MP3s – Page 77 – Fingertips

Free and legal MP3: The Innocence Mission (lovely, pure, acoustic toe-tapper)

“God is Love” – The Innocence Mission

Karen Peris, long-time front woman for the Innocence Mission, has an idiosyncratic purr of a voice, part velvet part parchment; it alternately soothes and cracks, sometimes doing both at once. She has an unplaceable accent and likes to sing of simple things out there from her Lancaster County abode, comfy in the 20-plus-years’ presence of her bandmate husband Don and his bandmate childhood friend Mike Bitts. The trio’s new album, My Room in the Trees, their ninth, is full of the outdoors, of weather and leaves and water and quiet neighborhoods. It is lovely, and this is one of the lovely songs on it, but with more of a toe-tapping beat than most of the others, with jazz-flecked acoustic guitar chords, gentle percussion, and what sounds like a hushed horn or woodwind but is actually a combination of pump organ, chromatic harmonica, and melodica, all played by Karen.

And given our fractious age, with tolerance and intolerance locked in misery on the cultural dance floor, I feel a need to comment briefly on the subject matter. Despite the title’s centrality to the lyrics, this is not an overtly religious song; its spiritual message in fact is so deeply ecumenical as to unify all but the most strident fundamentalists fuming away on the two extreme sides of the God-existence argument. I’ve seen one online review take the song to task for its lyrical simplicity, a criticism that never fails to amuse me. Ninety percent of all songs have simple lyrics. That’s why they’re songs. They rise or fall on the depth of the music, which can also appear simple in many cases. This song’s simplicity is part of its allure; purity has a place in our ears and hearts. Not a lot of indie music explores this place; I give these guys a lot of credit for making it look, and sound, as easy and comfortable as a conversation with old friends.

Which these guys, recording together since 1989, surely are. My Room in the Trees was released last week on Badman Recording Co.

Free and legal MP3: Like Bells (musically adept trio from Oberlin)

“Sea Salt” – Like Bells

And this one, not so simple. But still pure, in its own way. “Sea Salt” begins with such an extended introduction that first time through you are excused if you think it’s an instrumental. This long opening section unfolds via a series of eight-measure riffs that, together, slowly develop and shift the feel and texture of the music. We begin with a nimble bass line plucking out a handsome, ambling groove over tapping cymbals. After eight measures of that, a rhythm guitar joins, lightly played, and off the beat. Pay particular attention to the goings-on in the third eight-measure set, beginning at 0:35, featuring the introduction of the violin, as it plays a melody that becomes important much later. Then the lead guitar steps in for an eight-measure answer.

The next two minutes explores the musical ground established by the first minute, with the violin and guitar each having a chance to to lead the way, each in turn moving steadily into louder and more involved playing. This ends up being quite a bit of fun, since the trio (guitar-drums-violin; bass playing is split between the guitarist and the violinist) met while students at the Oberlin Conservatory. Which means they are actual musicians. Which is a nice bonus in the indie rock world. I like that the instrumental section maintains a nice clip—it seems too easy here in 21st-century rock’n’roll-land for instrumentals to bog down in overly dramatic slowness—and I like the relatively unexpected but musically satisfying entrance of actual vocals three and a half minutes into the proceedings. Violinist Garrett Openshaw does the singing, and he hinted as much back at 0:35 when the first thing he played on his instrument was the melody he would eventually sing.

Like Bells’ self-titled 2009 debut was pretty much all instrumental, with just a hint of vocalizing from Openshaw. Palma, their 35-minute, seven-song new album, features more singing, but as you can see from “Sea Salt,” the singing does not necessarily dominate. The album was released digitally in April and is now out on vinyl as well, on Exit Stencil Recordings. ~~MP3 via Exit Stencil.~~

Free and legal MP3: Erik Friedlander (movie-ish jazz instrumental from NYC cellist)

“Aching Sarah”

Apparently it’s cello week here. Or experimental music week. Not that this is experimental sounding per se—it’s quite a lovely, graspable instrumental with a jazz-like construction but with enough melody and offbeat aural flourishes (check out the percussion) to engage the ear of the non-jazz-aficionado (i.e. me). While cellist/composer Friedlander has made a name for himself in New York City’s downtown music scene (oh; it’s NYC week too), this doesn’t sound like you think that would sound like.

To begin, we get a trumpet and piano trading off on a gentle but insistent motif that is played enough to stick in your head but then gets unraveled in atmospheric development. With the cello content to play quiet descending lines in the background, we seem at first to be heading into jazz combo territory, the trumpet and piano and bass and percussion noodling around the now-unstated theme. But even here I’m appreciating the melodic focus that remains, not to mention the almost literally cinematic vibe, as the particular combination of Friedlander’s long bowing and trumpeter Michael Leonhart’s ’60s-cinema flair washes this with the wistful ambiance of a bittersweet European romantic comedy. Until, that is, Friedlander emerges from the background, at 2:47, for a droning minor-key improvisation/solo that is half spiritual plea, half cubist deconstruction of the original motif. It’s an interruption that feels both unexpected and welcome, an aural change of scene that renders the motif’s straightforward restatement as the solo gives way all the more affecting.

