Fingertips

Fingertips Flashback: Goldrush (from February 2007)

No new songs this week but here’s a Flashback featuring one of my favorite Fingertips selections of all time. Three new free and legal MP3s return after the Labor Day holiday here in the U.S.

“Every One of Us” – Goldrush

[from February 12, 2007]

We don’t seem at a loss here in the still-young year for brilliant, glistening rock songs. Here’s another, from the fine British band Goldrush. I love how the guitars add texture and tension to the song’s galloping beat, both the wavery synth-y line that arches like a siren above and the waves of skittery feedback-like chords that fade in and out below. But maybe the best thing on display here is Robin Bennett’s voice, which I find deeply affecting—a rubbery and slightly trembly tenor that at certain moments bring Ray Davies to mind (as, happily, do the melodies). And please listen to the words, which start out poignant and then turn transcendent, as the song makes that rare, exceptional link between the socio-political and the interpersonal. What begins as a moving statement on 21st-century alienation gains depth and spirit as the perspective angles in on a single human heart: “And if nothing is the way that it was/ Well there’s one thing you can be sure of, because/ We are not the way that we were/ She will forget about you/ So forget about her.” The title phrase proceeds to assume two competing, plaintive meanings. Nice nice work. “Every One of Us” is a song from the band’s new CD, The Heart is the Place, which is set for release next week in the U.K. on Truck Records, an impressively robust label run by Bennett and his brother Joe, who is also in Goldrush. The CD has been out since mid-January on City Slang, the band’s German label. No word yet on a U.S. release date. The MP3 is available via City Slang.

ADDENDUM: There is another band on the scene right now named Goldrush, from Richmond, Virginia. This is not them. As for the Goldrush featured here, The Heart is the Place remains their most recent album; the band seems no longer to exist. The most recent news I can find about Robin and Joe Bennett has to do with the popular Truck Festival, a music festival they ran in Oxford for 14 years. The Truck had a tough year in 2011, forcing the Bennetts to bow out. The Festival was taken over by new management and has continued.

New essay: “In Defense of Music” (off site)

A new Fingertips essay has been published by the Linn music blog.

The fine folks at the Linn music blog have published a new essay of mine. Linn is a high-end audio equipment company, based in the UK; as such, the title actually is “In Defence of Music.” I like British (i.e., original) spellings, so it’s nice to have a good excuse to use one every once in a while.

And so, here is “In Defence of Music,” via the Linn music blog.

Note that Fingertips is otherwise taking one more summer week off, while summer remains in effect. New free and legal MP3s will return early next week.

Free and legal MP3: Exquisite Corps (elegant, dynamic chamber pop)

Bass, drum, acoustic guitar, cello, two violins, so artfully put together that you would not suspect how otherwise difficult it is to merge these instruments into a cohesive presentation.

“Light as a Feather” – Exquisite Corps

Rock’n’roll in the internet age chews up and spits out trends and genres as fast as bloggers can make them up. If you haven’t realized it by now, our task here, together, is to ignore the churn and hype and just listen in peace, find the good stuff, and let it lift our spirits. Easy, right?

So, okay, chamber pop. Is it a good thing? A bad thing? A “that’s so 2006” thing? We don’t care, you and I. We listen to “Light as a Feather” and say, wow. This is one elegant and dynamic piece of music. Bass, drum, acoustic guitar, cello, two violins, so artfully put together that you would not suspect how otherwise difficult it is to merge these instruments into a cohesive presentation. The sticking point is usually figuring out how to blend the strings with the drums, as violins and cellos and such did not grow up around drum kits. Exquisite Corps does it so well they flaunt it: the strings are introduced with a bash of the drums at 1:09, and their first job is not to be sweeping or yearning but to be percussive; they join in here (and it may be the most ear-catching part of the song) as part of the rhythm section, and when first released on their own (1:30), stay in their lower registers and remain submerged to the drumbeat. Meanwhile, singer Bryan Valenzuela impresses at both ends of his dynamic range, his edgy, Lennon-meets-Corgan voice providing the glue that links the quieter and more intense sections of this song. By the time we hear the strings in all out string-section mode (2:45), they have been fully incorporated into this distinctive rock’n’roll song, chamber pop edition.

Exquisite Corps (get it? no “e”) began life in Sacramento in early ’09 as a cello/acoustic guitar duo with Valenzuela and cellist Krystyna Taylor. Two violinists were brought in for a special performance the band was doing with a local ballet company, and stuck; before long, the bass player and drummer from Valenzuela’s old band Call Me Ishmael came on board. “Light as a Feather” is a song from the quintet’s self-titled seven-track debut album, released last month. You can listen, and buy it, on the band’s Bandcamp page.

