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Clouds in a Headlock Deliver Downtempo, Cosmic, Psychedelic Hip-Hop With “Phantasia”

Clouds in a Headlock, photo courtesy the artists

The psychedelic and downtempo chillout beats for “Phantasia” by Clouds in a Headlock with its imaginative stream of consciousness lyrics with the project’s various MCs delivering bars as the song sits back into a transporting passages between blocks of words like getting otherworldly, free verse meditations on organic spiritual observations born of navigating a confusing world as a thoughtful person. The music video coupled with the song with a cast of characters like street mystics wandering a large urban park relocated to the edge of town is reminiscent of a fan video for a Boards of Canada song. The first rapper presented projects his face beyond his immediate body in one of the most beautifully visually disorienting parts of a particularly colorful video treatment like a long lost cable access video from a time when you could find some of the strangest and most original examples of home grown cinema around before it became accessible to anyone with a smart phone. This lends the whole experience of seeing and listening to the song an air of mystery that is often missing in modern media. But that mystery comes with an inviting energy that emanates from the figures we see and the music that’s lush and easy on the brain and gently transporting. It’s a remarkable piece of work that recalls the IDM-esque, ambient flavored works of other practitioners of psychedelic hip-hop like A Tribe Called Quest and Digable Planets. Witness the wondrous strangeness of “Phantasia” on YouTube and follow Clouds in a Headlock, flagship artists of the ŌFFKILTR circle at the links below.

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1st Base Runner’s Video for “Dark Drive Through The Canyon” is Like a Deep Mood Michael Mann Film in Miniature

1st Base Runner, photo courtesy the artist

1st Base Runner’s “Dark Drive Through The Canyon” is perhaps best experienced by watching the music video directed by Dilly Gent. In the video Tim Husmann from the project sits high on a box inside a convertible while driving around Long Beach told to remain absolutely still despite the cold and having just filmed the underwater music video for “Man Overboard” earlier the same day. It suits the lush and dramatic ambiance of the song and we see Husmann in focus as a nightscape and evening lights and daytime views stream by behind him out of focus and mixing up our own sense of time. Like a short Michael Mann film with the industrial part of Long Beach and its harbor and highways as the backdrop. The cascading, bright tones fading out in sequence swimming in a breeze of dim light drone are cinematic in quality themselves but in context of the video it creates a meaning and a mood we recognize in taking a moment to contemplate a peaceful core of our mind even as events and a dystopian state of the world streams by that we can and will have to engage with at some point but from which we can take a break now and then for moments of Zen. Watch the video on YouTube and follow 1st Base Runner at the links below.

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Snailbones’ Caustic and Jagged “Dead Inside” Has the Same Scrappy and Irreverent Spirit of Classic Chicago Noise Rock

Snailbones is from Portland, Oregon but from jump “Dead Inside” sounds like the trio has been steeped in Chicago noise rock and early post-punk hardcore. Think Shellac (and of course Big Black), Articles of Faith, Naked Raygun and more recently Meat Wave. That angular, caustic guitar sound and scrappy spirit that made a lot of the aforementioned so compelling. And yes, the group has had some of its music mastered at Electrical Audio in Chicago with some tracks done by Bob Weston and Snailbones plans to record with Steve Albini in March 2023. So those bonafides check out. But none of that wouldn’t matter if music didn’t measure up. “Dead Inside” is almost accusatory in tone regarding the source of what leads to feeling dead inside and the song dynamics go beyond choppy, cutting, mutant punk aggression. The lyric lines and the music paired with it sound like they’ve been rough cut and stretched out with the jagged places left in place so that the potential danger hangs in every moment. Listen to “Dead Inside” on Spotify and follow Snailbones at the links below.

