New Music – Page 205 – Queen City Sounds and Art

Franko Elvis’ Tenderly Melodramatic “I Worry All The Time” is a Dream Pop Exploration of Our Mixed Emotions and Anxieties

FrankoElvis2_sm — Franko Elvis, photo courtesy the artist

Franko Elvis minces no words with the title of his song “I Worry All The Time.” With shades of tone and delivery reminiscent of Viva Hate-period Morrissey or Magnetic Fields this song waxes tenderly melodramatic and makes use of sound elements beyond the obvious synth, guitar, bass, drums and vocals. The reverb on the vocals and the female backing vocals paired with the cadence of the song share similar influences from the Gold Star Studios production style of the 1960s giving the song a sense of being out of normal time. It’s a heartfelt/heartbroken appeal to one’s love to be allowed to stay and have some relief from the worry and insecurities arising therefrom. Is the song a bit of a dream? It does end with the sounds of birds tweeting in the end like something you’d hear in the morning on a spring day so maybe this song informed by being on the fence about sadness and happiness if neither is genuine ends on a hopeful note. Listen to “I Worry All The Time” on Spotify and follow Franko Elvis at the links provided.

open.spotify.com/artist/5TMotqPzzBLNmPLObz7P7Q
instagram.com/franko.elvis

Sterile Cuckoo Evokes a Waking Dream State With “Details in Feathers”

SterileCuckoo1_crop — Sterile Cuckoo, photo courtesy the artist

Sterile Cuckoo’s music is designed to be the soundtrack for the hypnagogic state, that state of consciousness between sleep and wakefulness. The hazy composition of “Details in Feathers” with lightly echoing sounds seeming to drift down upon one another in a flow of organic melody. Even the vocals sound like bits of consciousness caught in the fractal of long term memory given voice and swirling with the other leaves, the other motes, of sonic presence that gently synergize with the spare guitar melody as the through line, accented by electronic bass and luminous, impressionistic keyboard work. Though short, the song is something that your head can get lost in taking in the dream logic of its flow of tone and mood. Listen to “Details in Feathers” on YouTube, follow Sterile Cuckoo at the links provided and, should you be so inclined, listen to the rest of the album Elysian on Bandcamp.

sterilecuckoo.tumblr.com
soundcloud.com/sterile-cuckoo
youtube.com/channel/UCZoyjIKnLrX3XMG0VHb9GWA
sterilecuckoo.bandcamp.com
facebook.com/sterilecuckoo

The Agony of Loss and Lack of Closure is Embodied in Alex Henry Foster’s Harrowing “Summertime Departures”

AlexHenryFoster3_crop — Alex Henry Foster, photo courtesy the artist

“Summertime Departures,” the title, sounds like you’re in for a melancholic pop song but Alex Henry Foster has written a song that immediately draws you in to an emotional experience as much as a song with spoken lyrics and almost sound effects for music before it enters somewhat more conventional song territory nearly halfway through it’s over five minute length. It’s reminiscent of Slint in the beginning with its desolation and emotional fragility and in a like fashion the sounds escalate into whorling howls of controlled guitar feedback and splaying percussion to enhance a sense of one’s own mental breakdown. It’s not enough for Foster to write a song about what sounds like someone trying to come to terms with the death of a close friend, family member or other loved one and struggling painfully with that fact, the memories, the regrets of the things you wish you had said or done rather than taken for granted that there would be time to find closure. The song is the sound of the pain of that open psychological and emotional wound that persists despite your best attempts to heal. It’s a harrowing listen but one that honors the experience and emotional agony of the loss. Listen to “Summertime Departures” on YouTube and follow Alex Henry Foster at the links below. Look out for the new album Windows in the Sky, on which you can hear the single in context, out May 1.

soundcloud.com/alex-henry-foster
open.spotify.com/artist/3xxV7Humr8VBXGhNNbyWoY
youtube.com/channel/UCPJ9svra9xkqsC0ZIKZdZ0w
twitter.com/umitohanasuhito
facebook.com/alexhenryfosterofficial
instagram.com/alexhenryfoster

Death Hags Encourage Us to Exercise Radical Self-Acceptance on “Be Who You Are”

