Fingertips

“Confidences Shattered” – Camphor

When bands get it right, they can make their music sound so easy and familiar that they don’t seem to be doing much of anything at all. This is one important reason why critics or bloggers or fellow musicians who would sniff at a band for not doing anything “new” are so misguided. Good music isn’t all about “new”; it’s about “good,” and sometimes–maybe a lot of times–this has not too much to do with sounding new.

Camphor is a marvelous case in point. There is nothing obviously new about “Confidences Shattered” but many a good and right and splendid thing. The crisp aural landscape is a major part of the appeal, capturing as it does a down-home sort of chamber pop with smashing clarity and precision. As the players play with skill, creativity, and restraint (a rare trifecta), the recording continually gives the listener the sensation of being in the room with them as they shift in their seats, adjust the grips on their instruments, and invent percussive accents. But the clincher here is Max Avery Lichtenstein’s marvelous voice, which has a gracious, gratifying depth (nothing against tenors but it’s nice to hear a baritone every now and then!); and he sings with impeccable timing. Check out how he phrases “whenever the mood strikes you” at 1:49; more subtly, check out how his words “left us broke” (starting around :42) give the instruments extra oomph in the spaces in between.

As with many indie bands in the ’00s, Camphor is the brainchild of one mastermind, who then enlists a bevy of sidekicks to flesh out the sound. Unusual in this case, however, is Lichtenstein’s background—he’s a film composer who has worked on the critically-acclaimed movies Tarnation (2003) and Home Front (2006), among others. “Confidences Shattered” is from his debut CD as Camphor, Drawn to Dust, which will be released in February on Friendly Fire Recordings. MP3 via Friendly Fire.




“Stains on Your Sweater” – Jong Pang

Okay, back to the tenors—in this case a tenor with such a soaring range that I had to double-check to be sure this was in fact a man singing. It is; he’s Danish musician Anders Rhedin, formerly of a band called Moon Gringo. Rhedin has been away from rock’n’roll for a few years, apparently immersing himself in world, folk, and classical music. But he’s back in the indie world and seems to be going by Jong Pang this time around.

“Stains on Your Sweater” announces itself with an unearthly fanfare before we even hear Rhedin’s keening vocals. An upward-yearning fourth interval repeats on an electronic keyboard, but listen carefully to what else is in there: an acoustic guitar, some industrial noise, and, if I’m not mistaken, either choral voices or electronically simulated choral voices. Half robotic, half medieval, this is quite a stew in which to cook a pop song. But it hardly needs be said that this is no normal pop song. Rhedin’s double-tracked voice enters 30 seconds in, singing about stains and sleeves and sweaters; and while the content is difficult to decipher what is clear is the deliberate repetition of words, creating a sort of slowed-down minimalist ambiance, reinforced by the reiterating fourth interval that continually informs the musical structure, even when the hammering keyboard riff disappears. I love the use of flat-out noise—you’ll hear an episode of it from 0:57 to 1:24–and how the song continues on otherwise, as if nothing untoward is occurring: the drumming keeps the beat, the chord progression progresses, and, best of all, a stubborn piano picks out a slightly desultory melody despite all the commotion.

“Stains on Your Sweater” is a song from the forthcoming Jong Pang debut, to be called Bright White Light, set for release in 2008 on a new European label called Tigerspring (so new it doesn’t yet have a web site). MP3 courtesy of Tigerspring.




“Seasons Greetings” – Robbers on High Street

And talk about getting something right. Christmas music is, as I’m sure I don’t have to tell you, something very easy to do, well, not right. The NYC-based Robbers on High Street, with their effortless Kinks-like flair, convert this strange musical relic—originally one of 200,000 “song poems” that were created over the course of 50 years during the last century (a phenomenon you can read more about here)—into its own sort of homely holiday classic.

