Fingertips

“The Caribbean” – the Chocolate Horse

I find this very distinctive blend of homeliness and sophistication completely enjoyable. The Chocolate Horse are five guys from Cincinnati who give the impression of playing whatever instruments they feel like playing, in whatever style they happen to start playing. If “The Caribbean” has an island sound to it, we’re talking about a peculiar island—one that maybe grows both palm trees and cacti, on which cowboys on horses saunter down the beach in suede bathing trunks and everyone else is on vacation, but prefers to stay inside reading and listening to the radio, which only broadcast bands from Omaha pretending to be from Cuba.

Or something like that. Over and above the rhythm’s lazy sway and the eccentric interplay of trumpet, upright bass, and (dobro?) guitar, “The Caribbean” succeeds on the strength of Jason Snell’s oddly appealing voice. Half whispering, half growling, Snell sings with a historical sort of command, his voice echoing with the authority of some long-lost ’70s crooner, augmented with a ghostly falsetto and an indie rocker’s penchant for straying (winsomely) off pitch. A French horn and a saw are additional recruits in the Chocolate Horse’s instrument arsenal, although I’m not sure I’m hearing the latter in this song, and I may be imagining the occasional appearance here of the former.

“The Caribbean” is a song from the band’s debut CD, released last year and recorded when they were still officially a trio. Like every other band in the world, and every other music lover (truly, I’m sure no one is left around this week to read this except maybe you), the Chocolate Horse will be in Austin for SXSW. The MP3 is available via the vast SXSW MP3 collection.

“God Told Me To” – Paul Kelly

An old-fashioned folk-rocker with a new tale to tell: here, one of Australia’s most well-known living pop music bards sings, first person, as a terrorist, justifying his actions in our post-9/11 world. The canny, world-weary Kelly knows exactly how much his sociopath’s words sound like something an American president might likewise say (in our post-9/11 world): “The wicked need chastisement, you know it’s either them or us”; “God told me to/I answer not to them or you”; etc.

Kelly is often talked about as the Ray Davies/Bruce Springsteen (imagine them mushed together) of Australia, but he hasn’t been too successfully exported to the U.S. over the years. The closest he got to a certain sort of left-of-center recognition here came with his 1988 album Under the Sun, thanks to the appeal to “modern rock” radio stations of the song “Dumb Things” (in truth, a wonderful song, which still sounds great).
That album was recorded with a band called the Messengers (originally the Coloured Girls, changed for American export).

A classic single’s length (3:42), with an incisive guitar line and a haunting chorus, “God Told Me To” is nonetheless (obviously) as far from single material as could be in this country. So I’m not picturing a belated breakthrough for the estimable Mr. Kelly just yet. The artfully stark video could under the right circumstances get some YouTube love but then again it’s been around since the summer and has been seen only 8,000 times, mostly (I’m guessing) by Australians. But hey, the man’s playing at SXSW (see? everyone!), which is a mighty accomplishment for a 50-something musician. Stolen Apples, the 2007 CD on which you’ll find this song, has not been released in the U.S., but maybe the SXSW appearance is a harbinger of a domestic release? In the meantime, the MP3 is available via SXSW.

“Rooks” – Shearwater

     Shearwater is not only playing at SXSW this week but is based in Austin. The theme is complete. This song, however, is brand new, the semi-title track to an album called Rook, scheduled for release in June. On it, Shearwater continues both its penchant for lovely-ominous music and its avian fixation–the name Shearwater, you might recall, comes from a type of bird that flies close to the surface of the water; recall, too, that band leader Jonathan Meiburg has himself been an ornithological graduate student. While you’re at it, you may as well be reminded that Meiburg is a member both of Shearwater and a little band you may have heard of called Okkervil River. (OR’s front man, Will Sheff, is likewise in both bands, which is kind of cool.)

Meiburg sings with great, almost old-fashioned sweetness and his melodies are so gentle that it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that “Rooks” is without question a tense, briskly-moving composition, marked by siren-like instrumental flourishes and cryptic but assuredly dark lyrics. When he lets rip the word “paralyzed” with uncharacteristic pungency (at 1:42; almost the exact halfway point), it’s as if we’ve been all but slapped awake only to fall instantly back into a new dream: the ensuing trumpet solo, underscored by distant, determined (bird-call-y?) “wo-oh-oh-ohs,” places us into a newly formed musical landscape. The dream, teetering on the borderline between interesting and nightmarish, continues.

Rook will mark Shearwater’s debut on Matador Records; its last few CDs were released by Misra Records. MP3 via Matador.

