MP3s – Page 77 – Fingertips

Free and legal MP3: Blonde Redhead

Dreamy, with deep appeal

“Here Sometimes” – Blonde Redhead

Some bands have an uncanny ability to delight–something in the sound, the vibe, the singer’s voice, the combination of melody and rhythm, or something even more elusive, feels just right, entices the ear before any actual “hooks” or “catchy parts” arrive. Blonde Redhead is that kind of band. There are no hooks or catchy parts in “Here Sometimes,” a song that appeals deeply, at a level likely beyond analysis.

But me being me, I’m still going to try to break it down a little. And so first: listen to the opening section, in which Kazu Makino sings over a rhythmic accompaniment that itself is an inscrutable blend of an organic and electronic beat. She sings a leisurely, wistful, slightly complex melody that stretches out over 20 measures, with a couple of thoughtful pauses. A synthesizer joins very subtly along the way, but 49 seconds pass before the music starts in earnest–a mix of disparate keyboard sounds and a deliberate, syncopated bass line. And listen now to how the chords described by the instruments floating through the background change the melody dramatically. (Compare, for instance, the sound at 0:24 to 1:04—same melodic point, entirely different experience.) It’s an odd song, instrumentally, come to think of it, lacking any obvious “lead” instrument or even any sort of dominant sound; we get one 15-second synthesizer break (2:00) but even that is elusive, featuring sounds that evanesce if you listen too closely. I think the instrumental vagueness is part of what gives “Here Sometimes” its dreamy force, not to mention thematic resonance (the idea of being “here sometimes,” but not all the time).

Makino has been in Blonde Redhead with twin brothers Simone and Amedeo Pace since 1993. The band used to be larger but has been a trio since the mid-’90s. “Here Sometimes” will appear on the album Penny Sparkle, which is coming in September on 4AD. It’ll be their eighth album, and their first since 2007. ~~MP3 via Better Propaganda.~~

Free and legal MP3: Shiv Hurrah

Wilco-ish and melodic

“Oh Oh Oh” – Shiv Hurrah

This is a brand new band but they don’t sound like it. Because in a way they’re not—four of the five guys in Shiv Hurrah grew up together in Rochester, New York, and played in a band there in the early ’00s. Ten years, two cities, and one additional band member later, they regrouped in Brooklyn early this year, and early this month released the first results of their renewed labors—a five-song self-titled digital album, available for free, that includes this unknown beauty of a song.

Or call it, more accurately, a diamond in the rough. The production is a problem, and I don’t just mean the mixed-down vocals (which some of course do on purpose). I don’t mind a bit of DIY but the oddly recorded drums are surely more accident than strategy; I suggest not turning the volume too high so that tom that reverberates weirdly every now and then is less distracting. And yet I keep coming back to it, charmed by the relaxed ease of the Wilco-ish groove and, truly, slayed by the strength of the songwriting. What a great great melody, and how quickly it arrives! Most songs need a lot more set-up time, but this one gives us a brilliant, back-door resolution right at the end of the first line of the verse (first heard from 0:44 to 0:46). It’s the kind of resistance-melting melody that enhances the lyrics so that they zing and pierce—get a hold of how it supports the line (1:04) “But I’m the one who taught you how to tie that knot.” Brilliant. Another strong sign is the fact that this homely song from an unknown band offers a great new rock’n’roll lyric, near the end, too: “I never get homesick/I just get sick of my home.” Production challenges and all, front man David Bechle sometimes sounds like a million bucks, and shows me that his new (old) band is well worth keeping an eye on.

“Oh Oh Oh” is the fifth and final song from the band’s debut EP, a digital-only release that is available for free via Bandcamp.

Free and legal MP3: Buried Beds (upbeat, off-kilter, semi-Beatlesque)

“Breadcrumb Trail” – Buried Beds

So we already knew that Eliza Jones (nee Hardy) has one sweet voice. Buried Beds was featured here in 2006 for the gorgeous, melancholy “Camellia,” and her pure-toned but lived-in presence gave a beautiful song extra depth and meaning.

This time, the band cranks and swings and bashes around a bit, orchestrally speaking, all in the service of some upbeat but slightly off-kilter, semi-Beatlesque pop. It’s less obvious than last time but I think the song still revolves around Jones; she’s a powerful singer, without having to belt or bray to demonstrate command. Her prowess is on display instead in subtle moments, like the way she drags the phrase “He can’t find the man he was” behind the peppy beat (0:14) or the abruptly delicate manner in which she delivers the song’s interesting punchline at 2:29.

Buried Beds is a five-piece from Philadelphia, where the band stays active on stage even as the recordings have been few and far between. “Breadcrumb Trail” is from the band’s just-released second album, Tremble the Sails. MP3 via the band’s site. Thanks to Bruce at Some Velvet Blog for the head’s up.

