Tag: guitars

Free and legal MP3: Land of Talk (powerful return of Fingertips fave)

“May You Never” – Land of Talk

Another song with an introduction that’s sparser and slower than the song it introduces, “May You Never” starts with spacey/chimey sounds, a semi-pentatonic piano riff, and some ultra echoey vocals from smudgy-voiced Lizzie Powell over a doleful kettle drum. It sounds all indie-mystical, but at 0:51 the beat kicks in, and the guitar grabs the piano’s motif so effectively that you see you’ve been set up all along. The song is sharp and powerful, and driven by Powell’s mysterious way with a melodic refrain.

This is Land of Talk’s third time on Fingertips, and it is apparently impossible for me to talk about them without mentioning Powell’s crazy-delicious guitar playing, so here I am again, telling you not only to tune in for the short but sizzling solo (at 2:00) but to keep your ears on what she’s up to in and around the rest of the song, including how she starts the coda with a literal bang (3:30) and ends it (if you listen carefully) with an echo of the song’s very first notes.

“May You Never” will be one of four tracks on the band’s forthcoming Fun and Laughter EP, slated to arrive next month via Saddle Creek. The band is meager with bio info, so I’m not sure how many people are playing with Powell at this point; the bigger news in any case is that she appears to be fully recovered from vocal cord surgery in January that sidelined her just when the band was geared up to promote their last CD. MP3 courtesy of Saddle Creek.

Free and legal MP3: The Happy Hollows(itchy & slashing, w/ pixie-ish vocals)

“Faces” – the Happy Hollows

The L.A.-based Happy Hollows return to Fingertips with an itchy-crunchy bit of indie rock enlivened by Sarah Negahdari’s pixie-ish (but full-throttled) vocals and slashing guitar work. As intermittently discussed here, the rock trio can be a wondrous beast, especially when veering towards the noisy side of things. Because even at high volume, a trio always announces itself discretely: each part–guitar, bass, drum–is unavoidably and distinctly heard, each an important third of the sound. While there is (duh) room in the rock world for larger ensembles, the trio, when properly talented (I can imagine there is on the other hand little more discouraging than a mediocre trio), has the feeling of something archetypal.

What grabs me here in particular? Hmm. This seems to be one of those songs that I intuitively gravitate to without a conscious sense of why. Sure, I could probably retrofit an explanation but first of all that seems like cheating, and also, I think, part of the charm here is the song’s holistic power. It’s not one or another thing in particular, it’s the everything altogether. Though, okay, I do specifically like the second line of the chorus, both the interesting chord it veers onto and the way Negahdari’s voice hits a new level of vehemence just around then. It’s the kind of shift that registers more unconsciously than consciously with the listener, and adds to the general sense of engagement. With this listener, at least.

“Faces” is the opening track from the band’s forthcoming full-length debut, Spells, scheduled for an October release.

Free and legal MP3: Yo La Tengo (churning, string-laden craftiness)

“Here to Fall” – Yo La Tengo

Half of the time I love what Yo La Tengo does, half the time I’m not sure I understand it. This falls squarely into the first half. After its odd, electro-echoey intro, “Here to Fall” simmers with that paradoxical low-level intensity that YLT consistently brings to the studio–a product, in part, of the juxtaposition of Ira Kaplan’s plainspoken, softspoken vocals and the churning noise the trio can produce. And yet the noise here isn’t really that noisy, featuring as it does, right in the middle of the mix, the unlikely but thoroughly agreeable addition of a small string section, which somehow brings to mind the sorts of strings we used to hear on old Elton John songs (Paul Buckmaster fans out there, anyone?).

But don’t overlook the guitar work, which is characteristically crazy brilliant without calling any attention to itself. And don’t overlook the additional crazy brilliance of the unadorned melody, barely differentiating verse and chorus, which, cycling inexorably forward, attains a dark grandeur as the guitars burn and the strings melodramatize around it.

“Here to Fall” is a song from the band’s forthcoming album, Popular Songs (their twelfth), which is slated for a September release on Matador Records. MP3 via Matador.