DeathHags_BeWhoYouAre2_crop — Death Hags, image courtesy the artists

The Skyforest edit of Death Hags’ “Be Who You Are” is reminiscent of Lush through the filter of C86 or late 90s Denver, Colorado and Athens, Georgia indie pop. Its introspective minimalism and hazy melody is irresistible with enough of fuzzy grit to give the song the kind of texture that sticks with you as well in the wash of sounds. Comparing the song to something Black Tambourine might have put out seems facile but the resonance is there for anyone looking for something with a similar vibe today. The message of the song, what the band says is “a call for radical self-acceptance,” seems essential in an era when there is so much personal dissection and the critique of others in our over-mediated society with our presence on the internet on various platforms. Simply accepting yourself for who and what you are shouldn’t seem radical, though it was challenging long before social media existed, but at this point in our collective social development in tandem with that of our technology it is. The song is part of BIG GREY SUN, a seven volume project to be released as four cassettes and a triple album throughout 2020 and 2021. Listen to “Be Who You Are” on Bandcamp and follow Death Hags at the links provided.

soundcloud.com/death_hags
facebook.com/deathhagsmusic
instagram.com/death_hags

Lizzy & The Fanatics Set a Relationship Down Lightly With the Breezy Dream Pop Song “Far Away”

LizzyAndTheFanatics_FarAway1_sm — Lizzy & the Fanatics, photo courtesy the artist

Lizzy & The Fanatics waft in with “Far Away” with a swirling puff of sparkling sounds before the vocals seem to bring a coherence to these tones. The effect is a bit like becoming aware during a daydream and the gentle guitar riff is a bit reminiscent of that of “Dreams” by The Cranberries. The song sounds so nostalgic you might think it’s wistful about missing the one you love but the turn of phrase about “I need to let you know, I wanted to feel close” reveals a complexity of feeling that isn’t common enough in music. Of needing to be honest with oneself and with one’s feelings while not wanting to hurt those of another person. The progression conjures images of someone floating on a cloud and contemplating a potentially messy situation from a more objective vantage point one step removed from the immediate events but not the immediacy of feeling. And the song has a freshness bright tones that indicates no heaviness or dark intent is meant even if it’s probably unavoidable that someone will get hurt in the end, perhaps a poetic attempt to let someone down lightly. Listen to “Far Away” on Soundcloud and follow Lizzy & The Fanatics at the links provided below.

lizzyfanatic.tumblr.com
soundcloud.com/thefanaticsofficial
open.spotify.com/artist/7l4sVkNSc4v6058rs4GnJr
lizzysongs.bandcamp.com

“Hackney smack deal” is the Rec’s Public Service Announcement to the Roommates of People Who Might Have a Falling Out With Their Procurers of Elicit Substances

TheRec_HackneySmackDeal2_crop — the Rec “Hackney smack deal” cover (cropped)

Without making too much light of the situation, the Rec tell a true story of the negative fallout of drug use and the people with whom you share a dwelling on “Hackney smack deal.” In the group’s style of gritty yet playful vocals and a lively beat, the Rec describes a group of men who show up one day to collect money due regardless of whether the unlucky sod who answers the door is the person owing the debt. A synth like a lazy but insistent siren runs through the track along with a jangle of what sounds like metal trinkets and a pounding drum giving the whole song an intense but surreal energy. The chorus is delivered in a nearly casual manner, describing a terrifying encounter: “We want the smack or the cash, is what they said, we want the smack or the cash, with a crack to my head, we want the smack or the cash, now my mind is numb, we want the smack or the cash, with a heart like a bass drum.” Later we hear about a “punch to the eyeball” and “no friendly handshakes” and confusion about the whole situation until, in the end, our narrator figures out what is going on and tells us, “The moral of the story is know your mates, never trust a man with black spoons or paper plates.” Fans of Sleaford Mods and Pop Will Eat Itself will appreciate the way the Rec’s style in putting a harrowing story to a captivating beat. Listen to “Hackney smack deal” on Bandcamp and follow the Rec at the links provided.

therec1.bandcamp.com
facebook.com/therecOswestry

JAF 34’s Video For “Light” is an Audio-Visual Experience of Abstract Cosmic Proportions

