melodic – Page 4 – Fingertips

Free and legal MP3: Centimeter (soaring power pop)

“Push Me Over” is a particular kind of power pop, which might be usefully labeled power power pop for its husky edge and determined drive

“Push Me Over” – Centimeter

A magical pseudo-genre that has never quite arrived nor disappeared, power pop exists through sheer force of will. At least since the Records assured us that the writ has hit the fan, if not before, there have been musicians who want to write songs that do this, whatever “this” exactly is. I’ve opined intermittently on the elusive charm of power pop (see in particular the post accompanying the Power Pop, Vol. 1 playlist), but every time a band rouses itself into full power pop mode, even now, at this disconcertingly late date, I feel energized and ready to wave the happy flag yet again. I mean, it was one thing for bands to offer up neo-power pop in the ’90s and early ’00s, but now that rock’n’roll has (who saw this coming?) been tickled to death by the cotton-ball assault of indie pop, bands that have the chutzpah to write melodic through-lines and play instruments (not to mention percussion) in three-dimensional space should be protected by the World Wildlife Fund.

Anyway: “Push Me Over” is a particular kind of power pop, which might be usefully labeled power power pop for its husky edge and determined drive; classic power pop often presents with a more obvious layer of sweetness. Yet sweetness is in the mix here too—in the background “oo-oos,” in the determined if not poignant piano line, in a chorus melody as plaintive as it is rousing, and perhaps most centrally (albeit also intangibly), in that lyrical lagniappe at the end of the verse, featuring the recurring phrase “if only for a while.” Through it all, singer Johan Landin proves once and for all that power pop is not merely an exercise for honey-toned tenors, as his expressive but controlled baritone delivers with its own kind of “what is the world coming to?” ache.

And maybe that’s the as-yet-undiscussed key to the mystery that power pop remains—that, at their best, power pop songs consistently exhibit this “I can’t go on, I’ll go on” pluck that, if not fully Beckettian, still pushes them deeper into the psyche than one might initially suspect they would go.

Centimeter, from Stockholm, were a quartet when first featured here on Fingertips in 2012, for the song “Motorhead”. They are now a trio. “Push Me Over” is a single that was released this summer, and it is the band’s first recording since their 2013 album 70.

Free and legal MP3: Susto (rugged, tuneful Americana)

“Acid Boys” – Susto

Walking the fine and often unwarranted line separating Americana from country rock, “Acid Boys,” with its sure backbeat and rugged tunefulness, reveals the perennial power of solid songwriting and straightforward instrumentation. History will have the last word, of course, but I can’t believe that computer technology is so consequential that it eliminates the human appetite for accessible melody and music played in physical space. Sure, let’s celebrate and explore the sounds our devices can make. Just don’t throw out the guitars, okay? Or the rough-hewn voices either, for that matter.

From the musically underrated city of Charleston, South Carolina, Susto is a full-fledged six-piece band, and it is the spacious, intentional interplay of a half-dozen genuine musicians that fuels this song’s confident momentum. For example, when there is a dedicated keyboard player, the keyboard parts are inherently more thoughtful and engaging, or at least should be. Here, I like the rinky-tink piano we hear at the outside but even more I like the classic rock organ that oozes into background as the song unfolds. Likewise, a band with a lead guitarist and a rhythm guitarist can, ideally, create richer textures—sounds that you don’t always hear specifically but that add deeply to the ear’s sense of completion and certainty.

Susto has its roots in front man Justin Osborne’s trip to Cuba last year. Previously lead singer in the band Sequoyah Prep School, Osborne ended up back in Charleston to flesh out music that originated during his Cuban sojourn, first hooking up with his friend Johnny Delaware and soon adding four others to create the six-piece Susto. (Fingertips followers may remember Delaware from his most excellent song “Primitive Style,” which was featured here last year and later landed at number four in the year’s top 10 favorite list.) “Acid Boys” can be found on Susto’s debut, self-titled album, which was released in April. You can listen to the whole thing and purchase it directly from the band’s web site.

photo credit: Paul Andrew Dunker

Free and legal MP3: Southern Boutique (brilliant lo-fi-ish, ’70s-style country-rock)

As genuine and inviting a song as you are likely to hear in our prickly times.

