guitars – Page 7 – Fingertips

Free and legal MP3: 13ghosts (gripping musical and lyrical narrative)

It’s the not-unfamiliar patient-talking-to-his-doctor motif but we are a long way here from “Doctor, doctor, can’t you see I’m burning, burning.”

13ghosts

“Dr. Bill” – 13ghosts

It’s the not-unfamiliar patient-talking-to-his-doctor motif but we are a long way here from “Doctor, doctor/Can’t you see I’m burning, burning.” “Dr. Bill” oozes depth and power, thanks to some killer guitar work and a splendid fusion of lyrical and musical momentum. There is no chorus; there is even the feeling of being no melody, as singer Brad Armstrong creates the illusion that he’s merely talking. But this is purposeful deception, belied by the song’s careful, eloquent chord sequence, striking lyrics, and the melancholy descent traced by Armstrong’s voice in the first four lyrical lines. Note the lyrics themselves seem more like sentences than verses. He’s singing, he just doesn’t want you to realize it. As the song cranks up the intensity, the subtle melody begins turning upward.

Uneasiness weaves itself through the fabric of the song. You can hear it in the recurring chord change that launches the intro and likewise begins each lyrical line to follow—that shift from an opening minor chord to an unforeseen, unrelated major chord. From there we are taken through a progression featuring more major than minor chords but the underlying sense is disturbed—we’re feeling minor, even through the major changes—and it was set up by the opening gambit. The chords themselves unfold like a narrative, which reinforces a story that escalates both in the lyrics and in the subtext, as we learn perhaps as much about the patient/narrator via what he doesn’t say as from what he does. The way internal rhyme juxtaposes with a lack of end rhyme adds to the song’s ambivalent drive. A character seeking help while insisting he’s all right: what does this say about life for the majority of us, who do not seek help even as we sense that maybe we’re not all right? A strong and haunting song, this one. You could also spend a few listens concentrating merely on the evolving, fiery guitar accompaniment, but I’ll leave that to you, I’m running long as it is.

The Birmingham, Ala.-based quintet 13ghosts is here returning to Fingertips for a third time; Armstrong also visited for an early Q&A. The band is blessed with two strong singer/songwriters, the other being Buzz Russell, who fronted “Beyond the Door,” a great song that was reviewed here in 2008. They were also featured in 2006 but that song alas is no longer online. “Dr. Bill” is from the band’s album Garland of Bottle Flies, coming next month on Skybucket Records.

Free and legal MP3: Joan As Police Woman (sparsely funky, keyboard-based)

“Magic” burns with a sparse but smartly-articulated sense of old-school, Stevie Wonder-ish funkiness.

Joan As Police Woman

“The Magic” – Joan As Police Woman

“The Magic” burns with a sparse but smartly-articulated sense of old-school, Stevie Wonder-ish funkiness. The song roots itself in a keyboard vibe—both electric piano and organ set the basic tone—while the verse offers up a melody at once slinky and sprightly. Vocally, Joan delivers at both ends of her singing register; I’m not sure I’ve previously heard a female singer employ her falsetto quite so Prince-ishly before.

Keys-driven groove notwithstanding, I suggest keeping your ears on the guitar, which noodles in the background early, pretty much disappears for two-thirds of the song, then makes its presence known at 2:35, laying down some scorching and dissonant lines underneath the repeated lyric “I wanna be bad.” There’s a sense here that we’re building towards a full-out wailing solo, but it never happens. And the song is better for it, as instead we veer at 3:07 into a dreamy resolution to the bridge, both musically and lyrically, with Joan singing, “My shadow must find a window in the wall”—a lovely line that’s both specific and vague, concrete and abstract, hopeful and brooding.

