Category: MP3s

“Animals” – Sara Lov (with Alex Brown Church)

Sweet-voiced Sara Lov has been on Fingertips twice previously with her duo, Devics, most recently in 2006 for the beautiful, torchy “Come Up.” Minus partner Dustin O’Halloran’s evocative keyboards, Lov sings here over a simple acoustic guitar lick and allows her voice the hint of a Jenny Lewis-like twang. But if the verse sets us up for a light bit of alt-country, the chorus moves us in a somewhat different direction. The sudden presence of Alex Brown Church (front man for the band Sea Wolf) as co-lead vocalist definitely changes the aural palette, as his warm baritone has not a bit of country about it.

An important, albeit subtler, shift in the chorus comes via the melody line. While the verse works within a limited, sing-song-y framework (simple, repeated, two-measure phrases) that actually hides musical complexities that do exist, the melody in the chorus opens up into a nicely developed eight-measure line. This serves to relieve a claustrophobia that we didn’t quite know we were feeling until the relief arrived. Then comes an interesting sort of tag line after the chorus, sung jointly, that works to transition us comfortably back to the verse, only what’s this? The second verse is altered and all but nonexistent, the tag line then leads us into rather than out of the chorus, Church and Lov singing together again. And everything leads to the final line of the song, which is exactly the same as the first line. Well done.

You’ll find “Animals” on the album Seasoned Eyes Were Beaming, released rather too quietly in March by Nettwerk Records. MP3 via the free and legal music site RCRD LBL. Note that the link above is not direct, but you’ll see what to do when you click it.

“Glass Brigade” – Little Tybee

A brand-new Atlanta-based trio, Little Tybee (named after a small nature preserve off the shore of Savannah) plays a sprightly, light-footed sort of indie rock that combines organic and electronic sounds with offhanded flair. The unexpected center of the song, musically, is Ryan Gregory’s violin. We first hear it at 0:10, playing a distinctive grouping of twelve notes, launched by a pair of oddly accented triplets that end up as the song’s guiding hook when singer Brock Scott gets hold of it. He’s got a friendly tenor, with a bit of texture to it, so we’re happy to hand it over to him. And listen to how Gregory, in the background, while Scott sings that off-kilter motif (first at 0:23), now plucks instead of bows his strings.

Note also that it’s the violinist who takes the song’s primary instrumental solo (1:15), which offers an embellished pizzicato version of the recurring theme, and also leads the jaunty instrumental coda. And perhaps the ultimate tribute to the violin here is that Scott sings rather like a violin in the wordless chorus section, doing a playful bit of vocal “bowing” and “plucking” himself, which is accentuated by the fact that he sings notes but not words, some of them precisely aligned with the notes the violin plays simultaneously.

“Glass Brigade” is a song from the band’s debut release, a seven-song EP called I Wonder Which House The Fish Will Live In, which will be self-released next month, and features hand-printed and cut and individually put together CD covers, just so you know.

“Cabin Song” – T. Nile
     With its yawning steel guitar and soft snare beat, “Cabin Song” on the one hand says “country” from the get go. And yet the Vancouver-based Tamara Nile, who prefers using just her initial, does not affect a country-music accent, which is something, I’m suddenly realizing as I’ve been listening to this, that appeals to me. The conjunction of country music sounds with non-country singing has the effect of liberating country from its typically parochial musical constraints. I’m sure there’s a place for twangy, cowboy-hatted music but if that sound doesn’t call to you, you end up dissociated from certain musical elements that in and of themselves may actually be pretty cool. Combined with Nile’s rich, athletic voice and sharp storytelling skills, the steel guitar’s ghostly wail is worth hearing as an aural experience, not just as something that says “I am listening to country music.”
     Nile was brought up in–yes–a cabin on Galiano Island, between Vancouver Island and mainland British Columbia, by musician parents, but the song may not otherwise be autobiographical. It doesn’t seem to talk about how she began busking on sidewalks with her multi-instrumentalist father in far-off places like New Orleans and San Diego at the age of six, for instance.
     “Cabin Song” is the title track to her brand new EP, self-released last week. Her first full-length CD, At My Table, came out in 2006; her second is due next year.

“People Say” – Portugal. The Man
     The best thing to emerge from Wasilla, Alaska that I can think of, Portugal. The Man is a band with an enviable capacity to produce rock music that seems to come to us from some timeless, nameless place–music that sounds at once familiar and freshly-minted, sharp but easy-going, inscrutable but friendly as can be.
     One of the keys to this song’s success, to my ears, is its matching up of a laid-back groove with steady, sinuous chordal movement. As the melody unfolds against a setting that pays homage to early ’70s soul music, the underlying chords are changing pretty much every two beats, both in the verse and the chorus. The ear is continually engaged, and a sense of urgency conveyed, even as the underlying pace and vibe stays relatively relaxed.
     “People Say” is the lead track off the band’s latest album, The Satanic Satanist, scheduled for release next month on Equal Vision Records. Portugal. The Man was previously featured on Fingertips in October ’08 and August ’07, and as has been noted are a bit of a self-assured mystery, from their name to their impenetrable intentions. A quartet currently featuring five people in their band photos, they have been based in Portland for some unspecified amount of time. MP3 via Spinner. (Be forewarned that this one ends so abruptly it sounds like an editing mistake; could be on the album the song leads straight into the next track in an impossible-to-edit sort of way.)

“Take It In” – Wye Oak
     Fleetwood Mac meets Yo La Tengo as Wye Oak vocalist Jenn Wasner channels her inner Christine McVie against a recurring explosion of clanging noise in a song that sounds like a debate between someone who’s whispering and someone who’s shouting.
     In contrast to the previous song, “Take It In” hovers within a strikingly limited range of chords. What I think gives this one its appeal is the bittersweet beauty of the verse’s quiet melody, which centers on two symmetrical lines, one ascending and one descending. And the power of it comes from Wasner’s dreamy delivery–she sings with minimal backing–and how she lingers subtly but deliciously behind the pulsing beat in just the right places. The harsh, clangy sections in between the verses render Wasner’s return each time all the more elusively enticing.
     The Baltimore-based duo Wye Oak is also a TWF returnee; their song “Warning” was reviewed in January ’08. You’ll find “Take It In” on the band’s second album, The Knot, which will be released next month on Merge Records.