“It’s Forgetting that would Beat it All” (the 2007-11-23 Friday Fetch-it)

“So Much Trouble” (by Matt Pond PA) has surprisingly little in the way of chorus…-age, for what's otherwise a very straightforwardly upbeat, cheery pop song. I just noticed that recently.

Maybe it's because it's so generally singalong-able throughout that you don't notice the choruslessness. And there's extensive bridge…-iness, which sounds rather like a chorus in most songs would (“I don't think I want to think about it”—that bit); but it definitely approximates the tune of a verse, with a little bit more tension and less resolution in the voice.

(Hey, let's assume the guy singing is actually called Matt Pond, whether or not this is really the case. You can never properly tell with ostensibly-eponymous bands.)

… So it's not a chorus. The chorus starts “You're in so much trouble; you can't hide in your covers”—it even has the title in it. (Yeah, I know, but lyrics almost always sound silly taken out of the music.) And that bit only occurs once, right at the start (well, after the first verse).

Then there are four—count 'em: four—bridge-like bits: they alternate between the bit I called the bridge earlier (and shall continue to so call); and another bit (with the words “We don't want to make mistakes”) to which I could dryly refer as “the second bridge”, but shall instead dub “the tunnel”. Not only does this make for a pleasing automotive-architecture–based pun, it's also kind of apt: bridges and tunnels are often one and the same thing, appear together and complement each other.

I digress. In the middle of the two bridge-and-tunnel pairs there's an instrumental break, where the song slows to a dawdle. It's as if Matt Pond and his merry posse of accompaniment-ists (collectively known as “PA”) have been sauntering along in an autumnal park and gradually and pensively come to a halt while they decide which way to go next. (Maybe Matt Pond just has a personal assistant to help him with all the music?)

Anyhow, they end up deciding to carry on in the same direction, but have somehow returned to where they were a full minute ago. (Maybe they were going in circles?) This time, however, they have a few extra deep, reassuring guitar tones as companions, and the journey's a lot more familiar—despite not being a verse or a chorus.

It soon transpires that the verse was just the other side of a hedge all along (metaphor becoming tenuous, I know), and it's back sooner than expected, with a couple of extra drum flourishes for effect. There's even a glimmer of hope for the chorus, as this new verse borrows some of its lyrics.

Another contemplative pause later (will this song ever gain any momentum?), the bridge returns in full swing; by now it's grown up into a chorus in its own right. Nonetheless, it soon gives way to the chorus-proper, the first half of which—only—repeats satisfyingly.

Loath to satiate, though, the song ends on a minor note. It's as if they want you to play it again.

If you download one song this week, make it So Much Trouble—it's like a wistful stroll through an autumnal park (with a personal assistant).

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(How do you follow that? Try “Don't Falter” by Mint Royale & Lauren Laverne.)

“Necessity Conquers Fear” (the 2007-10-26 Friday Fetch-it)

I was going to do my usual shtick of describing what the vocals and instruments do, and when they come in, and how they come out of nowhere and sound wonderful, and all of that—after making a general point about a particular musical technique and using that to introduce the song.

But it wouldn't really have done the song justice—musically, at least, it's not revolutionary (though there are some beats nestled in amongst the instrumentation that wouldn't sound out of place on Homogenic), but that's not the point. Yes, it's a piano that happens to convey a lot of the warmth; again, not the point. And that synth line coming out of each chorus (or serving as its second half) is just lovely—not really the point. The point:

“Don't Lose Yourself” by Laura Veirs is simply beautiful.

Though it's impossible not to enjoy on a visceral level (lest your soul be judged stony and dead), the song's also blessed with intelligence. There are a full four verses (though the second half of the last segués into the final chorus): each and every line would have made a good title for the album, or for this entry, or for some other blog post, or for a personal blog, or for an episode of a TV programme; if “Tiger Ointment and the Cosmic Collision” isn't an actual band in ten years' time, I may have to start one.

The lyrics aren't particularly complex, however—every fourth line usually completes a simple rhyme, and that's about it. They're just inventive and thoughtful and good. So intriguing are the verses' lyrics, and so good is the accompanying groove, the words in the chorus don't need to extend beyond Don't lose yourself; don't let yourself be lost. Anyone can sing along with that.

