Category: MP3s

Free and legal MP3: Boris (kitchen-sinky chunk of sped-up dream pop)

A kitchen-sinky chunk of sped-up dream pop, “Spoon” is instantly likable even as it presents more to the ear than the ear initially can absorb.

Boris

“Spoon” – Boris

A kitchen-sinky chunk of sped-up dream pop, “Spoon” is instantly likable even as it presents more to the ear than the ear initially can absorb. Which actually isn’t easy to do, I don’t think: package sonic overload into something brisk and immediate.

Here’s maybe the key to how Boris does it: for all the aural exuberance, “Spoon” hews to the conventional verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-verse-chorus design. This is why we can kind of “get” the song even when it’s offering more musical information in any given slice than we can consciously process. There are so many things to listen for here, from intermittent concrete sounds like breaking glass and cracking whips and children’s voices to ongoing threads like the singular rhythm section, which combines a stuttery drumbeat with a fluid, hyperactive bassline. That bursty drum sound does everything it can to break the song into disjointed moments, while the bass works hard to stitch it all together. Throughout, the slightly breathy lead vocal from guitarist Wata gives us something delightful to stay focused on when all else fails.

And never mind the difficult-to-absorb song—Boris itself is a difficult-to-absorb band. Together since 1992, a trio since 1996, this veteran Japanese outfit has a complex history of experimentation and genre-blending and -hopping. (The band has been identified with ambient, doom metal, drone metal, industrial, minimalist, noise rock, and punk, among quite a few others.) Its members all go by single names, which is just as well—slightly less information to process. They tour a lot and are reportedly more well known in North America than they are in Japan, having done things like open for Nine Inch Nails and appear on avant-garde film soundtracks, including one for Jim Jarmusch. The band’s 2006 album Pink was listed among the year’s best by Pitchfork, SPIN, and Blender. “Spoon” is a song from Boris’s new album called (finally, someone did it) New Album. New Album is actually (more complications) the band’s third release of 2011, this one a dream-pop-ish reworking of songs that were on the other two albums, with some new songs as well. MP3 via Pitchfork.

Free and legal MP3: New Shouts (neo-’60s garage-soul, retro-y & proud)

Here we have a splendid garage-soul groove harkening astutely back to the proto-white-boy-soul of a group like the Soul Survivors (best known for “Expressway To Your Heart,” non-coincidentally enough).

New Shouts

“The Reins To Your Heart” – New Shouts

Above and beyond the financial problems introduced by the digital distribution of music, many hands have been wrung over cultural problems unleashed at the same time. A flood of virtual ink has been spilled this year, as an example, on a complaint voiced by the critic Simon Reynolds, in his book Retromania, which among other things is about how the relentless presence of the past, digitally speaking, has led to a state in which we don’t allegedly have a genuine, current-day culture, just an ongoing regurgitation of bygone stylings.

There are so many things that strike me as wrong with this complaint; probably time for an essay. In the meantime, I go back to one of Fingertips’ founding mottoes: listen with your ears, not your mind. The idea that music has to be stylistically “different” is a mental construct. To my ears, music can be different by simply being good. So, is a song like “The Reins To Your Heart” representative of some kind of new, 2010-ish musical style? Not a bit. Does this mean it can’t be good or that we are somehow culturally poorer because the Pittsburgh foursome New Shouts recorded it? Of course not. It’s a good song! Yes, its garage-soul groove harkens back to the proto-white-boy-soul of a group like the Soul Survivors (best known for “Expressway To Your Heart,” non-coincidentally enough). Why can’t a good song sound familiar? Why can’t it remind you of another good song?

