MP3s – Page 85 – Fingertips

Free and legal MP3: Class Actress (electro-pop w/ a groove)

Rather than float above with requisite frosty archness, a match for the cold equipment around her, Harper pretty much purrs her way through this one. Whether down in the rich tone of her lower register for the verse or in the airier range of the chorus, Harper sings as if maintaining a wry, secret smile throughout, regardless of the emotional wreckage traced by the lyrics.

“Careful What You Say” – Class Actress

Given the synthesizer’s inherently goofy sound–the rubbery beeps and boops, the cartoonish echoes, and so forth–it’s a bit surprising, now that I think about it, that the instrument isn’t more jovially presented as a rule. Indeed, the synthesizer is offered up rather humorlessly in rock music by and large, far more often used with austerity or gravity than with a sense of humor, even when–or maybe especially when–propelling dance music of one kind or another.

Not so with “Careful What You Say.” From the opening noodles, the synthesizer tones are charged with something resembling mirth, if not flippancy. After the song settles into a seductive electro-groove–no organic instruments in sight–something else now goes against the electro-pop guidebook, which is front woman Elizabeth Harper’s singing. Rather than float above with requisite frosty archness, a match for the cold equipment around her, Harper pretty much purrs her way through this one. Whether down in the rich tone of her lower register for the verse or in the airier range of the chorus, Harper sings as if maintaining a wry, secret smile throughout, regardless of the emotional wreckage traced by the lyrics. As for that exquisitely breezy chorus, I like it all the more for how it is fitted into a song that refuses simply to be about its groove–and refuses, in the process, to take itself too seriously. (If you have any doubts about that latter point, check out the instrumental break that begins at 3:17; and just wait for it.)

Class Actress began as a solo project for Harper, but has become a full-fledged band. On the MySpace page, Harper is listed as “Songwriter,” Mark Richardson as “Beatmaker,” and Scott Rosenthal as “Heartbreaker.” “Careful What You Say” is a song from the trio’s debut EP, Journal of Ardency, slated for a February release on Terrible Records. MP3 via Pitchfork.

Free and legal MP3: Think About Life (exuberant deconstructed funk)

“Johanna” – Think About Life

So this may be about the best thing I’ve heard all year. How sharp and sleek and funky; how multileveled and well-crafted and exuberant; what deeply gratifying fun.

The basic groove alone is impressive, established at the outset by some brilliant horn charts, with their stuttery swing and that softly dissonant chord they settle on at the end of each phrase. But “Johanna” has so much more going for it than the basic groove, including an memorable melodic spine–the song just hangs on it so perfectly–and Martin Cesar’s delightful, full-throated singing. When everything kind of caves in on itself momentarily, at 1:14, this isn’t just a cute effect, it’s spirited statement of purpose: this Montreal-based quartet can and will do anything they want with the sound they’re creating. In an indirect way, Think About Life brings to mind Remain in Light-era Talking Heads–not because the sound is similar, but for this group’s willingness and ability to simultaneously work with and deconstruct the funk. I have rarely heard a band manage to give off a kitchen-sink air of anything goes while at the same time writing and playing such tight, kick-ass music. This isn’t just someone pushing a button to put this sound in here, then this sound here; as with Talking Heads before them, I get a strong sense of both brainy tinkering and physical exertion in the presence of this song. The crazy-awesome instrumental interlude at 2:26–30 seconds of time standing still right in the center of the groove–is not to be missed.

“Johanna” is from the band’s second album, Family, which was released in Canada in May and in the U.S. last month, on Alien8 Recordings. The MP3 was made available last week via Magnet.

Free and legal MP3: Will Stratton (gorgeous, reverb-laced)

I like the sonic interplay between the crisply strummed acoustic guitar at the front of the mix and that big dark open space underneath–space created seemingly by just a lonesome-prairie guitar and Stratton’s voice, each enhanced as they are by a steady, stately reverb.

