UK – Page 7 – Fingertips

Free and legal MP3: British Sea Power (crooning while the world burns)

“Living Is So Easy” – British Sea Power

For a melodramatic, high-concept, quasi-camp, neo-post-punk band, British Sea Power has managed to develop its tamer, subtler side over the years without however abandoning its crunchier, more angular output. It’s as if Roxy Music recorded “More Than This” on the same album as “Virginia Plain.”

“Living Is So Easy” is a splendid example of the band’s softer aspect—a confident glider, its muted electro effects and partially mechanized percussion quickly fading into ornamentation thanks to the seductive velvet of the melody, as delivered by Bowiesque lead singer Yan Scott Wilkinson (no longer just Yan, as previously). Muted volume does not require muted sentiment, however; Wilkinson may croon voluptuously about the party everyone is going to, but he is taking down the partiers along the way, skewering the hollow victory of shallow consumerism via the repeated image of everyone going to this unnamed party—which is really just life in our celebrity-addled world—and how “easy” everything is. By the end I think we understand that maybe “easy” isn’t all it’s cracked up to be; maybe “easy” isn’t the sole value to which we should be aspiring.

Once a quartet, BSP today features six members, including, now, a woman (Abi Fry, who plays viola and sings harmonies). The band has eased up on some of its posturey quirkiness (they’re not in WWI military uniforms in their press photos anymore, and they’ve ditched their one-name names), but the musical power and poise remain, 10 years on. “Living Is So Easy” is a song from the band’s forthcoming album, Valhalla Dancehall, arriving next month on Rough Trade Records. MP3 via Rough Trade. The album is BSP’s fifth full-length release; the band has been featured previously on Fingertips in 2003 and 2005.

Free and legal MP3: Allo Darlin’

Bright smart pop w/ movement and charm

“My Heart is a Drummer” – Allo Darlin’

So we should be clear by now, class, that there is no formula here, no checklist that leads, guaranteed, to a great song. But if I were forced to identify one characteristic that gives a song a leg up, that sends a song soaring skyward rather than plummeting earthward, it might be this: movement. (For those who thought I might say a ukulele, no, but I like how you’re thinking.) A song becomes too easily dreary or dull without a sense of movement; while a song that moves is a song you are more likely to want to hear again, a song that warms and nourishes and reminds you of that all-important, often-overlooked detail: you are alive.

Movement does not have to mean speed. But movement means we do not, as a listener, feel we are stuck, and we do not feel we are waiting very long for something to happen (this is pop music, after all, not a Brahms Symphony). Something, rather, is almost always happening—the melody goes from here to there to there, chords shift and shift and shift again, the band finds its groove without veering into a rut, the singer sounds ever so slightly breathless or edgy or even as if he or she is in some way making the words up on the fly.

Needless to say, “My Heart is a Drummer”—a song that is itself about a certain sort of movement—moves. (That there is no introduction gets us off on the right foot.) The melody leaps and prances and yet also resolves with fluid ease, while the fetching Elizabeth Morris delivers her lines in natural yet idiosyncratic rhythms. The band plays along with such locked-in elasticity you almost don’t notice they’re there; this is one of those songs that sounds less arranged than discovered. But if you get around to it, notice how the guitar plays with great judicious ease—I especially like the high, ringing countermelody it offers beginning with the second verse (around 0:44).

Allo Darlin’ is a half-Australian, half-British quartet based in London (leader Morris one of the Australians). “My Heart is a Drummer” is a song from the band’s self-titled debut album, released in June in the UK, and this week in the US, on the Fortuna Pop label.

Free and legal MP3: Goodtimes Goodtimes (amiable, warmly sung, w/ ’70s scent)

“Fortune Teller Song” – Goodtimes Goodtimes

This one also features a pleasantly fuzzy guitar sound, coupled in this case with a tune so chuggily easy-going and warmly sung that it never once sounds like something you haven’t heard before. And I mean this as a compliment, most definitely—another reason why those who seek to criticize some music for “not being new” are, to me, so off the mark. I don’t think music needs to have an agenda like that.

