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Carla Conrad’s Soaring and Sweeping “Master of Time” Encourages Us to Pursue Our Best Dreams Against the Discouragement From Within and From Without

CarlaConrad2_crop — Carla Conrad “Master of Time” cover (cropped)

Carla Conrad jumped through some hoops in order to see her single “Master of Time” through to completion beyond merely writing the song. She completed an online course with Berklee called Production Fundamentals for Singer-Songwriters on Ableton. She worked in Qatar for five months to save the funds to record the single and worked with producer Ben Ludik. None of which would mean much if the quality of the song wasn’t there. But “Master of Time” is a sonically rich pop song of grand, sweeping dynamics that augment her own commanding vocals. It’s arc is one of humble beginnings almost like the story of her own process in the journey of making the song but couched in the narrative of a relationship parallel to personal development. Through the song Conrad sheds the limitations that held her back, psychological, interpersonal, relational, to embrace her own power as a human unsullied by habits of mind and feeling that no longer serve her development as a human being who encourages others to follow their own paths against the odds of discouragement and stumbling blocks that all of us adopt at some point avoiding the “tall poppy syndrome” that so often stunts our progress as a species toward a world that cultivates everyone. Listen to the soaring and expansive “Master of Time” on YouTube and follow Conrad at the links below.

carlaconradmusic.com
instagram.com/carlaconradmusic

Dumb’s “Content Jungle” is the Missing Link Between Post-Punk, Garage Rock and the Avant-Garde

On its Tapetown Sessions recording of “Content Jungle,” Vancouver, BC-based band Dumb sounds like the missing link between Sonic Youth, Parquet Courts and the Reatards. Its brash guitar riffs indulge beautifully odd bends and fragmented melodies. The shout along vocals do little to undermine the clever lyrics that cite dated cultural references that take us out of the current era (Kool Aid and cathode rays?) while injecting more contemporary cultural artifacts like Netflix to comment on the way so much of our documented history has been plumbed and gives people the impression that it’s all accessible and understood sans proper context simply because you can pick and choose and find anything on the internet for which the title of the song, “Content Jungle,” could be another name. The lyrics neither condemn nor glorify this feature of the world now but does highlight the absurdity of thinking mediated access to culture and the world is the same thing as direct experience.

MRPHY’s Admission of Regret Over a Love Lost on “Hey Love” Demonstrates a Vulnerability and Strength That the Bravado at Claiming No Regrets Does Not

MRPHY_HeyLove2_crop — MRPHY, “Hey Love” cover (cropped)

Gabrielle Murphy aka MRPHY demonstrates gift for emotive phrasing on her debut single “Hey Love.” A simple piano line and strings frame and highlight her voice throughout the song, following her organic pacing as she sings about heartsickness at being separated from the person she loves, expressing her fears and insecurities with a tenderness and strength of feeling with an economy of style that makes her lyrics all the more striking when it becomes apparent that the sense of emotional ache comes from the fact that the relationship is over but still affects her deeply even though she is resigned to the fact that it can never be again but not without regret. At a time when too many people think they’re strong because they have no regrets, MRPHY is strong enough to admit to vulnerability and having some regrets of her own. Listen to “Hey Love” on Soundcloud and watch the song’s music video on YouTube.

WRENN’s Powerfully Expressive Vocals and Dynamic Range Are on Full Display on the Introspective and Cathartic “Craigslist Personals”

WRENN_CraigslistPersonals2_crop — WRENN “Craigslist Personals” cover (cropped)

WRENN’s vocals on “Craigslist Personals” demonstrates great range and versatility in tone and texture from the delicate on the border of fragmenting to the expansively vibrant. The songwriting matches her vocal line perfectly going from minimal, ghostly synth and spare guitar to bombastic guitar riff flourishes and pounding drums as if shifting from contemplative, hopeful musings to the intensity of disappointed emotions finally purged after finally processing and identifying the complexities of a relationship and boiling them down to the essential grievances. But WRENN somehow conveys those feelings without pointed blaming. Rather, she is deft at expressing the hurt and the healing that comes from being able to sing about the situation with honesty and conviction. Listen to “Craigslist Personals” on Soundcloud.

The Gritty and Soulful “Don’t Wait Up” by Oh He Dead is a Vivid Emotional Portrait of Life on the Edge

OhHeDead1_sm — Oh He Dead, photo courtesy the artists

“Don’t wait up on me, I won’t be going home,” is an ominous opening line but “Don’t Wait Up” by Oh He Dead goes to even darker places from there. The minimal guitar line is like a gentle companion to the grittily soulful vocals as synths swell ominously yet dolefully in the background like an ill wind. It’s a song about a person who can’t live within the restrictive standards of a puritanical culture and imposed limitations designed to reign in someone’s effusive spirit. As the song goes on that struggle and self-accountability clash as the narrator comes to terms with consequences and her own awareness of her own boundaries and the limits of her own capacity to sustain a lifestyle that seems part of her identity. The vulnerable tenor of the beginning of the song blooms into howling, bluesy rock that rages as the chorus urges for its intended listener to not wait up for the narrator who is certain of only one thing and that’s the uncertainty of where the train of a life on the edge will end up day to day. Listen to “Don’t Wait Up” on Spotify and follow Oh He Dead at the links provided.

soundcloud.com/ohhedead
instagram.com/ohhedead

Greatfruit’s Luminous and Nostalgic “Arcade Love” Contains the Purity of Cherished Childhood Memories Manifested in the Present

