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Queen City Sounds Podcast S3E03: Bestial Mouths

Bestial Mouths, photo by Elemental Eyes Photography

Bestial Mouths began in 2009 as a band that early on might be considered post-punk but even its debut EP, 2009’s Stabile Vices, had elements of noise and industrial set to ritualistic rhythms with tribal percussion. All along, vocalist Lynette Cerezo who has a background in fashion and design brought to performances a striking visual presentation that drew upon the imagery of mythology and dreams in a creative interplay with the music. Cerezo’s lyrics have always explored issues of gender, identity and personal liberation and whether combined with the performance or not, certainly enhanced by the live experience, meant as a conduit for mutual inspiration and uplift by challenging arbitrary societal notions of “proper” social roles and behavior and aesthetics. A Bestial Mouths show and the music embodies aspects of the subconscious and what has traditionally been relegated to artistic darkness and the feminine, the intuitive and the supernatural. Cerezo through the practice of her art reclaims all of that as a source of power and dignity by demonstrating how it isn’t negative, that it is a part of a complete human life and that such things can be harnessed to the benefit of the self and all.

More recent Bestial Mouths records starting with the new arc of music since the project has been mainly headed by Cerezo since 2018 has reconciled the early post-punk and Goth sound and noise completely with the more mystical and non-Western experimental sonic ideas and rhythms that have been a feature if not the focus of the music since the beginning. But in 2020’s RESURRECTEDINBLACK, the first Bestial Mouths record crafted with Cerezo at the creative helm it’s all there for a listening experience not unlike the psycho-mystical depths of a Dead Can Dance album but darker and more harrowing and cathartic. The new album R.O.T.T. (inmyskin), with the acronym standing for Road of Thousand Tears drops on August 11, 2023 and continues the path of its predecessor but with the songs seemingly emerging from the murk that seemed entirely appropriate for a set of songs from a time of great uncertainty and treading new musical paths. Those appreciate Diamanda Galás’ elemental catharsis, psychic fearlessness and avant-garde sensibilities might find a great deal to appreciate about Bestial Mouths as will those with a taste for the political industrial punk of ADULT. and Jarboe’s deeply emotional and unfettered vocal performances but while in Swans and since.

Listen to our interview with Lynette Cerezo of Bestial Mouths on Bandcamp and catch the group perform in Colorado on Wednesday, June 21 at Vulture’s in Colorado Springs with WitchHands and eHpH and on Thursday, June 22 at Hi-Dive in Denver with Church Fire and DJ Shannon Von Kell as well as other dates announced on the band’s website (linked below) where you can find more information and links to listen and purchase music and merch.

bestialmouths.com

Toy City Bring a Great Sense of Rediscovery and Outgrowing the Past in the Introspective and Earnest Melodies of “Mountains”

Paul Burke and Steve Shaheen of Toy City met while playing in the alternative rock scene of Boston in the 1990s but returned to music during the 2020 pandemic lockdown period and traded files recorded in studios in New York City and San Francisco. The self-titled debut album mixed by John Russell of modern noise rock legends Kal Marks and mastered by Joe Lambert released on May 5, 2023. The single “Mountains” has an unvarnished yet sophisticated charm like something these guys recorded in their practice studio but the songwriting reveals a keen ear for interlocking rhythms and an intimate mood even within a song that pulses with energy and is both brooding, yearning and hopeful with expressions of missing someone or perhaps one’s old self as one grows in new directions, perhaps outgrowing old associations and a past life to which one cannot return even if you’ve returned to familiar activities and pastimes once put on the shelf for years. It’s like a theme song for the project and the album and mentions of taking things one step at a time even if it’s clear Toy City have a command of imbuing its songs with an earnestness, elegance and economy of expression. Fans of early Failure and more recent songs by The Church will find something to appreciate in the introspective soundscapes and sincerity of the songwriting not just on “Mountains” but on the rest of the eponymous debut. Listen to “Mountains” and more on Spotify and follow Toy City on Instagram.

Laura Brehm’s Video For Transcendent Pop Single “Wonder” is Like the Realized Dream of Self-Rediscovery

Laura Brehm’s video for “Wonder” as directed and choreographed by Alexandra Light is like something out of a futuristic fantasy graphic novel written by Tillie Walden. It has that vast sense of space, fine emotional nuance and mystique as Brehm wanders in spaces of colossal architecture, in meadows with companion dancers in white, floating in water moving in slow motion, in a ballet studio, the motion like a ritualistic analog to the ethereal flow of melody and the outwardly expansive flow of sound. The song seems to be about one of rediscovering the wonder of life after a period of healing from a trauma requiring her to suppress who she is and her spirit in order to weather that time. But the mood of the song is reconnecting with one’s true self and ready to move forward free to be and become who one was always meant to be. Think Björk making a transcendental dream pop song and you have an idea of the layers of electronic beats and sweeps of tone that help to put the focus on Brehm’s introspective and resonant vocals. Watch the video for “Wonder” on YouTube and follow Laura Brehm at the links below.

