Los Angeles – Page 4

Free and legal MP3: Family of the Year (burst of lemony sunshine, w/ a wink)

Everything about this song seeks first to evoke a blurrily-recalled pop era—it’s kind of ’60s, kind of ’70s, without pinning itself down—and second, well, to razz it ever so humanely.

Family of the Year

“St. Croix” – Family of the Year

Spacious and glistening, “St. Croix” appears as a burst of lemony sunshine on what may be a rather cold and/or dreary day where you are, depending on your hemisphere and latitude. Not to mention attitude. In any case, “St. Croix,” mood-wise, is all swift, swaying sweetness, nailed together with one memorable, signature guitar riff. To the extent that the central lyrics might stand out as rather gooey—“You bring the ocean/I bring the motion/Together we make a love potion”; yes, really!—I can assure you they come to us purposefully, and playfully.

Because as it turns out, everything about this song seeks first to evoke a blurrily-recalled pop era—it’s kind of ’60s, kind of ’70s, without pinning itself down—and second, well, to razz it, ever so humanely. It’s all very post-postmodern; the approach is no longer ironic, but embracing: they’re laughing with the music, not at it. And gently! The band sprinkles the humor around the edges, where it barely intrudes, so as not to disturb those who want or need to hear “St. Croix” as a straightforward romp in the sun. But from the opening bongos to the very suspicious single-syllable “oh!” that peppers each verse but once (in addition to one “cell phone!”) to the aforementioned signature riff, which is both super-delightful and rather silly (running up and down an octave as if bounding a flight of rubbery, jangly steps) to the “uh-oh, the batteries are dying” ending, “St. Croix” cruises along with a smile both of joy and comedy. A splendid time is guaranteed for all.

Family of the Year is a quartet based in Los Angeles. “St. Croix” is the title track to the band’s second EP. A second full-length album, Diversity, is scheduled for early 2012. Both releases are via tinyOGRE Entertainment. The MP3 comes to us from Magnet Magazine.

Free and legal MP3: The Submarines (jaunty, reflective, augmented electropop)

The Submarines

“Birds” – The Submarines

At once jaunty and reflective, “Birds” offers up an appealing mix of the electro and organic, as husband-wife duo John Dragonetti and Blake Hazard augment their based guitar-and-keys sound with strings, bird song, sing-along harmonies, and—a first for them—a live drummer. (And hey, it’s Jim Eno, from Spoon.) More than most electropop, this song sounds like it was recorded by real people in real three-dimensional space. Warmth permeates, and the electronic tools utilized feel all the more effective in this setting. This is something I suspect that more bands are likely to understand in this new musical decade: the power of integration. Now that we can literally concoct any sound we want at any time, creating more and more new sounds is no longer a particular talent. The talent is to integrate the sounds we have in newly effective ways. Just making electropop suddenly becomes a narrow and uninteresting pursuit; learning how to incorporate the sounds of electropop into a broader aural spectrum—much more interesting, and fun, I should think.

To hear a bit of the power of this, check out the difference between the song’s two instrumental breaks. At 1:25, a ghostly synthesizer line gives way, via a manipulated drumbeat, to two varieties of strings—the rhythmic pizzicato pluckings of violins, and the low bowing of a cello. And then at 2:42, the same opening melody is voiced with a more classic electro sound, which now leads into a spiffy shot of backwards guitar lines. That the song has led up to this instead of just fed us this electro diet from measure one—and that the electro elements have grown naturally from the aural palette of the overall song—is a great part of the charm, to me.

The Submarines are based in Los Angeles and have two previous full-length albums to their credit (and were featured on Fingertips back in 2006, at the time of their debut). “Birds” is a track from their forthcoming album Love Notes/Letter Bombs, slated for an April release on Nettwerk Records. MP3 via Spin.com. Bonus Submarines trivia: Hazard is the great-granddaughter of F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Free and legal MP3: Apex Manor (chunky, peppy rocker, w/ rhythm shifts)

“Under the Gun” – Apex Manor

A chunky, peppy rocker, “Under the Gun” hooks the ear initially with some insouciant time signature manipulation. (Yes, there’s nothing like some insouciant time signature manipulation to brighten the day!) But okay, bear with me as I flail around in an effort to explain. So do you hear that spiraling guitar theme in the introduction (starts around 0:12)? This appears to be in 6/4 time, as does the entire introduction. The song itself, meanwhile, thumps along in standard 4/4 time (initial switchover at 0:23). As you can see, this isn’t a jarring change—the basic rhythmic unit is the same, and the number of beats remains even—but it’s kind of all the more wonderful as a result. You don’t even necessarily register it consciously, but the two extra beats create this ingenious tension because on the one hand it’s freeing and spacious while on the other hand it feels borrowed, evanescent, a passing fancy, maybe an aural illusion. The 6/4 theme recurs a couple of times, including an iteration at 1:53 that leads into an odd little bridge that doesn’t seem to have any time signature at all. Fun!

