Fingertips

Free and legal MP3: Sara Melson (oceanic beauty)

Melson has an arresting voice, at once very direct, in a Jenny Lewis sort of way, but with a subtle, engaging quirkiness to it, a muted theatricality of tone.

“El Matador Beach” – Sara Melson

Gentle and elegant, “El Matador Beach” unfolds slowly. Melson has an arresting voice, at once very direct, in a Jenny Lewis sort of way, but also with a subtle, engaging quirkiness to it, a muted theatricality of tone. Her voice feels particularly central to the developing song since it proceeds without percussion for 1:45; the most concentrated sound we hear during this slow build-up is Melson’s self-harmonizing in the chorus (1:12), and the effect, over the song’s oceanic sway, is angelic.

When the drumming starts, syncing beautifully with the melodic bass line, the tidal feeling expands out of the lyrics directly into the music, accentuated by the way the hypnotic chorus expands to fill most of the song’s second half. It almost prompts inexplicable laughter, a kind of bittersweet spiritual delight, to hear a song this committed to beauty in this most un-beautiful year.

Sara Melson is a singer/songwriter based in Los Angeles. Following her graduation from Harvard she became a successful television actress in the ’90s, appearing on shows like Frasier and Beverly Hills 90210. But over time, stifled by the cliched characters she was playing, she found music to be a more fulfilling way to be an artist, happily trading mainstream success for the chance to express herself authentically. (And what a better place the world might be if everyone felt this way.)

“El Matador Beach” is the first track on Melson’s new album Safe and Sound, her third full-length recording, released earlier this month. You can listen to it in full as well as buy it via Bandcamp. MP3 via Magnet Magazine.

Free and legal MP3: Work Drugs (mellow groove w/ depth & distinction)

“Roll” tosses you onto a featherbed of chill without so much as mussing your hair.

“Roll” – Work Drugs

“Roll” tosses you onto a featherbed of chill without so much as mussing your hair. And yet the song also quivers with a fidgety unease, and therein, to my ears, lies the depth and distinction. It’s easy enough (although not really) to lay down a smooth beat and offer up some whispery vocals and call it a day. “Roll” starts there but heads into more stimulating corners. An initial hint is found in the bass line, in the way its staccato bursts at the beginning of each measure melt into mellower iterations at the back end. It’s a nuanced, subtly unsettling effect.

Then there are lyrical phrases, which, when rising to the listener’s awareness, do not exactly say “Let’s party,” for instance, the opening salvo: “If you want to take me out, shoot to kill,
You better burn this city down.” And probably best of all, there’s a saxophone, and the kind that sounds like the player is standing underneath a streetlight on a moonless night. Notice how it slips all but unnoticed into the background at 0:42, initially providing only muted accents before, one-third of the way in, the signature riff is blown (1:15), instantly turning the song’s introductory motif, originally laid out on synth, into something nearly heroic. Of course this was made to be a sax riff. And yet who would have anticipated that at the beginning?

Work Drugs, previously featured on Fingertips in March 2015, is the duo of Tom Crystal and Ben Louisiana (although live the band expands to four or five). Based in Philadelphia (second Philly band of the month here; go Eagles), these guys are awfully hard-working for being so mellow: “Roll” is a song from their eighth full-length album, Method Acting, released in August. Their first album came out in 2011; you do the math.

You can check out their entire catalog on Bandcamp. Alternatively, you can listen to a whole bunch of Work Drugs songs on their SoundCloud page; many of them are available there as free and legal downloads.

Free and legal MP3: Cheshires (ramshackle, melodic indie rock)

Buried in the substructure of this ramshackle forkful of indie rock goodness is a full-fledged classic rock song that’s just kind of messing with us.

“Love This Feelin'” – Cheshires

Buried in the substructure of this ramshackle forkful of indie rock goodness is a full-fledged classic rock song that’s just kind of messing with us. The melody is casually awesome. The same-note harmonies accentuate the song’s effortless catchiness. The chorus does that half-time thing that is as pleasant as it is elusive. There are not one but two off-kilter a capella breaks. There’s the way that the titular lyrical phrase scans properly for speaking but awkwardly (in an endearing way) for singing.