Song poems were basically a scam. The idea was to lure people via small magazine ads (which originally promised income for songwriting) into paying good money to have their words converted into a recorded song with as little effort as possible, by uncredited industry hacks. This was not how to crack the Billboard Hot 100. A few years back, Bar/None Records released a couple of compilations of these original song-poem recordings, one of which was a Christmas album. “Seasons Greetings,” written by Raymond Moberly and originally performed by an outfit called Teri Summers and the Librettos, is a song filled with generic sentiment and lines that often don’t scan very well with the music. Robbers on High Street dive merrily in, giving it a Phil Spector-beated intro (cute) and latching breezily onto the song’s gleeful melody, which comes alive in a very Ron Sexsmith-y sort of way when relieved of the lounge-singer pseudo-swing of the original version. MP3 available via New Line Records.

“Small Town Crew” – the Brunettes

This one sounds pure and true and good—completely devoid of the “hmm, what’s the best way to sound cool?” sensibility that mars some of the music one hears from U.S. and U.K. bands in particular. The Brunettes are from New Zealand, so that partially explains it. But the key here, to me, is Heather Mansfield’s voice, which is heart-breaking if you listen carefully: gorgeous and imperfect, it’s a little bit breathy, a little bit raspy, a little bit almost-out-of-tune, a little bit era-free (she’s kind of ’60s but also kind of not), and maybe at its most fetching when reaching towards her upper register. Another boy-girl duo in this golden age of boy-girl duos, the Brunettes aren’t rigid about it; even as Mansfield plays keyboards, glockenspiel, xylophone, and clarinet(!) (her partner, Jonathan Bree, sings and plays guitar), the twosome is happy to bring in other players when it seems like a good idea, which can be almost any time at all, apparently. A trumpet wanders in about a third of the way through, offers some smart Bacharachy punctuation, then gives way to some (synthesized?) strings and ultimately (why not) an accordion–which later becomes part of an instrumental break featuring (for probably the first time in rock history) accordion, xylophone, and electronic percussion. It’s quirky but the bittersweet melody, anchoring guitar work, and Mansfield’s unerring voice keep everything brilliantly just so. “Small Town Crew” is from the CD Structure & Cosmetics, which came out on Subpop Records back in August. Not sure how this one passed me by at the time but, as the saying goes, better late than really really late. MP3 via Subpop.

“Time to Pretend” – MGMT

So you’re two freshmen goofing around with electronic music in college who end up forming a band more or less by accident. Goes without saying, therefore, that within four years, legendary producer Steve Lillywhite hears you and gets you signed to a four-record, six-figure deal with Columbia Records. Or not; but that’s what has indeed happened to Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden, who met at Wesleyan in 2002 and within months of graduating were shaking hands with major-label honchos. If this song is indicative, these guys do in fact have something interesting going–something, in this particular case, that merges thick, hairy, synth-driven beats with a quasi-cheesy, neo-glam-rock vibe and a wry take on life. Pushed along by a chipper, just this side of irritating synthesizer riff, “Time to Pretend” lays out a cliched story of rock-star decadence and flameout as something the band is simply “fated to pretend” rather than achieve. Amusingly, we can’t quite tell if they’re making fun of the musicians who’ve succumbed to this or the rest of us for our standard, humdrum existences–or, most likely, both. “Time to Pretend” is the lead track from the band’s debut CD, Oracular Spectacular, which came out digitally last month, available via iTunes; the CD will apparently be released next month. MP3 via Better Propaganda.

“My Oldest Memory” – Bowerbirds

Another song that has been around since the summer too, but in this case I’ve actually been listening to it for that long (unlike the Brunettes song, which I just recently discovered). “My Oldest Memory” resides on the least pop-like end of the Fingertips music spectrum; I’ve been transfixed since I first heard it by the eerie-Appalachian instrumentation, inscrutable lyricism, and elusive structure, but have been uncertain about the song’s apparent lack of hooks–just when I want the song to kick into something simple and solid, it instead recedes into its landscape-like, fiddle-based complexities, homespun percussion, and that abrupt non-sing-along-y sing-along section. This week, however, it more or less flung itself after “Time to Pretend,” daring me to push it away. I dare not. This song has legs, and deserves a good long listen at your end too. Bowerbirds is a trio from Raleigh featuring Phil Moore singing and doing some other things, Mark Paulson on violin and some other things, and Beth Tacular, an accomplished painter who also happens to play accordion and marching-band bass drum, while sitting. “My Oldest Memory” can be found on their debut CD, Hymns for a Dark Horse, which was released in July on Burly Time Records. Thanks way back when to Gorilla vs. Bear for the head’s up and the link.

