“Fool’s Empyrean” finds Saapato layering processed field recordings to give a tangible sense of place whether walking in a field, through a forest, walking near a river or a larger body of water. And it is through these sense memories across the track’s nearly ten minutes that we are transported, floating in our minds through these landscapes all at once like translucent sets of memories while a distant and evolving drone and slow arcing tones like abstracted pedal steel tones courses through it all like the sonic equivalent of an amalgam of a light wind leisurely guiding clouds crossing the sun. Intonations of a whispery electronic flute marks time later in the song while whorls of lightly distorted and shimmery guitar sounds blossom and fade. Intermittent bird sounds peek through the incandescent musical haze in an masterfully unhurried composition that induces a psychically cleansing sense of rest from beginning to end and swept away in the end with an increase in the flow of white noise and luminous electronic chimes trailing off into the distance like a slow moving train. Listen to “Fool’s Empyrean” on Spotify and follow Saapato at the links below. Saapato’s new album, the aptly titled Somewhere Else, dropped on November 3, 2023.
Lord Dying is a band from Portland, Oregon that formed in 2010 and over the course of the past several years has established itself as a group who took roots in doom/sludge and extreme thrash and created a body of work that is as heavy as it is atmospheric, as bludgeoning and aggressive as it is capable of shifting into delicate and introspective moments. In 2019 Lord Dying released its most creatively ambitious album up to that time in Mysterium Tremendum, a meditation on death and loss and the extremes feelings that come about in their wake. It was the first chapter in a trilogy of albums whose next installment is Clandestine Transcendence which releases on streaming, download, CD and Coke Bottle Clear and Olvie Green 180g vinyl on January 19, 2024 via the MNRK Heavy imprint. The album is perhaps even more diverse in the sonics of its songwriting with the extreme ends of the band’s style emphasized with the most crushing and heavy hitting passages in the Lord Dying catalog and the most ethereal and delicate moments of vulnerable introspection. Stylistically Lord Dying includes its most clear and straight forward vocal performances and a song that starts out like something you’d expect from a punk outfit before it escalates into something much heavier. It is arguably Lord Dying’s most creatively realized record thus far and a welcome entry in a body of work that is uncommonly imaginative and eclectic in the realm of heavy music.
Listen to our interview with Erik Olsen of Lord Dying on Bandcamp and follow Lord Dying at the links provided.
The nighmarish tonal drifts, warping and bends in “You’ll Always Be, What’s Her Name” by The Bodies Obtained from the beginning sets a darkly surreal mood. Especially the cutting, swelling flares of synth, clearly distorted to give it a discordant quality that tears into the downtempo mood established by the rhythm. But even that rhythm fractures and stumbles and reasserts itself and flows with the sounds seemingly dropped into the track like samples without an anchoring context like the melodiously wordless vocals. Like a trip hop song comprised of freely associated sampling, like a DJ Shadow song with a cyberpunk aesthetic. No actual human now could know but it’s like the band has created the experience of jacking into a neural network right out of a William Gibson novel but instead of a smooth experience you got into a feed with a crumbling and inconsistent connection and being routed in not random but intermittent bits of information. And yet in the end it all works out for a chill track that is simultaneously fascinatingly and beautifully unsettling. Which could be said of all the songs from the new The Bodies Obtained album Until I Crawl Away which dropped on November 10, 2023. Listen to “You’ll Always Be, What’s Her Name” on Spotify and follow the duo at the links below.
The sound of a future depicted in the more existential science fiction movies of recent years with an ambient sense of dystopian menace and hope (think Ex Machina and Beyond the Black Rainbow and the like) is present in millhope’s single “Prototype.” With vocal contributions from Jenny Thiele to inject its vibrant synthwave style with a human touch the song pulses along with extended keyboard melodies swimming over and under the sprinkling of introspective and delicate guitar work and a skeletal yet vivid percussion giving the song and its layers of ethereal tones an unconventional solidity. The title suggests a lot like building something one hopes will be a breakthrough whether that’s a technology, an invention, a lifestyle leading to better things. The song has that kind of breezy optimism that contrasts nicely with its darker musical elements. Listen to “Prototype” on Spotify and follow millhope at the links below.