“Joanna” – Southern Boutique

As genuine and inviting a song as you are likely to hear in our prickly times, “Joanna” flows with a melody so effortless I have to wonder why melody has so often left the building here in the 21st century. Isn’t it just this easy?

Well, no, I suppose it isn’t. As a matter of fact, I would suggest that the overwhelming challenge presented by melody has a lot to do with why we don’t encounter that much of it anymore—an unheralded side-effect, perhaps, of the Age of Instant Gratification. It’s so simple to make and distribute songs so quickly, why sidetrack the effort worrying about a potent melody? But I am digressing, when all I intend to do is salute the Austin trio Southern Boutique, whose collective gift for timeless craftsmanship should be the envy of their peers. And yet here is a band that struggles to crack merely 100 Facebook likes, and can’t offer me even one band photo to use with this review, as they don’t have any at all. I recently by the way read an article published on a music industry web site that claimed that any band with fewer than 1,000 Likes is “not worth paying attention to.” Me, I think people who write articles like that are not worth paying attention to. Aren’t we talking about who makes the best music here? Does that really not count anymore because The Internet? Okay, I digress again.

“Joanna” is almost too good to bother to describe, but if you want a handhold into its lo-fi-ish, ’70s-style country-rock brilliance, consider a few attributes. First, we have a 12-measure verse melody, which is often the sign of a mightily constructed song. And listen to how the verse gets extended into the 12 measures via lines that feel casually added on, starting around 0:29. Only really smart songwriters know how to do this. Next, listen to the mysteriously satisfying chord progression that drives the chorus (specifically from 1:05 to 1:10 the first time around), and listen to how the melody resolves while remaining entirely off the beat. Probably only smart songwriters know how to do this as well. And then, to show their know-how extends into all aspects of presentation, check out how they manage to slide the catchy part of the instrumental break all the way down to the bottom of the mix, as the song’s bouncy bass line, now sounding tuba-like, is here augmented by what may or may not be some very good-natured wordless vocals (listen to 1:45-1:50 specifically).

Southern Boutique rose from the dissolution earlier this year of the band Tiger Waves. “Joanna” is a song from the trio’s self-titled debut album, digitally released last month and available to listen to and download, in .wav format, via SoundCloud. While you’re at it, you can give them a like on Facebook too, if that’s your thing.

Free and legal MP3: The Pharmacy (melodic, well-crafted rock’n’roll)

Someone is still making something that can be called rock’n’roll.

“Masten Lake Lagoon” – The Pharmacy

While rock’n’roll has been dying as a cultural force since the turn of the millennium, the 2010s seem truly to be delivering the death blow. The sound of the music that the young and the trendy want to be listening to seems to have little to do with the sound of rock’n’roll (admittedly an amorphous and multifaceted concept by now anyway) and a whole lot more to do with the interrelated sounds of EDM and indie pop. And I’m not saying this as a judgment, I am merely reporting. If you want a clear sign, look no further than the venerable and ongoingly trend-savvy blog Gorilla vs. Bear, which was founded in the early ’00s as a bastion of indie rock, and has adroitly morphed into something rather different.