Best of all, there’s that gut-level, lower-register guitar riff that introduces the song and then waits its turn for reappearance. And waits. It partially returns in the chorus, first at 0:45, but in slightly altered, truncated form. The third time around we hear it nearly fully formed, at 2:26, enough to feel like an old friend, but still mixed down and incomplete. And so somehow this beefy, ’70s-tinged guitar riff is at once the backbone of the song and its missing piece. Nice trick!

“Love This Feelin'” is a song from Cheshires’ self-titled debut album. The L.A.-based trio is billed as a kind of resurrection of the ’90s indie band Remy Zero, as it features Remy Zero himself (birth name Shelby Tate), singer/songwriter Louis Schefano (original Remy Zero drummer), and multi-instrumentalist Leslie Van Trease, who put time in with Remy Zero when they toured. The album was released earlier this month. You can listen to it via SoundCloud and buy it via iTunes.

I’m holding my breath

Eclectic Playlist Series 3.08 – September 2016

September is the melancholy part of the summer, the summertime we never remember or conjure when we use the word “summertime.” It’s either still too warm for all the things we now have to do or abruptly too cool when we’re not quite ready for it. For no reason I can quite put my finger on this is a playlist for this time of year, and for 2016 in particular, when we are collectively holding our breath to see which way we’ll go, what new world awaits us. Be brave while acting breezy. Beware of snakes. Believe in miracles. Etc.

As for specifics, we begin with a song from the 1958 album that is generally credited with being the first bossa nova album, Canção do Amor Demais, and a song that features the guitar work of João Gilberto, who almost single-handedly created the bossa nova sound. Consider it here a fond if complicated post-Olympics farewell. If you haven’t previously come across Chris von Sneidern, purveyor of power-pop-oriented indie rock before anyone called it indie rock, there is a 2009 documentary called Why Isn’t Chris von Sneidern Famous? that makes an effort to understand why mainstream success can elude very talented musicians. Not that we needed a movie to alert us to that particular news flash. Then, the other side of the coin—the musical recluse, two of whom populate the playlist this month: the semi-legendary Canadian songstress Mary Margaret O’Hara, who recorded one album in 1988 and pretty much left it at that, and the anonymous Swedish singer who took the pseudonym Sally Shapiro. The singer’s musical partner, Johan Agebjörn, acknowledged “Sally”‘s disinclination for the business in 2009, writing in a blog post, “What if you just want to be a normal person with a normal job, record songs in the weekends, and spend the holidays picking blueberries instead of going on tour?” After 10 years of intermittent music, Sally Shapiro quit once and for all.

And then, somewhere in between famous and reclusive we have Look Park, which is the name Chris Collingwood has given to his solo project. For at least some of you, Collingwood’s voice should be easily identifiable as the long-time lead singer for Fountains of Wayne. But the man has had a checkered history of being ready and willing to record. You can’t rush things, or force them onto the right track. In the end, you have to do what you want to do, and the trick isn’t that it always comes easily but that it should always sound like it does.

“Outra Vez” – Elizete Cardoso (Canção do Amor Demais, 1958)
“Open Wide” – Chris von Sneidern (Sight & Sound, 1993)
“If You Should See” – Wye Oak (Tween, 2016)
“Tales of Brave Ulysses” – Cream (Disraeli Gears, 1967)
“Anything, Anything (I’ll Give You)” – Dramarama (Cinéma Vérité, 1985)
“Benton Harbor Blues” – The Fiery Furnaces (Bitter Tea, 2006)
“Betcha By Golly, Wow” – The Stylistics (The Stylistics, 1971)
“Breezy” – Look Park (Look Park, 2016)
“Tony Adams” – Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros (Rock Art & The X-Ray Style, 1999)
“Anew Day” – Mary Margaret O’Hara (Miss America, 1988)
“Divers of the Dust” – Marissa Nadler (Strangers, 2016)
“Right Track” – Billy Butler (single, 1972)
“Love Doesn’t Just Stop” – Standard Fare (The Noyelle Beat, 2010)
“Rattlesnakes” – Lloyd Cole (Rattlesnakes, 1984)
“Which Way” – The Sorrows (single, 1968)
“Slow Dog” – Belly (Star, 1993)
“Miracle” – Sally Shapiro (My Guilty Pleasure, 2009)
“Any Way That You Want Me” – Evie Sands (Any Way That You Want Me, 1969)
“Do Anything You Wanna Do” – Eddie & The Hot Rods (Life on the Line, 1977)
“New World” – Björk (Selmasongs, 2000)

Free and legal MP3: Daisy Victoria (brilliant single from emerging UK talent)

As succinct and powerful a three-and-a-half minutes of pop music as I’ve heard this year.