“Who Will” – Will Stratton

Gorgeous and swaying, but with a deep-down sense of gravity. (Anyone remember the old Fleetwood Mac instrumental “Albatross”? This evokes that, pleasantly.) I like the sonic interplay between the crisply strummed acoustic guitar at the front of the mix and that big dark open space underneath–space created seemingly by just a lonesome-prairie guitar and Stratton’s voice, each enhanced as they are by a steady, stately reverb. The acoustic guitar offers naked immediacy, the reverbed layers lend a shadowy, contemplative air. Somewhere in the middle someone is sitting at a piano and playing a few chords every so often, adding to the engaging three-dimensionality. Later we get female harmonies, violins, even a trumpet, all of which contribute further to the song’s gentle dream.

But this song has a haunting quality that seems to be larger than the sum of its parts. In a weird way it’s as if the reverb itself, independent of what’s reverb-ing (the drums get it too, and the trumpet, and the female backing singers), is a visceral part of the intimate yet spacious landscape, is itself somehow its own presence in the music.

The 22-year-old Stratton recorded his first album, What the Night Said, the summer after he graduated from high school, and it was released two years later, in 2007. Two years further on, he’s out the other side of college, and along comes his second album, No Wonder, released last week on Stunning Models on Display. MP3 via the record company.

Free and legal MP3: The Sun (a fuzzy blast of melodic noise)

“In Perfect Time” – the Sun

A fuzzy blast of melodic noise, “In Perfect Time” seems to want to be played really loud. As a matter of fact, it has a kind of sneaky effect going–the louder I turn it, the louder still I feel I need to hear it. This clearly has to do with how singer Chris Burney’s voice is mixed down, but it’s more than just that. Any number of other bands have done the mixed-down-vocals thing and it doesn’t always have my hand reaching for the volume dial (okay, not a dial anymore, but whatever). So what else is going on here?

Part of it has to do with the unerring melodicism on display. Songwriters with the talent to write this kind of strong, earnest pop melody–Matthew Sweet in his heyday had this kind of sound–typically give you the thing right out front. You don’t have to fight for it. I turn the volume up here because I’m trying to put the melody where I’m used to hearing it. But, of course, turning the volume up only turns all the background wash louder also. And the noise is not at all unpleasant, mind you. It’s bashy and tinny and crunchy. And when it gets louder, I need to turn the volume yet higher, again trying to raise the vocals to a more audible level. A losing battle in this case, especially since–strange but true–the wall of sound appears to get proportionally louder than the vocals as I increase the volume. Producer Mike McCarthy has some wacky magic going here, perhaps the after-effect of working with Spoon’s studied minimalism for so many years (he’s produced all their albums since 2001).

The Sun is a band from Columbus, Ohio that did not name themselves with Google in mind. “In Perfect Time” is the closing track on the album Don’t Let Your Baby Have All The Fun, released this week on Rock Proper. Rock Proper happens to be a so-called “netlabel,” which means that its releases are entirely digital and entirely free. You can download all the songs from the album as free and legal downloads here.

Free and legal MP3: Ravens & Chimes (sprightly yet reserved indie rock)

Cheerful songs are usually vigorous things. Songs that seem hesitant, wavery, or otherwise introverted, on the other hand, tend to be at best wistful if not downright mournful. “Hearts of Palm” subverts the formula, and is all the more effective for it–a sprightly, hopeful-sounding song edged by an equivocal, somewhat trembling vibe.

“Hearts of Palm” – Ravens & Chimes

Some of this is due to the vocal qualities of Asher Lack, who sings like someone wading into cold water, at once timid and determined, while instruments chug forward around him. But listen and you’ll hear how the music yet reinforces the partially timorous atmosphere: it’s peppy, yes, but likewise stuttery, and lacking the oomph and crunch of a typical rock band. This isn’t for lack of personnel. Ravens & Chimes is a six-person outfit, but the members are busier playing things like harmonium and flute and glockenspiel to bother with the din of standard-issue rock’n’roll. And so this is how we end up with this buoyant, reserved piece of pop and I for one am happier for having heard it. I especially love the agile, islandy flute lines and the beautiful, pure-toned female harmony vocal that blends and yet doesn’t quite blend with Lack’s quasi-speak-singing in the chorus.

