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Queen City Sounds Podcast S3E46: SORROWS

SORROWS is a dark pop duo based in Denver, Colorado comprised of singer Glynnis Braan and drummer Lawrence Snell. The project came together over the course of a few years when Braan and Snell were performing and experiencing music in similar circles, Braan catching alternative rock band Meet the Giant (in which Snell still performs) one night and hearing the group do a Massive Attack cover and wanting to meet them and Snell witnessing Lady of Sorrows, Braan’s former solo project, and feeling like he could contribute to Braan’s already captivating performances. The two formed DA’ANS, an electronic dance pop group, that performed briefly with its final show being two days before the COVID lockdowns. And over the course of the extended period when shows weren’t happening Snell and Braan came to work together on music as both had ideas for production and songwriting that complemented each other well.

Snell is from a small city between Coventry and Leicester in the middle of England and experienced the flourishing of acid house and trip-hop firsthand and played in various alternative rock bands throughout the 90s and early 2000s. Braan was born in Denver and came of age when downtempo and trip hop gained a foothold of popularity in the USA as well. So that mutual love of a certain kind of deeply atmospheric, emotionally rich and soulful, sonically immersive music has been a driving force in the songwriting of SORROWS. Snell moved to the US in 2003 with his wife who has a medical job the prospects for which seemed best in Denver and he soon came to appreciate life in the city and came to be involved in the vibrant indie rock scene in the 2000s as a member of the great shoegaze Americana band Colder Than Fargo and then in the long-incubating Meet the Giant that spent nearly a decade developing its music and songwriting before debuting in the late 2010s. Braan attended Denver School of the Arts and went through the art and music programs but didn’t join a band until years later when she met and came to work with Avery Fantom in Angel War which was a unique fusion of conscious hip-hop, operatic vocals and darkwave until he relocated out of state.

SORROWS debuted both its self-titled album and live band performances in 2022 and it was immediately obvious the level of creative development and focus Braan and Snell put into their new band paid off. Braan’s commanding and expressive vocals and Snell’s ability to accent rhythms and bring an attention to percussion tonality were are a strong foundation to the imaginative soundscapes and entrancing melodies that is the hallmark of the project’s sound. Fans of darkwave and downtempo will appreciate SORROWS’ creative evolution out of those sounds but even more how it’s something markedly different.

Listen to our interview with SORROWS on Bandcamp and follow the duo at the links below. Its next live show is on Saturday, December 9, 2023 at Glob in Denver, Colorado.

SORROWS on Apple Music

SORROWS on Pandora

Jake Minch’s “whose you are” is Like a Diary Entry Brimming With the Raw Vulnerability of Feeling in a Moment of Peak Reflective Loneliness

With mostly just an acoustic guitar and jhis voice, Jake Minch is able to pack a lot of emotional power and vulnerability to the songs from his October 20, 2023 EP how many EP. For the single “whose you are” we get a music video that looks like footage of someone documenting a time of great transition in a time of cold weather and journeys away from the places one knows best and the inevitable disruptions that occur and the necessary change of physical and social scenery and thus the nature of the emotional bonds one built with the people closest to you. The song is like a diary entry in its raw and poignant honesty and with some simple poetry it conveys impressions of connection, intimacy and the yearning for that when it’s something in the past and how confusing and painful it can be and how it can linger and still haunt a present that doesn’t seem so far to measure up and create new memories with the same depth of psychic resonance. Musically it’s reminiscent of artists like Wolf Colonel and perhaps Microphones but in a current manifestation of those creative impulses and mode of expressing those all too real feelings that strike you in a moment of peak loneliness and desolation. Watch the video for “whose you are” on YouTube and follow Jake Minch at the links below.

