[fingertipsmusic] This Week's Finds: October 27

From: Jeremy Schlosberg <fingertipsmusic@xxxxxxxxx>
To: fingertipsmusic@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Tue, 27 Oct 2009 23:36:27 -0400
THIS WEEK'S FINDS <http://www.fingertipsmusic.com/this_weeks_finds.htm>
October 27, 2009

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 "Floating Vibes" - Surfer
Blood<http://downloads.pitchforkmedia.com/Surfer%20Blood%20-%20Floating%20Vibes.mp3>
     "Floating Vibes" has that deep guitar thing going right away, which I
always find gratifying. And which always makes me wonder why rock'n'roll has
so consistently (and, to my ears, stupidly) glorified the sound of a wailing
guitar played so high up on the neck that there's no room left for the
guitarist's fingers. I'll take the robust, thoughtful tremor of the lowest
register over screechy wails any day. And check out the countervailing
seventh notes that begin appearing at 0:20, floating with offhand precision
above the darker sound, the quasi-dissonance of that interval perking the
ear up in a most welcome and curious way. This song is pretty great before
singer John Paul Pitts--known merely as JP--opens his mouth.
     And it gets better. The basic guitar refrain of the introduction
becomes the verse melody, with the seventh-note question marks now removed,
giving the melody a newly grounded sense of certainty. The harmonies that
accompany the melody the second time through (1:00) are subtle and
ingenious--the harmony voice is pretty much singing one note--and solidify
the melodic construction so firmly that the song never returns to it. It
turns out that for all its easy-going tunefulness, "Floating Vibes" is
subversive with respect to form: there is no standard chorus and no verse
that repeats throughout the song. Rather, there are three different verse
melodies, separated by instrumental breaks. The first is the one rooted in
the introduction, the second is introduced at an instrumental break at 1:16,
and the third (2:35) is a kind of mash-up of the first two. The final
instrumental section moves onto yet another melody and features a violin, as
unexpected as it is effective.
     Surfer Blood is a quintet of non-surfers from West Palm Beach.
"Floating Vibes" is the lead track from *Astro Coast*, the band's debut,
slated for released in January on Brooklyn-based Kanine
Records<http://kaninerecords.com/>.
MP3 via Pitchfork.

"The River" - Audra
Mae<http://www.planetarygroup.com/newmedia/download/audramae/theriver_audra_mae.mp3>
     With clear roots in country and folk, two very structured genres, "The
River" hooks the ear with a series of surprising melodic and harmonic
shifts. We hear this first at 0:15, when Mae follows the opening two
traditional-sounding lines with a third ("The river's gonna wash my sins
away") that runs unexpectedly up through a diminished chord. How did we get
here? Suddenly the music is unresolved, and remains so until one more
surprising shift, at 0:26, on the words "make me forget." Resolution comes
on the succeeding phrase, "my sorrow." That's some nifty
songwriting--uncomplicated but subtly startling--and Mae uses it all to set
up her bittersweet chorus. It begins with one more musical shift: that
heartbreaking half-step she takes in the phrase "I can't swim" (1:02), which
starts the major-key chorus with a minor-key twist. Even the lyrics provide
a subtle shock here, aurally--when she gets to the phrase "even if I could,"
the lack of rhyme isn't what the ear expects. But she has slyly shifted the
rhyme scheme, which the listener catches onto as the chorus continues. More
niftiness.
     And maybe niftiest of all is how everything is delivered by a young,
big-voiced singer who seems anachronistically delighted to use her vocal
substance in service of small musical moments. No "American Idol"-ish
histrionics for this big voice. One example: listen to how differently she
sings the word "I" the first two times she says it: first, the opening word
of the song ("I done a bad thing, it's okay"; 0:05) and second, the
beginning of the second line, four seconds later ("I'm going down to the
river today"). The first "I" is fast, easy, almost evasive; the second "I,"
made resonant with the contracted "m," feels deep, mighty, and mournful as
it encompasses an extra half-beat in the singing. Words don't do it justice
so now I'll be quiet.
     "The River" is the lead track from Audra Mae's debut EP, *Haunt*,
released last week on SideOneDummy Records <http://sideonedummy.com/>. The
Oklahoma-born Mae is now based in L.A. and, speaking of big voices, happens
to be Judy Garland's grand niece.

"Lovesick Teenagers" - Bear in
Heaven<http://www.teamclermont.com/mp3/bearinheaven_lovesickteenagers.mp3>
     Can a song be spacey and determined at the same time? "Lovesick
Teenagers" seems to manage this unusual effect. Determination is heard
through the relentless pulse of the snare-free beat along with front man Jon
Philpot's purposeful tenor, which sounds like someone with a wavery voice
trying not to waver. And the melody itself seems also to possess an
endearing sort of tenaciousness in the way it keeps leaping up a fourth on
every syllable it seeks to emphasize.
     But the spaciness too comes in various guises. Echoey, rocket-like
synthesizers, sure. You'll hear those right away. But it's also there in the
synth's ongoing throb, which moves at twice the pace of the drumbeat, and
lends a sci-fi-cartoon-iness to the proceedings. The chorus, when it
arrives, arrives in a wash of psychedelic effects--soaring synths, fuzzed-up
vocals, glitchy accents--even though, if you listen, you'll see that the
driving drumbeat persists underneath it all. And look how the song's final
moment pretty much encapsulates the underlying aural paradox, being at once
the epitome of driving determination--a "sting," as we used to call it in
radio (meaning a sharp, abrupt ending)--and moony vagueness, since the sting
echoes afterwards with the faintest of synthetic wind sounds.
     Bear in Heaven is a quartet of Southerners who landed in Brooklyn and
have been recording since 2003. "Lovesick Teenagers" is a song from *Beast
Rest Forth Mouth*, the band's third album, released this month on Hometapes
Records <http://hometapes.tumblr.com/>.

* * * * * * *

"Easy when you're dreaming
Staring at the movies
Standing in a circle,
Laughing at the wrong time..."


* * * * * * *

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[fingertipsmusic] This Week's Finds: October 27

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