Fingertips

Free and legal MP3: Wesley Fuller (melodic indie rock, seductive chorus)

Melodic, creative, and eminently satisfying, “Melvista,” is as assured a slice of 21st-century indie rock as I’ve heard in a while.

“Melvista” – Wesley Fuller

Melodic, creative, and almost giddily appealing, “Melvista,” is as assured a slice of 21st-century indie rock as I’ve heard in a while. Despite its retro-y veneer, and Fuller’s obvious embrace of a certain sort of ’60s/psychedelic look, “Melvista” gushes with contemporary flair. Even the Beatlesque chord progressions at the center of its seductive chorus (first heard around 0:35) feel tweaked and updated in some ineffable and ebullient way. Also, check out the drumming, which manages to feel very ’60s and very ’10s at the same time.

So, do understand that by “contemporary flair” I do not mean the addition of meaningless aural frippery in the cynical pursuit of distracted teenagers—I’m talking instead about an awareness of how the present moment is always a cumulative outgrowth of history rather than some kind of context-free instant of existence driven by lizard-brain reflex. Being willing to funnel sounds of the past through one’s 2016 consciousness (not to mention one’s 2016 audio equipment) is in my mind a far more reliable way to create something truly of the here and now than a slavish adherence to sound-fads of any particular moment. This is exactly why music that too rigidly clings to production choices that are very “now” paradoxically becomes the music that sounds most dated in another five or 10 years.

That said, slavish adherence to past sounds is of course an equally if not more unconvincing way to sound current. Maybe one of the reasons “Melvista” song escapes the gravitational pull of its inspirations is how effortlessly Fuller combines the sounds and vibes of distinct subgenres into a cohesive whole. Which is to say that “Melvista” is not merely Beatlesque—its roots can be found as well in glam rock, garage rock, and (here’s kind of the kicker) new wave. As a matter of fact, the song unfolds as a bit of a history lesson, its British invasion elements craftily transformed in plain sight by new wave injections beginning at 2:08: first, the verse is reimagined with a Cars-ish minimalism; next comes that synth-like guitar line (2:29), which culminates and then closes out the song, the likes of which ran through any number of late-’70s songs on both sides of the Atlantic and doubtlessly in Australia as well.

Originally from Perth, where he played in a series of bands, Wesley Fuller moved to Melbourne a couple of years ago. “Melvista” was his first release as a solo artist, initially out in February as a single and in July resurfacing as the title track on his debut five-song EP, released by the London-based 1965 Records. Thanks to the good folks at the Powerpopulist blog for the head’s up here, and thanks to the Austrlian music site Triple J Unearthed for the MP3.

How could it come to this?

Eclectic Playlist Series, 3.06 – June 2016

What makes for a great cover version is a mysterious thing. The original song in theory has to be great, but that isn’t always the case; sometimes the cover version is what makes a previously forgettable song abruptly great. Furthermore, the new version in theory has to be a notable re-conception; but then again, sometimes the new one is pretty straightforward and similar-seeming. I think maybe the single through-line most great covers have in common is summed up in the word “character”—a pretty much ineffable way of describing the presence and vigor the singer brings to the moment-to-moment moments of the song. I have no particular further explanation for why Eliza Gilkyson’s version of World Party’s “Is It Like Today” feels so momentous. It’s her voice, her phrasing, her arrangement, all adding up to character. Lots and lots of character. You may or may not hear the same thing but I’m at least giving you the chance, and that’s something.

Meanwhile: has Elvis Costello written a better song that no one knows than “Crimes of Paris”? I’m open to other ideas but I’m thinking no, he maybe hasn’t. I’m also wondering how Stevie Wonder managed to make something that sounds like a harpsichord not make me run away screaming. Usually harpsichords send me running away, screaming. This playlist is full of such minor mysteries. I’m not sure why Haley Bonar isn’t a bigger deal. I’m not sure why Norah Jones is so consistently alluring. And think about this: “The Wheel and the Maypole,” closing things out here, with its improbably catchy two-part chorus, was the last song on the last album that the band XTC ever released. Always leave ’em wanting more—a great philosophy so few properly represent.

Oh and p.s.: this is a different Robert Johnson. Not sure how a mid-’70s white guy figured he could make things fly career-wise with that name. Even if it is his actual name. On Wikipedia he gets the middle initial “A.,” but still. And “Leslie” cops a guitar line from “Apache.” But still.

