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Ok Cowgirl Finds Some Absurd Humor in the Existentially Exhausting Grind of the Modern Everyday on Fuzz Pop Song “Larry David”

Don’t be fooled by the whimsical music video for Ok Cowgirl’s “Larry David” in which the band members are made up like the titular, legendary comedy writer and actor. The gloriously effusive guitar solo that comes in the middle of the first half of the song lets off some of the steam of the sentiments expressed in the song, the kind anyone with any level of honesty and sensitivity has felt like everything is, yes, fucked, in everyday life even if you’re living what some might consider a comfortable life though you may be struggling with scrambling to barely get by and dealing with situations to make that happen that push you to the edge and to the breaking point day after day. It wears you out on a deep level. But Ok Cowgirl has turned some of that existential exhaustion into catharsis with the fuzzy guitar pop of this song and making it into a song that can indulge some moments of humor in its evocation of life’s, mundane daily challenges that can grind you down over time. Watch the video for “Larry David” on YouTube and follow Ok Cowgirl at the links below. The band’s new album Couldn’t Save Us From My Gut released on August 16, 2024 and available to stream.

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Art d’Ecco Returns With the Vital, Indie Glam Rock Single “I Feel Alive”

Art d’Ecco’s uplifting latest pop offering “I Feel Alive” is as much a declaration of self-liberation as it is a brash celebration of one’s passions. The bold horns, Art’s charged vocals and the scenes from the music video of good times had with dancing and drink feel very of the now but the aesthetics are reminiscent of a combination of late 80s Wang Chung and The Power Station covering T. Rex’s “Get It On.” Art d’Ecco takes that energy and sleazy guitar sound and puts great momentum behind it all for an effect that comes off as genuinely exciting and unapologetically bombastic. After all why downplay when you’re feeling like you’re in the right place, doing the right thing at the right moment in alignment with your heart’s desires? It is truly glam rock for the indie rock set. Watch the video for “I Feel Alive” directed by Michael Makaroff on YouTube and follow Art d’Ecco at the links below.

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Art d’Ecco on Instagram

Queen City Sounds Podcast S4E37: Nina Nastasia

Nina Nastasia, photo courtesy the artist

Nina Nastasia is the critically acclaimed songwriter currently based in Seattle who grew up in Hollywood but moved to New York before making a name for herself as a gifted musical artist who worked throughout much of her career recording with Steve Albini. Due to years of abuse by her then partner, Nastasia left music in 2010 before returning to writing and releasing songs Her return to releasing music was the 2022 album Riderless Horse, an album or tender sounds and textures but whose subjects are a rich tapestry of the evocation of love, despair, loss, and finding moments of joy and humor in the great sprawl of life especially when you’ve been suppressing your creative gifts and now finding your vehicle of expression once again free of former limitations. The album charts the aftermath of the death of Nastasia’s former partner in 2020 and her own rediscovery of being able to write music with integrity after around a decade of finding herself unable to do so. It’s a record of rare beauty and deep personal insight that while bearing the hallmarks of going through periods of personal darkness ends up being an uplifting record and a declaration of self-empowerment. While writing and recording that record, Nastasia was simultaneously crafting the songs that would comprise the 2023 self-titled debut album by Jolie Laide, a duo with Nastasia and Jeff MacLeod. Both records have a noir quality in the nuance of emotional expression and entrancing moods that have a cinematic quality that one might compare favorably to Lana Del Rey and Cat Power.

Listen to our interview with Nina Nastasia on Bandcamp and follow Nastasia at the links below. She performs on the final night of Ghost Canyon Fest on Sunday, August 25, 2024 at the Hi-Dive. For more information and to purchase tickets visit the fest’s website here.

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Nina Nastasia on Instagram

Nina Nastasia on Facebook

Queen City Sounds Podcast S4E36: Animal Bite

Animal Bite in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy

Animal Bite is a band from Casper, Wyoming that has folded into its sound a hybrid of thrash, noise rock and hard-edged, industrial post-punk. It’s the kind of music that simultaneously resonates favorably with The Dillinger Escape Plan, The Jesus Lizard and Killing Joke. There’s a psychedelic aspect to the music that pairs well with the disorienting energy and intensity of the music. The group’s existence spans both sides of the 2020 pandemic but its membership has come out of the Casper underground in bands like Juice Falcon and Doggod that didn’t feat neatly into punk or grindcore or metal but featured the hallmarks of eclectic musical roots. Guitarist Brandon Schulte has been a bit of a figure in the current network of American underground music setting up shows for touring acts in Casper who might otherwise not have a place to play in the middle western part of the country as well as hosting left field music locally and otherwise. In 2021 Animal Bite released its first full length album Harsh Chemicals with visual aesthetics that remind one of Future Sounds of London’s Dead Cities or a Death album cover. It’s the kind of impression that prepares you for the gloriously post-apocalyptic music within.

