Beautiful Song Of The Week

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Raise your hand if you have ever asked yourself, “…gee, if Enya owned a nightclub in the basement of a Cathedral in Nairobi, what kind of music would they play?”

Anybody?

No?

Okay, but if you ever do ask yourself that, remember that the answer is “Sa Sa Samoa” by the Swedish ambient duo Korallreven.

What makes this a beautiful song:

1. The haunting voices. Hard as it is to believe, the singing on this track is not a choir, but one person, layered many times over. Her name is Julianna Barwick, and she specializes in the type of music that probably plays on repeat at the entrance to heaven.

2. The echoing synths. Especially the one at 0:39, which sounds like a robotic angel-cat.

3. The slowly building drums. Like in this song, the percussion builds slowly, so as not to disturb the softness of the song’s opening. But by the time you get to the end, it’s enough to get everyone in Enya’s nightclub dancing.

Recommended listening activity:

Sticking glow-in-the-dark stars to the ceiling of your bedroom.

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About ten years ago, I was mindlessly sprawled in front of the television eating something unhealthy and scratching various body parts when a commercial for the 2002 Lincoln Navigator came on. I immediately sat upright. I maxed the volume. I stared dumbly at the screen while a forgotten fragment of potato chip hung precariously from my lower lip.

This reaction had nothing to do with the urge to purchase an SUV, and everything to do with the song that accompanied the ad. It was “Get A Move On” by Mr. Scruff.

Introducing me to Mr. Scruff’s music is easily the most useful thing luxury vehicles have ever done for me. He’s produced a lot of quality stuff over the years, most of it simultaneously upbeat and offbeat, with that typical British sense of humour that makes music fun. The highly danceable “Get A Move On” is followed directly on the album by this great sleepy track, and the two couldn’t be more different from an energy point of view.

What makes this a beautiful song:

1. The percussion sounds like crickets cruising the strip in a convertible.

2. The piano sounds like a ballerina coming home late and stumbling into bed. (Actually, it’s a brilliant use of a sample from this song.)

3. The shifts from minor to major (at 1:10, for example) give it a particularly drowsy feel, as if the song is unsuccessfully fighting off a nap.

Recommended listening activity:

Unsuccessfully fighting off a nap.

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I discovered this song while on a YouTube tangent recently. It was a long and bizarre tangent that somehow ended with me watching a French magician performing a card trick on the Penn & Teller reality show “Fool Us”. The trick was cool, but I was more fascinated by the song that accompanied it.

Upon finding out whose song it was, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t heard it before, since Massive Attack was pretty popular in the late 90s, when I was into similar bands. Somehow I’d never heard it. Once the 90s were over, the song continued to gain popularity as the opening theme to the TV show “House”, and was covered by a wide array of artists, from Brad Mehldau to Simple Minds. Oh, and these guys.

But my favourite fact about this song is that Andrew Vowles, the primary songwriter for Massive Attack, originally wanted Madonna to record the vocals. Madonna loved the track and was up for it, but the other two members of the band wanted Scottish singer Elizabeth Fraser of the Cocteau Twins. Being a democratic bunch, Massive Attack turned down a willing Madonna and went with Fraser.

Right or wrong, you’ve got to admit: it takes serious guts to say no to Madonna.

What makes this a beautiful song:

1. The percussion. I love the combination of deep kick/rim snare. It was a staple of mid-90s trip hop, giving a simultaneously driving and chilled sound.

2. The harpsichord. If you can name another song written in the past 100 years that features the harpsichord, place your open palm on the screen and accept my high-five from across the internet.

3. The vocal melody. The opening line of each phrase is slightly unusual, throwing in an unexpected major 6^th on “Love, love is a verb”.  The rest of the melody contains just enough major and minor moments to keep the song content, but slightly on edge.

Recommended listening activity:

Bobbing your head while driving way slower than the speed limit.

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The pre-millennial brand of trip-hop popularized in the 90s by groups like Portishead and Sneaker Pimps was perfected, in my mind at least, by the French duo Air on their 1998 debut “Moon Safari”. By that point, nobody was calling it trip-hop anymore; the terms chillout, downtempo, and ambient were becoming more popular.

Whatever you call it, “Moon Safari” was an amazingly chilled album, and it starts with the all-kinds-of-chill song that I’d like to present to you today.