The movie-like feeling is apparently no accident. Released as a digital single earlier this month, “Aching Sarah” is supposed to be part of what Friedlander calls his “Cutting-Room Floor Series,” in which, he writes, “movie characters are cut from a film, and with their lives only half-realized, walk in a kind of limbo, aimless and confused, with no way to live out the arc of their scripted lives.” That not only informs the distinctive but unresolved central motif but also the concluding section, when the music seems almost literally to smash against its own limits, only to fade out. The MP3 available for free from his web site, but also for purchase via Amazon, eMusic, and iTunes.

Free and legal MP3: Two Hours Traffic (crackling power pop from Canada)

“Noisemaker” – Two Hours Traffic

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming: sharp, catchy, summertime pop from our impressively talented musical neighbors to the north. That’s more like it, eh?

This song has many things to love, and right away. First, the brisk, ringing guitar intro, which is not merely a persuasive opening salvo, but sounds brilliant following just about any other song on a playlist. Try it at home, you’ll see. Second, the way the voices join in, singing wordlessly, with the brisk, ringing guitars. Subtle and wonderful. Third, the fleet, wonderful sidestep taken from that guitar riff into the “oooooh” that opens the verse. Nifty, effortless little chord progression there. And then, oh boy, what about that “oooooh” itself? Straight out of the power pop handbook (Shoes, anyone?) and yet also a surprise coming right at the beginning like that. If they didn’t have me at hello, they surely had me at “oooooh.” The song is now about 23 seconds old. (And lasts 3:41–also as per the power pop handbook.)

Singer Liam Corcoran has just the right kind of spirited tenor required to make this crackle and resonate. It’s about energy, not content, as the thing about great power pop is that no one has to be singing about anything that is in itself all that powerful or intriguing; rather, there’s something in the music and presentation that makes whatever is being sung pretty much besides the point. It’s all deep and mysterious when the melody’s there, and the chords, and the unflagging energy of a band that knows it’s onto something. Songs like this often push that extra bit harder to knock your socks off, and I hear that here in the second half of the chorus, which uses a bit of unanticipated repetition to add an almost giddily satisfying resolution beyond the basic hook.

Two Hours Traffic is a foursome from Prince Edward Island. “Noisemaker” is the lead track (of course) from the band’s third album, Territory, which was released last year in Canada, and is due out in the U.S. in September via Bumstead Productions.

Free and legal MP3: Postdata (hushed, echoey, portentous ballad)

“Tobias Grey” – Postdata

I missed this one when it came out back at the beginning of the year, but it was probably one of those on-purpose accidents, as there is something in this hushed, portentous, echoey acoustic ballad that resonates with me in the middle of this seriously wacked-out weather. There’s a stifling stillness in the air during a heat wave, you don’t even have to go outside to feel it, it seeps through the building’s walls, suffuses the remedial air conditioning, makes effort—any effort—sad and impossible. This song is kind of like that, only pretty, also. Bonus for particularly relevant lyrics
(“Sometimes the weather don’t change/It just stays in the very same place”).

And it’s all so very quiet, with whispery vocals, tightly recorded acoustic guitar (you can hear fingers squeaking on the strings), and a really effective keyboard drone in the background, grounding the piece in something electric and threatening.

Postdata is a Canadian duo featuring Paul Murphy of the band Wintersleep and his brother Michael. The self-titled, self-released album has been out since January. The songs were born during a visit to their parents’ home in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. They were recorded on a laptop originally, then reworked a bit some months later in Halifax—mics, at least, were added, but they still used the laptop. So if you hear some lo-fi distortion here, that’s why. And for once I don’t really mind the roughness of the recording because the intimacy isn’t compromised—it might even be augmented.

Free and legal MP3: Saadi (hazy electro-pop w/ piano)

“Pollen Seeking Bees” – Saadi

Sweet yet surprisingly sturdy bit of piano-driven electronic pop. The piano line is a two-finger special—I mean quite literally it sounds like two index fingers going at it—that is instantly likable because its seeming simplicity still generates a complex rhythmic bed. Or, alternatively, because it’s the same two notes that open “Friday On My Mind“—you decide.

Born in Syria, raised in Pittsburgh and Manhattan, Boshra AlSaadi got her rock’n’roll start in the band Looker, which was featured in January 2007 (strangely enough, the same week, again, as Arcade Fire). In that incarnation she was cooking in a punk-pop mode; here, on her own, with her name abridged, she simmers in a hazier, electro-ish setting, but her potent soprano keeps this from getting too noodly. She sings in the midst of a smeary, reverberant bath that kind of spreads her voice out but does not touch the rest of the aural space, which is kind of an interesting effect. Note how she keeps the lyrics close to the edge of comprehensibility except for the third verse (1:08), beginning (hmm) with “Images in pixels” and ending (hmm again) with “the fog is knee deep.” Mixing lyrics down is a common trick but I don’t know that I’ve often heard them come and go within one song. It surely pulls the ear in, like getting a suddenly clear clue on an obscure puzzle.