To harp on stylistic similarities is to overlook other factors that make music both pleasing and emotionally resonant. I always start with melody, because that’s me. “The Reins To Your Heart” is one of those lucky songs that begins with its hook—a smartly constructed melody (beginning at 0:11, right out of that pleasantly clangy introduction) in which the first half traces a descending B minor chord, the second an ascending A minor chord. Comprised only of the three notes from these two adjacent chords, the melody has a natural swing, running down and up those third intervals, while likewise feeling solid and primal, the aural equivalent of a three-legged stool. And the chorus is no slouch either, affording the song a second and maybe even third hook (this is also one of the those lucky songs with more than one solid hook), via the “Baby, please believe me” segment, with its group lead vocal and classic-soul vibe, leading up to that unerring, off-the-beat response line, “I want you back.” We’ve heard all of this before. So what? It gives me that deep inner smile I get when I know the music is working. Retromania has nothing to tell me, or you, about that.

“The Reins To Your Heart” is the lead track from New Shouts’ first non-single release, the seven-song EP Sing New Shouts, which was self-released in September via Bandcamp.

Free and legal MP3: Vadoinmessico

Easy-going assurance

Vadoinmessico

“Teeo” – Vadoinmessico

An Italian, a Mexican, and an Austrian walk into a bar…well, okay, not a bar, but a music school, in London. And so this is not the beginning of a joke but the beginning of the band Vadoinmessico, a multi-national quintet that remains based in the UK. And you can really hear the non-English-speaking sensibility here, even as front man Giorgio Poti (the aforementioned Italian) sings in English. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but there’s something in either the vibe, at once relaxed and kinetic, or the instrumental mix (note the lack of a rock-style drum kit), or both, that feels like nothing a purely American or British band would create or deliver.

And wow I’ve been bumping into these songs with banjos and/or pedal steel guitars in them lately and here’s another one, this time with both, and if some blogger somewhere calls this a country song I shall emit an electronic scream. Vadoinmessico offers up the self-description of “mediterranean alternative folk,” and sure, why not? I love the easy-going assurance of the melody, which is at once amorphous and ear-grabbing. There’s not a clear hook, there’s no immediately obvious verse/chorus division, and what does in the end amount to the chorus (heard just twice, the first time from 1:00 to 1:15) slips by without fuss and without resolution. What’s more, the verses themselves are hard to differentiate, and seem to center upon a repeated melody that is launched off the second beat of the measure with a string of repeated notes. The wonderful allure of the piece has first of all to do with the slight variations this melody undergoes after the consistency of the opening two measures, and then to do with the cumulative, almost hypnotic effect of this not-quite-repetition.

Note in particular the new melodic upturn we hear first at around 1:17, with a match at 1:25. We take it in as pleasant enough at that point, but when this particular variation returns as Poti sings (2:38) “Everybody please wait for me here by the river,” with the half-step ascent on the words “here by the,” we seem somehow to have arrived at the muted epicenter of the song. It feels like a payoff as long as you don’t concentrate too much, like something you can see only with peripheral vision.

“Teeo” is the third single released by the band, which has yet to put out an official album or EP.

Free and legal MP3: Shelby Earl

Sad, strong, slowly swinging

Shelby Earl

“Under Evergreen” – Shelby Earl

Some songs, to paraphrase William Shakespeare (badly), are born great; others have greatness thrust upon them. “Under Evergreen” as a song is simple and torchy, a song to fade into the background or rise to the foreground based less on its intrinsic qualities than on the strength and spirit the singer brings to it.

Earl enters the piece on her own, singing the words “I look around” before the instruments begin playing. This itself is a wonderful, subtle statement, alerting us before we can fully register it that we are dealing with a singer of arresting power and poise. And let’s hear it for how poise tempers power; while “X Factor” histrionics on the one hand and runaway robotics on the other have overrun pop singing at the mass-market level, Earl single-handedly confirms the heart-breaking effect of vocal strength and tone when used with discipline and without fetishistic techno-fads. She is a new singer/songwriter who sounds like an old one. I mean that in the best of ways. (Even her god-given name sounds like an old singer/songwriter.) Under her guidance, “Under Evergreen” becomes three minutes and forty-three seconds of sad, strong, slowly swinging greatness.

