Fingertips

Free and legal MP3: The Ericksons

Singing sisters, w/ guitars, & unaffected vibe

“Box of Letters” – the Ericksons

There’s something ever, ever so slightly unhinged about the Erickson sisters’ basic Indigo Girls-ishness that I find immediately fetching. First, the obligatory acoustic-guitar-strumming intro itself is a bit off-kilter, aligning insistently with the in-between beat (i.e. the “and” in the “one-and-two-and-three…”). When the singing starts, it’s not yet the sweet, harmony-laced offering one might expect from singing sisters with guitars but rather a blurted, conversational, idiosyncratically-phrased vocal from Bethany. And when she’s finally joined by her sister Jennifer, the first harmony we get is actually dissonant (check out the “oo”-ing at about 0:27). Even the chorus, with its delightful, light-stepping, drum-brushed momentum, has a vaguely off-center feel, thanks to how the melody lags friskily behind the song’s driving beat.

And yet the Ericksons are not actively quirky in the manner of, say, Ani DiFranco, or, for that matter, any of the so-called “freak folk” crowd. If anything, the cumulative effect of the peppy “Box of Letters” is of two performers who are, simply, loose and unaffected. The song’s quiet eccentricities–many of which have to do with vocal phrasing–seem organic rather than mannered, and each delivers a pleasant little surprise when encountered. I particularly like the crazy little flourish the women give to their “oo-oos” around 1:54, and the way the song ends with the instruments fading away while the sung note is held maybe a tad longer than expected.

“Box of Letters” is from the album Don’t Be Scared, Don’t Be Alarmed, the duo’s second, released this past fall. Thanks to Robbie at Girlysounds for the head’s up.

Free and legal MP3: Arches (spacious music, w/ swing & hesitation)

“This Isn’t a Good Night For Walking” – Arches

One more twosome in what has inadvertently turned out to be “duo week” here. Of the three, Philadelphia’s Arches may be the least-likely-sounding band-that’s-only-two-people of all, because of how spacious this music is. The song is long by Fingertips’ standards—six and a half minutes—but hang with it. The length is part of the space. So of course is the reverb. But there’s more to it than that; the time the song takes to unfold and the echoey ambiance don’t create the space as much as model it. There’s something large and unhurried in the air here, a sense that the music needs the time it’s taking, if that makes any sense.

A concrete symbol of this need for space is the band’s use of hesitation throughout the song, both figuratively and literally. What I mean by “figurative” hesitation you can hear right away in the back-and-forth guitar chords employed in the introduction (and throughout), which pivot on one whole-step interval. On a piano this would be played by your index and middle finger, alternating in an even rhythm—which, if you think about what that looks like, is a gesture of waiting (the idle, or sometimes impatient, tapping of those two fingers). The sound sounds like it. Literal hesitation otherwise suffuses “This Isn’t A Good Night For Walking,” in everything from how the keyboards swing slightly behind the beat to the subtle way the back-and-forth chords get microscopically delayed as the song develops (say, at around 1:38), to how the five-note keyboard motif we hear in the foreground at 4:07 gets held up maybe a split second with each recurring statement. And then there’s the grandest hesitation of all: the way the lyrics disappear just past the halfway point, only after which the song takes us to its musical climax: a dramatic, strangely satisfying guitar-led iteration of the song’s verse.

“This Isn’t A Good Night For Walking” is the first available song from a forthcoming, yet-untitled album that Arches hopes to release before year’s end. MP3 via Pitchfork.

Free and legal MP3: N’T (concise & chuggy electro-glam[?])

“Good Karma” – N’T

A concise, chuggy piece of electro-glam (or some such thing), “Good Karma” is one of those songs with a moment—a precise juncture at which the ear surrenders to the music, and everything is okay with the world. An effective moment, repeated each time it comes up (typically in a chorus but not always), extends its blessing both forward and backward, granting a kind of giddy grace to an entire song.

The (now that I think about it) appropriately titled “Good Karma” has its moment beginning at around 1:01, in the second half of the chorus, when Scott French, N’T’s mastermind, sings, “Don’t freak out,” with the “out” stretched to three syllables, describing a descending line equivalent to sol-fa-mi in the familiar do-re-mi scale. This is a basic and eminently satisfying progression, but any effort I attempted (and now edited out) to explain why became quickly labored and complicated. Music is much simpler than words. Listen and smile.