Joan As Police Woman has been Joan Wasser’s performing name since 2002, but the Maine-born, Connecticut-raised Wasser had been a working musician since the early ’90s, getting her start as violinist for the Dambuilders while still a Boston University student. Early in her career Wasser was perhaps best known as Jeff Buckley’s girlfriend; losing her way after his death in 1997, she eventually hooked up with Antony Hegarty in 1999, became part of his band for a while and performed on Antony and the Johnsons’ 2005 album I Am A Bird Now. Her first Joan As Police Woman album was released in 2006. “The Magic” is a track from her new album, The Deep Field, which was released in January in the U.K., and is available digitally via her web site and iTunes. A physical release in the U.S., on PIAS Recordings, is scheduled for April.

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).

Free and legal MP3: Sea of Bees (rumbly, minor-key goodness)

Rich, deep, and flowing, “Marmalade” has the rumble of some muddy, alt-rock classic, complete with rubbed-out vocals and a battery of guitar sounds, from fuzzy-growly to acoustic-strummy to lonesome-seering. For all the ground-level noise and minor-key darkness, however, the song lifts and soars most wonderfully. It’s an intriguing effect.

“Marmalade” – Sea of Bees

Julie Ann Bee’s voice is central to “Marmalade”‘s appeal. Even as she buries the brighter and quirkier aspects of her singing under the song’s portentous textures, she doesn’t give in to cliched howling–an impressive feat especially as the song features plenty of wordless “oh-oh”-ing, which lord knows could’ve been howled. Instead she plays to a dusky quality in her voice that you almost don’t hear here but in almost not hearing it’s all the more engaging. I think. Meanwhile, listen to how the various guitars combine into an almost orchestral unity of purpose. Not a sound is wasted; propelled by a swift, unstinting rhythm and its plaintive minor key, the song is a fast, involving ride, ending, each time I listen, before I quite expect it.

“Marmalade” is from Sea of Bees’ debut full-length CD, Songs For The Ravens, released last month on Crossbill Records. Sea of Bees is a musical project masterminded and performed by the Sacramento-based Bee (nee Baenzinger), with an assist from producer John Baccigaluppi and a few guests.

Free and legal MP3:The King Left (sharp, rumbling, semi-dissonant rocker)

“The Way to Canaan” – The King Left

Okay so noise is one thing. When you come right down to it, it’s easy to make noise. Never understood what the fuss was about from the rock’n’roll primitivists who glorify sheer volume. I mean, okay–turn the bloody amps up and boom. It’s noisy. Like, wow.

“The Way to Canaan” – The King Left

Start combining noise with discipline and you begin to get my attention. Start understanding music enough to create different kinds of noise, not all of which are simply loud, and now you’ve really got something going. The King Left certainly does, playing continually along the edge of dissonance in this sharp, rumbling rocker. From the outset, we get no settled sense of tonic, a base chord to call home; instead we get slashing, clanging guitars and–key to keeping things unsettled–a dynamic bass line, running up and down and all around. The sound is at once harsh and tight. And listen to where the music goes when the lyrical line ends, at 0:27, and again at 0:40–we’re left not only without resolution but bopping itchily in a clashing key, with that bass guitar refusing to ground us in a stable place. The chorus at long last delivers an anthemic release, but–there’s a catch–buries it under a searing lead guitar, while Corey Oliver, even as he all but shouts, delivers his vocals as if now down in the basement. Nothing is easy but the hand-hold here is that it’s all very precise. Knowing you’re in good hands relaxes the ear, I think.

The band’s MySpace page lists Radiohead, The Beatles, David Bowie, Talking Heads, Nirvana, and R.E.M. as its first five influences and damned if “The Way to Canaan” isn’t some kind of crazy-brilliant amalgam of all five. The song is from the New York City quartet’s first full-length album–which is unfortunately also their last. They played their final show last week and are now no more. ~~MP3 via the band’s site.~~ Thanks to Largehearted Boy for the head’s up.

