40 Songs, 40 Days (2011 Edition), Day Fourteen: "Sleeping Lions" by The Wind Whistles

This time out, we've got a song from a folk duo from Vancouver taken from a concept album they put out in 2009, Animals Are People, Too. They're also indicative of this new breed of artists who offer the digital forms of their albums for free--you can still get this collection of songs from their record company, ahhhhh records here.

This is an interesting song, with some swooping, soaring arrangements and some really beautiful harmonies. Those harmonies are really the thing that makes the song work, as Tom and Lisa (the couple that make up the band) manage to give the piece a much larger feel than you would think possible from just two people with just an acoustic bass and guitar.

And they're the sort of band I could not imagine existing for long in a world where they'd have to go through the record company system.

Which is why, the screaming of the RIAA nonwithstanding, these alternative distribution methods work. People like this band are making music available for free...and are reaping enough money off of ancillary sale of the physical CD, or donations, or--as they're doing now with a project they're calling 'The Secret Album'--inviting fan participation in the way an album is structured. This is the positive side of the Untamed Frontiers of The Internet, a place where people can find and support each other instead of being tossed out into the general populace to sink or swim.

There's no video for this song--but then, I guess since you can nab the whole album for free, there's no need for me to show you how good this song is. So instead, here's the video for the album's single, "Turtle," where you get a sense of their harmonies and see them wearing giraffe and panda masks and...yes, playing a turtle...