“Power to Change” – the Black & White Years

Perhaps there has always been a fine line in music between the idiosyncratic and the gimmicky, but I’m guessing never more so than here in the 21st century–an age in which worldwide musical genres are a mouse-click away, and a multi-million-dollar recording studio is no longer required to manipulate sound. And so, these days, bands can rather too easily seem the contrived result of combining, oh, say, South African music with an Upper West Side sensibility. For instance. Idiosyncrasy or gimmick?

The only way to tell, as far as I can see, is to do exactly what the music critics (and bloggers) almost never do: just listen, and stop thinking (and talking) so much. Take “Power to Change,” which bops and rolls to a ska-inflected, electronic-infected beat, guided by a split-personality vocalist who mashes glam-rock theatrics with jamband-style acrobatics. Whether this sounds in words like something I would enjoy is irrelevant; whether the music itself violates some or another “rule” about this genre or that one, also irrelevant. Relevant alone is the incisive, assured movement of the song, its engagingly crunchy vibe, its wistful good humor, and oh so cagey production.

For probably most of that we have producer Jerry Harrison to thank. Stripped-down-simple only does so much for me, usually; I definitely do not mind detecting the presence of an honest-to-goodness producer. Among many spiffy touches, I love the echoey electronics with which he layers Scott Butler’s vocals (particularly beginning at 1:44), and am tickled by the instrumental breaks Harrison (I assume) inserted into the song–check out the offbeat keyboard-like guitar (or guitar-like keyboard?) at 1:37, and the squonky guitar solo at 3:14. Harrison–a former Talking Head and Modern Lover–heard the Black & White Years at last year’s SXSW festival (the band is itself from Austin, in fact) and shortly thereafter whisked them off to produce their album in his Bay Area studio. That self-titled CD has just been released on Brando Records, a tiny Texas label. That’s where you’ll find “Power to Change,” while the MP3 is via SXSW; the band, not surprisingly, is returning to the festival this month. No longer in need of a producer.

“Drops in the River” – Fleet Foxes

“Drops in the River” is characterized by an aural depth of space not often heard in a rock’n’roll setting. Listen quickly and you might say, “Okay, sure, reverb, and a tenor–it’s Band of Horses, it’s My Morning Jacket.” But do yourself and the music a favor and attend more carefully. If so, you might hear how the Seattle-based quintet Fleet Foxes transforms reverb from a production strategy to a three-dimensional experience–via vocal harmony, percussion, and eccentric instrumentation, the band creates a vast, stone-vaulted sort of space in which one might picture monks, choirs, and thick white dripping candles.

Then again, on the band’s own MySpace page, they conclude, after attempting to describe their sound, “Not much of a rock band.”

The unusual accompaniment arrives right away: check out those Eastern-sounding stringed things we hear before anything else; they also arise intermittently throughout, as if from some ancient cranny. When the singing starts, it comes in multiple layers of vocal harmony–an unusual touch at the beginning of a pop song. From its soft and deliberate start, “Drops in the River” eventually offers up an impressive dynamic range, taking us on adventures in tempo and volume and instrumental involvement during its engaging four-plus minutes, sometimes turning on a dime in interesting and effective ways–for instance, the downshift from that clanging guitar that starts at around 2:00 into the subdued percussive section that begins at 2:18. And listen, in fact, to that clangy guitar and how it sounds like something one might in fact play in a large, dark, maybe a little damp cathedral. Along with some Eastern-sounding stringed things no doubt. “Drops in the River” is a song from the band’s Sun Giant EP, due out on Sub Pop in April. MP3 courtesy of Paper Thin Walls.

“One, Two, Three!” – I Make This Sound

Happy music from a band with a happy-sounding name. But it’s interesting-happy, not sappy-happy. Listen, first of all, to how the band takes the song’s basic three-beat measure and distorts it, via a jumpy piano refrain, hopping between the beats, to sound as if it must be some altogether new and different time signature. But, no, you can use the song’s title to count the beats: one, two, three, one, two, three. Lead singer Jonathan Price has a warm, pleasing (dare I say happy?) voice, and the way the female backing vocalists offer staccato punctuation between verses is another cheerful touch.

But there’s a “dark” section too, and how many peppy pop songs bother to do that? See how the time signature shifts to 4/4 at around 1:30 and then into, maybe, actually, some new and different time signature after all, because I can’t parse the section from 1:40 to 1:56 in any standard way. Then there’s a nicely resolving 4/4 section at 1:57 before we return, at 2:11, to the cheerful rhythm of the opening verse, complete with those perky background singers singing a countervailing melody.

I Make This Sound is from Los Angeles and there are seven people in the band, so my goodness, they’d better be pretty happy or they would probably be really miserable. There’s a lot of potential for drama there. “One, Two, Three!” is a song from their second EP, entitled Staring at Yourself, which was released in February. MP3 via the band’s site.

