breezy – Fingertips

Free and legal MP3 Yumi Zouma (happy music, wistful words)

“Cool For a Second” – Yumi Zouma

Remember this feeling? Breeziness? Lack of any immediate concern? “Cool For a Second”—all warm, boopy synths and cheery electronic percussion—glides in with a carefree, encouraging spirit, a lovely breath of good-natured air. Augmented by front woman Christie Simpson’s conversational personability, the song snuggles itself easily into my happy place.

Maybe a bit too easily, if one doubles back and considers the words that accompany the breezy-bouncy music. Take the chorus:

Omissions never flare, they go out if you let them
Changing every year, I was cool for a second
Find me in the fall, swept underneath
Forgetting every charm, took a bullet together
You could pull apart, so I’d never remember
The image that would call you back to me

While I’m not sure what the heck she’s singing about, I’m quite sure that it’s not all unicorns and rainbows here. But maybe, on second thought, this does snuggle into my happy place, because I have long looked kindly upon songs that manage the unique-to-pop feat of juxtaposing happy music with sad or wistful lyrics. In the case of “Cool For a Second,” both the happy music and the wistful lyrics eventually, over the course of this concise 3:10 tune, seem to converge into one feeling—something resembling perseverance. I think this has a lot to do with the powerful circular melody of the chorus, with its persistent up-and-over refrain. You hear it first starting at 0:53, and it incorporates at one point the title phrase, and that’s another of the song’s subtle virtues: finding a title in a phrase that recurs but is not repeated too often. Most songs are named for phrases that are clearly the most regularly sung, and sometimes it’s the opposite, where the song has a title entirely separate from the lyrics. Most unusual is the song where the title is in there but doesn’t go out of its way to stick in your ear. I’m not sure why but in this case it seems especially effective.

Yumi Zouma is a quartet from Christchurch, founded in 2014. “Cool For a Second” is a track off Truth Or Consequences, the band’s third full-length album, released last month on Polyvinyl Records. MP3 via KEXP.

Free and legal MP3: The Bicycles (breezy yet substantial)

“Sun Don’t Want to End” is nearly as good as a truly breezy song can be (angst-ridden songs that merely sound breezy don’t count).

“Sun Don’t Want to End” – The Bicycles

One of the more difficult songwriting challenges in the pop world is how to write a song that’s breezy on the one hand but substantive enough to be worth listening to on the other. Go too easy-breezy on us and the thing floats away from the ear, substance-free (and often insipid and annoying to boot). Another way to go of course is to write a song that sounds breezy but is actually full of angst. That can deliver the substance to be sure, but it’s sort of cheating, no?

“Sun Don’t Want to End” is nearly as good as a truly breezy song can be, and the main reason, my ears tell me, is its stellar opening riff—a snappy, tappy ringing guitar that sounds like what you might get if you major-scaled the Smiths. It’s an incisive little jig, at once familiar and unplaceable, and trusty enough to serve as both a stand-alone introduction and melodic counterpoint to the verse. I like it when bands can weave together two melodies like that, one vocal and one instrumental—it’s an old-school move only to the extent that analog, three-dimensional music skills are required for this kind of boppy integration. From there we are delivered into an extra-breezy (not to mention super-quick) chorus with just the right touch of ’70s-radio suspended chords before being hooked back into the central riff, which, in slightly fleshed-out form (0:53) sounds now like a long-lost friend. The second verse plays with the melody in a satisfying, offhand way—the “Just be good to me/And I’ll be good to you” part, at 1:08—but it turns out we were indeed supposed to notice that, since the song closes on an extended jam featuring those very lyrics. And sure, if you want to be a spoilsport, you could complain that the song goes on for probably a minute too long in that vein, but hey, it’s breezy and fun and good: no need to rush these guys out the door, is there?

“Sun Don’t Need to End” is from the album Stop Thinking So Much, the band’s third, which is coming in April on Fuzzy Logic Recordings (Toronto) (vinyl, digital) and Aporia Records (CD).

photo credit: Christa Treadwell

Fingertips Flashback: Ephemera (from November 2004)

Revisiting a previously featured song, this one from 2004.

Fingertips is going into its summer hiatus, which means no new songs will be posted until July 25th (or so). I won’t be entirely absent from the internet, and there may be a certain amount of activity around here, but a lot of it will be maintenance oriented and somewhat invisible.

To ease into the slowdown, I offer you a wistful summery song from the land of ice and snow. And okay it’s actually not a cheerful song—few songs entitled “Saddest Day” would be aiming in that direction—but it’s a lovely musical breeze on a hot July day nonetheless.