Through most of “Don't Lose Yourself”, Laura's voice is actually a bit deadpan—she sings simply and without affectation. Her singing's only punctuated by the backing briefly dropping before launching into the second chorus.

But at the end, right where you'd expect a fifth verse, the chorus's instrumental groove instead continues, and Laura comes in with a lyric-less vocal—the type that may well have been ad-libbed—as the song fades away. It's clearly a heartfelt expression of emotion (and not a showing-off exercise), quiet and understated enough to be missed by those not paying attention (or with the volume too low).

Just that little, quiet sound perfectly conveys the elation I feel listening to this song. If you download one song this week, make it Don't Lose Yourself. Then smile.

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(How do you follow that? Try “Can't Be Sure” (from Reading, Writing and Arithmetic) by the Sundays.)

“It’s in the Eyes of the Beholder” (the 2007-09-28 Friday Fetch-it)

Over the course of the last fifteen years, the Cardigans have covered genres ranging from bubblegum pop (“Carnival”, “Lovefool”) via subdued, smouldering indie (“My Favourite Game”, “Erase/Rewind”) to country (“For What It's Worth”). Most of the 2005 album Super Extra Gravity falls into the latter category; but a couple of tracks stand out.

The gloriously-named “I Need Some Fine Wine And You, You Need To Be Nicer”—the album's lead single—is a medium-paced all-out rock tune, a near-perfect example of what I keep referring to as “driving rock”; as such, it shares little in common with anything else on the album-proper.

But then there're the bonus tracks—songs that half-count as part of the album and half-don't, depending on who you ask or which country your copy comes from. Elusive little buggers.

Super Extra Gravity actually includes a track entitled “Bonus Tracks” (if you buy it in the UK, at least)—a twenty-second ditty consisting substantially of footsteps approaching what turns out to be a harpsichord (or, y'know, something that sounds like what I think a harpsichord sounds like), upon which a short tune is played, culminating in a chorus of voices emphatically intoning the title. I'm not recommending this—I haven't gone that outlandish yet—but the next bit:

“Give Me Your Eyes” begins unassumingly with a rising wind noise (which briefly implies a continuation of the weirdness of “Bonus Tracks”) followed by a cautious acoustic guitar verse that ends on a ponderous rising note (I think it's called a seventh). And then all hell breaks loose: a brash, cyclical electric-guitar rhythm dominates what's nominally a restatement of the introductory guitar verse, and leads into sixteen loud, relentless drumbeats.

So this is unbridled rock—by now there's no doubt about it. Throughout the first verse the bassline builds up an amount of tension, slowly alternating between two nearby notes; into the chorus there's a cathartic screech of feedback, diffusing the tension and allowing the chorus itself to proceed unencumbered.

The end of the chorus is punctuated by another set of sixteen drumbeats, before continuing full-speed into the second verse; the song's filled out by now and there's less of the first verse's tension. The calmly aggressive tone of Nina Persson's voice, along with the instrumentation's insistence, lends a dash of the sinister at the end of that verse—when she sings “it's in the eyes of the beholder, now give 'em to me” it occurs to you that she might actually mean “give me your eyes” literally—!

Halfway through the second chorus, the song neatly veers off towards a fairly straightforward middle eight, followed by another set of drumbeats leading into the breakdown. This bit's pretty standard too—a quietly-accompanied verse that introduces a speedy synopsis of the entire song. It borrows the chorus's lyrics for its second half and leads to a half-length reprise of the chorus. The chorus ascends into a solo, culminating in that brash guitar cycle (Nina sings along too); and those damn drumbeats bash the song out of existence.

On paper, it's actually quite a conventional song, and it's hard to compellingly describe a song that distinguishes itself in its execution, rather than by a spark of compositional cleverness—this is why recordings by bands have superseded sheet music. If you download one song this week, make it Give Me Your Eyes.

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(I'm guessing this was written and recorded too late to make the album-proper, and that's why it's a bonus track; if that's the case and this is an indication of the style of the next album, said album will rock.)

(How do you follow that? Let's say “Chemistry” by Semisonic (since I already mentioned “Memorize The City” a while ago)).

“Pour Salt into that Wound of Yours” (the 2007-08-31 Friday Fetch-it)

I don't really know how to go about recommending Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by CC & the Spades (which partially explains the large gap since the last entry and why the following isn't my usual neatly-structured, eloquent prose)—I don't know why I like the song so much. I know that I do like it. And I think that's because it's damn good, but I can't be sure.

