MP3s – Page 52 – Fingertips

Free and legal MP3: Husky (buoyant neo-folk-rock)

Cross Love with America and you’re in the ballpark.

“The Woods” – Husky

Although it has more than a touch of ’60s/’70s West Coast folk-rock earnestness about it, “The Woods” feels somehow more approachable than this might imply. The overall tone is buoyant, not weighty. Cross Love with America and you’re in the ballpark.

A lot is going on here for a song that’s not much more than three minutes long. The crisp acoustic intro—yes, it kind of sounds like “Hotel California” for a moment—starts in one key then switches us to another. The song proper opens with a verse melody that descends via a series of alternating up and down intervals, a particularly engaging melody because it begins with seven distinct, non-repeating notes. This an nifty feat, drawing the listener without effort into the song’s universe. The dramatic drum accents don’t hurt. Moving forward, we get: a rhythmic shift with the chorus (0:44), itself featuring a yearning, briefly-sing-along melody; a revisit of the verse in light of the new rhythm (1:21) (and keep your ear on the lovely piano fills); a bridge that slows the song nearly to a halt (2:14); and a haunting, falsetto-driven coda inspired by the song’s first line (2:44).

Named for front man Husky Gawenda, the band coalesced as a foursome in Melbourne in 2008. Its debut album, Forever So, was released in Australia last fall, and is coming on in the US on Sub Pop in July. They are in fact the first Australian band signed to the landmark indie label. MP3 via Magnet Magazine.

Free and legal MP3: Two Wounded Birds (brisk, unironic rock’n’roll, w/ pure pop appeal)

No electronic trickery, thematic gimmickry, or theatrical tomfoolery; rock’n’roll with an unironic heart of pure pop.

“To Be Young” – Two Wounded Birds

“To Be Young” is so insidiously appealing that anything that might cause some possible trouble here (copping half a melody from the Pretenders “Don’t Get Me Wrong”; intermittently affected vocal style) is neutralized by the soaring success of its pure pop songiness.

A deep-noted guitar lick both launches and anchors the piece. Note how swiftly the music moves even as the lyrics take their time; both in the verse and the chorus there are at least two brisk measures of music between every single lyrical line. This creates a built-in anticipation for each subsequent line—as listeners, we kind of lean in, waiting. This kind of structural delayed gratification is reinforced by melodies that deliver their payoff on the back end. For instance, the verse hook (or, maybe, not so much a hook as a “moment”) is the repeated melody at the end of the line (in the first verse (0:34), it’s the same lyric too: “My head don’t feel right”). In the chorus, as much as the ear is lured in by the opening salvo (“It’s too early”), the song, to my ears, triumphs by nailing the landing, as it were—with the lines “‘Cause we were young/And hopeless,” with that slightly hesitant melisma on the word “young,” the notes of which repeat on “hopeless,” and the music separating them out while we wait, and wait, for the resolution. This comes, actually, only with the transition back to the verse. The song moves on, briskly.

Two Wounded Birds are a quartet from Margate, in the UK. They have previously released an EP and a couple of singles. “To Be Young” is from the band’s self-titled debut album, set for release in June on the Holiday Friends Recording Co., a label co-founded by Jacob Graham of the Drums and now part of the French Kiss Records family. MP3 via Austin Town Hall.

Free and legal MP3: Cub Scouts (breezy, but w/ melancholy core)

Breezy, but with a melancholy core.

“Do You Hear” – Cub Scouts

A breezy song with a melancholy core. Tempo-wise, it’s a finger-snapper but listen attentively and you’ll hear a song that again and again resists resolution, both melodically and harmonically. The expectant vibe with which it launches never quite disappears. That’s what makes it feel kind of lost and lonely, independent of the lyrics (which sound lost and lonely too, though, as much as I can grasp them).

So what’s going on is that the song is rooted in a chord that is not the song’s tonic chord. The tonic chord is, typically, the home base of a song, the chord based on the song’s key (i.e., if a song is written in D major, the D major chord is the tonic chord). We don’t need to hear this chord all the time but it’s usually there to ground us. “Do You Hear” opens up on one chord, stays with it for nearly half a minute, and it’s not the tonic. This would feel pretty edgy except for the bouncy demeanor. And it is this juxtaposition that gives the song its depth and allure, as far as I can tell. In the chorus, by the way, we get a kind of opposite effect, as the melody stays focused mostly on one note as the chords shuffle through a progression that finally resolves—briefly—when the melody drops through to the tonic note (heard the first time at 0:53, on the third iteration of “things you’ve done”). But listen to how quickly we are kicked away from that moment, emphasized by a guitar riff yet again away from the tonic chord. Even the song’s final chord (3:02) keeps the resolution at bay, a not-often-heard effect.

