melodic – Page 5 – Fingertips

Free and legal MP3: Fé (graceful, melodic, brilliant)

Now this is the kind of graceful, melodic, idiosyncratic-yet-accessible music that hits me right in my sweet spot—the kind of song Fingertips pretty much exists for.

“She Came – Fé

Now this is the kind of graceful, melodic, idiosyncratic-yet-accessible music that hits me right in my sweet spot—the kind of song Fingertips pretty much exists for. I instantly love the sense of movement and the distant ringing guitars in the introduction. And then the lyrics!; in which we are treated to a new classic opening line:

West London women have no passion
Sadness to them is just another word

Surely there is something Smiths-like in “She Came”‘s fluid, minor-key lamentation, but this is no knock-off; it bursts with a rigorous core of its own device. The melody’s brilliant development, combined with the sly harmonic and rhythmic jiggles that give it continual life, actually bring Steely Dan to mind, and that’s kind of an odd thing because this doesn’t sound at all like Steely Dan. But maybe a few of you will hear what I’m hearing. And if the opening lyrical salvo isn’t enough, there’s the chorus’s closing lines to ponder, which not only nail some kind of beautiful, aphoristic ambiguity, but arrive with an offhanded musical resolution that sneaks in and knocks my socks off:

A weaker man may not have tried
A stronger man may have survived

Fé is the London-based duo of Ben Moorhouse and Leo Duncan, new enough to the scene that they still, apparently, ride the Underground and regale commuters with skiffle-like takes on early rock’n’roll songs. These guys may well be going places that you have to get out of the Tube to arrive at.

Free and legal MP3: Matt Pond (muscular yet sensitive uptempo rocker)

Muscular and sensitive in equal parts, “Hole In My Heart” smolders with a reflective kind of momentum.

“Hole In My Heart” – Matt Pond

Mining some of the same thumpy, quick-paced territory as the terrific “Love To Get Used” (featured here back in 2011), “Hole In My Heart” smolders with a reflective kind of momentum. It’s muscular and sensitive in equal parts, because rather than downplaying instrumentation in favor of straight-ahead energy (what most uptempo songs naturally do), this one is beautifully enhanced by distinct instrumental touches. First, there’s the cello that weaves its way through the rhythm section starting around 0:21. Then check out that somewhat old-fashioned synthesizer accent first heard pressing in on the action at 0:36—a distinctive tone that seems somehow air-driven, as an accordion. You’ll soon hear a banjo in the mix as well (around 0:52), which adds to the hand-sewn, almost hardscrabble ambiance.

Another old-fashioned touch is the balladic device of having the title emerge repeatedly at the end of lyrical lines. But rather than letting this hem him in melodically (often this tactic is employed in lieu of a chorus), Pond uses it as a springboard into what opens into a complex and beautiful chorus. I especially love the very Pond-ian turn of melody on the line “We waste a million woes” (first heard at 0:41). So gorgeous and so fleeting; when the chorus cycles next back to this moment, it’s not even there. We are instead (starting at 0:53) led gracefully and thoughtfully back to the titular phrase.

“Hole In My Heart,” originally on the Matt Pond album, The Lives Inside the Lines in Your Hand, has recently surfaced as a free and legal MP3 via the release of a three-song EP, which features the album version of the song that you hear here, plus an acoustic version, plus a cover of the Stevie Nicks song “Wild Heart.” You can hear it all and download all the songs for free via SoundCloud. The album itself was released back in February, and was the first album recorded by Matt Pond using his name alone, rather than the band name Matt Pond PA, under which moniker he released many albums and EPs between 1998 and 2011. Note that originally, the aforementioned song “Love to Get Used” was released on the Matt Pond PA EP Spring Fools, in 2011. (It was also, later, the number-one favorite free and legal MP3 of that year here.) It too found its way onto the excellent 2013 solo release.

Matt Pond PA was previously on Fingertips not just in 2011 but in 2010, 2008, 2004, and 2003 as well.

