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VLF’s Synth Punk Single “Fashion” Rages Against the Violent Inhumanity of Late Capitalism’s Demands For Uniformity

VLF is the solo project of Liam Power who appears to have played all the instruments on the new album Quantum Regression (released February 28, 2025) which might go some way to explain how pointed, focused and unified the songs sound. The single “Fashion” with its urgency is reminiscent of the more aggressive end of both Wire and Buzzcocks with the noisier instincts of the former and the undeniable hooks of the latter. The song seems to be about the frustration with yet embracing the idea of going out of fashion when everything seems to be disposable in our culture and how trying to keep up with all of that can be a rat race the erodes the humanity out of developing something unique because creativity and creative work is not something that can always or ever just be cranked out much less developed at the speed expected out of late capitalism. So why not embrace your analog existence and resist the monetization of all aspects of life. The song rages and explodes and reassembles back into focus like a parallel dynamic to that expected of us but it also veers off that path in glorious fashion like a rebellion against the imposition of arbitrary modes of being. Listen to “Fashion” on Spotify and follow VLF on Instagram. Fans of the aforementioned as well as Snowy Red, A Place to Bury Strangers and even Big Black will find a good deal to like with this song and the rest of the album.

Pink Turns Blue Make a Case For Hope in Basic Human Connections on the Melancholic Post-punk Single “Can’t Do Without You”

Mic Jogwer of Pink Turns Blue, photo by D. Vorndran

Pink Turns Blue takes on an uncomfortable personal truth on “Can’t Do Without You.” The gleaming drift of guitar riffs and the steady rhythm serves its meditational quality well. The touch of melancholic atmosphere sets the mood because the song and its powerful music video outline the personal cost of taking on a world seemingly filled with struggle and tragedy and now with global fascism rising and world powers either funding or doing little to stop obvious genocides it can feel hopeless and overwhelming unless you have some foundation of hope no matter what your place is in all of this mess when you’re not the people holding the reins of power. The song suggests that so much energy expended in the struggle for what’s right without a vision to drive it to give a guiding sense of hope, despair can take over and make you think nothing has any power to change things for the better. But the song seems to come from the perspective of someone who is trying to hold on to a shred of something better that feels like there can be an impetus, a glimmer of human solidarity and caring, of love that can push back against the wave of darkness that can feel like it’s snuffing out everything good and decent. It in effect makes a case for the personal being the political and how often that tide can turn in ways with small efforts that become larger causes and movements that can turn things in a positive direction beginning with the basic component of what makes life and society so vital and that is with bonds with one another. Watch the video for “Can’t Do Without You” on YouTube and follow Pink Turns Blue at the links below. The band’s new album Black Swan released on February 28, 2025 on vinyl LP, digital download and streaming.

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Twin Court Conveys a Deep Sense of the Mystical Pastoral on Ambient Folk Gamelan Track “Iroh”

Twin Court from Ithaca, New York released its debut LP Forgotten Turns on March 1, 2025. The single “Iroh” displays the group’s seamless combination of post-rock musical ideas with the instrumentation and methods of Gamelan. The minimal lyrics “Everything blows away” repeated like a mantra is like a reminder of the impermanence of all things even those we are conditioned to think are eternal but in the course of time will be gone or transformed beyond our current recognition and sometimes this is ourselves during the course of a lifetime whether we consciously realize it or not. There is a pastoral quality of the textures, delicate, orchestrated tonality and percussion in the song reminiscent of where Phil Elverum has been with both The Microphones and especially Mount Eerie with a similar mindset in approaching the music. A freshness and spontaneity and an outlook that is keenly aware of the cycles and circles of our lives interweaving with one another akin to Black Elk’s mystic vision. The luminous “keyboard” sound in the song is in fact not electronic but the gendèr, a type of metallophone that naturally sounds otherworldly but whose resonant analog tone lends the music a calmingly mysterious resonance. Listen to “Iroh” on Spotify and follow Twin Court at the links provided.

