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Favorite Free and Legal MP3s of 2011 (part 2)

Fingertips’ top 10 favorite free and legal MP3s of 2011.

Here in week 52, the last Fingertips post of the year takes you through my top 10 favorite free and legal MP3s of 2011. If you missed favorites 11 through 20, you can see them in last week’s post.

As with the first part, I’m going here in super-suspenseful reverse order. Without further ado….

10. “Plath Heart” – Braids (January 6)
Rewarding 21st-century pop, charged with both complexity and humanity.

9. “Friends of Friends” – Hospitality (September 22)
Quirky, nostalgic, minimalist NYC indie rock.

8. “Queen of Hearts” – The Unthanks (March 30)
Lovely, off-kilter folk revivalism, from the UK.

7. “Amor Fati” – Washed Out (August 3)
Buoyant, hopeful/wistful synth pop.

6. “Shake” – The Grenadines (November 17)
A song urging us to “shake” that is actually sexy.

5. “The Great Pan is Dead” – Cold Cave (February 10)
Dense, powerful, and memorable.

4. “Casablanca Nights” – Johan Agebjörn (with Sally Shapiro) (May 19)
Nimble, ravishing neo-italo-disco.

3. “Teeo” – Vedoinmessico (October 12)
Easy-going, assured multi-national pop.

2. “Serpents” – Sharon Van Etten (December 1)
A “Layla” for the smartphone set; tough, controlled, intense.

1. “Love To Get Used” – Matt Pond PA (April 27)
All sinew and punch, with a brisk drive and an absurdly catchy chorus.

And that’s a wrap. Wishing you all a very happy and nourishing new year. See you in 2012. Mayans permitting.

Favorite Free and Legal MP3s of 2011 (part 1)

Part one of the annual two-part presentation of the year-end Fingertips Favorites list.

Either a great way to catch up with some good songs you might have missed, or an excellent argument starter, the annual Fingertips list of favorite free and legal MP3s of the year is now online. If you’re visiting the site, you can access the entire list through one of the main “tabs.” For those accessing the site via RSS feed or email, I will be spending these last two weeks of the year presenting the favorites in two separate lists of 10.

To be considered for the list, songs had first of all to have been featured on Fingertips during the year 2011, and second of all must still be available as free and legal MP3s. You can download any or all of them right here the usual way, or listen via the play button if you happen to be reading this directly on the Fingertips site. If my snappy one-sentence song summaries leave you wanting more, you can read the original reviews by clicking on the date next to each band name, which is the date of the original Fingertips post.

I’ll start, as tradition has it, with the list presenting my numbers 11 through 20 favorites, but in reverse (for suspense, you see). Stand on your head if you prefer them in the proper order. Next week I’ll be back with the top 10.

20. “Last Dance” – Gabriel Kahane (July 27)
Complex but rewarding art pop from the multi-talented singer/songwriter/composer.

19. “Old Friend” – Caveman (August 11)
Brooklyn quintet delivers sweet, dreamy, driven indie pop.

18. “Civilian” – Wye Oak (January 18)
Sneaky great noise/folk from an increasingly impressive Baltimore duo.

17. “Seeds We Sow” – Lindsey Buckingham (September 22)
At once haunting and soothing. This guy is a rock legend for a reason.

16. “When You Go Down” – Gross Relations (September 15)
Simultaneously bludgeony and melodic, just as it should be.

15. “Drop Names Not Bombs” – Louise Burns (September 8)
Former teen-rock star reinvents herself, with a nod to the Boss.

14. “Sunset Sunrise” – Grace Jones (June 9)
Still trippy after all these years.

13. “My Mistakes” – Eleanor Friedberger (April 27)
Potent single with a casual bounce.

12. “Kick Me Where It Hurts” – The Booze (February 17)
Totally convincing 21st-century update of late-’60s Stones sound.

11. “The Fox” – Niki and the Dove (May 4)
Dark yet resplendent synth pop from Sweden.

Okay, that’s the second ten. If you like surprises, tune in next week for the top 10; if you need it all right now, you can go here, although be warned: you won’t get the incisive one-sentence summaries over on that page. I have to leave something for next week.

