MP3s – Page 68 – Fingertips

Free and legal MP3: Jared Mees & the Grown Children (exuberant, Portland-infused idiosyncrasy)

Converted last week into a big fan of IFC’s daffy sketch comedy Portlandia, it’s only natural, I guess, to find myself gravitating this week to the exuberant, Portland-infused idiosyncrasy of Jared Mees and the Grown Children.

Jared Mees and the Grown Children

“Hungry Like a Tiger” – Jared Mees & the Grown Children

Converted last week into a big fan of IFC’s loopy sketch comedy Portlandia, I supposed it’s only natural to find myself gravitating this week to the exuberant, Portland-infused idiosyncrasy of Jared Mees and the Grown Children. We’ve been there before, you and I, just this past September, when Mees & Co. were in between albums. The previously fluid ensemble has since solidified into a line-up of five, and has a new album on the horizon, for which “Hungry Like a Tiger” is the lead track.

And quite a lead track it is, with its toe-tapping drive, its effortless melodic hook, its ear-worthy lyrics, and—hail, Portlandia!—its intermittent tendency to unravel the momentum with pensive interludes, not to mention its meta awareness of itself as a song. This rollicking tune hints at the crazy energy the band surely offers its live audiences; yet for all its loosey-goosey ambiance, the song is likewise a study in discipline and restraint. With a seemingly endless number of instruments up their sleeves, Mees and the gang nevertheless refrain from barraging us with kitchen-sink assemblage, pulling out the cello, the trumpet, the Hammond organ just exactly when they are required and no more. The Hammond in fact waits to come out till the end (4:04), at which point it gets a kicking little solo. Note that it’s hard for an instrument you haven’t otherwise heard to enter late in the game and not sound out of place or distracting. Note that the Hammond sounds perfect here.

The album Only Good Thoughts Can Stay, the band’s second, is coming in May via the Portland, Ore.-based media and arts collective/record label/comics imprint/consignment store/gallery/other things Tender Loving Empire, which Mees runs with his wife Brianne. How PDX of him.

Free and legal MP3: Cold Cave (dense, powerful, memorable)

Cold Cave

“The Great Pan Is Dead” – Cold Cave

Combining dense, pummeling energy and palpable ache, “The Great Pan Is Dead” is four minutes of stunning 21st-century rock’n’roll. Wowee. I hardly knew at first how to unpack what I was hearing—the buzzing-guitar wall of sound, the orchestral synth lines, the relentless sonic drive, the sense of furious poignancy suffusing this whirl of sheer electrical power. In the center of it we get the full-throated emoting of front man Wes Eisold. Eisold has a history as a screamer in hard-core bands, and you can hear it at the edge of his singing, even as the singing is genuinely sensitive, even moving.

So I let it cycle on repeat for a long time and I finally began to hear, maybe, what was happening. In the tradition of modern classical minimalists more than any pop song I’ve heard, “The Great Pan Is Dead” spends long periods of time anchored in one chord—the music moves energetically and rhythmically while staying unusually rooted harmonically. We do not, for instance, hear a chord change in the song until 51 seconds in. That is not normally done. This lack of harmonic motion adds immeasurably to the pent-up fury of the aural landscape. Eisold, in the middle of this, sounds like someone throwing his battered body against a bolted door. “I know people without substance,” he sings; you can hear the thud of exclamation points in his phrasing.

And then, later in the song (2:33), we arrive at an opposite place: Eisold singing a largely one-note melody against a shifting series of chords—another kind of subtle, claustrophobic tension to contend with. This is one crazy cool song, and my first shoe-in for a place on the 2011 favorite song list.

Cold Cave is a trio based in NYC. “The Great Pan Is Dead” is from the band’s second album, Cherish the Light Years, due in April on good old Matador Records. MP3 via Matador.

Free and legal MP3: The Submarines (jaunty, reflective, augmented electropop)

The Submarines

“Birds” – The Submarines

At once jaunty and reflective, “Birds” offers up an appealing mix of the electro and organic, as husband-wife duo John Dragonetti and Blake Hazard augment their based guitar-and-keys sound with strings, bird song, sing-along harmonies, and—a first for them—a live drummer. (And hey, it’s Jim Eno, from Spoon.) More than most electropop, this song sounds like it was recorded by real people in real three-dimensional space. Warmth permeates, and the electronic tools utilized feel all the more effective in this setting. This is something I suspect that more bands are likely to understand in this new musical decade: the power of integration. Now that we can literally concoct any sound we want at any time, creating more and more new sounds is no longer a particular talent. The talent is to integrate the sounds we have in newly effective ways. Just making electropop suddenly becomes a narrow and uninteresting pursuit; learning how to incorporate the sounds of electropop into a broader aural spectrum—much more interesting, and fun, I should think.

