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Queen City Sounds Podcast S2E18: Vision Video

Vision Video is a post-punk band based out of Athens, Georgia whose self-styled Goth pop is infused with gorgeous melodic hooks and emotionally raw and honest lyrics. Visually the band looks like what you might imagine a Goth band from a movie might look like with the appropriate make-up and sartorial flair. But there is something darker and different yet also welcoming about that appearance and in performance, reflecting the ethos of the members of Video Vision who recognize the band and fan dynamic as being one of community. There is disarming earnestness in the songwriting coupled with a clear sense of humor and self-awareness in how Video Vision conduct themselves as people that signals an approachable quality that doesn’t undermine the serious and meaningful content in what the band is putting into its art. In recent years frontman Dusty Gannon has been releasing videos on the Video Vision TikTok in which he adopts the persona of “Goth Dad” who presents information about the Goth subculture in which he came up as well as real life issues with a sense of humor, affection and sincerity in a way that comes across as wholesome, a quality one doesn’t always associate with Goths. In 2022 Vision Video released its second album Haunted Hours, the much anticipated follow-up to its 2021 debut Inked in Red. Fans of The Cult and The Cure will find much to like about the flavor of both records as will anyone looking for modern post-punk with solid production, urgent dance rhythms and songs that really tell it like it is with the state of the world and the importance of embracing your own humanity and that of those around you even and especially as the world seems to be crumbling.

Listen to our interview with Dusty Gannon on Bandcamp, follow Vision Video at the links provided below and catch the group on tour now including a date in Denver on Halloween at HQ with Radio Scarlet, Redwing Blackbird and Witchhands.

videovisionband.com

Vision Video on Instagram

Vision Video on Twitter

Vision Video on Facebook

The Fair Attempts Deconstruct the Mythologizing of One’s Self-Destructive Behavior on the Orchestral “Dark Star”

Finnish darkwave band The Fair Attempts inject some beautifully cold tonality into its single “Dark Star.” Fitting for a song seemingly about a person who has become disconnected from their core identity and sense of self. Like a song sung to oneself as a vehicle for confronting aspects of one’s personality that might otherwise be easy to ignore at one’s peril. The lyrics “The shadow cast I see right through” in the early part of the song articulates a deep sense of how a person is so far beyond stretched out past who they are they are even more insubstantial to themselves than a shadow. The minimalist piano melody and keyboard generated drones flow through the song in regretful tones and in moments the vocals echoing in a touch of reverb sounds like it was recorded in a cathedral. In moments it’s reminiscent of some of the more dark and mournful side of Sarah McLachlan’s 1993 album Fumbling Towards Ecstasy in that quality of tapping into an orchestral sound in miniature but perfect for enhancing the vulnerable side of the song and an undertone of aching past self-abuse lingering into the present. Listen to “Dark Star” on Spotify and follow The Fair Attempts at the links below.

The Fair Attempts on Facebook

The Fair Attempts on Twitter

The Fair Attempts on Instagram

The Fair Attempts LinkTree

Queen City Sounds Podcast S2E17: Carbon Dioxide Ensemble

Carbon Dioxide Ensemble, photo by Tom Murphy

Carbon Dioxide Ensemble (CO2 Ensemble) is an avant-garde trio from Denver composed of the electronic music composer and the Mile High City’s premier Theremin player Victoria Lundy, her husband and mathematician Thomas Lundy and fellow practitioner of the electronic music arts Mark Mosher whose work in electronic music technology and visual synthesis has been a part of local music and art culture for over a decade. The three met through Mosher’s Rocky Mountain Synth Meet-Up events around 2012 where enthusiasts of that technology and methods for utilizing it in making music would meet up to network and share their passion for synthesizers generally. Shortly into their friendship the Lundys helped to organize an event called Concrete Mixer that has happened a handful of times over the past eight or nine years and a showcase for musique concrète, a type of music composition pioneered by French composer Pierre Schaeffer in the early 1940s with that term coined by Schaeffer in 1948. Those theoretical principles Schaeffer put into practice attracted the interest of composers Pierre Henry, Edgard Varèse, Iannis Xenakis, Karlheinz Stockhausen and others including a popularizer of the art form with one of Schaeffer’s students, Jean-Michel Jarre. The technique of manipulating recorded sound can be heard in looping techniques and the use of samples. CO2 Ensemble hearken back to the earlier method but utilize unconventional sound sources including a large, copper heart that Thomas Lundy rubs with pieces of dry ice to generate frequencies that Mosher processes to enhance and render into different musical forms. Victoria Lundy playing Theremin utilizes one of the oldest electronic music technologies having been patented by Leon Theremin in 1928 with a device that is controlled without physical contact by the performer. Everyone has heard one if they’ve watched any 1950s science fiction film with a spooky soundtrack. Working in tandem the CO2 Ensemble generate highly evocative compositions that suggest textures and primal emotional experiences. Victoria Lundy co-founded what was called the Carbon Dioxide Orchestra in the mid-90s employing similar methods but with less emphasis on the electronic production end and in the 2000s and 2010s she was the Theremin player in experimental pop band The Inactivists who are currently, what else, inactive. The Carbon Dioxide Orchestra concept she revived when Concrete Mixer started up. Mosher was the keyboard player for New Wave cover band Head Full of Zombies based in Colorado Springs from 1989-2003 before branching out into making his own music. The group’s current performance will be the live musical portion of Noche de Terror, a double feature of Rubén Galindo Jr’s Cemetery of Terror (1985) and Don’t Panic (1987) presented by Scream Screen creator and host Theresa Mercado. The trio has a shared affection for B science fiction and horror and cult movies as well as the musical avant-garde and their piece prior to the film screening suits well the Halloween season and the films at hand.

Listen to our interview with Carbon Dioxide Ensemble on Bandcamp and for more information follow the group through its LinkTree. For details on Noche de Terror on October 29, 2022 (the event begins with a costume contest and more at 5:30 with the musical performance at 7) please visit the event link here.

Sea Glass and Misty Boyce Transform Soul Pop Classic “Get Ready” Into an Otherworldly Downtempo Ode to Desire

Sea Glass completely transforms the 1966 hit song by The Temptations “Get Ready” with vocals from Misty Boyce. There is a lurking bass line in the background that swims in the shimmery synths and simmering percussion and soft-shuffling beats. Touches of lingering guitar haunt the edges of the melody. It might even be a borderline creepy song but Boyce’s sweetly melodic vocals sit in the mix to elevate the mood a bit. At times the synth drone recalls the underlying sultry and mysterious sound of Talk Talk’s music from The Colour of Spring (1986). Overall this treatment taps into the core melodic vibes of the original but rather than earthy affection of the original this one offers an ethereal and otherworldly expression of desire that suits its more downtempo aesthetic. But in the end it reaffirms the high quality of the songwriting that Smokey Robinson put forth some six decades ago with an clear resonance with the sensibilities of the present. Listen to “Get Ready” on YouTube and follow Sea Glass at the links provided.

Sea Glass on Facebook

Sea Glass on Instagram

When Humans Had Wings Aims to Break Out of Pedestrian Existence With the Art Pop Song “The Madness of the Saints”

The name When Humans Had Wings and a song “The Madness of the Saints” are promising enough, suggesting imaginative music to be heard. The spacious piano work and introspective vocal in the first third of the song lead us into expansive spectral organ that sounds like having wandered through a large building of enclosed passages and emerging into an outdoor courtyard with a clear view of a night sky rich with a vivid starfield. Then the song brings us back with the lonely piano figure and a companion piano part that serves as a moody drone. The song from the 2022 album Run Rabbit Run! is a meditation on the ability of imagination and dreams to work through subconscious oppression and personal liberation. For this track the symbol of saints who during their lifetime were and are often perceived as insane but who are in contact with a higher truth that is out of step with prevailing thoughts and ways of being. Which is an aspect of being an artist driven to create work that resonates beyond the immediate dopamine shot of a great hook or riff or banger moment. The complex structures of this song and other tracks on the album a filtered through a pop song format but in that gives an unexpected dimensionality to songs that often often veer off the map of alternative pop into a modern version of art rock. Listen to “The Madness of the Saints” on Spotify and follow When Humans Had Wings at the links provided.

When Humans Had Wings on Instagram

When Humans Had Wings on YouTube

Queen City Sounds Podcast S2E16: Eliza & The Delusionals

Eliza & The Delusionals, photo by Luke Henery

Australian pop band Eliza & The Delusionals release its debut full length album Now And Then in May 2022. The album came along as many have in the wake of the recent and ongoing global pandemic. The songwriting had begun in various stages of development prior to the pandemic and some prior to the group having embarked on the first leg of a big tour of North America in January and February 2020 with The Silversun Pickups. But the period of lockdown and then the prolonged time of not being able to tour with anything resembling reliability left the band with time to hone the songs and create an album that is brimming with a sense of nostalgia and reconnecting with a time in life and a time period in the early 2000s when perhaps if you were a kid in Australia or the USA, depending on life circumstances, you had the time and the ability to allow your imagination and your heart to take in experiences that stimulated both. Connecting with that headspace lending your current self the tools to navigate bringing a bit of that mindset into life today. In the fuzzy and chiming guitar work and singer Eliza Klatt’s melodious and exuberant vocals one hears an introspective articulation of a desire to liberate one self from one’s own limitations and of those imposed on you by circumstance. In this interview we were able to talk with Klatt about the origins of the band and its path to touring in support of its full-length debut.

Listen to that nterview with Eliza Klatt on Bandcamp and follow Eliza & The Delusionals at the links below. Catch the group with BODY at Lost Lake on Wednesday, 10/26/22 (doors 6:30, show 7:30).

elizaandthedelusionals.com

Eliza & The Delusionals on Instagram

Eliza & The Delusionals on Facebook

Secret Shame Explores Breaking the Cycle of Self-Harm as Self-Defense on “Color Drain”

Secret Shame, photo courtesy the artists

Secret Shame’s new album Autonomy releases on October 28, 2022 and the single “Color Drain” reveals new dimensions to the group’s songwriting. It’s material for the 2019 album Dark Synthetics were well within the realm of the death rock wing of post-punk with songs that shed great insight into the nature of trauma, addiction and mental illness and the struggles in coping with aspects of human behavior that are often fairly normal reactions to the pressures of living in a dysfunctional society. “Color Drain” finds the group in a more warmly melodic phase of its songwriting but one whose tenderness is not used to cover over the raw emotions expressed. It is a vivid portrait of living with the instincts of having suffered prolonged abuse, emotional and likely physical, and how those ways of surviving the experience can cause you to shy away from things that might be good for you suspicious of the motivations of everyone around you because you’ve had to live with the possibility that any act of kindness or tenderness might be the prelude to getting in deeper into your mind to elicit responses long lost to the emotional calluses built up from becoming accustomed to abuse. But the song dares to ask after the ways in which one might come to see this level of toughness, of learning to survive as romantic and how that pain becomes the way in which you know you can still feel in recalling it as a source of dignity when real dignity can be found beyond that dynamic. And that clinging to that dynamic even after you’ve somehow left the abusive situation can be a way to reinforce the pattern in anticipation of its recurrence. When your mind is focused on that pain to the near exclusion of experiences that can better define your life can be a difficult prospect to face and maybe that method of coping served its purpose. This song questions the boundaries of that way of being and living and in the end suggests the possibility of being open to help from those who don’t have a selfish agenda in a path of disrupting this circle of self-oppression. Listen to “Color Drain” on YouTube and connect with Secret Shame at the links below.

Secret Shame on Facebook

Secret Shame on Twitter

Secret Shame on Instagram

Queen City Sounds Podcast S2E15: Peel Dream Magazine

Peel Dream Magazine, photo by Samira Winter

Joseph Stevens has released three fine full length albums over the past few years under the moniker of Peel Dream Magazine including the 2022 record Pad. The 2018 debut album Modern Meta Physic presented a sound that had obvious musical touchstones in My Bloody Valentine, Velvet Underground and Stereolab as well as their own sources of inspiration. The hypnotic drones and fuzzy melodies over steady beats an obvious ear for crafting textural aesthetics that helped to shape the structures in the music. 2020’s Agitprop Alterna cemented Stevens’ reputation as a songwriter and artist who could combine heady atmospherics and widely dynamic music with poetic and insightful personal and cultural commentary. With Pad Stevens gently but significantly broke his own mold by swapping in a different sound palette including banjo, chimes, vibraphone and more extensive use of keyboards to create a softer sound that is more reminiscent of Harry Nilsson’s early 70s psychedelic pop albums and like those records there is a creative concept that runs through the album which is a journey in which Stevens is ejected from his own band, which is in most ways a solo project, and undertakes a journey to find a way back in. Though the soothingly dreamlike melodies and free weaving in elements of Bossa Nova and ambient folk gives the album an immediately palatable quality it is about the disconnect and anxieties that have careened into the general culture while taking a chance in finding ways to make connections again and to process the anxiety and trauma in a way that lands us in a better place. It reflects Stevens’ own journey from being a bit of a New York-based outsider to a member of the Los Angeles creative community. The album is worth a deep dive and allow its retro-futuristic sounds and style to sink into your brain with its therapeutic frequencies.

Listen to our interview with Joseph Stevens of Peel Dream Magazine on Bandcamp and follow the artist at the links below. Peel Dream Magazine performs at The Skylark Lounge on Wednesday, October 26, 2022 (doors 7 p.m., show 8 p.m.) with Calamity and Duck Turnstone.

Peel Dream Magazine on Instagram

Peel Dream Magazine on Facebook

Queen City Sounds Podcast S2E14: Rebecca Pidgeon

Rebecca Pidgeon, photo courtesy the artist

Rebecca Pidgeon is a singer and songwriter who was the lead singer of British pop band Ruby Blue in the late 80s. Around that same time Pidgeon embarked on her distinguished, professional acting career with her feature film debut in The Dawning (1988) starring alongside Anthony Hopkins, Jean Simmons and Hugh Grant. After Ruby Blue split in 1990 Pidgeon would eventually go on to release her debut solo album The Raven in 1994 launching a prolific career in music in parallel to her pursuits in acting which has lead to roles in films like State and Main (2000), Red (2010) and Bird Box (2018). Pidgeon’s latest album, which released on September 24, 2022, is Parts of Speech Pieces of Sound now available on CD, digital download and streaming on the various platforms one might expect. The album showcases Pidgeon’s multi-instrumentalist skills and richly melodic voice, Fernando Perdomo (bass, guitar, keys), Andy Studer (strings), Matt Tecu (drums) and Satnam Ramgotra (tablas). The use of drone, texture and melody might be compared favorably with the works of Jarboe and Alice Coltrane and likewise has an organic production style that lends the record an immediacy even as its compositions are simultaneously grounding and transporting to a tranquil and reflective headspace. The music connects her artistry with her explorations into science behind her lifelong yoga practice. It’s a unique pop record with evocative ambient soundscapes and delicate folk sensibilities.

Listen to our interview with Rebecca Pidgeon on Bandcamp and connect with the artist at the links below where you can find the places to order and listen to Parts of Speech Pieces of Sound.

rebeccapidgeonmusic.com

Rebecca Pidgeon on Instagram

Rebecca Pidgeon on YouTube

Rebecca Pidgeon on Facebook

Rebecca Pidgeon on Twitter

Nighdrator Gives Form to a Love Both Elemental and Vulnerable on “Scarlet Tendons”

Nighdrator opens “Scarlet Tendons” with the sound of water flowing and a mysterious keen in the distance before a distorted drone introduces clashing riffs and hanging rhythms that open a space for the vulnerable and introspective lyrics to follow. The music provides the sonic framework for an epic exploration of the nature of a kind of love that can engulf both people involved and the sensitivity and strength it takes to even try to make a connection that is so potentially deep work rather than getting lost in it. The metaphors of a love like the sea and the visceral image of scarlet tendons per the title and how tendons connect bones and thus a symbol for the core of your being and the motivating fibers that hold it all together. The heavy shoegaze sounds is a bit like the collaboration between Midwife and SubRosa that never happened but Nighdrator proves across its new four-song, self-titled EP that it’s primal, darkly psychedelic atmospherics stretch well beyond narrow genre definitions. Listen to “Scarlet Tendons” on YouTube and follow Nightdrator from Hattiesburg, Mississippi at the links below.

Nighdrator on Instagram