Incidentally, why is it that so many electronic acts are duos? Groove Armada, Justice, Lemon Jelly, Basement Jaxx, Boards of Canada, The Chemical Brothers, Daft Punk, Crystal Castles, The Postal Service…the list goes on. I’d like to imagine that there’s some sort of Electronica Association, a kind of governing body that won’t let you apply if you’ve got more than two members in your band, and will provide you with a free collaborator if you’re a solo act.

But I digress.

What makes this a beautiful song:

1. The bassline. They don’t come much yummier than this. Makes you want to raise one eyebrow, stick out your bottom lip, and nod your head approvingly.

2. The breakdown. Instruments back out at 3:50…a piano enters at 4:02…rain falls gently in the background…the bass goes up high at 4:26…then a tambourine comes in at 4:50, tricking you into thinking the song is about to go double-time…but don’t worry, you don’t need to get up and dance. You can continue your couch slouch/head-nodding, as it all falls back into place by 5:38.

3. The synth solo at 6:03. It keeps tailing off at the end of phrases, like a model airplane that’s just run out of batteries.

Recommended listening activity:

Chillin’. (To the max, if at all possible.)

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I love Boxing Day. I love the idea that you get a day off work to digest food, play with new toys, and unwind after the madness that is Christmas.  In fact, I love Boxing Day so much that I think that any day of intense activity and/or stress should be given its own Boxing Day:

“My birthday was great, but I didn’t really get a chance to relax until my Birthday Boxing Day.”

“I can’t wait to sleep in on my Exam Boxing Day.”

“Yeah, I don’t think I’ll be going to work on Super Bowl Boxing Day.”

So whatever you decide to do in that great downtime between Christmas and New Year’s, here’s the perfect soundtrack, by Matthew Cooper, aka Eluvium.

What makes this a beautiful song:

1. The softness of the horns. Too often, horns are typecast as the loud section of the orchestra, and only used when the composer needs to wake up the audience or announce the arrival of royalty. But here, they carry a melody as delicately as any string section.

2. The horns don’t always move in synch. The time signature is pretty loose. Each instrument lumbers from one chord to the next, as if it’s had just a bit too much turkey.

3. It’s repetitive. But that’s okay. In the wake of the free-for-all that is the Christmas season, four chords and a hint of melody is all you need.

Recommended listening activity:

Sitting by the fireplace with the last of the egg nog.

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Cover songs are tricky.

If you stick to the original, you get criticized for trying to mooch off someone else’s popularity. If you make it really different, fans of the band you’re covering will accuse you of blasphemy.

But doing cover songs is completely natural when you think about it; after all, every band out there started because someone wanted to imitate their musical idols. Today’s pop divas were yesterday’s kids, singing along to Whitney Houston and Madonna. Today’s guitar heroes were yesterday’s awkward teens, secretly playing air-guitar to the solos of Slash, Hendrix, and Zeppelin.

Having said that, when a band puts out a cover song, it’s rare that they hit the magical balance between their own style and the elements that made the original song a memorable one to begin with. British ambient duo L.O. Freq did exactly that with their 2006 cover of Radiohead’s “Blow Out”. In fact, at the risk of being hunted down and killed by rabid Radiohead fans, I might even say that they improved upon the original.

What makes this a beautiful song:

1. A new guitar part. Whereas the original uses a few simple chords, L.O. Freq imagines whole new layers of acoustic awesomeness, making the song sound less urgent, and more textured.

2. A female vocalist. Thom Yorke has a wonderful, fragile voice, and he does great things with it. But Reeta Loi’s voice was tailor-made for this song. And she even manages to throw in some Yorkian mumbling for good measure.

3. A dreamy ending. While young, angsty Radiohead chose to go all “90’s rock guitar explosion” at the end of the track, L.O. Freq fades it out on soft synth strings, horns, and vocal “aahs”. As much as I like Radiohead’s version, written in 1993, but I can’t help but think that if they had written it in 2011, it might have come out sounding more like this.

Recommended listening activity:

Putting on that old band t-shirt you haven’t worn in ten years.

p.s. If you know of any other beautiful cover songs, let me know: beautifulsongoftheweek@gmail.com

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Faultline is British producer David Kosten, and one of those musicians who leaves a frustratingly long gap between releases. To be fair, he seems to keep himself busy with lots of collaborations, remixes, and production, but under the Faultline alias, it’s been almost a decade since his last release.

That release was “Your Love Means Everything”, put out in 2002. The first song I heard from that album was the title track, an instrumental version of the song posted here. After a listen, I was just about to say, “gee, that was pretty, but it could use the plaintive vocals of a Grammy Award-winning musical superstar,” when I discovered that the closing track on the album featured exactly that.

