Fingertips

Free and legal MP3: Cate Le Bon (Welsh singer/songwriter w/ Nico-like air)

Unhurried and untidy, “Puts Me To Work” saunters along in its own universe of sound, with a mid-tempo beat that seems uninterested in quite coalescing.

“Puts Me To Work” – Cate Le Bon

Unhurried and untidy, “Puts Me To Work” saunters along in its own universe of sound, with a mid-tempo beat that seems uninterested in quite coalescing. Le Bon admits to playing an out of tune piano here but to me the more salient and interesting feature is the instrument’s idiosyncratic resistance to the imperative of meter. Listen carefully to the introduction and notice how the piano chords lag ever so slightly behind the beat—or, perhaps, the beat itself moves past the piano. In any case, it’s a delightfully anomalous effect.

Everything about this song seems to lag and withhold. We don’t hear the chorus until a minute in, and we don’t hear the pay-off, titular line (“It puts me to work”) until the second and final time the chorus comes around, two-thirds of the way through the song.

And okay, once Le Bon starts singing, it’s all that a rock writer can do, it seems, to keep the name “Nico” from spontaneously emerging from his or her computer keyboard. As much as I tried to resist the urge, there is too much in Le Bon’s disaffected mezzo that recalls the one-time “Warhol Superstar.” And it’s not just the voice, and the dainty accent (Le Bon is from Wales)—it’s the world-weary vibe that combines sing-songy simplicity with some kind of instinctive but unutterable wisdom. What nails both the Nico comparison and the song is the cagey hook, which happens when the melody takes her voice to the beginning of the upper part of her range, on the lyrics “And I know you won’t remember” (first heard at 1:01). Right there it feels like the late ’60s all over again, but with better coffee.

“Puts Me to Work” is from Le Bon’s new album, CYRK, which was released this week on The Control Group. This is her second full-length release; she has also released a Welsh-language EP. MP3 via The Control Group, an indie label based in New York City.

Free and legal MP3: Team Me (vibrant, smartly-textured Norwegian pop)

Resplendent indie pop for people who might think that they’ve gotten a bit tired of resplendent indie pop.

“Show Me” – Team Me

Resplendent indie pop for people who might think that they’ve gotten a bit tired of resplendent indie pop. So that once and for all we might all realize that it’s not a type of music that gets tiresome, it’s boring or uninspired music that gets tiresome. Not a genre, not a type, not a style.

But I digress. “Show Me,” from the new-ish Norwegian sextet Team Me, has a marvelous momentum to it, rooted in its smooth chord progressions and its unexpected grounding in a 12-measure verse melody. I’m not saying there’s any other connection but I will note that 12-measure melodies are uncommon in pop while of course being the prototypical construction for the blues (thus the phrase “12-bar blues”; a bar is another word for a measure). “Show Me” is not the blues, by any means. But the unfolding of a melody through 12 measures is something we tend to experience, whether we even recognize it or not, in a blues setting. And here instead is this vibrant, smartly-textured, hopeful-sounding (but not necessarily hopeful) song. I’m not sure what this means but felt it worth noting. Oh and of course in a blues setting, the melody is spare, ritualized, all but preordained, and sung by one voice, while Team Me here serves up a swooping, involved melody with harmonies, double-tracking, and the occasional gang shout. And yet, too, there is a seriousness hiding here in the ebullient flow and playful vibe. Could this be what 12 bars does? Nope, probably not. But it’s fun to consider.

“Show Me” is a track from Team Me’s debut full-length album, which came out in Norway in October and is due to arrive in the US in March on the Oslo-based label Propeller Recordings.

Free and legal MP3: Theresa Andersson (splendid, haunting amalgam)

What makes Andersson’s music so potent is that she has by now been living in New Orleans longer than she lived in her native country. She has absorbed both environments and is coming out swinging here. It’s a beautiful piece of work.

“What Comes Next” – Theresa Andersson

With its unconventional use of brass band and snare drum, “What Comes Next” quickly announces its boundary-free musical identity, blending traditional New Orleans sounds with an outlier sensibility that attentive listeners may just be able to link to Andersson’s home country of Sweden. Not that Sweden–with arguably the richest and most significant rock’n’roll history of any non-English-speaking country—has just one way of doing rock’n’roll. But from the outside looking in, one can hear generalized ideas and sensibilities that feel musically Swedish. What makes Andersson’s music so potent is that she has by now been living in New Orleans longer than she lived in her native country. She has absorbed both environments and is coming out swinging here. It’s a beautiful piece of work.