Free and legal MP3: Laurelin Kruse (rich and slow and ghostly)

For a sparsely instrumented song, the vibe is rich and dark.

“Jupiter” – Laurelin Kruse

Languorous and fetching, “Jupiter” is all slow-motion swing and achy melody. For a sparsely instrumented song, the vibe is rich and dark. Kruse has a velvety, k.d. lang-ish voice and she plants it into something of a ghostly setting, with verses sung over a distinctive rhythm section—a nimble, deep-register thumping that’s either a very percussive bass or a very tuneful drum or, maybe, resourceful programming. There’s something of a cartoon graveyard in the sound, a feeling augmented by the minimalist guitar work and an evocative electronic crash or two. The verse takes its time. Do not be in a hurry.

A delicious wash of a drum roll (0:56) deposits us into the chorus, which offers a grand payoff, with that pining, melody and a busier but vague aural landscape that now seems to be incorporating some strings and a new guitar sound or two. This is wide-ranging, lonesome music, and I have no particular idea what she’s singing about (even with her apparent hint; see below), but those repeating words hit me, mysteriously, in the gut: “And seventy years/Is still too soon.” And then, those equally mysterious and yet more disconcerting parting words: “Keep your hat on.” Hit repeat. Keep listening. It’s hard to stop once you start.

I learned about “Jupiter” through a short email sent by Kruse herself. Yes, that’s sometimes how I find out about things. Needless to say I get kind of a ton of email and most of them either try too hard, or too little. This one hit a rare sweet spot. “I’m a girl from Colorado stuck in Brooklyn and this song is about how I’m always trying to get the hell home,” she wrote. Also: “It’s like a meteorite crashing into a Spaghetti Western.” Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t but I liked her email and I like this song. It’s from an EP entitled Winter in Mind that Kruse self-released earlier this month. You can listen to it, and purchase it, from Bandcamp. You can download “Jupiter” via the link above, or at Kruse’s SoundCloud page, where you can also leave a comment for her if that’s your idea of a good time.

Free and legal MP3: Ace Reporter (mesmerizing & melodic)

A paean to sheer melody, “Untouched and Arrived” is lean, shiny, and compelling.

“Untouched and Arrived” – Ace Reporter

A paean to sheer melody, “Untouched and Arrived” is lean, shiny, and mesmerizing. There is no fat here, no distracting complications. A straightforward rhythm guitar strum introduces the song, then disappears. There is one verse melody, repeated twice in each verse, and one chorus melody, repeated four times. A semi-bridge is constructed from the repetition of the title phrase, previously employed in the chorus. And that’s really all we’ve got here, and if it’s somehow enough, that tells you how strong these melodies are. The song engulfs me; it is pure pop at its most intoxicating.

“Untouched and Arrived”‘s silvery conciseness may be due to its unusual birth story: Ace Reporter mastermind Chris Snyder spent 2010 writing, recording, and posting one new song every day. He called it the threesixfive project, and however he managed to do it, he emerged at year’s end with an impressive cache of songs to mine for future recordings. “Untouched and Arrived” appeared on day 75. While the production has been altered from the original version, the song is pretty much intact. I can imagine if one is in the middle of writing a new song every single day, for an entire year, there would be limited inclination and/or energy for undue fuss and complication. Snyder had a killer tune at the end of the day, and he resisted the urge to mess with it.

You can hear a few dozen of the threesixfive songs on the project’s web site. They are surprisingly engaging, and I say that as someone suspicious of any kind of song-a-day gimmick. In 2011, Snyder made four EPs from the threesixfive material. The debut Ace Reporter full-length album, Yearling, likewise drawing from the 2010 mother lode, was recorded last year and will be released in February on the Brooklyn-based label Ooh La La Records. Thanks to Magnet Magazine for the MP3.

Free and legal MP3: Nels Andrews (wistful, nicely textured, w/ backbone)

A wistful 3/4-time shuffle with mysterious narrative force.