Goodtimes Goodtimes is the performing name for the Italian-born British singer/songwriter Franc Cinelli, who appears to have a particular affinity for the amiable but often discarded music of the ’70s. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but there’s a sturdy bygone feeling to “Fortune Teller Song” that has something to do with Gordon Lightfoot and Jim Croce and early Billy Joel and a bunch of others who strummed and crooned across our AM radio dials back in ancient times. And yet he does so with an organic rather than commercial touch; he isn’t trying to get on the radio, and it adds a grace to the proceedings that, to my ear, makes this song all the more appealing. The simple, character-based story also seems like a throwback, and Cinelli’s buzz-filled voice—nicely offset by the female backup singers in the chorus—makes me happy for no particular reason.

“Fortune Teller Song” is from the second Goodtimes Goodtimes album, this one self-titled, and scheduled for release next month on London’s Definition Arts label. The debut, Glue, came out in 2007. Cinelli has made the MP3 available on his site for an email address, but has been kind enough to let me post it here directly.

Free and legal MP3: Stornoway (buoyant w/ melody & innocence)

“Zorbing” – Stornoway

As invigorating as a bright blue puffy-clouded day, “Zorbing” bursts with melody and innocence, but gets there on its own terms. For the first 35 seconds, we hear only the light, idiosyncratic voice of Brian Briggs and a one-note bass line. Maybe you’ll notice it’s a wonderful melody he’s singing, or maybe you’ll be a bit distracted by the minimalist presentation. Just wait.

His band mates join in vocally at 0:36 and wow that can’t be what anyone was expecting—an almost barbershop quartet-like burst of harmony, baritone and bass voices with little precedent in rock’n’roll after the doo-wop era ended. The bass guitar player at the same time frees himself from his one-note prison and I am completely engaged now. A simple drumbeat and a faintly-played acoustic guitar come on board at 0:54, but with the emancipation of the bass the song now feels both fleshed out and buoyant; when the vocal harmonies return in this setting (1:19), they sound even more striking. Later on we get trumpets and a freewheeling keyboard—so freewheeling, in fact, it not only shifts the feel of the song’s chords but sometimes sounds like it’s floated in from a different song. This is perhaps an unintended consequence of the recording, which was done by the band in non-studio locations like dorm rooms and garages. But it furthers the song’s fancy-free vibe, as does the knowledge of what “zorbing” actually is: “the recreation of rolling downhill in an orb, generally made of transparent plastic” (thanks, Wikipedia!).

Stornoway is a quartet from Oxford, named after a small island town in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides. “Zorbing” was originally self-released as a single last summer. The band was signed to 4AD this spring, and the label released Beachcomber’s Windowsill in May in the UK. The band had planned to release their debut themselves, and the label liked it enough to put it out pretty much in its original, demo-like form. A US release is set for August. MP3 via ~~4AD~~ One Track Mind, with a thank you to Frank at Chromewaves for the tip.

Free and legal MP3: The Futureheads (neo-New Wave, and then some)

The Futureheads, a Sunderland (UK) quartet with three albums now under their belt, have a couple of extra things going than most 21st-century neo-New Wave bands. First, to their spiky retro sound they bring an intriguing outside element: walls of harmony. It’s an attractive addition to my ears, a kind of Devo-meets-Queen vibe that works unexpectedly well.

“Struck Dumb” – the Futureheads

The 21st century has not been lacking in New Wave revival bands, with their metallic guitars, punchy rhythms, and clipped British-sounding vocals (whether actually British or not). When bands fall flat in the effort it’s when they get the sound right but forget to give us a worthy song in the process. So-called angularity is a notably two-dimensional quality. The ear needs more to feel satisfied.

