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Free and legal MP3: Lux

Fuzzy-buzzy guitars, w/ pop know-how

“Coroner’s Office” – Lux

A fuzzy-buzzy mix of guitars and electronics, “Coroner’s Office” succeeds where a lot of this kind of lo-fi fuzz-buzz (to my ears) fails, and this is because David Chandler and Leah Rosen may love the DIY thing but they also love the pop song thing. This is a real, complete song; even if partially electronic and programmed, it feels actually crafted by actual human hands. Developing over a sturdy, repeating four-chord progression, the same one for both the verse and the chorus, “Coroner’s Office” is generously sprinkled with delightful songwriting moments. Such as: the back-door, idiosyncratic hook we get here at the end of the verse with the repeating lyric “This is really real” (first heard at 0:39). And check out how the melody, which feels simple note to note, has the winsome tendency to leap up and down.

Note too how well Chandler’s blasé, wavering voice serves this kind of melody, and how well his phrasing serves the lyrics. Such as (0:57): “But you don’t know what she’s capable of/In the back of an old Chevrolet,” and listen to how he phrases that exactly as he might speak it, running the “know what she’s” part together whereas most singers would be tempted to accent the “know,” which makes sense singing but not talking. I appreciate too how his voice may be somewhat muffled but is still entirely present, the lyrics intelligible rather than turbid.

And then there are the tangential sounds, like the bright bell-like synth we get at 1:14 in the chorus, and then that wind-like synth that sweeps in at 1:50, and, further, that even more bell-like sound that chimes in at 1:58. This is what adds texture and heft.

The Seattle-based duo came together via Craigslist, each looking for a bandmate. Their mutual love of pioneering alternative rock bands (Velvet Underground, Sonic Youth, New Order, Pavement, Jesus & Mary Chain, et al) spawned Lux in early 2010. A first EP emerged five months later. Their self-released debut album, We Are Not The Same, is coming in early April.

photo credit: The Ripper

Free and legal MP3: The Pharmacy (garage rock, w/ aspirations)

“Dig Your Grave” packs an unusual amount of variety into a two-minute song that might at least partially pass for garage rock.

“Dig Your Grave” – The Pharmacy

This is almost not a song. A scant two minutes to start with, “Dig Your Grave” uses the first 40 seconds on its three-part introduction. Then we hear an engaging, They Might Be Giants-esque verse and a very concise chorus (the words “Dig your grave” repeated three times) before returning to 20 or so more seconds of instrumental; we finish up with the chorus repeated a couple of times. So this thing is two minutes long and fully half of it doesn’t involve singing, and a good part of the singing that exists consists of just three words.

If it all manages to work—and I think it does, particularly in the context of this week’s three songs, as a follow-up to “Black Silk“—it does so on its ability to pack an unusual amount of variety into a narrow time frame. Most short songs, perhaps too aware of their shortness, don’t invest in introductions and instrumental breaks because there seems no time to fiddle with such frivolities. The Pharmacy does the opposite, honing the song down to one verse—although it may be two, sung back to back—so that the rest of the song still has space to breathe and develop. The “frivolities,” it turns out, offer a lot substance. Another way the song seems to expand beyond its clock time is through its rather distinctive mashing together of a very garage-rock-y vibe, complete with lo-fi-seeming vocal distortion, and a more aspirational sort of musicality. The keyboard motif that opens “Dig Your Grave” does not in any way shout “garage rock” at us, and neither does the song’s multifarious construction. And yet the chorus certainly does.

From Seattle, the trio The Pharmacy has been doing its lo-fi, neo-garage-rock thing for 10 years now. They have three albums to show for it and, in keeping with its lo-fi street cred, a bunch of 7-inch singles, a split cassette, and a demo CD-R. “Dig Your Grave” is the lead track from its latest 7-inch, which, at four songs, is more of an EP than a single. It comes to us from Kind Turkey Records, and they’re the ones offering up the MP3 as well.

Free and legal MP3: Shelby Earl

Sad, strong, slowly swinging

Shelby Earl

“Under Evergreen” – Shelby Earl

Some songs, to paraphrase William Shakespeare (badly), are born great; others have greatness thrust upon them. “Under Evergreen” as a song is simple and torchy, a song to fade into the background or rise to the foreground based less on its intrinsic qualities than on the strength and spirit the singer brings to it.