“Saturday Night” – Pale Young Gentlemen

The Madison-based ensemble that call themselves Pale Young Gentlemen (the prominently featured cellist is a woman, however) play a singular sort of theatrical indie pop, featuring a jaunty sense of melody, a soft spot for old-timey rhythms, and something of Randy Newman’s way with string-enhanced, piano-based vamping. The aforementioned cello lends an indefinable suggestion of yesteryear to the proceedings, while lead singer and pianist Mike Reisenauer—sounding like a cross between Adam Duritz and Andrew Bird, with a dusting of Chris Martin—sings with a amicable sort of semi-boozey flair; when he gets to the rollicking chorus I can all but see him doing a vaudevillian sort of backward-moving kick step and spread-hand shimmy. And I like how economically the Pale Young Gents manage the theatrics; rather than drowning us with strings or layered, Freddie Mercury-style vocals, the song gives us the feel of something orchestrated with, in fact, a minimal number of instruments, skillfully but informally played—the music has the air of something that everyone maybe just finished rehearsing half a moment before they sat down to record. Keep an ear out too for the backing vocals, sung with fine slapdash charm. “Saturday Night” is a song from the band’s self-released, self-titled debut CD, which came out way back in March, but only recently came to the attention of the hard-working mail sorters in the Fingertips home office.



“Truck” – the Octopus Project

Indefatigable and gleeful instrumental pop from one of the indie world’s most beloved and quirky outfits. (Note that it is difficult if not impossible to achieve beloved status in the indie world without quirkiness.) As noted the previous times the Octopus Project has graced the pages of this web site (a TWF pick in ’05), this Austin-based quartet has an almost magical way of converting its beepy, boopy sounds into something rich and satisfying, even to the ears of this non-instrumental-oriented listener. Here, a sprightly synthesizer comprises the not-as-simple-as-it-seems core of this fleet-footed 7/4 rave-up. As usual, the band’s uncommon ability to blend the electronic, the electric, and the percussive into an organic-sounding whole is front and center (although its endearing use of the theremin is not, unfortunately, on obvious display in this song). While the 7/4 time signature is not unheard of in pop music, the band’s ability to rock out, briskly, within this framework is ear-catching. Likewise ear-catching are the short bridge-like sections during which the 7/4 is abandoned for an even more off-kilter beat (for instance, from 0:20 to 0:31; could be 5/4, maybe, partly) before rejoining the seven-beat groove. Don’t miss the outer space version of the bridge, from 1:32 to 1:43, when the synthesizer pairs with one ringing guitar to create, somehow, a shimmering sound that almost “out-aliens” the absent theremin, before giving way to hard-bashing 7/4 craziness the rest of the way. “Truck” is a song from the CD Hello, Avalanche, the band’s third full-length disc, which was released last month on Peek-A-Boo Records.



“Falling Behind” – Dear Euphoria

Elina Johansson has a slight Sandy Denny-ish tremor in her tender, affecting voice, lending a luminous air to this song’s pervading sadness—a sadness induced by the crestfallen pace, spare setting, and broken-hearted lyrics but not, interestingly, by the actual music, which is mostly comprised of major rather than minor chords. Listen carefully and you may hear how closely the verses hang on top of one of the most familiar bass lines in the 20th-century pop songbook, the one from novice-pianist-friendly “Heart and Soul”; the chorus, meanwhile, floats us into a forlorn, asymmetrical space in which Johansson’s doubletracked voice sings a melodic line that repeats once too often while the drummer retreats, taking the assurance of a beat with him (or her). The plaintive ambiance ultimately forces an alternative interpretation of Dear Euphoria—bliss that is not sweet but, rather, costly. Born in Sweden, Johansson did not begin performing until she moved to Los Angeles for a while earlier in the decade; she “took it as a sign to return home when daily turning on the ac to max,” according to some sketchy but evocative biographical information on her web site. Dear Euphoria is not a band but the name Johansson performs under, with, sometimes, a small circle of regular side players. “Falling Behind” is a song from the self-titled debut CD, which came out last month on London-based Stereo Test Kit Records. This CD is a re-worked version of an album that was self-released, with a different title, in 2005; the new CD has subtracted two of the original songs and added four new ones (including “Falling Behind”). MP3 is via the Stereo Test Kit site.