Listen to our interview with Brandon Schulte of Animal Bite on Bandcamp and catch the group live at the final night of the Ghost Canyon Fest on Sunday, August 25, 2024. The fest begins on Friday August 23 at The Skylark Lounge and continues with a matinee show at Mutiny Information Cafe on Saturday, August 24 and the evening showcase at the Hi-Dive that same evening. But tickets to the fest here and connect with Animal Bite at the links below.

Animal Bite on Instagram

Animal Bite on Bandcamp

Queen City Sounds Podcast S4E35: Lake Mary

For over a decade, Chaz Pyrmek has been a prolific artist releasing recordings as Lake Mary and as a member of various ensembles including the free jazz group Fuubutsushi. Prymek has found himself in various environments over the years including his hometown, where he is now once again located, of Salt Lake City, Columbia, Missouri and Denver, Colorado but in each case the environments have impacted the composer and multi-instrumentalist in terms of the physical and cultural landscape. Prymek’s music could broadly be described as ambient improv and abstract Americana created with an intuitive, improvisational approach to the songwriting. Whether edited later or the inspired moments simply captured and released into the world, Prymek’s musical endeavors sound fresh, intimate and welcoming. In recent years Prymek has collaborated with free jazz saxophone legend Patrick Shiroishi in the aforementioned Fuubutsushi as well as on Lake Mary recordings and the 2024 album Eventually The River Rises Here Too, As It Always Has as a trio with Prymek, Shiroishi and Thom Nguyen.

Listen to our interview with Chaz Prymek on Bandcamp and follow the links below to listen to his music and keep appraised of his live performances and other adventures in music. Lake Mary will perform at the Ghost Canyon Fest the afternoon of August 24, 2024 at Mutiny Information Cafe. To buy tickets to the festival visit the website here.

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Lake Mary on Bandcamp

Chaz Prymek on Instagram

Queen City Sounds Podcast S4E34: Lung

Lung is an experimental rock duo from Cincinnati that formed in 2016. Vocalist/cellist Kate Wakefield and drummer Daisy Caplan had both been involved in bands prior to Lung including Caplan’s stint as the bassist for glam pop band Foxy Shazam but with this musical collaboration both musicians utilize musical chops to craft a raw and commanding style of what might be called art punk that pairs Wakefield’s powerful and trained voice and cello prowess and Caplan’s creative command of rhythm. The result is imaginative and emotionally charged songs that translate well to the band’s deserved reputation as an intense and entertaining live band. One might compare the band’s music to the type of resonance evoked by PJ Harvey’s moments of waxing into the unhinged and inspired and the earnest emotional warmth and raw power of The Gits. All with an undeniable knack for rendering left fields ideas accessible. Lung tours extensively every year it’s been possible and it has garnered a reputation as fine citizens of the underground music scene. Its most recent offering as a record is 2023’s split album with Conan Neutron and the Secret Friends called Adult Prom.

Listen to our interview with Wakefield and Caplan on Bandcamp and follow Lung at the links below. The duo will perform at Ghost Canyon Fest the first night of the festival on August 23 at The Skylark Lounge. But you’ll want to catch as much of the festival as possible if you’re a fan of the different in underground music. The festival continues with a matinee show at Mutiny Information Cafe on Saturday, August 24 with the night show at the Hi-Dive with the concluding night of the fest on Sunday August 25 also at the Hi-Dive. For more information no the festival and to buy tickets click here.

Queen City Sounds Podcast S4E33: Ex Everything

Ex Everything is a band based out of Oakland that released its debut album Slow Change Will Pull Us Apart in 2023 The group launched in 2018 with guitarist Jon Howell (Kowloon Walled City) and Ben Thorne (Low Red Land, Tartuffi) who were seeking a vehicle for musical ideas and interests that didn’t fully fit in with their then extant and current outfits. As Ex Everything was putting together its more full-fledged lineup the pandemic hit necessitating incubating song ideas that in the long arc of how the pandemic stretched most if not all musical project timelines meant the quartet was able to hone its concepts and sounds for a record that is equal parts angular post-hardcore and caustic noise rock that fit in well with the Neurot Recordings imprint that ended up releasing the album. The record’s lyrics are scathing examination of destructive human behavior but expressed in a way that has built into the words that suggests the possibility of moving through the worst aspects of modern human civilization. This has meant that the music though intense and heavy is in the end cathartic and a decidedly not nihilistic assessment of the prospects for our collective species.

