The latest installment of the Fingertips Q&A is now online, this one featuring Shane Nelken, front man for The Awkward Stage. While previous Q&As have prompted some thoughtful ramblings on the state of the music industry, Nelken will have none of that. He doesn’t ramble; he goes straight for the punchline. Once I convinced myself he wasn’t making fun of my questions, I realized how funny his answers were. Although he probably was making fun of my questions. Check it out for yourself on the main site. And that’s the MegaSaurAss himself, second from the left in the picture.
Free and legal MP3 from Smothered In Hugs (modern power pop with throwback elements)
“Blank Test” – Smothered In Hugs
So listen to that opening melody (beginning at 0:15), remove the primal drumbeat, and think about what this sounds like: it’s not merely based on the standard I-IV-V chord progression, but it’s rooted in an early-rock setting of that progression–three successive ascending notes, each a whole interval apart, each accompanied, in order, by one of those I-IV-V chords. The verse of the hugely popular and evocative song “All I Have To Do Is Dream” uses this exact pattern, in a swaying, Everly Brothers soundscape, but this was hardly the only example. Enough other doo-wop era songs grounded themselves in this simple structure for it to carry forever an ineffable air of bygone times about it.
Which is what, to me, helps make “Blank Test” so satisfying, somehow: it manages to conjure the past while presenting the melody in not one but two contemporary frames–the opening, percussive section and then the sped-up version (first heard at 1:23), after the song’s prominent tempo change. Interestingly, it was this second, faster version that first sounded most nostalgic, maybe because there was kind of a double-nostalgia at work, this speedier section likewise echoing the late ’70s via the Ramones and Blondie, bands which also mined ’50s and early ’60s melodies and chord progressions for use in their faster and harder-rocking compositions.
Smothered In Hugs (named after a Guided By Voices song) is a quintet from the picturesque and music-laced island of Prince Edward, way out there in the Atlantic Time Zone. “Blank Test” is the lead track on the album The Healing Power of Injury, set for release next month on Collagen Rock Records, a local collective that Smothered in Hugs has established with three other bands from the Maritimes.
Free and legal MP3: Alela Diane (sharply-written, sung with poise, presence, and melisma, plus plaintive fiddle)
“White as Diamonds” – Alela Diane
Alela Diane (born Alela Diane Menig) is associated with the so-called “psych folk” and/or “New Weird America” movements, but as with the previously featured Marissa Nadler, similarly associated, there is nothing freakish or discomfitingly idiosyncratic about this young California-raised, Oregon-based singer/songwriter. On the contrary, “White as Diamonds” strikes me as solid as a genuine folk song, with the added benefit of a great—if offbeat—hook. This hook isn’t part of the chorus (there is in fact no chorus), it’s not even a particular turn of phrase or melody; instead, it’s her ongoing use of what is officially called melisma, which is when a singer uses several notes to sing one syllable of a lyric.
Rooted in ancient, sacred music, utilized in classical music, and rendered histrionic by most American Idol contestants, melisma can be not only aurally engaging but emotionally powerful in the hands of the right singer. Diane nails it so well that, as noted, the melismatic recurrence is, really, the song’s great hook. Listening to her singing “white as diamonds” (0:16) or “I was sifting through the piles” (0:51) (melismas on “sifting” and “piles”) or “a tangled thread” (1:01) (check out that upward flutter as she stretched the second syllable of “tangled” out, briefly but indelibly), something inside me opens to her, completely. The song has both a homespun feel, accentuated by the plaintive fiddle accompaniment, and a solemn rhythmic throughline, almost like an old Civil War song, but—in part because of the repeated melisma—is buoyed by a curious sense of the unexpected, which comes to the fore during the bridge (2:04), when the song’s beat is overtly disrupted by a shift in the drumming.
“White as Diamonds” will be found on Diane’s To Be Still CD, coming out on Rough Trade in February. MP3 courtesy of the Beggars Group web site.
