[fingertipsmusic] This Week's Finds: Oct. 21-27

From: "Jeremy Schlosberg" <fingertipsmusic@xxxxxxxxx>
To: fingertipsmusic@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2007 21:39:23 -0400

THIS WEEK'S FINDS <http://www.fingertipsmusic.com/this_weeks_finds.htm>
Oct. 21-27

* The *Dylan* contest <http://www.fingertipsmusic.com/contests.htm> is in
full swing. Check it out if you haven't; deadline for entry is Tuesday
October 30.

"Dead Sound" - the
Raveonettes<http://dev.theorchard.com/jaclyn/mp3/theraveonettes_deadsound.mp3>
Simple and dense, loud and whispery, retro-y and up-to-date, "Dead Sound"
continues this Danish duo's studied--and catchy--deconstruction of American
rock'n'roll music from the late '50s and early '60s. What you hear here is
what they do: take chords and melodies and guitar sounds that feel
old-fashioned and familiar and mash them onto a wacked-out Phil Spector
meets My Bloody Valentine assault of difficult-to-pin-down noise. These guys
are sticklers for detail and like to constrain themselves (their first
album, *Whip it On*, featured eight songs all in B-flat minor; their second
album, *Chain Gang of Love*, was recorded, on the other hand, almost
entirely in the key of B-flat major), which tells me that for better or
worse no sonic detail is an accident. Here, I'm especially enjoying the
guitar's narrative. It starts as a lonely echo in the background, with a
simple remark or two (around 0:44)--kind of like a surf guitar looking for
the beach. Next we hear it all but drowning in a buzzy vat of
undifferentiated din (around 1:18), later to emerge in the spotlight with a
reverb-drenched, Springsteen-y solo (beginning at 1:53) and soon to find its
true place with a climactic bit of staccato surf-iness (from 2:20 through
2:32) before melting into the final swirl of noise, a lot of which at that
point sounds like a harsh electronic wind. All in three and a half minutes,
with appealing boy-girl harmonies. "Dead Sound" is from the Raveonettes'
forthcoming album, *Lust Lust Lust*, scheduled for release next month
(internationally; the band is currently without a U.S. label) on
London-based Fierce Panda Records <http://www.fiercepanda.co.uk/>.

"Sweet Love" -
Melou<http://redirect2.iodalliance.com/download_track.php?id=E203262952F152E5F8C8734DFE3578BC53C4C67267B65E106A0D42DF3A44B6CD46B0EDB6D84095DF1E27391D7ABECC17>
Not the Anita Baker song but its own sort of sleek and sultry. This "Sweet
Love" is a slow and seductive cross between mainstream R&B, jazz, dub, and
pop. (Take *that*, *New Yorker* guy decrying the
"white"-ness<http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/musical/2007/10/22/071022crmu_music_frerejones>of
indie rock; mostly I think he inadvertently highlights the perils of
generalizing about *anything* in this diverse and global age.) Singer Annie
Goodchild has a voice one must inescapably describe as "soulful," for
perpetual lack of an effective voice-description vocabulary; her bandmates
offer her an appealingly minimalist background texture in which the guitar,
sax, bass, and percussion restrain themselves both individually and
collectively; when any one of them feels like offering a languid lick or
flourish, there's always plenty of aural space in which it can move, and no
one abuses the privilege. (The final two minutes, all instrumental, take
this skeletal approach through its interesting if maybe overlong
denouement.) To me the song is anchored mightily by its juicy chorus, which
in its hook illustrates yet again the latent power of three simple notes.
Melou is a quintet with a globetrotting biography: Goodchild is from Boston,
guitarist and songwriter Maarten Reijnierse is from the Netherlands, and
they first got together in Guatemala; now rounded out by an additional mix
of American and Dutch players, the quintet recorded its debut album, *
Communication*, in Barcelona. "Sweet Love" is the third track on the album,
which was released by Barcelona-based Whatabout Music in June.

"Halfway to Hollywood" - Dick
Prall<http://www.dickprall.com/stuff/Dick_Prall_Hollywood.mp3>
A good-natured minor-key shuffle with a few thoughtful touches along the
way. Prall's voice occasionally brings Joe Walsh to mind, and of how many
21st-century rockers can we say the same thing? Come to think of it, there's
something of Walsh's self-effacing goofiness in the air here as well, for
reasons I can't immediately identify. The aforementioned thoughtful touches
are a bit easier to pinpoint: the violin that joins surreptitiously at 0:46
and stays to lend a jaunty, '30s-ish style to the melody; the rumbly
syncopated thud of tom-toms added to the verse the second time around,
beginning at 1:22; and those yodelly yelps with which he finishes the lines
at the very end, as he sings, "Say what they want." How does he manage to
finish the word "want" with a yodelly "oooo"? Hm, so maybe I can after all
identify some of the goofiness too. For good measure I like the way the song
quite literally ends: we used to call that a "sting" back in radioland--the
last note is banged out and it's over, abruptly. It seems to me that just
about everything fades out these days. "Halfway to Hollywood" is from
Prall's CD *Weightless*, released in September on Authentic Records, and the
Chicago-based singer/songwriter's fourth. The MP3 is via Prall's
site<http://www.dickprall.com/>
.

*Visit the Fingertips Record
Shop<file://localhost/Documents/Fingertips%20files/recordshop.htm>for
direct links to purchase some of the albums that feature the MP3s you
read about here. Look for the yellow-ish [RS] at the bottom of reviews to
indicate when a song's album is available via the Record Shop. When you buy
through the Shop, you support Fingertips.*

*So what's more valuable, being inundated with three or four unannotated
songs a day, as per the typical MP3 blog, or being steered to three pretty
great songs a week, complete with a reasonably articulate description of why
they're pretty great? And oh yeah they're legal too, so you're not stealing
anything, in case being a mensch counts for something in your world. You
know you've been meaning to make a modest
contribution<http://s1.amazon.com/exec/varzea/pay/T2MFZZF59DLWTH/102-0776598-3470526>,
yes? Don't forget, donations of $10 and above are eligible for Prize
Closet<http://www.fingertipsmusic.com/prizecloset.htm>goodies.
*

** SPONSORED ANNOUNCEMENT **

The International Songwriting Competition (ISC) is now accepting entries for
the 2007 competition. $150,000 in prizes including $25,000 cash. Judges for
2007 include: Tom Waits, Robert Smith (The Cure), Ray Davies (The Kinks),
and seven record label presidents from major and independent record labels.
For entry information and a complete list of judges please visit -
http://www.songwritingcompetition.com.<http://www.songwritingcompetition.com/>

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[fingertipsmusic] This Week's Finds: Oct. 21-27

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