“Numbers With Wings” – The Bongos (Numbers With Wings, 1983)
“La Cage Appat” – Peppertree (Peppertree, 2006)
“Frozen Garden” – Emily Jane White (They Moved In Shadow All Together, 2016)
“Solitary Man” – Neil Diamond (The Feel of Neil Diamond, 1966)
“Leslie” – Robert Johnson (Close Personal Friend, 1978)
“Find Him” – Cassandra Wilson (New Moon Daughter, 1995)
“Hometown” – Haley Bonar (Impossible Dream, 2016)
“5-7-0-5” – City Boy (Book Early, 1978)
“Last Innocent Year” – Jonatha Brooke (10 Cent Wings, 1997)
“(Come ‘Round Here) I’m the One You Need – Smokey Robinson & the Miracles (Away We a Go-Go, 1966)
“Crimes of Paris” – Elvis Costello & the Attractions (Blood and Chocolate, 1986)
“Is It Like Today” – Eliza Gilkyson (Paradise Hotel, 2005)
“Free” – Stevie Wonder (Characters, 1987)
“I Wanna Be Your Lady” – Shannon Wardrop (Cloud Nine EP, 2015)
“Season’s Trees” – Danger Mouse & Daniele Luppi, featuring Norah Jones (Rome, 2011)
“‘Cello Song” – Nick Drake (Five Leaves Left, 1969)
“Mirror Star” – Fabulous Poodles (Mirror Stars, 1978)
“The Real World” – The Bangles (The Bangles EP, 1982)
“Trust in Me” – Holly Cole Trio (Blame It On My Youth, 1992)
“The Wheel and the Maypole” – XTC (Wasp Star (Apple Venus, Part 2), 2000)

Free and legal MP3: Lost Woods

Brisk, melodic, ’90s-ish guitar rock

“Vodka Ocean” – Lost Woods

Something relaxes in me as I listen to “Vodka Ocean.” And it has nothing to do with the song’s lyrical content (about which more later). It’s the straightforward palette of traditional rock’n’roll—guitars, bass, drum. And maybe more than that: it’s the clarity of two distinct guitars interacting. That’s one of the sounds that the digital age has drained from our cultural commons and I don’t recall that we took a vote on this. You can hear it in the introduction, and during the instrumental breaks, the way both guitars find their own lead lines, working in a way that is at once complementary and also independent—it’s as if the guitars aren’t necessarily listening to each other but merely trusting that the other one is going to be in a sympathetic place.

And as I keep listening I detect an extra element buttressing the two-guitar attack, and probably rendering it all the more ear-catching, and that’s the bass. Urgent and creative, the bass functions nearly as a third guitar for all its melodic inventiveness. It even gets a fuzzed-out solo (1:55), not something you hear everyday.

Oh and as for those lyrics apparently the song grew out of an unfortunate bit of overindulgence at a music festival, after hearing that Frank Ocean had cancelled. Further details are probably best overlooked, but any band that can turn such an incident into a song this assured and engaging is worth keeping an eye on, says me.

Lost Woods claims inspiration from early ’90s indie rock and I am not only hearing that generally but I am finding myself thinking specifically, and fondly, of the trio Dada (known best for “Dizz Knee Land” but their 1992 debut was chock full of incisive tunes). “Vodka Ocean” is the third Lost Woods single; an EP is on the way.

Free and legal MP3: Florence Glen (smartly expressed, acoustic-based)

Everything is crisp and succinct, even as more instrumental diversity is involved than one might initially expect in an intimate, singer/songwriter setting.

“Let Me Run” – Florence Glen

I’ll be the first to admit there’s a fine line between acoustic-based singer/songwriter music that inspires and acoustic-based singer/songwriter music that bores. The basic sonic atmosphere is pretty much the same—guitar, voice—and yet some songs fly and some songs sink.

“Let Me Run” is a flyer, and one of its primary assets is its simplest: this song is super concise. Check out the introduction—we hear one iteration of the deftly-played central guitar lick, seven seconds in all, and then a three-second pause, and then we’re right into the verse. This is not the trivial detail it may at first seem; precisely because acoustic-based songs are often stripped of most aural texture they really should progress without delay. Many don’t; Glen wins our hearts and ears quickly by simply opening her mouth. In all, the song runs but 3:05—a healthy length, to my ears.

But “concise” doesn’t just mean “short”; it means intelligently compressed and expressed. One of “Let Me Run”‘s finest features is its production quality, in terms of both clarity and variety of sound. Everything is crisp and succinct, even as more instrumental diversity is involved than one might initially expect in this singer/songwriter-y setting. In addition to percussion we get adroitly incorporated strings and even, I think, a tasteful hint of electronics. Nothing intrudes and yet we are soon enough in the middle of a fully formed composition.

