[fingertipsmusic] This Week's Finds: Jan. 27-Feb. 2

From: "Jeremy Schlosberg" <fingertipsmusic@xxxxxxxxx>
To: fingertipsmusic@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2008 23:01:29 -0500

THIS WEEK'S FINDS <http://www.fingertipsmusic.com/this_weeks_finds.htm>
Jan. 27-Feb. 2

"Power" - Nick Jaina <http://hushrecordsmedia.com/Wool/Power.mp3>
A brisk but elegiac piano sequence, underscored by some spooky strings,
leads us directly into the intriguing melody of this new song from the
Portland, Ore.-based singer/songwriter Nick Jaina. I've been trying to put
my finger on just what makes the tune so compelling, and I'm thinking it has
something to do with Jaina's prominent use of semitones, or half steps,
which is not something you hear a lot of in indie rock, or classic rock, or
any other kind of rock or pop for that matter. The half step is the smallest
commonly recognized interval between notes in Western music, and the most
dissonant when played in combination. When related within a melody, however,
strange and wonderful moods emerge. Listen to how the notes he sings on the
words "of the moon" (0:34) and "sacred tune" (0:37) sound so divergent, so
firmly separated, and yet lo and behold they are only a half step apart. The
illusion is achieved by his returning, in between, to the same notes he was
singing leading into the "moon" part. So what we're hearing is not just the
half-step difference in the end notes but the significant difference in
sonic relationship between the top and bottom notes in the two segments (i.e.
the "moon" segment and the "tune" segment). More semitones are used, in
sequence, as the melody line resolves (0:38-0:42).
And I know, this kind of thing sounds neither exciting nor, often,
comprehensible in an attempted written explication. And worse, with pop
music in particular, I'm always caught in the awkward position of claiming
treasure in a seeming musical trifle. What I describe here, after all, is no
stunning revelation in music theory land. But the very thing that causes
many classical aficionados to stiff at the simplicity of pop music is, I
would contend, pop's very strength--what Proust, of all people, referred to
as "the magic appeal to the imagination" found in things that those
interested only in "intellectual weightiness" would condemn as "frivolous."
Then again, maybe I'm all wrong. Maybe the song is compelling because
Jaina was playing on Elliott Smith's old upright piano. Jaina was the last
person to play it before it was given to the Experience Music Project in
Seattle. Or maybe it's compelling simply because Jaina--itinerant,
whimsical, a former archaeology student--is himself compelling, in a quirky
sort of way. "Power" is from the CD *Wool*, Jaina's second, and his first
for the Hush <http://www.fingertipsmusic.com/smaller_labels.htm#Hush> label.
(He recorded the vocals for the album in his kitchen, "refrigerator
unplugged so as to be quiet, food slowly spoiling," according to his web
site.) Expect *Wool* in early March. MP3 courtesy of
Hush<http://www.hushrecords.com/>;
lead courtesy of the indefatigable Largehearted
Boy<http://www.fingertipsmusic.com/siteindex.htm#LHB>
.

"Warning" - Wye Oak <http://www.mergerecords.com/audio/wyeoak/warning.mp3>
This is an unusually breezy-sounding setting in which to encounter such
fuzzy/droney guitars. And yet therein lies a good part of the appeal. So
here we have vocalist Jenn Wasner, lightly, airily singing the sing-song-y
tune to a perky, march-like beat, and listen to what-all is going on around
her: extended drones of feedback-laced guitars, rising and falling according
to their own logic, existing in their own time and space. Seriously, after
the lead guitar offers a fuzzed-up version of the main melody in the
introduction, we don't hear anything straightforward out of the guitars for
quite a while. Try listening to this and imagining the song without either
the vocals or the drums and you'll see how driven by entrancing noise the
piece actually is. I particularly enjoy the instrumental breaks, which begin
with a vague effort to give us the opening riff again, but it never manages
to emerge completely amidst the semi-chaos; the second and longer of the two
breaks, beginning at 2:04, has the happy Yo La Tengo-ish capacity to sound
simultaneously crazed and cozy.
Listen also to the shifty time signatures. The sing-song-y,
march-beat-ed verse is given a rhythmic tweak by a dropped beat in the
fourth measure. This creates an extra dollop of semi-chaos in the
instrumental sections connecting the verses, during which the beat of the
entire song seems to have been misplaced. And then the chorus, or what
passes for a chorus here, re-establishes some sonic order but all of a
sudden, somehow, we're in 6/4 (or 6/8?) time. For all the noise, this is one
smooth song.
You'll find "Warning" on the CD *If Children*, slated for release in
April on Merge Records <http://www.mergerecords.com/>. The Baltimore duo Wye
Oak, by the way, was until earlier this month a band called Monarch; a
self-released version of *If Children* was put out originally last year
under the old name. The change was prompted by the existence of (at least)
two other bands named Monarch, and was no doubt connected to their Merge
signing. The Wye Oak, you may as well know, was the honorary state tree of
Maryland--it was a specific tree, of great renown, that was believed to be
more than 450 years old when it was, alas, destroyed in a storm in 2002.

"Sad Songs" - the
Pendletons<http://www.indieoutlaw.com/mp3s/thependletons_sadsongs.mp3>
I'm never sure quite how or why it happens, but sometimes a song that
seems at one level a pretty basic genre exercise at another level rises way
above that for me. "Sad Songs" is an excellent example. A stompy,
country-tinged garage rocker, there's something in the basic vibe that
sounds like it's been cycling through rootsy musical ensembles since the
dawn of time. Or at least since the 1950s. When the melody is so strongly
rooted in a classic rhythm like this (Johnny Cash, anyone?), that's a sign
of a genre exercise. And there's nothing wrong with that; it just doesn't
tend too often to inspire a melody-oriented listener like me.
But here are four relative youngsters from Athens, Georgia, cranking it
up and cranking it out and what do you know?: it's a blast. Why? No doubt
the appeal has something to do with the energy of the playing. Check out,
for instance, the speedy, stuttering guitar riff that anchors the end of
each verse, at the "no no no" part (for instance, at 0:30)--it's done with
this tight-loose sort of accuracy that conveys an image to me of everyone in
the band moving up and down in unison to the stutter of that little lick, in
a manner at once comical and serious. And listen by all means to drummer Ben
DuPriest, who bashes and bangs and still keeps a train-like pulse; he
manages to sound rowdy and polite at the same time. Oh, and don't miss (e.g.
0:39) the thrilling, brilliant mini-rolls (are these paradiddles? I'm not up
on my drumming lingo) that he uses to puncutate each lyrical line in the
chorus, except the last. Maybe that's what's doing it for me. The (maybe)
paradiddles.
"Sad Songs" is from the Pendletons' debut CD, *Oh, Me!*, which was
released electronically this summer on the digital label Indie
Outlaw<http://www.indieoutlaw.com/>
.

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[fingertipsmusic] This Week's Finds: Jan. 27-Feb. 2

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