*FINGERTIPS*
*May 4 <http://www.fingertipsmusic.com>*
*Quick question: where do you stand on the idea that we have reached the
end of the download era? All around me I see people who don't really find
downloads that useful at this point. I beg to differ, but I don't want to
be blind to reality. Comments are not only welcome but are approaching
necessary, should you be so inclined to reply.*
[image: Acapulco Lips]
<http://fingertipsmusic.com/wp-content/uploads/acapulcolips.jpg>
“AWKWARD WALTZ” – ACAPULCO LIPS
<https://s3.amazonaws.com/fingertips-free-legal-mp3s/2016/Acapulco_Lips-Awkward_Waltz.mp3>
With its lead vocals buried almost cartoonishly in reverb, “Awkward Waltz”
displays a joyful zing greater than the sum of its garage-rock-y parts.
This may have a lot to do with the old-school organ that floats through the
mix, and it may have to do with the inherent appeal of a minor-key melody
presented in a foot-tapping context. Or, maybe it has to do most of all
with the irrepressible “oh-oh-oh” vocal descent we hear throughout the song
from Austin-born singer Maria-Elena Juarez, each time delivering a frisson
of catharsis, surf-punk style.
In any case, this is half-goofy half-serious fun, a song with a seeming
simplicity belied by its unabashed devotion to an aural landscape that
sounds more and more timeless as each new half-generation rediscovers it.
Listen to drummer Davy Berruyer (who is from France, for goodness’ sake)
and remind me again why electronic percussion exists. I know there’s a good
reason but it’s slipped my mind in the presence of such precise and
evocative pummeling. Listen to Christopher Garland and recall for a brief
shining moment why we all used to love electric guitars so much—fingers on
steel, sounds squealing and bending in direct relationship to sheer
physical force. Juarez, meanwhile, mirroring the lead guitar with her bass,
both grounds the song and frees it to splay towards its roiling conclusion.
(Note that the crucial, aforementioned keyboards are supplied here by Yann
Cracker, drummer Davy’s French pal.)
Acapulco Lips (coined to play coyly off the word “apocalypse”) is a trio
based in Seattle. “Awkward Waltz” is the lead track off its self-titled
debut album, which was released in mid-April on the brand new (?!) record
label Killroom Records <http://www.killroomrecords.com/>. You can listen to
the album and purchase it via Bandcamp
<http://acapulcolips.bandcamp.com/album/acapulco-lips-2>.
[image: Chris Bell]
<http://fingertipsmusic.com/wp-content/uploads/cbell01.jpg>
“DARLIN’, I AM FINE” – CHRISTOPHER BELL
<https://s3.amazonaws.com/fingertips-free-legal-mp3s/2016/Christopher_Bell-Darlin_I_Am_Fine.mp3>
A little bit Tom Waits, a little bit Elvis Perkins, “Darlin’, I Am Fine” is
a quirky slow-burner—chamber pop at once dexterous and skewed. An unusual
assortment of instruments (brass, winds, strings) trade off in the
background with odd little licks and frills, adding to the song’s forceful
if carnivalesque vibe, however slowly it insists on moving. Anchoring the
ensemble is Bell’s cello, alternating long, melancholic bowings with
tetchier scratchings, all in service of lyrics that manage quickly to
assert via subtext the exact opposite of the title’s pronouncement.
Two-thirds of the way through, at 2:36, the idiosyncratic arrangement
coalesces into an oddball instrumental interlude. Tom Waits famously gave
his musicians an instruction during the recording of *Rain Dogs* to “play
it like a midget’s bar mitzvah” (that’s a direct quote; I don’t mean
anything insulting by the term and I don’t think Waits did either). Our
instrumental passage here may not conjure the aforementioned bar mitzvah
but we might be at the after-party.
Christopher Bell is a cellist, multi-instrumentalist, and engineer based in
Jamestown, New York. “Darlin’, I Am Fine” is a track from the album *Rust*,
which the prolific Bell released in September 2015. If I’m counting right
*Rust* is Bell’s sixth full-length album, dating back to 2012; before that
there were five EPs, the first coming out in 2009. In March 2015, Bell also
released two albums collecting all of his work up to 2013; you can see
everything on his Bandcamp page <http://christopherbell.bandcamp.com/music>,
and listen to and/or purchase all of it.
[image: Jayhawks]
<http://fingertipsmusic.com/wp-content/uploads/jayhawks.jpg>
“QUIET CORNERS & EMPTY SPACES” – THE JAYHAWKS
<http://media.kexp.org/podcasts/songoftheday/media/2016-03-31_2651_the_jayhawks_-_quiet_corners_and_empty_spaces.mp3>
Have you heard this before? Of course you’ve heard this before—even if not
this exact song. This is not a new sound. But my god, how sweet and solid
this is, and how indicative that we lose something consequential when we
demand only that everything be so friggin’ *new* all the time. I mean, come
on: it makes no more sense to demand that everything only be new than to
demand that everything only be old. Surely we desire and deserve a blend,
much as we desire and deserve artists presenting visions and stories from
all points on the adult human life spectrum, not just from those under the
age of 25. The insidious pressure to require music to sound somehow
continually “new” can always be sensed when writers approach a veteran band
like The Jayhawks: if a new album is favorably viewed, there are always
statements lauding the idea that the band “didn’t just revisit the past”;
if unfavorably viewed, it’s either because they’re “stuck in the past” or
tried too hard to reinvent themselves. You can’t win for losing when the
New police are on patrol. So many witches to burn.
Anyway: that opening acoustic strum, the gracefully descending minor-key
melody—this thing hits the ground like archetypal Jayhawks, which is more
or less equivalent to archetypal Americana, complete with (say it with me)
jangly guitars. As with a lot of Americana when it’s really good, there’s a
lingering strain of ’70s country-rock in the air (think Poco, or Pure
Prairie League), contributing to the music’s uncanny ability to feel
mournful and jubilant at the same time. If Gary Louris’s silvery tenor
shows some fetching wear around the edges, it serves merely to accentuate
the beautifully crafted melodies he, yet again, sings for us.
The Jayhawks, from Minneapolis, have been playing in one incarnation or
another since 1985, with one mid-’00s hiatus. The band still features two
original members—Louris and bassist Marc Perlman—while the other two are
veterans in their own right: keyboard player Karen Grotberg first played
with the band from 1992 to 2000, then rejoined in 2009, while drummer Tim
O’Reagan has been on board since 1995. “Quiet Corners & Empty Spaces” is
the lead track on the new album, *Paging Mr. Proust*, which was produced by
Peter Buck, Tucker Martine, and Louris. It was released at the very end of
April and can be purchased directly from the band, if you are so inclined, via
their website <http://stores.portmerch.com/jayhawksofficial/>. MP3 via the
good folks at KEXP <http://www.kexp.org/>.
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