Fingertips

Free and legal MP3: La Luz (slinky, surfy, reverby)

A slowed-down girl-group number with both nostalgic flair and the spark of unfamiliarity.

“Call Me in the Day” – La Luz

Current indie rock nodding aurally to late ’50s or early ’60s rock’n’roll has become commonplace, although I’m still getting a kick out of it, because first of all I never anticipated it and second of all it’s a fun sound, especially for anyone who likes a good tune with his or her music. Many of the melodies that pre-Beatles songwriters wrote sounded resolutely similar to one another but melodies they were, and if a new generation of musicians sees fit to excavate the vibe to see what charms may remain, I for one will not wag my finger and scold them for not being “new” enough.

“Call Me in the Day” is a kind of slowed-down girl-group number, the days-of-yore production limitations mimicked here by the reverb-enhanced lo-fi setting; add the slinky bass and the punctuation of echoey, low-register guitar riffs, which bring surf-rock undertones to the proceedings, and all sorts of nostalgia is in the air. And yet a spark of unfamiliarity shines through. First, the rhythm section grabs the ear, the way the old-school bass line is paired with a humble but decisive snare drum, the drum less supportive than finding its own way in the empty spaces. This brings a band awareness to music that had been previously crafted by non-performing songwriters. And what really snaps me to attention are the harmonies, beginning at 0:39. There’s something abruptly pure and clean about the sound of the two women here singing together that both transcends the muddier feeling of the production and ties it all together. The interplay of the voices now justifies the song’s leisurely pace. It just feels good. And then comes an 80-second instrumental break, and by then I’m so on board with the slinky groove that this feels good too. I’ve talked in the past about the pleasures of finding latitude in short songs by cutting back on verses and adding instrumental breaks; this is an upstanding example of that.

La Luz was founded in Seattle just last year. Their first recording was the EP Damp Face, which was released in September. “Call Me in the Day” is the lead track; it was recently made available as a free and legal MP3 via Fullerton, Calif.-based Burger Records, which this week re-released Damp Face as a cassette. You can hear the whole EP, and purchase it, via Bandcamp.

Free and legal MP3: Cliff Dweller (archetypal American sound, slightly unhinged)

With its classically American sound, “Peace in the Valley” all but force images of prairies and big skies and dusky campfires into your brain.

“Peace in the Valley” – Cliff Dweller

I am not sure how or when there developed music that innately sounds “American” but it happened. And if the composer Aaron Copeland didn’t himself invent the sound he surely perfected it. Note that this has little if anything to do with the genre of music that has been called Americana; in fact, I believe the only songwriter in the rock’n’roll world who has tapped into that quintessential American-music vein with regularity and brilliance has been Randy Newman (see “Louisiana 1927,” see “Dixie Flyer,” see “My Country,” et al). “Peace in the Valley” immediately aligns itself with this sound; the opening melody and chord progression all but force images of prairies and big skies and dusky campfires into your brain. A cumulative sense of homespun gospel adds to the pioneer sensibility.

Where “Peace in the Valley” veers from this archetypal sound is in the details, which register as somewhere between subtly disheveled and overtly unhinged. Orchestral instruments play (sometimes squeak, as per 1:10), but with ramshackle discipline. You kind of wait for the whole thing to unravel, but it doesn’t. This adds to the power. The vocals, when they come, via Alex Jacob (who does musical business as Therapies Son) and Ella Hatamian, are whispery-fragile (him) and sturdy but plain-spoken (her). Soon they are backed by a swelling choir, in which context Jacob suddenly begins to sound—intentionally or not—a bit like Randy Newman himself. After one verse and one visit to the chorus, the instrumental ensemble reasserts control, takes the rhythm up a notch, and culminates in a violin solo that out-ass-kicks most electric guitar solos in our electric-guitar-deprived day and age. All in all I’m not exactly sure what I just sat through but I enjoyed it.

The larger context is unhelpful. Cliff Dweller has been identified in its press material as a “sonic and visual project” by an LA-based artist named Ari Balouzian, himself a classically-trained violist and composer, as well as a film scorer. He is also (there’s more?) a seventh-generation master shoemaker, working for the Burbank-based company Cydwoq, founded by his father. Cliff Dweller, as an art project, has something to do with Cydwoq but at this point—a personal short-coming, I’ll confess—my intellectual eyes glaze over. I remain unconvinced by projects with aims both large-scale and obscure, and have not as yet mustered the musical patience to listen to the 19 mostly instrumental songs that comprise Emerald City, the album on which you’ll find “Peace in the Valley.” Feel free to sample the whole thing yourself, however, via Bandcamp; your mileage may very well vary.

