MP3s – Page 67 – Fingertips

Free and legal MP3: The Ladybug Transistor (fleet & melancholy, nostalglic & timeless)

Always with a vaguely nostalgic sound, The Ladybug Transistor by now operates kind of meta-nostalgically, since the band itself dates back to an entirely different musical age—born out of the Elephant Six Collective in 1995: pre-Napster, pre-MP3, very nearly pre-WWW.

The Ladybug Transistor

>”Clutching Stems” – The Ladybug Transistor

Always with a vaguely nostalgic sound, The Ladybug Transistor by now operates kind of meta-nostalgically, since the band itself dates back to an completely different musical age—born out of the Elephant Six Collective in 1995: pre-Napster, pre-MP3, very nearly pre-WWW. They disappear for such long stretches at a time that I’d pretty much forgotten what an appealing sound they have, all sad-sprightly and ’60s-pop-influenced. Belle & Sebastian comes to mind also; although different bands in many ways, there’s a common vibe, both atmospherically and melodically, between this Brooklyn ensemble and Stuart Murdoch’s Scottish gang. Both bands offer up a powerful kind of nostalgia that remains somehow, also, both of-the-moment and timeless.

What has me in love with this song in general is the juxtaposition of the rapid pace and the melancholy air, which is not a natural combination. The song’s fleetness also disguises its unusual construction: it seems to be built around a meandering, two-tiered chorus, without any otherwise repeating element in the song. I don’t hear a verse. What has me in love with this song in particular is the aforementioned chorus, which stretches beyond something simple and immediately singable, accumulating a quiet sort of grandeur as we are led to a truly wonderful melodic moment: front man Gary Olson singing, “And now that I’m not/It’s all coming apart” (first heard at 1:07). This is worth the price of admission. More goodness: the striking titular image, which implies an entire story in those two concrete words.

Always something of a free-floating outfit, the Ladybug Transistor has experienced any number of lineup changes over the years. One of them was tragic, as drummer San Fadyl, on board since 1997, died of an asthma attack in April 2007. The band has not recorded since then, until now. (Their last album, released in June 2007, had been recorded with Fadyl.) Three new members have joined three LT veterans; the end result is Clutching Stems, due out on Merge Records in June. The band was previously been featured in 2003 and 2007. ~~MP3 via Merge.~~

Free and legal MP3: This Year’s Model (Swedish band w/ lean & worthy sound)

This Year’s Model is a Swedish band that does not sound like a Swedish band, even though there is no one way a Swedish band sounds.

This Year's Model

“No Miracles” – This Year’s Model

Brisk and anthemic, “No Miracles” launches into place via a Stax Records beat, all bass and drums (and yeah there’s a keyboard somewhere in there too). Within six seconds, front man Niklas Gustafsson joins in; he’s got that Martin Fry-like gravitas/melodrama thing going. His breathing is part of his singing. The melodies seem all tops and bottoms. “No Miracles” quickly and unassumingly establishes a presence, a central core of lean and worthy sound; we are paying attention; this is sneaky good stuff.

And then the chorus: pure pay dirt, with its descending-melody hooks, at once plaintive and powerful, and its mixture of blurred and concrete lyrics that both grab your ear and leave you guessing. This Year’s Model is a Swedish band that does not sound like a Swedish band, even though there is no one way a Swedish band sounds. The quintet seemingly takes its name from Elvis Costello but doesn’t imitate him in any apparent way; they make music, instead, that has learned from him—perhaps the truest tribute of all.

“No Miracles” is from the band’s second album, We Walk Like Ghosts, released in February on Marsh-Marigold Records. MP3 via the band’s site. Thanks to visitor Gustav for the lead.

Free and legal MP3: Steve Halliday

Haunted, well-crafted acoustic ballad

Steve Halliday

“Alive Anywhere” – Steve Halliday

The voice is pure, haunted, and dramatic, the guitar playing crisp and stark—a recipe, for me, often, to hit the “next” button. Call me grumpy but I don’t usually like this sort of thing. So what is London’s Steve Halliday doing here that lifts the music out of the realm of overly earnest singer/songwriter fare and into something pretty wonderful?