“Barroom Bards” – Nels Andrews

A wistful 3/4-time shuffle with mysterious narrative force, effortless melody, and a cumulative intensity. Bearing an attractive vocal and stylistic resemblance to Michael Penn, Andrews sings with the kind of offhand command not as common as it ideally should be—durable, concrete words flow from his mouth on top of crisply arranged textures via a strong descending melody; he’s afraid of neither putting his voice front and center nor of giving us many other agreeable sounds to listen to. I especially like the interplay between the mandolin and the electric guitar, which are not ordinarily instruments that seem to nod too specifically in the direction of one another. Here they both add thoughtfully to the underlying acoustic guitar strum; this feels less like mere accompaniment than orchestrated composition.

And this is another one of those songs that does not reveal itself to me in terms of narrative, no matter how many times I listen. I either can’t figure out who Poor Sweet William is and what he’s done or maybe I just don’t want to; there’s a part of me that craves the spellbinding versus the manifest. Andrews’ clear baritone and his often arresting word choice (I love: “I grew long then cut off my hair”) are all that I need.

“Barroom Bards” is a song from the album Scrimshaw, Andrews’ third, due out this month in the US. The Santa Cruz-based Andrews has for some reason had much more success in Europe than the US to date; the album has been out there since this past spring, and garnered fine notices. Scrimshaw was produced by Todd Sickafoose, who has worked previously with Andrew Bird, Ani DiFranco, and Anaïs Mitchell, among others. Thanks to Largehearted Boy for the head’s up.

Free and legal MP3: Allo Darlin’

Brisk, jangly, and wistful

“Northern Lights” – Allo Darlin’

Brisk and jangly, “Northern Lights” appears indeed to move too quickly for its own lyrics, as sweet-voiced Elizabeth Morris has repeatedly to squeeze extra syllables into tight aural spaces. The effect is somehow fetching. Listen, for example, to how she sings “suddenly came apart” (0:43), or how she handles the opening part of the lyric “And it makes me feel so alive” (1:09). The melodies, meanwhile, with their mid-stride minor-key modulations, have an undertow of wistfulness about them.

The song’s musical and lyrical fulcrum, to my ears, is the chorus lyric “This is the year we’ll make it right,” first heard at 1:12. The chorus presents us with a speedy gallop through a repeatedly descending, vaguely Christmasy melody line, its first two lines covering the same basic interval in such a way that the second line is subtly accentuated. The second time we get to the first two lines, in the second half of the chorus (is anyone still with me??), this moment feels extra-accentuated. And this is where we are when we get to “This is the year we’ll make it right.” And wouldn’t you know that everything else, moving forward, about the song—the “wait for me!” pace, the sweet-voiced singer expressing hopes and dreams, the lower-register guitar melody (consciously or not echoing the Blondie classic “Dreaming” starting at 1:23)—pretty much says hmm this also may not be the year you’re going to make it right. But, you can keep dreaming. (As luck would have it, Blondie will yet have the last word this week; see below.)

Allo Darlin’ is a London-based four-person band split between Brits and Aussies. “Northern Lights” is the third single from the band’s second album, Europe, which was released back in May on Slumberland Records, but the first I’ve found as a free and legal MP3. Thanks to Largehearted Boy for the lead. You can download the song via the title above, or at the record company’s SoundCloud page. The band was featured previously here in October 2010. The three gentlemen in the band are still wearing the same shirts.

Free and legal MP3: Blondie (spacey, w/ heavy guitar & potent melody)

A spacey, meditative thing with a heavy-guitar core, the song features Harry in dreamy mode, voice further altered by distortion–an effective sound for late-era Blondie.

