Tag: Ireland

Free and legal MP3: Pillow Queens (incisive rocker w/ a mysterious pull)

What begins abruptly and somewhat droningly transforms itself with repeat listens into an authoritative rocker with a hint of transcendence.

“Handsome Wife” – Pillow Queens

“Handsome Wife” exerts a mysterious pull. What begins abruptly and somewhat droningly transforms itself with repeat listens into an authoritative rocker with a hint of transcendence. If you want an aural handhold, listen for the muscular guitar line that rings out at 0:39, shifting the ear away from the background drone, tantalizing with its unresolved finish, implying a momentous chorus that we don’t yet hear, but will soon.

Now then, there are some well-known one-note melodies in rock history (think “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” or “It’s The End of the World as We Know It”), but perhaps just as ear-catching and maybe somewhat trickier to pull off is the two-note melody, such as we get in the chorus (1:17). At this point Pamela Connolly’s fervent vocals, kicked up a register, convey a quivering air of vulnerability that pushes the song into greatness. The allure is heightened by elusive but perfectly sculpted lyrics:

I was young and I was honest
Me and all your father’s daughters
Laid beside the tide to take us
Kissed the bride and fought your favours
I may not be the wife you want
But I’m pregnant with the virgin tongue

I can’t tell you with any certainty what these words mean, and yet they vibrate with impalpable significance. I think this has to do with two attributes: first, the fact that each line itself is comprehensible, even as they don’t, together, become a digestible narrative; second, the words scan (i.e. match the rhythm of the melody) perfectly, with the opening four lines, including many one-syllable words, aligned in strict trochaic tetrameter (the academic term for what you might in your head associate with childhood rhymes—think, “Peter, Peter pumpkin-eater”; “Twinkle, twinkle little star,” etc.). I’d argue that songs with lyrics that properly scan are unconsciously more impactful than songs with scattershot accentuations. I wish more songwriters agreed.

The last piece of the snowballing puzzle here: the wordless bridge (2:27), in which Connolly’s voice retreats into a choir of reverb, dueting with a guitar line at first in sync and then offering a reassuring countermelody. Following this, the restated chorus sounds somehow more assertive and empowering, even as I still don’t know exactly what she’s singing about.

Pillow Queens are a foursome from Dublin. “Handsome Wife” is the lead single from their debut album, In Waiting, coming out on September 25. You can pre-order the album, and listen to a few more tracks, via Bandcamp. MP3 via KEXP.

Free and legal MP3: Dott (bashy, poppy, female-fronted garage rock)

With the chugging backbeat and sing-song primitivism of classic garage rock, “Small Pony” blends a thin, bashy DIY sound with something elusively richer and cleaner.

Dott

“Small Pony” – Dott

With the chugging backbeat and sing-song primitivism of classic garage rock, “Small Pony” blends a thin, bashy DIY sound with something elusively richer and cleaner. Beneath its bratty drive (I mean that in a good way), the song finds little ways to breathe and expand—that end-of-verse space where the mix reduces to bass and drum, for instance (first heard at 0:17), or that brief moment of vocal harmony heard directly after that. Small things, you’re not even really supposed to notice them, so maybe forget I mentioned them—just enjoy the side benefit of the song being cooler and more accomplished than this kind of thing often is.

And as fun and insistent as the head-bobbing verse melody is, with its alternating ascending/descending hook, the chorus is even better, featuring a step-like descent that now feels very Phil-Spector-girl-group-y. This impression is strengthened by the way front woman Anna McCarthy’s voice is produced here, wrapped with same-note harmonies and ever-so-subtly distorted. The break after the chorus is equally charming. First we get a guitar solo so matter-of-fact it’s almost drowned out by the drums, followed by background wordless vocals that marry a ’50s melody line to the unrelenting garage-y backbeat into one more moment that might not quite register but yet again adds to “Small Pony”‘s allure.

Even the lyrics have a kind of hiding-in-plain-sight panache. Avoiding the tired trappings of either infatuation or heartbreak, “Small Pony,” if I understand it properly, seems to be about the unique wonders of a long-term relationship. (But where the title comes from I have no idea.)

“Small Pony” is the lead track from the album Swoon, the band’s debut, released in December on Graveface Records. Dott is from the delightful if rainy city of Galway, Ireland. MP3 via Magnet Magazine.

Free and legal MP3: Villagers (indirect, well-crafted keeper)

“Becoming a Jackal” – Villagers

“Becoming a Jackal” is not necessarily an immediate smash hit; it insinuates rather than sweeps away. Never is it uninteresting, however, and I mean that quite literally, in a moment to moment way. Great hooks are awesome, don’t get me wrong, but songs can sometimes coast a bit too much in between the hooks, not to mention that sometimes it’s a fine line between hook-y and facile, never mind hook-y and annoying. (You’ll know what I mean if you’ve ever gotten a song stuck in your head that you don’t even like.) So there’s definitely a place in my pop universe for songs like this that use well-crafted indirectness, unexpected twists, and tension-building restraint to gain your trust and devotion.

