkled in and around “Coast to Coast,” which is additionally full of splendid touches of its own, both small and large—the minor-key wordless vocal introduction to the major-key song; the fleeting Spector beat in front of the chorus; and (my favorite) the extended bridge that offers not only an aural change of pace but unfolds into a very satisfying coda section (2:48). When the ear is taken on that effective of a side trip, hearts are usually won over.

Adams has spent musical time in both San Francisco and Los Angeles. The latest incarnation of the Blank Tapes is an L.A.-based trio featuring D.A. Humphrey on bass and Pearl Charles on drums. “Coast to Coast” is the first available song from the album Vacation, which is due out in May on Antenna Farm Recordings. You can download the song via the link above or from SoundCloud. Thanks to Largehearted Boy for the head’s up.

Free and legal MP3: Grave Babies (fuzzy, loud, & accessible)

The fuzzy, voluminous surface can’t disguise the catchy song lurking beneath, and obviously doesn’t want to.

“No Fear” – Grave Babies

The fuzzy, voluminous surface can’t disguise the catchy song lurking beneath, and obviously doesn’t want to. Listen, right at the start, to how that ominous electronic swell that opens the song delivers us first into a goth-y electronic beat and then into an instrumental melody—some kind of processed guitar, maybe?—with enough soaring and plummeting desire to break your heart (and don’t miss the extended “wrong” note it almost but doesn’t quite end on, at 0:36, which seems about perfect). This melody—succinct, well-crafted, and affecting—tells you just about everything you need to know about “No Fear,” and immediately sets it apart from the endless number of tunes I hear these days with long, introspective introductions in which nothing friggin’ happens.

And okay, I’ll avoid that particular soapbox for now (just barely), and get back to the various extroverted pleasures “No Fear” offers, which include: the way front man Danny Wahlfeldt sings from within a chorally muffle of distortion, which is oddly captivating for no good reason; the way the introduction’s fetching melody returns, in abbreviated form, in the middle of the song (1:31), something you don’t hear much of today largely because few songs bother with instrumental melody lines; and the general way Grave Babies here unites a variety of disconnected rock’n’roll genres from the ’80s and ’90s and ’00s, not all of which have been known for their pop sensibilities, into something concise and accessible.

“No Fear” is from the album Crusher, the band’s second, coming later this month on Hardly Art Records. Note that Grave Babies are not to be confused with the band Brave Baby, which was featured here in December.

photo credit: Angel Ceballos

Category: MP3s