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Snailbones on YouTube

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Penkowski Find the Weirdest Route Out of the Perilous and Depressing State of the World in the Psychedelic Music Video for New Wave Post-punk Song “Butterfly”

Penkowski has a few delightful tricks up its sleeve on its single “Butterfly.” Not only is the music video a wildly colorful, part animation, part collage art 3D explorer video game style visual presentation but the clipped riffing opening the song is like something out of the New York No Wave era like something you’d hear in a Contortions or Bush Tetras song but then the song shifts abruptly into a more elevated pop post-punk mode like the early 90s solo David Byrne work. But the whole time one is reminded of 80s New Wave with the slinky bass line and Falco-esque near yelping vocal cadence reflecting an age of absurdity and anxiety but in the outro we see our hero riding on a plane out of the phantastical and disorienting landscape on the wing of a plane, making the best of the outrageous state of things, whilst the guitar becomes more ethereal and spidery like the ending section of “Marquee Moon.” The song touches on some familiar places and yet is not like much of anything else going on right now and that’s what makes the song so standout. Watch the video for “Butterfly” on YouTube, connect with Penkowski at the links below and maybe give a listen to the album Final Destination Disneyland out now on Fiasko ltd. and Chinese label Invisible Water.

Penkowski on Instagram

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Queen City Sounds Podcast S2E30: Richard X. Heyman

Richard X. Heyman, photo courtesy richardxheyman.com

Richard X. Heyman recently released his 15th solo album 67,000 Miles An Album. The veteran musician and producer was is a founding member of The Doughboys who in the 1960s were a legendary garage rock band from New Jersey though their oeuvre was comprised mostly of covers of commercially successful bands of the time like The Yardbirds, The Kinks and of course the Rolling Stones. When the group split in 1968 (before re-forming in 2000) Heyman went on the drum for the likes of Brian Wilson, Link Wray, Jonathan Richman, played keys for Ben. E. King, guitar for Mary Weiss of The Shangri-Las. The new album includes new material and older work reworked and assembled as a kind of tour through time and in space. The earth travels through space at 67,000 miles per hour and on its axis at more than 1,000 miles an hour. The length of the album in time is approximately the distance you’ll have traveled as a passenger on spaceship earth. Recorded at both Heyman’s home studio Kick Factory and at Eastside Sound in NYC, the album features Heyman on vocals and a wide array of instrumentation with Nancy Leigh on bass and backing vocals and guest performances from Probyn Gregory on brass, Julia Kent on cello and Chris Jenkins on viola. Musically the album is brimming with infectious and exuberant melodies and exquisitely orchestrated power pop. It’s the kind of record that could have come out fifty years ago or now and seemed very much of the moment.

We had a chance to speak with Heyman about his career and his collaborations as well as the concepts and assemblage of the new record and you can listen below on Bandcamp. The album is now available on CD, digital download and via streaming services having released on Turn-Up Records on October 21, 2022. Please visit www.richardxheyman.com for details on listening and purchasing.

Sweet Tempest Coaxes Us Out of Our Emotional Ruts With the Entrancing Melodies of “Love And Motown”

In “Love And Motown” Sweet Tempest tap into an emotional resonance reminiscent of a synth pop disco. Fans of TR/ST, Perfume Genius and Purity Ring will appreciate the way Sweet Tempest uses thoroughly enveloping melodies to fuse nostalgia with immediacy. And for this song the duo gives us a tale of dissociation, isolation and a yearning for connection despite having learned the habits of finding self-entertainment and needing no one. But it’s just a mode of being and like anything that gets to be a groove in our brains we can derail that trajectory by taking chances even if the can disrupt the delicate balance we’ve built in our lives. Sweet Tempest with its swarm of gently uplifting melodies suggests to us as delicately as possible that emotional complacency may be comfortable in its way but it isn’t as satisfying as genuine connection. Listen to “Love And Motown” on Spotify and follow Sweet Tempest at the links provided.

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Kurt Uenala and David Gahan Manifest a Darkly Ambient Tone Poem Meditation on Existential Uncertainty in “G.O.D.”