Greatfruit2_sm — Greatfruit, photo courtesy the artists

Greatfruit engages in a bit of musical retrofuturism on “Arcade Love.” That’s not to merely point out this lushly beautiful and romantic synth pop song is steeped in the sounds of another time because a lot of the sounds and musical ideas weren’t quite possible in the 1980s referenced in the lyrics of falling in love with seeing someone by chance at the arcade in the mall. Rather it captures the vibe of a time and a milieu that seems less cynical, calculated and artificial than the way people often meet each other these days and couched in sentiments running through much of 80s pop. It freely cross references cultural phenomena while having a clarity of sonic line that embraces the almost gaudy production of 80s pop by making a virtue of its inherent limitations compared to all the options available to electronic musicians today. It has the purity of a childhood memory of an era that is easy to romanticize for what it represents in your life today and because of that it sidesteps mere nostalgia mining through writing something that feels like it’s coming from a genuine place. Listen to “Arcade Love” on YouTube.

“Lost like Teardrops in Rain” is Like Jack Cleary’s Homage to Vangelis and the Inspiration of Works of Deep Creative Imagination

JackCleary1_sm — Jack Cleary, photo courtesy the artist

Giving the song the title “Lost like Teardrops in Rain,” Jack Cleary is more than hinting at part of the inspiration for the composition. The streaming synth suggests enigmatically alluring vistas after the fashion of Vangelis’ score for Blade Runner. But in its gently roiling dynamic one hears the sound of a warm summer night by the ocean with moonlight on the water, its reflection interrupted with the ripples of raindrops stirring in your own mind a contemplation of your own place in the world and in your own life. In the context of the album Gemini, which Cleary released on November 21, 2019, it is a vivid passage of reverie, an homage even to treasured memories of immersion in works of deep creative imagination, on a sonic journey of exploration that takes you through dark and foggy places before emerging into a musical and emotional place of clarity. Listen to “Lost like Teardrops in Rain” on Bandcamp (where you can also listen to, perchance purchase, Gemini in its entirety) and follow Cleary at the links below.

jackclearymusic.com
jackcleary.bandcamp.com
facebook.com/JackClearyMusic
instagram.com/jackclearymusic

Adam Melchor Takes the Concept of the Melodramatic Love Song and Makes it Endearingly Eccentric on “I Choose You”

AdamMelchor2_sm — Adam Melchor, photo courtesy the artist

Adam Melchor declares on “I Choose You” that if he was going to be stranded on a desert island, instead of something practical, essential or even one of those records that gets bandied about, he chooses a particular person. It is an unorthodox love song making such a statement of devotion but the song itself is a bit unconventional for a pop song. The spacey sounds and bizarre voices in the background of the simple guitar melody already sets your expectations outside the realm of the normal. Melchor’s voice contains the conviction inside a playfully imaginative song in which he indulges moments of fantastical statements like “Out of billions of people I’ve got it down to two, I choose you” to mince no words about his intentions. In doing so, Melchor takes the oftentimes hackneyed premise of a melodramatic love song and turns it into something endearingly strange and otherworldly to match the premise. Listen to “I Choose You” on Soundcloud and follow Melchor at the links below.

soundcloud.com/adammelchor
twitter.com/AdamMelchor
facebook.com/adammelchor
instagram.com/adammelchor

Alex Wilcox Captures a Sense of Hurried Anxiety and its Catharsis on “Sleep Paralysis”

AlexWilcox_PressPhotoChair_sm — Alex Wilcox, photo courtesy the artist

Detroit-based producer Alex Wilcox sounds like he took the challenge of making a track that would work as a soundtrack for a harder, faster, more frantic and intense sequel to Run Lola Run in writing “Sleep Paralysis.” The song wastes no time going headlong with pounding beats, an echoing pulse, alien voices warping through reverb, textured electronic percussion and expertly timed dynamic shifts that are themselves processed as if through a tiny bit of phasing so that you get the impression of hurtling through a bendy maze of dark walls and flickering neon colors toward a mysterious destination at a desperate run. Like actual sleep paralysis the song has that hyper real, disoriented feeling with your heart pounding and the world around you moving at seemingly breakneck speeds relative to your inability to move or interact, rather, you mind races in a near or full panic. Not as terrifying as that feeling, the song nevertheless captures some of that anxiety and a sustained, harried feeling. Listen to “Sleep Paralysis” on Soundcloud and follow Alex Wilcox at the links below.

soundcloud.com/alexwilcoxx
instagram.com/alexwilcoxx

Limón Limón’s “Believing in Yesterday” Perfectly Balances Nostalgia With Immediacy

LimonLimon_BelievingInYesterday_cover_crop — Limón Limón, “Believing In Yesterday” cover (cropped)

Los Angeles-based duo Limón Limón recently released its debut EP Believing In Yesterday. If the title track is any indication, it sounds as though the band absorbed the spirit and aesthetic of yacht rock and channeled it forward through the vocabulary of modern synth pop. Its relaxed vibe is able to wax nostalgic without crossing over into the maudlin. The song seems to be able two people who may be going through a troubled time in their relationship but the narrator asks the other to remember when things were good and what brought them together and to write another “chapter” of something good that came apart for reasons that don’t seem to matter now. What sets this song apart from music in a similar vein is the use of what sounds like live bass and drums to ground an otherwise well crafted set of airy melodies. It gives your ears an anchoring point without drawing attention away from the words and the mood, which is a solid choice and not often so well executed. Listen to “Believing in Yesterday” on Soundcloud and follow Limón Limón at their website linked below.

limonlimonmusic.com