“Saddest Day” – Ephemera

[from November 22, 2004]

A three-woman Norwegian band channeling Astrud Gilberto via Frente—yes, the world can be a wonderful place when we all just mingle together peacefully and see what happens. Bright, silvery, and airy, “Saddest Day” is that sweetest of pop confections: a sad song wrapped in an upbeat package. Stars in their native country (they received the Norwegian equivalent of a Grammy earlier this year), Ephemera have released four CDs to date; this spring, a compilation disc called Score was released for the U.S. market. Not yet out of their 20s, Ephemera has nevertheless been together for 10 years now. “Saddest Day” was originally from the band’s 2000 CD, Sun, which was their second; it is also found on a CD called Score, a compilation released for the U.S. market this past spring. The MP3 is on the band’s web site. Thanks to visitor Jeff for the head’s up.

ADDENDUM: Although the band’s site is still online, and the MP3 is still available there, things have been quiet in Ephemera-land since 2005. Vocalist Christine Sandtorv released a solo album in 2006 (on Ifemmera Records, it should be noted); the internet’s nosy robots pick up no other sign of musical activity from any of the three bandmates since then.

Free and legal MP3: Cub Scouts (breezy, but w/ melancholy core)

Breezy, but with a melancholy core.

“Do You Hear” – Cub Scouts

A breezy song with a melancholy core. Tempo-wise, it’s a finger-snapper but listen attentively and you’ll hear a song that again and again resists resolution, both melodically and harmonically. The expectant vibe with which it launches never quite disappears. That’s what makes it feel kind of lost and lonely, independent of the lyrics (which sound lost and lonely too, though, as much as I can grasp them).

So what’s going on is that the song is rooted in a chord that is not the song’s tonic chord. The tonic chord is, typically, the home base of a song, the chord based on the song’s key (i.e., if a song is written in D major, the D major chord is the tonic chord). We don’t need to hear this chord all the time but it’s usually there to ground us. “Do You Hear” opens up on one chord, stays with it for nearly half a minute, and it’s not the tonic. This would feel pretty edgy except for the bouncy demeanor. And it is this juxtaposition that gives the song its depth and allure, as far as I can tell. In the chorus, by the way, we get a kind of opposite effect, as the melody stays focused mostly on one note as the chords shuffle through a progression that finally resolves—briefly—when the melody drops through to the tonic note (heard the first time at 0:53, on the third iteration of “things you’ve done”). But listen to how quickly we are kicked away from that moment, emphasized by a guitar riff yet again away from the tonic chord. Even the song’s final chord (3:02) keeps the resolution at bay, a not-often-heard effect.

A quintet from Brisbane, Cub Scouts is a new band with two singles so far to their name. “Do You Hear” will appear on a forthcoming EP.

Free and legal MP3: Sunbeam (assured ensemble pop from Portland septet)

Sunbeam is a six-person ensemble, and you can hear the depth of musical contribution in the song’s assured, layered flow.

Sunbeam

“Bulldogs” – Sunbeam

By all appearances breezy and unassuming, “Bulldogs” has a rock-solid core. A new band from Portland, Sunbeam is a six-person ensemble, and you can hear the depth of musical contribution in the song’s assured, layered flow. Six people in a band sounds like a lot on the one hand, but many rock songs do indeed feature at least six distinct instrumental sounds: electric guitar, acoustic guitar, keyboard, bass, drums, and percussion. For practical and logistical reasons, most bands make do with three to five members, doubling up on instruments (typically of course the drummer plays percussion too) and/or bringing in outside players.

So the larger band does not require a larger or more complicated sound, but it does change the vibe in elusive but meaningful ways. A song can, as here, feel at once brisk and relaxed, as it makes room not simply for its sounds but for the people who make the sounds. Separating the drummer from the percussionist has a notable impact. I also like the purposeful way the electric guitar is used—not as a background noise producer but as quiet foreground texture. And then there are horns (oops! a seventh sound, and eighth: two horns), which blend into the fabric of the song without any “now listen to the cool horn part” posturing. (Horns are both played here by an outsider, but the band has since added a trumpet player to the fold.) In the end, for all the extraverted appearance of being played by a larger ensemble, “Bulldogs” has an appealing introversion about it, which is embodied in Brian Hall’s sweetly yearning vocal style but plays out too in the restraint of the arrangement and, even, in the recurring wordless vocal/keyboard hook that in the intro sounded like a throwaway but as it returns acquires a lovely centrality, and will probably be the thing that sticks in your head most of all.

“Bulldogs” is fifth on the band’s 10-track debut album, Sunbeam & the Lovely Ghost, which was self-released earlier this month. You can buy it for a price of your choosing at Sunbeam’s Bandcamp page. MP3 via the band.

Free and legal MP3: Remate (breezy international indie pop)

There’s something ineffably marvelous about this Spanish-language bit of international indie pop. On top of its lazy, head-bopping beat, we get a fuzzy guitar, a chipper cello (courtesy of Julia Kent, of Antony & the Johnsons), chimey percussion, hand claps, and, among other things, a ukulele played by Stephin Merritt.

“Gigante” – Remate

Ha, so look—the British Sea Power folks have finally moved beyond their predilection for one-name names and they are joined this week on Fingertips by two musicians employing one-name names. Everything connects; you just need the right cords. (Not to mention chords.)