Free and legal MP3: Lonely Drifter Karen

Prickly-smooth allure, in 6/4 time

“Comet” – Lonely Drifter Karen

A peculiar allure is in the air here. “Comet” is at once prickly and smooth, at once funky and not-funky, at once familiar and unfamiliar. Small details matter. It’s not just the spidery guitar line in the introduction that creates the mood but the squeaky, metallic echoes in the background; it’s not just the fitful piano fills in the verse (note that the keyboard spends more time not playing than playing) but the eerie synthesizer flourishes underneath (half ghost, half singing saw).

Larger details matter too, most of all the song’s 6/4 time. I am something of an uncommon-time-signature devotee, always appreciative of bands willing to trot something other than 4/4 time out for our ears. 6/4 is a particularly attractive option, as it both allows a consistent beat and contributes to a subtle sense of oddness, if only because our ears–whether naturally or by training, who knows–default towards a feeling of four-ness. Six-ness is still regular, you can still dance to it, but something slightly interesting and unexpected is happening. And then there is the matter of singer/guitarist Tanja Frinta, who commands attention with her flexible, vaguely Kate Bush-like soprano–earthy and keen in the verse, breathy-airy in the multi-layered but mostly one-word chorus.

Begun as a solo project for the Austrian-born Frinta while she was living in Sweden in 2003, Lonely Drifter Karen has been through a variety of incarnations, locations, and band-member nationalities over the years. Now based in Brussels, Lonely Drifter Karen currently features Frinta, Spanish keyboardist/arranger Marc Melià Sobrevias, and French guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Clément Marionare (France). “Comet” is a song from the album Poles, the band’s third, released on the Belgian label Crammed Discs, either in February, March, April, or June of this year, depending on which online source one consults.

Free and legal MP3: Poor Moon (Fleet Foxes side project, w/ beauty & heft)

Dreamy song with with an intriguing sonic palette, elusive roots, lovely melodies, and an uncanny arrangement.

“Birds” – Poor Moon

Last week I featured a song from the band Time Travelers, and noted its resemblance to music made by Fleet Foxes. This week, at the risk of redundancy, I offer up a song from the band Poor Moon and will likewise note its resemblance to music made by Fleet Foxes, with this additional footnote: Christian Wargo and Casey Wescott, two of the four gentlemen in Poor Moon, are themselves also in Fleet Foxes. So that explains that.

This is not Fleet Foxes 2.0, however. “Birds” is a dreamy song with with an intriguing sonic palette, elusive roots, lovely melodies, and an uncanny arrangement. There is something vaguely Mexican, or at least faux-Mexican, in the air here, both in the rhythm and the instrumentation, but that is merely an entry point into this music, not the end point. Sounds are used with great care, in particular those emanating from the marimba and the rest of the sensitive, idiosyncratic percussion section (tiny example: the random, exquisitely timed marimba note struck at 2:29). Chord progressions are lovingly crafted—don’t miss the heavenly, Brian Wilson-y end of the introduction (0:27-0:32), and the chorus’s lovely series of shifts (1:35-2:01, but check out 1:49 in particular). The group harmonies surely bring FF to mind, but Wargo’s lead vocal has a casual, dusky quality that blends beautifully with the warm, clackety arrangement. This is a winner that keeps on growing with repeated listens.

Wargo and Wescott have long been friends and musical associates; prior to Fleet Foxes, they played together in the bands Pedro the Lion and Crystal Skulls. The other two members are brothers Ian and Peter Murray, who otherwise play in a band called The Christmas Cards. “Birds” is the tenth of ten tracks on the band’s debut full-length release, self-titled, which will be out next week on Sub Pop Records. MP3 via Sub Pop. Thanks to Largehearted Boy for the head’s up.

Free and legal MP3: Time Travelers (gentle, brisk, w/ Fleet Foxes affinity)

It’s okay if this sounds somewhat like the Fleet Foxes. Still a really good song.

“Minnow” – Time Travelers

Already the silvery vibe and agile beat bring to mind a Fleet Foxes song, and then Edward Sturtevant opens his mouth and Robin Pecknold all but tumbles out. But you know what? Doesn’t matter. A band sounding like another band is no sin. First of all, removing ourselves from the bubble of musical over-exposure, a lot of the time, what seems an obvious resemblance to us may not register on other ears. Second, and more important, the only thing that need offend the ears, as far as I’m concerned, is a bad song; good songs, on the contrary, are entirely welcome in whatever guise they choose to arrive. “Minnow” is a wonderful song.