Free and legal MP3: Iran (both lilting and noisy)

“Buddy” – Iran

Talk about retro—this one swings with a ’50s vibe, complete with doo-wop style backing vocals, a nostalgic bass line, and a simple piano vamp. At the same time, there is something unsettling in the air here. Aaron Aites’ plainspoken, unstylized voice is not, to begin with, what one expects in a musical environment typically peopled by smooth crooners. Even less expected are the guitarists Aites brings along with him, one of whom is Kyp Malone, who is better known as part of TV on the Radio.

At first we get a slashing chord or two, and a bit of reverb. Thirty seconds in, a new guitar sound enters and grows in strength–a buzzing, high-pitched line playing a slow series of extended, vibrating notes. No doubt there are two guitars doing this but the net effect is one voice, which grows increasingly louder and more insistent as the song unfolds. (The band, a trio, features two guitarists—Malone and Aaron Romanello—and Aites, a multi-instrumentalist.) The instrumental break (1:15) highlights the song’s developing juxtaposition: easy-going, old-fashioned sway meets tense guitar noise. The edgy, extended notes continue and intensify, and notice how the “oo-oo” backing vocals open out into something weirder and more diffuse along the way, becoming part of the background wash. By 2:20, Aites himself is getting louder, if only to be heard; at 2:30, the atmosphere explodes with wailing guitars and unidentifiable noise that reaches a peak ten or so seconds later and then, with disconcerting ease, withdraws, leaving the easy-going vibe intact. The screechy guitars, however, have the last word, taking longest of all to fade away.

Iran, the band, is not by the way named for the country, but for a character in the Philip K. Dick novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (the book which gave birth to the movie Blade Runner). The song “Buddy” was originally released on an EP late last year, and appears on the band’s new CD, Dissolver, released last week on Narnack Records.

Free and legal MP3: The Happy Hollows (ingratiating, noisy, whimsical song-as-journey)

“Lieutenant” – the Happy Hollows

I am no fan of indie music that veers too sharply into the DIY camp, as my ears will forever be jarred by sloppiness, however disguised by claims of authenticity or shred guitar prowess. When I first heard “Lieutenant,” I was attracted by its left-turn hooks but wary of its seeming disjointedness. For a five-minute song, this one unspools in an unnerving number of directions; it’s hard to get a handle on too quickly, and I was not initially convinced that there was any larger sense of purpose keeping the song from simply flying apart. (I am by and large unswayed by shredding.) And yet I surely did like lead singer Sarah Negahdari’s trilly, pixie-like (or Pixies-like?) sense of drama, the trio’s Belly-esque blend of heaviness and lightness, and the sly, quasi-martial swing of the song’s stickiest hook (first heard at 1:10).

I’m still not completely sure which side of the line between sophistication and random craziness that “Lieutenant” lands on, but the moment, probably, that won me over was this: the minute and a half in the middle of the song that features the most jumpy, unglued material climaxes, at around 4:00, with all three band members singing together and then just sort of shouting with jump-in-the-pool abandon. Weeeeeee. It cemented the song-as-journey concept, and I liked where it led: into a coda with a new, unexpectedly soothing melody. Well, okay, it gets wacky again for the last five seconds. They can’t help themselves.

“Lieutenant” is the lead track off the L.A.-based band’s second EP, Imaginary, which will be released by the band next week.

Free and legal MP3: Land of Talk (urgent indie rock w/ subtle twitchiness)

“Some Are Lakes” – Land of Talk

Elizabeth Powell is a mighty guitar player, a compelling singer, and the front woman for a Montreal-based band that appears destined for big things.

Last year’s Applause Cheer Boo Hiss EP was a spunky, spiky debut; “Some Are Lakes,” the title track to the band’s forthcoming full-length CD, sounds a bit smoother on the surface than did the songs on the EP, but Land of Talk’s appealing sense of roughness and urgency remains, now channeled into the workings of the song itself. Instead of lo-fi atmospherics–basically, loud/soft and fast/slow changes–“Some Are Lakes,” with its wistful air and a muted drive, offers a subtler sort of twitchiness in the form of open-chorded melodies, a dissonant, cymbal-heavy chorus, and the buzzy undercurrent of Powell’s gravelly guitar playing. And Powell sings here without vocal processing this time, allowing us to hear more than ever the heart and soul in her powerful voice.

Some Are Lakes will be released next month on Saddle Creek Records. MP3 via Saddle Creek.