Sink into the song’s small moments, let them float by and gain strength, notice the subtle shifts in accompaniment, and eventually a few become their own, quirky sorts of non-hooky hooks. The recurring phrase “I was a dreamer” at the beginning of the not-very-chorus-like chorus may be the first that sticks but a number of other melodic motifs grow in stature as the song unfolds. I like the one that first comes, at 0:26, with the lyrics “in the scene between the window frames”; when we hear it (I think for the third time) at 2:21, with the lyrics “you should wonder what I’m taking from you,” it sounds like a climactic moment, but only because of how artfully we’ve arrived there.

Villagers is the name Dubliner Conor J. O’Brien has given to his musical project, which is kind of a band but kind of not a band. “Become a Jackal” is the title track to the debut album, to be released next month on Domino Records. MP3 via Domino.

Free and legal MP3: Pugwash (Beatlesque and XTC-like catchiness)

“Apples” – Pugwash

Here on 9/9/09, with big marketing news regarding both the Beatles and Apple Computer in the air, how can I resist a Beatlesque/XTC-like piece of pop entitled “Apples”? Resistance, clearly, is futile. I love in fact how the XTC-isms and Beatle-isms here are so consistently interdependent as to be inextricable. Because let me interrupt here to note that XTC remains, to this day, the great, largely unacknowledged link between the Fab Four and the entire alternative/indie rock explosion of the last two-plus decades; they were the one band that took what the Beatles did and alchemized it into something truly their own. I’ll go as far as to suggest that they gave us a hint of what the Beatles themselves might have come to sound like had they stayed together a bit longer.

And so: that cheery little ascending motif at the end of the first two verse lines (first heard at 0:12)? Nicely, intertwiningly related to both great British bands. Likewise the effortless weaving of guitar effects, string-like effects, and vocal effects in such a sharp and focused pop song. Note too how Irishman Thomas Walsh tends towards a Lennon-ish timbre but phrases his words in quite the Andy Partridge-like manner. (And isn’t Pugwash itself a sort of XTC-ish word?) The coda-like touches near the end–this song has a definite ending, it doesn’t just stop–is further evidence, if required, of both seminal influences.

And now it turns out that Pugwash–which pretty much is Walsh, plus some friends and guests who help him out when he records–has been signed to Partridge’s own Ape Records, which is why we’re hearing “Apples” now, although originally released in 2002. Ape is first releasing a compilation of the best songs from the band’s four existing albums. “Apples” is the lead track on that album, entitled Giddy, which will be out later this month.

Free and legal MP3: Fred (jaunty, endearing Irish band)

“Running” – Fred

This song is not about running for political office, but it should be; I think we’d be in great shape if candidates went about their business with this exact sort of wacky, good-natured, earnest, interconnected joie de vivre. (Listen to that goofy-wonderful violin in the intro for an immediate sense of what this is going to be about. The violin plays with the trumpet and sounds like it’s trying to be a trumpet; the sound they manage to make together has a lot to do with the song’s success.)

Needless to say, joie de vivre has not generally been a characteristic of American political campaigns, which have instead over time been all but vanquished by nastiness and amorality. And yet it makes no sense. Why have we for so many years trusted people to work in our legislatures and run our states and our country who behave like playground bullies when they’re out there seeking our votes? (And oops I’m not really talking about the music, am I.) But: is this the year that something…changes? All I know is that finally, someone–in fact, That One–had the courage and vision to try a different approach on a vast, unprecedented scale, running on positive energy and a belief in our actual name: the United States. If you didn’t personally prefer him or vote for him, I don’t understand it (seriously: have you listened to him, really and truly?), but that’s okay too. On this side of things, we criticize based on facts, and we don’t demonize the opponent, or his or her followers. And we will see soon enough if there is, in fact, any hope left in–and for–our country.

In the meantime, Fred: an exuberant quintet from Cork City, Ireland with a knack for bouncy music–jaunty melody, great “oo-oo’s” in the background, horn charts, endearing vocalist–and impish album titles. There was Can’t Stop, I’m Being Timed in 2002; We Make Music So You Don’t Have To, in 2005; and now, Go God Go, which came out on Sparks Music earlier in the year in Ireland, and will be released here in February ’09. This is where you’ll find “Running.” (Note that Go God Go was released digitally last month, for those who can’t wait and don’t need plastic and liner notes in their lives.)