A few things, I’d suggest. I like, right away, the major-key start to the minor-key song—always a nice and knowing touch. I like, too, the way the opening arpeggios operate at their own pace, slowing down and speeding up based on an expressive rather than a rhythmic imperative. Halliday continues this tempo variation—what in classical music might be called rubato—to great effect throughout the song. Paradoxically, the key to its success is that you don’t even necessarily notice it unless it’s pointed out.

In a subtly related matter of song craft, the lyrics themselves are asymmetrical, using little direct rhyme and in some cases, such as in the opening verse, no rhyme at all:

You were so long ago
You were driving me back
You’re crying, what’s so wrong?
Keep your hand on the wheel

There’s something simultaneously jarring and lovely in this. Whether consciously done or not, the musical and lyrical nonconformity jointly offset the “earnestness” factor rather well. I’m on board.

“Alive Anywhere” is the title track to Halliday’s debut album, which he home-recorded and self-released back in 2009; more recently it made its iTunes debut in January of this year. Thanks to the artist himself for the MP3, which I have permission to share here.

Free and legal MP3: The Heavenly States (smartly crafted, smile-inducing)

Even though thumpy and clappy and light-hearted, “Model Son” also unfolds deliberately, with an exquisite sense of sound and accompaniment.

The Heavenly States

“Model Son” – The Heavenly States

Even though thumpy and clappy and light-hearted, “Model Son” also unfolds deliberately, with an exquisite sense of sound and accompaniment. The precisely-picked acoustic guitar line that we hear in the introduction lays the slightly-skewed groundwork for this smartly-made song. Without ever quite knowing what’s going on lyrically, you are likely to find a smile on your face through the cumulative force of happy music. This sounds like XTC and CCR joining forces to enter a Modest Mouse songwriting competition.

The level of detail at nearly any moment is splendid and endearing (example? that penny-whistle sound that wiggles oh-so-briefly to the forefront at 0:58). In the hands of the Heavenly States, a section of the song that might otherwise be like treading water—some wordless backing vocals over a steady beat, tying the end of the chorus to the beginning of the next verse (beginning around 1:00)—becomes its own charming adventure. Violinist Genevieve Gagon is another matter entirely, shredding everything in her path when her solo arrives (2:19).

Currently a trio (although the picture on the Oakland-based band’s home page still shows four; see above), the Heavenly States have been recently in the news because they are, somehow, and bizarrely, the only American band ever to have played in Libya, which they did in 2005; Gagon and front man Ted Nesseth were interviewed on CNN about the experience earlier this month. She and Nesseth, by the way, are married; her brother Jeremy is the band’s drummer.

“Model Son” is from the EP Oui Camera Oui, due out next month on Hippies Are Dead Records, a label founded last year as an offshoot of the blog of the same name. MP3 via HAD.

Free and legal MP3: Marissa Nadler (torchy & reverbed, but also sharp & immediate)

Marissa Nadler

“Baby, I Will Leave You in the Morning” – Marissa Nadler

Torchy, reverby, and nostalgic, but also sharp, disciplined, and genuinely dramatic. Not to mention gorgeous.

Pay attention to how the reverb in Nadler’s creamy voice blends seamlessly with the spacey, Pink Floyd-ish guitars which soar in the distance below. This is why the song doesn’t get bogged down in echoey mud—there’s a lot going on outside the reverb that keeps the ear grounded in immediacy. The crisp acoustic guitar that emerges with a tinkling chord every now and then is a case in point; it is recorded so immaculately that you can sometimes hear fingers on strings (check out 0:58 if you don’t believe it).

Meanwhile, the composition’s abiding drama is built on a structure that has the song modulate upward with each return to the home melody, a musical fact that gains sly lyrical support near the end as Nadler sings “I am getting higher by the moment” (2:55).

“Baby, I Will Leave You in the Morning” is a track from her forthcoming self-titled album, which was funded via Kickstarter. This will be the fifth full-length release for the Boston-based singer/songwriter, who turns 30 in early April. She was previously featured here in 2007 and 2009.

Free and legal MP3: One in a Googolplex (clattery electronics, gleeful melody energy)

Full of tweaky and and clattery and glittery and rubbery electronics, “Lilly” also bursts with such infectious melodic energy that I for one don’t really care what odd sounds Sebastian Zimmer wants to throw into the mix.