A quintet from Brisbane, Cub Scouts is a new band with two singles so far to their name. “Do You Hear” will appear on a forthcoming EP.

Free and legal MP3: Chromatics (buzzy, reverby gorgeousness)

Buzzy, reverby gorgeousness.

“Kill For Love” – Chromatics

A masterly slice of buzzy, reverby gorgeousness, “Kill For Love” is half Jesus & Mary Chain/New Order mashup, half resplendent dance-club shimmer. There are bleepy, twittery synthesizers, scronky guitars, a rigorous (but seemingly handmade) drumbeat, instrumental melody lines, and a fuzzed-up soundscape. On top of it all we get the subtly radiant voice of Ruth Radelet, who sings without pretension and with a wonderful touch of smoke.

Overall the song seems built on a series of simple gestures that read aurally as elegant. An example is in the drumming, and how the song begins with a distinct, pulse-like pounding, which unconsciously draws us in with its heart-related sonic imagery. At 0:49, an insistent high-hat adds a metallic blur, out of which a number of new background sounds emerge. This is not complicated but it is incisive. More songs would be this relatively simple if they knew how; it’s kind of like that old saw about how I would’ve written you a shorter letter but I didn’t have the time.

Chromatics is/are (so difficult to select the right verb form in this case) a Portland, Ore.-based band that began as a punk-rock outfit in Seattle in 2002. Personnel changes led to a major reboot in 2007, with the album Night Drive, on the Italians Do It Better label, which introduced Radelet as vocalist and Johnny Jewel as the band’s mastermind. Kill For Love, released in March, continues in this mode. You can listen to the entire album, blended together without breaks between songs, via SoundCloud. If nothing else, be sure to check out the opening track, which is a splendid if unexpected reworking of Neil Young’s “My My Hey Hey (Into the Black).”

MP3 via SoundCloud; thanks to Pitchfork for the head’s up. And actually I was first alerted to this song via Matt Pond’s Twitter feed, so thanks to him too.

Free and legal MP3: Soltero (jaunty & homespun)

Reminiscent of Yo La Tengo’s acoustic side.

“Mercenary Heart” – Soltero

Jaunty and homespun, “Mercenary Heart” has the loose-limbed warmth of Yo La Tengo’s acoustic side. Underneath the mild-mannered ambiance, however, is the same kind of songwriting diligence that Soltero has displayed the previous two times they’ve been featured here (in 2004 and 2008).

Although not as extremely positioned as the Cub Scouts song regarding resolution, or lack thereof, singer/songwriter Tim Howard definitely uses unresolved moments to his advantage here, employing melody lines both in the verse and in the chorus that end before resolving. Rather than leaving the ear hanging, however, Howard lets the music resolve after the singing stops, which, in addition to the breezy pace, is what gives the song its sense of relentless motion.

I also like how effectively Howard works with sound, and how he shows that you don’t have to go nuts with strange and novel sonic elements to create compelling textures. Here, Howard works with little more than two guitar sounds and the regular and upper register of his own voice. True to the cliche, less can often be more.

Soltero recorded four albums as a (usually) four-piece band in Boston from 2000 to 2005. The fifth album, in 2008, was pretty much a solo endeavor for Howard, who was then living in Philadelphia. He went on to live in North Carolina and Central America before settling recently in Brooklyn. “Mercenary Heart” is a song from 1943, the latest Soltero album, set for release next week. The album was recorded largely with Alex Drum (who is in fact a drummer), but playing live now the band is back to four pieces. Note that there are two other songs in addition to this one available as free and legal MP3s via Bandcamp.

Free and legal MP3: Balthrop, Alabama (incisive storytelling from 11-piece ensemble)

“Electricity” offers us a refreshing break from 21st-century indie-rock’s inclination towards obscurantism. And you can dance to it.

“Electricity” – Balthrop, Alabama

“Electricity” offers us a refreshing break from 21st-century indie-rock’s inclination towards obscurantism. And you can dance to it.

