Fingertips

Free and legal MP3: The Pharmacy (melodic, well-crafted rock’n’roll)

Someone is still making something that can be called rock’n’roll.

“Masten Lake Lagoon” – The Pharmacy

While rock’n’roll has been dying as a cultural force since the turn of the millennium, the 2010s seem truly to be delivering the death blow. The sound of the music that the young and the trendy want to be listening to seems to have little to do with the sound of rock’n’roll (admittedly an amorphous and multifaceted concept by now anyway) and a whole lot more to do with the interrelated sounds of EDM and indie pop. And I’m not saying this as a judgment, I am merely reporting. If you want a clear sign, look no further than the venerable and ongoingly trend-savvy blog Gorilla vs. Bear, which was founded in the early ’00s as a bastion of indie rock, and has adroitly morphed into something rather different.

That said, however dead as a mainstream phenomenon, rock’n’roll is not finished as an artistic pursuit. There are always going to be those who want and need more organic sounds and performances than today’s EDM-fixated indie pop is interested in providing, and, thankfully, still bands out there stubborn enough to furnish it. Like the Seattle trio The Pharmacy, whose career has pretty much spanned rock’n’roll’s death-knell phase, as the threesome sprang to life in 2002 and, in August, will be releasing their fifth album, entitled Spells. “Masten Lake Lagoon,” an initial single from the album, is not only unapologetic rock’n’roll, it is unapologetically melodic and well-crafted. Which may not be our culture’s current sweet spot but is always mine. Buoyed by scratchy guitars, grounded by a deep and supple bass line, and highlighted by a brisk sing-along chorus, “Masten Lake Lagoon” also has the gumption to veer into an extended, multi-sectioned instrumental, which takes us from 1:20 all the way to 3:01, growing more riveting by the moment; the squall of guitars that closes it out all but brings me to my feet even as I just sit at my desk writing this.

Long live rock’n’roll, 21st-century style.

(The Pharmacy were previously featured on Fingertips in February 2012.)

Free and legal MP3: Jeni Valtinson (simple, memorable)

There appears to be a gifted singer and songwriter in the process of maturing here.

“Silver Linings” – Jeni Valtinson

A first-rate diamond in the rough, “Silver Linings” has a just-born aspect about it that speaks of young talent announcing itself to the world. And, to be sure, Jeni Valtinson is all of 19 and barely emerging from the covering-pop-songs-on-YouTube phase of her musical education. But my intuition tells me there may be a gifted singer and songwriter in the process of maturing here. I receive a lot of submissions from young and unformed musicians and a lot of this music, however well-intentioned, is pretty much unlistenable. “Silver Linings,” on the contrary, is a splendid song, ably assembled and arranged, and for what the production may lack in all-out sophistication it makes up for through the simple power of the song’s sturdy construction, and in particular its memorable chorus, which presents us with an earworm of the highest quality. I have lately been singing this to myself at all hours of the day. Lovely, potent stuff.

I am also charmed by Valtinson’s vocal performance, which manages to be at once slightly uneven and thoroughly poised. The rounded, breathy quality of her voice sounds at one level slightly green and yet also moves me with moments of casual depth.

Valtinson is from Orlando. “Silver Linings” is the title track to her debut, a three-song EP, which she self-released in April. It’s available to listen to and purchase at Bandcamp. She tells me she wrote all of the songs when she was 14, and that the EP took four years from start to finish. She is listed as co-producer, which gave her decision-making power throughout. If Jeni Valtinson sticks with it, “Silver Linings” could one day pale in comparison to the rest of her work.

photo credit: Reg Garner

Free and legal MP3:DoublePlusGood (lo-fi-ish, neo-new-wave-ish)

The new wave era pop rock that inspires them was typically fabricated with glistening studio sheen back in the day; that a song like “Sometimes” pushes forward with an almost homely plainness adds to its appeal in an odd and refreshing way.

“Sometimes” – DoublePlusGood

The Portland duo DoublePlusGood (three guys in the photo, yes, I don’t know why) traffic in almost heart-breakingly straightforward and melodic synth pop. The new wave era pop rock that inspires them was typically fabricated with glistening studio sheen back in the day; that a song like “Sometimes” pushes forward with an almost homely plainness adds to its appeal in an odd and refreshing way.

And note that while couched in a lo-fi feel, “Sometimes” does not confuse lo-fi with mere muddiness. On the contrary, one of the song’s many charms is the aural accessibility of all of its sounds—there’s nothing going on that can’t be singled out and understood by the ear, which is actually an unusual accomplishment in an age when it is far too easy to layer and overlap till the cows come home. And bonus points here for the late-arriving bridge (singing begins at 2:48), with its darker, lower-register melody, and its eventual and artful meshing with the friendly and by now inevitable-sounding chorus.