Jake Minch on Instagram

Queen City Sounds Podcast S3E45: Mike Marchant

Mike Marchant is a singer-songwriter from Denver who left an indelible mark on the indie rock scene of the late 2000s and 2010s. His first band that garnered real attention was Widowers whose imaginative and darkly heartfelt songs had what might be described as a haunting accessibility. The group’s shows were passionate performances in which the considerable gifts of its membership contributed to something greater around Marchant’s simple yet sophisticated songwriting and thoughtful lyrics. It was a band that was birthed in the Denver DIY scene but found popularity in the then Denver indie rock scene before splitting around 2010. Marchant never had an ambition for the band commercially and aimed mainly to put out the band’s sole record in 2008. Widowers didn’t break up so much as drifted apart. These days keyboardist Mark Shusterman plays in Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats. In the band were talented weirdos who played experimental music and very much with ears open for the new sounds of that time. Guitarist Davey Hart moved to Chicago and has been active in various bands. Guitarist Zack Brown and bassist Mark Weaver who were also in Constellations with Shusterman drifted out of music as did the late Cory Brown. But Marchant was still writing music and performed some solo shows and then joined indie rock band Houses for a period as kind of a sideman with Andy Hamilton take more the lead in that project. At some point Marchant was asked to perform a show with some of his own music but then assembled a band with some of Denver’s finest musicians including Cole Rudy (now in Dragondeer), Grant Israel (formerly of technical death metal legends Elucidarius), Fernando “Fez” Guzman (now of Kiltro, formerly of Fissure Mystic and Fingers of the Sun among others), Crawford Phileo (formerly of Vitamins and Manos and briefly in Widowers), Maria Kohler (Kitty Crimes, Mercuria and the Gem Stars) and other musicians as the occasion presented itself. He dubbed it Mike Marchant’s Outer Space Party Unit in tongue in cheek fashion.

Then in 2012 Marchant was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and getting treatment for and living with it turned his life upside down for some years as overcoming it (which has has) became central to his life as did finally getting clean from drugs with the help of EMDR therapy. While recovering Marchant relocated to Santa Fe, New Mexico to be away from the temptations of the big city and its music scene and got into a job helping in art sales. But being in Santa Fe put in him the right circles to meet film maker and scoring composer Luke Carr and the two struck up a creative partnership beginning in 2015 with a project they called Lightning Cult. It was an altogether more experimental project than most of which Marchant was until then known though Marchant had an appreciation for plenty of weird and avant-garde music coming up as a fledgling musician. It was an entirely recording project with limited if any live performances. But up to this time Lightning Cult has released two full-length albums and two EPs. In 2020 Marchant debuted his solo project Steady Circuits which focused more on electronic composition and sound design and graced with Marchant’s signature introspective and melodic vocals, yielding two full length albums and an EP thus far. Marchant hasn’t performed Steady Circuits live as yet but we may see either or both projects on stages in the coming year or two.

Listen to our interview with Marchant on Bandcamp and follow his work and that of Bernlore Studios at the links below.

cloudcommandsound.com

bernlore.com

Lighting Cult on Instagram

Alunawolf and HyperXa Infuse Hazy Hyperpop Single “Like You Hate Me” With a Sultry and Vibrant Sense of Yearning and Desire

Alunawolf worked with producer HyperXa on the sultry hyper-pop inflected single “Like You Hate Me.” The singer’s vocals sound swim in dark atmospheres shimmering with light motes of tone and swells of luminous melody as she relates hours spent yearning for her lover. The lyrics express a certain kind of tension and desire where we hear how she’s reluctant to let herself feel such a heightened level of desire for someone. And thus the lyric “Love you like you hate me” makes a certain kind of sense contrasting those feelings that for many people are two sides of the same coin of emotional intensity. And in lines like “Love you like an animal/eat you like a cannibal” we hear that base level of attraction that can take you by surprise in a way you can resist because it’s not rational or go with it. Alunawolf in this song decides to go with instinct and pleasure. HyperXa’s beats and layers of atmosphere give the song a futuristic feel like it’s from a time and place that should have come to pass had our civilization taken a different path the past few decades and a club hit for a time that should have been now in a world free of austerity. And it’s that spirit the song delivers. Fans of Dua Lipa and Charli XCX may find some of that emotional and sonic kinship here. Listen to “Like You Hate Me” on Spotify and follow Alunawolf on Instagram.