“Bride of Infinity” – Blondie

The legendary NYC rock band Blondie has been around long enough to have had by now not one but two different reunion incarnations. The first came in 1997, with the unexpected release (and success) of No Exit. The reformed band, featuring four of the original six members, took six years to record a follow-up, the smartly-titled but less successful The Curse of Blondie. Shortly thereafter, they lost original keyboardist Jimmy Destri to rehab. Another hiatus ensued, until the remaining threesome—Debbie Harry, Chris Stein, Clem Burke—were roused into action by the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the release of the group’s breakthrough album, Parallel Lines, in 2008. Word at the time was that the band, reformed with two new members, was working on a new album, which eventually became 2011’s Panic of Girls, another mixed bag at best.

So what’s a long-time fan to do? Blondie in their heyday were sensational, but their heyday was 30 years ago. It’s weird enough when our rock heroes grow old but it’s one thing when they’ve been making an effort to stay in the musical stream of things, so we can kind of (sort of) get used to their aging (Paul McCartney and Bob Dylan and Paul Simon are the models here). It’s another thing when they disappear for 20 years or so and then come back and say “Here we are!” when it’s not at all clear who “we” are, and where exactly “here” is. I found one song on The Curse of Blondie I’ve wanted to listen to more than once or twice (“Rules For Living”). Panic of Girls struck me as okay but unremarkable, but maybe I’ve haven’t given it enough of a chance. Thing is, I’m not sure I’m as happy, yet, listening to Debbie Harry’s 65-plus voice as I was her 30-something voice; the change is subtle but noticeable. But I’m going to stay with her still because, well, she’s Debbie Harry for crissake.

And so, finally, we arrive at “Bride of Infinity,” one of three songs the band abruptly released as free and legal MP3s this month. A spacey, meditative thing with a heavy-guitar core, the song features Harry in dreamy mode, voice further altered by distortion. This is an effective sound for late-era Blondie, especially when coupled with the kind of strong melody that made their best songs so deeply pleasurable. This one is an unusual six measures long, with an instant repetition; thoughtfully-paced, the melody glides fully up and down the scale, using all eight notes (where one and eight are the same note, an octave apart), which is both graceful and uncommon. There is no chorus, just two instrumental breaks in between the three run-throughs of the verse, and get a load of that second instrumental break (2:20), an understated world-music hoedown featuring what sounds like a sitar and some alternative percussion. Blondie was always at its best when flaunting a humor so deadpan you can’t always be sure it’s even there.

You can stream and/or download all three new tracks via the band; one of them is a cover of the David Essex nugget “Rock On.” Note that I’m offering the MP3 above as usual but I will encourage you to use the widget below for downloading because I’m not actually sure I should be hosting this but I felt compelled to. Having Blondie on Fingertips is an honor.

Free and legal MP3: The Sea and Cake (meandering but melodic)

A meandering song with backwards structure and a sweet incisive melody.

“Harps” – The Sea and Cake

Very pleasant wiggles and noodles, to a beat, for a full (but pleasant!) minute, lead us with a nice electronic swoosh into a more succinct synth line (1:11) that feels briefly like a more “normal” intro; a couple of evocative sighs later, the first verse at long last appears (1:26). And quite a sweet and incisive melody line we get, with its double-time descent and half-time re-ascent, playing off layers of chiming keyboards. Suddenly it feels like this meandering song is in fact a song that means a lot of business. But exactly what kind of business remains unclear. Without repeating the verse, a vigorous instrumental section leads us into an extended middle section that seems sort of like a bridge except we haven’t come across the chorus yet.

And no chorus in fact materializes. Back we go to the introductory sighs and then an exact repeat of the first verse (2:45), reinforcing just how tidy and attractive a melody this is. And now we finally begin to feel grounded as the melody recycles, with new words, two more times. We end with fading noodles over the now-assertive drum beat, left to contemplate what it was we just heard. What kind of song was that? The structure is partially backwards, and partially inside out. It begins at its vaguest and yet also holds the ear. The most memorable melody is repeated not at the beginning but the end. No chorus in fact materializes. This is all highly enjoyable, if in a vague and noodly way.