Free and legal MP3 from the Traditionist (guitar, harmonica, drone, and more; deceptively complex and affecting)
“I Know My Ocean” – the Traditionist
Guitar, bass, small drum kit, a harmonica flourish or two, an amiably insistent melody, a one-line chorus–turns out you don’t need that much to make an effective and affecting song. Well, okay, there’s also a banjo. Slide guitar too. And that droning sound beneath the mix pretty much the entire time. And those great lyrics, blending a stream-of-consciousness feeling with some startlingly focused observations.
What Joey Barro, in fact, has put together, hiding behind a name that looks like a word but isn’t, is a deceptively complex song hiding out as an easy-going one. Building upon sonic territory pioneered of course by Bob Dylan (guitar, harmonica, wordy lyrics crammed into tight musical spaces) and more recently explored by fellow Southern Californian Peter Case (whom he resembles vocally, somewhat, in a good way), Barro, working with friend and producer Tim Bluhm, has constructed a wide-open delight of a song, all forward-moving flow and evocative texture–it’s one of those songs that goes by in something of a blur, and yet every time your ear specifically tunes in, there’s something interesting going on.
Barro is based in Huntington Beach, California, and is better known around those parts as front man for the band the Antiques. His new album actually started life as an Antiques CD, but became something different over the course of an extended recording schedule. Season to Season will be out on Better Looking Records in March; “I Know My Ocean” is the last track, and a really nice last track it is. MP3 via the Better Looking site.
Free and legal MP3: Casador (shuffly, echoey, minor-key lament)
“The Puritans” – Casador
From Argentina by way of Italy comes a young man named Alessandro Raina, doing musical business as Casador. And moody-but-beautiful musical business it is–a shuffly, echoey, minor-key lament, with a crispness and sense of purpose not often found in independently produced debut EPs. And yes, “The Puritans” manages to be both echoey and crisp at the same time, which is not an ordinary accomplishment; indie rockers in the ’00s have tended to slop reverb on songs like whitewash on an old barn wall, boosting appearance without needing to clean anything up underneath. Raina instead uses an octave-lower harmony line to enhance his vocals in the verse, and maybe those lower vocals are touched up with a slight reverb, or maybe it’s that chiming, reverberant bass at the bottom, but the end result is a rich, spacious vocal sound without tramping mud all over the rest of the mix.
One sign of the sonic clarity is how naturally the song can drift back and forth between louder/faster and softer/slower without creating any aural jolt. The introduction offers a sonorous interplay between acoustic guitar and the aforementioned bass; they are joined first by the vocals, and then, kicking the volume and tempo up a notch, the drums. Keyboards arrive at the chorus (0:54), adding another notch to the song’s insistence, but right after that, at 1:34, we are taken back down to the quiet music of the introduction, which, with the addition of a few remarkably well-placed notes on a piano, feels almost thrillingly introspective at this exact moment.
“The Puritans” is the title track of Casador’s two-song debut EP, which is apparently based on the ancient tale of the sword of Damocles. Both songs are available on
Free and legal MP3 from Trentalange (noir-ish, upbeat lounge music, with twiddling synths)
“Fever” – Trentalange
More minor-key moodiness, but quite the different aura this time; with twiddling synths, a noir-ish surf guitar line, and an ominous dance beat, “Fever” sounds like the soundtrack to a spy movie starring the Bee Gees, with Annie Lennox singing lead. Okay not exactly, but that’ll get your mind working in the right direction.