Queen City Sounds Podcast S3E44: J. Wilms

J. Wilms is releasing his third album as s singer-songwriter The Fighter on digital download, stream and 12” LP vinyl through Cart/Horse Records. Jeremy Williams came of age in the Atlanta, Georgia area and got a BA in Music from Georgia State University before going on to get a Master of Music at CUNY Queens College in NYC. His diverse career as a musician led him to jamming with Ornette Coleman at his loft, a brief stint in Chico Hamilton’s band on guitar, played bass on Broadway for a production of the musical Fela! which turned into the opportunity to play with Fela Kuti’s son Femi Kuti at venues around the world including The Shrine in Lagos, Nigeria. He has recorded with Bebel Gilberto, Beyoncé, TV on the Radio, arranged strings on Run the Jewels’ 2020 album RTJ4 and after moving back to Atlanta still works as a sideman in both his hometown and NYC, writing scores for film and other forms of media and as an educator. In addition to his singer-songwriter output Wilms is the leader of progressive metal band NOMOTO. With the new record Wilms gives us a set of songs about self-rediscovery and connecting with his roots without being limited by them. It’s a journey of an album with production that renders every song up close and personal, intimate, and thus vulnerable. It’s a open and deeply personal work with music that’s reminiscent of older rock groups like The Band and more modern indiepop of the 90s vintage and imbued with a freshness of spirit that makes for a set of songs that is immediately accessible and relatable to anyone that has ever had shake off the dust of life and reinvent oneself yet again while trying not to lose oneself.

Listen to our interview with Jeremy Wilms aka J. Wilms on Bandcamp and follow Wilms at the links below.

jeremywilms.com

J. Wilms on Instagram

J. Wilms on Facebook

“A Fallen Angel Weeping” by Lost Ark is Like Moments Spent in a Neglected Gallery of Noise Generating Sculptures in the Dead of Night

With the soft shimmer of crystalline chimes and an enigmatic, mechanical beat and melancholic strings to usher in Lost Ark’s “A Fallen Angel Weeping,” the song feels more like a cinematic experience than one more musical. The percussive details convey a depth and distance like what you’re hearing is the sound of a gallery for sound generating sculptures with its own soundtrack so that the assembled sounds create their own complementary orchestra of noise. When the beat stops a little more than three and a half minutes into the song it’s like some essential feature has left the gallery and the sounds wind down with a descending drone, a single bell tone seeming to count down on notes on a scale and in the distance we hear a voice repeating the words “falling down” before it too disappears and later on a voice with an aspect like words put through a reverse delay signals the end of the song. In retrospect its a bit like a spooky and haunted Art of Noise song and one not attached to any particular genre of music that demands and commands attention on its own terms. Listen to “A Fallen Angel Weeping” on Spotify. The Lost Ark compilation Primus Impunctus from which the song is drawn became available on November 6, 2023.

Jack Quinn’s Expansive Ambient Song “Poppies” is the Sound of the Mind Stirring Slowly to Full Wakefulness

Jack Quinn’s ambient composition “Poppies” draws your attention immediate by evoking a sense of something mysterious yet calming coming into your consciousness perhaps unnoticed in your everyday life for some time. The crystalline piano echoes of melody hang in the cloudy drone like faint rays of sunshine through a springtime fog but experienced on a rare warm day in late winter. It sounds like something opening up in your brain after a long period of feeling like you’ve been coasting through moods of being adrift in your own life. It is the sound of a manifesting clarity found in a stretch of tranquility in a time of daily disruptions and angst. The drawn out sounds trailing into the distance and the swells of guitar meshing effortlessly through the piano is like a calm awakening. Fans of Eno’s early 80s period in particular his collaborations with avant-garde pianist Harold Budd will resonate deeply with this song. Listen to “Poppies” on Spotify and follow Jack Quinn at the links below. Look for Quinn’s new album Music For Painting due out on December 8, 2023.