“You Can’t Say No Forever” – Lacrosse

Peppy, winsome, and unpretentious, “You Can’t Say No Forever” launches off a nimble acoustic intro, picks up a boy-girl pair of lead singers singing maybe not exactly in tune all the time, a drum kit, an electric guitar or two, an endearing synthesizer (don’t miss it), and a nice fat horn line before it’s all through in a scant three minutes six seconds. The almost but not quite zany energy is the infectious result of a delightful sing-song-y melody and six musicians playing with great bustling spirit–as they get going, I can all but picture the jouncing body parts working things into a dust cloud, like some cartoon animal band, setting up the climactic moment (at 2:25) when the instruments stop on a dime and the vocalists join together for a heartfelt “ba-da-da-da-da-da,” which repeats as the piece draws to its lively close. We have by the way yet another band from Sweden here–Lacrosse is from Stockholm, and are signed to Tapete Records, the German label with an enviable habit of releasing wonderful music. “You Can’t Say No Forever” is from the CD This New Year Will Be For You and Me, which was released in Europe this month. The MP3 is via the Tapete site.

“Evergreen” – Celebration

With its carnival organ, idiosyncratic drum beat, cagey structure, and elusive vocals—not only is the singer hard to understand, but you might not initially realize that a woman and not a tenor is singing—this is truly an unusual song. I’ve been sitting with it for quite a while already; it was one of those that fascinated me at an unconscious level, leaving my conscious mind a bit perplexed as to why I kept listening and listening. I’m still not sure I know, exactly, but it definitely has something to do with the unique texture created by the swirling instrumentation, scuttly drumming, Katrina Ford’s reverberant voice, and maybe most of all the seductively repetitive melody–listen to how Ford stays centered on one note a whole lot of the time; the furtive dives she takes to lower pitches somehow serve to further emphasize the unmoving primary note. And I may be crazy but deep within the kaleidoscopic organ sound I’m sensing the beating heart of an old-time soul record, as I could swear I’m hearing a Booker T. and the M.G.s/Stax Records reference in the mix somewhere. “Celebration” is the lead track off this Baltimore-based trio’s second CD, The Modern Tribe, which was released last month on 4AD Records. MP3 courtesy of Beggars Group, 4AD’s parent label.

“Faster Than Cars Drive” – Kate Tucker & the Sons of Sweden

The combination of tough and lonely is an appealing one, and Tucker’s got it going here, with a tough and lonely shuffle that sounds a bit like Patty Griffin trying to do a Mazzy Star imitation, with Neko Case for a teacher. Tucker’s got an achy edge to her breathy voice, while her able band creates a world of subtle feeling behind her via a series of fluid changes in their reverb-laced playing. Keep your ear on the drummer in particular, who drives the one obvious, and central, change: the apparent time shift of the chorus, which isn’t a time shift at all, simply an ear-arresting rhythmic trick. This outfit, by the way, is actually not from Sweden, but from the Seattle neighborhood of Ballard–which was the traditional center of the city’s Scandanavian community (thus, it would seem, the band name). The Sons of Sweden, by the way, were a band called the Dark Ages before joining forces with Tucker, who has herself released one solo CD before this one. “Faster Than Cars Drive” is from the self-titled debut CD as an ensemble–a disc produced by Ryan Hadlock, who has worked with Blonde Redhead and Metric, among other bands. The CD was self-released at the end of October, on the band’s Red Valise Records imprint.