Trentalange is Barbara Trentalange, former lead singer for the Seattle-based quintet Spyglass, and last heard around these parts in August 2006, when her first solo CD was released. Beyond the immediately successful mood established here, “Fever” works particularly well because the chorus delivers a payoff on the verse’s setup. Although nothing wildly different is happening in the chorus–the general mood and tempo remain the same–two particular attributes win me over. First, the vocals open up. While Trentalange sings with a smoky (and doubletracked, and maybe phased?) restraint in the verse, she gives herself more emotive freedom in the chorus, singing without obvious effects, and layering on the harmonies with just the right amount of drama (be sure to check out those Lennox-like howls she hides in the background). The other winning point in the chorus: the unresolved melody line at the end. And okay I’m kind of a sucker for unresolved melody lines, but even more so when they come in an unexpected context such as this upbeat, loungey rave-up (the song in fact seems to be taking place on a dance floor). That we are then led into a particularly noodly synthesizer line makes it sound like she’s winking at us, telling us that things after all aren’t exactly what they seem.
“Fever” is the lead track on the forthcoming Trentalange album, Awakening, Level One, scheduled for release next month on Coco Tauro Records, which appears to be her own label.
Free and legal MP3: Joker’s Daughter (pastoral folk pop, via the Twilight Zone)
“Worm’s Head” – Joker’s Daughter
If Gnarls Barkley can refer to themselves as the “odd couple” (as per their 2008 album), then what to make of this pairing of Helena Costas, a London-born singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist of Greek Cypriot extraction, and Danger Mouse (himself half of Gnarls Barkley)? A really really odd couple?
And what to make of this odd-couply music, part pastoral airiness, part Twilight Zoney strangeness? There are uncanny lyrics—“The horses turn into cows/And sheep lie on the edge of the road”—and an off-kilter heaviness to a beat that kind of wants to be lilting but isn’t, really. There are warm acoustic instruments and wayward keyboards and electronic effects that sound like a combination of a theremin and an old-fashioned radio dial trying to tune in a station. Through it all, Costas—a classically trained violinist, among other things—sings with an unperturbed, slightly breathy sweetness, almost as if no one has told her exactly what she’s singing about. Not that I have any idea either. And how short this is! Just when you’re ready to sink into the mystery of it all, it’s over. Rendering it all the more mysterious, I suppose.
“Worm’s Head” came out as a digital single in November, a 7-inch vinyl record in December, and will be on the debut Joker’s Daughter album, The Last Laugh, when it comes out in February, on Team Love Records. MP3 via Team Love.
Fingertips Favorites: Top Free and Legal MP3s of 2008
In place of the usual three-song “This Week’s Finds,” I am this week unveiling the list of Fingertips Favorites for 2008–my favorite free and legal MP3s of the year. Actually, there are two lists–a top 10, and then another 10. They’re kind of in order but it’s also kind of pointless to try to put them in order. All are really good songs. Maybe you missed some of these along the way, so here’s a chance to listen and download once again. (The MP3 is linked via the song title; the “more” link next to each song will take you to the original TWF review.)
If you’d like to listen to these songs in a player, or learn a little more about these lists, visit the official Fingertips Favorites page.
Happy new year one and all. See you in ’09.
TOP 10 FAVORITE FREE AND LEGAL MP3s, 2008
“Albert” – Ed Laurie [more]
“Beyond the Door” – 13ghosts [more]
“Me and Armini” – Emiliana Torrini [more]
“Cherry Tulips” – Headlights [more]
“I Lost the Monkey” – The Wedding Present [more]
“The Crook of My Good Arm” – Pale Young Gentlemen [more]
“Some Are Lakes” – Land of Talk [more]
“Neal Cassady” – The Weather Underground [more]
“Cat Swallow” – The Royal Bangs [more]
“Scandinavian Warfare” – Champagne Riot [more]
Honorary Top 10: “My Mistakes Were Made For You” – The Last Shadow Puppets (no longer available) [more]
10 MORE FAVORITE FREE AND LEGAL MP3s, 2008
“Animé Eyes” – The Awkward Stage [more]
“HYPNTZ” – Dan Black [more]
“A Little Tradition” – Novillero [more]
“Connjur” – School of Seven Bells [more]
“Torn Foam Blue Couch” – Grand Archives [more]
“Yer Motion” – Reeve Oliver [more]
“Sure Enough” – Andrea Desveaux [more]
“Rosa” – Samuel Marcus [more]
“Right Away” – Pattern Is Movement [more]
“Un Día” – Juana Molina [more]
Free and legal MP3: Surf City (melodic, infectious neo-surf rock)
“Headin’ Inside” – Surf City
Fingertips doesn’t much traffic in genres and here’s a great example of why: if asked, I would not claim surf rock as a particular favorite, or garage rock, or anything that sounds lo-fi or DIY-ish. “Headin’ Inside” is pretty much a blend of all three, and this–go figure–I pretty much love. So, look: it’s not about the genre, people. It’s about the music. If “melodic, spirited, intelligent pop” were a genre, then maybe I’d sign up as a fan.