“Pollen Seeking Bees” is from a 12-inch vinyl EP entitled Bad Days that came out in March on Serious Business Records. The link to the free and legal MP3 only recently emerged on Largehearted Boy, which is where I first heard it. MP3 via Serious Business.

Free and legal MP3: SheLoom

Bringing Bob Welch back

“One More Day” – SheLoom

Welcome to a song that doesn’t sound like a lot that you’ve probably been listening to lately, unless you have had an unaccountable hankering for your old Bob Welch records. (Nah, I didn’t think so.)

Needless to say, “One More Day” isn’t the product of some net-addled 21st-century rock band, but a collaboration between two nimble studio veterans. Both Filippo Gaetani and Jordon Zadorozny have track records extending backwards to the ’90s, and the breadth of experience to pull off this jazzy slice of pseudo-’70s rock. I’ll leave it to the even more philosophically minded than I to ponder why it can be so enjoyable to hear new music smartly influenced by old music that one never liked all that much in the first place. A conundrum for our catholic times, musically speaking. But I’m digging a lot about this, from those jazz-inflected suspended chords to the deft shifts in rhythm (from intro to verse, verse to bridge, bridge to chorus) and then the way the meandery verse leads into what amounts to a double chorus—the bridge and chorus are distinct but interrelated, and each offers a sturdy melody delivered with a stirring mixture of nostalgia and creativity.

“One More Day” is from the SheLoom album Seat of the Empire, digitally released last week by Minty Fresh Records. ~~MP3 via Minty Fresh.~~

Free and legal MP3: Sambassadeur (shiny, cinematic Swedish pop)

“I Can Try” – Sambassadeur

At first (aural) glance, “I Can Try” succeeds nicely as a sweeping piece of orchestrated twee pop. Which is almost just fine. Except for the fact that each time I go back to listen, things get more complicated and unusual-sounding. To begin with, what’s with the drumming? You’ve got the snare going full-blast, but delivering that shuffled up third beat—especially pronounced in the chorus, it happens throughout the song, and, in combination with that unrelenting double-time high-hat, creates a chugging rhythm that simultaneously barrels forward and hesitates.

Then there’s the melody, which is certainly as sweet-sad as the genre requires, and yet there’s something more to it. The melody in both the verse and the chorus is a nice long line, the verse melody resolving with an upward tilt while the chorus offers a steady downward release. But here’s an odd thing: the melody in the chorus extends for nine measures, which is not only unusual but difficult. Typically pop songs are constructed around sets of four measures or eight measures. It’s what the music often demands and our ears almost always expect. Here an extra measure sneaks in without causing the slightest fuss. And yet somewhere deep down we sense something’s off balance. That’s not very twee. The orchestration likewise isn’t quite what it seems. We hear strings near the beginning and think, “Oh, of course.” But it’s a string quartet, not a string section, and they spend more time stabbing staccato riffs than bowing maudlin flourishes. And when the horns arrive—the horns must always arrive—it’s a saxophone. Whatever became of the saxophone, anyway?

“I Can Try” is from the third Sambassadeur album, Europeans, released on Labrador Records in February. The Gothenburg-based quartet has been previously featured on Fingertips twice, once for each of its first two albums, in 2005 and in 2007. MP3 via Labrador.

Free and legal MP3: The Spires (smartly written, Velvet-y garage rock)

The guitar line upon which “Orange Yellow” is built is a thing of rock’n’roll beauty: sturdy, jangly, memorable, and simple-sounding without actually being that simple. Listen carefully and you’ll hear how the line turns upon a time-signature trick that adds two extra beats every third measure. This creates a delicious delay in the unfolding resolution; the resulting asymmetry is somehow marvelous and true.

“Orange Yellow” – the Spires

Laid upon this potent foundation, the song does well with its neo-Velvets vibe—singer Jason Bays even has something of a nasally, Lou Reed-ish semi-warble—even while bouncy along with more of a SoCal than a downtown groove. Production is garage-ish, but knowingly so, or even mischievously so: I feel certain that the ’60s buzzy-fuzzy aura is not merely purposeful but exists to distract the listener from quite how beautifully crafted the song is.

The Spires are a trio from Ventura featuring Bays on guitar, his wife Colleen Coffey on drums, and Catelyn Kindred on bass. “Orange Yellow” will be found on the band’s Curved Space EP, to be released later this month on Beehouse Records. Beehouse was created by Bays and Coffey in 2004 so they could release their stuff and has become an actual record label. A few other free and legal MP3s from the band can be found on the Beehouse site.

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.~~