Interviews – Page 20 – Queen City Sounds and Art

Queen City Sounds Podcast Ep. 47: Shadows Tranquil

Shadows Tranquil began shortly after guitarist/vocalist Doran Robischon parted ways with indie rock/post-punk band Gauntlet Hair in 2012. Evolving musical ideas for the band over a few years and going through various incarnations of the band by 2018 and the group’s earliest shows Shadows Tranquil emerged as the kind of band that sure had its roots in atmospheric guitar work akin to shoegaze and post-punk but with an edge and deep and nuanced emotional expression that also brought together its members background and interest in extreme metal and progressive rock. What you see is a band that isn’t cookie cutter in style with layers of musical ideas that seem orchestral in conception but with an air of the spontaneous in execution. The elegance in composition and the tiniest of sonic details is impressive. The band’s forthcoming album Downward Flowers engineered by Erik Ryan at Decibel Garden is both melancholic and defiant, introspective and exuberant, reconciling a full range of human emotional instincts.

Listen to our interview with Shadows Tranquil on Bandcamp linked below and go see the band at Down in Denver Fest on Sunday, 8/21/22 at 4 pm on the Howl Stage. For more information on the festival and on Shadows Tranquil visit one of the links beneath the interview.

Shadows Tranquil on Bandcamp

Shadows Tranquil on Facebook

Shadows Tranquil on Instagram

Queen City Sounds Ep. 46: A Strange Happening

A Strange Happening, photo by Tom Murphy

A Strange Happening formed after Jake Adamson and Elisha Cox moved to Denver from Casper, Wyoming around a decade ago. In their new home city the couple became more immersed in the local music scene they had been able to witness in their trips down south to visit and catching some shows. Their musical project came together when drummer Matt McNiff moved to Denver from New York in 2014 and was introduced to Adamson through their then boss. They bonded over a mutual appreciation for Mr. Show. At the time Adamson was already recording bands and the musicians began their initial forays into making music before officially choosing a band name (one considered was Dirt Wizard, but A Strange Happening is not in fact a psychedelic doom band) and being prepared to play live shows in 2018. The group didn’t have a lot of time to get things off the ground before the pandemic took hold and hasn’t played many shows since those started being a thing again so if you haven’t had a chance to see them in Denver that’s a part of the reason why. But A Strange Happening did release its self-titled debut album at the end of 2021. It’s an indie rock concept album of a sort meant to reflect the aesthetics of 1940s and 1950s radio dramas with interludes and introductions to give context to the more modern sounding music and it includes a cover of “Snake Goddess (cover)” by Denver’s Zealot. The blend of noir and horror/thriller themes on the album lends itself well to an album that is creatively different from a lot of indie rock these days.

Listen to our interview with A Strange Happening on Bandcamp linked below and go see the band at Down in Denver Fest on Sunday, 8/21/22 at 1:30 pm on the Further Stage. For more information on the festival and on A Strange Happening visit one of the links beneath the interview.

www.downindenver.com

A Strange Happening website

A Strange Happening on Instagram

Queen City Sounds Podcast Ep. 45: Polly Urethane

Polly Urethane is the performance moniker of Amber Benton. She started performing under that name in 2021 and garnered some attention in certain Denver underground music circles for her performance art style shows in which she breaks the stage and audience barrier pretty much every show at this point. Her music combines classical music in her piano work and operatic vocals, electronic composition, musique concrète and industrial soundscaping. In 2021 Polly Urethane released her collaborative album Altruism with Rusty Steve who some may know from his work in futuristic hip-hop glam project N3PTUNE. It showcased a shared knack for pop songcraft that fused darkwave, hyperpop, industrial and R&B. Though Polly Urethane’s presentation can be confrontational the intention is to shake up expectations and arbitrary norms of the performer and audience relationship and is informed by a spirit of humor and the absurd in the intensity and mysterious aesthetic of the performance.

Listen to our interview with Polly Urethane on Bandcamp linked below and go see the band at Down in Denver Fest on Friday, 8/19/22 at 9:45 pm. For more information on the festival and on Polly Urethane visit one of the links beneath the interview.

