simianthinker

Queen City Sounds Podcast S3E37: Sadie Dupuis of Speedy Ortiz

Speedy Ortiz started as a solo project for guitarist/singer Sadie Dupuis but expanded to a full band in 2011 that has gone on to release three EPs and four full-length albums including 2023’s Rabbit Rabbit. From the beginning Dupuis, also a visual artist, has done a most of the artwork for the band including its album covers and thus one gets a unique and personal aesthetic and perspective from the band’s music that has thankfully made its music challenging to pigeonhole outside of the umbrella term of indie rock. But there is also something immediately accessible about the pop songcraft and poetically and often cleverly observed lyrics that has set the project apart from artists more content with following an established style popular at any given moment. In October 2023 Rolling Stone magazine released a list of “The 250 Greatest Guitarists of All Time” where Dupuis charted at 176. And a quick listen to any of the band’s records reveals that Dupuis while an imaginative artist in her songwriting is also technically gifted musician who channels that talent into songs that come from the heart. Rabbit Rabbit is an album that explores various themes including survival mechanisms, those behaviors many of us undertake to get us through challenging times in our lives some of which we may not be consciously aware of adopting and which can affect us for much of the rest of our lives. And becoming aware of these patterns gives us some ability to guide our lives in ways we really want so that we can live instead of settling for mere survival. Its a complex and emotionally rich album that is also not short on humor and cultural Easter eggs for the perceptive listener that enrich the full meaning of the songs.

Listen to our interview with Sadie Dupuis on Bandcamp and follow Speedy Ortiz on its website linked below including its current US tour with a stop at Glob Hall in Denver on Thursday, November 16, 2023 with Space Moth and Mr. Atomic, doors 7pm, show 8pm.

speedyortiz.com

Queen City Sounds Podcast S3E36: Mike Baggetta of mssv

Mike Baggetta is the guitarist of mssv, a trio formed in 2019 that includes bassist Mike Watt (Minutemen, The Stooges et. al. ) and drummer Jim Keltner (Harry Nilsson, The Traveling Wilburys, Randy Newman, Bob Dylan, Richard Thompson, Neil Young, Phoebe Bridgers, Elvis Costello and numerous other collaborations). The latter has mostly been a songwriting and recording contributor to the project and veteran drummer Stephen Hodges (Tom Waits, Jonathan Richman, Wanda Jackson etc.) has been the percussionist for most of the band’s tours and now a contributor to the writing and recording music now as well. With the musical pedigree of the band with master musicians the music could be something mostly niche and for academics and the like but there’s a freshness to even the more tranquil passages of music that benefits from the spontaneous aspect of the songwriting and some real punk spirit in the performances. It’s a little like listening to a band that was equally rooted in jazz, angular post-punk and ferocious psychedelic art rock. The band’s new album Human Reaction is now available on 12” vinyl and digital download.

Listen to our interview with Mike Baggetta on Bandcamp and follow mssv at the links below.

mainsteamstopvalve.com

Haley’s Transcendent Pop Single “Walk Among the Dead” Dives Into the Complex Nuances of a Deep Love

On “Walk Among the Dead” Haley sounds like she’s singing to us from a spot high on a hilltop at a sky full of stars reflecting on the highlights and not so peak moments of a relationship. The shuffling beat sets a tangible foundation for the song as ethereal drones cast tonal colors in the background and a spare piano melody adds another moody dimension to the song to buoy up the clear and commanding vocals. The song feels like somewhere between a dream pop track and cosmic country or folk with lyrics that cast the challenges of the relationship about which Haley is singing in terms of accepting its challenges and its beautiful aspects in an adult way that values the connection even when it feels like it might sometimes hurt too much to sustain. In that way Haley makes even doubts seem like an aspect of any romance with actual depth of feeling to it. Listen to “Walk Among the Dead” on Spotify and follow Haley at the links below.

