simianthinker

Queen City Sounds Podcast S3E12: Brian Krumm

Brian Krumm is the frontman of Chicago-based Americana/alt-country band The Great Crusades and like most musicians at the beginning of the pandemic lock downs he found himself with ample time to think, consider and stew about the state of things and contemplate about the future of his chosen path in life. So in an effort to stay sane he drank a shot of whiskey every evening at 5 p.m. and tried to write a song. 25 days later he had 25 songs and over the course of the next two to three years he identified 11 that he could shape into an album and develop the material with band mates and other musical colleagues. The result is Just Fade Away, released as Brian Krumm and his Barfly Friends, out now on Pravda on digital, 12” vinyl LP and CD as well as streaming platforms. The record is a deeply introspective and poetically observed set of songs that get into an assessment of one’s life and one’s shortcomings, triumphs and the moments of joy that illuminate existence. Fans of Tom Waits will appreciate Krumm’s vulnerable rasp and the frank and witty storytelling is reminiscent of the likes of Robyn Hitchcock and Warren Zevon.

Listen to our interview with Brian Krumm on Bandcamp and connect with the artist at the links below.

briankrumm.com

Brian Krumm on Instagram

Brian Krumm on Twitter

Brian Krumm on Facebook

Brian Krumm on Bands In Town

Brian Krumm on Songkick

Brian Krumm and his Barfly Friends on Pravda Records Bandcamp

Queen City Sounds Podcast S3E11: Brenda Sauter of Wild Carnation

Wild Carnation circa 1996, photo courtesy the artists

Wild Carnation formed in 1992 with Richard Barnes, Chrstopher O’Donovan and Brenda Sauter. Though all members of the band had been in Speed the Plough, the latter, lead vocalist and bass player, had performed with The Feelies and The Trypes (as well as others) and the new band would have some roots in the intricate guitar melodies and layered rhythms of the better bands out of the indie underground of Haledon and Hoboken, New Jersey. In 2023 the trio’s 1994 debut full length Tricycle was released on digital, CD and vinyl via Delmore Recording Society, the renamed Delmore Recordings label that issued the album initially. The energetic jangle pop of the songs and Sauter’s beautifully expressive vocals recall a sound of that era of which one hears echoes in Flying Nun bands, Elephant 6 and of course Yo La Tengo with the mix of tenderness and intensity, of irresistible melodies and emotional nuance that a certain vintage of indiepop embodied perfectly and which seems somehow even more relevant for the current era when that level of elegant songwriting and attention to sonic detail seems like something the world has finally caught up to more so than in years past.

Listen to our interview with Brenda Sauter on Bandcamp and to listen to Tricycle and keep up with all things Wild Carnation follow the links below.

wildcarnation.com

delmorerecordings.com

Wild Carnation on Facebook

Corey Gulkin Steps Out of Impostor Syndrome Into Full-Fledged Creative Power in the Video for “Raya”

The music video for Corey Gulkin’s song “Raya” seems to make more explicit the themes of the song of cultivating one’s own identity and leaning on your social circles some to help define that. The song itself is a masterful use of quiet dynamics and rapid builds to express an upswing of emotion and confidence and then back into contemplative passages. Early in the video Gulkin is given a set of clothes for performance that seem too big but as the song progresses and ascends in tone and energy perhaps early feelings of impostor syndrome fall away as the songwriter embraces the lessons of becoming the artist they’ve always wanted to become and the performance garb becomes part of the art rather than something to simply grow into. Fans of the more recent Lower Dens albums will appreciate the fantastic orchestration of sounds and moods and the creative ambition of the song particularly as embodied in the music video directed, shot and edited by Adrienne McLaren. Watch that video on YouTube, follow Corey Gulkin at the links below and look out for the new full-length album Half Moon due October 6, 2023.