That said, however dead as a mainstream phenomenon, rock’n’roll is not finished as an artistic pursuit. There are always going to be those who want and need more organic sounds and performances than today’s EDM-fixated indie pop is interested in providing, and, thankfully, still bands out there stubborn enough to furnish it. Like the Seattle trio The Pharmacy, whose career has pretty much spanned rock’n’roll’s death-knell phase, as the threesome sprang to life in 2002 and, in August, will be releasing their fifth album, entitled Spells. “Masten Lake Lagoon,” an initial single from the album, is not only unapologetic rock’n’roll, it is unapologetically melodic and well-crafted. Which may not be our culture’s current sweet spot but is always mine. Buoyed by scratchy guitars, grounded by a deep and supple bass line, and highlighted by a brisk sing-along chorus, “Masten Lake Lagoon” also has the gumption to veer into an extended, multi-sectioned instrumental, which takes us from 1:20 all the way to 3:01, growing more riveting by the moment; the squall of guitars that closes it out all but brings me to my feet even as I just sit at my desk writing this.

Long live rock’n’roll, 21st-century style.

(The Pharmacy were previously featured on Fingertips in February 2012.)

Free and legal MP3: The Van Doos (new rock’n’roll inspired by the old)

Combining melodies that gaze back towards the ’50s with the structural intricacies of 21st-century indie rock and the crowd-pleasing sing-along-iness of timeless pop.

“Airborne” – The Van Doos

Long-time readers may be familiar with my affection for new rock’n’roll that tips its hat to the old while still standing with its feet planted in the here and now. This is my sweet spot, unabashedly so. The Van Doos pretty much knock the ball out of the park in this regard, combining melodies that gaze back towards the ’50s with the structural intricacies of 21st-century indie rock and the crowd-pleasing sing-along-iness of timeless pop. Instrumentation is rooted in classic rock, but listen closely and enjoy the disciplined crunch of the guitars, the delightfully elastic bass line, and the strategic use of castanets, among other things. I do love the strategic use of castanets.

(Now then, some might claim that any band using merely traditional rock’n’roll instruments, as opposed to laptops and digital manipulations and such, is by definition not standing with its feet planted in the here and now. I scoff at such short-sightedness and ask time to referee this battle. Come back in 30 years and we’ll see how things stand.)

Another wonderful aspect of “Airborne” is how much of a journey the song takes us on, in under four minutes, while still feeling easy to absorb rather than obtuse. The band employs an array of subtle flourishes to add depth while remaining approachable, from the sparse arrangement of the opening verse to the unexpected, simultaneous rhythm and key change at 1:00 to the offbeat structure of a song that seems not to have a chorus but a really enticing secondary verse, heard once (beginning at 1:05), immediately repeated, and then abandoned for the accumulating momentum of the rest of the song. Cool stuff, truly.

The Van Doos are a relatively new quartet from North Yorkshire, in the U.K. “Airborne” is a song from their forthcoming debut album, perspicaciously entitled Fingertips.

Free and legal MP3: Papercuts (rich, delicate, orchestral)

The richly delicate “Life Among the Savages” hints at what Brian Wilson might sound like if he were a 21st-century indie rocker.

“Life Among the Savages” – Papercuts

The richly delicate “Life Among the Savages” hints at what Brian Wilson might sound like if he were a 21st-century indie rocker. Not that Papercuts front man and general mastermind Jason Robert Quever has quite as many idiosyncratic tools at his disposal as Wilson, but surely there is something Pet Sounds-y in the orchestral-minded, melodic yearning on display.

The opening verse melody, to begin with, is a concise gem of descending sweetness (0:06-0:09), and is itself part of a beautifully constructed eight-measure melody that seems simultaneously to resolve and retain suspense two or three different times. The melody is so well-developed that the song does without full-fledged instrumentation until the first iteration of the chorus at 1:08, and while the pulsing string arrangement distracts us from missing the band, when the sound does kick in, something in the ear relaxes. Combine that with a subtle uptick in vocal urgency here (listen to all the hard “c” sounds Quever hits between 1:16 and 1:22), and “Life Among the Savages” is pretty much all delight from this point onward—the verse the second time through now fully accompanied, the chorus getting an unexpected instrumental lead-in and an extra repetition, and the whole thing capped off by a tidy, dramatic coda.