“Sometimes” is a track from the the PDX Pop Now! Annual Compilation, which was released in June, in advance of the PDX Pop Now! music festival, scheduled for this weekend in Portland. Thanks to Largehearted Boy for the head’s up.

Free and legal MP3: The Rosebuds (relaxed yet meticulous rocker)

The veteran Raleigh, NC duo of Ivan Howard and Kelly Crisp have long had a gift for brisk, minor-key compositions—attentively crafted songs with a subtle insistence to them, songs that expand and deepen with repeated listens.

“In My Teeth” – The Rosebuds

True to past Rosebuds form, “In My Teeth” feels at once relaxed and meticulous, a song full of moments that read as simultaneously casual and exquisitely wrought. Everything from the placement of guitar riffs to the use of harmonies (here but not here) speaks to effortless know-how. To my ears, even the way the titular phrase scans—with accents on both “my” and “teeth”—abounds with implication.

“In My Teeth” is from the forthcoming album Sand + Silence, the band’s sixth. The album was recorded at Justin Vernon’s April Base Studio, in Wisconsin, and was recorded live. It is also something of a reunion project for Howard and Crisp, who had spent the previous two years working on solo projects. Formed back in 2001, the Rosebuds were featured previously on Fingertips in 2008 and 2010. Sand + Silence arrives next month on Western Vinyl.

Free and legal MP3: Elskling (elusive, sweetly sad nostalgia)

“900 Hands” traffics in the best kind of nostalgia: elusive, sweetly sad, and oddly inspiring.

“900 Hands” – Elskling

“900 Hands” traffics in the best kind of nostalgia: elusive, sweetly sad, and oddly inspiring. Sounds from the ’60s float through the song without sidetracking it; I’m hearing something timeless going on here too. Don’t miss both the opening and closing moments, which serve further to wrap this lovely, backward-glancing song in the 21st-century present.

I especially like the authoritative balance achieved throughout between reverb and clarity, which doesn’t call extra attention to itself but is highly unusual. The reverb dial is a siren song that lures more than a few musicians into the deadly rocks of stale muddiness. (They’re muddy, but they’re rocks, and they’re stale. Don’t ask. I just needed a metaphor.) With “900 Hands,” we get the warm, inviting feeling of reverb without the gummy aftertaste. (Is that better, metaphorically speaking?) The vocals, in particular, are simultaneously shaded with echo and crystal clear, somehow. Center this all around a chorus that posits a gorgeous, melancholy melody over a bustling bottom end and I’m all in. Oh, and that chord that unresolves the chorus right before it resolves, minor-key-ishly? That one you first hear at 0:44? It’s completely straightforward, and I would listen to that for days on end.

Elskling (“darling” in Norwegian, if the internet is to be trusted) is a musical project launched by Norwegian-born, San Franciso-based Marte Solbakken—with, as it turns out, a number of interesting Fingertips-related connections. Solbakken wrote the first Elskling songs while holed up in her boyfriend’s NYC apartment during the unpleasant winter of 2011. Her boyfriend, it turns out, is Van Pierszalowski, of Waters (Fingertips, June 2011) and Port O’Brien (August 2009). Meanwhile, this debut Elskling song was recorded by Jason Quever, of Papercuts (April 2011, May 2014) and mixed by Chris Chu, whose band Pop Etc used to be called the Morning Benders and were featured here three different times back in the day. So it turns out Solbakken not only knows how to write a great song, she knows who to hang out with—a not to be underestimated skill of its own.

Free and legal MP3: Ralfe Band

Jaunty, off-kilter piano tale

“Cold Chicago Morning” – Ralfe Band

Does the inexorable sound shift that’s been made right before our eyes and ears on the pop music front in the 2010s render music that feels more organic, hand-made, and melodically inclined entirely obsolete by this oh-so-futuristic year of 2014? On the one hand, rock’n’roll does seem really most sincerely dead in many different quarters here in the mid-’10s, replaced in the hearts and minds of today’s mainstream by sounds far more polished and formulaic and beat-driven. On the other hand, against all odds, plenty of organic, hand-made, and melodically inclined music is in fact still being created and recorded and not just by the oldsters of my generation but by good-hearted folks in their 20s and 30s as well.

A marvelous case in point is the off-kilter, Randy-Newman-meets-Tom-Waits jaunt of “Cold Chicago Morning,” from the British singer/songwriter/artist/filmmaker Oly Ralfe, who performs as Ralfe Band. The opposite of glossy and beat-driven, “Cold Chicago Morning” is launched by a clever, extended piano melody that mixes time signatures and advances unexpected chords even as it keeps your head bobbing nicely along. Ralfe sings with a smoother croon than his older progenitors, while still conveying a scuffed-up sensibility. Stick around (why wouldn’t you?) and see how the piano returns (first at 1:27) to deliver the song’s singular musical moment: an ear-catching line that ascends up a non-traditional scale only to tumble back, as if down a staircase. Calling upon neither gimmickry nor condescension, the music, while not necessarily Beatle-esque, is positively Beatle-like in its straightforward inventiveness.