I love how she works the martial drum work into a song that glides and swings so smoothly. I love the eccentric punctuation provided by the loose/tight horn section (very NOLA). And I love the swaying hook of the romantic chorus, which sounds like nothing the introduction or the verse of this song has prepared us for, musically, and yet once heard, it’s exactly where we should be. Peter Moren, of Peter Bjorn and John, provides some multi-faceted backing vocals here, often of the fetching octave-harmony variety.

Andresson has been in New Orleans since 1991, when, at 18, she moved there to be with guitarist Anders Osborne both musically and personally. To date she is probably best known for the one-woman-band video she made for her song “Na Na Na,” which to me better shows off her appealing personality than her songwriting. You can add to the more than one million views it’s gotten if you haven’t already, below. (Note that she made the video for potential venues, so they would know what to expect from her loop-oriented performances. She was not trying to go viral.) “What Comes Next” is the first available song from Andersson’s forthcoming album, Street Parade, arriving in April on the New Orleans-based Basin Street Records.

Free and legal MP3: Ed Vallance (assured indie pop, w/ edgy grandeur)

I love the effortless ones—the songs that just lay themselves out there and do their thing, so securely and easily that there’s almost nothing to talk about. “Crystalline” is one of those.

“Crystalline” – Ed Vallance

I love the effortless ones—the songs that just lay themselves out there and do their thing, so securely and easily that there’s almost nothing to talk about. “Crystalline” is one of those.

Okay, but I’ll talk a little.

A lot of the power here comes, I think, from the delayed melody. In both the verse and the chorus, the melodic line begins after two beats go by. In the verse, this allows the scene to be set by a weighty, unhurried guitar chord, even as the rhythmic backbone of the song remains fleet and itchy. So there’s this built-in juxtaposition here between the purposeful rhythm and the thoughtful melody. In the chorus, the melodic delay is augmented by an instrumental countermelody (first heard at 0:54) that gives the song a subtle grandeur. And yet Vallance at the same time seems to be playing with some vocal distortion here, which lends an edge to the sound. In this case the juxtaposition becomes its own potent amalgam: edgy grandeur.

Vallance was born in London and lives and works now in Brooklyn. “Crystalline” is the lead track from his second album, Volcano, which arrives next month on Proof Records.

Free and legal MP3: The Zolas (a melodic adventure of a song)

Rather than offering up verses and a chorus, The Zolas here present a complex series of different, seamlessly integrated segments.

“Cultured Man” – The Zolas

As album releases slow down in late December and early January, I am at the beginning of each year given a bit of an opportunity to go back and make sure I didn’t miss anything worthwhile in the general hubbub of the holiday season.

So here’s one that’s been hanging around a while and finally nudged its way into my heart. More an adventure than a song, “Cultured Man” is melodic and easy to listen to but is at the same time an intriguingly complicated composition. Rather than offering up verses and a chorus, the song presents a complex series of different, seamlessly integrated segments. One section does appear to function, musically, as a chorus (first heard at 0:58, with the lyrics “Just to impress you”), but even that one arrives with different words the next time around. In addition to the melodically distinct segments, the song takes us through changes in tempo and dynamics, as well as three different instrumental breaks. All in just under five minutes.

What holds it all together, for me, is singer/guitarist Zachary Gray’s distinctive baritone. He sounds refreshingly like a grown-up, up front and without pretense, shedding inadvertent light on the muddy or whiny or grandiose voices that slightly overpopulate the 21st-century rock’n’roll scene.

“Cultured Man” first surfaced back in October, as half of a 7-inch split single recorded with the Liptonians. Gray and keyboardist Tom Dobrzanski are the core of the band, although additional players support them on stage. To date the Zolas have released one album—2009’s Tic Toc Tic, on Light Organ Records, which generally employed a more piano-focused sound than you’ll hear here. A new record is being wrapped up this month and could be released by March. MP3 via Magnet Magazine.

