Fingertips

Free and legal MP3: Cold Cave (dense, powerful, memorable)

Cold Cave

“The Great Pan Is Dead” – Cold Cave

Combining dense, pummeling energy and palpable ache, “The Great Pan Is Dead” is four minutes of stunning 21st-century rock’n’roll. Wowee. I hardly knew at first how to unpack what I was hearing—the buzzing-guitar wall of sound, the orchestral synth lines, the relentless sonic drive, the sense of furious poignancy suffusing this whirl of sheer electrical power. In the center of it we get the full-throated emoting of front man Wes Eisold. Eisold has a history as a screamer in hard-core bands, and you can hear it at the edge of his singing, even as the singing is genuinely sensitive, even moving.

So I let it cycle on repeat for a long time and I finally began to hear, maybe, what was happening. In the tradition of modern classical minimalists more than any pop song I’ve heard, “The Great Pan Is Dead” spends long periods of time anchored in one chord—the music moves energetically and rhythmically while staying unusually rooted harmonically. We do not, for instance, hear a chord change in the song until 51 seconds in. That is not normally done. This lack of harmonic motion adds immeasurably to the pent-up fury of the aural landscape. Eisold, in the middle of this, sounds like someone throwing his battered body against a bolted door. “I know people without substance,” he sings; you can hear the thud of exclamation points in his phrasing.

And then, later in the song (2:33), we arrive at an opposite place: Eisold singing a largely one-note melody against a shifting series of chords—another kind of subtle, claustrophobic tension to contend with. This is one crazy cool song, and my first shoe-in for a place on the 2011 favorite song list.

Cold Cave is a trio based in NYC. “The Great Pan Is Dead” is from the band’s second album, Cherish the Light Years, due in April on good old Matador Records. MP3 via Matador.

Free and legal MP3: The Submarines (jaunty, reflective, augmented electropop)

The Submarines

“Birds” – The Submarines

At once jaunty and reflective, “Birds” offers up an appealing mix of the electro and organic, as husband-wife duo John Dragonetti and Blake Hazard augment their based guitar-and-keys sound with strings, bird song, sing-along harmonies, and—a first for them—a live drummer. (And hey, it’s Jim Eno, from Spoon.) More than most electropop, this song sounds like it was recorded by real people in real three-dimensional space. Warmth permeates, and the electronic tools utilized feel all the more effective in this setting. This is something I suspect that more bands are likely to understand in this new musical decade: the power of integration. Now that we can literally concoct any sound we want at any time, creating more and more new sounds is no longer a particular talent. The talent is to integrate the sounds we have in newly effective ways. Just making electropop suddenly becomes a narrow and uninteresting pursuit; learning how to incorporate the sounds of electropop into a broader aural spectrum—much more interesting, and fun, I should think.

To hear a bit of the power of this, check out the difference between the song’s two instrumental breaks. At 1:25, a ghostly synthesizer line gives way, via a manipulated drumbeat, to two varieties of strings—the rhythmic pizzicato pluckings of violins, and the low bowing of a cello. And then at 2:42, the same opening melody is voiced with a more classic electro sound, which now leads into a spiffy shot of backwards guitar lines. That the song has led up to this instead of just fed us this electro diet from measure one—and that the electro elements have grown naturally from the aural palette of the overall song—is a great part of the charm, to me.

The Submarines are based in Los Angeles and have two previous full-length albums to their credit (and were featured on Fingertips back in 2006, at the time of their debut). “Birds” is a track from their forthcoming album Love Notes/Letter Bombs, slated for an April release on Nettwerk Records. MP3 via Spin.com. Bonus Submarines trivia: Hazard is the great-granddaughter of F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Top 10 updates, at last

The last week or so has seen an infusion of six new songs to the top 10 list.

Due to a post-new-year, snow-induced malaise, the Fingertips Top 10 found itself languishing without the requisite amount of linen-changing during the endless yet fast-moving month of January. I woke up in February and found a fair amount of housekeeping to do. (For newcomers, the deal is that songs remain in the Top 10 list for no more than three months. Barring snow-induced malaises.)

Thankfully, we’ve been having a bit of thaw both outside and inside. The last week or so has seen an infusion of six new songs to the Top 10 list, and not a flake of snow. (Well, maybe a flake.) Check it out when you have a chance.

New feature: Fingertips playlists

Hundreds of songs that have been featured on Fingertips over the years are still available online as free and legal MP3s. One way to find them is to poke through the Artist Index—but, because that remains a work in progress in terms of cleaning out dead links, this isn’t necessarily the best way to unearth the hidden gems very quickly.

The intermittent Flashback feature (click on the “flashback” category in the sidebar to check those out) is another way to source older MP3s—but this too lacks a certain immediacy, as the Fingertips Flashback appears maybe once a month.

