New Music – Page 150 – Queen City Sounds and Art

Nancy Mounir Restores Classic Egyptian Popular Music With Astute Modern Production on “Khafif Khafif”

Nancy Mounir, photo by Eslam Abd El Salam

For “Khafif Khafif” (English: “Softly Softly”) Nancy Mounir tapped into the recorded catalog of famed early Twentieth Century Egyptian singer Saleh Abdel Hay and mixed it in with her own vocals and ambient treatments in the mix. This borrowing archival recordings of popular music from another era and recontextualizing it for the present Mounir employed throughout her debut album Nozhet El Nofous (English: Promenade of the Souls) set for release June 3, 2022 on Simara Records. The effect is like the restoration of an old, lost film with an aesthetic that resonates now but has the greatest signifiers for those familiar with its proper context. It brings with it to the uninitiated an air of mystery and when it sinks in these arrangements and the production that helps to enhance the sound wouldn’t have been possible, say, ninety years ago (though Hay lived until 1962). But Mounir’s attention to sonic detail doesn’t reveal a hint of modern treatments until the end of the song where even then the grainy quality of the vocals and instrumentation is applied to the more subtle, electronic elements that takes us from a trip to the past through a hazy yet illuminated sonic corridor back to the present. Listen to “Khafif Khafif” on YouTube and connect with Mounir at the links provided.

Nancy Mounir on Ins t agram

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Emlyn and Putad of Small Island Big Song Bring to Life the Vital Spirit of Their Ancestors on “Listwar Zanset”

Small Island Big Song is not a conventional musical project in any usual sense. It is a a multimedia (music, film, performance) collective including over a hundred musicians across 16 island nations of the Pacific and Indian Oceans that serves to create a contemporary musical statement from the perspective of the regions that are facing cultural and environmental challenges which clearly has an urgent relevance today. All of the works are written, recorded and overdubbed in nature at the place of the various artists’ custodial land. All of the works out of this project are a co-production of Taiwan and Australia. For the single “Listwar Zanset” (“the story of our ancestors”) Mauritian singer, songwriter and dancer Emlyn and Taiwanese singer Putad (of the Amis people) collaborate with vocals over an interlinking flow of percussion with backing vocals and later stringed instruments. Their voices are strong and lively to match the instrumentation and one need not understand Creole or Amis to be impacted and certainly not the message in English of threatened cultures and people toward the end of the track. The song operates beyond language and its message of liberation and the preservation of memory and culture can be felt in its fortifying and confident tone. On the world stage the indigenous and those not wielding the greatest economic, political and military power are often overrun and neglected when history bears out that the fate of these people becomes the fate of all in the end and it’s best to listen now when it’s not too late for everyone. Watch the video for “Listwar Zanset” on YouTube and connect with Small Island Big Song at the links below to hear more from this unique project whose music exists outside a narrow conception of existing genres.

Small Island Big Song on Instagram

Small Island Big Song on Vimeo

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Savage Republic’s Brashly Surf Rock “Stingray” is a Friendly Introduction to the Industrial Post-Punk of Its New Album Meteora

It seems only appropriate that Savage Republic’s video for the lead single “Stingray” from its new album Meteora (it’s first since 2014’s Aegean) looks like it was filmed on VHS on the seashore. The almost entirely instrumental track showcases the more playful yet edgy side of the band and an example of how it threaded together surf rock with menacing post-punk and non-Western rhythm schemes. It sounds fairly straightforward until it sinks in that it’s probably not in 4/4 time. As an introduction to the band’s respectable body of work it’s a pretty accessible and energetic short slice of the band’s eclectic aesthetic. Other tracks on the album including “Nothing at All” linked below demonstrate how Savage Republic has always been deft at injecting pointed post-punk with almost tribal rhythms and raw industrial beats. The new album also has tastes of the band’s nuanced yet direct political lyrics. From its 1982 debut album Tragic Figures (the song “Real Men” appeared in the 1991 film The Silence of the Lambs) through the albums the group has released since it got back together in 2002, Savage Republic has been explicitly anti-authoritarian and on Meteora making no bones about being anti-fascist. All while having some creative fun with making darkly cathartic soundscapes alongside its more international musical roots in crafting arresting songs that make it seem exciting to be on the right side of history without getting didactic about it all. Watch the videos for “Stingray” and “Nothing At All” on YouTube and connect with this influential cult post-punk band at the links below.