Rebekah Higgs – “Parables”

This one starts almost before the musicians have picked up their instruments. We hear tuning, we hear the singer warming up, and then we hear the song kick in, but listen carefully–in addition to the instantly engaging and well-textured groove, you’ll hear a layer or two of ghostly electronics echoing in the aural distance. Unlike many who have explored a mix of acoustic and electronic sounds (often a simple mashing of acoustic guitar and laptop effects), Higgs uses electronics with an orchestral flair, weaving beautiful howls and altered vocal effects into a down-home mix of guitar, drums, banjo, and strings. At the song’s center are a resilient, six-measure melody (the same for both verse and chorus) and Higgs’ breathy-scratchy, bumpy-yet-frisky voice. Together they can do no wrong; interspersed with noodly sections featuring the words “I will” amidst an eddying swirl of loops, indistinct sounds, stray lyrics, and banjo, the main melody returns each time like a trusty friend. The end result is hypnotic–the song is five minutes long but might as well be two or ten, time kind of becoming elastic in the hands of this 24-year-old singer/songwriter/guitarist from Halifax with a bright bright future. “Parables” is the lead track off her self-titled debut CD, given a remastered, Canada-wide release last month by Toronto-based Outside Music. (Higgs had self-released the CD in a limited release last year; the Outside version also contains two extra songs.) MP3 via Outside Music; thanks to Chrome Waves for the lead.

“Alarm Clock” – the Rumble Strips

A sprightly slice of good-humored British neo new wave pop, plus horns. The sax and trumpet deliver their old-fashioned horn chart with a slaphappy abandon that enhances the general drollery, but then here’s the twist: “Alarm Clock” is not actually a carefree song, as it concerns the unhumorous reality of having to work at a dreary job day after day. What the music reflects, however, is the spirit with which our narrator struggles with this ubiquitous misfortune–not to mention “solves” the problem of the bothersome alarm clock (“So I hit him with a hammer/And now he’s quite subdued”). Singer Charlie Waller has a bit of Andy Partridge’s spirited wail and he and his three bandmates most definitely like to bang, blow, and hit their instruments with incautious glee; at this point it’s hard to imagine that anything they sing about, however serious, will sound somber. The Rumble Strips hail from Tavistock, a small Devonshire town near the Cornwall border in southwest England; “Alarm Clock” is from their six-song Alarm Clock EP, the band’s first U.S. release, which will be out next month on Kanine Records. A shorter version of this EP came out earlier in the year in the U.K.; “Alarm Clock” can also be found on the Rumble Strips’ debut full-length, Girls and Weather, which was released in the U.K. in September on Island Records. MP3 courtesy of Spin.

“Five O’Clock News” – Ryan Scott

This languorous, slightly jazzy ballad, in three-quarter time, is a definite grower. Scott has a distinctive, somewhat smoky, large-mouthed voice, with nice range and a pliable tone–an ideal tool, as it turns out, for this deceptively complex little song. While there appear, more or less, to be verses and a chorus and maybe a bridge, lyrically, the music slides sneakily from section to section, augmented by understated changes as sections repeat, the sneaky feeling complemented by the melody’s tendency to swing across the three-beat measures, most syllables in the lyrics stretching out for two or more beats. And then, lo and behold, the central (albeit subtle) hook, to my ears, is the one-sentence chorus, in which Scott placidly lobs a ten-syllable run in which each syllable is precisely one beat long–from the word “sweater” to the words “for me” (from 0:52 to 0:58 the first time we hear it), and does it with an appealing ascending/descending melody, finishing on the sidestep of an unresolved chord. The second time we hear this exact sentence we get fourteen straight one-beat syllables, beginning with the word “clock” (2:36), with the song ending when the sentence ends, unresolved chord still hanging in the air. Trained as a jazz guitarist, Scott moved to NYC from the Bay Area in 2001, only 18 at the time, to make his way as a singer/songwriter. “Five O’Clock News” is from the CD Smoke & Licorice, released in September by Brooklyn-based CrystalTop Music. This is officially Scott’s second CD, but features eight songs that were also on his debut CD, Five O’Clock News, which had a limited release in the middle of last year.