To hear a bit of the power of this, check out the difference between the song’s two instrumental breaks. At 1:25, a ghostly synthesizer line gives way, via a manipulated drumbeat, to two varieties of strings—the rhythmic pizzicato pluckings of violins, and the low bowing of a cello. And then at 2:42, the same opening melody is voiced with a more classic electro sound, which now leads into a spiffy shot of backwards guitar lines. That the song has led up to this instead of just fed us this electro diet from measure one—and that the electro elements have grown naturally from the aural palette of the overall song—is a great part of the charm, to me.

The Submarines are based in Los Angeles and have two previous full-length albums to their credit (and were featured on Fingertips back in 2006, at the time of their debut). “Birds” is a track from their forthcoming album Love Notes/Letter Bombs, slated for an April release on Nettwerk Records. MP3 via Spin.com. Bonus Submarines trivia: Hazard is the great-granddaughter of F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Free and legal MP3: Jeniferever (complex & alluring Swedish rock)

A Swedish band that sounds more like an Icelandic band—that is to say, drifting and expansive versus kicky and ironic (and yeah, I know: generalizations; oh well!)—Jeniferever plays with a lilting sort of precision that seems well-suited to the grey icy whiteness that many of us have been looking at out our windows for the weeks on end.

Jeniferever

“Waifs and Strays” – Jeniferever

The song derives its elusive power from its hidden-in-plain-sight 3/4 time signature. The pace is steady and deliberate, like a 4/4 song, without any waltz-like clue that we’re in three. Blame drummer Frederik Aspelin on the seductive misdirection; after staying aligned with beats one and two he rushes ahead and then behind the third beat before the ear quite recognizes it, creating a hypnotic, syncopated flow where more typically we get the prosaic ONE-two-three, ONE-two-three. The verse melody then works complexly in and around this already complex approach to the basic time signature; singer Kristofer Jönson here does not once sing a melody aligned with the basic beat (“Fight to find the balance in between,” he sings, at one point). And this is exactly why the chorus floods us with grace, beginning with that wondrous four-note guitar lead-in (1:18), which seems literally to launch us into another plain of awareness. In the chorus, the melody at last surrenders to the beat the song had otherwise resisted. It feels just about transcendent, all the more so as the chorus otherwise remains unresolved. The big moment is the moment that appears to be leading to a bigger moment but actually doesn’t.

“Waifs and Strays” is a song from the quartet’s new album, Silesia, only its third full-length in 15 years of existence. (Not to date them or anything but the band is named after an early Smashing Pumpkins song.) It will be released on Monotreme Records in April. Thanks to Monotreme for permission to host the MP3. And thanks to Largehearted Boy for the head’s up on the song.

Free and legal MP3: Blair (wonderful combination of voice & craft)

Instantly engaging (no intro!), with its rumbly, rubbery bass line and off-handed but sure-handed melody; the hook here is in the verse, not the chorus. Blair (no last name!) has one of those breathy voices that still seems not-breathy—we get both air and earth in her tone. How she sings is as much a part of the song’s charm as the song itself.

Blair

“Wolfboy” – Blair

And yet there are indeed a number of further delightful enhancements on display: the xylophone, for one; the way the song clears out and slows down after the chorus, for another (so few songs stop to breathe like that; it often speaks to the quiet confidence of the songwriter). And then there’s the xylophone-led instrumental break at 0:51, with its almost cinematic sense of anticipation, which lo and behold links us back to the unusually satisfying verse. As it unfolds, in fact, this song delivers a bigger, more spacious, and well-crafted sound than one might initially expect from a quirky, one-named Brooklyn singer/songwriter. Then again, she was born in New Orleans. Don’t underestimate the way music seeps into your veins down there.

“Wolfboy” is from Blair’s debut album, Die Young, which was actually released a year ago, on Autumn Tone Records. I missed it at the time—buzzed right through my inbox. But then again, this song wasn’t available at that point. Blair is heading out on tour this month and is going to end up at SXSW, which is why a new free and legal MP3 has abruptly surfaced (note there are two more free and legal MP3s from the album up on the Autumn Tone site). Thanks again to David at Largehearted Boy (now based in Brooklyn himself) for the lead.

