exuberant – Fingertips

Free and legal MP3: One in a Googolplex (clattery electronics, gleeful melody energy)

Full of tweaky and and clattery and glittery and rubbery electronics, “Lilly” also bursts with such infectious melodic energy that I for one don’t really care what odd sounds Sebastian Zimmer wants to throw into the mix.

Sebastian Zimmer

“Lilly” – One in a Googolplex

Full of clattery and glittery and rubbery electronics, “Lilly” also bursts with such infectious melodic energy that I for one don’t really care what odd sounds Sebastian Zimmer wants to throw into the mix.

Not that you necessarily see the brilliance coming. From the intro through the opening verse, “Lilly” bounces modestly along as a two-chord shuffle with a vaguely island-like feel. Close listeners might enjoy the crafty dissonances one of the synthesizers insists upon carving in the soundscape, but more casual ears may remain unengaged until 0:46, when the electronic equivalent of a car crash launches us into the bubbly chorus, full of vocal leaps and dives that sound spliced together rather than sung through. But damned if the cut-and-pasted melody line isn’t its own kind of oddball hook—there’s an energy unleashed by the mashed-up-sound, accentuated by Zimmer’s feathery tenor, that transcends its electronic trappings. And then, as a sort of counter-balance to all the artifice employed to create the song’s core, we get at 2:04 an instrumental bridge featuring what sounds for all the world like honest-to-goodness stringed instruments (but are probably still synthesizers).

“Lilly” is the a-side of a digital single released this month on Alchemist Records. Zimmer has been recording as One In A Googolplex from the German state of Saarland since 2009. The name comes from the third Back to the Future movie. In his own words, Zimmer is “constantly trying to compose his songs as universally as possible in order to be able to enjoy the music even in some thousand years from now or on a different planet, where there is no money, no television, and no heartache anymore.” I want to go to there.

Free and legal MP3: Jared Mees & the Grown Children (exuberant, Portland-infused idiosyncrasy)

Converted last week into a big fan of IFC’s daffy sketch comedy Portlandia, it’s only natural, I guess, to find myself gravitating this week to the exuberant, Portland-infused idiosyncrasy of Jared Mees and the Grown Children.

Jared Mees and the Grown Children

“Hungry Like a Tiger” – Jared Mees & the Grown Children

Converted last week into a big fan of IFC’s loopy sketch comedy Portlandia, I supposed it’s only natural to find myself gravitating this week to the exuberant, Portland-infused idiosyncrasy of Jared Mees and the Grown Children. We’ve been there before, you and I, just this past September, when Mees & Co. were in between albums. The previously fluid ensemble has since solidified into a line-up of five, and has a new album on the horizon, for which “Hungry Like a Tiger” is the lead track.

And quite a lead track it is, with its toe-tapping drive, its effortless melodic hook, its ear-worthy lyrics, and—hail, Portlandia!—its intermittent tendency to unravel the momentum with pensive interludes, not to mention its meta awareness of itself as a song. This rollicking tune hints at the crazy energy the band surely offers its live audiences; yet for all its loosey-goosey ambiance, the song is likewise a study in discipline and restraint. With a seemingly endless number of instruments up their sleeves, Mees and the gang nevertheless refrain from barraging us with kitchen-sink assemblage, pulling out the cello, the trumpet, the Hammond organ just exactly when they are required and no more. The Hammond in fact waits to come out till the end (4:04), at which point it gets a kicking little solo. Note that it’s hard for an instrument you haven’t otherwise heard to enter late in the game and not sound out of place or distracting. Note that the Hammond sounds perfect here.

The album Only Good Thoughts Can Stay, the band’s second, is coming in May via the Portland, Ore.-based media and arts collective/record label/comics imprint/consignment store/gallery/other things Tender Loving Empire, which Mees runs with his wife Brianne. How PDX of him.

Free and legal MP3: Cloud Cult (expansive, shimmery, optimistic)

A big bursting semi-ecstatic valentine to human potential, “You’ll Be Bright” tingles and churns and sparkles with earnest, offbeat energy as only this environmentally focused, biodiesel van-touring Midwestern ensemble can dish out.