Free and legal MP3: School of Seven Bells

Airy atmospherics, guitar-heavy core

School of Seven Bells

“The Night” – School of Seven Bells

Born as a trio, featuring identical-twin sisters Alejandra and Claudia Dehaza, the Brooklyn-based School of Seven Bells found duo-hood forced upon then when Claudia announced in October of last year that she was leaving. While Alejandra was the songwriter of the two—she and guitarist Benjamin Curtis compose the band’s music—there was concern (by me, anyway) that the twosome version of SVIIB would suffer in comparison. The twin-sister harmonies were central to the band’s presentation; Curtis, in fact, told NPR in 2008 that the sisters’ precise, heavenly vocal synthesis was “the most important part of School of Seven Bells,” adding: “Everything else is accompaniment, you know, in my opinion.”

But life goes on: as it turns out, the instantly seductive tone of the Dehaza voice, at once sweet and searing, remains intact, and Alejandra does a splendid job now harmonizing with herself. How this will work in performance remains a question, but the duo version of the band, recorded, sounds pretty much the same as the trio—which is a fine thing for a band with such a distinctive sound to begin with. While the label-fixated blogosphere tosses SVIIB quickly into the dream pop or shoegaze box, this is a band that from the start has been blessed with a truly individual sound: a whirly, driven amalgam that floats airy atmospherics over a guitar-heavy core, while featuring a harmonic language that does not always feel Western and lyrics that veer towards a mystical kind of incomprehensibility.

“The Night” has an itchy vibe; launching from a sparse, uncentered interplay between two opposing guitar sounds, the song takes off at a running clip and yet also fosters an ineffable tension. Listen carefully and you’ll see how few chords are employed here. If I’m not mistaken, we may not have a chord change until 1:20. Note the lyrical clue at 0:50, when, still on the opening chord, Dehaza sings, “You’ve frozen my thoughts/You’ve frozen me out/I’m in the same place you left me baby.” We go from there into the chorus and still the music, almost claustrophobically, refuses to offer a chord progression for yet another 20 seconds. We have been set a purposeful, musical trap, and the song ultimately delivers, but for reasons which defy explicit description. Chalk it up to the same alchemy that allows SVIIB to craft its unique sound from the same ingredients theoretically available to everyone else.

“The Night” is the first track the duo has made available from their upcoming album, Ghostory, which is due in late in February as a joint release by Vagrant Records and Ghostly International. ~~MP3 via Pitchfork.~~ School of Seven Bells were featured previously on Fingertips in 2008.

Free and legal MP3: Jessie Baylin (languorous vibe, sharply written)

A sharp little song presented in a thin, lo-fi setting.

Jessie Baylin

“I Couldn’t Say It To Your Face” – Jessie Baylin

A sharp little song presented in a thin, lo-fi setting, “I Couldn’t Say It To Your Face” has a languorous feel that disguises its solid musical chops. Let’s start with the lack of an introduction. Now then, I’ve got nothing against introductions, at all, but songs that manage without them are often pretty cool; it’s a ballsy move as a songwriter to just say “Here it is, folks,” without any throat-clearing to smooth the way.

And Baylin here doesn’t just start right in, she starts right in with the chorus—another unusual, forthright move. And funny, too, if you relate it to the song’s context: the central, repeated lyrical line is: “I couldn’t say it to your face/But I won’t be around any more.” She can’t talk to the person she’s talking to, but she can jump right in and tell us. The chorus itself, furthermore, has an unusual feel and structure. The main lyric is repeated twice at the beginning and once more at the end, sandwiching a separate line that initially feels like it’s going to be the verse but somehow gets wrapped into the chorus. Time signatures toggle back and forth between 4/4 and 6/4 in the process of this sleight of hand, and continue to do so when we glide into and through the verse. It becomes difficult to locate the beat even as the basic, languid movement feels sustained and unwavering, bolstered by the friendly depth of Baylin’s scuffed alto. We get to the end quickly; the song has no fat, and the home recording keeps the sound simple, flattened, and oddly satisfying.

“I Couldn’t Say It To Your Face” is one of five songs on Baylin’s new Pleasure Center EP, available for free via SoundCloud. She made it in her Nashville living room on a four-track recorder with singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist/producer Richard Swift. A full-length album, Little Spark, is coming in January. Thanks to Largehearted Boy for the lead. Baylin was here once before, in 2008. Trivia buffs note that since then, Baylin was married to Kings of Leon drummer Nathan Followill.