The song is part of Earl’s debut album, Burn the Boats, set for release at the beginning of November on Local 638 Records, the Seattle-based label owned by Rachel Flotard. Earl by the way spent many years working at relatively high-level music-industry day jobs, trying to get the musician thing going at night. Late in 2009, she made the leap, working as a waitress to pay the rent but otherwise focusing on following her musical bliss. Lord knows how this will work out for her as a lifestyle decision but as an artistic decision it was a no-brainer. I’ve been listening to the whole album and she is without question the real thing.

Free and legal MP3: Plates of Cake (fuzzy & jangly, w/ rhythmic hiccups)

The swift and confident “As If The Choice Were Mine” is at once fuzzy and jangly, teasing us with whiffs of the ’60s and hints of rhythmic trickery.

Plates of Cake

“As If The Choice Were Mine” – Plates of Cake

The swift and confident “As If The Choice Were Mine” is at once fuzzy and jangly, teasing us with whiffs of the ’60s and hints of rhythmic trickery. Front man Jonathan Byerly has some of Matt Berninger’s portentous grumble, but cleared of any pontifical mannerism by the song’s underlying vim, as well as the three-part harmony he sings as part of from start to finish. The song is chorus-free, with one eight-measure melody repeated three times, around instrumental breaks. This is part of what gives the tune its light-footed momentum, this not having to reorient itself for something sing-along-ier.

But it’s also the nature of the melody itself that gives the song its appeal. Listen to how it begins, unusually, on a heavily accented first beat, which both grabs the ear and kind of knocks it off kilter. It is an eight-measure melody, mostly but not completely in 4/4 time, expanding nonchalantly into 6/4 time in measures five and six (from 0:26 to 0:32). For no reason I can discern except further slyness, the introduction, which recurs as the first instrumental break, comes with 6/4 time in measure seven as well, while the second instrumental break, a different thing entirely, is but seven measures long, all in 4/4 but the seventh, which is in 6/4. And yes I’m kind of fascinated by time signature tricks and changes, so there you go.

Meanwhile, what about that title? It’s a hall-of-fame song title, with bonus points for proper use of the conditional tense, and packing so much meaning and subtext into its six words that it hardly requires any further embellishment. And in truth we don’t get much—beyond the repeated opening gambit “As if the choice were mine/And not some fated thing,” the lyrics are both sparse and elusive; after many listens, I still can’t quite make out what the “hollow angels” are doing.

Plates of Cake are a Brooklyn-based foursome with one full-length album to their name, released in 2010 on the All Hands Electric label. “As If The Choice Were Mine” is a digital single, to be officially released later this month. Go to the band’s page on its label’s web site and you can download a couple of free and legal MP3s from the debut album.

Free and legal MP3: The Beets (21st century garage rock)

Simple and garage-y, but with a nerdy, sing-songy sort of poignancy to it as well. Kind of like the Ramones crossed with They Might Be Giants.

The Beets

“Doing As I Do” – The Beets

Simple and garage-y, but with a nerdy, sing-songy sort of poignancy to it as well. Kind of like the Ramones crossed with They Might Be Giants. And surely this begins with one of rock’n’roll’s more memorable opening lyrical salvos: “Don’t be afraid, you will not die/And if you die/Whatever.” Who says rock music is over and done? Despite its musical homage to Nuggets bands of the ’60s, this is not a song that could have been written before the 2010s, I don’t think.

I like how “Doing As I Do” puts out this bashy, proto-punk vibe with hardly any audible electric guitar. An acoustic rhythm guitar, not necessarily entirely tuned, drives the song’s fuzzy, lo-fi ambiance. Listen to how thin and squashed the drum sound is, totally lacking both three-dimensionality and tone, and as such all but perfect in this setting. Frontman Juan Wauters likewise is recorded in such a way as to emphasize his voice’s thinness, one might even say its whininess, except that that implies that it’s a bad thing, which it’s not. Like the acoustic guitar, he’s not precisely on tune at all times either, and this is also how it must be. Supporting everything is the song’s uncomplicated descending melody, which in my mind creates the image of those cube-shaped children’s blocks with letters on them. Foundational, playful, nostalgic.