The Futureheads, a Sunderland (UK) quartet with three albums now under their belt, have a couple of extra things going here. First, to their spiky neo-New Wave sound they bring an intriguing outside element: walls of harmony. It’s an attractive addition to my ears, a kind of Devo-meets-Queen vibe that works unexpectedly well. Second, the song moves musically in a way a lot of similar-sounding songs–some by the Futureheads themselves, I might add–do not. Yes, that Jam-like introduction is fun and effective, but it succeeds, to my ears, precisely because the song isn’t content to stay put. Sometimes this can be a simple matter of finding the right chord at the right time. The first place I hear the song open up is at 0:31, on the line “Stop living in the clouds”–it’s subtle, but the chord they move through there has a wonderful theatricality to it, and it foreshadows what we’ll hear in the chorus moments later. Listen in particular to the line “Negativity is controlling your dreams,” beginning at 0:44, and how the chorus takes a left turn from there. We remain on the one hand within the tight sonic world of the neo-New Wave and yet also we’ve been launched out of it. Everything still wraps up in under three minutes, which is another triumphant gesture.

“Struck Dumb” is from the Futureheads’ upcoming album, as yet without a title or a release date, although some time in 2010 is a safe bet. MP3 via Spinner.

Free and legal MP3: Rollercoaster Project (robotic electro-goth with a heart of pop)

“Hoods Up” – Rollercoaster Project

Churning, robotic electro-goth, with a heart of pure pop. I’m oddly entranced by the buried, electronic vocals, which hint only intermittently, only ever so slightly, at their human origin; it’s kind of like “Kid A” funneled through a lush carnival of soaring synth pop, on a bed of electronic nails. The wistful, almost heartbreaking melody of the chorus is icing on the electro-cake. Note how the electronic artifice fades into nature noises for the last minute of the track. It’s not a half hour of crickets (see Neko Case) but it’s pretty eco-ambient, and kind of a spooky coda to all the previous machinations.

And all of this, clearly, we should know by 2009, is the result of one guy fiddling with computers in a shed. The one guy this time is a Brit named Johnny White, who otherwise teaches guitar to elementary school students. White has apparently thought a lot about how our recording devices impact our memories, pondering questions such as “Has technology made us nostalgic voyeurs of our own existence?,” according to the press material. “Hoods Up” is a song from the second Rollercoaster Project album, Revenge, scheduled for release later this month on Absolutely Kosher Records. MP3 via Absolutely Kosher.

Free and legal MP3: The Mummers (orchestral pop w/ retro touches)

“Wonderland” – the Mummers

A waltzing, carnivalesque intro segues into some smooth, orchestral retro-pop that owes a bit to Burt Bacharach, a bit to Kurt Weill, and a bit to our century’s relentless urge to mix and mash sounds into ear-catching concoctions. To me, “Wonderland” separates itself from a lot of the more disposable contrivances crowding the internet in our music-happy day and age via its rare combination of sweetness and sturdiness. The melodies are expansive and velvety, the arrangements unexpectedly thoughtful, even articulate. The bright-toned singer and multi-cultural multi-instrumentalist Raissa Khan-Panni, who flitted through a semi-successful solo career in the UK at the outset of the millennium, here manages at once to command center stage and to work as merely one of an idiosyncratic ensemble of musicians bowing and pumping out this breezy but slightly mysterious keeper. A whole different kind of summer song, this one is, from the Wheels On Fire track above, but a delightful summer song it nonetheless remains.

The Mummers are an ever-changing array of 20-some-odd musicians, based in Brighton. “Wonderland” is a song from the band’s debut full-length disc, Tale to Tell (Republic of Music/Universal), which was released in either April or June. (The internet is sometimes a contradictory place, information-wise.) MP3 via Fresh Deer Meat.

Free and legal MP3: Blue Roses (brisk acoustic/electronic blend)

“I Am Leaving” – Blue Roses

So-called folktronica often seeks to blend the acoustic and the electronic, but typically in a moody, glitchy ambiance; what Laura Groves introduces us to with “I Am Leaving”–Blue Roses is the name the multi-instrumentalist Groves uses for recording–is an acoustic/electronic blend that is at once bright and dreamy, the brisk folky guitar almost but not quite overwhelmed by a glistening synth that sounds like what a harpsichord might sound like if it could sustain. Soon we hear her harmonizing wordlessly, swoopingly, with herself; the (beguiling) effect is Kate Bush doing an imitation of the Roches, if you’ll excuse the old-school references. When she first begins to sing actual words (at 0:40), her unadorned singing voice seems almost too…I don’t know, too something: too raw, too high, too present and unfiltered. But give it a little time, and when the harmonies return, wow, check out some of those intervals–I can’t even begin to guess what notes she’s putting together at 0:59, on the second syllable of “silent.” My goodness.

