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Queen City Sounds Podcast S4E43: hackedepicciotto

hackedepicciotto, photo by Mara von Kummer

Berlin-based duo hackedepicciotto released its first live album on November 1, 2024. Titled The Best of hackedepicciotto (Live in Napoli) the album reflects two decades of collaboration and sound experimentation and the evolution of compositions as they have been performed live. The record, available as a limited double vinyl (which includes an exclusive signed print) and on digital, includes selections from across the project’s five albums. Each is an inspired reinterpretation of the original studio version as channeled through the lens of live performance over the last several years. The music combines electronic sounds, throat singing, spoken word, industrial beats, drone and psychedelic folk for a style the duo have called “symphonic drone.” Alexander Hacke experimented with tape loops in his early teens before joining foundational industrial band Einstürzende Neubauten. Danielle de Picciotto was one of the founders of Berlin Love Parade in 1989 as well as the singer of The Space Cowboys. She is also an acclaimed multimedia artist, writer and graphic novel artist who has documented pivotal cultural moments in the Berlin and international music and art world. Together Hacke and de Picciotto have established a consistently fascinating body of work that transcends standard musical categorization with a cinematic and dramatic sensibility that fuses concepts of performance art, music theater and film. The new live album performed entirely by the duo at Auditorium Novecento in Naples, Italy is a rich culmination of the project’s music practice as organically developed.

Listen to our interview with hackedepicciotto on Bandcamp and follow the band at the links below.

hackedepicciotto.de

danielledepicciotto.com

hacke.org

Stephen Caulfield’s New Age Ambient Song “Meltwater” Articulates the Wonder and Magic of the Transformation of Ice Into Liquid in Human Time

“Meltwater” from Stephen Caulfield’s new ambient EP Blue Vessels (available October 18, 2024) layers a glimmering foreground and low end background in the beginning. But this all dissolves a bit with abstract piano, minimal guitar and bass joining the synth in a free flowing and evolving drift as the harmonic composition shifts and swirls slowly. It is a musical embodiment of a time lapse view of ice transforming from solid into liquid and how it is both gradual and sudden and when being able to perceive it in more geologic time through the alchemy of a song written imagining this process magical and truly transformative. The shining melody emerging from the slow churn of elements strikes a gorgeous note as the song resolves into tranquility and the sound of droplets. Listen to “Meltwater” on Spotify and follow Stephen Caulfield at the links below.

stephencaulfield.com

Stephen Caulfield on Twitter

Stephen Caulfield on Facebook

Stephen Caulfield on TikTok

Stephen Caulfield on Instagram

Stephen Caulfield on Bandcamp

Stephen Caulfield on YouTube

Bird’s Orchestral Dream Pop Single “The Tides” is an Immersive Masterwork of Cinematic Downtempo

Bird aka Janie Price wrote a short film called Wider Than the Sky for which she also composed the soundtrack. And this year the album for that soundtrack released including the single “The Tides.” Now a new radio edit mix of the song is available with its lushly orchestral sound preserved like an even more deeply atmospheric downtempo track. Price’s emotionally wide-ranging vocals are paired well with transporting string arrangements for an effect like a Michael Jarre score for a David Lean film. Most impressive, though, is how Price matches and complements the orchestral sounds in tone and emotional resonance for a musical synthesis not heard often enough in pop music. Listen to “The Tides” on Spotify and follow Bird at the links below.