Free and legal MP3: Mice Parade (slinky, off-kilter indie pop)

There is something ongoingly makeshift about this song, as if these are the folks who wandered in and started playing, while waiting for the rest of the band to show up.

“Contessa” – Mice Parade

I immediately enjoy this song’s slinky, semi-minimalist setting—we are shuffled into an offbeat unfolding of 4/4 without a lot of fuss. There is something ongoingly makeshift about this song, as if these are the folks who wandered in and started playing, while waiting for the rest of the band to show up. Front man Adam Pierce, also the drummer, is the first singer we hear, but his half-hidden vocal is really just a tease; the song becomes the property of second vocalist Caroline Lufkin as soon as she opens her mouth (0:42). She’s got one of those voices that feels both gentle and piercing (no pun intended; well, maybe partially intended) at the same time. Their voices work especially well together (although I’m still not sure how his voice ends up quite so mixed down on his last lead line, at 1:12—seems either a mistake or a private joke).

“Contessa” furthermore continues a streak of songs here featuring a compelling instrumental section. It starts as what seems like a standard, post-chorus instrumental break (2:44), although its cool keyboard lines and fractured drumming make it not all that standard in the first place. Around 3:06 it gathers force and leads us, via some extended percussive tension, into a second instrumental episode, this one featuring a lazy series of keyboard lines and (I think) distorted guitar blurps over a repeating but difficult-to-digest drumbeat. We seem to have stumbled upon some very odd sort of jazz combo, and while waiting for the song to re-establish itself, I looked at the clock and realized we’re running out of time. The song just fades. I kind of liked that, for whatever reason.

Based (where else?) in Brooklyn, Mice Parade is one of those “only in indie rock” kinds of outfits—an experimental post-rock ensemble with fluid membership and shifting sonic affiliations that tools along for years in relative obscurity. The constant has been Pierce, previously known (maybe) as drummer in the band The Swirlies. Mice Parade records have been coming out semi-regularly since 1998, with titles like The True Meaning of Boodleybaye and Bem-Vinda Vontade. “Contessa” is the second to last track on the new Mice Parade album, entitled Candela, which was released this week on Fat Cat Records.

photo credit: Oleg Pulemjotov

Free and legal MP3: Laurelin Kruse (rich and slow and ghostly)

For a sparsely instrumented song, the vibe is rich and dark.

“Jupiter” – Laurelin Kruse

Languorous and fetching, “Jupiter” is all slow-motion swing and achy melody. For a sparsely instrumented song, the vibe is rich and dark. Kruse has a velvety, k.d. lang-ish voice and she plants it into something of a ghostly setting, with verses sung over a distinctive rhythm section—a nimble, deep-register thumping that’s either a very percussive bass or a very tuneful drum or, maybe, resourceful programming. There’s something of a cartoon graveyard in the sound, a feeling augmented by the minimalist guitar work and an evocative electronic crash or two. The verse takes its time. Do not be in a hurry.

A delicious wash of a drum roll (0:56) deposits us into the chorus, which offers a grand payoff, with that pining, melody and a busier but vague aural landscape that now seems to be incorporating some strings and a new guitar sound or two. This is wide-ranging, lonesome music, and I have no particular idea what she’s singing about (even with her apparent hint; see below), but those repeating words hit me, mysteriously, in the gut: “And seventy years/Is still too soon.” And then, those equally mysterious and yet more disconcerting parting words: “Keep your hat on.” Hit repeat. Keep listening. It’s hard to stop once you start.

I learned about “Jupiter” through a short email sent by Kruse herself. Yes, that’s sometimes how I find out about things. Needless to say I get kind of a ton of email and most of them either try too hard, or too little. This one hit a rare sweet spot. “I’m a girl from Colorado stuck in Brooklyn and this song is about how I’m always trying to get the hell home,” she wrote. Also: “It’s like a meteorite crashing into a Spaghetti Western.” Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t but I liked her email and I like this song. It’s from an EP entitled Winter in Mind that Kruse self-released earlier this month. You can listen to it, and purchase it, from Bandcamp. You can download “Jupiter” via the link above, or at Kruse’s SoundCloud page, where you can also leave a comment for her if that’s your idea of a good time.