“Hearts of Palm” is a single from the band’s forthcoming and as-yet untitled second album. Its first CD, Reichenbach Falls, came out in 2007. Prior to the album’s release, this song is slated to be released soon as the a-side of a 7-inch single. MP3 via the band’s site.

Free and legal MP3: Tahiti 80 (carefree English-speaking French pop)

“Unpredictable” – Tahiti 80

Carefree English-speaking French pop from a band doing it before it was a genre. There’s something not only charming but truly satisfying about a song that works quite so well both for people who are barely paying attention and for people paying close attention. This is no small feat. For the first group, a jaunty, smoothly sung tune is all that’s required. Great background music. The second group is trickier to please, as the music has to display a sort of depth that jaunty, smoothly sung tunes by their nature often lack.

The depth here, for me, is rooted in the song’s offhanded musicality. “Unpredictable” is full of interesting moments that whisper rather than shout as they unfold. Listen, for instance, to the very start: we hear a basic drumbeat that the ear expects to be established through four standard measures but instead–there for us to notice, or not–it’s interrupted after three seconds, in the second measure, which grounds the song in a sort of percussive pre-introduction. Only after that comes the standard four-measure intro. Listen, as another example, to the subtle adjustments the melody makes in the verse and how seductively singer Xavier Boyle wraps his faintly textured tenor around them: the way the melody mimics the keyboard riff at 0:23; the slow then fast pacing in the phrase “knock me down” at 0:31; the way the verse line is shortened and turned on the unresolved phrase “on the wall” at 0:35; and that’s just in the first verse. I give the band points, too, for an entirely different kind of craftiness–how the song title comes not from the chorus but from the verse. That’s rare in a chipper number like this one; anyone seeking only the inattentive audience will place the title where it repeats most obviously.

Bouncing along since 1993, Tahiti 80 is quartet from Rouen, France. “Unpredictable” is from the album Activity Center, the band’s fourth, which has been out for a year in Europe; its U.S. release comes, at last, later this month.

Free and legal MP3: Múm (melancholy mystery from Iceland)

“Illuminated” – Múm

The fact that Múm wrote the music to its most recent album in the middle of Iceland’s economic meltdown and political upheaval adds poignancy to the already melancholy beauty of “Illuminated.” Against a bed of mystical tinkling and mysterious vocal arpeggios, “Illuminated” doesn’t so much start as float into being. The extended chord progression described by the angelic arpeggios becomes the framework of this soothing but enigmatic song. A minute passes before front man Gunnar Örn Tynes begins a lyrical exploration of the central chord progression, a 30-second vocal segment that we hear just twice, the second slightly altered from the first: in both cases, a dreamy, impressionistic account of a man falling off his bike, into the snow, and then melting the snow and drinking it.

There is nothing to analyze here intellectually. The song floats into being and floats out of being. A man falls in the snow, illuminated. Voices sing wordlessly, unusual keyboards play, and a string quartet. Somewhere a country is falling apart. Somewhere else someone falls off a bicycle into the snow.

You’ll find “Illuminated” at the tail end of Múm’s latest album, Sing Along to Songs You Don’t Know, the band’s fifth. MP3 via Better Propaganda.

Free and legal MP3: Surfer Blood(instantly engaging, unusually constructed)

“Floating Vibes” – Surfer Blood

“Floating Vibes” has that deep guitar thing going right away, which I always find gratifying. And which always makes me wonder why rock’n’roll has so consistently (and, to my ears, stupidly) glorified the sound of a wailing guitar played so high up on the neck that there’s no room left for the guitarist’s fingers. I’ll take the robust, thoughtful tremor of the lowest register over screechy wails any day. And check out the countervailing seventh notes that begin appearing at 0:20, floating with offhand precision above the darker sound, the quasi-dissonance of that interval perking the ear up in a most welcome and curious way. This song is pretty great before singer John Paul Pitts–known merely as JP–opens his mouth.