Earl enters the piece on her own, singing the words “I look around” before the instruments begin playing. This itself is a wonderful, subtle statement, alerting us before we can fully register it that we are dealing with a singer of arresting power and poise. And let’s hear it for how poise tempers power; while “X Factor” histrionics on the one hand and runaway robotics on the other have overrun pop singing at the mass-market level, Earl single-handedly confirms the heart-breaking effect of vocal strength and tone when used with discipline and without fetishistic techno-fads. She is a new singer/songwriter who sounds like an old one. I mean that in the best of ways. (Even her god-given name sounds like an old singer/songwriter.) Under her guidance, “Under Evergreen” becomes three minutes and forty-three seconds of sad, strong, slowly swinging greatness.

The song is part of Earl’s debut album, Burn the Boats, set for release at the beginning of November on Local 638 Records, the Seattle-based label owned by Rachel Flotard. Earl by the way spent many years working at relatively high-level music-industry day jobs, trying to get the musician thing going at night. Late in 2009, she made the leap, working as a waitress to pay the rent but otherwise focusing on following her musical bliss. Lord knows how this will work out for her as a lifestyle decision but as an artistic decision it was a no-brainer. I’ve been listening to the whole album and she is without question the real thing.

Free and legal MP3: Gold Leaves (’60s pop meets indie pop, w/ Spectorian nod)

A fetching blend of melodramatic ’60s pop and muddy ’10s indie something-or-other, “The Ornament” matches a brisk bashy pace to an introspective melody and evocative if inscrutable lyrics.

Gold Leaves

“The Ornament” – Gold Leaves

A fetching blend of melodramatic ’60s pop and muddy ’10s indie something-or-other, “The Ornament” matches a brisk bashy pace to an introspective melody and evocative if inscrutable lyrics. There’s something Phil Spectory in the air—here an ambiguous echo of the classic Spector beat, there a reverb-enhanced ambiance that knowingly evokes the famous wall of sound. But Grant Olsen—Gold Leaves is his baby, pretty much a solo project—is not merely in retro mode. The song usurps Spectorian elements for its own idiosyncratic purposes. Listen for example to how “The Ornament” strips itself down to its drumbeat in and around the two-minute mark. Spector-produced songs are filled with dramatic drumbeats but nothing like this. The drums here, further, introduce an off-kilter section of the song that seems neither bridge nor verse and which culminates in a dramatic pause before rejoining our regularly scheduled programming.

And that’s another intriguing thing about this song. Even as it nods to a simpler sort of pop, it will not itself be pinned down to either a verse or a chorus that obviously sticks in the head. The verse seems to be divided into three sections, and the lovely turn of melody we hear in the opening lines (0:07-0:20) is never quite returned to—the next two times the song revisits that place, the main melody has been shifted up. I think what happens in a song like this is that you keep unconsciously waiting for that great early moment to return and when it never quite does you are instead led through a journey that seems at once familiar and unsettling. Olsen’s voice—a droopy tenor that’s one part Robin Pecknold, one part Ron Sexsmith—guides us through the song’s lyrical and melodic quirks most endearingly.

Olsen has previously been known to the indie world as half of the duo Arthur & Yu, which released its one album, to date, back in 2007. “The Ornament” is the title track to his debut as Gold Leaves, which will arrive on Hardly Art Records in August. MP3 via Hardly Art. Thanks to Largehearted Boy for the lead.

Free and legal MP3: Rusty Willoughby (sad & gentle, like a lullaby)

“C’mon C’mon” – Rusty Willoughby

A gentle 3/4-time lullaby, “C’mon C’mon” sways with wistful momentum, down but not out. “How many times must a broken heart still break?” Willoughby sings, in his old-fashioned, Nick Lowe-ian voice. Cue the mournful cello. Keep the background sweet and clean. Pair Willoughby with a singer so in sync—Rachel Flotard, of Visqueen—that her harmonies feel like they’re also coming out of his mouth. This is one sweet sad humble centered song. This is a value judgment against neither gentleman, but consider Rusty Willoughby the anti-Kanye West.

The New York-born Willoughby has operated from Seattle since the ’80s, having fronted a series of well-regarded, left-of-center bands over the years, including Pure Joy, Flop, and Llama. “C’mon C’mon” is from the new album Cobirds Unite, released last week on the Seattle label Local 638.

Free and legal MP3: Telekinesis (buzzy power pop)

The Seattle-based one-man-band Telekinesis is back with more of that chunky, buzzy, power poppy goodness.