Free and legal MP3: Elias Krantz (persistent, satisfying instrumental)

Persistent and satisfying, without calling undue attention to itself.

“Young Ends” – Elias Krantz

So the theory is that a good rock’n’roll instrumental should present the perfect balance between repetition and novelty. Which is to say that I just made that up. But it sounds reasonable, right? Repetition in an instrumental gives ears otherwise accustomed to hearing words something to hang onto. Too much repetition, however, is stupefying. That’s where novelty comes in. And note that novelty does not have to mean crazy wacky outlandishness. The novelty on display throughout “Young Ends” is pretty darned subtle all in all—an interesting change in a rhythmic pattern here, an unexpected additional sound there. I think that’s what makes this song so compelling, in fact. It’s doing its thing, in repetition, and yet without its arms and standing on its head still manages to feel like a satisfying journey.

The misleading guitar line in the introduction—misleading in terms of fitting with the time signature—sets the stage for a song that wants to stick with one basic melodic motif but still slyly hold your attention. The next sneaky trick is how the main melody shifts in space between its first and second iterations. This is going to be clunky to describe, but if you listen closely to the disciplined bass and drum, you’ll see that the melody aligns one way against that rhythmic accompaniment the first time you hear it (0:21) and a different way the second time through (0:42). I wouldn’t call this profound but it’s pretty compelling; it’s something you can sense without quite being able to put your finger on it. Sounds are used in similarly subtle ways, whether it’s the slightly higher than usual register of the bass (you can hear it in particular when it emerges in a clearing at around 0:40), the offhanded infiltration of the xylophone-like sound at 1:04, or the entirely unexpected arrival of what sounds like a harmonica at 1:54, which works itself more thoroughly into the soundscape a little later. Somewhere along the way, the tenacious bass finds a more upward-oriented line to play and the entire song feels opened. By the time the voices arrive (3:24)—as ever, subtly—something like redemption seems to be at hand.

Elias Krantz is a multi-instrumentalist from Sweden. “Young Ends” is the sixth of nine tracks on his second album, Night Ice, which was released on the Stockholm-based label Country & Eastern last year. A vinyl album has been more recently released. MP3 via the artist.

Free and legal MP3: Kait Lawson (backwoods shuffle w/ NOLA flourishes)

A backwoods shuffle with an immediate if unexpected dash of New Orleans-y instrumentation, “Place in the Ground” is an object lesson in durable songwriting.

“Place in the Ground” – Kait Lawson

A backwoods shuffle with an immediate if unexpected dash of New Orleans-y instrumentation, “Place in the Ground” is an object lesson in durable songwriting. Inspired by her grandparents, Lawson has written a song both pure and driven; it is a song that is not only about something but is okay letting you in on it. I like elusive lyrics as much as the next guy (well, maybe not quite as much), but there comes a time as a listener when I want clear context and direct meaning. On the other path lies the potential both for great artistry and for great fakery. Sometimes the line is thin indeed. Often over there in Elusiveland it seems to come down to the songwriter simply declaring “This is art,” because otherwise who can tell.

Lawson, on the other hand, doesn’t mess around. At her grandmother’s funeral 13 years ago, she overheard her grandfather, paying his last respects, talk out loud to his departed wife, telling her that she wasn’t supposed to be the one to go first. This song fleshes out that incisive moment. It could easily have gone sappy but Lawson stays disciplined on all counts. Musically, she gives us a minor key, appropriate to lamentation, but pushes it to a swinging beat, with fluid clarinet and trombine and tuba playing that evokes the “second line” style music at a traditional New Orleans funeral. The words grab us so firmly—opening line: “Her clothes still hang in the closet”—that it’s easy to overlook the melodic aptitude on display: the 16-measure melody of the verse, and a chorus so incisive and un-showy you almost don’t notice how it grips the heart. Lyrically, Lawson gives us concrete lyrical details, keep us in a narrative, but surprises us with nuance and emotion. Repeatedly she lets specificities imply both logistical and emotional content—for instance, how “She finally took your hand” tells us a lot more about the relationship then had she simply said that they got married.

Lawson is from Memphis, has spent time in both Nashville and NYC, but returned home to record her debut album. “Place in the Ground” is track number four on that album, which is called Until We Drown, and is slated for release in March on Madjack Records.

photo credit: Lisa Bertagna

Free and legal MP3: Yo La Tengo (in all their blurry/fuzzy glory)

There’s no particular point in trying to parse this song; better to let it wash over you, repeatedly.