Free and legal MP3: The Roots (terrific reworking of MOF tune)

“Dear God 2.0” – the Roots

That’s Jim James (ok, Yim Yames) at the beginning and it’s the same “Dear God” as appeared on the Monsters of Folk album—that is, until the Roots’ Black Thought takes over. (I like, by the way, how long he waits. This is a confident band. And check out that great “Uh-huh” with which he starts his rap after James, both times.) I don’t think you have to be a big hip-hop fan (lord knows I have no expertise in the area) to sense the glory in this performance. The voice rumbles more with weariness than anger, or even pain; words tumble out but with great discipline; thoughts pile onto thoughts almost haphazardly but stark themes emerge; and—nimble trick, this—words that don’t really rhyme are made to sound better than if they did. (e.g. “Why is the world ugly when you made it in your image?/And why is living life such a fight to the finish?”) And everything floating on top of a jazz-informed soul groove, soft but persuasive, with some really sweet chord progressions, if you wait and listen for them.

And listen, I know the distance I tend to keep from hip-hop is a generational thing. I find it hard to warm to music without melody and (often) without a lot of actual instruments, and hard to warm to vocalists who seem to all want to sound the same, not to mention lyrical content that often seems so bleak and short-sighted. But never mind all that right now. This song’s the real deal, and so is this band.

“Dear God 2.0” is from the Roots’ new album How I Got Over, due out next week on Def Jam. MP3 via Pitchfork.

Free and legal MP3: Sea of Bees (rumbly, minor-key goodness)

Rich, deep, and flowing, “Marmalade” has the rumble of some muddy, alt-rock classic, complete with rubbed-out vocals and a battery of guitar sounds, from fuzzy-growly to acoustic-strummy to lonesome-seering. For all the ground-level noise and minor-key darkness, however, the song lifts and soars most wonderfully. It’s an intriguing effect.

“Marmalade” – Sea of Bees

Julie Ann Bee’s voice is central to “Marmalade”‘s appeal. Even as she buries the brighter and quirkier aspects of her singing under the song’s portentous textures, she doesn’t give in to cliched howling–an impressive feat especially as the song features plenty of wordless “oh-oh”-ing, which lord knows could’ve been howled. Instead she plays to a dusky quality in her voice that you almost don’t hear here but in almost not hearing it’s all the more engaging. I think. Meanwhile, listen to how the various guitars combine into an almost orchestral unity of purpose. Not a sound is wasted; propelled by a swift, unstinting rhythm and its plaintive minor key, the song is a fast, involving ride, ending, each time I listen, before I quite expect it.

“Marmalade” is from Sea of Bees’ debut full-length CD, Songs For The Ravens, released last month on Crossbill Records. Sea of Bees is a musical project masterminded and performed by the Sacramento-based Bee (nee Baenzinger), with an assist from producer John Baccigaluppi and a few guests.

Free and legal MP3: Simian Ghost (warm, graceful electronic pop)

The allure of electronic pop is also its abiding challenge: the transformation of an alienating aural landscape of beeps and tones and tinkles and ripples into music with some emotional impact. There’s a thin line between elegant and icy, and the best electronic pop music glides along that line without breaking a sweat.

“Star Receiver” – Simian Ghost

“Star Receiver” glows with not only elegance but genuine warmth. Listen to how it builds itself up from a few meandering synth lines, grounding the song from the start in something not simply mechanical sounding. Even after the beat kicks in (0:16), the listener’s ear is drawn to the sounds that either float above or weave themselves gently around the basic rhythm. The effect is unhurried and idiosyncratic rather than robotic or clock-like. When the groove is completed by the deft integration of an acoustic guitar (0:48), the rhythm gets a discernible riff and, ultimately, after an entirely unhurried series of graceful repetitions, a genuine, resolving melody (1:32). And then, at long last, Sebastian Arnström begins singing. This is its own kind of treat–his lovely tenor is at once firm and delicate, the trace of an unplaceable accent adding to its subtle tremor. He backs himself up, elusively, with vocals that echo in a lower pitch, adding spaciousness and intrigue. Soon we get a sound nearly like a violin, or maybe a harmonica. The whole thing glistens and bubbles and moves.

Arnström is in the Swedish band Aerial; Simian Ghost is a side project. “Star Receiver” is from the debut Simian Ghost album, Infinite Traffic Everywhere, set for release in the fall on Nomethod Records, a Swedish label. MP3 via Nomethod.

Free and legal MP3: Kathryn Calder (New Pornographer goes solo)

Beginning as a pensive bit of Jane Siberry-like abstractness, fueled by little more than an egg shaker and a spare piano line, “Slip Away” unfolds deliberately, but never loses my attention. Despite the minimal instrumentation, the song opens with a strong melody and a prolonged sense of anticipation. It’s two full minutes before the music stretches out a bit and yet I’m with it all the way.