Free and legal MP3: Imperial Teen (perky & dancey, w/ ELO-ish flair)

“Runaway” – Imperial Teen

Perky and concise, “Runaway” has an old-school feel about it, which I guess is not surprising, since Imperial Teen is one of those rare indie bands that has been around long enough to be legitimately old-school itself. Founded in San Francisco in 1994 by Roddy Bottum, then of the band Faith No More, this boy/girl, four-person side-project has now lasted longer than Faith No More did. Remember that whenever you try to predict the future.

“Runaway” is a simple song with vintage-sounding keyboards (Supertramp, anyone?), ELO-esque vocals and such a firm bounce that I can clearly imagine a throng of people on a dance floor (old-school-style, of course) all shouting along with the “Go in! Go out!” part. With arm gestures. Which I will leave to your imagination. The production here is at once big and contained—well put together, with a bright sound, but not bombastic. The melody is basic in a way that recalls children’s songs, but then there’s that unrelenting drumbeat that kind of opposes that impression. Pay attention, by the way, to the one time the drummer opens it up just a tiny bit, during the short instrumental break at 2:47: it feels like a mini-revelation. This also happens to be the first time we can hear the guitar on its own. A pithy moment, but to me it seals the song.

Albums have been intermittent for Imperial Teen over the years; Feel The Sound, coming out at the end of the month on Merge Records, is just the band’s fifth. “Runaway” is the lead track. MP3 via KEXP.

Photo credit: Marina Chavez

Free and legal MP3: Ezra Furman (quirky acoustic strummer, w/ woodwinds)

Quirky and intense, “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” has the core of something weathered and true. Then adds a bunch of woodwinds.

“Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” – Ezra Furman

Quirky and intense, “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” has the core of something weathered and true—an old Dylan song, perhaps, or maybe even Woody Guthrie. (Or maybe simply the Indigo Girls; cf., “Three Hits.”) In any case, if the melody is tried and true, it is offered with such an unrelenting edge—Furman is let us say an unhinged singer—as to blossom into something as yet unheard, not to mention powerful and inexplicably moving.

The arrangement provides an able assist, as an elusive array of instruments deliver commentary and motifs in and around the acoustic-guitar backbone. I hear at the very least a variety of woodwinds, each playing careful, intriguing parts. Often when the “chamber pop” begins, indie-rockers veer towards kitchen-sink arrangements. Here we get the unusual combination of complex and restrained; Furman, in his first foray as a solo artist, has figured out a way to welcome his unorthodox background players without giving them the run of the store. If anything, he has unexpectedly expanded the sonic palette of the impassioned folk singer.

Furman has fronted his band the Harpoons since they were students at Tufts University in 2006; with three albums under their belts, they remain a going concern, even with this upcoming solo record, entitled The Year of No Returning. Previously based in Chicago, post-Boston, Furman has recently moved to San Francisco. His album will be self-released next month. It was funded via Kickstarter. Thanks to Largehearted Boy for the head’s up. MP3 via Consequence of Sound.

Free and legal MP3: Madeline (electric guitar + voice, but it works)

Stripped down to electric guitar and voice, “30 Days” simmers with the drama of an unreliable narrator.

“30 Days” – Madeline

We go from a song marked by unexpected instrumentation to a song all but devoid of instrumentation. And yet it still registers as unexpected, because all we have here is electric guitar, bass, and voice. In my experience, it’s very difficult to pull off a song in which electric guitar and voice are the primary elements, way more difficult than if the guitar is acoustic. (I will resist sidetracking onto why this is so but trust me on this one, it’s so. That’s why you don’t hear a lot of people even trying to do this.)

But wow, it works to extraordinary effect here. Madeline (last name Adams, but she doesn’t use it) exploits the electric guitar’s ringing quality, and gives it to us in a manner we don’t often hear it—slow and deliberate, as the guitar is used mostly to describe a series of minor-key arpeggios. I like that this is very clearly designed for electric guitar, not simply a refried acoustic pattern. The bass, meanwhile, after its solo in the unhurried introduction, offers a simple, repeated, five-note line; you barely know it’s there but its punctuation anchors this slow and willful song. Lyrically, “30 Days” simmers with the drama of an unreliable narrator, a woman who seems only partially aware of her troubles, whose sad and seductive declarations sometimes lack connective tissue: “I had a good man who loved me all the same/And lord knows waking is the saddest thing of all.”