At the root of it is one of those juxtapositions that pop songs can, when they want to, manage so well. The often-discussed pop-song juxtaposition is happy music with sad lyrics, but there are other, subtler ways to juxtapose countervailing moods. In “Minnow” we get a brisk 4/4 beat paired with a mild, bittersweet demeanor—a gentle-but-fast amalgam that creates a distinctive sense of urgency, an urgency that gives itself up to you rather than pushes itself onto you, if that makes sense. And within the consistent, fast-moving framework, the song offers us two differentiated approaches to the beat: the expansive verse, with a swaying feel fostered by an accentuated third beat; and the seemingly faster-moving (but not) chorus, with its double-time rhythm section. Through it all, Sturtevant is almost disconcertingly affecting; he sings with an ache but entirely without the histrionics that generally plague 21st-century American vocalists whenever they try to emote (thank you, yet again, “American Idol”). He is assisted by an able-bodied melody that is at once assertive and evasive, with lines that begin emphatically but end, often, by veering away from resolution.

Time Travelers formed while the foursome were sophomores at Bates College in 2008. They moved (where else?) to Brooklyn, last year. “Minnow” is a song from Vacationland, the band’s second EP, which was released at the beginning of this year but only recently brought to my attention. You can listen to it and/or buy it (for a price of your choosing) via Bandcamp. Thanks to the band for the MP3.

photo credit: Liz Rowley

Free and legal MP3: Jennah Barry

Singer/songwriter with depth & allure

“The Coast” – Jennah Barry

“The Coast” opens in a relative hush, and in 6/8 time, just Barry’s voice and a barely articulated guitar. The pithy rhythm section kicks in at 0:37, the unstable momentum of the uncommon time signature pairing oddly well with the singer’s sweet vocal presence, and the sing-songy melody she offers. The production is crisp, the arrangement both minimal and assured, and Barry sings without affectation or artifice. Already this feels like a strong antidote to the ungated arrivals thronging through the internet music scene, with their mud and trickery and self-absorption. Sometimes all I’m looking for is a little easy know-how, a little unselfconscious musical ability.

At 1:02, almost like a wave hitting the shore, 4/4 time arrives with the chorus, and it’s the shift here that is almost, somehow, the song’s hook. Sometimes, I realize, it’s not the unexpected time signature that boosts a song’s resonance as much as how a more common beat is at some point woven into the musical story. The 4/4 chorus smacks the song in the middle of a 6/8 measure, and dances with its own quirky rhythm, the drummer giving us the first and fourth beats but skipping the others. Barry sings more forcefully in the chorus, with a bit of Kathleen Edwards’ honeyed urgency, and yet somehow still keeps her gist hidden, allowing us to hear phrases more easily than sentences. I find the elusiveness refreshing.

“The Coast” is the lead track from Barry’s debut album, Young Men. Nova Scotia born and raised, Barry moved to Toronto in 2006 for college, where she studied jazz. She joined the indie pop orchestral collective O’Darling, and also played with a roots/country band called The Long Haul, but never took to the big-city thing. Returning with relief to Nova Scotia after graduation, she hooked up with producer/engineer Diego Medina, and recorded Young Men at his home studio, bringing some O’Darling compatriots in for the session. The album was released in May; you can check it out and, perhaps, purchase it via Bandcamp.

Free and legal MP3: Suit of Lights (melodic, idiosyncratic, apocalyptic)

Combining a Fountains-of-Wayne-ish gift for melody with an idiosyncratic sense of presentation.

“The Human Beings” – Suit of Lights

As homely as it is endearing, “The Human Beings” combines a Fountains-of-Wayne-ish gift for melody with an idiosyncratic sense of presentation. Over an assemblage of woodwinds huffy-puffy-ing in the background, front man Joe Darone offers up what appears to be a pathos-free elegy to the planetary tragedy that is human civilization. But, hey, at least you can sing along—well, part of the way. The verse and the chorus are as pithy and tuneful as can be; the entire lyrical section—verse/chorus/verse/chorus/bridge/verse/chorus—wraps up in 1:40. The song plays out from there as an instrumental at once plucky and ominous, woodwinds interspersed with a muted sort of churning menace. As with the lyrics—“So they blacken the earth and blacken the ground/Now you’re not gonna find one of them around”—the music doesn’t end assuringly. My advice is to enjoy the unbridled melodicism, and find a bit of hope in a human creative urge so relentless as to feel compelled to dress up the apocalypse in such an appealing package.