“You’ll Be Bright (Invocation P. 1)” – Cloud Cult

We begin with front man/mastermind Craig Minowa singing ardently over an appealingly psychedelic accompaniment—on top of a simple acoustic guitar pattern there’s some kind of phasing or looping going on, but it sounds unusually precise, as if the bending of the notes is itself a sculpted part of the music. The introduction is an extended one, with lyrics that are idiosyncratic listings of categories and things, interspersed with the exhortation to “travel safely.” There’s a feeling of ritual and mystery in the air, as befitting a song parenthetically labeled an “invocation.”

Drums sneak in around the minute mark—I dare you to figure out exactly when—and the song breaks open at 1:12, with driving guitars and percussion and a new melody and chord progression. “I found stars on the tip of your tongue,” Minowa sings, and it’s all carefully constructed exuberance and uplift and mystery from there on in. The song unspools like a journey, with an expansive, circular feeling to it, and sure enough, by the end we have found ourselves back to the beginning, as the opening lyrics reprise amid all the shimmering clatter the band can muster.

Cloud Cult was previously featured on Fingertips in March 2008, and it’s worth going back to read that earlier review for some interesting background information on this most unusual, Minneapolis-based band. “You’ll Be Bright” can be found on the album Light Chasers, released digitally earlier this summer and due out on CD in September on the band’s own Earthology label; it’s their eighth full-length studio album in their 15-year career. ~~MP3 via Utne Reader‘s August Music Sampler.~~

NOTE: I did not realize, when featuring this, that Utne Reader only keeps its samplers online for the month in question. As a result, this song, unfortunately, is no longer available. For future reference, I will not feature Utne’s selections (although they’re good!), because I’d ideally like songs on Fingertips to be available for more than a few weeks.

Free and legal MP3: Annuals(exuberant, complex, compelling)

“Loxtep” – Annuals

Fingertips veterans from Raleigh, Annuals have been featured three previous times over the past four years and somehow are still only in their early 20s. I promise at some point to stop pointing out how young they are. But geez, just listen to the conviction with which they render their exuberant, unusually structured, complex yet relentlessly attractive 21st-century rock’n’roll. I need to keep noting their relative youth because otherwise you’d never know.

“Loxtep” is another shot of Annuals adrenaline, and if it again features a characteristic shift in dynamics, note how this pliable sextet continues to explore different ways to affect that shift. This time, it’s not a straightforward matter of going from soft to loud, or slow to fast; instead, when the band crosses the dynamic borderline, at 1:08 (and can’t you sense it coming, as it gets closer?), the tempo does not increase, and while the volume does to an extent, the song isn’t as much louder after the change as deeper, and more intense. Basically, the rhythm section has kicked in, both drum and bass adding bottom to the mix that wasn’t there before (the most significant percussion we heard in the first minute was, charmingly enough, castanets). But at the same time, strange stuff is happening, such as that funky-sounding synth joining in (1:21) apparently for the fun of it.

I won’t begin to try to untangle further “Loxtep”‘s structure–which features among other things a series of musical reconfigurations of previously heard motifs–except to point out how, at around 3:05, the song manages to turn something that wasn’t the chorus (namely, the lyrical phrase beginning with “lying around”) into a sort of second, de facto chorus. Here’s a band that is truly reimagining what a pop song can be even as you can still sing and dance along. “Loxtep” is from Sweet Sister, a five-song EP the band will release next month on Banter Records. MP3 via Banter.

Free and legal MP3: Air Waves (snappy, lo-fi chugger w/ happy energy)

“Sweetness” – Air Waves

Lord knows I don’t think of Fingertips as me sharing playlists with the world (um, see essay), but I have to say I entirely love how the three songs this week interlock musically. In particular, check out the strummy warmth of the intro here and how welcome it feels after the swaying sadness of Thorn’s tune. (And how perfect, somehow, that we first get that solitary drum beat, which functions as an instant head-clearer.)

Front woman Nicole Schneit is another alto, but hers is a different instrument than Thorn’s–a fuzzy, plainspoken, lo-fi voice, happy to get almost but not quite lost in the mix, happy to deliver a sing-song melody over a rumbling, chugging, two-chord accompaniment. I keep listening for a third chord but I don’t think they get there, and it goes to show you how far a snappy melody and some good innocent instrumental energy will take you in a pop song…along with, okay, some “oo-oos” and other oddities in the background, including maybe bird noises. At least I think those are bird noises.

