[fingertipsmusic] This Week's Finds: March 29 (Lower Plenty, Seaweed Meadows, Hockey)

From: Jeremy Schlosberg <fingertipsmusic@xxxxxxxxx>
To: fingertipsmusic@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2013 22:31:29 -0400

*THIS WEEK'S FINDS <http://www.fingertipsmusic.com>*
*March 29*
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[image: Lower
Plenty]<http://www.fingertipsmusic.com/wp-content/uploads/lowerplenty.jpg>
“NULLARBOR” – LOWER
PLENTY<https://s3.amazonaws.com/fingertips-free-legal-mp3s/2013/Lower_Plenty-Nullarbor.mp3>

Can I tell you why some slow-ish songs bore with their lethargic pace and
underdeveloped ideas while others beguile with their relaxed know-how? I
don’t think I can. Can I tell you what Nullarbor means? That’s easier. The
Nullarbor Plain is huge, semi-arid stretch of remote countryside in
southern Australia. The name comes from the Latin meaning “no trees.” (For
a sense of the scrubby flat endless-road landscape, check out the
video<http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=x1lUhwXz70k>
.)

“Nullarbor” the song, meanwhile, presents the listener with a long, ambling
introduction—not semi-arid per se but entirely without either vocals or,
even, the sense that vocals are planning to arrive. A guitar strums,
another guitar noodles an imprecise melody, a brushed snare keeps a gentle
beat, and the world seems a serene if slightly baggy kind of place. I find
myself in no hurry to get anywhere with this introduction, and maybe that’s
what a slow song that’s beguiling rather than boring does most of all: it
slows you down so that you join *its* world, rather than feeling like an
annoying drag on *your* world. The singing, when it starts, is worth the
wait: Al Montfort speak-sings with offhanded, oddly affecting aplomb, often
letting the guitar lines suggest the melody he’s not quite articulating.
All in all, the concise tale told here of a love gone missing has the
quizzical, haphazard feel of a *Basement Tapes* song, but with a warmer,
more personal air about it. I could listen to this all night, and might
just yet.

Lower Plenty is a quartet from Melbourne, and also the name of a Melbourne
suburb. “Nullarbor” is one of nine shorts songs on the band’s debut
album, *Hard
Rubbish*. The song’s wonderfully spontaneous sound has a lot to do with the
fact that the album was recorded onto eight-track, reel-to-reel tape, often
in one take. *Hard Rubbish* was released last year in Australia; it comes
out next month here on Fire Records. You can download the MP3 via the link
above, or through the SoundCloud
page<https://soundcloud.com/firerecords/lower-plenty-nullarbor>.
Thanks to the indomitable Largehearted
Boy<http://blog.largeheartedboy.com/> for
the head’s up.

[image: Seaweed
Meadows]<http://www.fingertipsmusic.com/wp-content/uploads/seaweedmeadows.jpg>
“RUINS” – SEAWEED
MEADOWS”<https://s3.amazonaws.com/fingertips-free-legal-mp3s/2013/Seaweed_Meadows-Ruins.mp3>

With its earnest, minor-key urgency and old-school instrumental melody,
“Ruins” is a brisk slice of timeless power pop. Although that’s redundant,
isn’t it?: “timeless power pop”? Power pop by definition is timeless. I
mean, listen to “Starry Eyes.” Even when it sounds dated, power pop is
timeless. Go figure.

One of the essential properties of pure power pop is a fluid melody
line—melodies that either flow through a lot of adjacent notes, or describe
gratifying chords. Having a sweet but not too sugary tenor lead singer (in
this case, one Matthias Johansson) is a plus. Economy of expression in the
process is also prized—not too many notes, just exactly the right
amount—and that may be why the chorus here is so gladdening: its opening
phrases (“Bite your tongue/Close your eyes”) feature a simple, half-step
descending melody, the most basic descent you can make. In fact, very
little about the actual music in a power pop song is remotely mysterious;
the melodies are easy to understand, the song structure uncomplicated. But
there is one lingering, central mystery to the entire genre, and that is
this: why songs this catchy and well-executed are rarely very popular.
Power pop aches to be widely loved, yet languishes as a sideshow genre,
missing the commercial mark, again and again and again. I truly hope this
is not the case for Seaweed Meadows and that they get all sorts of blog
love and real-world success. But I’m not holding my breath.

Seaweed Meadows, a six-piece band, is based in Gothenburg, Sweden (though
can’t we jettison the Anglicized name for the real one, Göteborg? how did
that become “Gothenburg”? doesn’t look or sound right; but I digress).
“Ruins” is the first single to be made available from the band’s
forthcoming debut, *Echoes of an Avalanche*, which does not yet have a
release date. Download the MP3 from the link above, or via
SoundCloud<https://soundcloud.com/birdswillsingforyou/seaweed-meadows-ruins-2013>
if
you would like to ease my bandwidth burden.

[image: Hockey]<http://www.fingertipsmusic.com/wp-content/uploads/hockey.jpg>
“DEFEAT ON THE DOUBLE BASS LINE” –
HOCKEY<https://s3.amazonaws.com/fingertips-free-legal-mp3s/2013/Hockey-Defeat_on_the_Double_Bass_Line.mp3>

So we’ve hit the indie-rock geographical trifecta this week, hopping from
Melbourne <http://www.fingertipsmusic.com/?p=14275> to
Göteborg<http://www.fingertipsmusic.com/?p=14278>to,
now, Brooklyn in a matter of screen-inches. Bonus points for the fact that
the two guys in the band Hockey are originally from Portland.

Under the spotlight this time is a bass-heavy slab of melancholy electro
pop. Inside of a rubbery, minimalist soundscape front man Ben Wyeth offers
a sad and soulful tune with a recycling kind of momentum. Two related
things, I think, help to create the song’s wistful flow. First, we are in
the unrelenting presence of the mighty I-V-vi-IV chord progression, one of
pop’s most inevitable-sounding patterns. The verse melody may be slightly
differentiated from the chorus melody (although not much), but the
I-V-vi-IV structure remains rock solid, bordering on hypnotic, from
beginning to end. But: then, the second thing about the song’s alluring
movement is that even while working with this most steadfast of chord
patterns, the band keeps things twitchy and unsettled, mostly via Jerm
Reynolds’ acrobatic bass work. We keep anticipating the right chords in our
heads, while often bumping into what feels false or incomplete resolutions;
and this, I’m thinking, drives the piece more memorably than a more
straightforward unfolding might have. One final thing to notice are those
lyrical “echoes” that Wyeth begins offering at 2:19, the last word of each
line repeated, in lockstep; the effect is at once edgy and comforting.

Although expanded to a quartet for a time, Hockey has reverted to its roots
as a duo, featuring Wyeth (previously known by his given name, Grubin) and
Reynolds. “Defeat on the Double Bass Line” is from the band’s forthcoming
album, the curiously named *Wyeth IS*, which will be self-released
digitally in May. As with the other songs this week, you can download the
MP3 via the link above, or via
SoundCloud<https://soundcloud.com/hockey-the-band/defeat-on-the-double-bass/s-csVmd>
.

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[fingertipsmusic] This Week's Finds: March 29 (Lower Plenty, Seaweed Meadows, Hockey)

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