Free and legal MP3: Broken Social Scene (involving single from veteran Canadian collective)

“World Sick” – Broken Social Scene

Harboring as many as 19 people in its fold, the veteran Canadian ensemble Broken Social Scene is one of those loosely organized “collectives” that the indie rock scene has often favored. But on its first album in five years, Forgiveness Rock Record, set for release next month, the group was prepared to act more like a stripped-down (for them) six-man band, largely because of difficulties getting everyone together to record. And so the six prime movers–led by co-founders Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning–did the writing and arranging; but in the end, go figure, pretty much everyone showed up after all, including Amy Millan and Evan Cranley from Stars, Emily Haines and Jimmy Shaw from Metric, Leslie Feist, and some 15 others. It just can’t be a BSS record without a crowd.

“World Sick” is the album’s lengthy opening track, an almost seven-minute composition with the big bashy sound of an anthem, the unhurried development of a prog-rock opus, and an itchy-echoey ambiance that stitches its ambitions together. The band is guitar-heavy (four of the core six are guitarists) but uses its instrument of choice judiciously. What we get is nothing like the muddy, canceling-out effect of those silly rock-celebrity gatherings when they bring nine guitarists on stage to celebrate someone’s birthday and you can’t hear any of them. Here, it’s all about dynamics, about presenting an effective spectrum of sounds from soft to loud, from individual notes to chords, from melodic lines to crashing walls of noise. And while I’m normally not too keen on long instrumental outros, I don’t mind this one, both for its subtle interplay of guitar and rhythm and nature sounds and for the thematic statement it makes in the context of its somewhat inscrutable but obviously world-weary lyrics.

Forgiveness Rock Record is due out next month on the Toronto-based Arts & Crafts label. MP3 via Magnet Magazine

Free and legal MP3: Judson Claiborne (Americana flavored, timeless)

“Song For Dreaming” – Judson Claiborne

A pleasantly droopy piece of Americana-flavored indie rock, with a sharp sense of melody and nicely integrated guitar work. Not only do the acoustic and electric guitars play beautifully in and around each other—the ear even loses track, somehow, of which is which at some points–but the lead electric lines are central to the song’s development. You don’t hear a lot of that kind of instrumental integration these days–what we hear instead all too often is a lot of what might be called instrumental hipsterism, when sounds are used merely to be unusual—and it lends something deep and timeless to this casually-paced song.

Judson Claiborne is a stage name adopted by the singer/songwriter Chris Salveter, of Chicago, who previously sang and played guitar for the band Low Skies. But the name also seems, maybe, to have turned into the band’s name; half the material I find online refers to Judson Claiborne as a band, an impression aided by current press material showing five people in a photo labeled Judson Claiborne. In any case, it’s Salveter up front, singing a melody with wistful leaps that accentuate both the warmth and idiosyncrasies of his informal, slightly quivering voice. He’s got a touch of Jim James in there, a touch of Roy Orbison even, for crying out loud, but he never goes too far, always retreats into seeming more like a guy who happened to wander up to a microphone and who’s happy just to play guitar than any kind of self-styled crooner.

The pseudonym and/or band name by the way comes from combining a first name his father had wanted to name him (his mother: nope, “too redneck”) and a last name from ancestors on his father’s side of the family. “Song For Dreaming” is from Time and Temperature, slated for release next month on La Société Expéditionnaire, a Pennsylvania-based label. ~~MP3 via La Soc.~~ Thanks to Largehearted Boy for the lead.

Free and legal MP3: Bettie Serveert

Dutch proto-indie band returns

“Deny All” – Bettie Serveert

Moving into their 20th year together, the Dutch band Bettie Serveert may at long last be outlasting the “college rock” tag they earned as a proto-indie band in the mid-’90s. In any case, when their new album, Pharmacy of Love, is released later this month, they will have released more albums in the 21st century than they did in the 20th. So the time is ripe for listening to this engaging, not-quite-place-able-sounding band with new ears. It’s not 1995 anymore in any possible way that I can think of.