www.downindenver.com

Polly Urethane on Instagram

Polly Urethane on YouTube

Queen City Sounds Podcast Ep. 44: Pleasure Prince

Pleasure Prince is a soulful synth pop duo from Denver comprised of Lilly Scott and Will Duncan. The latter had been part of the Americana scene from Denver performing in Oblio Duo and other projects. Scott as a teen had spent time going to shows at DIY spaces and house shows seeing noise, other experimental music and the wide array of bands that performed at such places. In 2010 she auditioned for and appeared in the ninth season of American Idol and lived in Los Angeles for eight months before returning to Denver and forming Varlet, a jazz and Americana inflected indie rock band in which Duncan played drums. But that group parted ways around a decade ago and Scott and Duncan moved to New York City where they played clubs and other show opportunities throughout the city before deciding they wanted to be back in Colorado, returning at the end of 2019 just in time to discover how much the city had changed both culturally and in other ways that impacted being a musician in the Mile High City. Then the pandemic hit and Pleasure Prince had some time to incubate its creative impulses. While in NYC the band had acquired a number of synthesizers that shaped its current songwriting and while the duo’s gorgeously lush and evocative current music is a bit of a departure from Varlet and previous musical endeavors it reflects the core of strong songwriting Scott and Duncan have cultivated across several years as evidenced by a recent performance in which the songs had to be translated to a more or less non-electronic form. In 2022 Pleasure Prince released its new album Numbers.

Listen to our interview with Pleasure Prince on Bandcamp linked below and go see the band at Down in Denver Fest on Sunday, 8/21/22 at 8:30 pm on the Further Stage. For more information on the festival and on Pleasure Prince visit one of the links beneath the interview.

pleasureprince.com

Queen City Sounds Podcast Ep. 43: Moon Pussy

Moon Pussy is a noise rock band from Denver. The trio met in and around the DIY/house show scene in Denton, Texas around a decade ago. Drummer Corey Hager had been in various bands including the Unwound-esque Last Men (a play on the title of the classic graphic novel series Y: The Last Man). Vocalist/bassist Cristina Cuellar lived in a house that threw shows but wasn’t an active musician until picking up bass to play with Moon Pussy. Ethan Hahn is from Denver and had played in various noise rock/art rock bands over several years before the personal and creative chemistry came together with Hager and Cuellar. After moving to Denver around a decade ago, the band didn’t fully get off the ground until a few years back when Moon Pussy made a strong impression among connoisseurs of music that might be challenging to people who would probably hate Big Black and The Jesus Lizard too. Cuellar’s eruptive vocals and the more intuitive rhythms and sonic textures that flow freely between band members and into the music sounds and feels like a catharsis of the anxiety, frustration and outrages that have become an ambient aspect of life in the modern world.

Listen to our interview with Moon Pussy on Bandcamp linked below and go see the band at Down in Denver Fest on Sunday, 8/21/22 at 2 pm on the Howl Stage. For more information on the festival and on Moon Pussy, visit one of the links beneath the link for the interview.

downindenver.com

moonpussy.band

Queen City Sounds Podcast Ep. 42: Rowboat

Rowboat at Mutiny Information Cafe September 2019, photo by Tom Murphy

The roots of Rowboat are in Sam McNitt’s solo work as a songwriter from his early days writing music in a more folk style. But in the mid-2000s he started the band Small Objects with his friend Jeff Shapiro before that more indie rock band split with most of its members starting shoegaze greats Blue Million Miles. The latter garnered local attention for its raw sonic power and McNitt’s thoughtful yet emotionally charged lyrics. When Blue Million itself parted ways around 2012, McNitt moved into doing Rowboat as his musical focus. The literary and powerful lyrics delved deep into dark psychological places that we often try to shy away from in not wanting to confront the foundations of our insecurities, examine deep seated emotional wounds and and the components of our desires and aspirations. McNitt does so with a poetry and sensitivity that gives his song writing a nearly palpable depth. Inspired by visual art McNitt’s music conveys imagery that embodies the moods and places he and his bandmates go in the songs. The gentle catharsis of the live show always seems unexpected and welcome. The most recent Rowboat album Forests Burn released on February 25, 2022.

Listen to our interview with McNitt on Bandcamp linked below and go see Rowboat at Down in Denver Fest on Saturday, 8/20/22 at 9:30 pm on the Further Stage. For more information on the festival and on Rowboat, visit one of the links beneath the link for the interview.

downindenver.com

Rowboat on Instagram

Queen City Sounds Podcast Ep. 41: Ray Diess

Ray Diess makes experimental electronic dance music and has been playing live under that project name for a few years minus the time of the pandemic when no one much was having shows. His 2022 album It’ll Always Ache released in July 2022 and its blend of synth pop, hyper pop and darkwave has a surprising depth of emotional expression. If you have been out at select shows you may have caught Diess live and his dramatic performances or just run into him making the shows work at places like Jester’s Palace or maybe even seeing him play keys in With Special Guest. He has collaborated on music with confrontational EBM/darkwave artist Hex Cassette and he otherwise seems as involved in his creative community as making the music that is a part of it. We recently caught up with Diess and discussed his background growing up in rural Elizabeth, Colorado and getting into theater and metal and ultimately to where he is now with music that has a similar intensity but a different sound.

Listen to our interview with Ray Diess on Bandcamp linked below and check out It’ll Always Ache on Spotify.