Free and legal MP3: Earthquake Party (noise pop from Boston)

A new band from Boston gives us fuzzed-up noise pop, with boy-girl harmonies.

Earthquake Party

“Pretty Little Hand” – Earthquake Party

Another short song for you this week. Not many chords this time either. Easy to fit in around your pre-holiday hubbub: you can listen, and get on with it. And hey, you get a lot of sound for the time invested here. I mean, check out the fuzzed-up bash of background noise that Earthquake Party churns up, and that heavy, decisive “mi-re-do” downward riff that anchors the song. Everything immediately feels buzzy and overheated, like someone’s pinned the recording levels too high.

Then front man Justin Lally comes along and just kind of speak-sings against the noise, neither shouting to be heard nor being drowned out by the sludge; it’s a balance I find counter-intuitive and appealing. (Note that this is a phenomenon singularly available to recorded music, not live music.) Even more appealing: when keyboardist Mallory Hestand adds harmony in the chorus, and their two voices seem to ricochet away from each other B-52s-ishly. The melody they somehow describe between them is richer and deeper than the one either of them sings. And bonus points for the pithy lyrics they sing, full of both mystery and implication: “All I want’s a pretty little hand/That’s full of pills and candy.” I like how, in the end, this song feels like pop, despite all the fuss and noise. It’s amazing what a good chorus can do for you.

Earthquake Party is a trio founded last year in Boston. “Pretty Little Hand” is one of three songs on its debut EP, vs. Pizza, that the band released on a so-called cassingle (yup, a cassette tape) last month. And I do mean self-released: they bought 200 blank cassettes for $100 via mail order, put the music on them, and then made the inserts and labels, all by themselves. You can listen to all three songs and buy the cassette and/or downloads at the band’s Bandcamp page. The cassette will come with the download codes, so you don’t really need to have a cassette player, although all the better if you do. MP3 via the band. (And don’t worry about the generic-looking URL; this is a legitimately free and legal download.)

Free and legal MP3: Heartless Bastards (muscular, timeless rock’n’roll)

This isn’t nostalgia, it’s sheer presence: the rumbling drumbeat, the unadulterated guitar lines, and, at the center, mighty Erica Wennerstrom, who can make your heart skip a beat if you listen too closely

Heartless Bastards

“Parted Ways” – Heartless Bastards

Flaunting a compact, muscular sound, the Cincinnati-born Bastards, now residing in Austin, have a timeless air about them. This is rock’n’roll as if the internet not only never happened but wasn’t even supposed to. And yet I like how unnostalgic they still manage to sound, via sheer presence: the rumbling drumbeat, the unadulterated guitar lines, and, at the center, mighty Erica Wennerstrom, who can make your heart skip a beat if you listen too closely. Whatever she’s doing, more singers should do it. Or: would if they could.

As befitting the title, “Parted Ways” is really two songs that kind of move through each other and then separate. The first half is launched by the easy charm of the verse, with its ambling, descending melody and its seamless connection to the upward-oriented chorus. Punctuated by some Stones-worthy rhythm guitar playing, that fluent shift to the chorus (first heard at 0:31) really settles the ear; when it comes up again at 1:32, it seems newly powerful and true. As it turns out, there appear to be dualing choruses—the previously mentioned one that segues out of the verse, and then a succeeding one, beginning with the words “Out in space, I’m a long way from home” (first heard at 0:46), with a slower melody and a suspended sense of rhythm. The second chorus eventually takes the song over and moves it into a more expansive, jam-like (but not jam-band-like) space. An instrumental section modulates into an augmented version of chorus number two and then, at 3:32, we get a new vocal section with a loose, chuggy feeling that sounds like Wennerstrom doing a vocal solo the way she, as a guitarist, takes a guitar solo. Which she then in fact does as well. She is no slouch in that regard either.

Heartless Bastards were formed in Cincinnati in 2003. For most of its performing life the band has been a trio. A second guitarist (Wennerstrom has been the lead) was recently added; the band’s forthcoming album, The Arrow, will be its first as a quartet. It was produced by Spoon’s Jim Eno and is due out in February on Partisan Records. MP3 via Rolling Stone. This is the Bastards’ third appearance on Fingertips, with previous reviews in 2005 and 2006.

