[fingertipsmusic] This Week's Finds: January 26 (Cate Le Bon, Team Me, Theresa Andersson)

From: Jeremy Schlosberg <fingertipsmusic@xxxxxxxxx>
To: fingertipsmusic@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 14:39:53 -0500

*THIS WEEK'S FINDS <http://www.fingertipsmusic.com>
January 26*

[image: Cate Le
Bon]<http://www.fingertipsmusic.com/wp-content/uploads/catelebon.jpg>
“PUTS ME TO WORK” – CATE LE
BON<http://www.controlgroupco.com/downloads/Cate_Le_Bon_Work.mp3>

Unhurried and untidy, “Puts Me To Work” saunters along in its own universe
of sound, with a mid-tempo beat that seems uninterested in quite
coalescing. Le Bon admits to playing an out of tune piano here but to me
the more salient and interesting feature is the instrument’s idiosyncratic
resistance to the imperative of meter. Listen carefully to the introduction
and notice how the piano chords lag ever so slightly behind the beat—or,
perhaps, the beat itself moves past the piano. In any case, it’s a
delightfully anomalous effect.

Everything about this song seems to lag and withhold. We don’t hear the
chorus until a minute in, and we don’t hear the pay-off, titular line (“It
puts me to work”) until the second and final time the chorus comes around,
two-thirds of the way through the song.

And okay, once Le Bon starts singing, it’s all that a rock writer can do,
it seems, to keep the name “Nico” from spontaneously emerging from his or
her computer keyboard. As much as I tried to resist the urge, there is too
much in Le Bon’s disaffected mezzo that recalls the one-time “Warhol
Superstar.” And it’s not just the voice, and the dainty accent (Le Bon is
from Wales)—it’s the world-weary vibe that combines sing-songy simplicity
with some kind of instinctive but unutterable wisdom. What nails both the
Nico comparison and the song is the cagey hook, which happens when the
melody takes her voice to the beginning of the upper part of her range, on
the lyrics “And I know you won’t remember” (first heard at 1:01). Right
there it feels like the late ’60s all over again, but with better coffee.

“Puts Me to Work” is from Le Bon’s new album, *CYRK*, which was released
this on The Control Group. This is her second full-length release; she has
also released a Welsh-language EP. MP3 viaThe Control
Group<http://www.controlgroupco.com/>,
an indie label based in New York City.

[image: Team Me]<http://www.fingertipsmusic.com/wp-content/uploads/teamme.jpg>
“SHOW ME” – TEAM
ME<http://www.fingertipsmusic.com/wp-content/uploads/TeamMe-ShowMe.mp3>
*

*Resplendent indie pop for people who might think that they’ve gotten a bit
tired of resplendent indie pop. So that once and for all we might all
realize that it’s not a type of music that gets tiresome, it’s boring or
uninspired music that gets tiresome. Not a genre, not a type, not a style.*

*But I digress. “Show Me,” from the new-ish Norwegian sextet Team Me, has a
marvelous momentum to it, rooted in its smooth chord progressions and its
unexpected grounding in a 12-measure verse melody. I’m not saying there’s
any other connection but I will note that 12-measure melodies are uncommon
in pop while of course being the prototypical construction for the blues
(thus the phrase “12-bar blues”; a bar is another word for a measure).
“Show Me” is not the blues, by any means. But the unfolding of a melody
through 12 measures is something we tend to experience, whether we even
recognize it or not, in a blues setting. And here instead is this vibrant,
smartly-textured, hopeful-sounding (but not necessarily hopeful) song. I’m
not sure what this means but felt it worth noting. Oh and of course in a
blues setting, the melody is spare, ritualized, all but preordained, and
sung by one voice, while Team Me here serves up a swooping, involved melody
with harmonies, double-tracking, and the occasional gang shout. And yet,
too, there is a seriousness hiding here in the ebullient flow and playful
vibe. Could this be what 12 bars does? Nope, probably not. But it’s fun to
consider.*

*“Show Me” is a track from Team Me’s debut full-length album, which came
out in Norway in October and is due to arrive in the US in March on the
Oslo-based label Propeller Recordings <http://www.propellerrecordings.no/>.
**

[image: Theresa
Andersson]<http://www.fingertipsmusic.com/wp-content/uploads/andersson.jpg>
“WHAT COMES NEXT” – THERESA
ANDERSSON<http://girlieaction.com/music/theresa_andersson/downloads/What_Comes_Next_%28w._Peter_Moren%29.mp3>
*

*With its unconventional use of brass band and snare drum, “What Comes
Next” quickly announces its boundary-free musical identity, blending
traditional New Orleans sounds with an outlier sensibility that attentive
listeners may just be able to link to her home country of Sweden. Not that
Sweden–with arguably the richest and most significant rock’n'roll history
of any non-English-speaking country—has just one way of doing rock’n'roll.
But from the outside looking in, one can hear generalized ideas and
sensibilities that feel musically Swedish. What makes Andersson’s music so
potent is that she has by now been living in New Orleans longer than she
lived in her native country. She has absorbed both environments and is
coming out swinging here. It’s a beautiful piece of work.

I love how she works the martial drum work into a song that glides and
swings so smoothly. I love the eccentric punctuation provided by the
loose/tight horn section (very NOLA). And I love the swaying hook of the
romantic chorus, which sounds like nothing the introduction or the verse of
this song has prepared us for, musically, and yet once heard, it’s exactly
where we should be. Peter Moren, of Peter Bjorn and John, provides some
multi-faceted backing vocals here, often of the fetching octave-harmony
variety.

Andresson has been in New Orleans since 1991, when, at 18, she moved there
to be with guitarist Anders Osborne both musically and personally. To date
she is probably best known for the one-woman-band video she made for her
song “Na Na Na,” which to me better shows off her appealing personality
than her songwriting. You can add to the more than one million views it’s
gotten if you haven’t already, below. (Note that she made the video for
potential venues, so they would know what to expect from her loop-oriented
performances. She was not trying to go viral.) “What Comes Next” is the
first available song from Andersson’s forthcoming album, *Street Parade*,
arriving in April on the New Orleans-based Basin Street
Records<http://www.basinstreetrecords.com/>
.

* * * * * * *

"No matter where I am
I can't help feeling I'm just a day away
From where I want to be..."

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[fingertipsmusic] This Week's Finds: January 26 (Cate Le Bon, Team Me, Theresa Andersson)

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