“Stupid Things” – Yo La Tengo

Now then, everything I just said about elusive songwriting? Um, maybe never mind. Yo La Tengo is back in town and they are long-reigning masters of elusive pop songs. They may have partially invented the genre. The blurry singing, the fuzzy background, the vehement guitars, the incomprehensible lyrics? It’s all here. And damn if it isn’t pretty lovable somehow.

There’s no particular point in trying to parse this song; better to let it wash over you, on repeat, the way the droning guitar washes over the noodling guitar in the introduction. It’s jarring at first but it works. Over time you may register how the fleeting dissonances and the modest melodious moments congeal into one hypnotic whole. Ira Kaplan whispers his way around a tune that does its best to hide its moment of gratifying resolution. While the guitars seem often to be playing in another song altogether, it’s their long, lyric-free interlude—beginning around 3:18—that to me anchors the song, and renders its mysteries mysteriously meaningful. This episode starts as two plicky, plunking guitars soloing against each other, but at around 3:34 the lower of the two begins an anvil-like repetition of one chord, with one dissonant hiccup at 3:49. The solo guitar, at once meandering and forceful, all but stumbles into a truly satisfying resolution (4:05) and after that, the song just makes sense. The chorus melody had itself given us a taste of resolution back when first heard (1:54) but note how much richer it seems the second time (4:37), reinforced by the synthesizers that join the song for the home stretch.

“Stupid Things” is from the new Yo La Tengo album, Fade, which was released this month on Matador Records. This is their 13th studio album. MP3 via Epitonic. For those keeping score at home, Yo La Tengo has been featured on Fingertips four previous times, most recently in July ’09.

Free and legal MP3: The Lawlands (sedate, assured, & poetic)

Sedate and assured, with two simple verses, no chorus, and an unexpected poetic kick.

“Youth” – The Lawlands

Front man Anthony Ferraro is crooning—there’s no other word for it—but he does so with a wondrous light touch: the rare crooner who sounds like he is singing actually to communicate, rather than to hear the sound of his own voice. (Ouch, regarding all the other crooners, but true, -ish.)

The sedate, assured “Youth” plays out as two simple verses, with no chorus; each verse cycles twice through a melody that is gentle but resolute, unfolding over a double-time rhythm section and a gliding series of open chords. The song’s musical core is I think best understood and reflected by the 35-second instrumental break after the first verse, with a chiming lead guitar line landing more often than not on semi-dissonant notes, creating that open-chorded feeling. There’s a sense of flow, and exploration, and ineffable yearning, and (important) exquisite craftsmanship; I feel I could sit in this space for a long time. But the best is yet to come, as the second verse’s final lyrics open out into unequivocal poetry:

It’s strange, the child that I put to rest
Is beating on the walls of my head
And shouting I’m not finished yet

I call this poetry because any attempt to explicate the meaning would require far more words than the lyric used to get there itself. And because there’s an apprehension (both meanings) in these lines that’s almost thrilling to discover. The song finishes with Ferraro repeating one wistful question—“Where is everything I’ve read about?”—which on the one hand brings good old Morrissey (another crooner!) to mind, with echoes of a famous question he asked only in the song’s title (“How soon is now?”). But here I think we transcend that earlier song’s mopey, unripe concerns. This is pretty deep stuff.

Ferraro has been previously featured on Fingertips for a song he recorded as the one-man project Astronauts, etc., in October 2012. Note that at the time I called his voice a “soothing tenor,” but I guess that was more like a “soothing falsetto.” The Lawlands is a Bay Area band that he joined not long ago when their previous lead singer left the country. From left to right in the picture, you are looking at Drew, Alex, Shaun, and Anthony. “Youth” is available as an MP3 through the link here, or via the SoundCloud page, which also offers up the lyrics and, of course, the opportunity to comment on the song directly to the band.

Free and legal MP3: Harper Simon (strong, graceful rocker w/ E. Smith air)

With an air of Elliott Smith about it, “Bonnie Brae” feels delicate even when rocking hard.