Bird on Instagram

Bird on Facebook

Bird on YouTube

Queen City Sounds Podcast S4E42: The Old Ceremony

The Old Ceremony, photo by Michael Benson

The Old Ceremony formed in 2004 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina fronted by Django Haskins. From the outset the band was conceived of as a group that could realize more orchestral pop arrangements. The latter style served well the literary leanings of the songwriting and pop noir sound lending the music a great range of dramatic and dynamic expression. Borrowing its name from the 1975 Leonard Cohen album New Skin for the Old Ceremony the band has released seven full-length albums including its latest Earthbound (available October 17, 2024 on streaming, for digital download and limited edition CD and vinyl). The story is that Haskins wrote some 115 songs during the pandemic and eleven of those made it onto the album. But each of those songs is a rich story in itself and worth exploring on their own with sly cultural references including name checking would-be Andy Warhol assassin Valerie Solanas. Its a sonically diverse set of cinematic pop songs that it’s clear underwent a good degree of development and set together with other songs that as a whole create a sense of a world that’s gone and missed and coming to terms with the world in which we currently find ourselves and moving through the next set of life challenges reminiscent of what we’ve seen before.

Listen to our interview with Django Haskins on Bandcamp and follow The Old Ceremony at the links below.

theoldceremony.com

The Old Ceremony on Instagram

Office Hours’ Clashing and Chaotic Noise Rock Single “No Quiero Votar” is a Raw Rejection of the Nihilism of Meaningless Choices

Office Hours, photo courtesy the artists

The clashing sounds, raw noise and chaos of “No Quiero Votar” by Office Hours gives way to wilder swings and jarring passages of guitar music with a hint of what might be described as atonal melody as the song rushes headlong to its conclusion. A fitting structure and arrangement for a song whose title in English means “I Don’t Want to Vote.” It sounds like a rejection of the illusion of choice when there are none that are particularly great in a political system geared toward giving the elites everything they want and the pandering pantomime of identity politics and fear mongering to an uneducated public that is largely apolitical but convinced of the validity of its opinions. The powers that be favor nihilism and de facto compliance from a citizenry that seems easily placated but for those that genuinely care about consequences and trying to live a life in a relatively sane and stable human community it just seems like a perverse and cynical set of choices so how to react initially except to maybe write a crazy song with a weary lyric expressing a simple denouncement of empty rhetoric. Listen to “No Quiero Votar” on Spotify and follow Office Hours at the links provided.

Office Hours on Facebook

Office Hours on Instagram

Bad Flamingo’s Darkly Dreamy “The Devil Knows” is a Gritty and Shimmery Murder Ballad of a Love Gone Wrong

Bad Flamingo, photo courtesy the artists

Bad Flamingo waxes slightly more folk on “The Devil Knows” with a touch of banjo and/or mandolin more prominently in the mix intermingling seamlessly with guitar. The kind of percussion established sounds like the kind of thing a performer will effect by knocking on their guitar and a tambourine on a foot. But there are some nice touches of production with a dramatic, swelling drone here and there and in the background as well as electric guitar shimmer and buzz. The themes are a new spin on a tale of personal darkness and struggling with self-redemption and the acceptance and even romanticizing of one’s lurid past and anti-social impulses. With this song we hear hints of actual skullduggery rather than merely misdeeds in the pursuit of fun or at the fantasy of violating the sixth commandment. Bad Flamingo’s songwriting and musicianship with the tactile quality of fretting the guitar lends the whole song a grounded quality so that it’s cinematic, dreamlike mood has an intimacy and immediacy that makes its story not sound so sinister. Listen to “The Devil Knows” on Spotify and follow Bad Flamingo at the links below.

badflamingomusic.com

Bad Flamingo on Facebook

Bad Flamingo on Instagram

Bad Flamingo on YouTube

Running Man Gives Voice to Modern Existential Weariness and Anxiety in the Caustic Proto-punk Flavor of “One Wrong Move”

Current Dead Kennedys singer Skip Greer has a new project called Running Man and its single “One Wrong Move” sounds like that desperate and caustic early punk era of the mid-to-late 70s but with a Midwest vibe. The edgy guitar and melody immediately resonates with Dead Boys’ 1977 classic “Sonic Reducer.” But this song is about the current era of society and civilization on edge and seemingly about trying to hold it together with so much seemingly at stake in one’s personal life and as a species and the lines “One wrong move and it’s game over” and “It’s been going on far too long” sum up the unfortunate combination of existential weariness and anxiety that permeates the world today. Listen to “One Wrong Move” on Spotify and follow Running Man at the links below. The band’s self-titled debut released November 15, 2024 on vinyl including limited edition pink, CD, streaming and for digital download.