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https://open.spotify.com/artist/7ddnIV2r4SLjuwyGlgLIWt

Bees in a Bottle Peer Into the Psychological Deep End on the Powerful Slowcore Track “Wet Widow”

Bees in a Bottle, photo courtesy the artists

Bees in a Bottle released its latest album The Sun Left and Took The Moon With It on April 14, 2023 with linking themes of stories, according to the Bandcamp preview, “written from the perspective of various women who’ve lost a loved male rock icon to suicide or drug addiction. These are the inner conversations of wives and mothers struggling their way through grif asking for meaning, hope, and ultimately, a way back to themselves.” The lead track “Wet Widow” is not just a great introduction to an emotionally and creatively ambitious album, it embodies the vulnerability, the pain and the resilience of the aim of the music. The song begins with a hushed grace with vocals like a burning ember that’s been suppressed for uncounted time allowed to flare forth in bursts of feeling and earnest expressions of newfound strength and independence. Musically one might think of the shimmery elegance of the best end of Eleventh Dream Day’s scrappy slowcore styling or of Throwing Muses’ poetic and pointed songs dipping into personal myth and homegrown folkloric narratives. Fans of Low will appreciate the elegant compositions and expansive spirit tied to unvarnished emotional fortitude found unexpectedly in our most fragile moments. You won’t hear lines so real and raw as “Put a gun to my head if you really want to see inside, it’s the only way you’ll get your piece of mind/Because I won’t be your tragedy porn little widow all wet with tears” in a song by artists not willing to go off into the thrilling and psychologically perilous deep end in search of personal truth. Listen to “Wet Widow” on Spotify and follow Bees in a Bottle at the links provided.

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They Kiss Weave Weave a Deep Sense of Nostalgia For the Future and a Daydream Mood on “Synth Pop Beat”

If roller skating rinks were still an active concern and not a retro kitsch thing preserved as almost a museum of another era, They Kiss is making music that would be perfect for skating the night away and in particular the new single “Synth Pop Beat” (a title the song amply lives up to) from the duo’s 2022 album Feeling With You. The song is a romance of two people “living the dream” together combining their complementary energies to be able to perhaps accomplish more than they could or would separately. The saturated synth tone and blissed out melodies fuse trip hop sensuousness and chillwave’s deep sense of nostalgia and daydream-y mood. The beats are meditative in the way dancing can be and the song as well as much of the rest of the album can put you in a mood to indulge pleasant memories while angling for an even better future. It is the antithesis of the anomy of the current era of human history and we could all use a break from that anxiety even if only for the duration of a song or a dozen. Listen to “Synth Pop Beat” on Spotify where you can find the rest of the album and follow They Kiss at the links below.

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Jupe Jupe’s Orchestral Glam Pop Single “World Is Fire” is a Celebration of How We Hold the World Together With Hopes and Dreams

Jupe Jupe imbues its single “World Is Fire” with an expansive and joyous spirit after an opening that sounds like a stumble that a single bass note launches into action. Musically its reminiscent of mid-1980s Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark with the moodiness, hopefulness and romance of poignant observations and grand declarations. Mid-song it even has a tasteful saxophone solo that takes the pause in the forward momentum of the rhythm and gilds it with touches of sass. By the end of the song it becomes obvious how perhaps all along a cello was providing some of the low end outside of the expert bass accents that lent the whole song the feel of some angular DC post-punk. The sound has the air of an orchestrated piece of music like glam rock chamber pop even as the words seem to be about the precariousness of the world as we know it and how we hold it together with hopes and dreams against the odds. Listen to “World Is Fire” on Spotify where you can listen to the rest of the new Jupe Jupe record Midnight Waits for No One which released on April 14, 2023. Follow Jupe Jupe at the links provided.