Listen to our interview with Jon Howell on Bandcamp and follow Ex Everything at the links below. The band performs on the first night of Ghost Canyon Fest on August 23, 2024 at The Skylark Lounge. Tickets for the festival can be purchased here for the second annual event showcasing left field rock and experimental music.

Ex Everything on Instagram

Ex Everything on Neurot Recordings

Carlos Antonio’s Deep Moods and Vibrant Falsetto on Slowcore Single “Gabriel” Are an Affecting Evocation of a Love Obscured

Carlos Antonio, photo courtesy the artist

“Gabriel” is the title track to Carlos Antonio’s forthcoming debut EP. It’s the story of the songwriter’s relationship with a closeted, Hollywood actor and the their desire for their relationship to be a known quantity and for it to be accepted in a society that continues to reveal itself to generally be, to varying degrees, hostile to such relationships to the point that it can still affect someone’s career and life prospects. The music is lushly orchestrated with delicate and intentional guitar textures providing the more tactile rhythm as background string and electronics melodies help Antonio’s emotionally vibrant and breathy vocals to stand in front in passages of compelling vulnerability that express the intensity of feeling and the frustration of having to keep a cherished relationship more or less hidden because of social pressures even in 2024. Fans of Jeff Buckley and Iron & Wine will appreciate Antonio’s depth of mood, emotional nuance and command of tone. Listen to “Gabriel” on Soundcloud and follow Carlos Antonio at the links provided.

Carlos Antonio on Instagram

Letting Up Despite Great Faults Leans Into Fulfillment Over Comfort on Indiepop Shoegaze Single “Powder”

Letting Up Despite Great Faults, photo courtesy the artists

Letting Up Despite Great Faults delivers its follow up to 2022’s entrancing album IV with Reveries with mixing by Melina Duterte (Jay Som) and mastering by Simon Scott (Slowdive). Lead single “Powder” dips a little into the band’s early days with some playful synth sounds like something one might more hear coming from a reprogrammed Famicom and fans of the long defunct The Depreciation Guild will appreciate the vulnerable sounds and delicacy of orchestration in the song’s melodies and rhythms. Guitar notes linger, electronic motes hit with a percussive quality over the rush of spare percussion. The vocals intone like fragments from a diary placed expertly together to comment on the unease of being in a liminal space in one’s life where you think about how people tell you to give up on anything fun and creative in order to “grow up.” But what about what’s in your heart to do and who would want you to give up what brings more than a fleeting shred of joy into your life? The line “You only love the things pinned to the ground” perfectly expresses how some people relate to those they would aim and profess to love—by controlling them and make them into a static entity. A museum piece of life. The song is about resisting that but also the hint of thinking of succumbing to that spirit diminishing but comfortable status yet in the end leaning heavily toward uncertainty in some areas of life over giving it all up for someone that doesn’t truly value your deep happiness. It’s a lot to pack into two minutes twenty seconds with a rare level of emotional and psychological nuance but Mike Lee and the band have a knack for saying meaningful things with great economy in songs that have great forward and outward momentum. Listen to “Powder” Spotify and follow Austin, TX-based Letting Up Despite Great Faults at the links below. Reveries will become available for streaming, download and on vinyl October 11, 2024.

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Letting Up Despite Great Faults on YouTube

Letting Up Despite Great Faults on Apple Music

Ohr Comforts and Reassures in the Warmly Expansive Psychedelia of Electro Pop Single “Afterglow”

“Afterglow,” the title track from Ohr’s forthcoming album (due out 8/30/24 via Headstate Records) uses vintage electronic sounds and modern production to create something that musically resonates with 90s British, electronically infused, exuberant psychedelia like Primal Scream in the latter half of the decade. But also Currents-period Tame Impala. There’s something celebratory at the core of “Afterglow” and its insistent beat that given its lyrics speaking to not feeling limitations so much but the heat of the momentum of where you’re going and what you’re growing into without completely losing sight of where you’ve been. The warm tones of the song swirl and sparkle throughout and team into the fade in the end. There’s something about the song that gets into your head and ends with feelings of comfort and reassurance which helps it to linger long in the mind. Watch the visualizer video for “Afterglow” on YouTube and follow Ohr at the links below.