Running Man on Instagram

Running Man on YouTube

Icarus Phoenix’s Indiepop Single “Homeostasis” is Like an Epigram About Maintaining a Balanced Psychological Orientation

Icarus Phoenix, photo courtesy the artists

“Homeostasis” by Icarus Phoenix sounds like a finely crafted indiepop song in a classic mode with some nice changes and lilting flute and chime to accent the paces. In its two minutes seven seconds the song is incredibly economical in its songwriting in creating an uplifting mood with lyrics that are like a Zen epigram reflecting the title but relating it to modern life and how the demands of modern life can tilt you off balance from maintaining an internal and healthy mental balance. The opening line “I don’t trust happiness it always fades. A way to exacerbate nostalgia parading” is truly poetic in expressing how our expectations as we’ve been conditioned by society and culture can take us out of the moment and to not live in it. The rest of the song builds upon this concept of eschewing desires and staying focused on what’s important like the creation of art because it comes from within rather than an imposed and conditioned desire that can never be fully satisfied. Maybe it’s a commentary on capitalist culture and its push to turn us into constant consumers part of a paradigm of consumption and expansion of control with no purpose but to perpetuate the same cycle like a cancer. The song seems to suggest that simply writing a solid pop song or other creative work is satisfying on its own without it needing to serve a drive to overpower anything because it has its inherent appeal and need not have a purely utilitarian value in an economic model. Whatever the song is aimed at saying it is perfectly enjoyable as an expertly executed pop song about more than just the usual tropes and those aren’t common enough. Listen to “Homeostasis” on Spotify and follow Icarus Phoenix at the links below.

Icarus Phoenix on Instagram

Telos Tapes on Bandcamp

Icarus Phoenix on YouTube

Joona Vainionkulma’s Downtempo Ambient Song “Moon Garden” is a Cinematic Swim Through Conflicted Feelings to a Satisfying Resolution

The clarity of tone that Joona Vainionkulma employs in the beginning of “Moon Garden” makes the most of a bubbling minimalist synth tone by suggesting something more exciting over the horizon. When the percussion kicks in and the strains of piano the composition takes on a cinematic aspect like something from a more hopeful Alex Garland film. It transitions from minimal synth to a lush orchestral sound that recalls the soundtrack work of both Giorgio Moroder and John Murphy for the pure evocative impact of the way the music swells and switches to a stark spaciousness on a dime without it seeming sudden. Like swimming in fast moving waters into a those more tranquil for precious moments then back into the stream. The song is at once melancholic and hopeful and leaves you with a sense of resolution. Listen to “Moon Garden” on YouTube and follow Joona Vainionkulma on Spotify.

“Carry On” Finds UK Dream Pop Duo CATBEAR in a More Darkwave Mode Reflecting on the Need to Sustain Ourselves Through Challenging Times

“Carry On” finds UK-based dream pop band CATBEAR in a more darkwave mode. The brooding bass line and icy synth establish a more somber mood and the vocals this time seem even more introspective. The lyrics seem to catalog all the things we’ve done to struggle through times and situations in life and in the world with no seeming end to a need to restart, retool, re-strategize, re-imagine ourselves, our situations and our ability to keep going on. Thus the title of the song. Sometimes it feels like you can only tell yourself that sort of thing to keep from falling completely into despair when challenges and setbacks just keep falling into your path and our collective journey as a species. But the glimmer of melody that flashes into the song hints at moments when something a little more than the usual breaks through what could be a gloomy present and the strong rhythms of the song like a fortifying internal momentum to hang onto. Listen to “Carry On” on Spotify and follow CATBEAR at the links below.