Eddie Durkin is a singer and guitarist and songwriter in indie rock band Lazarus Horse which put out its remarkable latest album Three Birds on August 4, 2023. The album is strikingly economical in its songwriting and audacious in its bare bones production. All but one of the songs is under three minutes and the greater number of the rest in the concise two and a half-minute range. The band could have paid for some studio time and rehearsed the songs to the point of absolute precision and pristine recording condition. But the album was recorded entirely to a smart phone with a few overdubs to preserve an immediacy, an intimacy of emotional resonance and a spontaneity of spirit that reflect the influence of the kind of pop songcraft from the likes of artists on the Sarah Records imprint, Beat Happening and Sparklehorse. It’s a lo-fi affair but with an out sized impact in which the band’s multiple vocalists are given the opportunity to shine. Fans of the song “After Hours” by The Velvet Underground will find a great creative kinship throughout Three Birds.
Durkin grew up on the west side of Denver and like many people had some basic music lessons as a kid including guitar lessons which he gave up when it wasn’t about the kind of music and creativity to which he was most drawn. So Durkin ended up playing football for a short time until it became obvious to him that that wasn’t for him either. Fatefully he was able to catch an OK Go show at the Bluebird Theater in 2005 when he was fifteen-years-old but mainly to see the indie rock band The Redwalls. From then on Durkin aspired to be in a band with the wide eyed faith of youth and by his late teens he was involved in one of his early bands that played live shows in the highly experimental rock band Stupendous Sound Society with his friend Conor Black. But the latter moved on from doing much music and with him went his collection of synthesizers and Durkin formed the more pop-oriented band Sparkler Bombs. With both projects Durkin performed shows in the DIY underground after attending shows at Rhinceropolis and showing up one day to drop off a demo recording to Travis Egedy aka Pictureplane who kindly offered to book Stupendous Sound Society on a bill.
By the early 2010s, the partying and substance abuse and resulting mental health issues caught up with Durkin and he had to be away from it all for a handful of years to get his perspectives more in order and to reconnect with his authentic self. Durkin was always an intelligent and sensitive person with a lot of creativity but when Durkin came back into writing and playing music he seemed to possess a high degree of self-awareness and that informed his songwriting and imbued it with great persona insight. The early incarnation of Lazarus Horse included Hunter Dragon aka Hunter Adams and the latter’s faith in Durkin’s talent gave the project an early impetus that propelled it to its current quartet comprised of Durkin and three members of the great indie rock band Rabbit Fighter: Brooke Theis (bass, vocals), Zoya Brou (guitar, vocals) and Daniel Sayers (drums).
Listen to our deep dive interview with Eddie Durkin on Bandcamp and follow Lazarus Horse at the links below.
There’s something sinister about the sound and dark visual style of the video for “Billy’s Dream” by Amiture. It’s reminiscent of Dom and Nic’s treatment for The Chemical Brothers’ “Setting Sun” video. It all seems normal but there’s an underlying unsettled quality to the surreal aesthetic. But this Amiture song is more steady in its pace even when it bursts forth with the processed percussion and guitar sounds. Like an industrial song written by Nick Cave who is bored with anything resembling the standard sounds. It’s like an even more post-punk The The and the story of a man, Billy Lamb, who has lost track of who he is and slips in and out of a dream of prowling underground gambling establishments haunted by memories of his family, both his father and his son, and how he wants to escape his circumstances but seems drawn back into his personal nightmare by his own weaknesses. But the desperation is there and we hear it in the music. The steady snare strike and the contorted, textural tones generated by heavily modified guitar signal or electronically create a disorienting atmosphere where it feels like the whole thing could careen off into hysterical psychosis from its sustained emotional intensity and because of that there’s a thrilling simmer of electricity throughout the song. Watch the video for “Billy’s Dream” (directed by Cyrus Duff, produced by JZ Tinneny and shot by Owen Smith-Clark) on YouTube and follow Brooklyn’s Amiture at the links provided. The duo’s new album Mother Engine drops February 9, 2024 via Dots Per Inch Music on streaming, download and vinyl.