“Childproof” – Batteries

Slinky, dark, and peculiarly catchy, “Childproof” sparks such conflicting retro vibes in my music memory that I couldn’t immediately figure out what it was reminding me of—usually a sign that the influences are being integrated into something fresh and tasty. So I hung in there, kept listening, and sure enough some seductively—and chronologically—divergent sonic elements revealed themselves to my dissecting ear: there’s a ’60s garage rock feel to the guitar sound, yet also something spiky and Television-like (late ’70s); there’s a Doors-like organ (’60s again) and a Morphine-like saxophone (hmm: ’90s); and then there’s a lead singer (one Dave Frankenfeld) with a shivery, nasally, talky croon that sounds something like Stephen Malkmus (still current) trying to sing lead for a mid-’70s Steely Dan album. While somewhat recognizable when teased apart this way, the cool thing is how briskly and matter-of-factly “Childproof” weaves them together.

And what about that recurring “hide your eyes”/”hide and hide” part? That has a mysterious appeal to me in a this-is-really-familiar-but-not-quite sort of way that sometimes happens with new songs that stick in my head. When I first heard this song, in fact, I actually had to check to see if it was a cover version of an older song, such déjà vu was I experiencing. For all I know, this part in particular does come straight out of some older song but for the life of me I can’t place it. (Feel free to let me know if you know what I thought I was thinking of.)

A five-piece whose members come from the north country of Minnesota and Wisconsin, Batteries put out a debut CD late last year entitled That Great Grandsuck of the Sea—and no, I don’t know what that means, either. “Childproof” is third song on the album, which was self-released.

“Beyond the Door” – 13ghosts

Phased, psychedelic vocals mixed with crisp, George Harrison-y rhythm guitar give this one an immediate trippiness that might seem mere affect were it not for the terrific melody lurking at the heart of the chorus. For all its sonic largeness, “Beyond the Door” all but shimmers with focus and restraint. I like, for instance, how the chorus, when we first hear it, is delivered (0:29) as the instrumental accompaniment pulls back, everything seemingly run through the same distortion the vocals are undergoing. So we don’t actually receive the full effect of that great melody the first time it arrives–we hear it, but we don’t really hear it. This is a most excellent songwriting trick but it only works with an excellent song. (“Beyond the Door” qualifies without reservation.) And so, you see, when the chorus returns (1:12), its full power hits us all the harder. Note that the band still throws us a bit of a curveball—listen to that guitar line that drones through the first half of the melody in the chorus and feel the extra depth that dissonance can bring to music, at least when we’re in the hands of talented musicians. (Otherwise, alas, it may simply be noise.)

13ghosts, from Birmingham, Alabama, is one of those fortunate bands that contain two strong singer/songwriters–in this case, Brad Armstrong (who sang the last time Fingertips featured the band) and Buzz Russell. Russell is out front this time around, and his interest in swirly, spacey aural space is paired, happily, with unusually sharp pop chops. Normally, folks who want to take us on a space ride forget to give us something to sing along with. Russell, however, has melody, nice chord changes, and smiley-harmonies pouring right out of him here, all in the service of a song about death, and the possibility of life thereafter. The gracefully modulating “oohs” that you hear after the chorus, by the way, were, according to Russell, “supposed to create the effect of taking a Xanax or something to ease the anxiety”–the anxiety of facing the possibility of an afterlife, he says.

“Beyond the Door” is a song from the band’s forthcoming CD, The Strangest Colored Lights, to be released next month on Birmingham-based Skybucket Records.

“Regarde” – Monade

Bordeaux-based multi-instrumentalist Lætitia Sadier, one half of the band Stereolab, has had her own side project going now for the better part of the last decade (Stereolab, a “post-rock” pioneer, has been around since 1990). She calls it Monade in part for a concept taken from 20th-century Greek philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis, referring to the undifferentiated psyche (before the id, ego, and superego break apart), and also for how it is rooted in the word “mono,” which in turn is related to the word “stereo,” and thus neatly implies her working on her own, apart from her more well-known band. And right away, if nothing else, I appreciate the depth of a European education.

As for the music, the suave yet playful “Regarde” launches off an alternating minor/major chord motif, and unfolds as a kind of cool, Euro-march for the lounge crowd, driven by Sadier’s husky, Chrissie Hynde-meets-Brigitte Bardot voice (and yes, sports fans, Chrissie Hynde did in fact mention Brigitte Bardot in a song once; small world!). Plus, there’s a trombone, which is apparently one of Sadier’s main instruments. Halfway through, the song abruptly slows to a slumberous waltz (1:50), begins to pick up speed and orchestral drama (2:40), then melts precipitately back into the original tempo and rhythm (3:01) in a manner at once awkward and—I have no idea why—exceedingly charming. Don’t miss it.