Free and legal MP3: Radical Face (quietly portentous, w/ minor-major alternation)

He seems to be telling quite a story with that expressive tenor of his—and yes I get the basic gist from the title alone—but there’s something about the music, each time, that pulls me away from the words.

Radical Face

“The Deserter’s Song” – Radical Face

I like good lyrics, don’t get me wrong. I just don’t tend to default to lyric-listening. I get distracted by the music. Drawn in and swept away. Even when I start out actively trying to listen to lyrics, I often lose my way. This one, wow, I’ve been listening over and over and I can’t seem to focus on the lyrics for very long at all. He seems to be telling quite a story with that expressive tenor of his—and yes I get the basic gist from the title alone—but there’s something about the music, each time, that pulls me away from the words.

I consider this a good thing. In fact, I would go as far as to say that I think a songwriter has done quite an impressive job if you, as a listener, know that the song works and yet can’t manage quite to follow what he or she is saying. Or okay maybe it’s just me as a listener. But I hear that deep tom-tom, I hear the hushed interplay between rhythm sticks and one-handed piano playing, I hear the always effective alternation of minor and major keys, never mind the thunder and rain (not always effective, but it works here, for me), and the words disintegrate into the song itself. I absorb the portentous atmosphere with no firm idea of what the song is specifically recounting. I consider this a good thing.

Radical Face is the name Ben Cooper has given to his solo recording project. Cooper is otherwise known, to some, as half of the duo Electric President, themselves featured here last February. “The Deserter’s Song” can be found on the EP Touch the Sky, released in November on the Berlin label Morr Music. A previous Radical Face album, Ghost, came out in November 2007. MP3 via Better Propaganda. This one I have known about since its release; it just took a while to grow into something I wanted to feature. Some music works like that. I hope you guys out there don’t always dismiss a new song with too quick a hit of the “next” button. Some songs need a bit of air and space.

Free and legal MP3: Big Eyes (power-poppy-punky)

Big Eyes

“Why Can’t I” – Big Eyes

You hear that thing in the introduction, that instrument that establishes both the ambiance and the melody with its crunchy electric drive? That’s a guitar. And you know what you do with a guitar? You either play it (if you’re in the band) or you listen to it (if you’re not in the band). This guitar you’re hearing doesn’t need you to remix it or loop it or make an app out of it. It’s just a terrific power-poppy-punky guitar part, with a strong lineage (hear “Starry Eyes” in it, a little? not to mention any number of Cheap Trick songs?) and a good heart. Listen and love it and don’t forget that listening—really listening—is as interactive an activity as there is.

Front woman Kate Eldridge, formerly in a band called Cheeky, has a really effective DIY-ish voice—forceful, maybe even a little bratty, unschooled, but not (praise the lord) out of tune, and not so muddied up in the mix that you can’t sense the personality behind the voice. This is a little kid’s plea, after all—“Why can’t I…?”—and yet there’s more happening here than may first meet the ear. Yes, Eldridge’s slightly snotty tone creates the surface impression that she is, little-kid-ishly, asking after something she feels entitled to but isn’t getting. But check out the pivotal lyric: “Sometimes you make me so mad/All I want to do is treat you bad/Baby now why can’t I just love you all the time?” She’s really wondering about that deeper thing that drives people who love each other into opposing camps. She sees her own limitations; her “why can’t I” isn’t railing against her external circumstances as much as her internal ones. This laces her brashness with a vulnerability that informs all three minutes and twenty-three seconds of this spiffy piece of good old rock’n’roll.

Big Eyes are a trio from Brooklyn. They have released a tape (yes, a tape), and a 7-inch single prior to this, their latest 7-inch single, issued earlier this month by Don Giovanni Records. The band’s debut LP is due out in May.

Free and legal MP3: Over the Rhine (great slinky soulful musicianship)

An exquisitely musical duo, and a married couple to boot, Over the Rhine seems to leave no little detail unregarded, even in a song as loose and slinky as “The King Knows How.”

