In praise of harmony

The power of voices coming together (and drifting apart)

View this email online May 25, 2024 by Ann Powers This week, we’re thinking about the way voices can come together (and drift apart) to tell stories. The song "Wishes" helped to make the trio Tiny Habits an instant favorite of 2024.  Credit: Maggie Barger / Courtesy of the artist Hello fellow lovers of the magic chord, This week I’ve been finding happiness in harmony. Okay, always. I’ve loved harmony singing since my early years strumming in the folk choir at my church’s Saturday night mass, when I’d lift my voice with Godspell fans on our pungent versions of songs from that Jesus-freak musical. Day by day…. Nothing felt better in my nerdish youth than grabbing hold of the alto part alongside my fellow parochial schooler Mary as her brothers, who had an actual rock band, sang the low parts and played bass and guitar behind us.  Harmony singing is the road into a music-loving life for many people. Actually experiencing the joys of harmony primes fans to respond viscerally when they hear pop voices blending together — it’s one reason that Fleetwood Mac, ABBA and Boyz II Men remain eternally popular. Even those who weren’t lucky enough to grow up harmonizing firsthand likely find themselves grabbing a third or a fifth in the chords that make up choruses they love when they hear them on the radio. Harmonizing is community; it’s teamwork; it’s a glorious mind-meld.  My favorite harmonizers fall into a couple of categories: the Olympic skater types, whose prowess dazzles as they pick up each other’s lines with athletic precision; and the storytellers, who use harmony to enrich their tales of interpersonal dynamics. (Most legends do a bit of both, but lean one way or the other.) Among the Olympians, think of the Everly Brothers, the Bee Gees or the Pointer Sisters, whose blood bonds made it possible to blend in super-heroic ways.  Today I’m here to talk about the latter kind, though — vocal groups who turn their interplay into little dramas (or comedies!) through unexpected dynamic shifts, bent chords and vocal effects. Most great doo-wop artists did this. The Coasters, for example, captured the spirit of nagging parents, class clowns and Western showdowns in their hits. Adapting the doo-wop spirit for the seekers of the late 1960s, Simon and Garfunkel gave us old friends sitting on a park bench and CSNY went for epic, cosmic sagas. My favorite trio ever, The Roches, knocked their blood harmonies off kilter in songs like “One Season,” with its dissonant central line that anybody who’s had family trouble will recognize: We go on arguing. En Vogue created fun historical fictions in songs like “My Lovin (Never Gonna Get It),” connecting their 1990s empowerment anthems to womanist predecessors from the swing era through the girl groups. In our own time, boygenius and Haim use harmonies to invoke the power and complexity of women’s relationships whether they’re sisterly or romantic. Among these storytellers, harmony says something beyond just being sublime. It both celebrates and illuminates sometimes difficult human connections. I’m offering this history as a way to introduce you to my new favorite group of 2024, Tiny Habits. I’ve mentioned the trio, who met as students at Berklee College of Music, before — their song “Wishes” became a favorite for me the minute I heard it. This week the group’s debut album, All For Something, was released, featuring that song and many other gems. The sound is pristine soft rock, recalling that 1970s era when jazz-inflected soul and soft rock hits took harmony in intimate, sensual directions. (Think of Michael Franks and Brenda Russell duetting on “When I Give My Love To You,” or England Dan and John Ford Coley blowing the stars around on “I’d Really Love To See You Tonight.”) What I love about Tiny Habits, though, is the trio’s dedication to capturing complicated emotional experiences — endings, beginnings and especially the uncertain time when either might occur — in its songwriting and in the way its members’ voices interact. “Wishes” provides a great example of this. The song folds yearning into insecurity; it is a lament that contains just enough hope to make it impossibly poignant. Though it’s more intimate and less dramatic, it makes me think of Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Boxer,” a lush song that communicates both grace and wrenching loneliness. “Wishes” doesn’t have the crashing chorus that “The Boxer” does, but its verses — one each written and sung by Tiny Habits members Cinya Khan, Maya Rae and Judah Mayowa — match Paul Simon’s story of a migrant’s isolation with a Gen Z take reflecting on impossible expectations and a crushing sense of inadequacy.  “I wish I didn’t feel like a burden all the time,” is the song’s refrain, executed in a waterfall harmony that invokes another classic song of diminished but not extinguished hope, Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide.” The way each solo verse flows into that chorus reflects the song’s message that a person’s darkest thoughts are theirs alone, yet are echoed, unrecognized, within other people’s minds. In the “Wishes” video, the frame is a group therapy session, a place well known to many young people, where success requires the courage to share grief and anxiety and the grace to receive it. The song demonstrates that process. Fans of the group have recognized the gesture — after Rae posted a guitar tutorial on TikTok, they began writing their own verses, expressing their insecurities and modest dreams. All For Something resounds with such tender exchanges and gestures toward connection. “Mudroom,” by Khan, builds a metaphor around the moment right before a person steps into a new relationship. “Flicker” is about a lover who runs confusingly warm and cool. “Small Things” follows up on “Mudroom” with a story of slowly excising the presence of an ex from one’s mind. “Planting Flowers” could be about an ending or a beginning; its depiction of uncertainty in the face of several different kinds of distance never quite settles. These songs belong to young adulthood, when possibility is at its most promising and, because of that, frightening. Sung by a trio who don’t share blood but do match in tessitura and timbre, they register as the expression of chosen kinship. Three voices support one another, making space for each and then gently hugging in, establishing bonds while allowing room to breathe. It’s okay, the songs say, you can say what you don’t think you should say. I found Tiny Habits on TikTok, where harmony resounds everywhere. There’s the sibling group Infinity Song, showing off that Olympian flair but using it in new ways, to support spoken word and quiet-storm soul. There’s Ray Bull, a bratty duo who surround their songs with a lot of comedy, but whose mix of exquisite harmonies and sometimes lacerating accounts of romantic failure is unique and affecting. On the folk side, I’m excited about another duo, West of Roan, whose upcoming album uses traditional harmonies — more unstable, almost ghostly — to flesh out its own mythological sagas, and about the Irish trio Rufous Nightjar, who do trad music in ways that make me think about The Roches. It’s exciting to discover these variations on an art that’s been with us as long as people have raised their voices together. Harmony is a gift available to everyone. I’m happy to see it constantly recirculated and renewed. Newsletter continues after sponsor message A few other things pulling at my heartstrings this week: Here are some of those fan responses to “Wishes.” Grab a tissue before you watch. Meaghan Garvey on the strange, evocative saga of Cindy Lee. Don’t miss jazz legend Bob James at the Tiny Desk. My pal Carl Wilson wrote the best review of the new Billie Eilish album, IMHO. Lately I’ve been chilling to Fabiano do Nascimento and Sam Gendel’s wonderfully spacious album The Room. I guess nobody else liked it — no second season! — but I found Constellation, the Apple TV+ sci-fi/horror series starring the fascinating Swedish actress Noomi Rapace (the original Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), utterly involving, with a lot to say about parent-child bonds and insecurities. After returning from Europe, I have become super irritating — all I can talk about is the high quality of Scandinavian life. I need Matt Lyons to make a TikTok about me. NPR Classical Let no good music go unsupported ... Introducing NPR Music+, a new way to support what you love and explore new music and conversations sponsor-free. NPR Music+ includes two podcasts with one convenient subscription: All Songs Considered and Alt.Latino, both sponsor-free. Learn more and support us at plus.npr.org/NPRmusic Get NPR Music+ Listen to your local NPR station. Visit NPR.org to hear live radio from Central Florida Public Media (edit station). Need a new playlist? 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