Madeline is from Athens, Georgia, although she left there as a teenager, landing in Bloomington, Indiana to record for the punk-oriented Plan-It-X label. She made her first album at 17, in 2002. By 2005 she was back in Athens, releasing multi-faceted albums for Orange Twin Records and working with the Elephant 6 Collective. “30 Days” is from the album B-Sides, which gathers a number of unreleased tracks from her previous albums into one package. B-Sides was released digitally this month by the Athens-based This Will Be Our Summer Records, which was founded just last year.

Free and legal MP3: Shayfer James (theatrical, w/ bounce and menace)

Like a soundtrack to a malevolent carnival, “Weight of the World” is part bounce, part menace.

“Weight of the World” – Shayfer James

Like a soundtrack to a malevolent carnival, “Weight of the World” is part bounce, part menace. Shayfer James has a theatrical baritone—rich and emotive, with a flair for phrasing; to enjoy this one you’ll have to be okay with a singer you can hear breathe and just about can see spit. But what the song may lack in subtlety it makes up for, I think, in exuberant catchiness. The swinging, syncopated chorus is all but irresistible, with its cavorting melody, inexorable chord progression, and those ghostly moans in the background.

Underneath it all James blends the cabaret and the barrelhouse with his vampy piano work. Even after all these years, tinkling authentic ivories remains a rare skill in rock’n’roll, and almost always lends a bit of show biz to the proceedings. Which I mean as a compliment, just to be clear.

James is a New Jersey-based singer/songwriter who actively cultivates the charismatic/mysterious rogue image—a kind of Tom Waits for the new millennium, complete with fedora. (His online bio labels him “the portrait of vagabond royalty.”) It’s a tricky posture for a youngster from the suburbs but he does have both unconventional family history (his oldest sibling is six years younger than his mother; long story) and impressive stage presence; there’s a good chance that if he sticks with it, he’ll grow into the part.

“Weight of the World” is the lead track on Counterfeit Arcade, an album James self-released at the end of November, his second full-length release. You can both listen to it and buy it via Bandcamp.

Free and legal MP3: Sara Radle

Winsome & involving, w/ Brill Building esprit

“The Pins” – Sara Radle

When Sara Radle sings, here, repeatedly, “I’ll do this without you,” she means it. She plays all the instruments on all the songs on her new album, Same Sun Shines, and she likewise engineered and mixed the record herself. She says she did it basically as an incentive to learn Pro Tools, the powerful but challenging digital recording software program. Apparently she picked it up just fine.

And of course software skills may be necessary in 2012 but they are not sufficient. You need a good song, and “The Pins,” both winsome and involving, is very good indeed. Listen to how much Radle keeps things moving here, with a deft series of melodic twists, chord changes, tempo shifts, and, for the heck of it, wacky guitar effects (see the instrumental break, 2:42 onward). A sense of humor remains an underrated tool in the songwriter’s arsenal.

One particular way Radle surreptitiously generates movement is through a sort of “sub-sectioning” of the song—there’s not just a verse and a chorus, but both the verse and the chorus have two distinct melodic sections. Each interrelated segment is never much more than 15 seconds long throughout the first half of the song. (The second half of the chorus expands to 30 seconds the last two times we hear it.) This really grabs the ear and gives the sense of continual development. The melodies have a clean Brill-Building-y esprit, and the entire thing feels so effortless that one would never suspect the very real effort that Radle exerted—mastering the software, playing all the parts, mixing it all together; the breeziness of the end result is indeed a noteworthy aural illusion. And can I open the year with another mini-rant about those people who must always complain about nothing being “new” in music any more? What a constricted idea of “new” such folks have. “The Pins” is surely something new, something that could not have existed 10 years ago.

It is one of 10 tracks forthcoming on Same Sun Shines, which will be self-released next month. The Texas-born Radle has been based in Los Angeles since 2005, when she joined Matt Sharp’s band The Rentals for a few years. This is her fifth solo album.

(photo credit: Benjamin Hoste)