“Animal Lover” – Daisy Victoria

I have already spoken admiringly of the young British musician Daisy Victoria both last year and the year before, but it turns out I was only getting started. Her latest single, “Animal Lover,” is flat-out brilliant, a thrill ride of vocal prowess, textural panache, and melodic zing. Releasing her inner Kate Bush, Victoria emotes with range and know-how; and yet, at the center of this smartly focused composition is something that sounds far more like rock’n’roll than most of what passes for 21st-century indie rock, thanks to the active, gut-level guitar work on the one hand, and the cathartic vigor of the chorus. It’s actually the first half of the chorus, rocking with beauty and precision, that I’m talking about specifically (first heard at 0:39), powered by Victoria’s extraordinary voice; the second half, meanwhile, extends at 0:55 into fully Bushian territory, with thumps and yelps to drive us along.

And then: listen with glee later on as the song concludes with the two halves layered on top of each other (2:58), something that arrives feeling at once unexpected and inevitable.

“Animal Lover” succeeds beyond my ability to say much more, as succinct and powerful a three-and-a-half minutes of pop music as I’ve heard this year. It’s the title track of a three-song EP, which will be released next week. You can hear a second song on SoundCloud. Personal thanks to Daisy for the MP3 and permission to post it here.

Free and legal MP3: The Minders (artisanal indie rock, w/ intrigue)

“Boiling the Ocean” – The Minders

Launching off a concise, Buddy-Holly-ish acoustic-guitar riff, “Boiling the Ocean” bottles an elusive variety of bygone rock’n’roll sounds into an artisanal blend that feels at once comfy and idiosyncratic. It’s a simple-sounding, toe-tappy song, it’s under three minutes, and yet there’s all this movement and depth about it, due to at least two elements I’ve uncovered with repeated listens.

First, the overall song structure seems normal at first (verse/chorus/verse) but bewilders (in a good way) upon closer inspection. The verses operate with two distinct and unequal parts, and after we spend time with the chorus (about more in a moment), we only revisit “part two”—part one, which opened the song, is never heard from again. The second complicating feature is the chorus itself (starting at 1:17), also in (at least) two parts, which feels like its own mini-adventure: advancing from the punchy, titular phrase and an indecipherable descending-line lyric that follows, it seems to keep receding from view, grounding itself in a notably unresolved moment (the minor chord that arrives first at 1:28 and the percussive episode that follows) before revisiting that chord (1:37) and sliding out the back door. What kind of chorus was that, exactly? No time to wonder: an assertive, repeating series of four guitar chords, with bashy drumming, provides aural slight of hand and brings us back to where we started. But not really. From here the song repeats in a truncated fashion, as we get only part two of the verse and then only part one of the chorus, with one strategic addition (the “I walk” line at 2:31) brought in from the otherwise complicated part two.

And that’s a lot of structural gobbledygook simply to say that the Minders have put together a dynamic little song here that feels both old and new, both catchy and ambiguous. And this is all a good thing.

“Boiling the Ocean” is a track that became available this spring as a download from the annual PDX Pop Now! Compilation; the song opens disc two of the 42-song offering, about which you can read more here. The album is released each year in conjunction with the PDX Pop Now! music festival, which happened last month. Note that the Minders are 20-year rock’n’roll veterans, initially springing from the renowned Elephant 6 collective. They have been based in Portland since 1998, and have a new album themselves due out next month, called Into the River. You can download a free and legal MP3 from that album, “Summer Song,” on SoundCloud.

Free and legal MP3: Manwomanchild (Peppy, sly, sing-song-y)

The lyrics scoot along with a lively sort of insouciance, matching the music’s peppy electronic vibe.