I’ve got nothing against a certain amount of lyrical mystery, mind you, but I think today’s exceedingly well-educated rockers often overdo it in the “what are they talking about?” category. There’s something to be said for narrative clarity and matter-of-fact insight, and “Electricity,” the dryly related story of a small town and its first long-ago Saturday night with electricity, has both. The storytelling is musical as much as lyrical here. You’ll obviously notice the noodly, sci-fi synth that is immediate aural code for “ooh! electricity!” But note too the perfect electric guitar sound, right there in the intro—that buzzy but vibrant tone, which, combined with a fuzzed-out drumbeat, feels shot through with current. When the opening riff returns in an instrumental break at 2:47, the guitar sounds even more thematically aligned; I can’t describe it but it feels to my ears like the sound an electrified fence would make if you could play it like an instrument.

As for the story itself, I like how it extends beyond the Saturday night into Sunday morning, when no one could get up because they had all been up so late. This, we are being told indirectly, is really how “things will never be the same in this city.” It’s an incisive twist.

Brooklyn-based Balthrop, Alabama was founded by Alabama-born siblings Pascal and Lauren Balthrop, who have named the band as they did for their idea that the band itself, with 11 members, is a kind of small town. “Electricity” is the semi-title-track from the ensemble’s new album, We Have Electricity, released last month on the not-for-profit End Up Records, also located in Brooklyn. After a double-album debut in 2007 and four subsequent EPs, this is the band’s first regular-length album. MP3 via Magnet Magazine.

Free and legal MP3: Sophie Barker (downtempo loveliness)

“Say Goodbye” weaves a knowing spell, breaking no new territory but doing what it does with great bittersweet panache.

“Say Goodbye” – Sophie Barker

Sophie Barker is not a name you’re likely to recognize but you may well recognize her voice—she sang a number of songs fronting the musical outfit Zero 7, which helped popularize the so-called downtempo (or chillout, or downbeat) genre early in the millennium. (She co-wrote and sang, for one, the widely-heard song “In The Waiting Line.”) Personally, I never warmed to Zero 7, and I think it was because of my irrational prejudice against “producer music.” Zero 7 was/is the brainchild of two British producer/remixer types, and to me that eliminates the main thing I get out of music, which is a sense of personal connection to a musician who is playing an instrument and/or singing a song. This is just me, I will note. You are entitled and even encouraged to feel otherwise.

Anyway, so if Sophie Barker now comes along with a similarly chilled-out sound but is singing and performing her own material, rather than as a hired hand on a musical “project,” I find my heart much more open to it than I was to her Zero 7 performances. “Say Goodbye” weaves a knowing spell, breaking no new territory but doing what it does with great bittersweet panache. (New territory, as I’ve said many times, is way overrated.) Barker has a lovely voice, at once plainspoken and rich, with a thrilling upper register that she unleashes largely in the chorus (although don’t miss how she sometimes flits into it briefly, as for instance when she sings the words “Will you” in the line “Will you be standing by me?” at 0:45). With its offhand melodies and melancholy bursts of harmony, “Say Goodbye” shimmers with feeling, and, to me, shows the potential power of this kind of composition when sung truly from the heart.

“Say Goodbye” is from the album Seagull, Barker’s third solo album, released last year in the UK. She is currently playing in the US. No word yet on whether the album is slated for a US release, but the promotional MP3 suggests something might be in the works. Thanks to Largehearted Boy for the lead.

Free and legal MP3: Mirror Lady (luminous lo-fi)

This is one of those songs that you can take a slice of at any point and find all sorts of interesting and wonderful things happening.

“Hands Are Tied” – Mirror Lady

Careful readers will know that lo-fi music makes an occasional appearance here, but it’s more accident than statement. I am not a fan of lo-fi for the sake of its lo-fi-ness; I am a fan of good songs, and when they happen to be constructed in a lo-fi environment, hooray for that, because it’s another worthy three or four minutes of music unleashed in the world.

“Hands Are Tied” is a particular marvel, a song both superbly crafted and distinctly attuned to its lo-fi setting—so attuned in fact that you almost don’t notice how lo-fi it is. That, to me, is a brilliant accomplishment. The key is the warmth of the sound. Bathed in reverb, the song still feels lucid and distinct. The keyboard, guitar, and the bass all but melt together, sketching lazy joint melodies over a drum beat at once urgent and welcoming. This is one of those songs that you can take a slice of at any point and find all sorts of interesting and wonderful things happening. I particularly like the woodwind-y synth melody that chimes in after the phrase “always the same,” first heard at 1:45. I am charmed as well by the very end of the song, how you can hear the bass turn off, which in that one sound/gesture embodies the song’s lo-fi warmth.