“Sierra” is Crystal Canyon’s tribute to Julee Cruise “which guitarist/vocalist Lynda Mandolyn says is, ‘me having a conversation with her spirit, dreamlike.’” And the song’s drifting and hazy atmospheres and processional pace with guitar sounds trailing off like an early morning fog in the sunrise. The drum accents hit perfectly to punctuate the paces and Mandolyn’s introspective vocals relate late night meditations on heartache and heartbreak and processing the flood of feelings in a way that won’t hit as hard even if they hit deeply. The way the song gently unfolds and repeats the themes with a hypnotic quality will appeal to fans of Slowdive’s unorthodox crafting of melody and mood as well. Listen to “Sierra” on YouTube and follow Portland, Maine’s Crystal Canyon at the links below. The group’s new album Stars and Distant Light was released November 3, 2023 on streaming, download and vinyl.
The resonant sound of bell tones introduces us to brednotbred’s densely rhythmic, flowing collage of textures and tones that is “sod.” Fluttery and furiously energetic percussion pushes the song along as ethereal melodies intone like a conversation between the bells and a more airy yet vivid synth tone is happening with the percussion making punctuated commentary. Like those percussion sounds are the voice of a teletype machine off duty and having something to say about the world in its own flurry of words and taking the time to listen as well as contributing. Whatever the nature of this conversation between machines it sounds otherworldly and friendly and the opposite of the dystopia sometimes depicted in film when inorganic entities communicate. Listen to “sod” on Spotify as well as other electro-mechanical discourse on the new brednobred album Antipsych which was released on November 9, 2023.
Strange Men is a punk duo comprised of drummer/vocalist Róisín Isner and guitarist/vocalist Ashley Clayton whose splintered, fuzzy outbursts seem to channel the likes of the gloriously feral grunge punk of Babes in Toyland and the stripped down and amplified garage rock of The Bobby Lees. In the video for its single “Hot Nights” directed by Panda Dulce (aka Kyle Casey Chu, co-founder of Drag Story Hour) it looks like Strange Men is performing in haunted shed replete with with a figure like something out of a Japanese ghost movie (possibly Chu) except less menacing the band and more the embodiment of the clashing chords and rapid contrast of introspective and screamed vocals this time out provided by Isner. The song seems to be one of contrasts itself: “Hot days make hot nights/Cold days make cold nights.” And how on hit nights she comes alive as does the band. The lyrics clearly aren’t meant to be linear and more an expression of the primal forces underlying the music. Fans of the likes of Shearing Pinx, Nü Sensae and the aforementioned will get the most out of this song just 86 seconds long that rapid runs through all the essentials of what makes for a great punk song with cool hooks, cathartic vocals and a complete lack of self-indulgent excess. Watch the video for “Hot Nights” on YouTube and follow Strange Men from San Francisco at the links provided.
Foghat is an English blues rock band that formed in 1971 initially featuring three former members of Savoy Brown with guitarist and vocalist Dave Peverett, bassist Tony Stevens, guitarist/slide guitarist Rod Price and drummer Roger Earl. Throughout the 70s Foghat enjoyed great commercial success garnering eight gold albums, one platinum and one double-platinum. Perhaps best known for its singles “Fool for the City” and “Slow Ride” both from the 1975 album Fool for the City, Foghat became a staple of the airwaves and later classic rock radio with its music appearing on multiple soundtracks over the past few decades. Its sound on recording and live has been noteworthy for the balance of sounds with the rhythm section as prominent as guitar and vocals, not always the case in the classic rock era and pop music of its heyday. The band split in 1984 but re-formed in 1993 and has been recording and performing live since. The sole founding member of the band these days is Roger Earl and the current line-up includes Bryan Bassett former guitarist of Wild Cherry (most famous for 1976 hit “Play That Funky Music”), bassist Rodney O’Quinn and lead vocalist and guitarist Scott Holt. In 2023 Foghat released its latest album, its first studio record in seven years, Sonic Mojo, a showcase for the group’s chemistry and facility with performing blues classics by Willie Dixon, Howlin’ Wolf, Chuck Berry, B.B. King as well as its own finely crafted material.
Listen to our interview with Roger Earl on Bandcamp where we discuss a bit of the history of Foghat, his time auditioning for The Jimi Hendrix Experience and his continued engagement in performing music. Foghat links below.
Queen City Sounds and Art 
You must be logged in to post a comment.