I don’t think a song that plays so casually and deftly with its rhythm can be anything but well-constructed and compelling. It helps that front man Ross Flournoy (recognize him from the Broken West? maybe?) has one of those comfortable catchy-song tenors, recalling the likes of McCartney and Tilbrook, to name two minor singing/songwriting heroes from days of yore. As with the Broken West, the appeal is in part how familiar the overall sound is, without coming across like a retread. While not as blatantly power poppy as the Broken West could be, “Under the Gun” employs the time-honored power-pop trick of delayed resolution—you want it but don’t get it, in the chorus, at 0:49, but hang on a bit longer and you get it all the more gratifyingly (wait for it) at 1:03 through 1:06.

The Broken West split up, without much chatter, in September 2009. Apex Manor was born as the Pasadena-based Flournoy’s response to an NPR songwriting contest, of all things. Bassist Brian Whelan, also from the Broken West, joins him in the new quartet, along with Adam Vine and Andy Creighton. “Under the Gun” will be on the debut Apex Manor album, The Year of Magical Drinking, slated for a January release on good old Merge Records.

Free and legal MP3: Warpaint

Hypnotic fever dream

“Undertow” – Warpaint

Hypnotic and blurry, “Undertow” feels like something of a fever dream, the dual vocals of Emily Kokal and Theresa Wayman floating over a pulse-like beat in a way that feels unmoored and amorphous but is actually tightly controlled. Words glide, circle back, repeat, but without the firm sensation of verses and a chorus. Occasionally the jazz-like guitar sound that served as the intro re-emerges but instrumentally it’s mostly bass and percussion, registering more in your gut than your brain, which accentuates the oceanic flow of the lyrics—once the singing starts it doesn’t really stop. This is a strange song, and I recommend listening to it a number of times because there’s a larger effect going on than its initial four minutes suggests.

I find that the song, for me, turns on the guitar that enters at 2:32—a bright, trebly, Talking Heads-like line, previously unheard, that, it turns out, was set up by the drummer, who kicked into a different groove back at 2:13, only maybe we hadn’t noticed. There’s something in how this new sound is brought into the existing landscape, and how the landscape is subtly but firmly changed, that feels deep and affecting. And then, at around 2:30, we get what we hadn’t gotten until right now, and maybe hadn’t realized was missing: the band playing together, putting its collective sound in front of our ears, the blurry-fevered narrative set aside for the better part of 20 seconds. While some of that returns at 2:50, now I can sense the band waiting, I can sense the weight of something larger looming, and when it comes back (3:27), the song roars to a truly satisfying if still mysterious conclusion.

Warpaint is a quartet from Los Angeles. They self-released an EP last year and caused enough of a stir that the band, on the verge of the release of their debut full-length, is a bit wary of getting churned through the blogosphere. As drummer Stella Mozgawa recently told Spinner: “We’re just dorks. I’d like to be a dork for as long as possible instead of being cool for like, a day.”

The Fool comes out later this month on Rough Trade Records. MP3 via Magnet Magazine.

Free and legal MP3: Chris Hickey (acoustic, stripped bare)

And this is probably the biggest high-wire act of all in popular music—having enough faith and guts and (let’s not forget) talent to hide behind absolutely nothing. It’s just your voice and just your fingers.

“Beautiful Struggle” – Chris Hickey

And here we have Chris Hickey, who strips himself even further down than Kim Taylor, previously, recording in his South Pasadena home with just an acoustic guitar and a handheld digital voice recorder (an Edirol R-09, if there are any gearheads out there). And this is probably the biggest high-wire act of all in popular music—having enough faith and guts and (let’s not forget) talent to hide behind absolutely nothing. It’s just your voice and just your fingers.