Incidentally, I don't usually recommend songs that I discovered on another music blog, my logic being that if I found it, you could too. But this was a full year ago, and the band still have well under five hundred listens on Last.fm. (They've now accrued 59 hits on Google, but 17 of them are me).

There are two versions (that I'm aware of): the original, rough demo version—which is what I'm mainly writing about—and a vastly tidied-up version, which uses a slightly different lyric and adds some extra guitar bits. (That one's presently on CC & the Spades' MySpace page.)

The song basically comprises vocals, guitar, bass and drums. It's fairly straightforward by my standards—there are no weird time signatures and no clever rhythms; it doesn't suddenly shift sideways; it's not less than a minute long and it's not seventeen minutes long; there are no wacky instruments and no macho guitar acrobatics. (I wouldn't recommend bringing it home to meet your grandma, though—it uses the “fuck” word.)

Where the tidier version finishes with a long-held strum, the demo version stops on a drumbeat, as abruptly as it started—its departure smacks you in the face as much as its arrival did. There's no particular melody or even rhythm to the vocals in the chorus—it's almost as if CC's improvising the vocals here.

In fact the whole song is very rough, unpolished and raw: a lot of the time the microphone can't quite contain CC's voice; the bass guitar (which plays up in almost the same register as the lead) is noticeably off-rhythm during the choruses and I think it hits the wrong note at the start of the instrumental towards the end.

It's this sort of coarse sincerity that defined punk. If you download one song this week, make it Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

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(That link is to the rough, demo version as an MP3; it was on their MySpace profile for a while, but the tidier version replaced it.)

(How do you follow that? Usually with the same song again... or 8 Hours (also by CC & the Spades; see eashfa to download that too). More usefully, perhaps: Swimmers by Broken Social Scene follows the demo version particularly nicely.)

“Under a Sinking Sun” (the 2007-06-22 Friday Fetch-it)

One review of The Deep Blue claimed that Charlotte Hatherley does “a spot-on impersonation of the Sundays' Harriet Wheeler” in the first half of Roll Over (Let It Go). This isn't quite true; but she does do a spot-on impersonation of herself singing very nicely. (The way she sings “lover” and “harbour” makes me want to hump her.) Charlotte's usually better at angular (Lazy Use of a Popular Musical Adjective #1) guitar-pop-punk-rock than at lush dream-pop. Even in Roll Over her “sha-la-la”s and “ooh”s don't bed into the instrumentation fully enough to match up to the Sundays or the Cocteau Twins: however soft the vocals' surfaces are, they still have sharp edges.

Hidden tracks—meanwhile—are generally a bit rubbish: they're the recorded equivalent of leaving the stage for a minute or two, before returning to perform—surprise!—an encore. Supposedly “hidden” tracks are even easier to see coming: enter track length display. Nonetheless, there's the obligatory minute or two of silence after the last song-proper, to fool you into thinking the album's over... as well as to royally screw up shuffled playlists and mix discs. Only if you leave the thing alone, either by the serendipity of sheer laziness, or by taking keen notice of the fact that it's still playing, may you bask in the bounty of the hidden track. ...which is usually about half a minute long and fades out just as it starts to resemble a decent song. Not so on The Deep Blue.

The last track, Siberia, ends with an improv-y crescendo of guitar and piano that gives way to a final guitar loop; six iterations later, the loop drops abruptly to silence. It's a strong conclusion to an album that never loses momentum throughout, despite many changes of pace and mood.

Two minutes of silence ensue.

Two minutes—that's a long time.

It's probably taken you about that long to read this far.

The silence draws you in. It makes you listen more carefully, in case there's something quiet going on that you're otherwise missing.

Silence is far more potent than leaving a large break in text—you can just read faster, skip over a blank page in the space of a second or two.

It makes you wonder: when will the silence be broken? And by what? And when it is broken, it makes the sound that breaks it that much more profound.

Two minutes of silence.

After two minutes, Siberia and the rest of the album are a fond memory rather than a present experience, and what follows stands separately from the album.

All momentum has now ceased.