“The Main Thing is to Keep the Main Thing the Main Thing” – I Am Bones

So this is a band with a sense of humor, which can be a mixed blessing in rock’n’roll, where a conscious effort to appear “funny” often crosses the line into “hm, maybe not funny.” The best way to stay on the good side of the line is, first of all, for the humor to seem self-effacing rather than obnoxious and, second (and more important), for the music itself to be delightful. The Danish quartet I Am Bones—whose first, self-released CD had the Firesign Theater-esque title of If You Really Love Me, Send Me More Medical Supplies—appears to satisfy on both counts with this splendid slice of slightly skewed, smile-inducing power pop. Listen, instantly, to the harmonies employed right out of the gate, which utilize elastic intervals that I can’t discern, delivered over a twitchy guitar rhythm. The off-kilter flavor of the verse, pleasing on its own, further serves to make the straight-ahead I-IV-V brilliance of the chorus all the more appetizing. Here, front man Johannes Gammelby’s voice takes on an unexpected depth, as the bottom-heavy drive of the music combines with the upward-leaning melody to lend him something of Jeff Lynne’s congenial vocal power. One final key to success is succinctness: the song lasts barely longer than the title; we hear the chorus but twice, as the entire last minute of a not-very-long-anyway song is a guitar-driven instrumental coda. “The Main Thing…” is from the new I Am Bones CD, The Greater Good, the band’s second for the English-speaking Danish label Morningside Records, released last month in Europe. The MP3 is via Morningside.

“Subtle Changes” – Sambassadeur

We’re staying in Scandanavia for no particular reason except that this next wonderful song sounds great after our first wonderful song. Sambassadeur is a quartet from Gothenburg, Sweden whose previously stripped-down vibe (in the past, their recordings were done at home) has been fetchingly boosted by echoey strings, atmospheric percussion, a grand, chugging rhythm and, later on, a honking sax solo. Anna Persson, once a casual, somewhat deadpan vocalist—singing in short, talky phrases, and sounding as if she could not sing and smile at the same time—here emerges with a richer tone, partly because of the production but partly also because she’s not afraid to hold her notes, to fully sing. She may not yet be smiling but she’s loosened up her facial muscles and in so doing shifted away from irony and towards passion, which engenders I think much more than a subtle change in the band’s sound. What they retain, however, is a nimble way with melody; listen in particular to the chorus and how beautifully the melody extends beyond the confines of a typical four-measure pop chorus–the melodic line here is actually nine measures long, which is unusual, seemingly one measure too long, and it leaves us vaguely unresolved musically, too, until the chorus repeats a second time and then hooks back into the opening chord of the verse section (compare the unfinished feeling from 1:43 through 1:46 to the resolution at 1:47). “Subtle Changes” is from Migration, Sambassadeur’s first studio album, released last month, in Europe, on Labrador Records. MP3 via Labrador.

“Tree” – Hopewell

It’s really hard, I think, to start a pop song this slowly; and to do so with a high-pitched, slightly nasally tenor such as Jason Russo’s front and center is even harder. But his voice is not, at first, what anchors the ear here. The piano, instead, commands attention, with its simple, firm, plaintive chords. Four times the chords shift during this slow opening, and notice how, with each chord shift, Russo nevertheless comes back to settle on the same melodic note; Tyson Lewis’s uncluttered, shifting chords create such a strong, if bittersweet, feeling that they trick the ear into thinking the melody is moving more than it is. When the band kicks in at 0:34, the small, careful instrumental flourishes put me in the mind of an old Band song, which the central, doleful melody reinforces, not to mention Russo’s intermittent resemblance to Rick Danko. While the opening progression remains at the center of this almost inexplicably captivating song, varied textures arise along the way, building towards a louder, fuller-bodied conclusion, complete with deep rumblings underneath and an almost orchestrated feel to the band’s playing. Hopewell is not from Scandanavia; Poughkeepsie, New York is the off-the-beaten path home for this talented but largely unrecognized quintet. “Tree” is from Beautiful Targets, the band’s fifth CD, released in July on Tee Pee Records.