“Change the Channel” – Manwomanchild

Longstanding and/or thorough readers of these virtual pages may have noticed that for all the details I cover in reviews, I don’t comment all that often on lyrics. There’s a simple reason: I don’t usually pay a lot of attention to the words in a song. Which may be strange, but I guess I just approach a song as sound, in which case the words too are more “sound” to me than “story.”

Every now and then, however, lyrics just start rising to the surface, without my making any effort to notice them. This is almost always a sign of a good song, and (oddly? logically?) it almost always happens with songs in which the words end up being pretty much inscrutable: i.e., I finally notice words and even so I don’t know what they mean.

Anyway: “Change the Channel” turned out to be that kind of song; as I kept listening, I began to notice the lyrics, which scoot along with a lively sort of insouciance, matching the music’s peppy, concise vibe. The sing-song-y landscape, full of descending melody lines and agile bass playing, is reminiscent to me of early Talking Heads, minus the nerdy anxiety. Manwomanchild’s master mind David Child is more 21st-century chill than new-wave angsty, but his words still push their way forward, many offering the bonus of perfect rhythmic scanning:

We are the workshop elves
The ones who went back to the scene of the crime

I’m at the end of my rope
Just like a joke that nobody wrote

I tried to make you a star, but it’s hard
And the project got the best of me

These lyrics offer the additional pleasure of monosyllabicism (to coin an awkward term): most are humble, one syllable words. This is harder to do than it looks. Completing an increasingly delightful package here are the backing vocals, which often involve same-note harmonizing but over time expand into appealingly lackadaiscal intervals, as if Child is making up his vocal chart along the way. When he breaks into what sounds for all the world like a Tom Petty imitation around 3:02, that seems even more likely.

“Change the Channel” is a song from the second Manwomanchild album, Awkward Island, which was released at the end of June. You can listen to the whole album via Bandcamp, and buy it there too, for just $5. Thanks to David for the MP3.

This thing that we do

Eclectic Playlist Series 3.07 – July/August 2016

Let’s start as unfashionably as possible—say, a nuanced, thoughtful, beautiful Jackson Browne song from the mid-’70s. I wasn’t sure where it would all go from there but I can see that the West Coast kept reasserting itself, in various guises. In the end, a distinct if unconscious dialogue emerged between Britain and the U.S., between idealism and resignation, between joy and melancholy, all the back and forth we internalize and externalize every day, invisibly. Do I cast my fate to the wind? Do I learn to let go? Do I stay a little longer? Do I review the situation? (And how’s *that* for a cover, by the way, Oliver going all swinging London?; too bad the single got canned before release when the record company went out of business.) Underneath it all I think most of us just want to be Kate, too.

“Your Bright Baby Blues” – Jackson Browne (The Pretender, 1976)
“Skeletal Blonde” – The Awkward Stage (Slimming Mirrors, Flattering Lights, 2008)
“Anchorage” – Michelle Shocked (Short Sharp Shocked, 1988)
“Big Me” – Foo Fighters (Foo Fighters, 1996)
“How Are Things in California?” – Nancy Sinatra (single, 1970)
“Shoot My Mouth Off” – Bread & Butter (Bread & Butter, 2015)
“Cast Your Fate to the Wind” – Vince Guaraldi Trio (Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus, 1962)
“Airport” – The Motors (Approved By The Motors, 1978)
“Nobody’s Empire” – Belle & Sebastian (Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance, 2015)
“I Can’t Let Go” – Linda Ronstadt (Mad Love, 1980)
“Dance of the Dream Man” – Angelo Badalamenti (Music From Twin Peaks, 1990)
“Nothing Stays the Same” – Elastica (The Menace, 2000)
“Reviewing the Situation” – Jacki Bond (unreleased single, 1967)
“Kate” – Ben Folds Five (Whatever and Ever Amen, 1997)
“In Deep Water” – Dot Allison (Exaltation of Larks, 2006)
“Louder Than Words” – Pink Floyd (The Endless River, 2014)
“West Coast Blues” – Wendy Waldman (The Main Refrain, 1976)
“You’ve Got Your Troubles” – The Fortunes (single, 1965)
“Please Let Me Stay a Little Longer” – The Dirty Dozen Brass Band (Funeral for a Friend, 2004)
“Invisible” – Alison Moyet (Alf, 1984)

Free and legal MP3: People and Stars (’60s-esque, shuffly indie rock, w/ horns)

With its ’60s-esque, shuffly optimism and good-humored horn charts, “You’re Not Alone” feels like a wondrous balm during a stupidly fractious season.