In any case, there’s something ineffably marvelous about this Spanish-language bit of international indie pop. On top of its lazy, head-bopping beat, we get a fuzzy guitar, a chipper cello (courtesy of Julia Kent, of Antony & the Johnsons), chimey percussion, hand claps, and, among other things, a ukulele played by Stephin Merritt. (Merritt was brought into the project by producer LD Beghtol, who had collaborated on the Magnetic Field’s magnum opus, 69 Love Songs.) I like how the song manages to be at once kitchen-sinky and tightly disciplined, and I like most of all Remate’s breezy-breathy-earthy tenor, and how he kind of calls the meeting to order with his laid-back phrasing and the culminating repeated question: ~~“¿Donde está?” Maybe “Where is she?,” maybe “Where is it?” but in any case,~~ “¿Donde están?”—where are they? But whoever or whatever he’s looking for, he sounds actually less concerned than maybe bemused, an affect amplified when the echoing synth line we first heard after the repeated question becomes an almost lighthearted chorus of “la-la-las” towards the end of the song (2:21).

Remate is a Madrid-based musician whose upcoming album, recorded in NYC, features songs that are each about a different adult-movie actress who uses the last name “Luv”—“14 songs of misspelled love or something like William Shakespeare on the porno industry,” in Remate’s words. The album is called Superluv: Por Lo Que Tiene de Romantico and will be out on Everlasting Records in Spain in January; a US release slated for the spring.

Free and legal MP3: The Silver Seas (buoyant pop w/ faux ’70s-soul sheen)

Effortlessly enjoyable pop with a faux ’70s-soul sheen. And I mean the faux part in a good way–after all, it’s not the ’70s anymore (by a long shot). It’s far more fun to hear a group of 21st-century popsters re-imagine this sound with a present-day oomph than to hear some slavish recreation of the distant past.

“The Best Things In Life” – The Silver Seas

But there’s no doubting that the ’70s are the musical mother lode for this Nashville-based trio. Last time we heard from them they were more in James Taylor/Jackson Browne mode; this time Daniel Tashian and company have swung, literally, into Hall & Oates territory, with a loving, twice-removed nod to the Philadelphia Sound that that duo themselves mined. It’s a breezy R&B groove poised brashly between Motown and disco, and the breeziness is exactly why slavish recreation would be self-defeating. You have to sound sharp but you can’t sound rigid, and these guys strut it just right, propelled by a melody that steadfastly refuses to align with the beat in a song filled with large and small pleasures. A favorite smaller moment comes with the third lead-in to the chorus (2:34). The previous two times, the chorus begins after two smooth H&O-like “oo-oos,” covering four brisk measures, which is exactly what the song appears to demand. The third time, they sing the two “oo-oos” once and then repeat them, which if you’re not listening carefully you might not even notice. But it’s one of those great songwriting tricks, giving us a subtle, unexpected, hang-on-what’s-not-quite-right delay before the final payoff.

“The Best Things In Life” is a song from the band’s new album Chateau Revenge, which was released digitally by the band this month; the physical album is due out in July. MP3 via Spinner.

Free and legal MP3: Headlights (breezy & memorable, a la NRBQ)

“Get Going” – Headlights

Consciously or not, “Get Going” offers up delightful echoes of a band few may remember, and fewer probably listen to anymore, NRBQ. During their late ’70s comeback years, in and around their goofier bar-band numbers, NRBQ let loose a bunch of simultaneously breezy and memorable pop songs a whole lot like this one in tone, vibe, and spirit. The airy charm of Tristan Wraight’s tenor further recalls the unexpectedness sweetness infusing gems like “Ridin’ In My Car,” “I Want You Bad,” and “Me and the Boys.” Even the title sounds like something the ‘Q might have recorded.

But “Get Going” should likewise please the ear of the NRB-clueless. (Sorry; didn’t mean that as an insult, just couldn’t resist coining that phrase.) Listen to the way the melody in the verses keeps being drawn up: the lyrical lines each ending with an upward third interval, the middle of the line often pivoting on an upward fifth. Pop melodies much more typically lead in a general downward direction, the way water naturally heads towards lower ground. There’s something invigorating, if subtly off-kilter, in going against the norm in this way. The other thing I’m enjoying here is the guitar work, which engagingly interweaves an acoustic rhythm, an old-fashioned electric lead, and something unexpectedly drone-like. The way Erin Fein–normally the band’s lead vocalist–appears through a kind of underwater filter during the short bridge (1:36) is another whimsical highlight of this brief but emphatic song.

“Get Going” is from Wildlife, the Champaign-based quartet’s fourth album, released on Polyvinyl Records earlier this month. The band was previously featured on Fingertips for the wonderful song “Cherry Tulips” in January 2008. MP3 originally via Polyvinyl, but song lingers online on the music review site One Track Mind.