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Avery Friedman’s “Photo Booth” is a Glittery and Entrancing Song About Daring to Coming Into Your Own

Avery Friedman, photo courtesy the artist

Avery Friedman takes us on what feels like a promising journey to wonderful and mysterious places from the beginning of “Photo Booth.” The song was written in the wake of a night out with friends as documented in part on photo booth strips, the kinds of artifacts that remind those in the pictures of that time and in this case one in which everyone involved was on an adventure of personal growth and allowing oneself to be who you are without feeling like you have to hide a part of it. There’s something healthy about being able to do that that’s good for your psyche and development as a complete human. The looped, glimmery, electronic melody that begins the song and latter joined and accented by slightly fuzzy, hazy guitar riffs that are allowed to hang and drop out at the exact right moments while Friedman’s intimate vocals exude a confidence, in both the sense of being self-assured and as quality of intimacy, in describing a night that propels one further into becoming the person you’re always meant to be. Listen to “Photo Booth” on Bandcamp and follow Avery Friedman at the links below. Her debut album New Thing releases April 18, 2025 via Audio Antihero on vinyl, digital download and streaming.

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Eliana Glass’s Downtempo Jazz Single “Shrine” is an Impressionistic Evocation of the Deep Places of Memory

Eliana Glass’s slightly breathy, soulful, dusky vocals on “Shrine” sound like something from another era. Like a deep jazz lounge in the 60s or 70s like Peggy Lee or Lena Horne in a particularly melancholic mood and reaching into realms of the musical avant-garde. The soft bass accents and minimal piano accompaniment lend the song an irresistible cool to complement Glass’s own as she sings about how in life we encounter people whose memory lingers with us for a variety of reasons and the ways the resonance of those experiences however extended or brief become part of the narrative of our life story like the influences that go into the writing of a work of fiction. Glass seems to choose to be enriched by these memories rather than haunted by them though “Shrine” has a deep and immersive moodiness that feels both mysterious and comforting. In the music video filmed, directed and edited by Jules Muir from a concept by Costa Colachis Glass we see the singer in granular images that look like memories feel—often hazy yet vibrant, in moments shadowy and with the analog quality of the lived experience faded and colored by one’s distance from the actual events and emotional associations. Watch the video for “Shrine” on YouTube and follow Eliana Glass at the links below. Her new album E releases on April 5 on vinyl, digital download and streaming.

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Queen City Sounds Podcast S5E03: Nikki O’Neill

Nikki O’Neill, photo courtesy the artist

Nikki O’Neill was born in Los Angeles but mostly grew up in Stockholm, Sweden and now calls Chicago home. The cultural influences in her development as a human probably goes some way to explain how her fusion of Americana, Soul, Gospel and Blues comes off like a confident yet self-aware manifestation of the finely honed pop songs of the late 70s and early 80s with some of its own roots in R&B. O’Neill’s new, and third solo, record Stories I Only Tell My Friends dropped March 14, 2025 on 12” LP vinyl CD, digital download and streaming. The album is full of vibrant energy and instantly relatable tales of having moved from the West Coast to the Midwest and holding on to a sense of self that isn’t jaded and numbed by the pace and demands of our current society. Throughout the record, O’Neill seems to struggle and come to terms with existential doubt, demonstrating she is more than slightly familiar with the importance of learning to come at the world like you’re new to so many things again and again to bring a freshness of spirit to life and one’s creative work. The effort to do so abundant from song to song.

Listen to our interview with Nikki O’Neill on Bandcamp and follow O’Neill at the links below.