Best of all is the natural instrument on display—Glen’s dusky alto, with its fetching lilt (counterbalancing the darker tones of her lower register) and a rhythmic precision built into her enunciation (I am for some reason especially taken with how she sings the word “together” at 0:52).

“Let Me Run” is a song from Glen’s EP Spread Them Eggs, released in May. You can check out the full EP on SoundCloud. Glen is based in London. This is her first fully-produced recording; a previous, self-recorded digital EP came out in 2013.

Free and legal MP3: Kauf (hypnotic, groove-based melancholy)

“Through the Yard” exists at a nexus we might not otherwise have noticed, joining world music to 21st-century electronica to late-era Roxy Music.

“Through the Yard” – Kauf

And now, as if to prove that neither conciseness nor organic details are the only tools in a performer’s toolbox, here is the nearly seven-minute-long “Through the Yard,” buttering your ears with its smooth hypnotic charm and groove-based melancholy. Music is more than ever a wide world, easily discerned when commercial radio stations are turned down.

Existing at a nexus we might not otherwise have noticed, joining world music to 21st-century electronica to late-era Roxy Music, “Through the Yard” launches off an ascending pentatonic scale, affected via synthesized woodwinds. Pentatonic scales, with five notes versus the usual seven, produce intervals with a far-away, vaguely non-Western feeling. And if the riff’s persistence here grounds the song in an open-ended inquiry, the lyrics further the effect, with Kauf mastermind Ronald Kaufman singing a series of clipped phrases rendered mysterious via beginnings and endings that are swallowed or otherwise indecipherable—we pick out words but not concrete meaning. It seems no accident that the song’s most-repeated lyric, “If you make a little noise,” is inherently unresolved: if you make a little noise, THEN what? I don’t think we find out.

The song, nevertheless, delivers a certain kind of arc. At first, “Through the Yard” is held together by its riff, its smartly assembled percussive sounds, and the layered allure of Kauf’s half-rich/half-disaffected vocals. A fuller-fledged electronic beat emerges at the three-minute mark. And while the first half of the song revolves around what feel like verses, the second half, after the underlying beat comes forward, employs subtler, higher-register melodies, with an upward-floating feel, and matches them against more insistent sounds below (for instance, that off-kilter line repeated by a trumpet-like synth first around 3:40, and more insistently again around 4:30). Through it all I feel drawn to how Kauf presents as both disconsolate and upbeat at the same time. I identify that as the Bryan Ferry element here.

“Through the Yard” is slated to be the final track on Kauf’s debut album, Regrowth, slated for release later this year. In the meantime, you can check out two other tracks at his Bandcamp page. Kaufman is based in Los Angeles. Thanks to the artist for the MP3.

MP3 no longer available as of August 2016.

photo credit: Daniel Trese

Free and legal MP3: Mark Tulk (plaintive but upbeat, piano-driven)

A fetching constant throughout is Tulk’s warm, strong singing voice, with a tone at once earthy and buoyant.

“Universal Code” – Mark Tulk

While tinged with a bittersweet air “Universal Code” likewise comes across as friendly and comforting. Piano-based rock music can have that effect on me, I think. Maybe it’s just because I grew up playing piano, and hearing a good amount of piano music in the house. Or maybe—just maybe—there is something built into the sound of a piano, perhaps its unique capacity to be at once melodic and percussive, that feels human-scaled and reassuring.

More to the point, see what Tulk is doing with the piano here—two things I am noticing in particular: first, the incisive, eighth-note motif that opens the song, with its accents on the one and two beats (at once basic and somewhat unusual), right away asserting the instrument’s rhythmic potency, and racing the pulse a bit; second, the song’s central chord change, heard first at 0:14, which is a homely but affecting up-step from G major to A minor. Written into the right context, moving up just one tonal interval can be a poignant thing. Which is to say he had me at hello, basically.

Which is not to say there are not engaging elements throughout, of course. The instrumentation is deftly done—the song expands beyond its piano foundation, with subtle electronic flourishes and offbeat vocal layering, without losing its piano-centric-ness, which seems its own sort of accomplishment. And then what’s this?: a coterie of reed instruments sidle in somewhere along the way, and become undeniable past the two-minute mark. An appealing constant throughout is Tulk’s warm, strong singing voice, with a tone at once earthy and buoyant.