Jack Quinn on Instagram

Middle Sattre Exposes and Exorcises Some of the Contradictions and Gross Hypocrisies of a Theocratic Culture on Starkly Gorgeous Ambient Folk Song “Pornography”

In titling the song “Pornography” Hunter Prueger of Middle Sattre references a couple of instances of adults sexualizing a child in the name of modesty or chastity. Setting the these stories against a backdrop of acoustic wall of sound gives it a gentle yet intense quality that conveys a sense of compassion for the victim of that kind of attention. We hear melodic drones that sit in the background and give an evolving emotional undercurrent to the music but when it combines with the horns at the end it is starkly chilling playing over the recording of a middle aged man lecturing young women about the way they dress and how it can attract unwanted attention, the sort he is giving out. It’s a haunting yet poignant telling of a small sampling of the sorts of situations Prueger saw coming up queer and Mormon. That tension informs the forthcoming Middle Sattre album Tendencies due out on February 9, 2024. Fans of Elliott Smith’s fragile and emotionally refined songwriting and Microphones’ fusion of avant-garde folk and ambient soundscapes will surely find “Pornography” fascinating as well as the rest of Tendencies. Listen to “Pornography” on Spotify and follow Middle Sattre at the links below.

Middle Sattre on Facebook

Middle Sattre on Instagram

Queen City Sounds Podcast S3E43: Malcolm Bruce on Heavenly Cream

Heavenly Cream: An Acoustic Tribute to Cream is a unique new set of recordings of the songs of the influential blues rock supergroup of the 1960s, the first of its kind, comprised of guitarist Eric Clapton, drummer Ginger Baker and bassist Jack Bruce all of whom contributed lead vocals to the project. The music that was released across four remarkable albums from the year of the trio’s foundation in 1966 to its split in 1969 combined the blues with psychedelia and jazz for a kind of early art rock. Beginning with the influential 1967 album Disraeli Gears the group had contributions in lyrics from Pete Brown. Cream had an active and impactful four years and its members, all gifted players prior to coming together for the band, went on to noteworthy subsequent, storied careers in music. The tribute album is a loving and vital re-imagining of a wide swath of Cream’s classic material with performances from the likes of the late Ginger Baker, Joe Bonamassa, Bernie Marsden, Pee Wee Ellis, Nathan James, Deborah Bonham, Paul Rogers and Jack Bruce’s son Malcolm Bruce, a gifted multi-instrumentalist in his own right. The record is now available as a limited edition, 180 gram double vinyl and on CD and digital via Quarto Valley Records.

Listen to our interview with Malcolm Bruce regarding the tribute album and the legacy of Cream on Bandcamp and to give a listen to the album and order physical copies please visit the Quarto Valley Records website.

Elena Ross’ “With You” is a Beautifully Cinematic Pop Passage Into a Dark Forest of Tragic Romance

Elena Ross begins “With You” like a walk in the forest with the sounds of birds and the sounds of twigs breaking underfoot and a brush of bell sounds. When her clear and melodious vocals come in with a spare piano figure underneath it’s like coming into a clearing and having a moment to take in a moment of absolute tranquility and the time to indulge reliving a memory, a cherished moment like a living daydream. The piano melody expands and strings enter with a touch of synth tone to lend the song a touch of heartbreak at simply having to remember a fond time with someone you love but holding onto that yearning. The song was inspired by Slavic folk fairy tales and sonically dwells in dark, haunted woods minus a sense of menace. But it does retain a sense of tragic romance and the cinematic. Listen to “With You” on Spotify and follow Elena Ross at the links below.

Elena Ross LinkTree

Elena Ross on Instagram

Elena Ross website