The Beets are a quartet even though there tend to be three people in the group pictures. “Doing As I Do” is a song from the album Letting the Poison Out, the band’s third, and the first for Hardly Art Records. Some may find it interesting to know that Hardly Art is the smaller, nimbler sister label to indie powerhouse Sub Pop, founded in 2007 by Sub Pop founder Jonathan Poneman. Others may enjoy knowing that the album was recorded by Gary Olsen of The Ladybug Transistor, themselves featured here back in March. The fact that the band loves Howard Stern and MAD Magazine and Keds sneakers, well, everybody likes knowing that, right?

MP3 via Hardly Art.

Free and legal MP3: Class Actress (distinctive electropop from NYC)

Class Actress is here to show you that not all electropop is created equal, even though it often sounds that way.

Elizabeth Harper

“Keep You” – Class Actress

Class Actress is here to show you that not all electropop is created equal, even though it often sounds that way. And it could be that this Brooklyn trio makes distinctive electropop in part because the songs come to life in a distinctive way—front woman Elizabeth Harper writes them non-electronically, on a piano or a guitar. When she’s done, she gives the song to band mate Mark Richardson, who does all sorts of magical laptop-y things to it. But Harper aims to be writing songs, not beats or (god forbid) jams. (Can we stop calling songs “jams” now by the way? Pretty please?) She has been quoted as saying that if a song can pass “the campfire test”—i.e., can be played on an acoustic guitar, anywhere—then it’s a good song. I for one wouldn’t argue with her.

So right away you can listen here to how the beat is not the song’s centerpiece. This is a refreshing turn of events. The introduction is succinct and asymmetrical; at 0:11 the singing starts, and we still haven’t sunk into the song’s groove, which, when it kicks in, kicks in with space and syncopation rather than a wash of lock-step rhythm. Note how Harper isn’t singing against a monochromatic electronic field but alternately purrs and emotes against a disciplined blend of sounds. The one I really like is the synth we hear during the instrumental break beginning at 1:49—a witty, multi-dimensional electronic tone playing a stuttery melody for maybe 10 seconds and that’s it, on we go. It’s unusual and enticing.

As a singer, Harper is both sultry and elastic; to my ears, it’s her vocal leap in the chorus that provides the cementing hook, her voice in its upper range becoming more instrument than narrator. “I want to keep you in my”—what, exactly? Lyric sites say “heart,” but the word is so indistinct it offers the hint of “arms” as well. The lyrical tag, “Ooh, I want it, I want it,” also emerges more as a moan than a clear statement, and I like that there, I like how it anchors the song in an effectually wordless melody right in the center of things.

“Keep You” has been floating around the internet since early summer, but it is in fact the lead track from Class Actress’s debut full-length album, Rapprocher, which will arrive next month on Carpark Records. Rapprocher is a French verb meaning “to come close to.” Class Actress was featured previously on Fingertips in November 2009. MP3 via Pitchfork.

Free and legal MP3: A. A. Bondy (muted, weary beauty)

“Surfer King” sways and hesitates; it seems already to sit in your memory, blurred by reverb and bending under the quaver of a pedal steel.

A. A. Bondy

“Surfer King” – A. A. Bondy

Almost achingly beautiful in a muted and weary kind of way, “Surfer King” finds A. A. Bondy exploring the same sort of atmospheric singer/songwriter sound as he was the last time he was here, in 2009, for the brilliant “When the Devil’s Loose.” No reason to mess with a good thing.

“Surfer King” sways and hesitates; it seems already to sit in your memory, blurred by reverb and bending under the quaver of a pedal steel played for its own sake, rather than to align with the cliched notion of what a pedal steel should sound like. And can I stop for a moment to register the minor but persistent pet peeve of how music bloggers so often hear a pedal steel and call the song country-ish or country-flavored or some such thing? This song has nothing to do with country music (not that there’s anything wrong with that, either). It’s got a pedal steel. But I digress. Bondy in any case seems to have found his sweet spot, having gone from lead singer in a grunge band to a stripped down, early-Dylan-esque troubadour before settling into this pensive, purposeful setting featuring a few well-placed instruments and his reflective baritone. This song is so sturdy, its melody so delicate and true, that the chorus slays us while focusing almost exclusively on two notes, one whole step apart.