“Universal Code” is the lead track on Embers, Tulk’s third full-length album, released in March; he has also put out two EPs. You can listen to the entire album as well as purchase it via Bandcamp. Born in Australia, Tulk, who identifies himself on his web site as a “writer, philosopher, and musician,” is based in Boulder, Colorado. MP3 courtesy of the artist.

Every bird that goes by gets me high

Eclectic Playlists Series 3.05 – May 2016

As mother nature decided not to limit its downpouring to April this year here in the U.S. Northeast, I sneaked one more “rain” song into the mix this month, and it is nothing less than my favorite Beatles song of all. To counterbalance I’ve got a “summer” song in here too, perhaps jumping the gun a bit. The Tammi Terrell I just recently learned about, and in so doing discovered that this terrific Stevie Wonder tune, which appeared on 1980’s Hotter Than July (titled simply “All I Do” at that point), was actually written and recorded in the mid-’60s; the arrangement is both shockingly different and equally effective. Other mainstream performers float in and out of this mix in unusual guises, from Carly Simon’s poignant rumination on adolescence to Joni Mitchell’s Mingus experiment to the Police’s brief, offbeat return to light-hearted, rhythmically engaging pop even as they were otherwise veering towards the maudlin, not to mention their own demise. And most importantly of all there’s Prince, and because all of the tributes we’ve all watched have mostly involved the big hits, I felt good about offering up something lesser-known, from one of his somewhat-overlooked later albums, Planet Earth. This song (how was this not even a single?) has an effortless, timeless vibrancy to it, as did all of his best work, in retrospect.

“The Queen of Eyes” – The Soft Boys (Underwater Moonlight, 1980)
“The One U Wanna C” – Prince (Planet Earth, 2008)
“Summertime” – The Sundays (Static & Silence, 1997)
“All I Do Is Think About You” – Tammi Terrell (single, 1966)
“I Don’t Want To Be Here” – Andy Partridge (Fuzzy Warbles, Vol. 2, 2002)
“Not Harmless” – Laura Gibson (Empire Builder, 2016)
“The Man in the Moon” – Adrian Belew (Lone Rhino, 1982)
“The Dry Cleaner From Des Moines” – Joni Mitchell (Mingus, 1979)
“Sunflower” – Paul Weller (Wild Wood, 1993)
“That’s When the Tears Start” – The Blossoms (single, 1965)
“Boys in the Trees” – Carly Simon (Boys in the Trees, 1978)
“Sandie” – Devin Davis (Lonely People of the World, Unite!, 2005)
“Martian Saints” – Mary Lou Lord (Martian Saints! EP, 1997)
“Miss Gradenko” – The Police (Synchronicity, 1983)
“Prelude #3” – David Sancious & Tone (True Stories, 1978)
“Ophelia” – Marika Hackman (We Slept At Last, 2015)
“Rain” – The Beatles (B-side, 1966)
“Belleville Rendez-Vous” – Ben Charest, w/ Beatrice Bonafassi (Triplets of Belleville soundtrack, 2003)
“Too Much Time” – Captain Beefheart (Clear Spot, 1972)
“All or Nothing” – Eddi Reader (Mirmama, 1991)

Free and legal MP3: Acapulco Lips (half-goofy half-serious surf-punk-pop)

With its lead vocals buried almost cartoonishly in reverb, “Awkward Waltz” displays a joyful zing greater than the sum of its garage-rock-y parts.

“Awkward Waltz” – Acapulco Lips

With its lead vocals buried almost cartoonishly in reverb, “Awkward Waltz” displays a joyful zing greater than the sum of its garage-rock-y parts. This may have a lot to do with the old-school organ that floats through the mix, and it may have to do with the inherent appeal of a minor-key melody presented in a foot-tapping context. Or, maybe it has to do most of all with the irrepressible “oh-oh-oh” vocal descent we hear throughout the song from Austin-born singer Maria-Elena Juarez, each time delivering a frisson of catharsis, surf-punk style.

In any case, this is half-goofy half-serious fun, a song with a seeming simplicity belied by its unabashed devotion to an aural landscape that sounds more and more timeless as each new half-generation rediscovers it. Listen to drummer Davy Berruyer (who is from France, for goodness’ sake) and remind me again why electronic percussion exists. I know there’s a good reason but it’s slipped my mind in the presence of such precise and evocative pummeling. Listen to Christopher Garland and recall for a brief shining moment why we all used to love electric guitars so much—fingers on steel, sounds squealing and bending in direct relationship to sheer physical force. Juarez, meanwhile, mirroring the lead guitar with her bass, both grounds the song and frees it to splay towards its roiling conclusion. (Note that the crucial, aforementioned keyboards are supplied here by Yann Cracker, drummer Davy’s French pal.)