Chris Martin could sing the alphabet and it would sound plaintive. Say what you want about him; his voice isn’t that powerful, he doesn’t have a great range, he may have a strange habit of naming his children after fruit and Biblical characters…but he’s got plaintive down to an art. And it’s a perfect complement to Faultline’s ethereal music.

What makes this a beautiful song:

1. The epiano. Full of wobbly tremolo, it sets a great dreamy atmosphere as soon as the song starts.

2. The distant drum. It’s far back in the mix, but it’s there, giving an occasional “bah-boom” that reminds me of a heartbeat.

3. The layered vocals at 1:38. I always thought the best Coldplay songs were the ones where Chris Martin layered his voice, and in a soft song like this, it really stands out.

Recommended listening activity:

Watching a baby sleep.

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Download it for free here.

Over the past ten years, Patrick Lee has released 25 albums. I repeat, this time with letters: TWENTY-FIVE ALBUMS.

During the same time span, Justin Timberlake has managed only two. At her peak of spouse-collecting, Elizabeth Taylor’s most productive decade produced a measly four husbands. During the 60s, when Elvis Presley was on a mission to find every movie camera in the world and stand in front of it, he starred in 27 movies. This is the only example of artistic prolific-ness I could find to compare to Patrick Lee’s incredible output over the last decade. The difference, of course, is that Patrick Lee’s music is worth listening to.

While I haven’t yet managed to make it through all 25 albums, the material I have heard is of consistent quality, and the style, while grounded in the broad “electronic” genre, varies from funk to dance to hip hop to jazz (Lee was a piano major at Colorado University). He makes all his music available for free download, and at the risk of sounding pushy, I must insist that you cancel your dinner plans and listen to some of the most interesting music you’ve never heard of. Other songs of his that nearly made it onto this list include “Ransom For The Anthems”, “Memory Flicks”, and “Warming Days”.

What makes this a beautiful song:

1. The vinyl crackle. It’s amazing how a rich sound like a Rhodes piano can sound even richer with a bit of analog atmosphere behind it.

2. The guitar at 1.17. A perfect complement to the crunchy piano chords, mixed nice and close to offset the big reverb of the Rhodes.

3. The synth explosion at 3.38. It’s like having a jazz club crashed by a bunch of robots who are ready to party. An unexpected but welcome climax to the song.

Recommended listening activity:

Watching butter melt on a fresh-out-of-the-toaster bagel.

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When he was 21, Chris O’Connor and two friends formed a band called the I-Rails. They had some fun, released a few albums, but never got the big break they were looking for. When his two friends left to go have real lives in 1991, O’Connor put together some more songs on his own, using leftovers from the band’s final months together. He sent the demo out to local radio stations under the name “Primitive Radio Gods”. Nothing happened.

Dejected, O’Connor did what most depressed people do: he became an air traffic controller. Then, a couple of years later, he was cleaning out old boxes when he stumbled upon the demo. Clinging to his conviction that the music was good, he mailed copies to every record label he could think of. One track caught the ear of the right person at the right time, and all of a sudden O’Connor was being distributed by Columbia Records. His success was driven almost entirely by this song, released around the time that Portishead was making “trip-hop” a common term, but written years before, when Nirvana and Guns N Roses were topping the charts.

This song ended up on the soundtrack to the 1996 film “The Cable Guy”, about a lonely, depressed cable repair man…which makes sense when you remember that the song itself was written by a lonely, depressed air traffic controller.

What makes this a beautiful song:

1. The vocal sample. Years before Moby was doing it, O’Connor had the great idea to mix old blues vocals with trance beats. Probably the catchiest part of the song, the sample features B.B. King’s 1964 song, “How Blue Can You Get?”.

2. The piano. As the track approaches the 3-minute mark, a floaty, sprawling piano solo begins. Paying no attention to the tempo of the song, it just kind of goes wherever it wants. The sound of the instrument is pure early-90s ballad, but somehow it works.

3. The lyrics.  Like all the best songs from the 90s, this one is full of wonderful non-sequiturs and baffling religious references. O’Connor was probably down in the dumps when he wrote the lyrics, and as the title suggests, he probably had a good 90s sense of dark irony as well. And if you’re not sure what it means when he says, “you swim like lions through the crest/and bathe yourself on zebra flesh”…well, if you don’t understand that, I can’t possibly explain it to you.

Recommended listening activity:

Going through your change, trying to find coins from the year you were born.