Producer and composer Kurt Uenala noticed over the years one of Depeche Mode frontman David Gahan’s rituals of jotting down words in a notebook. He wondered what Gahan had written down but never really inquired. That is until one day while checking in with the singer during lockdown Uenala asked and Gahan revealed that the notes were thoughts, feelings and observations he had no intention of sharing with anyone. That set in motion a project for which Gahan sent Uenala a recording of him reciting lines from one of those notebooks and in the studio the producer set up a synth to react to input in the timbre of Gahan’s voice whether the actual voice or background noise. The ultimate result of which was a series of recordings that have been assembled as the Manuscript EP. The track “G.O.D.” sounds darkly mysterious with a generative wave of distorted, lingering swells with Gahan sounding desolated and echoing slightly in the mix, ragged and as though he has exhausted any desperation or despair and merely looking for any signs from a caring universe and perhaps finding none. Sweeps of white noise in a haze of tone washes away those existential moments leaving the question unresolved yet not without an acceptance that one may never get the answer. It’s a little like a tone poem but also a melding of ambient music and spare, soul rippling poetry and honestly one of the most fascinating pieces of music with which Gahan and at this point long time collaborator Uenala have produced. Listen to “G.O.D.” on YouTube and follow Kurt Uenala at the links below.

Kurt Uenala on Instagram

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The Beguiling Siren Song of fhae’s “love you” is a Gorgeous Lure to Cosmic Doom

The ghostly drones and ethereal vocals of “love you” by fhae sounds like something out of a future Ari Aster film. The sound of a processed cello drawing out a low end arc as other strings seem to whirl around in slow motion and a voice singing in Elizabeth Fraser-esque otherworldliness about an eternal and possessive love has an undeniable beauty and allure but of a similar quality one might expect in a supernatural horror story in which the things and people you are most drawn turn out to be a lure to your cosmic doom. And yet there is no denying the exquisite composition and craft in bringing together the underlying menace and transcendently gorgeous sounds that make the song so beguiling and effective. Listen to “love you” on YouTube and follow fhae at the links below.

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fhae on 4000 Records

Pacifico Evokes a Deep Sense of Melancholic Acceptance on Indiepop Single “Afterglow”

Matthew Schwartz of Pacifico, photo by Mike Dunn for Rust + Rebel

There’s something comforting about the mix of stop motion, paper collage and animation of Pacifico’s video for “Afterglow.” The tendely psychedelic chamber pop song is about someone who is losing their sight but who seems to accept the limitations and memories of how things looked prior. It’s in a way a metaphor for someone who has come to terms with not really being up to date with how the world is and not quite apprehending the changes and puts some trust in the perceptions of those who are more with the times and not falling back on ego and insisting things are the way they once saw and understood them to be. This acceptance of the limitations of one’s life and not ego-pushing is paired well with the beautiful acoustic guitar work and quietly luminous vocals and string arrangements that sound both melancholic and at peace, which can be contradictory emotional states but Pacifico makes it work. Watch the video for “Afterglow” on YouTube and follow Pacifico on Instagram. Look out for the new Pacifico album Self Care out 02/10/2023 on Pacifirecords.

Nebno Guides Us From a State of Relaxed Tranquility to the More Transcendent on “Meradalir”

The tranquil flow of ethereal streams of tone that Nebno assembles for “Meradalir” is what you’d imagine would be the ambient music of the passage from The Grey Havens (from The Lord of the Rings) to Valinor. A heavenly iridescent melody and transcendent vocals enshrouded in sounds expansive and bright run through with a touch of distortion where the angles of luminous frequencies intersect as we are carried along in dreamlike reverie seemingly from a tranquil space to one more elevated in spirit. It’s a short song at under two minutes thus suggesting itself as a transitional piece but one that can stand on its own. Listen to “Meradalir” on Soundcloud and follow Swiss ambient and experimental electronic artist Nebno at the links provided.