Free and legal MP3: Dirty Projectors (Bjork meets Prince via Capt. Beefheart)

“Stillness Is The Move” – Dirty Projectors

Not every pop song gets its lyrics by combining bits of dialogue from an enchanting foreign-language movie classic with phrases from an Excel spreadsheet of pop clichés, but the free-flowing, high-minded collective known as Dirty Projectors is hardly your everyday pop band.

An experimental group masterminded by Dave Longstreth, a music major from Yale, Dirty Projectors has been releasing mind-bending, genre-defying music for the better part of the decade. “Stillness Is The Move” is one of the more accessible songs in the band’s catalog—think Björk meets Prince—and it’s still pretty prickly (think Captain Beefheart), its fat groove semi-dismantled by the fidgety melody, complex harmonies, stuttering rhythms, needly guitar lines, and eventual encroachment by a classical string section. Amber Coffman sings acrobatically and precisely, but be sure to tune as well into the meandering, often thrilling countermelodies offered in the background by Angel Deradoorian and Haley Dekle. I recommend hitting the replay button at least six or seven times, after which you won’t need me to tell you to keep going. It gains mysterious traction from repeat listens.

“Stillness Is The Move” is from Bitte Orca, the band’s fifth full-length studio album, released this month by Domino Records. MP3 via Spin; thanks to Jonk Music for the head’s up.

Free and legal MP3: Alibi Tom (slightly skewed power pop)

“Sometimes I’m Afraid” – Alibi Tom

In today’s global, fragmented, hyperactive indie-rock marketplace, one can never know whether a band with a good song is fated to flame out or make a solid career of it. The internet’s relentless focus on the next new thing feeds on the flame-outs, but in so doing ignores the genuine gratification to be had from being witness to the ongoing flowering of an appealing musical sensibility.

Which is all sort of a needlessly complicated way of saying hey, Gothenburg’s Alibi Tom is back with an excellent new MP3. (And Alibi Tom itself is an outgrowth of Out of Clouds, also previously featured.) With bright guitar lines and personable vocals, “Sometimes I’m Afraid” hooks me most of all with a chorus that delivers a full power-pop wallop even as it cagily withholds a lot at the same time–listen to how the band retreats under the melody, which ends up being supported largely by a rapid-fire bass line and a lot of cymbals. That’s the kind of backing you might hear at the end of a lyrical line, not sustained through an entire chorus; the juxtaposition of that nervous sound with a great melodic hook is oddly irresistible to me, and relates to the song’s broader and equally appealing juxtaposition of cheerful vibe and pensive lyrics.

“Sometimes I’m Afraid” is an altered, “radio edit” version of a song that originally appeared on Scrapbook, the band’s 2008 debut, on the British label Leon. (The band’s previous TWF pick, “Fire,” is from the same album.) MP3 via the band’s web site.

Free and legal MP3 from Portugal. The Man (friendly and powerful, with a ’70s groove)

“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.)

Free and legal MP3 from Wye Oak (soft/loud, pretty/harsh indie rock)

“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.

Free and legal MP3: I and I (thoughtful, upbeat electronic music)

“The Bottom” – I and I

One of the downsides to a lot of electronic music, to my ears, is how inescapably aware it makes me that everything I’m listening to is being generated by, essentially, black boxes and computer screens. This awareness often lends a sort of aural claustrophobia to the music, not to mention a disspiriting sort of physical blandness. From the time of the earliest musical instruments straight through to the rock’n’roll era, one common element of playing music was the bodily movement required to send sound waves into the air. Generated without commensurate physicality, electronic music has a lot to make up for, as far as I’m concerned.

Adam Sarmiento, the multi-instrumentalist behind I and I, manages somehow to do just this. There are three key elements at work. First is how carefully he chooses his synthesizer sounds, which vary not only in tone but in texture—there’s one that sounds like a crunchy guitar, one that sounds like the desert wind, one that sounds like a funky bass guitar, and a few others I can’t begin to describe. Because of how distinct they are they work together to describe something very much like three-dimensional space. Second is how carefully he uses them—at any point during the song, you can always hear quite clearly what sounds are in play. Lastly is the playful quality of his rubbery, somewhat adenoidal tenor, which many compare to David Byrne but to me is more rightfully likened to similar but subtly different Adrian Belew, and which definitely humanizes the robotic setting.

“The Bottom” is from the second I and I album, White Noise/Black Music, which was released last month via Alchemist Records and Believe Digital France. MP3 via the I and I web site.

Free and legal MP3: Carbon Leaf (appealing, well-crafted rock from veteran band)

“Lake of Silver Bells” – Carbon Leaf

It might be time for yet another Fingertips mini-lecture on why music doesn’t have to be “new” or “groundbreaking” to be good. Or, it might not be. Lectures get tiresome, mini or otherwise. Although, I must say, not nearly as tiresome as listening to indie rock snobs dis perfectly good music as “formulaic” just because they don’t like it. For god’s sake, you don’t have to like everything. But you also don’t have to insist that all the music you don’t like is therefore “bad,” and that the most obvious way music is “bad” is if it doesn’t somehow do something “new.” Folk music has lasted for centuries with its impact unabated, and none of that ever sounded “new” or “groundbreaking.”