“Cold Chicago Morning,” from the 2013 album Son Be Wise (Highline Records), was recently released as a single; my attention was drawn to it via the ever-excellent Lauren Laverne over on BBC Radio 6.

This is not what I thought

Eclectic Playlist Series, Vol. 7 – June 2014

Ready or not here comes another hop, skip, and jump through six decades of something resembling rock’n’roll music: the Fingertips Eclectic Playlist Series, Vol. 7. Mixcloud followers may see that I went back and named each playlist in the series after Volume 1, because I have been feeling that titles would be a nice handhold into the music. But everything is operating on intuition here, so those in need of concrete messages or Beats-music-like “I need a playlist for this precise activity at this specific moment in my day” may simply be confused. So it goes.

I would rank “MacDougal Blues” and “Mama Used to Say” among the more highly-regarded “lost gems” in my digital music library, and I kind of like how completely different they are and that both ended up here. Note that the British R&B singer Junior went on to re-record the song much more recently, but accept no substitutes: the original 1982 version is definitive. And talk about lost, whatever on earth became of Sinéad Lohan? What a fine late ’90s effort No Mermaid was, and it was even all over the radio back before an autocratic pop sheen was required for airplay. After just the one album, Lohan withdrew from the music scene without a peep, and while I completely respect the idea that someone would in fact want to withdraw from the music scene without a peep, she seemed a great talent, and I am sorry for the loss of whatever music she might have gone on to make. And yes, “I Do the Rock” walks a fine fine line between novelty song and legitimate musical contribution, but it put a smile on my face back in the day and is kind of fun to hear again in a day and age that can use some extra smiles.

Note that Mixcloud has now eliminated the capacity to see a song list on its site, no doubt due to licensing complications. In the notes over there I have linked back to this blog post, so that the song list (see below) is relatively handy for those who would like it.

“Fantastic Voyage” – David Bowie (Lodger, 1979)
“The Wind Blew All Around Me” – Mary Lou Lord (Baby Blue, 2004)
“One Chain Don’t Make No Prison” – The Four Tops (Meeting of the Minds, 1974)
“Solid Love” – Joni Mitchell (Wild Things Run Fast, 1982)
“MacDougal Blues” – Kevn Kinney (MacDougal Blues, 1990)
“Mindless Child of Motherhood” – The Kinks (Arthur, 1969)
“Hardships (Gospel Version)” – Jenny Wilson (b-side, 2010)
“Mama Used to Say” – Junior (Ji, 1982)
“Whatever It Takes” – Sinéad Lohan (No Mermaid, 1998)
“I Always Knew” – The Vaccines (Come of Age, 2012)
“Shake the Disease” – Depeche Mode (single, 1985)
“Full Speed” – Claude Bolling (Qui?, 1969)
“This Is Love” – PJ Harvey (Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea, 2000)
“I Do the Rock” – Tim Curry (Fearless, 1979)
“Baby It’s You” – Smith (A Group Called Smith, 1969)
“Pretty Deep” – Tanya Donelly (Lovesongs for Underdogs, 1997)
“100 Yard Dash” – Raphael Saadiq (The Way I See It, 2008)
“So Long” – Fischer-Z (Going Deaf for a Living, 1980)
“Heart is Strange” – School of Seven Bells (Disconnect from Desire, 2010)
“Slapstick Heart” – Sam Phillips (Omnipop, 1996)

As for Spotify, we get a poor version of the playlist there this time around, as the widely-used streaming service is missing four of the songs I have included on this list—five, really, since the only version they have of “Mama Used to Say” is the inferior newer version. I didn’t expect the obscure Claude Bolling instrumental to be available, and am not surprised “I Do the Rock” is missing also. But Sinéad Lohan? Sam Phillips? Both released on major labels?

But, for those who find Spotify more convenient, here is the link, which yields the 16-song version, with all sorts of spoiled segues:

Free and legal MP3: Indianapolis Jones (part discipline, part freakout)

Despite its skittering bass line, centrally employed syncopation, and a smattering of funky guitar riffs, “Not Ghosts Yet” has a pleasing fluidity about it.

“Not Ghosts Yet” – Indianapolis Jones

Part disciplined indie rocker, part psychedelic freakout, “Not Ghosts Yet” is an accomplished amalgam; despite its skittering bass line, centrally employed syncopation, and a smattering of funky guitar riffs, the song has a pleasing fluidity about it. I’m thinking this has a lot to do with the decisiveness of its two-part verse and two-part chorus, which shift us through the song’s sung sections with energetic finesse. To my ears, the central moment here is the second part of the verse, with the falsetto voice and the delightfully syncopated melody line (first heard at 0:46). There’s something in this that sounds so smart and apt that it reminds me why I personally love leaving music to the professionals.