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Chris Bullinger’s Folk-Inflected Pop Song “Shine” Draws You Into Its Tale of Serendipity With Its Leisurely Charm

Chris Bullinger, photo courtesy the artist

Chris Bullinger’s husky voice serves as a nice contrast with the smoothly atmospheric melodies and gentle rhythms of “Shine.” In the video that mixes animation and pastoral settings juxtaposed with those more urban and late night we get a feel for the leisurely pace of the song and how its spare poetry and storytelling seems to be about chance connections we make if we’re not too caught up in being focused on what we’re “supposed” to be putting our energy into and just be a human open to experiences and being willing to give a little of ourselves back to the people we meet along the way in our lives as we live them without it having to be transactional or pragmatic. The song is in a folk pop vein and rather than demand too much of its listeners it invites you in with its leisurely energy and simple charm. Watch the video for “Shine” on YouTube and connect with singer and songwriter Chris Bullinger at the links below.

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Miss Torsion’s Darkwave Pop Single “Too Close To See” is an Enchanting Song About the Perils of Delusional Beliefs

Mirjam Götschy’s video treatment for Miss Torsion’s “Too Close To See” lends a playfully dark fantasy element to the song. Which seems to be the appropriate for a mood for a song in which the narrator of the song addresses a friend or loved one who seems to lack the ability to be in the present instead caught up in an endless web of their own obsessions and projections upon the world around them to their own detriment. In the video Miss Torsion takes on the guise of a type of mystical being in various incarnations and as a disembodied presence dancing on a landscape of burning hills and a lush forest as she sings to the aforementioned indulger of personal fictions to “Wake up” from these dreams that don’t serve a creative vision so much but delusions that have a negative impact on the people in their lives. The title of the song cleverly suggests the concept of being too close to one’s ideas and creations to have an objective assessment as to their validity. It’s a serious message delivered with a dramatic flair as an eccentric pop song with a Gothic darkwave flavor but one that doesn’t overshadow how it’s also the kind of song one might hear at a Goth nigh or club and draw people to the dance floor. Fans of Lene Lovich and Gitane Demone will likely appreciate the song greatly.

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Mikey Demilio Burns Through the Cloak of Dark Memories on the Exuberant Noise Punk Single “2 Dead In New Brunswick”

Mikey Demilio, photo courtesy the artist

Mikey Demilio has some nerve lending joyous energy and an exuberant delivery to “2 Dead In New Brunswick.” The contrast between that vibe and the subject matter of the song is stark. And yet it makes the topic and the story bearable. Listen closely because the noise and shimmer coursing through the melody during the choruses really do give the impression that the song is about good times but the verses where things are more spacious the story Demilio tells of drugs and tragic misadventure and how everything you cherished at a particular moment of your life can be snatched away. In the last third of the song Demilio looks back on that incident and how even if that happens to you young, maybe especially when, it can color a lot of your perspective and be a downer for who can say how long and it’s not something you just get over and forget. The raw momentum of the song is like an inversion of melancholia, a demonstration that one can still muster spirit to not stay mired in dark memories all the time and that is sometimes just what you need to get you through. Listen to “2 Dead in New Brunswick” on Spotify and follow Mikey Demilio on Instagram.

Lucille Two’s Effervescent and Psychedelic Single “Pixels” is a Concise Commentary on the Nature of Our Digital Lives

The economy of songwriting on Lucille Two’s “Pixels” is impressive from the beginning. Without cutting corners on the crafting of exquisite yet minimal layers of melody and expertly placed tones the single catches your ear with Trudy Bennett’s winsome vocals, perfect rhythmic accents, vintage Mellotron sounds and more modern drifts of synth and psychedelic vocal processing. The song is both moody and effervescent, a combination we don’t hear often enough and at just two minutes nine seconds the song is all essence and none of the fluff of an extended intro or outro that make far too many songs tiresome. Instead “Pixels” invites an instant replay. The lyrics seem to be a commentary on the unsatisfying, ephemeral, illusory nature of out lives on digital platforms but without rancor simply stating “It’s all a fantasy.” And a fantasy isn’t necessarily negative. Listen to “Pixels” on YouTube and follow the band Lucille Two at the links provided.