The San Francisco-based Quever has been recording as Papercuts since 2004. “Life Among the Savages” is the title track to his fifth album, released earlier this month on the new L.A. label Easy Sound in the U.S., and via the London-based Memphis Industries label in the U.K. Papercuts was previously featured on Fingertips in 2011. Thanks again to Lauren Laverne at BBC 6 for the head’s up.

Free and legal MP3: Lo Fine

Friendly if uneasy midtempo rocker

“All We Need is Hell” – Lo Fine

Friendly and uneasy at the same time, “All We Need is Hell” is a guitar-filled midtempo number overflowing with smooth riffs, honeyed melodies, and weary-to-acerbic observations. What’s not to like?

Despite the seemingly laid-back pace, the song accrues a crafty urgency through the course of its concise three minutes. I attribute this in part to the appealing, multifaceted guitar work, as a crunchy undercurrent builds in the second half that was unapparent in the first. And the song structure itself is partly behind the cumulative power. To begin with, note how the verse and the chorus feel and sound similar musically, even as they are not actually the same. This gives the song, over time, an extra vigor, since in this case, the chorus feels less like a change of direction and more like a continued, purposeful movement down the existing path. And then there’s the matter of how the titular phrase is employed—not as an established part of the chorus but as one-time utterance in the center of the song, before the second time we hear the chorus. This strikes me as an unusual and stimulating songwriting device.

Lyrically, the song draws me in with its combination of understandable phrases and less comprehensible longer sentiments. But the lyrical linchpin is surely the line that opens the first iteration of the chorus (0:40): “Getting rid of all the demons/To get down to just the devil”—a disconcertingly profound idea, sung with front man Kevin O’Rourke’s slightly unsettling blend of sweetness and forewarning.

Lo Fine is the longstanding, ongoing musical project helmed by singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist O’Rourke. Founded in 1998 in Northampton, Massachusetts, Lo Fine has released three full-length albums and three EPs over the course of its meandering existence. “All We Need is Hell” is from the third album, Want is a Great Need, which was recorded largely in O’Rourke’s adopted home of Truro, near the tip of Cape Cod, and came out in November. A more recently released second single, “More Better,” is also available for download now, via SoundCloud. Thanks again to Magnet Magazine for the MP3.

photo credit: Petar Dopchev

Free and legal MP3: Stornoway (attentive, gentle, artfully arranged)

“Tumbling Bay” is one of those songs so exquisitely constructed and artfully arranged that you can isolate any slice and find all sorts of goodness to relish.

“Tumbling Bay” – Stornoway

Attentive, gentle rock’n’roll that tells a tender story with an absorbing series of musical and lyrical details. “Tumbling Bay” is one of those songs so artfully arranged that you can isolate any slice and find all sorts of goodness to relish. At any moment, there are wonderful things going on with the guitar work, the percussion, and the vocals, never mind how these separate elements are continually weaving in and around each other, and working to create a whole that transcends its parts.

The song is named for a swimming area that used to exist in the Thames River in Oxford, the quartet’s hometown, and is a tale of unrequited love, told, unusually, from the perspective of the unwitting object rather than the tortured subject. Singer Brian Briggs has a distinctively innocent-sounding tenor, and he serves up the halting, affecting melodies with conviction; but don’t miss as well the background vocal efforts of his bandmates, as Stornoway is not averse to letting the whole band sing at the same time. (Indeed, the simple vocal coda we get at 3:36 is both haunting and oddly cathartic, not to be missed.)

“Tumbling Bay” is one of six songs to be found on the group’s newly-released “mini-album,” You Don’t Know Anything, which is a follow-up to its full-length Tales From Terra Firma, released earlier this year. Thanks to Lauren Laverne at BBC6 for the head’s up, and thanks to Rolling Stone for the MP3. Stornoway was last seen here in July 2010, for the fabulous song “Zorbing,” which ended up among my top 10 favorite free and legal MP3s of the year that year.