I first heard Hickey’s music when he sent word out last year about his album Razzmatazz, which was his first solo bedroom recording, a sort of re-emergence for a musician with a long, workman-like history but no breakthrough moments, commercially. He had had a go at new wave era punk-pop in the late ’70s, with his L.A.-based band the Spoilers, and also at mainstream neo-folk music in the mid-’80s, when he put out two CDs under his own name, before moving into other folk-like band projects and doing studio work with the likes of Michael Penn and the Indigo Girls. What Hickey has that is immediately apparent, and relatively rare on the present-day indie scene, is gravitas. Not tree-trunk heavy, mothball-laden severity, but a deep, engaged presence; Hickey’s voice in fact has something of the warn, trembly huskiness of the late Warren Zevon. It’s a voice one pays heed to, particularly when used in the service of such a delicate tune, such a piercing message.

“Beautiful Struggle” was written by Mark Addison of the briefly together, semi-legendary band the Borrowers, and appeared originally on their one and only CD, in 1996. MP3 via Hickey.

Free and legal MP3: Regrets & Brunettes (brisk & world-weary LA rock)

“Tough Love” – Regrets & Brunettes

“Tough Love” does so much so effortlessly in its first 15 seconds that a casual listener may not hear much more than an intriguing mood. But check it out: first the brisk minor key guitar strum, at once mellow and urgent; then the slightly dissonant second guitar line (harsher and crunchier but also somewhat distant); then–out of left field but instantly perfect–the wistful, Bacharachesque horn motif (and that could be a keyboard sounding like a horn, but no matter). It’s an extraordinarily compact introduction; Richard Bivens begins singing, with the compellingly blasé tone of any number of great rock’n’roll singers–at 0:16. Better believe I’m listening.

The opening’s terrific atmosphere sustains. This is one of those unusual pop songs in which the chorus is less catchy than the other elements, and truly this seems part of the plan–as Bivens repeats “I can’t shake it,” I can just about feel the physical gesture suggested and it’s not supposed to be entirely pleasant. Everything works together here; in fact, I’m half convinced one reason the music withdraws a bit in the chorus is to give us a chance to ponder the curious lyric Bivens left us hanging with: “You used to take off your clothes/You used to curl up your toes with me.”

“Tough Love” is as song off the L.A.-based band’s debut album, At Night You Love Me, which was self-released last month.

Free and legal MP3: Jason Boesel (friendly Americana w/ sneaky depth)

“Hand of God” – Jason Boesel

Loping, good-natured Americana from the voice and sticks of one of the indie scene’s busiest drummers. While the casual beat, agreeable steel guitar licks, and gang-style harmonies (i.e. no harmony) in the chorus imply a lightweight yarn, there’s a bit more here than might initially meet the ear. I suspect, in fact, distraction is part of the design, and that it’s precisely because the words so easily roll off Boesel’s friendly, reverbed voice–think Nashville Skyline Dylan crossed with Ron Sexsmith–that you don’t readily notice how he’s messing with you.

But he’s doing just that, largely via the time-honored songwriting trick of changing one or two key words in lines that, repeating, otherwise appear the same. In the chorus, for instance, he first is “recovering,” while “remembering” is hard; on the repeat, he is “remembering,” and it’s “recovering” that’s hard. Or, in the first verse, he goes up the stairs and doesn’t know why, while in the last verse he goes down the stairs and now he knows why. (And we do too, if we’re paying attention.) Also, he first hears laughing in the dark, which he realizes “could” have been him; later he hears screaming in the dark, which he admits “had” to be him. And then this subtle, trickily told story of love gone bad climaxes with an offhand lyrical gem: “I thought I was a secret/But I was too easy to keep.” A song this carefully crafted always rewards repeat listens.

Boesel is drummer for Rilo Kiley, and has also sat at the kit for Bright Eyes, the Elected, and Conor Oberst, among others. “Hand of God” is from his debut solo album, Hustler’s Son, slated for release next month on Team Love. MP3 via Team Love.

Free and legal MP3: Princeton (orchestrated pop, w/ boy-girl duet)

“Sadie and Andy” – Princeton

From its faux classical intro to its jaunty doo-wop melody and deadpan storytelling, “Sadie and Andy” is all craft and artifice. And pretty much irresistible. “I stock the milk and all the eggs there,” Andy sings, catching Sadie up on his daily doings in the grocery store, “And all the herbal tea.” Sadie is radically uninterested. It’s been ten years. “I haven’t thought of you at all,” she says. “And I don’t wish to know.”