French drums and writes songs for the Philadelphia band the Swimmers; as N’T—apparently we are to say “N apostrophe T”—he has issued an album called The Color Code, which he wrote, recorded, mixed, mastered, etc., by himself. It was self-released last month. You can download the album via his bandcamp page, for whatever price you’d like to pay. Thanks to Scott for letting me host this one.

Free and legal MP3: Braids

Engaging complexity, from Montreal

“Plath Heart” – Braids

Take a listen to the future of a certain kind of pop music. Not pop as in Billboard pop, which seems more than usually mired in robotic, sound-alike simplism here in 2011—I’m talking about pop as in electric-based music with vocals, organized into three- or four-minute songs, aimed at a contemporary audience. As a matter of fact, the more the current age drives robotic, sound-alike simplism through the mainstream, the more today’s rebels may want to study, practice, and begin making songs of engaging complexity and humanity. No point in punks doing the Auto-Tuned, three-chord thing if that’s what’s on the charts.

From the opening violin salvo, you know you’re in for a different ride here. Nothing about this song is straightforward or commonplace, and yet it is consistently engaging. (If the Dirty Projectors were less self-consciously prickly, they might sound something like this.) Electronics are used to create cascading, watery sounds over a jittery rhythm; guitars fill in sometimes like pinpricks, sometimes in a shivery flow of liquid. Singer Raphaelle Standelle-Preston has a theatrical voice that can both soar and particularize—listen for instance to how she ejects this incisive couplet about disconnected lovers, sung seemingly from the male point of view: “I poke and turn/You smoke and yearn.” Meanwhile, you will rarely hear a more precise, restrained drummer in a rock song than Austin Tufts, who plays here like another intertwining instrumentalist rather than a time-keeping basher.

And of course Braids are from Canada. They are in fact four youngsters (all in their early 20s) from Calgary, who met in junior high school, became a band in high school, and were so intent on developing musically that they delayed going to college to practice together for a year. Then, in 2008, they moved to Montreal. And the rest isn’t history yet but it might yet be. Keep an eye on these guys. “Plath Heart” is from the quartet’s debut, Native Speaker, which will be released later this month on Kanine Records. MP3 via Pitchfork.

Free and legal MP3: Brandon Thomas De La Cruz

Humble, compelling, heartfelt

“My Heart Came to Rest” – Brandon Thomas De La Cruz

And yet let’s not write off simplicity entirely (see Braids entry, above). When combined with honest emotion, a sense of history, and that other thing that makes you feel rather than just hear music (not sure what that thing is, however), a simple song can wow you in its own reserved way. SoCal singer/songwriter Brandon Thomas De La Cruz has a comfortable, Bright Eyes-ish thing going here, but maybe with a warmer, less mannered vibe than Mr. Oberst. At once plaintive and gracious, “My Heart Came to Rest” doesn’t innovate or blow the mind; so much of what’s good and true here nestles merely in the unpolished tremor of De La Cruz’s voice, and I mean both his singing and his writing voice. The song’s lyrical lynchpin can be found here, as he sings these unadorned lines:

We’re silent without thought
In the place where we’ve been brought
We both had so much to say
But now we’ve both forgot

Note the march of humble words: 20 of 23 of them are just one syllable, including an astounding (and cumulatively compelling) 19 in a row. Whether done consciously or unconsciously, the craft is impressive. The particular rhythm of how and where the word “both” appears, twice, and the rubber-lipped way the word bubbles from his mouth each time is worth a bit of extra attention.

“My Heart Came to Rest” is from De La Cruz’s seven-song garage-recorded debut Everything Is New, self-released digitally in November. You can buy it via Bandcamp, where one other song is also available for free.

Favorite Free & Legal MP3s of 2010 (pt. 2)

For the last Fingertips post of the year (cue drum roll), here are my top 10 favorite free and legal MP3s of 2010.

For the last Fingertips post of the year (cue drum roll), here are my top 10 favorite free and legal MP3s of 2010. This follows up last week’s post, which contained my “second” top 10 (numbers 11 through 20).

All songs are still available as free and legal MP3s, so you can download them the usual way, or listen via the play button if you happen to be reading this directly on the Fingertips site. You can read the original reviews by clicking on the date next to each band name, which is the date of the original Fingertips post.