Free and legal MP3: Family of the Year (burst of lemony sunshine, w/ a wink)

Everything about this song seeks first to evoke a blurrily-recalled pop era—it’s kind of ’60s, kind of ’70s, without pinning itself down—and second, well, to razz it ever so humanely.

Family of the Year

“St. Croix” – Family of the Year

Spacious and glistening, “St. Croix” appears as a burst of lemony sunshine on what may be a rather cold and/or dreary day where you are, depending on your hemisphere and latitude. Not to mention attitude. In any case, “St. Croix,” mood-wise, is all swift, swaying sweetness, nailed together with one memorable, signature guitar riff. To the extent that the central lyrics might stand out as rather gooey—“You bring the ocean/I bring the motion/Together we make a love potion”; yes, really!—I can assure you they come to us purposefully, and playfully.

Because as it turns out, everything about this song seeks first to evoke a blurrily-recalled pop era—it’s kind of ’60s, kind of ’70s, without pinning itself down—and second, well, to razz it, ever so humanely. It’s all very post-postmodern; the approach is no longer ironic, but embracing: they’re laughing with the music, not at it. And gently! The band sprinkles the humor around the edges, where it barely intrudes, so as not to disturb those who want or need to hear “St. Croix” as a straightforward romp in the sun. But from the opening bongos to the very suspicious single-syllable “oh!” that peppers each verse but once (in addition to one “cell phone!”) to the aforementioned signature riff, which is both super-delightful and rather silly (running up and down an octave as if bounding a flight of rubbery, jangly steps) to the “uh-oh, the batteries are dying” ending, “St. Croix” cruises along with a smile both of joy and comedy. A splendid time is guaranteed for all.

Family of the Year is a quartet based in Los Angeles. “St. Croix” is the title track to the band’s second EP. A second full-length album, Diversity, is scheduled for early 2012. Both releases are via tinyOGRE Entertainment. The MP3 comes to us from Magnet Magazine.

Free and legal MP3: Barry Adamson (post-punk refugee w/ melodic grace)

A refugee from the heart of the U.K. post-punk scene, Adamson has a deep, reverberant voice but refuses to wallow in his own richness.

Barry Adamson

“Destination” – Barry Adamson

Melody has a built-in grace. This is why it works so well with allies—such as volume and density and drive—that do not have any inherent grace at all. Not to say that there is anything wrong with a song that is simply and only beautiful. But in the long run I believe we are enhanced by juxtapositions, blends, syntheses. Note for instance in your own lives how the most interesting people you know are likely those willing to roam beyond the comforts of one well-worn path. Songs can be the same way.

“Destination” is thick and gnarly from the get-go, and Adamson, a refugee from the heart of the U.K. post-punk scene, initially adds his portentous baritone in a speak-singing mode that magnifies the overall murk. But: you can hear the croon in his voice aching to get out at the end of each line, can’t you? And he unfurls it at last at 0:49; and now, without being quite sure how we got here, we are in the middle of a fabulous melody. Adamson has a deep, reverberant voice but he keeps things moving, avoiding the trap voices such as his often fall into in which they kind of wallow in their own richness. The vibe is brisk and crisp; we lose now the buzzing guitar and get a rollicking piano in its place. The piano, half-crazed, kind of steals the show shortly thereafter. It’s not where I expected the song to go but I like it. A lead guitar wrestles the spotlight the next time the chorus sweeps through but the piano returns to accompany the dense instrumental coda that closes out this oddly satisfying composition.

Adamson was bass player in the seminal British band Magazine through both its four original years and also in the 21st-century reunion (although he left the band before it recorded its long-awaited fifth album, this year). He played briefly in the Buzzcocks as well, and landed in the Bad Seeds with Nick Cave for a few years in the mid-’80s. Adamson released the first of eight smokey, adventurous solo albums in 1988 and has also worked since then on a number of film soundtracks. “Destination” is the first available track for an as-yet unnamed album set for release in 2012. MP3 once again via the resourceful Magnet Magazine.