So here is a new feature: Fingertips Playlists.

Another new Fingertips contest:Over the Rhine vinyl, CD giveaway

Didn’t win the Laurie Anderson CDs? Have no fear. Another contest is immediately upon us. You can win a copy of Over the Rhine’s about-to-be-released album The Long Surrender, if you go to theContest page, follow the instructions, and get very lucky.

The Long Surrender

Didn’t win the Laurie Anderson CDs? Have no fear. Another contest is immediately upon us. You can win a copy of Over the Rhine’s about-to-be-released album The Long Surrender, if you go to the Contest page, follow the instructions, and get very lucky. First prize is the vinyl record, second prize the CD.

Free and legal MP3: Jeniferever (complex & alluring Swedish rock)

A Swedish band that sounds more like an Icelandic band—that is to say, drifting and expansive versus kicky and ironic (and yeah, I know: generalizations; oh well!)—Jeniferever plays with a lilting sort of precision that seems well-suited to the grey icy whiteness that many of us have been looking at out our windows for the weeks on end.

Jeniferever

“Waifs and Strays” – Jeniferever

The song derives its elusive power from its hidden-in-plain-sight 3/4 time signature. The pace is steady and deliberate, like a 4/4 song, without any waltz-like clue that we’re in three. Blame drummer Frederik Aspelin on the seductive misdirection; after staying aligned with beats one and two he rushes ahead and then behind the third beat before the ear quite recognizes it, creating a hypnotic, syncopated flow where more typically we get the prosaic ONE-two-three, ONE-two-three. The verse melody then works complexly in and around this already complex approach to the basic time signature; singer Kristofer Jönson here does not once sing a melody aligned with the basic beat (“Fight to find the balance in between,” he sings, at one point). And this is exactly why the chorus floods us with grace, beginning with that wondrous four-note guitar lead-in (1:18), which seems literally to launch us into another plain of awareness. In the chorus, the melody at last surrenders to the beat the song had otherwise resisted. It feels just about transcendent, all the more so as the chorus otherwise remains unresolved. The big moment is the moment that appears to be leading to a bigger moment but actually doesn’t.

“Waifs and Strays” is a song from the quartet’s new album, Silesia, only its third full-length in 15 years of existence. (Not to date them or anything but the band is named after an early Smashing Pumpkins song.) It will be released on Monotreme Records in April. Thanks to Monotreme for permission to host the MP3. And thanks to Largehearted Boy for the head’s up on the song.

Free and legal MP3: Blair (wonderful combination of voice & craft)

Instantly engaging (no intro!), with its rumbly, rubbery bass line and off-handed but sure-handed melody; the hook here is in the verse, not the chorus. Blair (no last name!) has one of those breathy voices that still seems not-breathy—we get both air and earth in her tone. How she sings is as much a part of the song’s charm as the song itself.

Blair

“Wolfboy” – Blair

And yet there are indeed a number of further delightful enhancements on display: the xylophone, for one; the way the song clears out and slows down after the chorus, for another (so few songs stop to breathe like that; it often speaks to the quiet confidence of the songwriter). And then there’s the xylophone-led instrumental break at 0:51, with its almost cinematic sense of anticipation, which lo and behold links us back to the unusually satisfying verse. As it unfolds, in fact, this song delivers a bigger, more spacious, and well-crafted sound than one might initially expect from a quirky, one-named Brooklyn singer/songwriter. Then again, she was born in New Orleans. Don’t underestimate the way music seeps into your veins down there.

“Wolfboy” is from Blair’s debut album, Die Young, which was actually released a year ago, on Autumn Tone Records. I missed it at the time—buzzed right through my inbox. But then again, this song wasn’t available at that point. Blair is heading out on tour this month and is going to end up at SXSW, which is why a new free and legal MP3 has abruptly surfaced (note there are two more free and legal MP3s from the album up on the Autumn Tone site). Thanks again to David at Largehearted Boy (now based in Brooklyn himself) for the lead.

Free and legal MP3: Radical Face (quietly portentous, w/ minor-major alternation)

He seems to be telling quite a story with that expressive tenor of his—and yes I get the basic gist from the title alone—but there’s something about the music, each time, that pulls me away from the words.

Radical Face

“The Deserter’s Song” – Radical Face

I like good lyrics, don’t get me wrong. I just don’t tend to default to lyric-listening. I get distracted by the music. Drawn in and swept away. Even when I start out actively trying to listen to lyrics, I often lose my way. This one, wow, I’ve been listening over and over and I can’t seem to focus on the lyrics for very long at all. He seems to be telling quite a story with that expressive tenor of his—and yes I get the basic gist from the title alone—but there’s something about the music, each time, that pulls me away from the words.