Corey Gulkin on Instagram

Corey Gulkin on Bandcamp

Queen City Sounds Podcast S3E10: David Heatley

David Heatley is a cartoonist, illustrator, graphic designer and musician whose comic work has appeared in or on The New Yorker, The New York Times, Mome, Kramers Ergot and McSweeney’s. His high school band Velvet Cactus Society had a couple of records out on Shimmy Disc in the 90s and for his 2008 graphic novel My Brain is Hanging Upside Down he recorded a soundtrack under his own name including a cover of The Ramones song from which he borrowed the title. He has also been a member of the band The Bischoffs. In 2021 he launched his animation production company Dream Puppy, Inc. and a television show based on his 2019 graphic memoir Qualification is currently under production by Gaspin Media. In March 2023 Heatley released his latest album If…, a collection of songs that seem to explore the concept of love, requited, not so requited, potential, as manifest in one’s life and the implications of that feeling in one’s life and how it affects how you live it. Its baroque pop and bossa nova sounds sounds like something from an earlier era but its sensibility and treatment of the subject matter is very modern and tinged with the kind of self-awareness and at times a touch of irony but never about love itself. In this interview we discuss his music and his life as an artist and his influences including his connections with the legendary Providence, Rhode Island DIY space Fort Thunder.

Listen to our interview with David Heatley on Bandcamp and follow the songwriter/artist’s doings on his website linked below where you can listen to the new album in its entirety.

davidheatley.com

Queen City Sounds Podcast S3E09: MIIRRORS

MIIRORS has its roots in a happenstance meeting between Brian McSweeney and Shawn Rios in 2001 on an airplane that sparked a long friendship around music that lead to the formation of a band. The group started with the aim of creating an album rather than working toward a debut live performance giving it the ability to develop and grow organically from a recording project duo into a full five member bend that it is today with the inclusion of Dmitri Rakhuba, Andre Miller and Patrick Riley. During the early pandemic the band had no pressure to be a live act and made it even more practical to germinate the material so that the debut album Motion and Picture (released March 24, 2023) emerged as a fully realized work of ambitious songwriting that reflected influences of sonically detailed shoegaze bands like My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive and experimental art rock/pop outfits like Broken Social Scene and Lake Trout. Cinematic in the scope of its soundscapes Motion and Picture explores the full range of amplified emotions we’ve all experienced the past several years and is now available on digital and vinyl. And in the wake of the release of the album the group has been playing live shows throughout the Midwest.

Listen to our interview with McSweeney and Rios on Bandcamp and follow MIIRRORS at the links below. Also included below are the band’s music videos released as another dimension of the expression of the music.

miirrors.com

pravdamusic.com

MIIRRORS on Facebook

MIIRRORS on Instagram

Emily Manuel’s Art Folk Title Track to Her Live Forever EP is an Exploration of a Relationship in a Hurry

Emily Manuel’s ambitious art rock and chamber pop song “Live Forever” finds the songwriter orchestrating string sounds, piano and creative vocal rhythms that seem paced more intuitively in tandem with the instrumentation. There is a melancholic cast to the song rimmed with bell tones in the end appropriate to a song that seems to be about a relationship that is being pushed too fast toward an early resolution and an undertone of resignation with the inevitable. There is no drama, no agony here, rather a mature assessment of the ephemeral nature of some relationships and how there can be some joy there even though you can tell it won’t be lasting and wasn’t meant to be in order for it to have been worthwhile. One might consider it sort of a modern art folk song but one with shades of early Tori Amos and late 80s Kate Bush with an undeniable sense of mystery that lends it a compelling allure from beginning to end. Listen to “Live Forever” and the rest of the EP of the same name on Spotify and follow Denver-based artist Emily Manuel on Instagram.

Advika’s Introspective Layers of Melody on “Come Back to Earth” Cushion the Blow of a Prolonged Break-Up With a Spirit of Acceptance

Advika’s use of an exquisite field of electronic tones and steady percussion on her song “Come Back to Earth” imbues the song with a deep sense of longing and introspection. It begins with a slow pulse that builds into a full-fledged constellation of sounds as the vocals tell a kind of tale that uses the metaphor of space exploration as a deft metaphor for distance and alienation in a relationship as each person develops in different directions. Musically the ethereal swells and crystalline string arrangements and layers of synth and vocals create a mood of regretful yet comfortable acceptance and a sense of having moved on to life’s next big adventure. Listen to “Come Back to Earth” on Spotify and follow Advika at the links below.