And it gets better. The basic guitar refrain of the introduction becomes the verse melody, with the seventh-note question marks now removed, giving the melody a newly grounded sense of certainty. The harmonies that accompany the melody the second time through (1:00) are subtle and ingenious–the harmony voice is pretty much singing one note–and solidify the melodic construction so firmly that the song never returns to it. It turns out that for all its easy-going tunefulness, “Floating Vibes” is subversive with respect to form: there is no standard chorus and no verse that repeats throughout the song. Rather, there are three different verse melodies, separated by instrumental breaks. The first is the one rooted in the introduction, the second is introduced at an instrumental break at 1:16, and the third (2:35) is a kind of mash-up of the first two. The final instrumental section moves onto yet another melody and features a violin, as unexpected as it is effective.

Surfer Blood is a quintet of non-surfers from West Palm Beach. “Floating Vibes” is the lead track from Astro Coast, the band’s debut, slated for released in January on Brooklyn-based Kanine Records. MP3 via Pitchfork.

Free and legal MP3: Audra Mae (singer/songwriter w/ big voice)

“The River” – Audra Mae

With clear roots in country and folk, two very structured genres, “The River” hooks the ear with a series of surprising melodic and harmonic shifts. We hear this first at 0:15, when Mae follows the opening two traditional-sounding lines with a third (“The river’s gonna wash my sins away”) that runs unexpectedly up through a diminished chord. How did we get here? Suddenly the music is unresolved, and remains so until one more surprising shift, at 0:26, on the words “make me forget.” Resolution comes on the succeeding phrase, “my sorrow.” That’s some nifty songwriting–uncomplicated but subtly startling–and Mae uses it all to set up her bittersweet chorus. It begins with one more musical shift: that heartbreaking half-step she takes in the phrase “I can’t swim” (1:02), which starts the major-key chorus with a minor-key twist. Even the lyrics provide a subtle shock here, aurally–when she gets to the phrase “even if I could,” the lack of rhyme isn’t what the ear expects. But she has slyly shifted the rhyme scheme, which the listener catches onto as the chorus continues. More niftiness.

And maybe niftiest of all is how everything is delivered by a young, big-voiced singer who seems anachronistically delighted to use her vocal substance in service of small musical moments. No “American Idol”-ish histrionics for this big voice. One example: listen to how differently she sings the word “I” the first two times she says it: first, the opening word of the song (“I done a bad thing, it’s okay”; 0:05) and second, the beginning of the second line, four seconds later (“I’m going down to the river today”). The first “I” is fast, easy, almost evasive; the second “I,” made resonant with the contracted “m,” feels deep, mighty, and mournful as it encompasses an extra half-beat in the singing. Words don’t do it justice so now I’ll be quiet.

“The River” is the lead track from Audra Mae’s debut EP, Haunt, released last week on SideOneDummy Records. The Oklahoma-born Mae is now based in L.A. and, speaking of big voices, happens to be Judy Garland’s grand niece.

Free and legal MP3: Bear in Heaven (driven yet spacey indie rock)

“Lovesick Teenagers” – Bear in Heaven

Can a song be spacey and determined at the same time? “Lovesick Teenagers” seems to manage this unusual effect. Determination is heard through the relentless pulse of the snare-free beat along with front man Jon Philpot’s purposeful tenor, which sounds like someone with a wavery voice trying not to waver. And the melody itself seems also to possess an endearing sort of tenaciousness in the way it keeps leaping up a fourth on every syllable it seeks to emphasize.

But the spaciness too comes in various guises. Echoey, rocket-like synthesizers, sure. You’ll hear those right away. But it’s also there in the synth’s ongoing throb, which moves at twice the pace of the drumbeat, and lends a sci-fi-cartoon-iness to the proceedings. The chorus, when it arrives, arrives in a wash of psychedelic effects–soaring synths, fuzzed-up vocals, glitchy accents–even though, if you listen, you’ll see that the driving drumbeat persists underneath it all. And look how the song’s final moment pretty much encapsulates the underlying aural paradox, being at once the epitome of driving determination–a “sting,” as we used to call it in radio (meaning a sharp, abrupt ending)–and moony vagueness, since the sting echoes afterwards with the faintest of synthetic wind sounds.

Bear in Heaven is a quartet of Southerners who landed in Brooklyn and have been recording since 2003. “Lovesick Teenagers” is a song from Beast Rest Forth Mouth, the band’s third album, released this month on Hometapes Records.