“Bonnie Brae” – Harper Simon

Okay, it’s a first-world problem, but to be the son or daughter of a famous musician seems a no-win situation. Both nature and nurture are on your side, and yet if you dare seek a musical life of your own it’s hard to catch a break from the hive mind. When your mother or father is a landmark figure (Bob Dylan, say; or John Lennon; or, as here, Paul Simon), the kneejerk judgments will always find you lacking in comparison. (But who, pray tell, isn’t lacking in comparison?) So it’s natural for the grown child to want to create some distance from the parent. Especially as they age into full adulthood themselves (the younger Simon is himself 40). And it’s natural for sympathetic and/or hip music writers to want to try to be nonchalant and not even mention the connection (I’ve seen blurbs on Simon that do not mention his father, for instance). This second generation does deserve to be heard on their own, absolutely. And yet: shouldn’t offspring of beloved talents be all the more embraced because of who their parents are—shouldn’t their genetic gifts predispose us to welcoming their musical efforts? It’s a conundrum.

Sometimes, to be sure, the nature part of it is kind of spooky—Dhani Harrison went through a phase maybe 10 years ago when he looked like he just walked off the set of A Hard Day’s Night; and there was that almost too-successfully Lennonesque “Valotte,” by Julian, back in the day. With Harper Simon here, the bond to his dad is un-obvious; given his serious but feathery voice you might instead be inclined to think his father was Elliott Smith. That link is at least semi-purposeful; Division Street, the album on which you’ll find “Bonnie Brae,” was produced by Tom Rothrock, who co-produced Smith breakthrough albums, Either/Or and XO. “Bonnie Brae,” like some of Smith’s work, feels delicate even when rocking hard; better yet, it moves with strength and grace through its entire four-plus minutes—there are melodies and sub-melodies, there are sharp instrumental motifs, splendid guitar work, and there is a brilliant chorus that manages to be subtle and conspicuous at the same time.

Division Street marks a sharp new direction for Simon. His recording debut came in 2008, in a collaboration with step-mom Edie Brickell; they called themselves The Heavy Circles and if it played pretty much like an Edie Brickell solo record, there was nothing necessarily wrong with that (note: they were featured here in January of that year). His solo debut came in ’09, in a self-titled singer-songwriter-y album that was recorded in Nashville and had a bit of an alt-country feel. This one does not. His stated aim was to make a rock’n’roll album that he could enjoy listening to, and towards that end enlisted some significant friends, including Pete Thomas on the drums (from Elvis Costello and the Attractions and/or the Imposters), Nikolai Fraiture on bass (the Strokes), and Mikael Jorgensen on keyboards (Wilco). The album is due out in March on Play It Again Sam Records. MP3 via Magnet Magazine.

Free and legal MP3: Lisa Germano (gorgeous, sad, peculiar)

She sings in sighs; it seems you hear her every breath.

“And So On” – Lisa Germano

Lisa Germano is rivaled only by Tom Waits when it comes to the ability to insert sad, majestic melodies into squirrelly settings. Her songs tend to feel fractured, half-discarded. She sings in sighs; it seems you hear her every breath. In many if not most of her songs, she creates the disconcerting sense that much more is going on than either the words or the music quite reveals.

“And So On” is classic Germano—delicate and peculiar, gorgeous and heart-rending. Beginning with an unadorned piano and voice lament, the background shifts at 0:41 when Germano breaths out the words, “Oh, animals,” and that’s what we get—a barnyard full of chickens and cows and such, suddenly doing their thing in the background. “I just don’t want to know/The places people go,” Germano then sings, a line that seems somehow both to clarify and baffle; and by the way, check out both that chord under the word “places” and the lovely resolution it leads to, briefly. What a short and unusual journey this is. The chorus simply repeats the title phrase, as if its principal section was somehow excised and we are left both musically and lyrically with the afterthought. An acrobatic bass line temporarily wrestles the background spotlight from the animals, but they return in force the next time around. Are the animals the chatter that we try to fill our head with after a loss? Are our inner voices as confused and helpless as the voices of those without language at all? Are our emotions best expressed without words?

So far I’ve only got questions, no answers. But note that “And So On” is a song from a new album, called No Elephants, which is intended to be listened to as a whole, with a beginning and middle and end. The song is third from last. So on the one hand we are missing context but on the other hand, Germano is never all that straightforward—consider that she saw fit to put this song out there on its own, after all—so I’m guessing the entire album will likewise prompt more questions than answers. No Elephants is due out next month on Badman Recordings. MP3 again via Magnet Magazine. Site-related trivia note: Germano’s “It’s Party Time,” in May 2003 (note Web 1.0 format!), was the first song featured on Fingertips. She was also here in 2006.