Tag: Brooklyn

Free and legal MP3:Bishop Allen (jaunty, curious, and likable)

“The Ancient Commonsense of Things” – Bishop Allen

The Brooklyn-based duo Bishop Allen is one of the most likable bands in the kooky and sometimes unlikable world of indie rock. They are, indeed, likable at every level of activity, from the general vibe of their songs to the individual musical components employed to, even, the band’s sense of graphic design and their collective prose voice.

“The Ancient Commonsense of Things”: even a likable song title, yes? Makes you kind of relax, stop Twittering for a minute and just breathe. We were human beings before we chained ourselves to one sort of keyboard or another. As the lyrics offer the merest of sketches, the music quickly envelops you with its at once cheerful and intimate presence–it’s a soft song that sounds loud, a fast song that feels easy-going. Bright and lively percussion drive the piece–mostly sticks and clicks and xylophone–while the minimalist lyrics compare time-tested objects (a hammer, a clothespin, a cork) to the power of a soul mate. And it works, in part because of singer Justin Rice’s quizzical voice, which does both plain-spoken and buoyant equally well. The song might have benefited from one more verse, but Rice’s repetition of the titular phrase is so simultaneously jaunty and curious that I’m kind of digging the “less is more” approach. And whether that’s a bass solo or a guitar solo there at 1:40, I like its plucked sparseness–just these particular notes, in this particular order, over that clicky-clacky-chuggy-chimey background.

While Rice and Christian Rudder, who met at Harvard, are the two-man core of the group, Bishop Allen performs with other musicians, who are at least informally band members while the recording and touring goes on (a current video shows a band of five, in fact). “The Ancient Commonsense of Things” can be found on Grrr…, the band’s new CD, being released this week on Dead Oceans. MP3 via the band’s site.

Free and legal MP3: The Antlers

Twinkly and hypnotic, with gathering force

“Two” – the Antlers

For a tune that pretty much loops over and over, “Two” has an uncanny–and almost unbearable–amount of grit, substance, and heartache. The song is part of a tightly-themed album called Hospice, which is clearly based on a tragedy in front man Peter Silberman’s life, a tragedy which is only amplified by his free-flowing but unpitying lyrics, his dry, falsetto-like tenor, and the music’s tinkly, buzzing, hypnotic momentum. For all its gathering, contraption-like force, “Two” retains a hand-hewn quality that adds to the pathos; and just listen to those pensive piano chords that appear intermittently (first at 1:53), commanding attention despite–or maybe because of–their quiet matter-of-factness. They’re kind of heartbreaking in their own way.

And I’m not normally a lyrics-focused kind of guy but this song demands a reading, so check it out when you have a chance. “Two,” by the way, is subtitled “Or, I Would Have Saved Her If I Could.”

The Antlers’ first release, in 2007, was a solo project for the Brooklyn-based Silberman; the band has since evolved into a trio, with more players joining in for the album. “Two” has been circulating around the blogosphere since last fall; Hospice is set for self-release next month. MP3 via the band’s site.

Free and legal MP3: School of Seven Bells (resplendent Björk/Cocteau amalgam)

“Connjur” – School of Seven Bells

Buzzy and resplendent, “Connjur” is almost magically appealing, combining an earthy, decisive, Björk-y sort of electronica with airy, Cocteau Twins-like layers and harmonies and a touch of shoegaze swirl. Listen to the continual give-and-take between the yawning chasms of sound (distorting guitars?) at the bottom of the mix and the perky beat, with those sprightly vocals up on top—I love how that all works together somehow. I suspect that the way the melody is sung resolutely off the beat adds further to the music’s unearthly pull.

Unable to determine with any clarity what this song is about lyrically, I still feel a strong sense of its seriousness and its playfulness, and this is what moves me most of all. Rare is the work of art—whether music, poetry, prose, painting, sculpture, whatever—that combines the mystical and the fun, the deeply serious and the lighthearted. These guys seem to be after that sort of thing, and more power to them, says me.

School of Seven Bells is a Brooklyn-based trio composed of Ben Curtis, formerly of Secret Machines, and twins Alejandra and Claudia Dehaza, who both used to be in the band On!Air!Library!. They make their sound with two guitars and a bunch of electronics. “Connjur” (a great song title for the Google age) can be found on the group’s debut CD, Alpinisms, released at the end of October on the Ghostly International label. The album title comes from the 20th-century French writer René Daumal, himself a playful mystic. To Daumal, a student of Gurdjieff, “alpinism” was the art of climbing mountains (“in such a way as to face the greatest risks with the greatest prudence”), but mountains to Daumal were at once physical and metaphysical entities. His novel, Mount Analogue, is subtitled: “A Novel of Symbolically Authentic Non-Euclidean Adventures in Mountain Climbing,” and is about an expedition organized to seek and then climb a mountain that is, at the outset, asserted to be imaginary. That kind of story.

Free and legal MP3:Your 33 Black Angels (concise, likable, hard-edged pop)

“New Song” – Your 33 Black Angels

Concise and good-natured while also flashing a bit of hard-edged sloppiness that makes it all the more likable. “New Song” is not only so concise it can’t be bothered with a title, it’s so concise that it pretty much uses the same central melody in both the verse and the chorus. It works musically because…well, who knows, actually. These things remain mysterious. No doubt it has something to do with how the rhythm speeds up in the chorus, and also—not to be underestimated—the rumbly, lower-register harmonies brought to singer Benji Kast’s slightly roughed-up tenor. But maybe the real trick is the fact that the melody remains unresolved in the verse. The verse kind of climaxes on the word “try” (listen at 0:19 or 0:32, for example), and that note, my friends, is unresolved. And it says right there in The Idiot Guide’s to Music Theory that “you don’t want to end your melody with unresolved tension.” (I kid you not; Google it.)

Well, you may not want to end the melody that way for good, but it’s pretty great when it sounds like you are ending it unresolved and then you wait all the way until the end of the chorus (which starts with the same melody) to arrive at resolution. I am fairly certain that the five guys in Your 33 Black Angels have not read The Idiot Guide’s to Music Theory.

“New Song” comes from the Brooklyn-based band’s self-released second CD, Tales of My Pop-Rock Love Life, which is due out next week.

Free and legal MP3:The Last Town Chorus (idiosyncratic, dreamy lap steel pop)

“Loud and Clear” – the Last Town Chorus

And this, oddly enough, is the second song called “Loud and Clear” now featured on Fingertips (the first being one from the duo Pink and Noseworthy), for those keeping score at home. This “Loud and Clear” is particularly well-named, because Megan Hickey, who plays lap steel guitar and sings, has a sweet, clear-toned voice and a round, indelible sound, as she plays her instrument using effect pedals not typically employed, creating both dreamy textures and memorable lead lines in the process. This is not your Grand Ole Opry lap steel. Hickey has an instinctive feel for just how much to glide and bend her notes, avoiding country cliches while invigorating the song with inventive shapes and sounds.

Although originally a duo, the Last Town Chorus has since 2004 been the Brooklyn-based Hickey playing with a changing ensemble of musicians. “Loud and Clear” is a single from an as-yet untitled CD, to be released at some as-yet unspecified date by Hacktone Records. MP3 via Hacktone.