MP3s – Page 69 – Fingertips

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.

Free and legal MP3: Matt Longo

Sweet, melancholy, concise

“The Night” – Matt Longo

Sweet, melancholy, and concise, “The Night” is half ballad, half lullaby, with a lovely, organic melody that links the verse and chorus so seamlessly that it sounds like one long outpouring of thought, breath, desire, regret. Longo’s light, expressive tenor works equally well with the simple guitar accompaniment that begins the piece and the string- and drum-enhanced arrangement in the middle.

The song sounds like something you might stumble upon at a late-night party, where a guy with a guitar breaks into an easy, heartfelt tune, is joined by a couple of other friends with instruments, while a quiet roomful of people nod their heads in musical sympathy. There’s nothing complicated about it except its power to move you without being complicated. To kind of go meta on you for a moment.

“The Night” is one of seven songs on Longo’s debut album, Alexandria, which was released in November and available for free via Bandcamp.

Free and legal MP3: The District Attorneys (rag-tag barroom stomper)

You can just about hear the pints being raised during this rag-tag, barroom stomper.

The District Attorneys

“Splitsville” – the District Attorneys

You can just about hear the pints being raised during this rag-tag, barroom stomper. And yet it’s an easy-going barroom stomper, if there can be such a thing—no full-out, Replacements-style aggressive sloppiness for this relatively new Atlanta quintet. You can tell right away from the banjo and harmonica which make their presence known early on. These are not kick-ass instruments; they’re serious ones. So, yeah, there are gang-style sing-alongs and shout-alongs, a chugging, Stones-like rhythm guitar line, and a general feeling of lazy looseness, but something tells me these guys don’t just stumble into their songs. They work for them, and polish them, and in this case what they want to polish was something rough-hewn and loose-limbed. This is not as easy as it sounds.

Take the rousing chorus, for example, which, starting the second time we hear it, offers up not one but two separate sing-along sections—two hooks for the price of one, basically. And yet singer/songwriter Drew Beskin was crafty enough to make us wait for it, to give us one run-through without the second part. There’s a related moment at 2:12, when the end of the first verse is repeated but this time with a couple of extra lyrical lines. It’s a small thing, doesn’t necessarily register to most listeners consciously, but it speaks to the care with which the song was created, even as it flaunts its ramshackle vibe.

“Splitsville” is from the band’s debut seven-song album, Orders From…, which was self-released digitally in June 2010 but is being given a full-fledged national release next month. The whole thing remains free at the band’s Bandcamp page.

Free and legal MP3: Wye Oak (alterna-folky noise pop, kind of)

Sneaky great single from this increasingly impressive Baltimore duo—an elusive mix of alterna-folk and noise pop, using timelessness to unleash volume on a fulcrum of suspense. Or something like that.

“Civilian” – Wye Oak

“Civilian” has a simple structure: there are four two-line verses, with a repeating instrumental break between them. There is no chorus, even as the song directly implies one. Within this simplicity, however, admirable musical drama unfolds. From the outset, we get the foot-tapping rhythm and guitar-picking backbone of an old folk song, juxtaposed with smoky-voiced Jenn Wasner’s teasingly blurred phrasing; she has mastered the Stipean trick of allowing us to discern intermittent words but few extended thoughts. The impression of ancient folkiness is deepened by the steady recurrence of one particular three-note descending guitar line that we first hear at 0:10. There is something timeless and troubadoury in this motif, which repeats every 10 seconds or so for the better part of the song. When it comes missing at around 1:02 is in fact when we know that something is up, the moment pretty much coinciding with the recognition that the open-ended verses may not be leading us to a chorus after all. The three-note motif is here replaced with a more suspenseful, more electric guitar riff that doesn’t end up transforming anything but the volume, which cranks up a few notches at 1:19, thanks to the influx of fuzzy guitars and Andy Stack’s abruptly fuller-bodied drumbeat. Any chance we had previously to decipher Wasner is gone; Stack clearly doesn’t want us to hear her now.

Meanwhile the unresolved verses keep the ear waiting, vaguely, expectantly. And who knew? What we were waiting for, arriving at 2:36, is a squealing squalling outbreak of Wasner’s guitar, which obliterates the three-note motif and pretty much everything else in its path. She returns the favor to her partner, as guitar now pretty much manhandles the rhythm section in what surely will remain one of 2011’s best solos.

“Civilian” is the title track to Wye Oak’s forthcoming album, slated for a March release on Merge Records. MP3 via Merge. Wye Oak has previously appeared on Fingertips in both 2008 and 2009.

Free and legal MP3: The Ericksons

Singing sisters, w/ guitars, & unaffected vibe

“Box of Letters” – the Ericksons

There’s something ever, ever so slightly unhinged about the Erickson sisters’ basic Indigo Girls-ishness that I find immediately fetching. First, the obligatory acoustic-guitar-strumming intro itself is a bit off-kilter, aligning insistently with the in-between beat (i.e. the “and” in the “one-and-two-and-three…”). When the singing starts, it’s not yet the sweet, harmony-laced offering one might expect from singing sisters with guitars but rather a blurted, conversational, idiosyncratically-phrased vocal from Bethany. And when she’s finally joined by her sister Jennifer, the first harmony we get is actually dissonant (check out the “oo”-ing at about 0:27). Even the chorus, with its delightful, light-stepping, drum-brushed momentum, has a vaguely off-center feel, thanks to how the melody lags friskily behind the song’s driving beat.