Haley on Facebook

Haley on Twitter

Haley on Instagram

Garage Sale’s Shoegaze Single “Blank Again” Washes Away Emotional Overload With an Alternately Raw Delicacy and Sonic Catharsis

Garage Sale sets a mood of delicate introspection at the beginning of “Blank Again” with a guitar riff that lets all the details of the chord shine through. The lyrics seem to be written from the perspective of someone who has been through a period of great psychological duress and trauma and recovering from a period of emotional exhaustion when you feel like you have nothing left. The rhythm feels like a tentative taking of steps into an unfamiliar way of being but wanting to get back to a place of being able to trust your feelings again and how your brain works rather than the mode its’ been in for too long of tangling with too much and not enough the way maybe things felt for a lot of people during the early pandemic period. Later in the song the gorgeously warped, melodic maelstrom of guitar and syncopated percussion and bass washes over you like its flooding in and taking away some of the doubt and anxiety that simmers below the surface of the song’s more tranquil moments. It’s a new chapter of experimentation in songwriting for the band based in Melbourne, Australia, and it showcases the group’s ability to genre bend in favor of more widely expressive songwriting. Listen to “Blank Again” on Soundcloud and follow Garage Sale at the links below.

Garage Sale on Facebook

Garage Sale on Bandcamp

Garage Sale on Instagram

Babel’s “Mirror” is an Elegantly Expressed Dream Pop Song About Heartbreak, Breakup and Reconciliation

Babel’s seemingly simple composition for “Mirrors” lets the song’s arc of heartbreak, breakup and reconciliation hit as more melancholic than painful. The subtlety of the tone of resignation in the early part of the song as it flows into acceptance and then evolves into hope is remarkable in showing how often our hearts and minds can so easily switch from one feeling to another once our situational comprehension shifts and how affection doesn’t need to go through a torturous and dramatic process. Not if you’re an adult who understands that no one and no situation is perfect or ideal and that one’s emotional state need not be black and white. The change from the more somber use of piano to ethereal guitar and synth at the end is also an effective touch to change up not just the mood but the quality of the energy of expression with a change of approach to parallel the one more psychological. Listen to “Mirrors” on YouTube and follow the Finnish dream pop band Babel at the links below.

Babel on Facebook

Babel on Instagram

Orions Belte’s “When You’re Gone I’ll Be Gone” Fuses Classic Pop Melodicism and Noisy Psychedelia to Craft a Unique Soundtrack to Heartache

Orions Belte, photo courtesy the artists

Norwegian art pop group Orions Belte teamed up with Norway Grammy-nominated vocalist Louien aka Live Miranda Solberg for the delicate dream pop of “When You’re Gone I’ll Be Gone.” The track from the band’s new album Women (released October 6, 2023) is a bit of a departure for the trio well known for its amalgam of progressive rock, indie pop and psychedelia. Louien’s melodious vocals are like something out of an earlier decade of pop music backed by subtle low end and percussion accents. But later in the song Orions Belte comes in with the distorted and noisy psychedelia swimming in the keyboard melody sounding like it’s melting off the pristine, icicle tones and the song pulses in increasingly cacophonous glory before ending with a minimal tranquil riff on acoustic guitar. The song takes us through a gamut of emotional shifts befitting the song title and the lyrics delivered by Louien. Listen to “When You’re Gone I’ll Be Gone” on Spotify and follow Orions Belte at the links provided.

Orions Belte on Facebook

Orions Belte on Bandcamp

Orions Belte on Instagram

jake minch Taps Deeply Into the Bittersweet Nostalgia of the Unstructured Time of the Summers of Our Youth on “strip mall”

During the late spring and summer of the early pandemic of 2020 it seemed like so much was up in the air and unless you were in a vital industry maybe you had plenty of time to indulge what it felt like to not have to be anywhere in particular at a particular time. Or if, like jake minch, you were in high school and it was a summer of talking with friends over video calls and bonding with friends in a way that involved a necessary physical distance but because you couldn’t necessarily make plans you could devote your time to these necessitated portals of communication and maybe that meant being more open and real and psychologically intimate than might have happened under normal circumstances resulting in a different kind of connection with your peers. For a brief period in our national history of recent years it seemed that most people recognized the fragility of their own existence and interdependence on other people they might have otherwise forgotten and that raw and vulnerable state of thing meant a bit more recognition of the value of other people in a way that wasn’t as obvious previously and an awareness that snapped back to business as usual soon enough. That extended liminal moment is what informs the emotional backdrop of minch’s song “strip mall.” With essentially just his delicate vocals and an acoustic guitar minch relates how memories of a t-shirt he saw an ex wear shopping at a strip mall when he returned home from college to visit and how that triggered an intense emotional resonance that brings him right back to the moments that helped define a significant moment in his life when he loved being younger and seeming to have all the time in the world to indulge in youthful exuberance and connections that seem like they’ll last forever in the context of one’s relative short life thus far but which wash past you quickly and maybe you hate that you’ll never be able to recapture that time in which you felt like you had so much freedom and endless possibilities even if there was a specter of a global pandemic in the case of minch and any other young person at that time. But many of us got to experience some of that energy again at a time in life when some adult concerns had of necessity to be put on hold for longer than we can consciously remember except in our youths. Maybe minch’s song is bittersweet and melancholy but it powerful conjures both those memories with the immediacy and accessibility of its emotional resonance in anchoring it to concrete imagery. Watch the video for “strip mall” on YouTube and follow jake minch on Instagram.

