Glassio “Are You Having Fun Without Me?” cover (cropped)
Glassio’s “Are You Having Fun Without Me?” was inspired by the dissolution of a long term relationship and the endless pondering to salve one’s heartbreak that goes on for longer than we imagine it can. The upbeat rhythm and melody contain a deep wistfulness that seems to come from a place of pain, vulnerability and confusion, almost as though in denial that things are over or at least hoping they aren’t. The chorus is “Are you having fun without me? Are you having fun without my love?” It is childlike in its conceptualization of how the adult relationships work but when you’ve invested so much of yourself and your life with someone for what you assume will be the long haul, when it ends it can leave you lost and not sure of your place in the world so you cling to what you knew and have a hard time coping with it being over, wondering what the other person is up to and if they’re feeling as desolate as you. Listen to “Are You Having Fun Without Me?” on Soundcloud where you can also find more of Glassio’s music (linked below).
Molina recently released the Vanilla Shell EP and the live version of the single “Venus” as captured in the video on YouTube showcases the band in a room draped in white, enshrouded in a light fog as Molina seems to move about this fantastical world in miniature down to the drummer set up in front of a clam shell backdrop as perhaps a nod to Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venus.” The fabrics flowing in the wind fits a song in which all the elements seem to be operating to uplift the ethereal melody, Molina’s vocals reminiscent of a cross between Nico and Miki Berenyi of Lush. The guitar is as textural as it is tonal, serving as the connective tissue of the body of the song grounded in bass and percussion and the grand sweep of bright, hazy harmonics. Fans of Tamaryn and the aforementioned Lush or any of that entrancing 4AD dream pop will find a good deal to like with this presentation of the song and Molina’s output generally. Watch the video on YouTube below and follow Molina at the links provided.
“triangular warfare” by lynx 196.9 gets off the ground with a sample like the recording of one side of an emotionally fragile conversation, a confession, an apology for hurting someone. The beat is a downtempo dub mélange of meditative percussion, piano, keyboard samples and backing vocal samples in a jazz style like a lo-fi Blockhead. The vocals tell in short a sexually frank story of a love triangle that has progressed to the phase when people want more or want something different out of the relationship and communication has broken down and the conflict avoided earlier by balancing time and maybe being willing to set aside the usual demands and keeping ego in check. What makes the track surreal is how chill our narrator is throughout as though relating someone else’s story or a snippet of an experience from long ago and able to maintain a sense of distance. A lot to load into a song under two minutes that manages to establish an entrancing vibe immediately. Listen to “triangular warfare” on Spotify and follow lynx 196.9 at the links below.
Franko Elvis minces no words with the title of his song “I Worry All The Time.” With shades of tone and delivery reminiscent of Viva Hate-period Morrissey or Magnetic Fields this song waxes tenderly melodramatic and makes use of sound elements beyond the obvious synth, guitar, bass, drums and vocals. The reverb on the vocals and the female backing vocals paired with the cadence of the song share similar influences from the Gold Star Studios production style of the 1960s giving the song a sense of being out of normal time. It’s a heartfelt/heartbroken appeal to one’s love to be allowed to stay and have some relief from the worry and insecurities arising therefrom. Is the song a bit of a dream? It does end with the sounds of birds tweeting in the end like something you’d hear in the morning on a spring day so maybe this song informed by being on the fence about sadness and happiness if neither is genuine ends on a hopeful note. Listen to “I Worry All The Time” on Spotify and follow Franko Elvis at the links provided.
Sterile Cuckoo’s music is designed to be the soundtrack for the hypnagogic state, that state of consciousness between sleep and wakefulness. The hazy composition of “Details in Feathers” with lightly echoing sounds seeming to drift down upon one another in a flow of organic melody. Even the vocals sound like bits of consciousness caught in the fractal of long term memory given voice and swirling with the other leaves, the other motes, of sonic presence that gently synergize with the spare guitar melody as the through line, accented by electronic bass and luminous, impressionistic keyboard work. Though short, the song is something that your head can get lost in taking in the dream logic of its flow of tone and mood. Listen to “Details in Feathers” on YouTube, follow Sterile Cuckoo at the links provided and, should you be so inclined, listen to the rest of the album Elysian on Bandcamp.
“Summertime Departures,” the title, sounds like you’re in for a melancholic pop song but Alex Henry Foster has written a song that immediately draws you in to an emotional experience as much as a song with spoken lyrics and almost sound effects for music before it enters somewhat more conventional song territory nearly halfway through it’s over five minute length. It’s reminiscent of Slint in the beginning with its desolation and emotional fragility and in a like fashion the sounds escalate into whorling howls of controlled guitar feedback and splaying percussion to enhance a sense of one’s own mental breakdown. It’s not enough for Foster to write a song about what sounds like someone trying to come to terms with the death of a close friend, family member or other loved one and struggling painfully with that fact, the memories, the regrets of the things you wish you had said or done rather than taken for granted that there would be time to find closure. The song is the sound of the pain of that open psychological and emotional wound that persists despite your best attempts to heal. It’s a harrowing listen but one that honors the experience and emotional agony of the loss. Listen to “Summertime Departures” on YouTube and follow Alex Henry Foster at the links below. Look out for the new album Windows in the Sky, on which you can hear the single in context, out May 1.