Meantime, “Headin’ Inside”: this one announces “pay attention!” to me in three distinct places. First: after that itchy, half surf-rock/half jangle-rock intro keeps you engaged but on hold, wondering where it’s all going, we get, at 0:26, the unforeseen entrance of some sort of flute- or pipe-like instrument playing the melodic refrain; the musical juxtaposition is brilliant in a way words cannot describe. Second: when lead singer Davin Stoddard shouts “one, two, three, four!” for the second time, at 1:04, it leads into a wordless vocal section rather than straight back into a verse; even better, the “oh-oh-ohs” here are sung at half-speed to the verse’s melody, and partially syncopated off the beat as well. That’s just plain great. But again, I can’t really describe why. Third: the chorus, when Stoddard sings, “I’m headin’ inside/Yeah I’m headin’ outside for a while.” Which is it? How can it be both? Am I hearing things? Answers are besides the point when a song has this much infectious momentum. Fourth: when the lyric “What’s the matter now?” is repeated (1:32). No other lyrical line is repeated like that, as far as I can tell. Need I bother to add that this moment too is indescribably delightful?
Surf City is a quartet from Auckland that used to be called Kill Surf City (after a Jesus and Mary Chain song) but found that a band in the U.K. had beaten them to the name. “Headin’ Inside” is the lead track from the group’s self-titled debut EP, released last month on the German label, Morr Music, which is typically an electronica label (see last week’s review of B. Fleischmann, below). But maybe they don’t let genre get in their way, either.
Free and legal MP3 from Elizabeth Willis (classically trained singer/songwriter, with substance and tunefulness)
“In Your Eyes” – Elizabeth Willis
When a song starts with this much immediate authority, I wonder why all songs don’t do this. Isn’t it simple?: a forceful beat, some piano vamping with nice chords changes, and a bit of tempestuous violin (and/or viola) playing. Nothing to it. Well, okay, maybe there’s a bit of something to it–especially the violin and/or viola playing. Turns out Willis is a former child prodigy in both violin and piano. Classically (and relentlessly) trained from the age of four. Maybe this isn’t so simple after all.
Pay attention to how, right away, there’s more action during the third and fourth beats of the four-beat measures than you’ll hear during the first two. That lends an appealing off-kilterness to the standard 4/4 beat, and foreshadows the underlying structure of the song, in which the main melodies in both the verse and the chorus begin between the second and third beats. I haven’t done any formal surveys but I would say this is relatively unusual; if a pop song’s melody does not start directly on the first beat, it will usually start either between the first and second or on the second. The way the song keeps driving forward, with the melody lagging behind but forging on, lends an ineffable sort of poignancy and persistence to the sound of it. The melody also does interesting things like utilize semitones–half intervals between notes–in a sophisticated way, which I don’t think I can get more specific about it, but it has to do with the first melody that goes with the words “It was in your eyes.” And on top of everything, do not miss her fierce string playing and oh yeah, her voice–a dusky alto with a hint of vibrato–is pretty cool too.
“In Your Eyes” is a song from her self-titled debut CD, released in September, digitally, on Little Blackbird Records.
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