As with last week, I will run them down in reverse order. If you want them from 1 to 10, stand on your head:

10. “The Mermaid Parade” – Phosphorescent (May 12)
Laid-back, expansive, affecting tale of love gone awry.

9. “Down By The Water” – The Drums (August 3)
’50s melody set to a hymn-like march. Accrues gravity and pathos as it develops.

8. “Zebra” – Beach House (May 12)
A lovely, elusive dream of a song.

7. “Let The Record Go” – The Mynabirds (May 4)
Short fiery piece of retro pop (see also song #1).

6. “Zorbing” – Stornoway (July 28)
Bursting with melody and innocence.

5. “If You Wanna” – The Vaccines (August 24)
Catchy lo-fi greatness; Ramones meet Joy Division.

4. “I Walked” – Sufjan Stevens (September 15)
As poignant as an electronics-driven song is likely to get. Beautiful and majestic and heartbroken.

3. “My Heart is a Drummer” – Allo Darlin’ (October 7)
Bright smart pop with movement and charm.

2. “Hotel Lights” – Amy Cook (January 6)
Exquisite singer/songwriter fare, and a quiet argument against most other singer/songwriter fare.

1. “Numbers Don’t Lie” – The Mynabirds (January 26)
Neo-retro-gospel-pop at its finest, from one of 2010’s greatest unsung albums (see also song #7).

Favorite Free & Legal MP3s of 2010 (pt. 1)

With MP3 activity winding down with the end of the year, it’s time for the annual year-end “Fingertips Favorites” list, in which I, as tradition has it, bitch and moan about how hard it is to narrow down a year’s worth of really good songs into a top 10 list and as a result present a top 20 list.

Especially attentive Fingertips followers will know that the entire list has already been placed on the site, but for the sake of those whose regular access to Fingertips is either via email or RSS feed, I’ll spend these last two weeks of the year presenting the list—numbers 11 through 20 this week, and the top 10 next week.

All songs are still available as free and legal MP3s, so you can download them the usual way, or listen via the play button if you happen to be reading this directly on the Fingertips site. If my snappy one-sentence song summaries leave you wanting more, you can read the original reviews by clicking on the date next to each band name, which is the date of the original Fingertips post.

And now, in super-suspenseful reverse mode, here are Fingertips’ favorite free and legal downloads from 2010, part one:

20. “The Best Things in Life” – The Silver Seas (April 28)
Effortlessly enjoyable pop with a faux ’70s-soul sheen.

19. “Buy Me Presents” – Darren Hanlon (October 13)
Lovable, organic, speak-singing fun from an underappreciated Australian.

18. “Alouette!” – Tallest Trees (July 21)
Gleeful, skewed, and clattery; more good-humored than electronics-based songs usually manage to be.

17. “Icarus” – White Hinterland (January 13)
Propulsive and mysterious-sounding electro-pop with both beat and melody.

16. “Rio” – Hey Marseilles (May 4)
A sweetly rollicking neo sea shanty.

15. “Orange Yellow” – The Spires (June 30)
Smartly-written garage rock with a Velvet-y aura.

14. “The Kiss” – Pallers (May 18)
Graceful electronic dance-ballad that unfolds with a New Order-like majesty, minus the melodrama.

13. “Quarry Hymns” – Land Of Talk (August 24)
Gorgeous and expansive rock, with a Fleetwood Mac influence and a timeless feel.

12. “A Walk Around the Lake” – Lost in the Trees (July 28)
A poignant, introspective, and dramatic three minutes.

11. “Doubles” – Amy Bezunartea (September 29)
A swaying, mournful melody, beautifully sung, with short-story-like lyrics.

Okay, that’s the second ten. If you like surprises, tune in next week for the top 10; if you need it all right now, you can go here, although be warned: you don’t get the snappy one-sentence summaries over there. I have to leave something for next week.

Free and legal MP3: Sarah Lee Guthrie & Johnny Irion (old-fashioned feel, rock-solid songwriting)

A rollicking, low-key stomper with an old-fashioned feel and rock-solid songwriting chops.