Over the Rhine

“The King Knows How” – Over the Rhine

An exquisitely musical duo, and a married couple to boot, Over the Rhine seems to leave no little detail unregarded, even in a song as loose and slinky as “The King Knows How.” Grounded in Linford Detweiler’s sly, atmospheric piano playing and some marvelously well-thought-out percussion, this song shimmies like an old soul classic, while rewarding careful attention at every turn. Even the casual-seeming introduction, barely more than the sounds of instruments getting warmed up, is elusively wonderful, with Detweiler’s offhand (but perfect) piano fills and what surely sounds like an elephant trumpeting. Or take the seven or so seconds we get between the words “take me all the way” and “to Memphis” at 1:47: listen carefully and hear the subtle smorgasbord of sounds employed during a moment most bands might tread water, which this time includes something that sounds a bit like sheep.

And then of course there’s the front and center reality of Karin Bergquist’s distinctive voice, which operates so much with its own idea of tone and phrasing that whatever combination of human and robot is responsible for the content on internet lyrics sites hasn’t been able to figure out that the first lyric in this song is, simply, “I feel as lonely as anybody/who’s crying on a Friday night.” Her singing may be an acquired taste but it is one I think worth acquiring—as warm and rich as it is idiosyncratic. I like that she’s sharing the stage this time with some strong backing vocals, their explosive, roomful-of-soul sound adding rather than detracting from her own vocal potency.

If there were a Fingertips Hall of Fame, this Cincinnati band, along with John Vanderslice, would be charter members; this is now OTR’s sixth song featured here, but the first since 2007 (check the Artist Index for details). “The King Knows How” is the first available track from the band’s upcoming album, The Long Surrender, due out in February on their own Great Speckled Dog label. MP3 via Each Note Secure.

Free and legal MP3: Leverage Models (synth-driven beat, inscrutable allure)

Leverage Models

“Dreaming of Accidents” – Leverage Models

“Dreaming of Accidents” moves with a brisk, ’80s-pop dancebeat, offers up a glistening, hook-like synth line, throws in some falsetto vocals and a sax solo, and generally engages the ear from start to finish. It does so without any recognizable song structure, or any abiding hooks (the synth line is merely hook-like). There does seem to be a chorus, sort of (the “We dream ourselves to sleep” part), but it’s nothing you’re likely to pick out without repeated listens. Oh and then there’s the opening vocal section (from 0:09 through 0:36), with its portentous, mostly-one-note melody: it’s more or less a fake verse, since we never hear it again. The song glides effortlessly along from there, guided by Shannon Fields’ elastic voice, that bright, recurring synth line, and—wait for it—one particularly authoritative chord change, which I think we hear twice (first at 1:52), but it really helps the whole thing fall into place, if inscrutably so. Mostly we never really know where in the song we are; or, maybe at any point it seems we could be anywhere—verse, chorus, bridge, or some mysterious other place entirely.

“Dreaming of Accidents” is the first song released by Fields as the Leverage Models. Fields has previously been known as a prime mover behind the idiosyncratic Brooklyn ensemble Stars Like Fleas. He has apparently moved to some undisclosed location in upstate NY to record as Leverage Models. No precise word yet on an album release. ~~MP3 via Hometapes.~~

Free and legal MP3: Alex Winston (bashy & engaging)

Winston is 21, and was born and raised in the Detroit area. She’s now in New York City and watch out. I suspect we’ll be hearing from her.

“Sister Wife” – Alex Winston

How and why do some songs grab you right away? It’s a mystery. This one has a bashy, kitchen-sink-y feeling to its wordless vocal intro that makes me quickly happy. And then there may be something in the octave span that deepens the introduction’s allure. That is, Winston’s “oo-oos” descend an entire scale in that opening section; and I think the ear is engaged when a melody encompasses the whole scale, just like our eye is engaged by a black-and-white photo that utilizes the entire range of gray.

And when she starts singing the actual lyrics, watch out. I am now hooked by new mysteries: her rich yet slightly baby-ish voice, calling up echoes of early Kate Bush recordings; a lyrical audacity that launches us into the middle of a song that seems to be about polygamy; the xylophone that augments the “oo-oo” section the second time we hear it. There’s something big and brash on display here, but it’s a sweet sort of brashness, the kind borne of young talent, talent that just does things because they seem right. I could pontificate about the slidey sort of verse that we hear and how it’s sung largely off the beat and out of the center of the measure, and then how it pairs so effectively with a front and center chorus, nearly anthemic in its melodic inevitability; and it may have nothing to do with how she just wrote the damn thing.

Winston is 21, and was born and raised in the Detroit area. She’s now in New York City and watch out. I suspect we’ll be hearing from her. “Sister Wife” is the title track to her debut “mini-LP,” coming in March on Heavy Roc. MP3 via NME.