Sebastian Zimmer

“Lilly” – One in a Googolplex

Full of clattery and glittery and rubbery electronics, “Lilly” also bursts with such infectious melodic energy that I for one don’t really care what odd sounds Sebastian Zimmer wants to throw into the mix.

Not that you necessarily see the brilliance coming. From the intro through the opening verse, “Lilly” bounces modestly along as a two-chord shuffle with a vaguely island-like feel. Close listeners might enjoy the crafty dissonances one of the synthesizers insists upon carving in the soundscape, but more casual ears may remain unengaged until 0:46, when the electronic equivalent of a car crash launches us into the bubbly chorus, full of vocal leaps and dives that sound spliced together rather than sung through. But damned if the cut-and-pasted melody line isn’t its own kind of oddball hook—there’s an energy unleashed by the mashed-up-sound, accentuated by Zimmer’s feathery tenor, that transcends its electronic trappings. And then, as a sort of counter-balance to all the artifice employed to create the song’s core, we get at 2:04 an instrumental bridge featuring what sounds for all the world like honest-to-goodness stringed instruments (but are probably still synthesizers).

“Lilly” is the a-side of a digital single released this month on Alchemist Records. Zimmer has been recording as One In A Googolplex from the German state of Saarland since 2009. The name comes from the third Back to the Future movie. In his own words, Zimmer is “constantly trying to compose his songs as universally as possible in order to be able to enjoy the music even in some thousand years from now or on a different planet, where there is no money, no television, and no heartache anymore.” I want to go to there.

Free and legal MP3: The Extraordinaires

Wry rocker w/ old-timey, theatrical feel

The Extraordinaires

“The Big Show” – The Extraordinaires

With the oompah feel of a music-hall standard, “The Big Show” dresses its quizzical take on 21st-century life in a ramshackle aural stew as musically charming as it is lyrically caustic. Look no further than the opening salvo to see what we’re in for:

We say it like it’s true then watch it put down its roots
And blossom from the gossip into truth
We’re in the weeds up to our knees
It’s hard to tell the poison from the fruit

The chorus, meanwhile, has an uncomfortable resonance with the news we’ve been watching this week:

Look out below
The whole damn thing’s about to blow
Gone are all the good days but hey
At least we get to watch the show

We’ve got here a corollary to the happy music/sad lyrics phenomenon that pop can handle like no other kind of music—this is more like comic music/tragic lyrics but the underlying incongruity is the same, as well as the appeal. Singer Jay Purdy has the air of a mischievous master of ceremonies, and a voice somewhat resembling John Linnell from They Might Be Giants. Which adds to the whimsical vibe. Oh and be sure not to miss the last 40 seconds, which sounds as if we have landed in a cartoon. All we need to top it off is Porky Pig saying “Th-th-th-at’s all, folks!”

The Extraordinaires began as a duo in South Philly in 2004. They had expanded to a quartet by 2007, and in 2010 solidified into a five-man band. They have previously released albums that were produced as books bound in masonite (think of what a clipboard is made of; that’s it). “The Big Show” is a song from the band’s new three-song EP, Postcards, released on the Philadelphia-based label Punk Rock Payroll.

Free and legal MP3: Alela Diane (fine singing, songwriting, w/ ’70s nuances)

From the opening bars here, Alela Diane has clearly put down the “(freaky) girl with guitar” mantle with a “good riddance” sort of authority.

Alela Diane

“To Begin” – Alela Diane

“To Begin” is a song of purpose and know-how, laced with the feel of compositions that were long-ago written on pads of paper and worked out by human beings on physical instruments. Whether knowingly or not, Carole King floats through this tune as a guiding spirit, and the listener is lighter and brighter for it.

In any case, from the opening bars here, Alela Diane has clearly put down the “(freaky) girl with guitar” mantle with a “good riddance” sort of authority. “To Begin” begins with a Supertrampy keyboard banging out the IV note rather than the tonic (which we don’t land on till 0:18); we open in an engaging state of flux, and not an acoustic guitar in sight. Diane gives us a characteristic melismatic vocal leap in the first lyric (on “golden light,” at 0:15), the sort that “White As Diamonds” was all about when we checked in with her in 2009, but that melody doesn’t repeat. The song moves on—it’s all about movement, this one—and with fewer of the yodelly acrobatics we hear her strong and lovely voice (part brass, part velvet) as if for the first time. She sings with so much authority that she gives us the ear-grabbing chorus only once(!); be sure not to miss that CK-flavored chord change through the lyric “Have you lived before this time?” (specifically the pivot from 1:05 to 1:06).

