Cover Lay Down

• Vol. 1: Popcovers
• Vol. 2: Folk Covers

We’ve wrangled a bit with the term “indie” here before, both in regards to its relationship with folk music, and as a source for coverage. Today, though, the term is merely a catch-all for coverage, loosely defined; after all, songsource being what it is, much modern music is neither folk nor fowl, neither pop nor pap, but that precious still-underground stuff which claims neither major label nor traditional affiliation.

We’ll have a tiny burst of American Popular Song come tomorrow, a fitting close to our thematic week. Let today be for those brave new and nu-acoustic souls covering the recent and the audiophilic, the rare and the undersung. Ladies and gentlemen: new artists, covering the indie world.

CLLCT is a growing online collective of musicians who give their music away - unlike, say, those small indie labels, which at least in theory have some profit margin in mind for all involved, or MySpace, which may be nominally a source for music, but feels less like a community every day. As you might expect, this means predominantly DIY music, from lo-fi bedroomy stuff to glitchy self-driven electronica, and a fair bit of collaboration from communally-minded musicians. A mixed bag, to say the least, but at least you know what you’re getting, and if you’ve got time to fritter - this IS the Internet, after all - it’s a fun, friendly place to pan for gold.

This recent Jonathan Richman tribute Baby, We Are Richman is a good example of what a collective like CLLCT can create: fluid in scope and contents, broad in tone and talent, it nonetheless brought me to the “cuddlecore ukulele folk pop” of Madeline Ava, whose lovely cover of I’m a Little Dinosaur went right to the top of my week’s playlist…immediately followed by her tender, hushed-yet-playful cover album In The Aeroplane Over The Sea (except not really…), which is a full track-for-track solo uke-and-voice interpretation of exactly the Neutral Milk Hotel album you think it is. The title cut is clear and cute, and her Holland, 1945 makes for an especially sweet match ‘tween artist and song.

• Madeline Ava: I’m A Little Dinosaur (orig. Jonathan Richman)
• Madeline Ava: In The Aeroplane Over The Sea (orig. Neutral Milk Hotel)
• Madeline Ava: Holland, 1945 (ibid.)

I rediscovered indie popsters Fanfarlo through inbox news of their upcoming iTunes Live Session EP; later, the cover I loved the most ended up on both new coverblog The Cover Lovers and, subsequently, the same Captain Obvious covers mixtape as the recently posted Rural Alberta Advantage cover of Survivor’s Eye of the Tiger. Which just goes to show you two things: like the other coverblogs in the sidebar to your right, both The Cover Lovers and Captain Obvious belong on your feedreader, and for all its evil unsharing DRM ways, sometimes, iTunes gets it right. Well, that, and “indie pop” at its acoustic best is another way of saying “sounds like folk to me”.

Blog darlings Fanfarlo provide a rich indiepop sound, with piano, fluid guitar, trumpet, pulsing strings, and harmonic goodness to spare; in production, they sound a bit like the more melodic, poppy side of Talking Heads or XTC, which is a fine thing indeed. But take away the studio, and they strip down beautifully. Their “live” cover of Tom Waits, which came out as part of their wonderfully-conceptualized advent calendar this past holiday season, provides a good sense of what that means without all the fanfare, plus a hint of Salvation Army band for good measure; other covers on the Fanfarlo video page, especially their recent “laptop sessions” take on Neutral Milk Hotel’s In The Aeroplane Over The Sea, pull back even farther towards folk, to great and lasting effect. And their Bonnie “Prince” Billy cover is a hidden pseudo-americana-folk gem, Wilco-esque and majestic, crescendoing from sultry to triumphant and back in turns, coming through the wires ragged and gleeful, as befits lyric and sentiment.

• Fanfarlo: A Minor Place (orig. Bonnie “Prince” Billy)
• Fanfarlo: In The Neighborhood (orig. Tom Waits)
• Fanfarlo: In The Aeroplane Over The Sea (orig. Neutral Milk Hotel)

Three video-ready artists close out our short set tonight.


Kina Grannis’s version of Bon Iver’s Blood Bank doubles the falsetto-voiced tones of the original as a gorgeous harmonic choir over a forefront of strong singer-songwriter alto with more than a hint of Lori McKenna’s warm, welcoming tones. Her fireside Owl City cover is acoustic coffeehouse folkpop heaven; her most recent cover vid - a staircase-sung harmony trio take on a K’s Choice tune, sung with her sisters - is slow and rhythmic, a sleepsong of win.

Where did this girl come from? Oh, the usual: the LA-based YouTube megastar made a splash after winning a chance at network exposure during the Superbowl a few years back, and now rates hundreds of thousands of hits each time she posts a video. Grannis drops her debut, entitled Stairwells, on February 23; these - plus some lovely original self-released EPs, and a whole mess more delightful video coversongs from sources both classic and modern - certainly help fill the waiting void.

Indiepop artist Chantilly’s debut disc Caught Light may be a bit uneven, but it has some great moments, especially on those tracks with keys and a solid beat, where the Brooklyn singer-songwriter comes across as full-bore chartpop with a dollop of soul, like a melodically-minded R&B star, albeit with a delicate sliding-tone vocal that softens the blow just enough for an old folkie.

Unfortunately for the string-minded, the guitar-driven songs on her debut disc are a bit too busy, and her voice a bit too buried under all that production. But Chantilly sent along a She and Him cover, and a nice take-down of Lady Gaga, at my request for coversongs, and both come off much, much stronger without the production, which speaks well of both Chantilly’s potential, and of her live shows to come as she begins to promote her debut.

I know the latter tune, like the K’s Choice cover above, truly belongs in our first round of this theme, but Chantilly’s a late addition to my roster, and like her guilty-pleasure popsongs, her solo couch videos are just oh so irresistible.

Finally, we have Baltimore artist Paul Masson, whose rough-hewn in-studio Animal Collective cover graced both inbox and the virtual pages of Slowcoustic in the past few months. I’ll admit, this cover took a few tries to grow on me - but it says something that I kept coming back, and the strained voice and earnestness of this cover really does serve the song exquisitely. Masson’s new self-titled EP has been compared to Neil Young and Hank Williams, Sr., and I can hear ‘em both - in the guitar, in the voice, in the tenderness, and in the sorrow. Try his new EP out at MySpace; I think you’ll hear it, too.