Savage Republic on Bandcamp

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Taleen Kali’s “Flower of Life” Fuses Post-Punk Darkness and Psych Garage Fire

Former TÜLIPS frontperson Taleen Kali’s latest single “Flower of Life” simmers and then blazes with an irresistible momentum. Since her former band’s split in 2016 Kali has been on different sonic trajectories than the inspired fusion of garage rock, psychedelia and riot grrrl-esque punk of TÜLIPS. This song has a focused urgency in the pace and rhythm that borders on the motorik and is hypnotic in the sense that you get swept up in its headlong energy and Kali’s commanding vocals, perhaps the only element that doesn’t distort with an incandescent heat. Immediate comparisons aren’t easy to make to give the potential listener an idea of what they’re in for other than something like Milemarker but with sonics more akin to The Beths. The cover art for the single (a portion above) looks like something out of a mysterious movie about radical politics by Olivier Assayas and that just adds to appealing aesthetic of the single. Listen to “Flower Of Life” on YouTube and follow the musically multi-faceted Taleen Kali at the links provided and perchance order the limited edition 7” lathe cut on transparent cherry red vinyl on Bandcamp which also includes the B-side “Crusher.”

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Bottled Up’s Glam Pop “Italo Love” Evokes a Bi-Coastal Romanticism and Celebration of West Coast Chill Vibes

The music video for Bottled Up’s “Italo Love” hits some surreal notes and not just in the music. The members of the band are depicted performing on the beach and frolicking in a beach town. And the lyrics make references to Los Angeles with houses that look like something you might see in Encinitas, California. Maybe it was filmed there or on a beach area nearer to the group’s home town of Washington, DC. The smooth jazz, funk and pop aesthetics blended together effortlessly in the song certainly gives the impression of something that might come from a band celebrating the good times and nostalgia of the laid back pace and energy of one of the California beach towns including Long Beach. When Nikhil Rao sings the line “I was born from memories of the drives through Beverly” one wonders if he had a connection to the Los Angeles area or fantasized about it from images on television and film and identifying with the vibe. The song and what has been release of the new Bottled Up album Grand Bizarre (due out May 27, 2022) has that quality of being outside usual time and geography while genre mashing in a way similar to that of King Krule and all the more interesting because of it. Fans of that final Abe Vigoda album Crush (2010) and its lush pop interpretation of glam rock will greatly appreciate this track and what Bottled Up has been going for throughout its career to date. Watch the video for “Italo Love” on YouTube and connect with Bottled Up at the links below.

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Bottled Up on Instagram

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Billy Nomates Turns the Melancholy of a Long Burning Breakup Into an Upbeat Pop Song of Acceptance on “Blue Bones”

When you hear Spencer Jones’s (Big Babies, Upstart Crow) character mutter something about a “twat” taking up both parking spaces as he comes back to his flat in the music video for “Blue Bones” you might be excused for thinking Billy Nomates’ lively indie rock single is about camaraderie in a relationship facing challenges. And to some extent it is. The upbeat guitar line and smoothly dynamic arrangements of the song are reminiscent of a mid-80s Talking Heads tune but the clever couplets and the resigned acceptance that the relationship is not just in trouble but has essentially faded away. When Nomates sings lines like “You just don’t turn me on like you used to” and how the bond over being miserable and downtrodden in life now simply lacks the sparkle with “Maybe we were both born blue but it just doesn’t turn me on like it used to,” the songwriter recalls some of Dolly Parton’s finer, more pointed yet somehow still classy moments. And touches like the coins on Jones’ eyes near the beginning of the interview speak to director Tia Salisbury’s gift for sprinkling scenes with poetic detail even as she depicts working class angst with such color and clarity. Watch the video for “Blue Bones” on YouTube and follow Nomates on Spotify.