The Skyforest edit of Death Hags’ “Be Who You Are” is reminiscent of Lush through the filter of C86 or late 90s Denver, Colorado and Athens, Georgia indie pop. Its introspective minimalism and hazy melody is irresistible with enough of fuzzy grit to give the song the kind of texture that sticks with you as well in the wash of sounds. Comparing the song to something Black Tambourine might have put out seems facile but the resonance is there for anyone looking for something with a similar vibe today. The message of the song, what the band says is “a call for radical self-acceptance,” seems essential in an era when there is so much personal dissection and the critique of others in our over-mediated society with our presence on the internet on various platforms. Simply accepting yourself for who and what you are shouldn’t seem radical, though it was challenging long before social media existed, but at this point in our collective social development in tandem with that of our technology it is. The song is part of BIG GREY SUN, a seven volume project to be released as four cassettes and a triple album throughout 2020 and 2021. Listen to “Be Who You Are” on Bandcamp and follow Death Hags at the links provided.
Lizzy & The Fanatics waft in with “Far Away” with a swirling puff of sparkling sounds before the vocals seem to bring a coherence to these tones. The effect is a bit like becoming aware during a daydream and the gentle guitar riff is a bit reminiscent of that of “Dreams” by The Cranberries. The song sounds so nostalgic you might think it’s wistful about missing the one you love but the turn of phrase about “I need to let you know, I wanted to feel close” reveals a complexity of feeling that isn’t common enough in music. Of needing to be honest with oneself and with one’s feelings while not wanting to hurt those of another person. The progression conjures images of someone floating on a cloud and contemplating a potentially messy situation from a more objective vantage point one step removed from the immediate events but not the immediacy of feeling. And the song has a freshness bright tones that indicates no heaviness or dark intent is meant even if it’s probably unavoidable that someone will get hurt in the end, perhaps a poetic attempt to let someone down lightly. Listen to “Far Away” on Soundcloud and follow Lizzy & The Fanatics at the links provided below.
Without making too much light of the situation, the Rec tell a true story of the negative fallout of drug use and the people with whom you share a dwelling on “Hackney smack deal.” In the group’s style of gritty yet playful vocals and a lively beat, the Rec describes a group of men who show up one day to collect money due regardless of whether the unlucky sod who answers the door is the person owing the debt. A synth like a lazy but insistent siren runs through the track along with a jangle of what sounds like metal trinkets and a pounding drum giving the whole song an intense but surreal energy. The chorus is delivered in a nearly casual manner, describing a terrifying encounter: “We want the smack or the cash, is what they said, we want the smack or the cash, with a crack to my head, we want the smack or the cash, now my mind is numb, we want the smack or the cash, with a heart like a bass drum.” Later we hear about a “punch to the eyeball” and “no friendly handshakes” and confusion about the whole situation until, in the end, our narrator figures out what is going on and tells us, “The moral of the story is know your mates, never trust a man with black spoons or paper plates.” Fans of Sleaford Mods and Pop Will Eat Itself will appreciate the way the Rec’s style in putting a harrowing story to a captivating beat. Listen to “Hackney smack deal” on Bandcamp and follow the Rec at the links provided.
Chastity Belt performs at Bluebird Theater on February 23, photo by Beto Barkmo
Friday | February 21
Stonefield, photo courtesy the band
What:Kyle Emerson w/Turvy Organ, Panther Martin and Crystal Seth When: Friday, 2.21, 8 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: Kyle Emerson’s new album Only Coming Down is a thoughtful collection of songs written while the songwriter was splitting his time between his adopted home of Denver and Los Angeles. Emerson is from norther Ohio but moved to Denver in his late teens/early 20s where he fell in with an up and coming psychedelic pop band Plum which made waves before moving to the City of Angels and, as is often the cliché, broke up shortly thereafter. Since then Emerson moved back to the Mile High City where he established himself as a solo artist with the release of his sophisticated and introspective, folk inflected pop album Dorothy Alice. Tonight he shares the bill with stars of the local indie rock milieu in Turvy Organ and Panther Martin.
What:Stonefield w/Pink Fuzz, SSIIGGHH When: Friday, 2.21, 8 p.m. Where: Lost Lake Why: Amy, Hannah, Holly and Sarah Findlay are four sisters that formed the hard psychedelic rock band Stonefiled in 2006 in Darraweit Guim in Victoria, Australia. Its early offerings (for example Through the Clover) were in the realm of 70s boogie rock with hints of the psychedelia that would characterize their later songwriting. By the time of 2019’s Bent, the group hasn’t shed its infectious tunefulness but its overall sound is much heavier, brimming with expertly sculpted melodic fuzz and at times bordering on a fusion of Krautrock and early 2000s stoner rock. Fans of Stereolab, Trans Am and Hawkwind will find a lot to like about this latest incarnation of the band’s evolution.