“To Begin” is the (yup) first song on Diane’s upcoming album, Alela Diane & Wild Divine, named after the band she’s been playing with, which not only includes her husband Tom Bevitori, but her father, Tom Menig. The album, produced by Scott Litt, will be out in early April on Rough Trade Records. MP3 via Spinner.

Free and legal MP3: Rebirth Brass Band (spreading the Mardi Gras spirit)

Rebirth Brass Band

“Do It Again” – Rebirth Brass Band

So if you haven’t ever really felt connected to classic New Orleans music, there are only two reasons for this: 1) you’ve never been to New Orleans; or, 2) you’ve never watched Treme. I know, because it wasn’t long ago I qualified for both reasons. But no longer—I’ve been and I’ve watched. The music now sparkles and shimmies in a new way; it fires up my feet and my heart.

The big party may be over down there—it’s Ash Wednesday now, after all—but in many real ways, the party never quite ends in that strange, troubled, and magical place. So here’s a bit of post-Mardi Gras stomp, courtesy of the forthcoming Rebirth Brass Band album. What I love now, so much, about this music is how simultaneously casual and disciplined it is. But for the sax solo in the middle, it’s all ensemble work, and note the happy-hearted looseness about the playing, the way each melody line, enforced by the group playing it, continually frays around the edges by the sloppy-tight way the individual instruments blend together. This is even true with the vocals, which themselves become another instrument in the blend, half-melodic and half-percussive. Note too how the beat is at once strong and pliable—you can feel it even when the instruments are playing everywhere but the beat. Take the trumpets’ signature moment, that slinky I-V-IV-VI melody we hear first at 0:30: the emphatic blasts on the V and VI notes come entirely off the beat, yet this is exactly what makes you want to move your body.

Founded in 1982, Rebirth remains a fixture on the NOLA music scene, and continues to be notable and relevant for its signature blend of classic New Orleans brass band music with funk and soul and bop and hip-hop. “Do It Again” is from the album Rebirth of New Orleans, due for release next month on Basin Street Records. MP3 via the band’s site.

Free and legal MP3: Amor de Días (swift, mysterious chamber pop)

Despite a glimmer of electronica at the very beginning, “Bunhill Fields” moves forward with acoustic instrumentation (guitar, cello, eventually trumpets) and a brisk, no-nonsense beat—itself an unexpected and invigorating combination.

Amor de Dias

“Bunhill Fields” – Amor de Días

A short song with a lot to chew on. Despite a glimmer of electronica at the very beginning, “Bunhill Fields” moves forward with acoustic instrumentation (guitar, cello, eventually trumpets) and a brisk, no-nonsense beat—itself an unexpected and invigorating combination. (I tend to think of chamber pop as somewhat more noodly and/or deliberate.) Lupe Núñez-Fernández has the whispery, wavery tone of some indie-European chanteuse but the relentless movement (which kicks in for real at 0:36) adds something both solid and haunting to her delivery.

The chorus is swift and concise and semi-unresolved—as Núñez-Fernández sings (I think) “I can’t wait to let it go,” the melody floats back up to where it started, but she lets the word “go” melt downward again, ambiguously. Then there’s that mysterious motif with an inside out finish that follows the chorus (first heard at 0:53), begun by the guitar, played out by the cello and some vague keyboard, which we otherwise don’t hear in the song. Its simple but tricky melodic twist hangs in the air like an unanswered question. The song keeps going, words flying by answering no questions at all. The trumpets, meanwhile, seem determined to stake their own ground, independent of where the melody wants them to be be. It might help to know that Bunhill Fields is a renowned cemetery in the north of London, featuring the graves of William Blake, Daniel Defoe, and Thomas Hardy, among many other notable public figures (“the rocky garden full of stars,” as the lyrics have it). Then again, it might not.

Amor de Días is a side project duo featuring Alasdair MacLean, front man for the Clientele, and Núñez-Fernández, half of the duo Pipas. “Bunhill Fields” is from the album Street of the Love of Days, due out in May on Merge Records. MP3 via the good folks at Merge.