Now based in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles, the three men calling themselves Mirror Lady first started playing together while students at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. “Hands Are Tied” is from the band’s debut recording, an EP entitled Roman Candles, which was self-released last month and is available via Bandcamp on a “name your price” basis.

Free and legal MP3: Jesca Hoop (not all vocal processing is evil)

The song’s dizzy momentum is bewitching, and for all the electronic processing, its human core is both obvious and dazzling.

“Born To” – Jesca Hoop

With all of the vexation I’ve been feeling these last couple of years regarding Auto-Tune, I’ve forgotten something important: I’ve never had anything against vocal distortion per se. There is absolutely nothing wrong, to me, with the artful use of filters, effects, and so forth. Any number of favored musicians and wonderful songs have employed such tools. In its proper place, Auto-Tune may offer a new range of possibilities for artful vocal distortion as well. (Hint: its over-use by and domination of today’s top 40 does not qualify as “its proper place.”)

I’m not sure whether Jesca Hoop is here using Auto-Tune or some other processing system (probably the latter; perhaps a vocoder), but the main point to my ears is that you can hear, viscerally, the quality of her singing voice (not to mention her songwriting voice), regardless of what she’s doing to process the sound. And this blending of the natural and the man-made appears to be part of the song’s purpose from the very start. The opening riff—brisk and complex and almost thrilling—is played on acoustic guitar and yet set in a hazily processed soundscape. Her voice arrives in a similar brew, full of both spirit and artifice. The song’s dizzy momentum is bewitching, and for all the electronic processing, its human core is both obvious and dazzling. Contrast this to the cynical, sheep-like use of Auto-Tune in the pop world, effecting little more than the addition of a metallic/robotic edge to the vocal that will sound fad-like and pointless once we emerge culturally from our trance-like attachment to it.

Hoop is an adventurous singer/songwriter who was born in Northern California, grew up Mormon, lived as a homesteader in Western wilderness areas, worked for five years as the nanny for Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan’s children (no, really), and picked up and moved to Manchester, England in 2009 at the encouragement of Elbow’s Guy Garvey. “Born To” is a song from her forthcoming album, The House That Jack Built, scheduled for release in June on Bella Union. Hoop was previously featured here in 2007.

Free and legal MP3: Jonka (neo-’80s electro pop, w/ soul)

“Every Other Day” burns with the booty-shaking resolve of an old Hot Chocolate song, channeled through the ’80s electro-pop stylebook.

“Every Other Day” – Jonka

A textbook exercise in how to construct a groove, “Every Other Day” burns with the booty-shaking resolve of an old Hot Chocolate song, channeled through the ’80s electro-pop style book, Erasure edition. Listen to how the layers coalesce—first the basic beat, itself an alluring blend of distant-seeming sounds; then the bass, all fat and old-school; then the first foreground element, a slappy, tappy percussive sound playing a jittery series of double-time flourishes. At this point, it’s cool but not necessarily awesome. Awesome arrives with the next two elements: the organ-y synthesizer (0:24) that skitters away seemingly between the beats; and, the pièce de résistance, the high, swooping “oo-oos” (0:32) that deliver the song’s first melody, wordless though it may be.

Beyond the sure groove, what sells “Every Other Day” is Jonka’s commitment to vocal harmonies. Just as the twosome blend their names—Jon Neufeld and Annika Kaye—to create the band’s name, so do they blend their voices in a plush, ongoing layering of harmony not often heard in this musical setting. From the opening lyric, the band mates (a married couple, you should know) sing every word together, and are over-dubbed so that there are at least two of each of them singing at all times. Neufeld’s soulful baritone takes the lead but Kaye’s full-bodied backing vocals are just as important a part of the song’s texture. The song’s melodies, meanwhile, percolate relentlessly upward, giving the song an almost gospel-like sense of uplift.

Neufeld and Kaye live in Brooklyn. Neufeld grew up on Staten Island and Kaye, born in Sweden, was raised in Manhattan. “Every Other Day” is the first song available from the duo’s second album, Pinks and Blues, which is arriving at some unspecified date in the reasonably near future.