And yet the Ericksons are not actively quirky in the manner of, say, Ani DiFranco, or, for that matter, any of the so-called “freak folk” crowd. If anything, the cumulative effect of the peppy “Box of Letters” is of two performers who are, simply, loose and unaffected. The song’s quiet eccentricities–many of which have to do with vocal phrasing–seem organic rather than mannered, and each delivers a pleasant little surprise when encountered. I particularly like the crazy little flourish the women give to their “oo-oos” around 1:54, and the way the song ends with the instruments fading away while the sung note is held maybe a tad longer than expected.

“Box of Letters” is from the album Don’t Be Scared, Don’t Be Alarmed, the duo’s second, released this past fall. Thanks to Robbie at Girlysounds for the head’s up.

Free and legal MP3: Arches (spacious music, w/ swing & hesitation)

“This Isn’t a Good Night For Walking” – Arches

One more twosome in what has inadvertently turned out to be “duo week” here. Of the three, Philadelphia’s Arches may be the least-likely-sounding band-that’s-only-two-people of all, because of how spacious this music is. The song is long by Fingertips’ standards—six and a half minutes—but hang with it. The length is part of the space. So of course is the reverb. But there’s more to it than that; the time the song takes to unfold and the echoey ambiance don’t create the space as much as model it. There’s something large and unhurried in the air here, a sense that the music needs the time it’s taking, if that makes any sense.

A concrete symbol of this need for space is the band’s use of hesitation throughout the song, both figuratively and literally. What I mean by “figurative” hesitation you can hear right away in the back-and-forth guitar chords employed in the introduction (and throughout), which pivot on one whole-step interval. On a piano this would be played by your index and middle finger, alternating in an even rhythm—which, if you think about what that looks like, is a gesture of waiting (the idle, or sometimes impatient, tapping of those two fingers). The sound sounds like it. Literal hesitation otherwise suffuses “This Isn’t A Good Night For Walking,” in everything from how the keyboards swing slightly behind the beat to the subtle way the back-and-forth chords get microscopically delayed as the song develops (say, at around 1:38), to how the five-note keyboard motif we hear in the foreground at 4:07 gets held up maybe a split second with each recurring statement. And then there’s the grandest hesitation of all: the way the lyrics disappear just past the halfway point, only after which the song takes us to its musical climax: a dramatic, strangely satisfying guitar-led iteration of the song’s verse.

“This Isn’t A Good Night For Walking” is the first available song from a forthcoming, yet-untitled album that Arches hopes to release before year’s end. MP3 via Pitchfork.

Free and legal MP3: N’T (concise & chuggy electro-glam[?])

“Good Karma” – N’T

A concise, chuggy piece of electro-glam (or some such thing), “Good Karma” is one of those songs with a moment—a precise juncture at which the ear surrenders to the music, and everything is okay with the world. An effective moment, repeated each time it comes up (typically in a chorus but not always), extends its blessing both forward and backward, granting a kind of giddy grace to an entire song.

The (now that I think about it) appropriately titled “Good Karma” has its moment beginning at around 1:01, in the second half of the chorus, when Scott French, N’T’s mastermind, sings, “Don’t freak out,” with the “out” stretched to three syllables, describing a descending line equivalent to sol-fa-mi in the familiar do-re-mi scale. This is a basic and eminently satisfying progression, but any effort I attempted (and now edited out) to explain why became quickly labored and complicated. Music is much simpler than words. Listen and smile.

French drums and writes songs for the Philadelphia band the Swimmers; as N’T—apparently we are to say “N apostrophe T”—he has issued an album called The Color Code, which he wrote, recorded, mixed, mastered, etc., by himself. It was self-released last month. You can download the album via his bandcamp page, for whatever price you’d like to pay. Thanks to Scott for letting me host this one.

Free and legal MP3: Braids

Engaging complexity, from Montreal

“Plath Heart” – Braids

Take a listen to the future of a certain kind of pop music. Not pop as in Billboard pop, which seems more than usually mired in robotic, sound-alike simplism here in 2011—I’m talking about pop as in electric-based music with vocals, organized into three- or four-minute songs, aimed at a contemporary audience. As a matter of fact, the more the current age drives robotic, sound-alike simplism through the mainstream, the more today’s rebels may want to study, practice, and begin making songs of engaging complexity and humanity. No point in punks doing the Auto-Tuned, three-chord thing if that’s what’s on the charts.

From the opening violin salvo, you know you’re in for a different ride here. Nothing about this song is straightforward or commonplace, and yet it is consistently engaging. (If the Dirty Projectors were less self-consciously prickly, they might sound something like this.) Electronics are used to create cascading, watery sounds over a jittery rhythm; guitars fill in sometimes like pinpricks, sometimes in a shivery flow of liquid. Singer Raphaelle Standelle-Preston has a theatrical voice that can both soar and particularize—listen for instance to how she ejects this incisive couplet about disconnected lovers, sung seemingly from the male point of view: “I poke and turn/You smoke and yearn.” Meanwhile, you will rarely hear a more precise, restrained drummer in a rock song than Austin Tufts, who plays here like another intertwining instrumentalist rather than a time-keeping basher.

And of course Braids are from Canada. They are in fact four youngsters (all in their early 20s) from Calgary, who met in junior high school, became a band in high school, and were so intent on developing musically that they delayed going to college to practice together for a year. Then, in 2008, they moved to Montreal. And the rest isn’t history yet but it might yet be. Keep an eye on these guys. “Plath Heart” is from the quartet’s debut, Native Speaker, which will be released later this month on Kanine Records. MP3 via Pitchfork.