Free and legal MP3: Sharon Van Etten

Sizzling and essential

Sharon Van Etten

“Serpents” – Sharon Van Etten

Tough and controlled but also ever so slightly unhinged, “Serpents” slays me from start to finish. The intro is all guitars, an ideal combination of drone and drive, with an unresolved chord at the center. (And I have established my predilection for intros with unresolved chords.) Keep a particular ear on the lonesome slide guitar (played by Aaron Dessner, of the National) that leads directly into the verse at 0:22, with a slurred, two-note refrain. The refrain recurs throughout the song as a kind of bittersweet anchor, a classic-rock gesture boiled and condensed into an indie-rock leitmotif.

And then Van Etten enters and she hasn’t opened her mouth for more than five seconds and she’s nailing everything. Listen to how she sings the first line, “It was a close call,” dragging the word “call” in the subtlest way, not through different notes as much as through different shapes. And then, in the next line, the way the melody jerks unexpectedly upward and forward twice in the phrase “back of the room” is another “wow” moment disguised in nonchalance. Likewise the casual, nearly haphazard (but not really) harmonies that play out in the next line (beginning at 0:37), in and around our friend the guitar refrain, and how they—the harmonies, and the guitar refrain—lead us somehow into a sort of non-chorus chorus of surprising (but not really) intensity. With barely a moment to breathe we have been taken into a sizzling, guitar-driven drama, a kind of “Layla” for the smartphone set, the guitar riff shaved to its most essential two seconds, the sex more directly alluded to and yet, still, cleverly disguised—“You enjoy sucking on dreams,” the song’s narrator snarls, with a bit of a hesitation before the word “dreams”; she shortly thereafter finishes the line “You would take me” with the word “seriously,” also after a meaningful delay. Soon the upward-gliding guitar refrain has found a new home one octave further up, where it’s more of a wail, but still hasn’t found what it’s looking for. But I have found one of my favorite MP3s of the year.

“Serpents” is from Van Etten’s forthcoming album Tramp, her third, which will arrive in February. Note that Van Etten is backed here by some serious talent, including another Dessner (Bryce) on guitar, Matt Barrick (The Walkmen) on drums, and Wye Oak’s mighty Jenn Wasner on vocals. The album will be her first for the estimable indie label Jagjaguwar Records; MP3 via Jagjaguwar.

Free and legal MP3: Clem Snide

Mad genius Journey cover

Eef Barzelay

“Anyway You Want It” – Clem Snide

Clem Snide front man (and, sometimes, only member) Eef Barzelay has taken Steve Perry and Neal Schon’s words and somehow stripped them of their (let’s face it) feebleness, mining them down to the spirit in which they were theoretically intended but which neither Perry himself nor Journey as a band was capable of displaying. This is some kind of mad genius.

I mean, ponder these lyrics—

She loves to move
She loves to groove
She loves the lovin’ things

—and then listen to Barzelay sing them (starting at 0:28). He has removed irony as a stance here; he means these words, and his half-bold, half-shy delivery makes them work, which is all the more remarkable when you note that “lovin’ things” was there to rhyme with the word “everything” from the previous line. With just a ukulele, his voice, and some exquisitely placed piano fills, Barzelay finds the vulnerable heart of an almost willfully silly song. He removes Journey’s instrumental hook—that barreling seven-note riff that screams “Look out! Chorus approaching!”—and adds, crucially, a repeat round of the chorus’s lone lyric. You’ll hear this first at 1:15: how he takes the melody up to the top end of the chord, at once relieving it of its claustrophobia (in the original it’s basically a two-note melody) and adding poignancy via a descending melody that fades each time it descends; he barely bothers to enunciate the “it” at the end of each phrase. As a belted, arena-rock assertion, “Anyway you want it, that’s the way you need it” is all but devoid of sense; as a tentative disclosure, the words have an elusive, confessional air.

But I can’t help thinking that Barzaley has opened a can of worms here. I mean, if he can sing these words and make them sound good and right and true, then it might well be that all sorts of awkwardly written songs out there are actually pretty darned good. They’re just waiting for the right interpreter. Barzaley, at least, is doing his part—this cover of “Anyway You Want It” is from an EP called Clem Snide’s Journey, which transforms six of Journey’s most familiar songs. The EP was inspired by his covering “Faithfully” for the Onion’s A.V. Club (see video below), and came into being via a Kickstarter campaign. The EP was self-released this summer, and is available digitally via the band’s Bandcamp page for six dollars.