Air Waves is a Brooklyn-based trio founded by Schneit; the name comes from a Robert Pollard song and is definitively two words, not one. To date the band has released one EP–in 2008, on Catbird Records; “Sweetness” is a new song, released on a compilation Winter Review 2010 disc put out in December by the label Underwater Peoples. The band has recently added a fourth member; a full-length album is expected later this year.

Free and legal MP3: The Minor Leagues (exuberant, horn-laced pop)

Exuberant, horn-laced pop, performing that endearing trick of sounding more slapdash than it actually is. I think drummer John Kathman, brandishing a combination of full-out bashing and asymmetrical fills, has a lot to do with this. The horns, too, carry with them the sound of a band a half step away from flying apart, maybe just from the inherent imprecision of brass instruments, which must create multiple octaves of notes from (typically) three valves.

“Good Boys” – the Minor Leagues

And then, in the middle of this burstingly happy-sounding song comes a philosophical interlude we may not be quite prepared for, as singer Ben Walpole wonders, “Jesus, why did you give me a conscience/If I can’t use it to influence my actions?/And Jesus, why do I have to know wrong from right/When the knowledge never ever beats out passion?” Um, hmm–can we get back to you on that? In the meantime, what happened to the trumpets? The guitars have taken over, along with the existential crisis. Drummer Kathman is still bashing away, however.

The Minor Leagues, from Cincinnati, have grown to seven pieces from the quartet they were when last featured here in 2006. I like how each band member, in the bio material on the Datawaslost site, places him- or herself in an exact year with a particular band, to illustrate with unusual clarity the sound each feels most connected to. “Good Boys” comes from This Story Is Old, I Know, But It Goes On, released in November via Datawaslost, which is both a musical collective and a record label. MP3 via Datawaslost.

Free and legal MP3: Think About Life (exuberant deconstructed funk)

“Johanna” – Think About Life

So this may be about the best thing I’ve heard all year. How sharp and sleek and funky; how multileveled and well-crafted and exuberant; what deeply gratifying fun.

The basic groove alone is impressive, established at the outset by some brilliant horn charts, with their stuttery swing and that softly dissonant chord they settle on at the end of each phrase. But “Johanna” has so much more going for it than the basic groove, including an memorable melodic spine–the song just hangs on it so perfectly–and Martin Cesar’s delightful, full-throated singing. When everything kind of caves in on itself momentarily, at 1:14, this isn’t just a cute effect, it’s spirited statement of purpose: this Montreal-based quartet can and will do anything they want with the sound they’re creating. In an indirect way, Think About Life brings to mind Remain in Light-era Talking Heads–not because the sound is similar, but for this group’s willingness and ability to simultaneously work with and deconstruct the funk. I have rarely heard a band manage to give off a kitchen-sink air of anything goes while at the same time writing and playing such tight, kick-ass music. This isn’t just someone pushing a button to put this sound in here, then this sound here; as with Talking Heads before them, I get a strong sense of both brainy tinkering and physical exertion in the presence of this song. The crazy-awesome instrumental interlude at 2:26–30 seconds of time standing still right in the center of the groove–is not to be missed.

“Johanna” is from the band’s second album, Family, which was released in Canada in May and in the U.S. last month, on Alien8 Recordings. The MP3 was made available last week via Magnet.

Free and legal MP3: Basia Bulat (charming shot of rustic exuberance)

“Gold Rush” – Basia Bulat

Eager youth and venerable tradition is a compelling combination, and a perpetual argument against sourpusses who rise with foolish predictability, in every generation, to proclaim that good music ended at some lamented moment in the receding past. Good music never stops arriving; good listening frequently grinds to a halt, however.

“Gold Rush” is a particularly charming amalgam of the old and the new. The old registers in the exuberant, rustic vibe embodied by a stringed managerie that includes fiddles and Bulat’s signature autoharp; the new is all in the song’s energy: in Bulat’s freewheeling vocals, in the galloping percussion, and maybe best of all in her innate sense of drama. This young Canadian knows just when to pull back and when to let loose–listen to how well, for instance, the song’s rollicking momentum is set up by the opening section, with its deliberate series of staccato fiddle chords; check out, also, how she clears space for those out-of-the-blue but abruptly perfect harmony vocals in the bridge (1:42). And she wraps up this spirited rollercoaster ride in a nifty three and a half minutes.

“Gold Rush” is the first song made available from Bulat’s upcoming Heart Of My Own, her second album, scheduled for release in January on Rough Trade/Beggars. MP3 via the Beggars Group.