It’s the standard boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy’s-love-grows-with-loss, girl-could-care-less story, and it’s found its musical apotheosis in this cheerful-wistful piece of precisely orchestrated pop, with its swirling strings, diligent trumpet, elusive oboe, and martial snare. That it’s much ado about nothing–did she mention she hasn’t thought of him at all?–is part of the thematic point. Matt Kivel’s Andy sings with great nasal earnestness, a wannabe crooner with neither quite the voice nor the charisma to pull it off. Guest vocalist Meredith Metcalf, for her part, is a breathy ice queen, a Sadie not in any obvious way worthy of Andy’s obsession, but that’s always the underlying irony of this story.

Princeton is a quartet from L.A. featuring the twins Jesse and Matt Kivel. (The name comes from the street they grew up on street in Santa Monica.) “Sadie and Andy” is the lead track on the band’s debut album, Cocoon of Love, released in late September on Brooklyn-based Kanine Records.

Free and legal MP3: Audra Mae (singer/songwriter w/ big voice)

“The River” – Audra Mae

With clear roots in country and folk, two very structured genres, “The River” hooks the ear with a series of surprising melodic and harmonic shifts. We hear this first at 0:15, when Mae follows the opening two traditional-sounding lines with a third (“The river’s gonna wash my sins away”) that runs unexpectedly up through a diminished chord. How did we get here? Suddenly the music is unresolved, and remains so until one more surprising shift, at 0:26, on the words “make me forget.” Resolution comes on the succeeding phrase, “my sorrow.” That’s some nifty songwriting–uncomplicated but subtly startling–and Mae uses it all to set up her bittersweet chorus. It begins with one more musical shift: that heartbreaking half-step she takes in the phrase “I can’t swim” (1:02), which starts the major-key chorus with a minor-key twist. Even the lyrics provide a subtle shock here, aurally–when she gets to the phrase “even if I could,” the lack of rhyme isn’t what the ear expects. But she has slyly shifted the rhyme scheme, which the listener catches onto as the chorus continues. More niftiness.

And maybe niftiest of all is how everything is delivered by a young, big-voiced singer who seems anachronistically delighted to use her vocal substance in service of small musical moments. No “American Idol”-ish histrionics for this big voice. One example: listen to how differently she sings the word “I” the first two times she says it: first, the opening word of the song (“I done a bad thing, it’s okay”; 0:05) and second, the beginning of the second line, four seconds later (“I’m going down to the river today”). The first “I” is fast, easy, almost evasive; the second “I,” made resonant with the contracted “m,” feels deep, mighty, and mournful as it encompasses an extra half-beat in the singing. Words don’t do it justice so now I’ll be quiet.

“The River” is the lead track from Audra Mae’s debut EP, Haunt, released last week on SideOneDummy Records. The Oklahoma-born Mae is now based in L.A. and, speaking of big voices, happens to be Judy Garland’s grand niece.

Free and legal MP3: Rainbow Arabia(stylish, engaging world music admixture)

“Harlem Sunrise” – Rainbow Arabia

This one morphs before your startled ears from a vaguely Middle Eastern sounding dance with an electro-beat and kitchen sink percussion into a vaguely Caribbean steel-drum-inflected shuffle with some African guitar thrown in for good measure. Too much pastiche for its own good? Or is “Harlem Sunrise,” rather, an audacious 21st-century stylistic mash-up? I vote for the latter. Nothing this warm and welcoming can be disparaged, in my book, nor something that manages, for all its sonic salmagundi and home-built vibe, to proceed with an air of the timeless about it. Even singer Tiffany Preston’s slightly pouty and distant voice, artfully reverbed and tweaked, works better here than it maybe should.

And I in any case am entirely in favor of major-key songs with minor-key introductions. That’s a nice songwriting trick you don’t hear much of in modern pop.

Rainbow Arabia–and the band name kind of immediately hints at what they’re up to–is a L.A.-based husband-wife duo (Tiffany sings and plays guitar; Danny does the keyboards and electronics). “Harlem Sunrise” is a song from their Kabukimono EP, which was released in July by Manimal Vinyl, also based in L.A. (Manimal Vinyl, by the way, is a name that does not hint at what they’re up to; the label does in fact release things on CD and digitally in addition to vinyl.) Thanks to Linda at Speed of Dark for the head’s up on this one. MP3 via RCRD LBL, and note that the link is not direct; just click “Download MP3” and it’s yours.