Acapulco Lips (coined to play coyly off the word “apocalypse”) is a trio based in Seattle. “Awkward Waltz” is the lead track off its self-titled debut album, which was released in mid-April on the brand new (?!) record label Killroom Records. You can listen to the album and purchase it via Bandcamp.

Free and legal MP3: Christopher Bell (cello-led, Waits-ian chamber pop)

A little bit Tom Waits, a little bit Elvis Perkins, “Darlin’, I Am Fine” is a quirky slow-burner–chamber pop at once dexterous and skewed.

“Darlin’, I Am Fine” – Christopher Bell

A little bit Tom Waits, a little bit Elvis Perkins, “Darlin’, I Am Fine” is a quirky slow-burner—chamber pop at once dexterous and skewed. An unusual assortment of instruments (brass, winds, strings) trade off in the background with odd little licks and frills, adding to the song’s forceful if carnivalesque vibe, however slowly it insists on moving. Anchoring the ensemble is Bell’s cello, alternating long, melancholic bowings with tetchier scratchings, all in service of lyrics that manage quickly to assert via subtext the exact opposite of the title’s pronouncement.

Two-thirds of the way through, at 2:36, the idiosyncratic arrangement coalesces into an oddball instrumental interlude. Tom Waits famously gave his musicians an instruction during the recording of Rain Dogs to “play it like a midget’s bar mitzvah” (that’s a direct quote; I don’t mean anything insulting by the term and I don’t think Waits did either). Our instrumental passage here may not conjure the aforementioned bar mitzvah but we might be at the after-party.

Christopher Bell is a cellist, multi-instrumentalist, and engineer based in Jamestown, New York. “Darlin’, I Am Fine” is a track from the album Rust, which the prolific Bell released in September 2015. If I’m counting right Rust is Bell’s sixth full-length album, dating back to 2012; before that there were five EPs, the first coming out in 2009. In March 2015, Bell also released two albums collecting all of his work up to 2013; you can see everything on his Bandcamp page, and listen to and/or purchase all of it.

Free and legal MP3: The Jayhawks (classy classic Americana)

The gracefully descending minor-key melody, this thing hits the ground like archetypal Jayhawks, which is more or less equivalent to archetypal Americana.

“Quiet Corners & Empty Spaces” – The Jayhawks

Have you heard this before? Of course you’ve heard this before—even if not this exact song. This is not a new sound. But my god, how sweet and solid this is, and how indicative that we lose something consequential when we demand only that everything be so friggin’ new all the time. I mean, come on: it makes no more sense to demand that everything only be new than to demand that everything only be old. Surely we desire and deserve a blend, much as we desire and deserve artists presenting visions and stories from all points on the adult human life spectrum, not just from those under the age of 25. The insidious pressure to require music to sound somehow continually “new” can always be sensed when writers approach a veteran band like The Jayhawks: if a new album is favorably viewed, there are always statements lauding the idea that the band “didn’t just revisit the past”; if unfavorably viewed, it’s either because they’re “stuck in the past” or tried too hard to reinvent themselves. You can’t win for losing when the New police are on patrol. So many witches to burn.

Anyway: that opening acoustic strum, the gracefully descending minor-key melody—this thing hits the ground like archetypal Jayhawks, which is more or less equivalent to archetypal Americana, complete with (say it with me) jangly guitars. As with a lot of Americana when it’s really good, there’s a lingering strain of ’70s country-rock in the air (think Poco, or Pure Prairie League), contributing to the music’s uncanny ability to feel mournful and jubilant at the same time. If Gary Louris’s silvery tenor shows some fetching wear around the edges, it serves merely to accentuate the beautifully crafted melodies he, yet again, sings for us.

The Jayhawks, from Minneapolis, have been playing in one incarnation or another since 1985, with one mid-’00s hiatus. The band still features two original members—Louris and bassist Marc Perlman—while the other two are veterans in their own right: keyboard player Karen Grotberg first played with the band from 1992 to 2000, then rejoined in 2009, while drummer Tim O’Reagan has been on board since 1995. “Quiet Corners & Empty Spaces” is the lead track on the new album, Paging Mr. Proust, which was produced by Peter Buck, Tucker Martine, and Louris. It was released at the very end of April and can be purchased directly from the band, if you are so inclined, via their website. MP3 via the good folks at KEXP.