I’ll tell you exactly where it all began to make sense to me: at 1:12, when the swooping, wordless harmonies come back once more, and the melody makes that gratifying descent through an octave (first as she sings “Oh give me a clue somehow”). She repeats it, then resolves it with one extra melody line, then we go back into the verse–and we never hear this section again. But its existence haunts the song, renders it deeper and more complex. Everything sounds different from here on in, and not only because of the shift in instrumentation.

“I Am Leaving” is from the debut, eponymous Blue Roses album, which was released in April in the U.K. and is scheduled for a July release on Beggars Banquet Records in the U.S. MP3 via the Beggars Group web site.

Free and legal MP3: The Veils

Engaging, well-conceived rock’n’roll

“The Letter” – the Veils

Finn Andrews and company return with an assured piece of rock’n’roll theater: engaging, well-performed, and rewardingly dramatic, featuring a full-fledged, recurring instrumental motif the likes of which has all but disappeared from the 21st-century rock scene. I’m talking about the ringing guitar line that opens the song; at least, I think that’s a guitar–the sound is slippery and intriguing, and even though you can sing the melody easily back to yourself, you can’t quite tell what’s making it. When the theme returns later, braided into that sleek, idiosyncratic chorus, I can’t help but smile with a wordless sort of delight at the vivid economy on display. “She wrote the letter down” is all Andrews sings, twice, and–via that delay between “letter” and “down,” and the delicious melodic sidestep he takes on the second “down”–yet manages to open up a world of struggle and drama. I can’t figure out what else he’s singing about but, as is often the case (see above) when a gifted singer gets hold of a good song, it doesn’t seem to matter.

As noted last time around, Andrews is the son of Barry Andrews, once a sideman in XTC, later frontman for Shriekback. The Veils have gone through a variety of incarnations since their 2002 inception; the current, multinational quartet features two from New Zealand (including Andrews), a German, and a Brit. “The Letter” is from the band’s new CD, Sun Gangs, released last week on Rough Trade Records. ~~MP3 via the Beggars Group web site.~~

Free and legal MP3: Fanfarlo (sparkly and quirky, a la Talking Heads 77)

“Harold T. Wilkins” – Fanfarlo

Sparkly and quirky-poppy in a way that harkens back to early Talking Heads, “Harold T. Wilkins” shows off this London-based sextet’s capacity to turn its interest in historical obscurities into offbeat but engaging pop. (The band named itself after the poet Baudelaire’s one novella, so they’re serious about this stuff.) Wilkins was a British journalist who wrote on a number of subjects, including the paranormal; one specialty of his was researching ancient flying-saucer sightings. You won’t catch any of that from the song, however, in part because David Byrne-ish singer Simon Aurell sings in that way that lets you hear individual words more than complete sentences. You might wonder why a band would use specific, obscure references only to present in such a way as to keep them obscure, but it’s no different, really, from any song in which you can’t fully understand the lyrics. And I for one would rather encounter unintelligible lyrics about an obscure British writer (he also, it seems, reported on early TV experiments) than about another relationship gone bad.

The song’s full name is actually “Harold T. Wilkins, Or How To Wait For A Very Long Time,” and I’m feeling a strong sense of expectation throughout the song, produced first and foremost by that recurring mandolin motif in the verse–a short, cycling figure that doesn’t resolve as much as set us up for endless repetition. The chorus loses the mandolin and picks up an authoritative beat and some appealing melodic twists, and yet in the end fosters a renewed sense of anticipation via its unusual structure: it features six lyrical lines, following a rough AABBCC rhyme scheme, while the music offers an ABCDCD pattern. Which is to say it would have sounded finished after four lines; the extra two leave us less resolved as we glide back into waiting mode.

You’ll find this one on Reservoir, the band’s first full-length CD, which was self-released last month. MP3 via SXSW, where the band is playing this week, along with 700,000 others.