Queen City Sounds Podcast Ep. 40: Alpha Cat

Alpha Cat is the musical project of Elizabeth McCullough that came together when she started writing songs some of which would become the 1999 EP Real Boy. The latter began as demos produced by McCullough’s friend, Television bassist Fred Smith and it enjoyed attention in the national charts for six weeks. The follow-up release Pearl Harbor had some unfortunate timing with the image of a bomb on the cover when it landed in October 2001 yet did well on college radio early the following year. But then, as happens with many people, McCullough went through and ended an unfortunate relationship and in April 2006 she started working on 15 instrumental tracks for what was to be her next album Venus Smile. With seven vocal tracks complete by summer McCullough lost her voice and fell into a dark place emotionally and psychologically and wouldn’t return to that music for over a decade. After hospitalization and various treatments McCullough in recent years engaged in a form of therapy to get to the root cause of the trauma that had run throughout her life. Starting in 2019 she has also revisited the finished recordings for Venus Smile and is now releasing the material in segments that make sense and work as a piece including the 2019 album Thatched Roof Glass House and the newly issued Venus Smile EP out now on Aquamarine Records. In this interview McCullough and I discuss her life and career thus far and the path through the sometimes unpredictable perils of mental health struggle and a culture that helps to exacerbate and perpetuate them.

Listen to the interview on Bandcamp linked below and connect with McCullough at the links provided where you can purchase the music as well.

Alpha Cat website

Aquamarine Records website

Queen City Sounds Podcast Ep. 39: doubleVee

Treat Her Strangely is the new album by Norman, Oklahoma-based art pop band doubleVee. The project formed in 2012 with Allan Vest and Barb Hendrickson whose creative backgrounds in music and art complemented each other well. The duo married in 2015 and released their debut album in 2017, The Moonlit Fables of Jack the Rider. Allan had been the lead singer and guitarist of indiepop band The Starlight Mints from 1998-2009. The group’s orchestral pop songs were some of the more creatively ambitious works in the realm of what was coming to be called indie rock and The Starlight Mints garnered attention and placement in film and television for its colorfully baroque compositions. Barb spent sixteen years in public radio and she wrote, hosted and produced Filmscapes, a nationally syndicated film music program that afforded her the opportunity to interview the likes of Danny Elfman and Philip Glass whose own music have long graced film scores. Barb’s and Allan’s experiences jibe well together in the songwriting for doubleVee with a body of work that reveals a talent for pairing mythical storytelling with establishing a deep mood and dynamic orchestration of musical elements so that the songs are like vignettes in the story arc of each album even when the albums are not necessarily conceived as having a unified concept or aesthetic. The albums draw you in like the theme music for a great radio drama from another era. In the interview we discuss the roots of doubleVee’s artistry, their mutual appreciation for a good Caesar salad, the possibilities for presenting this music of cinematic scope live among other refinements.

Listen to the interview at Bandcamp linked below and follow the adventures and goings on of doubleVee at the links provided.

doublevee.net

doubleVee on Twitter

doubleVee on Facebook

doubleVee on Instagram

doubleVee on YouTube

Queen City Sounds Podcast Ep. 38: White Hills

Since 2003 White Hills from New York City has been making psychedelic rock that has evolved in consistently interesting ways across a prolific career. The core duo of Dave W and Ego Sensation have incorporated elements of krautrock, space rock, metal, ambient soundscaping, post-punk into their sound so that the project’s body of work is eclectic yet coherent with a palette of mind-expanding sonics and rhythms that have separated the band from most other artists that might fall under the psych umbrella. For White Hills it’s not just a sound adopted from influences, it’s an outlook on the possibilities of the psychological impact of the music on both the members of the band and those who take in one of its records or attend a performance. Each record has been made with an approach that gives it its own sonic identity so that while the band’s sound may be fluidly evolving it has built into its aesthetic a drive to not get stuck in a rut. Now after nearly 20 years as a band White Hills has established its own imprint Heads On Fire Industries with its first physical release being that for a double vinyl of The Revenge Of Heads On Fire which is a reworking and re-imagining of the 2007 album Heads On Fire for which several more songs were recorded during the sessions with an album in mind with that music included but due to a disagreement with one of the parties involved with the record some of the songs were left out. So with some refinements added to complete the recordings left on the cutting room floor, as it were, really on an old, thought dead/defunct hard drive, White Hills presents the album as it was meant to be heard in its originally conceived form and with its themes of transformation and self-inspiration seeming as relevant now as it was at the time of original release. The vinyl edition of the record is available for pre-order (releases, assuming things go as planned, on September 16, 2022) on the band’s Bandcamp page linked below where you can find other links related with White Hills currently on tour with Telekinetic Yeti.

See White Hills with Telekinetic Yeti and Hashtronaut at Globe Hall on Sunday, August 7, 2022 and listen to our interview, apologies for the usual mobile phone connection issues, on Bandcamp also linked below.