Billing itself as “an indie rock manifestation,” Suit of Lights is a loose collective fronted by Joe Darone, operating out of New York City. Darone began his musical career as a teenager in the New Jersey punk band The Fiendz in the late ’80s. His Suit of Lights project began life in 2003. “The Human Beings” is a song from Shine On Forever, the third Suit of Lights album, released last month on Visiting Hours Records. You can check the whole thing out on Bandcamp, and buy it there as well. Thanks to Largehearted Boy for the lead.

Free and legal MP3: Everest (mellow facade hides sharply constructed song)

Can a song be immediately engaging and sustainably appealing with neither a hook nor a discernible story? Apparently, yes.

“Raking Me Over the Coals” – Everest

Can a song be immediately engaging and sustainably appealing with neither a hook nor a discernible story? Apparently, yes.

With the lazy-brisk gait of a soft-rock classic, “Raking Me Over the Coals” has a winsome, timeless feeling. Russell Pollard’s easy-going tenor adds to the bygone vibe. And yet there’s a crispness in the air as well; beneath the mellow facade is a sharply constructed song, with persistent melody lines, an elusive chorus, and one well-placed, off-kilter chord change. That change—first heard at 0:43—leads both into and out of the expansive, unusual chorus section, which is comprised of two verse-like segments and finishes with a minor turn on the stand-alone title phrase. The chorus has a protracted, narrative-like feeling, so even as it does come up twice in the three-minute song, it’s hard to get a sense of repetition. This is no sing-along. A typical pop song gains its title from the most repeated word or phrase in the song, and that’s true here, but obliquely: we hear it first, idiosyncratically, at the end of the first section of the first verse (I kind of liked that, for some reason), and then the two more times in the chorus. Just three times in the whole song.

I said “narrative-like,” and I meant it: while the song has the ambling feel of a tale being told, I can decipher no through-line or event descriptions. Truth be told, the smooth and effortless-seeming music belies the title’s implication, and that’s part of the charm here too. Whomever or whatever is raking the narrator over the proverbial coals, he sounds pretty philosophical about it.

Pollard is a L.A.-based musician who has played with a number of notable indie bands over the years, including Sebadoh and Earlimart. “Raking Me Over the Coals” is a song from the band’s third album, Ownerless, which was released in June on ATO Records.

photo credit: Zoran Orlic

Free and legal MP3: North Atlantic Drift (moody, stately instrumental)

Combining the subtle flavors of electronic texture with the deep allure of simple melody. An instrumental, but no apparent relation to the old Fleetwood Mac instrumental with the same name.

“Albatross” – North Atlantic Drift

The musical fine line between dull and hypnotic is never as evident as when venturing into the uncharted territory of the rock’n’roll instrumental. With no words to guide us, an instrumental often makes no effort to engage the conscious mind at all; there are, indeed, any number of thriving sub-genres in which obvious melodic movement takes a big backseat to texture and ambiance. Such sub-genres, alas, do not typically register with me. My conscious mind is a demanding beast. I happily go about my life pretending that ambient music doesn’t really exist.

Every now and then, however, an odd hybrid slides into my field of awareness. Each of the two gentlemen in Toronto-based North Atlantic Drift has a background in electronic, “post-rock” music, and they surely love their processors and loops and all those digitally manipulative tools of the trade. They are not out here to thrill you with their intricate melodies. They are here to captivate you with mood and texture. And yet they bring a secret weapon: archetypal melody. “Albatross” is grounded in one three-note, minor-key descent, played on a reverbed guitar. Note how offhanded the melody’s entrance is, at 0:12, how it emerges shyly from the gently pulsing mist. Note too how slippery the middle note is, and will remain—we hear it only in slurred combination with the previous note. The song develops patiently from the ground of this slightly blurred three-note motif, itself just an inversion of the two-note bass line, with the middle note filled in. The motif is repeated four times, without hurry, before the a higher, slightly varied descent is heard, leading to one last repeat of the original melody. The song involves four repetitions of this “verse,” with three short interstitial sections in between. Subtle layers are added via percussion, guitar, and synthesizer. The whole thing passes like a dream, like a forgotten thought, like a stately idea; I find it hypnotic, never dull, and pin its success on the musicians’ willingness to combine the subtle flavors of electronic texture with the deep allure of simple melody. Your mileage may vary.

“Albatross” is from the debut North Atlantic Drift album, Canvas, which was released digitally in March, then with a limited run of CDs in June. It bears no obvious relation to the classic Fleetwood Mac instrumental of the same name, but perhaps there is a subtle connection nonetheless.