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Queen City Sounds Podcast S3E02: Atmosphere

Atmosphere is a hip-hop duo from Minneapolis, Minnesota comprised of rapper Slug aka Sean Daley and DJ/producer Ant aka Anthony Davis. Slug and Ant have been influential well beyond their own remarkable work as artists as co-founders of the respected Rhymesayers Entertainment imprint which has long been one of the torchbearers of underground and alternative hip-hop going back to the mid-90s and releasing not just the work of Atmosphere but that of Aesop Rock, Brother Ali, Eyedea & Abilities, Dilated Peoples, Grayskul and others. Including its debut album Overcast! (1997), Atmosphere has released thirteen full albums and ten EPs up through the new record So Many Other Realities Exist Simultaneously (2023) making the project one of the more prolific acts in hip-hop. In its various lineups and incarnations Atmosphere has consistently paired sensitive and thought-provoking lyrics with a sonically rich and diverse production ranging from some more classic hip-hop sounds to the clearly experimental and avant-garde all to deliver powerfully evocative music that engages the imagination and the heart. In the live setting Atmosphere create an intimate and inviting energy that creates an environment of the shared experience as Daley’s lyrics aim to not just tell relatable stories with roots in his own direct experiences but with resonances for common experiences and emotional spaces we’ve all known. On the new record the songs take us through a journey through unrest and hope, the latter the primary feeling Daley hopes to convey to everyone that shows up to an Atmosphere show because it is hope that lingers and can carry you through trying times into those that are better.

Listen to our interview with Slug on Bandcamp and catch Atmosphere on tour now including a date in Englewood, Colorado at Fiddler’s Green on Friday, June 16, 2023 for a festival date as Dirty Heads & Atmosphere & Stick Figure w/DENM, The Grouch and Mike Love. And then returning to the Denver area at Red Rocks on September 17, 2023 with Danny Brown, Souls of Mischief, The Grouch & Eligh w/DJ Fresh, Mr. Dibbs and Breakbeat Lou of Ultimate Breaks & Beats. For more information on Atmosphere and Rhymesayers please visit the links below.

Rhymesayers
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SNEAKPEEK’s “Serendipity” is a Psychedelic Synth Pop Meditation on Turning Aspiration Into Reality

SNEAKPEEK’s “Serendipity” explores themes of connecting dots from seeming fortuitous coincidences in everyday life. The music video has washed out colors and looks like something generated on a computer suggesting a kind of virtual reality and/or that we’re all living in a simulation and that we can figure out deeper or broader meanings with leaning into an intuitive awareness of messages from the universe. According to vocalist Dora Hiller the song was inspired by the teaching of Abraham Hicks (a non-physical entity channeled by Esther Hicks) and Yogananda (a Hindu monk who helped to popularize the practice of yoga in the West and proposed unified underlying principles to world religions). But whether or not one subscribes to these ideas there is something alluring to the song’s techno-industrial dance beat, layered synths combining a hazy distortion and playful arpeggios and Hiller’s melodious voice sounding like a confident guide into a realm of manifesting one’s dreams and aspirations through directed intention. Watch the video for “Serendipity” on YouTube and follow SNEAKPEEK at the links below.

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The Darkly Mysterious Downtempo Track “Moonlight” by Amor Experientia is Slice of Cinematic Darkwave Hip-Hop

Amor Experientia, photo courtesy the artist

When “Moonlight” by Amor Experientia begins it’s more a drift into texture and a processed piano loop and haunting downtempo vocals. But near the minute mark a sound like a scream signals the next passage of the song that has the cool, sultry/soulful female vocals that embody the tranquil strands of white light through the dark of night like a beacon through the dusky haze of the track. That scream-like pique of tone that punctuates the track is reminiscent of something Dilla would have done for Donuts but spookier and like a darkwave hip-hop track. It ends too soon and suddenly for an effect of getting a taste of something tantalizingly mysterious. Listen to “Moonlight” on Soundcloud.

Vinyl Williams Transports Us to a Fantastical Realm of Sacred Geometry and Celestial Bodies in the Hazily Transcendental Psychedelic Pop of “Petroglyph”

Vinyl Williams, photo courtesy the artist

Vinyl Williams offers us another transporting bit of cosmic pop with “Petroglyph” from his forthcoming album Aeterna which releases August 4, 2023 via Harmony Records. The bright drones wrap around the ethereal, floating harmonies like sparkling garlands while Williams’ vocals guide us through a magical landscape of sounds and fantastical imagery of sacred geometry and celestial bodies. The accompanying music video is like a journey through a cultural home city in an MMO with wondrous features to discover for the curious and intrepid explorer and carried aloft by the hazy uplift of the song that outros with a dreamlike shimmer into the next adventure. Watch the video for “Petroglyph” on YouTube and follow Vinyl Williams at the links provided.