Out of the silence springs a quiet guitar, at times reverberating like a sonar pulse; accompanied by a slow, almost occasional, soft drumbeat. By this point it sounds like it could be your heartbeat. After a little while a deep, resonating, warm acoustic guitar joins; and then Charlotte's singing.

Those sharp edges in her voice are entirely engulfed by the rich, expansive acoustic guitar and the other sonance swirling around her. There's the occasional glugging sound, probably produced on a xylophone, but sounding more like air escaping from an underwater cove, or a seahorse scarpering as a pebble falls towards it.

Three minutes in, although it feels like about half that, the rich swirls of sound die down, returning to the more minimal arrangement of the intro. It's at this point—if not before—that lesser hidden tracks would just have faded out, and you half-expect this intro arrangement to be the song's conclusion.

Instead, the same intro riff acquires the accompaniment of the deep acoustic guitar and a violin, which plays a legato, swaying, floating line. The violin stays around while the main, warm riff resumes and Charlotte sings another chorus.

Again, she's accompanied by the same swirling sonance, with the addition of the reverberating whooshes of a couple of passing space-dolphins. (Lost In Time could be described as the musical analogue to Ecco the Dolphin 2: The Tides of Time on the Mega-Drive.)

The guitar riff from the intro concludes the song with the full resonant lushness of the song's body, and the acoustic guitar resonates into silence.

This is dream-pop. If you download one song this week, make it Lost In Time.

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(How do you follow that? With Death Cock by Broken Social Scene Hjertebarn by Under byen. Or, preferably, another two minutes of silence.)

Previously on the Friday Fetch-it...

Once upon a time, there lived a music recommendation blog called the Friday Fetch-it. It lived in the magical land of Last.fm, where it spent its days frolicking with its friends surrounded by pink social-musicky goodness.

But then, after a few months of pink! pink! other stuff! things that aren't the blog!, the Friday Fetch-it found itself increasingly confined by all the other pink stuff flying about around it, and it decided to move out of its parents' house and get a job.

No job later, the Friday Fetch-it finds itself uprooted from its familiar, old, pink (did I mention that Last.fm is pink?) pot and planted in a new, bigger, less-pink pot... like a plant being replanted... by a gardener who represents a poor metaphor.

Anyhow: so as not to forget its old life in Pinksville, the Friday Fetch-it made a list on itself (because it's a blog, remember (this anthropomorphised-blog business gets confusing sometimes)) of all the old posts. And in time-honoured story-referencing-itself and effect-preceding-cause fashion, this is that very list:

(This bit's the montage of quick shots of the characters emoting and/or in action-packed situations, overlaid with snippets of dialogue, that goes some way to explaining what happened last week when you forgot to set the video:)

1. the 2006-04-14 Friday Fetch-it, in which the Friday Fetch-it was introduced and I recommended Slits Grapevine
2. the 2006-04-21 Friday Fetch-it, in which I recommended Area
3. the 2006-04-29 Saturday Fetch-it, in which I recommended By The Water
4. the 2006-05-05 Friday Fetch-it, in which I recommended The Big Sky
5. the 2006-05-12 Friday Fetch-it, in which I recommended Shoreline
6. the 2006-05-19 Friday Fetch-it, in which I recommended Can't Hurry Love
7. the 2006-05-26 Friday Fetch-it, in which I recommended Pioneers Remixed
8. the 2006-06-06 Tuesday Fetch-it, in which I recommended Love In The Making
9. the 2006-06-09 Friday Fetch-it, in which I recommended Iwe
10. the 2006-06-23 Friday Fetch-its, in which I recommended Set The Fire & La Rit
11. the 2006-07-07 Friday Fetch-its, in which I recommended Confide In Me & Colours
12. the 2006-07-14 Friday Fetch-it, in which I recommended Poison
13. the 2006-10-15 Sunday Fetch-it, in which I recommended Give Me Strength
14. the 2006-10-20 Friday Fetch-it, in which I recommended Rush Hour
15. the 2006-10-29 Sunday Fetch-it, in which I recommended Memorize
16. the 2006-11-04 Saturday Fetch-it, in which I recommended Shack Up
17. the 2006-11-11 Saturday Fetch-it, in which I recommended Animator
18. the 2006-11-17 Friday Fetch-it, in which I recommended Whirlwind
19. the 2006-11-25 Saturday Fetch-it, in which I recommended ¡12!

(Cue the title sequence.)