“Deny All” presents the Betties at their fastest and crunchiest. Guitarist Peter Visser couldn’t be having a better time, combining searing lead lines with exuberantly squonky chords–one moment barely choked out, another fraying with dissonance. Leave it, however, to the fetching Carol van Dyk to distract us rather unfairly from Visser’s heroics. The Canadian-born, Netherlands-raised singer has always helped to give the band a subtly inscrutable sound; moving to Amsterdam at age seven, she apparently never quite mastered a native Dutch accent but didn’t grow up speaking English as a North American either. If you don’t listen carefully you might not notice anything unusual but then again, given that lucid voice of hers, at once bright and dreamy, why aren’t you listening carefully?

“Deny All” leads off Pharmacy of Love, the band’s ninth album, due out this month on Second Motion Records. ~~MP3 via Second Motion.~~ Bettie Serveert was previously featured on Fingertips in December 2003 and January 2005.

Free and legal MP3: Red Pens (bashy, reverbed, loud, musical)

“Hung Out” – Red Pens

Things maybe haven’t been loud enough around here for a while. Not that loud is an automatically positive value; lord no. But done with the right spirit, and with a concurrent sense of musicality, loud can be fun. Bashy and reverb-laced, “Hung Out” is definitely fun, and it’s definitely loud, or definitely should be. That’s up to you and your volume dial of course, but if you don’t turn this one up pretty high, it’s not going to sound right. (No, even louder than that. Go on, I’ll wait.) Listen to this too softly and you’ll just get thin, tinny, clangy, and indistinct instead of rich, resonant, three-dimensional, and mind-opening. Or at least sinus-clearing. And you’ll definitely miss the nuances of Howard W. Hamilton III’s crazy guitar solos.

I mean, check this out at 2:22: the solo’s already underway and now he introduces a motif featuring notes that are rapidly attacked but taken together sketch out a slower melody, a melody that, at high volume, rings out with unexpected melodicism, and then wow to how it crunches at 2:25 into an outlandish mondo-chord that has no business being there except that now it is. Somewhere within is the chord that the ear was expecting, and as it turns out the other chords that are packaged around it make the elusive “right” chord all the more persuasive.

Red Pens, based in Minneapolis, are Hamilton on guitar and lead vocals and Laura F. Bennett on drums and backing vocals. “Hung Out” is the lead track from Reasons, their full-length debut, which was self-released in June ’09 and then re-released by Grain Belt Records in the fall. Thanks to Largehearted Boy for the head’s up.

Free and legal MP3: Surfer Blood(instantly engaging, unusually constructed)

“Floating Vibes” – Surfer Blood

“Floating Vibes” has that deep guitar thing going right away, which I always find gratifying. And which always makes me wonder why rock’n’roll has so consistently (and, to my ears, stupidly) glorified the sound of a wailing guitar played so high up on the neck that there’s no room left for the guitarist’s fingers. I’ll take the robust, thoughtful tremor of the lowest register over screechy wails any day. And check out the countervailing seventh notes that begin appearing at 0:20, floating with offhand precision above the darker sound, the quasi-dissonance of that interval perking the ear up in a most welcome and curious way. This song is pretty great before singer John Paul Pitts–known merely as JP–opens his mouth.

And it gets better. The basic guitar refrain of the introduction becomes the verse melody, with the seventh-note question marks now removed, giving the melody a newly grounded sense of certainty. The harmonies that accompany the melody the second time through (1:00) are subtle and ingenious–the harmony voice is pretty much singing one note–and solidify the melodic construction so firmly that the song never returns to it. It turns out that for all its easy-going tunefulness, “Floating Vibes” is subversive with respect to form: there is no standard chorus and no verse that repeats throughout the song. Rather, there are three different verse melodies, separated by instrumental breaks. The first is the one rooted in the introduction, the second is introduced at an instrumental break at 1:16, and the third (2:35) is a kind of mash-up of the first two. The final instrumental section moves onto yet another melody and features a violin, as unexpected as it is effective.

Surfer Blood is a quintet of non-surfers from West Palm Beach. “Floating Vibes” is the lead track from Astro Coast, the band’s debut, slated for released in January on Brooklyn-based Kanine Records. MP3 via Pitchfork.