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Harvey Danger had this crazy idea: put together a new studio album and give it away. They had good reasons. They deserve major kudos for that, and at least a free hoodie from Downhill Battle. (And they deserve at least a listen from you, because it is legal and free. Go get.) However, I will not just promote a band because they have the right ideals. I will promote them if their music is high-quality, and “Little by Little” is clearly a quality work.

The album walks the blurry line between indie-rock and twee-pop, with a really strong tend towards true song-crafting. On an album like this, you’re going to get cozy with the vocalist, locking eyes with him and hanging on at least every other word. The band is there too, but they’re chill, and he’s chill: neither snide vocals nor overzealous instrumentals are going to dominate. This sounds rudimentary, but the amount of blend I get between the band members is almost jarring.

I’m really reminded of Ben Folds / Five in the flavor of this music, and for me that’s a huge complement. Ben Folds strongly locked into capital-C songcraft, with sighing piano chords and retold stories in the most earnest language. That’s what I’m getting from Harvey Danger: clever and grabby lyrics, sincere vocals, and also no shortage of the piano-driven rock. (My key example of the Ben Folds Five / Harvey Danger synergy: “Happiness Writes White”.)

Then again, the first two songs on the album - “Wine, Women and Song” and the spunky “Cream and Bastards Rise” - come off a bit differently. “Wine” starts of mellow enough, but we quickly see the steady piano chords and clever lyrics, while innocent on their own, combine to reveal a truly bitter, sardonic view. This is sharp, in both the sense of “witty” and also “like a razor blade”. “Cream” ditches the genteel sheen of the piano and goes for the more comic anger of a guitar driven baseline. It’ just so very punk, but in a geek-rock sort of way.

Nonetheless, even these tracks never lose control, and I think that’s what was so surprising about the album when listening to this. The band has the patience for pace and a wisdom to know where it wants to go. It gets there in modest but small progressions: little by little.

Download it direct (and free and legal) from Harvey Danger’s site.

PayPal them money if you like it.

“Little by Little” (Harvey Danger)

The other day I saw my friend Nelson (founder of Free Culture) in Cambridge. There was Indian food, and also a discussion of this idea of his: “A user-oriented open source software bounties site”. We talked about even expanding it to non-software free culture. It would work like this:

Step 0: Dev gets an itch for some media. “Man, I wish someone would record that epic orchestral piece Zigeunerweisen so I could download it. And I really wish that it was in the Creative Commons, so that I could share it with my friends.”

Step 0.5: Dev realizes that anyone would any taste would have a similar desire. Clearly.

Step 1: Dev posts a reasonable “bounty” for his request. “$200 for a CC-licenses recording of this most awesome song.” He throws in $20 to start things off.

Step 3: Smart folk log onto the site and throw in their donations.

Step 4: $200 is reached, and given to a community orchestra in Tulsa, who have recorded a righteous version of the song. Score!

Actually, this isn’t just a scenario; this is how I’m feeling right now. Clearly, this would be a good thing for Free Culture.

The first thing I notice in this song is the violin. She starts out in brisk bottom-of-the-bow staccato, scarcely sounding like the refined instrument you’d think it was, but like the rhythm guitar’s short and crass cousin. Then she breaks away from the accordion, doing her own thing. She’s still laying low, she’s still not looking you straight in the eye, but you just know that the she is starting to act like a real violin now. She flying up and down no more than three notes, like a twisted “Flight of the Bumblebee” with her heads rolled into the back of her head.

I should come clean: I played the violin when I was younger. (SUZUKI METHOD, FOOL!) I wasn’t ever one of the best young violinists, mainly because I hated to practice. Thus, I got left behind while my betters filled up the first violin slots. Perhaps a different side of the violin was shown to them: the violin as the champion of classical music, carrying the melody proudly into battle, with swords and painted armor and crap like that. I was always in the second violin section, and my playing was always there to support the first violinists. But that sweet, sweet jealousy was the very elixir to wake my young eyes. I knew what was missing from my colleagues’ understanding of the violin: Satan.

No, really. The violin is the devil himself, and if you’ve heard any of the really good stuff (HINT: Zigeunerweisen by Sarasate) you understand this. When someone is truly great at the piano or harp or banjo, you might presume some angels was guiding the fingers. You make no such mistake with the violin: when she sings out, whether in her low bellow or her high scream, and when she spins around faster than God would allow: you then understand that the violin, for all her good intentions, is a purely diabolic entity.

This is Gogol Bordello, and they just don’t care. So you’ve got this violin. She started fast and mean, and now she’s getting faster and meaner. If I were you I’d duck right about now.

The second thing I notice in this song is a piercing scream, crossed with the violin finally wailing upwards, breathing fire and cutting the bow to bits as she climbs up the octave, throwing tremolo across the note like it was cheap vodka. The violin is now dirty and fast, mean-spirited and violent, and entirely soaked in flammable spirits. Just like the violin was meant to be. You? You’re loving every minute.

The punchline is that you’re just thirty seconds in a 3 1/2 minutes song. This is Gogol Bordello, and they just don’t care. Cue the vocals.

“Gypsy Punks Underdog World Strike” (Gogol Bordello)