“Surfer King” is from Believers, Bondy’s third album as a solo artist, released this month on Fat Possum Records. Bondy was born in Alabama and works from upstate New York. For the excessively curious, A. A. stands for Auguste Arthur.

Free and legal MP3: Blessed Feathers (beautifully sung, w/ banjo)

Jacquelyn Beaupre’ sings as if placing each note in a favored location—a bright windowsill full of keepsakes, perhaps, or a tree-trunk altar along a wooded, late-summer path—and then letting them go, no big deal.

Blessed Feathers

“Stinging Nettle, Honeysuckle” – Blessed Feathers

I’ve got another banjo song for you, somehow. Another wonderful one. Go figure.

“Stinging Nettle, Honeysuckle” is sold to me via singer Jacquelyn Beaupre’ (apostrophe included), whose sweet, determined voice blends breathy innocence with grounded certainty. She sings as if placing each note in a favored location—a bright windowsill full of keepsakes, perhaps, or a tree-trunk altar along a wooded, late-summer path—and then letting them go, no big deal. There are always more notes to sing. And don’t get too attached to her anyway because she’s likely to wander away sooner than later.

The banjo this time is plucky and thoughtful. The ambiance is ancient-folky, as the title too suggests, even as there’s likewise something snappy and contemporary in the melody and presentation. I especially like the way a certain kind of lo-fi reverb is used to scuff the background without taking over the sound. The backing vocals receive this treatment, and it turns out there’s also some persistent underlying white noise in the mix which becomes audible only when the song comes to a full stop around 2:21. Pay attention to Beaupre’ right after that as she gives us a dainty cough before continuing. I really like that cough.

Blessed Feathers is a trio that was founded as a duo. The band bio begins: “Jacquelyn Beaupre’ plays everything. Donivan Berube plays everything else.” Beaupre’ and Berube are also girlfriend-boyfriend. The recently-arrived third player is Jordan Knowles, who handles percussion. “Stinging Nettle, Honeysuckle” is from the album From the Mouths of the Middle Class, the band’s second, released this week on Listening Party Records. You can buy the digital album for whatever price you’d like or you can buy a limited-edition vinyl album for $15, both via Bandcamp.

Free and legal MP3: Hospitality (quirky, minimalist NYC pop)

Spunky and ineffably nostalgic, “Friends of Friends” is a New York song with a New York sound, firmly in the later ’70s.

Hospitality

“Friends of Friends” – Hospitality

Spunky and ineffably nostalgic, “Friends of Friends” is a New York song with a New York sound, and one that to my ears is rooted firmly in the later ’70s—music that blends an edgy Television/Talking Heads 77-ish bounce with a more playful David Johansen/Syl Sylvain-y groove and throws in a saxophone that surely has arrived through a time machine.

And yet “Friends of Friends” struts with its own, minimalist center of gravity and personality-driven sensibility. Check out the bass playing at the beginning for a conspicuous example of the band’s unembellished aesthetic, as well as the spaces, generally, that are left around the beat. As for personality, Hospitality has Amber Papini, a Kansas City-born kindergarten teacher who apparently learned to sing by copying Richard Butler on the Psychedelic Furs’ Talk Talk Talk album. (Well and who didn’t?) Here, she takes a herky-jerky melody and really works it. Neither the blurty verse nor the clipped, seemingly under-developed chorus is easy to make sense of as a singer; she pulls them off through sheer force of tone and presence.

Hospitality formed as a trio in 2007. They are now a quartet, and they have recently been signed to the consistently wonderful indie label Merge. The full-length Hospitality debut album is due in March 2012.