What:Ezra Furman w/Kelley Stoltz When: Saturday, 2.22, 7 p.m. Where: Bluebird Theater Why: Ezra Furman’s 2019 album Twelve Nudes is a lush yet somehow lo-fi collection of songs filled with raw emotion and experiences presented with a startling honesty couched in the sound of some 1960s girl group sound fused with fuzzy garage rock production. It’s a fascinating and bracing listen that gets past your filters before the impact of what you’re hearing hits you and the experience awakens you to the playful weightiness of Furman’s songwriting.
What:Shadows Tranquil, Emerald Siam, Midwife and Ophelia Drowning When: Saturday, 2.22, 9 p.m. Where: Mercury Café Why: Dark, shoegaze-y post-punk band Shadows Tranquil performs this night with the brooding yet transcendent Emerald Siam, Midwife’s riveting, ethereal, tender, intimate soundscapes and Danish dungeon synth project Ophelia Drowning.
What:Kendra & The Bunnies When: Saturday, 2.22, 8 p.m. Where: Mutiny Information Café Why: Kendra & The Bunnies brings an unconventional and disarming creativity and sensitivity to a folk psychedelia that seems out of place and out of time. When so many modern indie bands are still mining Laurel Canyon, Kendra & The Bunnies tapped slightly into the vibe of Northern California hippies and made it their own.
What:Cyclo-Sonic, Joy Subtraction and The Pollution When: Saturday, 2.22, 8 p.m. Where: 1010 Workshop Why: Cyclo-Sonic is comprised of veterans of Denver’s great second era of punk in the 80s with former members of The Fluid, The Frantix, Rok Tots and The Choosey Mothers. Which would mean not much if the band wasn’t any good but it turns out that the band’s leftfield reinterpretation of melodic proto-punk and garage is shockingly vital and compelling. Joy Subtraction came out of the more arty end of punk inspired by the likes of Alice Donut and Nomeansno. The Pollution is an unlikely merging of psychedelic prog and punk.
What:Shibui Denver #10: Fern Roberts and Red Wing Black Bird When: Sunday, 2.23, 7 p.m. Where: Mutiny Information Café Why: This edition of Shibui Denver will feature darkwave project Red Wing Black Bird and the latest band from former Emerald Siam and Light Travels Faster bassist Todd Spriggs, Fern Roberts.
What:Chastity Belt w/Nanami Ozone and Hugh F When: Sunday, 2.23, 7 p.m. Where: Bluebird Theater Why: Chastity Belt has been on a great run of seeming to reinvent its aesthetic over the past two or three records. Its 2019 self-titled record has seemingly shed whatever influences informed its earlier work in favor of a more introspective, dream pop-esque, borderline post-punk aesthetic but rooted in a sophisticated expression of emotional complexity, the kind that only comes with processing loss whether personally, or of one’s place in the world or of one’s community or feeling lost in a world where things seem upended and your place in it seems tentative. Who can say is the reason for this change but it is the group’s finest offering to date in its ability to evoke feelings that a more straight ahead rock and roll songwriting style struggles to articulate.
What:Kendra & The Bunnies When: Sunday, 2.23, 4-6 p.m. Where: The Very Nice Brewing Company in Nederland 4-6 p.m.
What:Hannibal Buress w/Al Jackson and Tony Trimm When: Monday, 2.24, 10”:15 p.m. Where: Denver Comedy Works Why: This is a free pop up comedy event featuring Hannibal Buress whose sharp, surreal comedy takes aim at the ridiculousness of modern life and odd ideas we all take for granted. He has also appeared in film and numerous television shows including brilliant turns on the Eric Andre Show and Broad City. For tickets signup/rsvp @ www.hannibalburess.com also text 312-584-5839 for a chance at tickets.
Tuesday | February 25
Ceremony, photo by Rick Rodney
What:American Nightmare w/Ceremony When: Tuesday, 2.25, 7 p.m. Where: Bluebird Theater Why: American Nightmare is a legit hardcore band in the modern mold. Ceremony was right there with them, though having formed in 2006 during American Nightmare’s hiatus from 2004-2011. But around the time of Ceremony’s 2012 album Zoo its sound if not its raw, confrontational energy as a live band was changing. Hints of a shift from hardcore into something more experimental was all over that record and by the time of The L-Shaped Man from 2015, Ceremony was a post-punk band. Its latest album, In the Spirit World Now has expanded the use of synths in the band’s overall sound has morphed even further in the direction of dance-y darkwave like Devo if that band had somehow emerged following the post-punk revival of the late 90s and early 2000s.
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