Queen City Sounds Podcast S3E35: Lance Lopez

Lance Lopez is a blues rock guitarist, singer and songwriter who was born in Shreveport, Louisiana but cut his teeth as a working musician in the French Quarter of New Orleans where he started getting paid work at age 14. At 17 he was recruited by former Stax Records hit-maker Johnnie Taylor and toured the Chitlin Circuit for half a year. He toured with Lucky Peterson for three years and spent some time playing for the Buddy Miles Express. At points in his career he was mentored by both Johnny Winter and Billy Gibbons, the later of whom remains a friend. Lopez released his debut album First Things First in 1998 and has had an active career with his own band since with an active touring schedule minus the pandemic period during which little if any live music was going on. On July 14, 2023 Lopez released his latest album Trouble Is Good (on Cleopatra Records), a vital and musically accomplished set of songs steeped in the tradition of blues rock commenting on the travails of everyday life. It’s also an album that comes off with a fresh take on an established style of music and an example of how great songwriting and creative musicianship doesn’t go out of style.

Listen to our interview with Lance Lopez on Bandcamp and follow Lopez at the links below.

Lance Lopez Website

Lance Lopez on Facebook

Lance Lopez on Instagram

Galeet Dardashti Melds Traditional Persian-Jewish Music With Jazzy Post-punk on the Electrifying “Melekh”

Persian-Jewish singer, composer and anthropologist Galeet Dardashti collaborated with the voice of her late grandfather the late, Iranian singer Younes Dardashti on her latest album Monajat (released September 9, 2023). Sampling from an audio artifact that her grandfather recorded in Iran, Galeet artistically interpreted the Persian-Jewish Selihot ritual and crafted a call and response dynamic like time and space traveling on a set of music recorded and produced in a modern mode with the backing of Middle Eastern and jazz musicians in New York. The single “Melekh” puts the elder Dardashti’s vocals front and center in impassioned performance, the newer musical recordings setting a deep mood like a mix of alternative jazz lounge and Middle Eastern devotional music. The blend makes both somehow more accessible, the more traditional with a hip modern flavor like a new form of jazz rooted post-punk. Its a vibrant hybrid sound that both Dardashti’s sustain across all of Monajat. Listen to “Melekh” on Spotify where the rest of the album can be found as well for your listening pleasure.

Queen City Sounds Podcast S3E34: Bark

Bark is a rock duo based in Water Valley, Mississippi comprised of Susan Bauer Lee (drums and vocals) and Tim Lee (Fender VI bass and vocals) . It’s sound is akin to the kind of imaginative yet zesty power pop and jangle rock one heard in the 80s among artists out of The Paisley Underground, C86, Flying Nun Records and the various projects in which Mitch Easter and Chris Stamey were involved. In fact, Tim Lee was a touring member of foundational indie pop band Let’s Active when it was supporting the release of Cypress (1984). Prior to that Tim was a member of The Windbreakers and later on Swimming Pool Q’s. In 2021 Tim published his memoir of his time as a touring and recording musician as I Saw a Dozen Faces…and I rocked them all: The Diary of a Never Was. It recounts the story of a musician who experienced success and played in important bands but never quite became a household name and yet there are significant stories of American cultural history in the tales Tim relates. For the past two decades Susan and Tim toured with both Bark and Tim Lee 3. The band’s latest album Loud dropped on September 5 on 12” vinyl LP, CD and digital download via Dial Back Sound/Cool Dog Sound. The record is a looking back on being a band in recent years and the joys and foibles of being touring musicians with some choice cultural Easter eggs in the various references made to enhance and deepen the meaning and impact of the songs. Also on the record is poetic and sage social commentary that reveal Bark’s collective sensitivity to the challenges all of us seem to face in the world as we know it now.

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