“Slip Away” – Kathryn Calder

And then at 2:15, the song really kicks in, and the kicking-in part is at once lyrically incidental–there are no lyrics in it at all, in fact–and musically central, radiating out both forward and backward in time, illuminating both what we’ve already heard and what we are about to hear. What I think we have here is a lyric-free chorus, sung without words, which I’m not sure I’ve heard too often. But what a wonderful, dynamic thing it is, with a melody taking almost yodelly leaps that would surely have defeated any effort to be burdened with language.

Calder is a singer and keyboard player from Vancouver who is best known at this point for being the least known person in the New Pornographers. She also co-fronts the band Immaculate Machine, which has been featured here in April ’09 and May ’07. “Slip Away” is the lead track from her first solo release, Are You My Mother?, coming in August via File Under: Music. MP3 via Spinner.com.

Free and legal MP3: Light Pollution (short, bashy, melodic)

“Oh Ivory!” – Light Pollution

While apparently muddier, mix-wise, than the usual Fingertips fare–the very-bashy drums are up front, the vocals buried halfway down–“Oh Ivory!” succeeds through the giddy force of its melodic energy and the quirky chemistry of its not-really-that-muddy-after-all production. There’s something old-school at work here, something that puts me in the mind of the ’60s, though I can’t put my finger on it. And anyway, by the time I think I’m getting it, the song is over. It’s nice and short.

And yet, although just 2:29, check out how the tune meanders for more than 40 seconds in an orchestrally interesting but melodically static interlude–featuring the not often used but always engaging combination of classical stringed instruments and rock percussion. On the one hand it goes on a little too long but on the other hand if it didn’t go on that long the payoff wouldn’t be quite so stirring. And stirring those final 30 seconds are, featuring now a shouted, one-note melody over an engaging parade of chords. In the end, this brief song has an offbeat but resonant structure, giving it the feeling of a much longer journey.

Light Pollution is a quartet from Chicago; “Oh, Ivory!” is a track from the band’s debut album, Apparitions, which is set for release next month on Carpark Records. MP3 via Spinner.

Free and legal MP3: Sarah Jaffe (crisp & insistent, w/ cello)

“Clementine” – Sarah Jaffe

“Clementine” creates an appealing sense of urgency without a lot of volume or density or high drama. I’m thinking it’s the cello. The cello has a deep tone, but not as deep as a bass; it registers more as melody than rhythm, but also colludes with an acoustic guitar in an elusive way. It’s there but it’s not there. It adds depth.

Jaffe’s voice doesn’t hurt either. She’s got a slightly roughed-up, Lucinda-like edge to her singer/songwriter delivery, and it’s particularly well-suited to a melody that gains traction from the purposeful repetition both of lyrics and of small musical intervals–few if any of the notes are more than two whole-steps apart. This might be almost claustrophobic if the song weren’t so fleet and insistent. And then, at 1:52, we get that new and different stringed sound–a clipped and itchy motif that sounds maybe like some pizzicato, maybe also on the cello–that helps drive the song even more insistently forward.

Jaffe is based in Denton, Texas, also home to Midlake, with whom she has toured. “Clementine” is a song from her debut album, Suburban Nature, which was released last week on Kirtland Records. The album came out digitally last month. MP3 via Jaffe’s web site. Thanks to Some Velvet Blog for the head’s up.

Free and legal MP3:The King Left (sharp, rumbling, semi-dissonant rocker)

“The Way to Canaan” – The King Left

Okay so noise is one thing. When you come right down to it, it’s easy to make noise. Never understood what the fuss was about from the rock’n’roll primitivists who glorify sheer volume. I mean, okay–turn the bloody amps up and boom. It’s noisy. Like, wow.

“The Way to Canaan” – The King Left

Start combining noise with discipline and you begin to get my attention. Start understanding music enough to create different kinds of noise, not all of which are simply loud, and now you’ve really got something going. The King Left certainly does, playing continually along the edge of dissonance in this sharp, rumbling rocker. From the outset, we get no settled sense of tonic, a base chord to call home; instead we get slashing, clanging guitars and–key to keeping things unsettled–a dynamic bass line, running up and down and all around. The sound is at once harsh and tight. And listen to where the music goes when the lyrical line ends, at 0:27, and again at 0:40–we’re left not only without resolution but bopping itchily in a clashing key, with that bass guitar refusing to ground us in a stable place. The chorus at long last delivers an anthemic release, but–there’s a catch–buries it under a searing lead guitar, while Corey Oliver, even as he all but shouts, delivers his vocals as if now down in the basement. Nothing is easy but the hand-hold here is that it’s all very precise. Knowing you’re in good hands relaxes the ear, I think.

The band’s MySpace page lists Radiohead, The Beatles, David Bowie, Talking Heads, Nirvana, and R.E.M. as its first five influences and damned if “The Way to Canaan” isn’t some kind of crazy-brilliant amalgam of all five. The song is from the New York City quartet’s first full-length album–which is unfortunately also their last. They played their final show last week and are now no more. ~~MP3 via the band’s site.~~ Thanks to Largehearted Boy for the head’s up.