Sea Lemon’s Starkly Creepy Video for “Cellar” is the Perfect Vehicle for a Gorgeously Expansive Shoegaze Song About a Fascination With the Aesthetics of Modern Horror Cinema

The music video for Sea Lemon’s new single “Cellar” (from the forthcoming EP Stop at Nothing due out August 25, 2023 via Luminelle Recordings) is probably going to be unsettling and creepy for some but anyone that’s been an aficionado of modern and classic horror say something in the better end of found footage and/or A24 for how that form of cinema can be so compelling and emotionally stimulating will appreciate the haunting minimalism of what is presumably the artist standing on a roof clad in a long white dress, arm-length, red gloves, under a light gray overcast sky with very little going on but the tension of expectation is sustained until the end. The lyrics enhance this unusual and spooky imagery with words about asking if someone wants to “see something that feels so wrong” and about the cellar being where she belongs, and being told she’s off. Then about wondering if someone would want to own a home with a public record of a killer’s association with the the place. And then the chorus of “So I say/sometimes I imitate/yesterday/thingsthat make me afraid.” But the music is so ethereal and gorgeously billowy and entrancingly melodic with textural distortion giving it an element of grit it’s almost a contrast with the subject matter overall giving one a sense of the absurd which is the appeal of a lot of horror and how some of the most horrifying films can be seen as super dark comedy given the right frame of mind not to mention the aforementioned ability of horror films to go beyond standard cinematic fare in provoking thought and feeling because it has to operate in transgressive ways with stories that cross outside of easy mainstream marketing with imagery that leaves a strong impression. There is a compelling beauty to the best and most transcendent of horror films and it is that strange alchemy at work in this Sea Lemon song and its attendant visual presentation shot and edited by songwriter Natalie Lew and Abe Poultridge. Lew and Poultridge tap precisely into what certain fans of music and dark cinema will find exactly to their liking. Masterful. Watch said video on YouTube and follow Sea Lemon aka Natalie Lew at the links provided.

Sea Lemon on Instagram

Eydís Evensen’s Warmly Introspective “Dreaming of Light” Evokes the Tranquility of the Mind On the Border of Wakefulness

Eydís Evensen, photo courtesy the artist

Noteworthy modern classical artist Eydís Evensen debuts as a vocalist for “Dreaming of Light” from her second album The Light (released May 26, 2023 on Sony/XXIM) and adds another layer of elegantly rendered, warmly introspective atmosphere to her minimalist piano composition. In her performance you can hear an ear for shifting dynamics and tonal accents to suggest a gentle swell of emotion and a subtle yearning for an illumination of feeling. The lyrics in Icelandic are in perfect sync with Evensen’s evocative and almost percussive piano work and draw one in immediately to the quietly joyous mood of the song. In the music video we see the artist in a spacious room lit with soft spotlights interspersed with with views of a landscape near dawn and/or sunset, highlighting the liminal aesthetic of the song with the mind resting on the border between sleep and wakefulness. Watch the video for “Dreaming of Light” on YouTube and follow Eydís Evensen at the links below.

Eydís Evensen on Facebook

Eydís Evensen on Twitter

Eydís Evensen on Instagram

eydis-evensen.com

Cydnee with a C’s “Don’t We Always” is a Deeply Affectionate Love Song in a Charmingly Glitchy and Hyperpop Mode

Cydnee with a C, photo courtesy the artist

The harp sounds in the introduction to Cydnee with a C’s “Don’t We Always” sets the mood for an upbeat song with a fragile delicacy. The vocals are almost falsetto in character and border on hyperpop except there isn’t the hint of pitch shifting or autotune in the processing. Rather, the song feels very raw and wide open in its vulnerability. It brings together what might in another style of music be called indie folk with glitchy electronic pop and a low key glitchcore beat. And the effect is one of expressing expertly and subtly affection and love for someone with whom you have an uncommonly intimate connection. Many if not most love songs are corny but here Cydnee with a C bypasses the tropes and platitudes and roots her words in everyday experiences we often take for granted but which are the foundations of a lasting and real love that doesn’t need the melodramatic overtures. Listen to “Don’t We Always” on Spotify and follow Cydnee with a C at the links below.

Cydnee with a C on TikTok

Cydnee with a C on YouTube

Cydnee with a C on Instagram