“Speed of Light” – Sarah Lee Guthrie & Johnny Irion

A rollicking, low-key stomper with an old-fashioned feel, a gut-kicking beat, and rock-solid songwriting chops. The husband-wife duo of Guthrie and Irion don’t sound like they’re breaking a sweat here as they let the song do the work for them, with its three strong sections (verse, pre-chorus, chorus), its echoes of some vague lost soul classic, and an incisive lyrical payoff—almost a punchline, except it’s insightful rather than funny—at the end of the chorus that pivots the whole song into place. And I won’t give it away because you should hear it in context. And don’t miss the lyric’s musical punctuation, that vintage instrumental accent first heard at 0:54. An essential and exquisite touch.

“Speed of Light” is a song from the pair’s second full-length Bright Examples, due out in February on Ninth Street Opus. And yes, Sarah Lee is a genuine Guthrie: daughter of Arlo, granddaughter of Woody. Although she sang at age 12 on one of her father’s albums, she hadn’t necessarily planned on a musical career but eventually found collaboration with her husband too fruitful to resist.

MP3 via Ninth Street Opus. Thanks to Largehearted Boy for the lead.

Free and legal MP3: Strawberry Whiplash (reverby, jangly holiday sweetness)

“Santa Needs a Holiday” – Strawberry Whiplash

Candy-coated holiday fare from the Glaswegian (that is to say, from Glasgow; but one must not miss the opportunity to use the word “Glaswegian”) duo Strawberry Lemonade, itself a syrupy-sweet side-project from Bubblegum Lemonade front man Laz McLuskey. (Call it twee if you must, but only if you must.)

Long-time Fingertips followers may remember that I don’t go crazy with the Christmas tunes in December–not because I have anything against Christmas tunes (not at all!; I love them only as much as a Christmas-music-deprived nice Jewish boy can) but because, truthfully, and alas, not much of what the genre offers year to year, new-musically-speaking, is very good. Trust me when I say I’m performing a public service by keeping most of what I hear out of your browser/inbox/hard drive/smart phone/whatever-the-hell-you-listen-to-music-in-or-on.

But this one is lovely in a jangly, lo-fi kind of way, full of melodic nostalgia and 21st-century indie-pop blurriness. Vocalist Sandra sings with a lightness befitting someone who operates resolutely without a last name, but listen closely and you’ll also hear a breathy roundness to her tone that brings (sigh) the late great Kirsty MacColl to mind. Perhaps best of all, the song traffics in its Christmasiness with graceful restraint. The one musical element that flavors the song seasonally is the descending guitar riff we hear at the end of the chorus, which smartly echoes the familiar descending bell motif delivered by any number of holiday standards.

“Santa Needs a Holiday” is found on the latest incarnation of annual holiday goodness put out by Santa Barbara-based Matinée Recordings. This year’s offering is an EP called Matinée Holiday Soiree, which also includes a song from Champagne Riot, a band featured here in 2008. ~~MP3 via Matinée.~~

Free and legal MP3: The Heligoats (chunky & moody but w/ spunk)

“A Word From Our Sponsor” – the Heligoats

A chunky, cheerfully moody antidote to anything (everything) you might be hearing out there in the “popular” realm during this newly-christened “golden age” of pop (hey, don’t look at me, it’s Billboard‘s idea). “A Word From Our Sponsor” is rhythmic (but you can’t dance to it), the vocals are filtered (but not Auto-Tuned), and if there’s a synthesizer to be heard, it’s masquerading as a guitar (but I don’t think there’s a synthesizer to be heard). And listen to those guitars, will ya? They’re heavy and grumbly and played by actual human fingers. This is a song that catches the ear through the vague alchemy of craft and spirit, of vocal presence and lyrical spunk. You won’t hear it on the radio.

The Heligoats are a quartet from Bellingham, Washington fronted by Chris Otepka, last seen around these parts as lead singer for the Chicago-based Troubled Hubble, featuring on Fingertips back in 2005, not too long before they broke up. I hope it wasn’t something I said. The Heligoats actually co-existed with Troubled Hubble for most of that band’s existence, but did not get around to a recording debut until 2008.

“A Word From Our Sponsor” is from the 10-inch split EP Live Free and Let Loose, coming next month from Greyday Records, based in Portland, Ore., featuring four songs from the Heligoats (the Let Loose side) and six songs from singer/songwriter Sam Humans (the Live Free side).