“Regarde” is from Monade’s third album, Monstre Cosmic, which was released last week on Too Pure Records. MP3 via Pitchfork.

“Parallel Lives” – La Scala

We can all use a big heaping dollop of melodrama with our pop every now and then, and La Scala is happy to deliver. (Even the name of this Chicago band implies something larger than life and over the top.) Up above the introduction’s searing, machine-gun guitar line and the ’80s dance beat, listen to that second guitar plucking out a homely, vaguely East European motif. Or maybe it’s not a guitar, as it sounds like a bouzouki or some such old country instrument; in any case, this is the best kind of musical melodrama—the kind that has you smiling for potentially unknown reasons.

Like for instance the verse. Listen, in the second half, to how singer Balthazar de Ley and one of the guitars “harmonize” in a crazy sort of way–the guitar plays a line completely in sync with the melody rhythmically, but squonking all over the place harmonically. It’s kind of wacky but also subtle–you might not notice, but, again, it creates an enjoyable mood. And then there’s that resplendent, two-part chorus, at which point this song truly sounds like some great early ’80s post-new wave hit, an impression furthered by de Ley’s familiar-sounding voice, which has the throaty warmth of one of those dreamy New Romantic-era singers.

De Ley by the way grew up both in Paris and in Champaign, Illinois, which may at least partially account for the intriguing, old-world sensibility laced into the band’s sound. La Scala was just formed last year. “Parallel Lives” is from their first EP, The Harlequin, to be released next week by the Chicago-based Highwheel Records.

<"My Father" – Raise High the Roof Beam

And now we get the antidote to sweeping, driving melodrama: the vulnerable, acoustic-based “My Father,” from singer/songwriter Thomas Fricilone, also Chicago-based, doing Salinger-inspired musical business as Raise High the Roof Beam. I find myself engaged right away by the broken descent of the opening riff—we begin with a standard downward progression but what’s less standard is how it stops and hangs out at the third note, two notes short of the resolution. We suspend there for the same length of time it took to get us there, and then the resolution is turned upside down: after hearing 5-4-3, and hanging out on 3, we then get 1-2 rather than 2-1. It’s all very simple and clear but interesting, and implies overturned expectations or unexpected conclusions, themes that bear out lyrically as the song unfolds.

Fricilone has a quavery voice that does not always stay on pitch, but in the particular musical setting he gives himself here the end result is gracious and affecting. For all that it may sound at first like a simple acoustic-guitar strummer, there’s actually a nimble array of instruments weaving together, including piano, ukelele, eletric guitar, maybe a melodica, and perhaps a synthesizer. Fricilone also double-tracks his vocals here, which I think gives them extra potency, and maybe compensates for the pitch variation, while maintaining the underlying fragility that serve the lyrics especially well: “My father told me I’d be late for life/That’s okay ’cause I think that waiting’s all right/I avoid the news for things that I might fear/My father tells me all the things that I don’t want to hear.”

“My Father” is a song that will appear on Raise High the Roof Beam’s Family EP, a work that is still in progress. MP3 courtesy of Fricilone’s web site.

“Pull Me Out Alive” – Kaki King

Dipping for the first time into the new SXSW MP3s, I’ve pulled out a plum, and an unexpected plum at that. Kaki King is a musician known initially for her ear-opening acoustic guitar virtuosity, which she has had a tendency to put on display in songs that are maybe a little complicated. Even as she has expanded her sonic palette over the past couple of years, and started singing on her songs, she has not previously focused her music quite so pointedly. But for her soon-to-be-released Dreaming of Revenge CD, King had producer Malcolm Burn at the board. Burn has worked with everyone from Bob Dylan and Patti Smith to Emmylou Harris and the Neville Brothers; he apparently told King, “If someone can’t be sawing a log in half and whistling along to the song, I don’t want it on the record.” Thus has King’s music taken a turn towards the accessible, shall we say.

And it doesn’t sound like a bad thing to me. Accessible doesn’t mean uninteresting, or bland. “Pull Me Out Alive” alternates itchy, idiosyncratically propulsive verses–check out the way her vocals are layered (starting around 0:29) to sound like a slightly out-of-sync conversation–with a drony, dreamy chorus that finishes on a wonderfully unresolved chord. I find the instrumental break at 2:10 particularly interesting; employing an intriguing blend of electric and electronic sounds, it nevertheless strikes me at its core as something she might previously have used at the center of one of her acrobatic and percussive guitar displays. While those who latched onto King for her instrumental mastery may be disoriented by a song like this, I kind of like it. And I assume she still does play the guitar now and then. I guess we’ll find out when the CD comes out next month. That’ll be on Velour Recordings. MP3, as noted, via SXSW, and this one may in fact be exclusive.