“Car Crash” – Telekinesis

The Seattle-based one-man-band Telekinesis is back with more of that chunky, buzzy, power poppy goodness. “Car Crash” starts with a thin, AM-radio sound and a rich, NRBQ-ish melody. Roughly 30 seconds in, the full sound hits—and a bottom-heavy sound at that, all fuzzy bass and driving percussion—but hang on a second, what’s he actually singing about?: “Will I die alone?/You know, I’m so concerned/You know, I’m so confused/Like a lost child, a little lost child.” This is surely not what the music is telling us, so yeah, this is one of those “sad words/happy music” juxtapositions that can be so strangely appealing. Let’s not forget that this zippy, sing-along-y confection is called “Car Crash,” after all. And while it may be reasonable to imagine the end of love as a car crash, I think I’m hearing here the equation of a car crash to the random, uncontrollable, confusing beginning part, too: falling in love as car crash.

Telekinesis is the work of 24-year-old Seattle-based singer/songwriter/drummer Michael Benjamin Lerner. Like last year’s self-titled debut album, the new Telekinesis album was produced by Chris Walla (Death Cab For Cutie) and performed largely by Lerner. He is however taking two band mates on the road and has intimated that Telekinesis may be in the process of turning into an actual band (a “power trio,” in his words). The forthcoming album is called 12 Desperate Straight Lines and will be released on Merge Records in February. ~~MP3 via Spin.com.~~

Free and legal MP3: Jupe Jupe

Irresistible neo-New Romantic camp

“Add As Friend” – Jupe Jupe

Treading that oh-so-fine line between camp and earnestness, “Add As Friend” is a melodramatic, irresistible slice of neo-New Romantic synth pop, complete with a crooning baritone, goofy synthesizer sounds, and an anthemic dance-floor melody. We know we’re in good hands when the intro builds rapidly from a bell-like synthesizer line through a pulsating (and smile-inducing) middle section into full-fledged melodic glory by 0:28—a simple, beautifully crafted instrumental theme that serves as the ongoing heart of the song. I find a song with a wordless hook difficult to get out of my head.

But make no mistake about the camp here. One giveaway is the overtly humorous synthesizer lines which pop up throughout the song—most noticeably at 0:22, 1:26. 2:44, and 3:12, if you’re keeping score at home. At its heart, camp is a joke—even if, often, a serious joke—so humor is always near the surface. Another is the song’s Erasure-esque vibe, and Erasure was nothing if not the camp champion of the New Romantic movement. But as Erasure themselves proved, a camp act can still create really good music. Jupe Jupe has hereby joined the club.

A foursome from Seattle, Jupe Jupe self-released their debut album, Invaders, this week. That’s where you’ll find “Add As Friend.”

Free and legal MP3: Hey Marseilles (rollicking 21st-century ensemble pop)

“Rio” – Hey Marseilles

Funny, if you think about it: the 21st-century to date has arguably contributed two abiding types of music to the rock’n’roll idiom, and they’re kind of the exact opposites of each other. One is the music played by a two-person band, with keyboards and synthetic sounds at the forefront; the other is the music played by a large-ish group of people (typically five or more) wielding an idiosyncratic assortment of often (but not exclusively) acoustic instruments. Not that each type of ensemble plays one precise kind of music, so I’m not really talking about two new music styles or genres as much as two new musical energies or platforms, both thriving over the last ten years or so.

Hey Marseilles, as you can almost guess from the name, is the second type–a seven-piece band from Seattle that plays things like accordion, cello, viola, mandolin, banjo, trumpet, and (wait for it) drumbourine. Now on the one hand, just putting a bunch of musicians with a bunch of instruments together is no guarantee for sonic success, and yet one could argue on the other hand that seven people who can play non-amplified instruments well enough together to make a coherent sound have an immediate leg up over a standard, four-person electric outfit. But then on the other other hand it also happens that larger ensembles can get so caught up in merely making the sound they make that the songs themselves–melodies, chords, structures–come up lacking. Not so with these guys, however. “Rio” is a joy from the opening hand claps, a sweetly rollicking neo sea shanty with terrific interplay between music and lyrics and delightfully rich instrumental layers. You never quite know which sounds are going to match up with which other sounds as the piece bounds along. It’s great fun, both light and deep.

“Rio” is a song from the band’s debut album, To Trunks and Travel, originally self-released in 2008, but which is getting a national re-release in June via Onto Entertainment. Thanks to the irrepressible Largehearted Boy for the head’s up. And if you want a sense of what this musical energy is like in person, check out this live performance of “Rio” from the band’s visit to KEXP: