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Sell Farm’s Pressure is a Genre Swapping Masterpiece of Industrial Darkwave Dub

Forget the images the name Sell Farm might bring to mind. Pressure might be described as an industrial darkwave dub album but it also has as much in common with ambient music and the avant-garde pop music Phil Elverum has been making for over 20 years including his time with Old Time Relijun, Microphones and Mount Eerie. There is no attempt to stick to genre convention or instrumentation. Imagine an album made by later 90s era Swans through the lens of indie pop. “Fools” introduces us with lush and lo-fi soundscapes produced by distorted white noise and repeating motifs of stringed instruments and processed drones giving a sense of grittiness like an old and decaying film print of a stranger’s 8 millimeter reel of a family holiday celebration. Though there is a mysterious accessibility here the whole album sounds like a long lost cassette culture industrial product out of the 80s underground. The vocals even when they’re at their most melancholic reveal some roots in the influence of R&B via Prince and D’Angelo. But you could also hear this on the soundtrack of a future David Lynch film, especially the brooding and foggy “Ideas and Missiles.” The album ends with the propulsive title track that hits like a dub-infused EBM song akin to an older Nitzer Ebb track circa That Total Age. Live all of these songs have such a startling power, particularly “Pressure,” but even on these recordings you have to wonder when these songs were written and recorded which is a testament to Sell Farm’s ability to free associate styles across decades. Listen to Pressure on Bandcamp and pick up one of the limited edition cassettes if you’re so inclined.

Vague Lanes Manifest a Path Through the Dark Spirit Haunting the Zeitgeist on “Here :: Now.” From Its Debut EP Cassette

Vague Lanes create a sound that resonates with the decaying culture and political infrastructure of the USA with its 2021 track “Here :: Now.” Achieving a good deal of grit with two basses, one driving and grinding along with the insistent drum machine, the other carrying a bit of the melody in the upper registers. The vocals sound like they were recorded in a tunnel in a forgotten part of the city while the track itself produced and then mixed for effect in a similarly clandestine location for an effect that is cathartic and expansive even though a mood of oppression, dissolved for a few moments by the momentum of the music, can be felt and heard haunting every moment of the song. Fans of Comsat Angels or All Your Sisters will appreciate the way the vocals a expressively wide-ranging and reach deep into a place of desperation and a yearning for liberation from the ambient gloom that seems to have settled on the zeitgeist. Listen to “Here :: Now” on Spotify and perhaps buy a copy of the duo’s debut EP on Bandcamp titled Cassette as it is available on a limited run tape. Connect with Vague Lines at the links provided.

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Queen City Sounds Podcast Ep. 14: Jim McCarty of The Yardbirds on His New Memoir She Walks In Beauty

Jim McCarty is a founding and current member of The Yardbirds. The latter was one of the most influential and creative of the blues rock bands of the 60s whose membership included Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page who, when the band broke up in 1968, formed Led Zeppelin. With a string of hits that include “For Your Love,” “Shape of Things,” “Heart Full of Soul” and “Over Under Sideways Down,” The Yardbirds were one of the key bands in the development of British blues rock and psychedelia. After the group split, McCarty became part of a variety of bands across the 60s, 70s and 80s (Renaissance, Together, Box of Frogs et. al.) and has released solo albums under his own name but since 1992 he’s also been part of the reformed Yardbirds. In 2018 McCarty issued his autobiography, focused on the career of his most well-known band, Nobody Told Me to great critical acclaim. On June 7, 2020 McCarty’s wife of over 25 years Elisabeth (Lizzy) passed away from cancer. The tragic event propelled the musician to look back on his life and examine his personal journey as a creative person fascinated by larger questions about life and left field realms of knowledge and comprehension of spiritual and philosophical issues. In the subsequent memoir, She Walks In Beauty (invoking the title of the Lord Byron poem) McCarty charts that path in an unpretentious and engaging way tracing the line between his imagination being sparked by the landmark British television show The Quatermass Experiment in 1953 through science fiction, an interest in UFOs, esoteric knowledge, the occult, Buddhism, mysticism, spiritual mediums and all manner of ideas that stir creative pondering and exploration of ideas and concepts that also informed the music. It is an intimate and touching portrait of a time and the people, including Yardbirds singer Keith Ralf who shared McCarty’s interests in unusual subjects, McCarty met along the way including Lizzy. We had a chance to speak with McCarty about the book and the fascinating details of his journey through learning about a wide range of Western and Eastern esotericism and spiritual traditions and its overlap with creative work as he followed his instincts and curiosity even as someone who was and remains a skeptic but one open to possibilities.

Listen to the interview on Bandcamp below and for all things Jim McCarty please visit the following websites:
www.theyardbirds.com
www.jamesmccarty.com

Jamie Rhodes Sagely Articulates the Need to Let Ego Give Way to Growth on “Bring The Wine”

Jamie Rhodes sounds like he’s composing a letter to a loved one or to himself to read later when he’s in a different emotional place when he delivers the vocals on “Bring The Wine.” The song has a slow, orchestral build that builds to a gloriously dramatic conclusion and fade out that is the perfect accompaniment to a song that seems to be about the realization of the impermanence of so many things in life and learning to let go of even cherished notions we maybe thought of as core to our identity. The simple refrain of “the answers, they come and go” points to those stages in life where we think we have things figured out but those answers don’t serve us for a lifetime. The pastoral pace and tenor of the song as well as Rhodes’ half spoken singing really enhance the impression of a person having learned not to hold on so strongly to cherished notions largely anchored on ego that aren’t as significant for a lifetime and to move on and not get so attached to aspects of our personality that we can come to see as integral to our existence when evolving into other modes of thinking, believing and being might be better for us as we learn and grow as people, embracing the fact that things change whether we’re ready or not. Certainly a poetic truth that more humans could learn. Listen to “Bring the Wine” on Spotify, listen to the rest of Rhodes’ 2021 album The Mighty Mighty Something on Bandcamp and connect with Rhodes at the links provided.

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Voluptuous Panic Reinterprets Marvin Gaye’s Psychedelic Holiday Classic “Purple Snowflakes” Into a Dream Pop Song For All Seasons

Voluptuous Panic, photo courtesy the artists

Holiday music can be insufferable starting right after Halloween. But Voluptuous Panic’s interpretation of Marvin Gaye’s 1965 psychedelic holiday song “Purple Snowflakes” puts the emphasis on the original song’s surreal and ethereal quality unusual for its time. Using electronic drums to keep a steady beat, steady sleigh bell and what sound like physical bells to trace the counter melody to Gretchen DeVault’s (frontwoman of The Icicles) brightly resonant vocals and Brian J. Bowe’s low, hushed backing vocals, this treatment of the song sounds less like a holiday classic and more like a mysterious almost retro dream pop song that wouldn’t be out of place on a Jim Jarmusch soundtrack. Listen to “Purple Snowflakes” on Bandcamp and connect with Voluptuous Panic at the links below.

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“Dawn Patrol” is The Square Community’s Musical Collage Hologram of a Tarnished Pastoral American Dream

Assembling “Dawn Patrol” from cassette loops, Johnny Gutenberger collages what sounds like some old freak folk like outtakes from a lost John Fahey session, decayed trumpet, faded strings and distorted ambient sounds to craft a fractured pop Americana overlaid with segments of harmonica as the reel ends. Its multiple reference points work well together to create a mood reflecting an imperfectly remembered moment of cultural nostalgia like degraded holograms overlaid on one another to make a uniquely haunting image. In that way it’s like the tarnished yet vaguely romantic American dream cast in pastoral moods in the musical equivalent of sepia tones. Listen to “Dawn Patrol” on Bandcamp where you can also explore the rest of the Words Are No Constellation album out now on No Pressure Records. And if you’d care to follow The Square Community and other Johnny Gutenberger projects, please click on the links provided.

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Wrené Reaches Out For Connection From a Place of Disconnection From Self on the Orchestral Majesty of “White Walls”

Normally when an artist sounds like they’re putting distance between themselves and those that might encounter their work it can be off-putting. But with “White Walls” Wrené’s production invites a spirit of solidarity with feelings of isolation and the coping mechanism of emotional dissociation and a yearning to restore oneself to a more functional place in the heart and spirit. Her wide-ranging vocals brim with a strength of feeling even when it expresses a feeling of emptiness yet from a place of intuitively knowing that can’t and won’t last forever. The song starts of sounding a bit like Portishead broadcasting from space and later the orchestral swell of sounds and emotions is reminiscent of Chelsea Wolfe’s more folk and ambient work or that of Zola Jesus. Once the dramatic tension of the song peaks Wrené ends on a deeply melancholic and lingering note that doesn’t suggest that it’s easy to come back from a place where you feel like you’ve cut yourself off from the passionate drives of the heart you once knew. Surely a song that embodies a way of feeling and being many of us have experienced over the last few years. Listen to “White Walls” on YouTube and connect with Wrené on Spotify.

Jimmy Harry’s “Gummy” is Like an Alternative Soundtrack to Deckard’s Unicorn Dream

Jimmy Harry accomplishes some impressively nuanced depth of sound field on his song “Gummy.” In the foreground there is the minimal and impressionistically processional piano line ringing out while the sound of what seems to be cello lurking at the edges and touches of an otherworldly synth figure in the distance. Flares of distorted static occasionally crackles like you’re peaking in at the dreams of an ancient radio or those of Deckard as he dreams of the unicorn in that scene from Blade Runner. It’s a song that induces a spirit of reflection and cleansing of conscience to make room for a more peaceful emotional state once the mind is empty of the pressures to focus on the usual concerns. Though ambient it gently eases your mind into a different headspace in a welcome distraction from a mundane psychological mode. Fans of Harold Budd’s 1986 ambient classical masterpiece Lovely Thunder will certainly find much to like here. Listen to “Gummy” on YouTube and follow Jimmy Harry on Soundcloud and Spotify linked below.

“Alchemy” by indigos paradise is a Musical Vision of Creatively and Culturally Syncretic Future

indigos paradise, photo courtesy the artist

“Alchemy” is an entrancing showcase for indigos paradise’s eclectic and rich sound palette. Living up to the title, the track is built on a base of a hybrid of luminous IDM synth track and techno beat but processed with the kind of reverb to suggest a wide open space within which various other sounds launch and dissipate, where voices call cadence like an android announcing the arrival of trains in some futuristic station where a language based on some sort of then contemporary machine language is understood by all—machines, humans, visiting alien species. The blend of styles that indigos paradise brings to bear itself suggests a future where clear distinctions between artistic disciplines and genres are even less clear than they are now and creative work can more readily express an individual vision rather than reflect an internalized compliance with established modes and methods. Listen to “Alchemy” and the rest of the new indigos paradise album The Oasis on Bandcamp and connect with the artist at the links provided.

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bobsled team Channels the Musical Lineage of C86, 90s Indiepop and Sonic Youth on “Cool Waters”

bobsled team, photo courtesy the artists

“Cool Waters” finds Belfast, Ireland’s bobsled team draws us in with a simple and strong bass line in the beginning of the song on a journey through sparkling guitar tones and unconventional counter melodies with vocals that stand out like a spirit working its way through a mist of noisy drones that somehow sit find in the mix of tonal imagery. The contrasting aesthetics remind one of a time in the mid-90s when a bunch of naff, ersatz alternative rock and tough guy aggro nü metal pushed aside more interesting sounds and tenderness and sensitivity out of mainstream music. So much was louder without saying a whole lot and the bravado then as now was insufferable. But in the underground there was indiepop of the variety that embraced strong songwriting and unconventional pop hooks as well as noise and a spirit of experimentation that operated without reference to popular trends: Felt Pilotes, Apples in Stereo, Neutral Milk Hotel, Oliva Tremor Control—the whole Elephant 6 thing and its cousin scenes. There was also dream like noise and art rock like Unwound, Versus and Helium that resonated with the ways Sonic Youth took the avant-garde and made it accessible. The fusion of those lineages you can hear in the music of bobsled team and “Cool Water,” from the group’s fantastic full length The Colours Blur, is a fine example of those impulses and influences manifested in a new expression of a similar creative spirit. Listen to “Cool Water” on Bandcamp and connect with bobsled team at the links provided. Score a very limited edition vinyl version of the record on Bandcamp as well.

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