I consider this a good thing. In fact, I would go as far as to say that I think a songwriter has done quite an impressive job if you, as a listener, know that the song works and yet can’t manage quite to follow what he or she is saying. Or okay maybe it’s just me as a listener. But I hear that deep tom-tom, I hear the hushed interplay between rhythm sticks and one-handed piano playing, I hear the always effective alternation of minor and major keys, never mind the thunder and rain (not always effective, but it works here, for me), and the words disintegrate into the song itself. I absorb the portentous atmosphere with no firm idea of what the song is specifically recounting. I consider this a good thing.

Radical Face is the name Ben Cooper has given to his solo recording project. Cooper is otherwise known, to some, as half of the duo Electric President, themselves featured here last February. “The Deserter’s Song” can be found on the EP Touch the Sky, released in November on the Berlin label Morr Music. A previous Radical Face album, Ghost, came out in November 2007. MP3 via Better Propaganda. This one I have known about since its release; it just took a while to grow into something I wanted to feature. Some music works like that. I hope you guys out there don’t always dismiss a new song with too quick a hit of the “next” button. Some songs need a bit of air and space.

Fingertips Flashback: Devin Davis (from March 2005)

Devin Davis was one of the earlier “bedroom rockers” featured here, back in the mid-’00s. I was impressed with how little his music sounds like a one-man band, and charmed by this odd but endearing song. Still am.

Devin Davis

“Turtle and the Flightless Bird” – Devin Davis

[from March 7, 2005]

Chicago bedroom rocker Devin Davis opens his mouth and Ray Davies all but tumbles out. This is a fine thing in and of itself, as I am kindly disposed to anyone properly inspired by the Kinks. But Davis (and isn’t come to think of it “Davies” pronounced “Davis” in the U.K.?), to my ears, has much more going for him than a Kinks fixation, a fact made clearest by his achievement as a singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist/arranger/engineer/producer. Technology has made it easy enough to be a one-person band in your own home studio, but rarely will you hear a bedroom rocker who sounds as loose and unfettered as Davis does. Think of it: to do all this yourself requires incredible precision and repetition; how do you then produce something that sounds so loose and alive? Playing the part here of a crestfallen turtle who appears to have lost his true, inter-species love, Davis delivers a song buzzing with spirit and life. From the quiet, bouncy-sad electric piano intro through to the heart-opening chorus, with its stirring melody and ramshackle feel, he not only transcends his influences, he transcends his technology. “Turtle and the Flightless Bird” comes from Davis’s debut CD, Lonely People of the World, Unite!, set for release on (of course) his own Mousse Records imprint next week. The MP3 is available on his web site.

ADDENDUM: Lonely People of the World, Unite! remains Davis’s sole release. His web site, however, sports a relatively new message, in crazily flamboyant colors: “Hey there!… I’m still working on the new album… I’m going to finish it! For real! Hopefully in time for the holidays…” Well, this was not to be, but the message is still encouraging. Fingers remain crossed.

Free and legal MP3: Big Eyes (power-poppy-punky)

Big Eyes

“Why Can’t I” – Big Eyes

You hear that thing in the introduction, that instrument that establishes both the ambiance and the melody with its crunchy electric drive? That’s a guitar. And you know what you do with a guitar? You either play it (if you’re in the band) or you listen to it (if you’re not in the band). This guitar you’re hearing doesn’t need you to remix it or loop it or make an app out of it. It’s just a terrific power-poppy-punky guitar part, with a strong lineage (hear “Starry Eyes” in it, a little? not to mention any number of Cheap Trick songs?) and a good heart. Listen and love it and don’t forget that listening—really listening—is as interactive an activity as there is.

Front woman Kate Eldridge, formerly in a band called Cheeky, has a really effective DIY-ish voice—forceful, maybe even a little bratty, unschooled, but not (praise the lord) out of tune, and not so muddied up in the mix that you can’t sense the personality behind the voice. This is a little kid’s plea, after all—“Why can’t I…?”—and yet there’s more happening here than may first meet the ear. Yes, Eldridge’s slightly snotty tone creates the surface impression that she is, little-kid-ishly, asking after something she feels entitled to but isn’t getting. But check out the pivotal lyric: “Sometimes you make me so mad/All I want to do is treat you bad/Baby now why can’t I just love you all the time?” She’s really wondering about that deeper thing that drives people who love each other into opposing camps. She sees her own limitations; her “why can’t I” isn’t railing against her external circumstances as much as her internal ones. This laces her brashness with a vulnerability that informs all three minutes and twenty-three seconds of this spiffy piece of good old rock’n’roll.

Big Eyes are a trio from Brooklyn. They have released a tape (yes, a tape), and a 7-inch single prior to this, their latest 7-inch single, issued earlier this month by Don Giovanni Records. The band’s debut LP is due out in May.