Free and legal MP3: Carrie Ashley Hill (brisk & melodic)

“Lay Your Lazy Head” – Carrie Ashley Hill

Graceful and brisk, with chime-y guitars and spirited vocals, “Lay Your Lazy Head” is grounded in a simple, beautifully effective melody—so effective, in fact, that its basic motif is employed in both the verse and the chorus. Which is to say that the verses and the chorus sound largely although not exactly the same. This is not as easy to do as it might seem. It involves first of all offering a good amount of subtle variation in and around the basic repeating tune—not only, here, is it presented somewhat differently in the chorus, each iteration in the verse scans slightly differently based on lyrical and vocal discrepancies. This gives the ear something to reach for even as it has absorbed the basic reality of the repetition. The other thing required here, of course, is a strong enough melody to support the concept. To my ears, Hill has it in spades.

The specific power of “Lay Your Lazy Head”‘s basic melody comes from the unexpectedly large harmonic difference a mere half-interval makes to our ears. A clear place to focus on this is in the second visitation of the verse melody, and on the difference there between the notes that Hill lands on for the word “stray” (0:30) and then the word “own” (0:33)—they are just a half-step apart, and yet the underlying shift is from the I chord to the V chord. Which is a bunch of music theory yammering to say that this smallest available step, the half interval, can take you to a whole new harmonic neighborhood. And while I’m sure this has nothing to do with Hill’s intention, I even like how the simple half-step difference kind of reinforces the titular idea of laying down one’s “lazy head,” as there may seem nothing lazier than falling merely a half step down in a melody. Okay, a stretch, but that’s how my mind works.

“Lay Your Lazy Head” is from Hill’s debut EP, entitled Me At All, which you can listen to on her web site. The EP was released in August and was recorded with Jeff Berrall and Sam Hopkins of the band Caveman (themselves featured here back in August 2011). The Dallas-born, Brooklyn-based Hill is on tour this fall with Jane Herships, who has recorded as Spider, and is herself a Fingertips favorite with two previous features, in 2006 and 2009. Both Hill and Herships are both, also, members of the Brooklyn-based band Desert Stars.

Free and legal MP3: The Sharp Things

Piano-driven ensemble pop

“Can’t Get Started” – The Sharp Things

So very many decades after Jerry Lee Lewis first started pounding (and pounding) the ivories, the piano remains kind of a rock’n’roll outlier, in that when I hear rock’n’roll with a piano in it, I tend to think, “Oh, a piano.” This does not happen with a guitar, or a synthesizer. It doesn’t even happen that much for me with a violin these days, which is weird, and another story. A piano changes the texture of rock’n’roll, gives it a non-electrified sound powerful enough to drive the song’s core yet tender enough to offer both chiming atmosphere and melodic nuance.

That said, the piano, while giving “Can’t Get Started” its splashy opening, is hardly the only thing going on within the ensemble-pop sound of The Sharp Things. The most noticeable “ensemble-y” touches here are the various string voices you’ll hear if you listen carefully (some are unorthodox) and the group vocals, an effect that can either be tiresome or brilliant, depending to a good extent on the melody being group-sung. In this case, I love the collective vocals, which are effected with a beautiful, almost whispered restraint that accentuates the coiled energy of the verse melody’s center point—the way it gathers itself each time for that one aspiring, upward leap it takes (0:20, 0:37, et al.). Because of the discipline on display with the group vocals, the couple of moments when the voices break through for a sudden “hey!” are all the more potent.

The Sharp Things are a Brooklyn-based outfit that has often shape-shifted since its founding in the late ’90s, all the while fronted by singer/songwriter Perry Serpa. Currently they do business as a nine-piece band. “Can’t Get Started” is from the album The Truth is Like the Sun, due out later this month. It is the Brooklyn collective’s fifth album. Thanks to The Sharp Things for the MP3.