State Fair’s “Sustain” Weds the Melancholic Delicacy of Dream Pop With Post-Rock Catharsis

“Sustain” begins with a simple guitar riff with the intimate physicality of pick on strings left intact. This textural element in this song by Denver’s State Fair grounds it even as the vocals come in hushed and the suggestion of a dreamlike atmospherics flow in the open spaces of the song. But as the song enters the last quarter, bombastic, distorted riffs burn through the comforting haze like a purging of the melancholic flavor and sentiments that informed what preceded. It hits the ears like a dream pop that picked up some strains of influence from classic indiepop and the more post-rock of the early 2000s posthardcore bands pairing an appealing delicacy with emotional heft. Listen to “Sustain” on Spotify, look for State Fair’s EP due out later in 2022 and connect with the band on Instagram.

“Little Bird” is talker’s Self Care Song About Breaking the Cycle of Psychic Death By a Thousand Cuts

is the new EP from talker and her songwriting experiments in expressing a set of feelings and experiences with great poignancy and invention is obvious across the whole release. The song “Little Bird,” though, finds talker centering her warmly luminous vocals to relate a memory of being in a place in life where you feel like someone else or yourself conditioned by what you’ve learned to expect out of life is chipping your dignity and identity away. With your self-respect thus eroded it feels difficult to break away from that cycle of dysfunction and yet awareness of that state of affairs is a message to your psyche in itself. The song doesn’t promise some miracle rescue or some throwaway line about how things are going to get better and no cheesy sentiments about triumphing over this time in life it suggests that you have within yourself the ability to move beyond that head space simply by seeing things for what they are and sometimes hearing that in a song or, heck, writing the song is the catalyst. Which is a more creative and practical approach to conveying that content. Listen to “Little Bird” on Spotify where you can listen to the rest of the EP and follow talker at the links provided.

King Monday and Azileli Encourage Finding Your Own Path With Integrity on Downtempo Dreampop Track “Sleepwalker”

King Monday and Azileli, photo courtesy the artists

“Sleepwalker” from King Monday’s new EP features Azileli on a track that begins with lush, environmental ambiance that gives the impression of waking up refreshed in a room bright with morning sunlight. As the song progresses the streaming tones and textural rhythms trace the lyrics about someone who seems to be singing to herself like she’s looking in from the outside and gentle nudging herself into action after feeling like she’s been observing the world as it is but going through life like she’s powerless or passive. This after being taught that she can have anything she wants any time but what does that mean if you don’t know what you want? And this is such a common phenomenon in the world where our upbringing and culture doesn’t encourage an awareness of personal purpose much less discovering one of our own. The line “I’m so sick, I’ve been living with my eyes closed” expresses that turning point in consciousness where that state of things becomes intolerable and you push yourself into new personal territory even if you don’t know where you’ll end up but at least you can make your mistakes on your terms and learn what you want your life to be about with integrity. The song’s gorgeously composed electronic, downtempo dream pop is instantly compelling and alluring and in the process of listening it challenges in the gentlest way possible to consider where you are and where you want to be. Listen to “Sleepwalker” on the BonFire Records Soundcloud and follow King Monday on his personal Soundcloud and on Spotify.

The Soft, Psychedelic Soundscapes of A Beacon School’s “Dot” Are a Map of the Evolution of Our Creativity and Consciousness

“Dot” is A Beacon School’s first release in three years and its free flowing swirl of colorful tones promise some deeply imaginative soundscaping in the forthcoming album due out sometime in the hopefully non-too distant future. Its gentle psychedelia and expansive dynamic is an interesting choice for a song that blends a contemplation on creating a work of art and a reflection on one’s own life. The way one creates say a visual work or a song from conceptualization stage to execution in sketches and stages, parts and passages and going through life considering what paths to take, small choices that establish an overall pattern that you hope you can consciously guide or set in motion in ways that unfold to one’s satisfaction. In both cases imagining you’ve discovered a new method, a new aesthetic, a dramatic breakthrough in one’s creative work and life only to discover patterns that emerge from the character you’ve made for yourself. And yet in that realization is the consciousness of ways to work with instincts and habits and break or transform them in ways that seem viable and sustainable. And ideally through multiple iterations of these attempts we can establish more rewarding patterns in art and in life. Musically the layers of synth and flow of textures is reminiscent of the dream pop of Sound of Ceres and the main melodic line in the song strongly resonates with that of Stereolab’s “Blue Milk” so that an unconventional free jazz element provides an informal structure to the way the song organically resolves in a way that keeps your attention to the end. Listen to “Dot” on YouTube and follow A Beacon School at the links provided.