Rats. That was a mini-lecture, wasn’t it? Time to get to Carbon Leaf, and the really appealing (but, nope, not groundbreaking) “Lake of Silver Bells.” Something of a novella at a time when most indie pop songs are short stories at best, the song is driven by a shimmering, U2-inspired guitar line (first kicking in around 0:51) but really takes hold thanks to its two complementary hooks: the first being that recurring moment in the second half of the verse when smoky-voiced singer Barry Privett soars to falsetto; the second being the chorus, which is not heard until 1:48, and is well worth the wait: swooping and indelibly melodic, with an intriguing air of Celtic rock about it (anyone remember the band Horslips? anyone at all?), and ringing with such muscular movement that it feels less like a chorus than a song within a song. This gets better and better as you listen again and again.

So yes, give me “deep” over “new” any day, and this kind of structural and textural depth is largely beyond the reach of musicians who are still getting to know each other. The Richmond, Virgina-based Carbon Leaf, on the other hand, has been around since 1992. Imagine that. “Lake of Silver Bells” is from the band’s seventh studio album Nothing Rhymes With Woman, released in mid-May on Vanguard Records.

Free and legal MP3: Bonfire Madigan (string-based punk rock, with heart)

“Lady Saves the Dragon (From the Evil Prince)” – Bonfire Madigan

I don’t think I’ve ever been tempted before to feature a song simply because of its title but this one was hard to resist. Fortunately the song backed me up here: a strange but hearty slice of punk-cello-rock with a great pulse, an uncorked singer, and the ability to create loose-cannon drama out of not a lot of actual noise. There are no electric instruments here–just a cello, a contrabass, and drums. And then at the center, cellist Madigan Shive’s unruly, Björk-ish yowl. (I don’t by the way think that those electronic punctuation marks heard at 2:45 and 2:52 are vocal shrieks but then again you never know.)

Even as I continue to find it hard to get my arms completely around this, I remain amazed each time I listen by how quickly time passes here; the song is just about four minutes but feels much more fleeting, even as the deep sounds of those big-bodied stringed things ground this odd composition in something rich and compelling. Something is happening here but I don’t know what it is.

Bonfire Madigan is the name of the four-person ensemble founded in 1998 by Shive, who comes by her freewheeling sound rightfully–she grew up in an extremely alternative household, was called Running Pony until she was six years old, and was thereafter given an expanding variety of names until, at 14, she chose one of them, Madigan, for keeps. This song is the semi-title track from Bonfire Madigan’s Lady Saves EP, released in May by Shive’s own MoonPuss Records. A full-length album is expected before the end of the year.

Free and legal MP3: Reed KD (like S&G w/ B. Folds on lead)

“Winding Roads” – Reed KD

Imagine Ben Folds singing lead for Simon & Garfunkel and you’ll have a fast idea of what “Winding Roads” sounds like. The melancholy guitar-picking and sweet vocalizing is definitely a throwback and/or homage to S&G in their heyday, but I also love that the tenor voice here feels rounded and confident (i.e. Foldsian) rather than wispy and introverted. Given how many 21st-century singer/songwriters seem birthed straight from the forehead of Elliott Smith, I for one am delighted to hear a guy who sounds like he could belt out a pop song if he wanted to, but doesn’t want to.

Another delight here is the exquisite and involving melody. Paul Simon’s melodic gift was crucial to the S&G vibe, and so to go after that vibe without a serious melody is a big mistake, to my ears. (When you pull out the acoustic guitar things can go downhill quickly without a melody to hang onto.) Reed KD (and no, I have no idea what to make of his name; is KD his last name? is Reed KD a two-part first name?) engages us by offering a complex melody within a song distilled to utmost simplicity: both the verse and the chorus are each an eight-measure melody; we hear each one twice, with some lovely guitar work in between. That’s it, and that’s all it needs to be.

“Winding Roads” is from Reed KD’s self-released new album In Case the Comet Comes, due out next week. The singer/songwriter is based in Santa Cruz.

Free and legal MP3: The Antiques (free-flowing, acoustic-based indie rock)

“Airplane Blues” – the Antiques

Joey Barro is back, and he’s got his band with him this time. Featured here in January for a song from his solo album, which he recorded as the Traditionist, Barro has a somewhat more fleshed-out sound with his L.A.-based trio, the Antiques, but the appealing, brisk, acoustic-based stream-of-consciousness-esque vibe is still here, and that’s a good thing. The repeated refrain of “There are no more new ways to…” is a winner–it functions as the chorus structurally, but an endearing, irregular sort of chorus it is, lacking any fully repeated lyrical lines. From the outset the structure is clear, which allows the listener to await each iteration with curious anticipation. (Sample, from the first go-round: “There are no more new ways to tap your shoes/There are no more new ways to sing the blues.” My favorite comes later: “There are no more new ways to try to belong.”)

The thing that seals the entire song for me is the upward leap the melody takes in the middle of this “no more new ways” section, between the first third and fourth lines. Even though there’s nothing unusual about it, it’s still a delightful semi-surprise each time. This is why I’m suspicious of flagrant songwriting twists and tricks: something reasonably plain is often all it takes.

I have not been able to discern why it’s called “Airplane Blues,” but that could just be my characteristic lack of lyric focus (I hear phrases but not storylines). The song comes from Cicadas, the second Antiques album, which has had something of a slow-motion history. Recorded in ’07 (by Scott Solter, who is known for his work with John Vanderslice, Okkervil River, and the Mountain Goats), it was released on CD in ’08 on Banter Records, and then just last week given a digital release via Filter US Recordings. MP3 via Banter.