“You’re Not Alone” – People and Stars

With its ’60s-esque, shuffly optimism and good-humored horn charts, “You’re Not Alone” feels like a wondrous balm during a stupidly fractious season. And for all its bright-eyed presence, one of the best things going on here is the melancholy that simultaneously weaves through this soul-satisfying song. From the dusky catch in vocalist Amanda Tate’s voice (I hear here a lovely echo of the late great Kirsty MacColl) to the minor-key moments etched into the catchy chorus, “You’re Not Alone” comes across less as mindlessly rosy than sensibly wistful about life’s beauty in and around its unpreventable angsts.

Doesn’t the song’s very title aptly capture the underlying poignancy of our shared adventure?: it’s not “I’m With You” or “We’re in This Together” it’s “You’re Not Alone”—which cheers us even while acknowledging what may well be every thinking, feeling human being’s most primordial dread. Another sign of the song’s enjoyable thoughtfulness is the instrumental break we get at 2:22, a tamped-down, philosophical pause in the middle of an effort to otherwise rouse us a bit more head-bobbingly. I always appreciate unexpected musical turns of events like that.

People and Stars is the duo of Tate and David Klotz, the latter a former member of the LA-based band Fonda. Klotz, furthermore, has developed quite a resume as a music editor for television, with credits including Game of Thrones, American Horror Story, and Stranger Things. “You’re Not Alone” is the duo’s first release, in advance of an EP slated for later this year. MP3 via Insomnia Radio Network.

Free and legal MP3: Sea Span (glistening synth pop w/ a summery groove)

A glistening synth pop delight with a rock-solid core, “Tired of Winning” is one of those effortless-seeming songs that is not nearly as easy to put together as it looks, or sounds.

“Tired of Winning” – Sea Span

A glistening synth pop delight with a rock-solid core, “Tired of Winning” is one of those effortless-seeming songs that is not nearly as easy to put together as it looks, or sounds. It is also one of those songs that illustrates how central a singer’s voice is to the success or failure of the end result, a fact that is strangely overlooked at the indie rock level. By which I mean: there are way too many bands out there whose music I just can’t take seriously (sorry!) because the singer has a voice that I will simply call “unpleasant,” to cover an array of sins. And I don’t mean that a voice has to be as pretty as James Benjamin’s voice is here, with Sea Span, but I do mean that if you are singing in pursuit of some kind of public following your voice has to have some significant singerly qualities to it. Tom Waits is a great singer so, you know, I cast the net wide in terms of aural characteristics. Singers I can’t warm to are those without presence and/or without character and/or without a palpable sense of sonic purpose in their tone. More bands than you may realize disqualify themselves right there.

In the meantime, however, yes, Benjamin has a lovely voice used to lovely effect here, so much so that I can not only overlook the vocal manipulation I believe I’m hearing, I can (gasp) applaud its tasteful usage. And maybe that’s all I’ve been waiting for when it comes to auto-tune and related processing effects: for singers to learn to use them as honest sonic enhancements versus either cynical corrections or pandering nonsense. Here amid the summery groove and simple melodicism of “Tired of Winning,” whatever Benjamin is running his voice through adds to the ethereal momentum of the composition, furthering the song’s cause versus distracting from it. At least, to my ears.

“Tired of Winning” is the fifth of six singles that the Philadelphia-based Benjamin has released in 2016 under the name Sea Span. It came out in May. The first five singles are all available to listen to and purchase via Bandcamp; additionally, four of them, including the latest, “Refugees,” can be listened to and downloaded, for free, via SoundCloud. Thanks to the artist for the MP3. And note that the fact that I have previously been watching CSPAN all week and live here in Philadelphia has no bearing on my selection of this song at this exact time; and that rather than being tired of winning I am terrified of losing. But that’s probably another song.