“Not Ghosts Yet” features two extended instrumental breaks, which might seem either aimless or hypnotic, depending on your mood. The first features spacey synthesizers and prerecorded voices, the second, which closes out the song, leaves off the voices and manages to evoke any number of ’70s bands in a rather pleasant and surprising way.

Indianapolis Jones is an Atlanta-based trio rather over-ambitiously being billed as a “supergroup” based on the various bands with which its members have been previously associated. I’ve only heard of two of the 10 “name” bands mentioned myself; your mileage may vary but I vote for gently withdrawing them from supergroup consideration and just enjoying the music they are now making together.

“Not Ghosts Yet” is from the debut Indianapolis Jones EP, self-titled, which was released at the end of April.

Free and legal MP3: The Shoe (delicate & determined)

“Dead Rabbit Hopes” has a mesmerizing matter-of-factness about it, creating a serious flow with the gentlest of beats.

“Dead Rabbit Hopes” – The Shoe

Delicate and determined, “Dead Rabbit Hopes” is the shy girl who is not really shy at all, just uninterested in attracting attention via normal channels. “I am hungry for you/I am chewing straight through you”—see? Not so shy. The song has a mesmerizing matter-of-factness about it, creating a serious flow with the gentlest of beats. The lyrics, actually, have this odd way of sounding like they might have otherwise been rapped but instead have floated into a sweet, interval-jumping melody.

The vocalist for The Shoe by the way is actress Jena Malone and if you are initially skeptical of her seriousness as a musician look no further than this quote from a recent online interview: “I’m still trying to write like ‘Cortez the Killer.’ I want it to happen one day.” She has me at “Cortez the Killer.” Her partner in the odd, improvisation-fueled musical project that is The Shoe is Lem Jay Ignacio, a Los Angeles area musician and composer who himself was profiled in the New York Times way back in 2000 for being a pioneer in the field of creating music and audio effects for the web. He told the Times: “It’s exciting to think of sound not as a melody or phrase but as tiny frozen and unfrozen specks of sonic sparkle.” He has me at “specks of sonic sparkle.” Clearly these two oddballs are meant for each other; they have in fact been noodling around musically since 2008.

As for the strange normal-ness of “Dead Rabbit Hopes,” Malone in the same previously cited interview gives us a handhold on what she may be singing about, here: “It’s a metaphor saying that sometimes it is hard being a girl,” she is quoted as saying. “It is so easy to feel so far removed from your beauty. You end up valuing other people’s value of it.” Even if that doesn’t completely clarify anything, I respect the insight. The song appears on the debut album from The Shoe, entitled I’m Okay, released earlier this month via Community Music and There Was An Old Woman Records (as in “who lived in a…).

Free and legal MP3: Joe Marson (soulful, w/ great restraint)

“Love You Safely” is an unexpected shot of pure soul music: deep, heartfelt, and effortlessly melodic.

“Love You Safely” – Joe Marson

“Love You Safely” is an unexpected shot of pure soul music: deep, heartfelt, and beautifully crafted. This last bit is extremely important, at least to me. It’s one thing to set up a soulful groove and emote in a rich and convincing way, it’s another to do it while you happen to be singing a song that is itself rich and convincing.

The minimal but evocative introduction grabs attention immediately, with its muted, percussive guitar lick and terse, strategic organ fill. The verse begins before anything else kicks in, and Marson clearly doesn’t need much more than his voice to command the stage. (That the first word he sings is the name “Sara” sounds like a nice hat-tip to his blue-eyed soul progenitors, Daryl and John.) And yet he keeps the reins on his voice at nearly every moment, understanding how much more powerful understatement is than overstatement. Likewise the song’s accompaniment, which consistently dials itself back in the service of greater power and persuasion. And so the 10 or 12 seconds in the song where Marson cuts loose vocally (beginning around 2:50)—and still, probably, just a hint of what he might be capable of—is all the more moving and effective. Even the song’s title is a sort of understatement, breaking as it does the usual rule of deriving from a song’s most repeated phrase.

All the while the heart of “Love Your Safely” is its sturdy chorus, which unearths great power (not to mention a killer hook) in a simple, down-stepping melody. In music you don’t usually have to reinvent the wheel, you just have to take it for a good ride.

Born in San Diego, the itinerant Marson has ended up (where else?) in Brooklyn. “Love You Safely” is the first song made available from his EP Electric Soul Magic, due out in July. He has previously released one EP and one full-length album. Thanks to Largehearted Boy for the head’s up.