The Sea and Cake are a Chicago quartet that has been recording since 1994, with a hiatus taken from 2004 to 2007. “Harps” is from a new album called Runner, which was written in a new way for the band. This time around, front man Sam Prekop put the guitar down and began songs with a synthesizer/sequencer. The songs went from Prekop to his three band mates remotely, and each was encouraged to do what he saw fit with it. The final songs were often quite different than Prekop’s early sketchings, and even within each song, the musical arc often moved in unanticipated ways. This no doubt has something to do with the unique path “Harps” takes.

Runner was released this week on Thrill Jockey Records. MP3, once again, via Magnet Magazine.

Free and legal MP3:The Hermit Crabs

Strummy, melancholy Glaswegian pop

“Stop This Now” – The Hermit Crabs

This is a lovely, crisp bit of strummy, melancholy indie pop, and if it reminds you of Camera Obscura and/or Belle & Sebastian, well, all hail from Glasgow, where apparently this type of strummy, melancholy indie pop is a prevailing musical dialect. But I encourage listening above and beyond the similarities, and tossing aside genre generalizations because, as I have said time and again, it’s far less important for a song to sound different than for it to be good. “Stop This Now” is deliciously good—so good in fact that it is different, if maybe in more subtle ways than can be summarized via pre-established labels.

Everything happens quickly here. The pace is light-footed, the verse concise—one melodic line, repeated twice, each time ending on an unresolved note. We’re at the chorus by 0:25, and yet see how we’re still not at any resolution. The pace stays fleet but the melody itself slows down, with front woman Melanie Whittle now singing fewer words per bar. It’s this opening part of the chorus that just nails the song for me—that lilting, deceptively simple triplet of lines (“And I know/And you know/We both know”) displaying both rueful wit and anguished charm, unfolding across those lovely chords that keep not resolving until we get to the twelfth bar (0:42). And even then we don’t feel full closure until the guitars strum their way through to the sixteenth measure, as we tend to need eight eight or sixteen measures for our ears to feel settled. The second trip through the verse is fortified by some dandy guitar work, the chorus’s follow-up enhanced with a winsome countermelody. Pay attention, however, or the thing will pass you by—it’s all over by 2:18 (the song actually ends before the MP3 does).

Founded by Whittle, the Hermit Crabs have recorded one full-length album to date, 2007’s Saw You Dancing. “Stop This Now” is from the band’s third EP, entitled Time Relentless, which is out this month on Matinee Recordings. MP3 via Matinee.

Free and legal MP3: Suit of Lights (melodic, idiosyncratic, apocalyptic)

Combining a Fountains-of-Wayne-ish gift for melody with an idiosyncratic sense of presentation.

“The Human Beings” – Suit of Lights

As homely as it is endearing, “The Human Beings” combines a Fountains-of-Wayne-ish gift for melody with an idiosyncratic sense of presentation. Over an assemblage of woodwinds huffy-puffy-ing in the background, front man Joe Darone offers up what appears to be a pathos-free elegy to the planetary tragedy that is human civilization. But, hey, at least you can sing along—well, part of the way. The verse and the chorus are as pithy and tuneful as can be; the entire lyrical section—verse/chorus/verse/chorus/bridge/verse/chorus—wraps up in 1:40. The song plays out from there as an instrumental at once plucky and ominous, woodwinds interspersed with a muted sort of churning menace. As with the lyrics—“So they blacken the earth and blacken the ground/Now you’re not gonna find one of them around”—the music doesn’t end assuringly. My advice is to enjoy the unbridled melodicism, and find a bit of hope in a human creative urge so relentless as to feel compelled to dress up the apocalypse in such an appealing package.

Billing itself as “an indie rock manifestation,” Suit of Lights is a loose collective fronted by Joe Darone, operating out of New York City. Darone began his musical career as a teenager in the New Jersey punk band The Fiendz in the late ’80s. His Suit of Lights project began life in 2003. “The Human Beings” is a song from Shine On Forever, the third Suit of Lights album, released last month on Visiting Hours Records. You can check the whole thing out on Bandcamp, and buy it there as well. Thanks to Largehearted Boy for the lead.