JAF34_Light1_crop — JAF 34, image courtesy the artist

JAF 34 crafted “Light” as a multimedia experience with the music video a perfect parallel to its evolving, ambient music track. Beams and fragments of light swirl and come together the way the informal melody saturates and and develops and then gives way to open space within which contours represented by solid streams of sound sketch the entire universe in the background of the figure in the foreground of a color not out of space but in it, giving off a warm orange glow as white lines like ley lines in the architecture of the greater universe can be seen. Triangle shapes connected like something out of a the inspiration for Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic domes connect the various places in the video like the lattice in which material existence is overlaid. Then a cowled figure sits in this space-scape, translated to a cluster of light motes once the shimmering drone that has carried us throughout the song so far passes into silence replaced by a distant, cycling tone as though to reflect the dearth of light and imagery in the video that had been so bright and relatively dense before. The white noise in the track at that time like the fragments of the last transmissions of a craft that has passed into the event horizon of a black hole. Watch the video for “Light” on YouTube follow JAF 34 at the website linked below.

jaf34.com

Dead Lucid’s Desolation EP Dissolves the Boundaries Between Post-Punk, Psychedelia and Proto-Punk

DeadLucid_Desolation2_crop — Dead Lucid *Desolation* cover (cropped)

Chicago’s Dead Lucid inject a great deal of noisy psychedelia into its post-punk on the new EP Desolation. Obvious touchstones can be heard on “Romance” like early Joy Division and that band’s own roots in the stark menace of the Stooges. The guitar operates like a droning wash over the bass and drums while the raw vocals carry the melody. “Rain” sounds like it’s going to be a dirty surf track but the tribal percussion bludgeons its way into the song and as the straight ahead guitar edges toward a warping, grinding sound. “Ambrosia” begins with a desolate introspection but blossoms into a dynamic yet melancholy ballad. “Head” brings things back into the realm of proto-punk and a charging song about coming unhinged. The title track of the EP is a sprawling fusion of minimalism and guitar solo maximalism yet one in which a sense of hitting rock bottom finds its expression when those fiery passages dissipate. Fans of Pop. 1280 and Protomartyr will appreciate how this EP doesn’t get stuck in some trendy post-punk of yesteryear worship nor does it try to scratch every itch of flavor and its own psychedelia while a nod to when Led Zeppelin went weird or something like Captain Beyond hanging out with Robin Trower and getting trippier is very much its own. Listen to Desolation on Bandcamp and follow Dead Lucid at the links provided.

deadlucid.com
open.spotify.com/artist/6iTwxNizRmTeuBV0XWt0iO
deadlucid.bandcamp.com
facebook.com/deadlucid
instagram.com/deadlucid

Hanna Ojala Sheds Conventions of Melody, Rhythm and Meter On Her Tonal Dream Poem “Mamba Experience”

HannaOjala_MambaExperience1_sm — Hanna Ojala, photo courtesy the artist

The sound of water and a sound like a heartbeat, the kind you can hear while swimming, pulses through Hanna Ojala’s latest single “Mamba Experience.” The sound of a rattle sets an organic rhythm as Ojala speaks a dream poem about taking on the aspect of a mamba and its menace, its power, its primordial elegance. As the song ends the sounds of water give way to those of what sounds like an electronic emulation of a campfire by the shore, the life pulse still in your ears as though it’s the one aspect of your awareness of your body that persists in the dream state conjured with this arrangement of sounds. Listening, it’s reminiscent of some of the more out there parts of Laurie Anderson’s United States Live, in particular “Blue Lagoon,” wherein conventional song structures unravel in the wake of intuitive soundscapes that follow the mood and experience conveyed heading into one’s own dream of paradise to reach the center of consciousness. Ojala’s own journey to her mythic center is embodied in that pre-mammalian existence of the snake that symbolizes an awakening to consciousness and awareness and the unification of the dark and light, logical and emotional sides of the mind, that cosmic spiral of the labyrinth as a path toward illumination. “Mamba Experience” is technically a song but it is one that sheds being tied to conventions of melody, rhythm and meter. Listen to “Mamba Experience” on YouTube and follow Ojala at the links provided.

soundcloud.com/h_mo
youtube.com/channel/UCOciWsXO_7cDSrveFlwSmkA

Hunnid Hits Hard at the Persistent Issue of Police Brutality With “Hang On”

Hunnid_HangOn1_lg — Hunnid, photo courtesy the artist

The video for Hunnid’s latest single with Ceeno “Hang On” presents the issue of police brutality and murder of black people in a way that is vivid, hard, hitting and creative. Hunnid’s vocals are direct and commanding yet fluid as he lays out lines about how the experiences he’s had around that issue and through that issue have impacted his own psyche and that of people he knows in the way that only something like the possibility of being randomly killed by a cop who decides you might be an imminent threat purely because of your ethnicity and the neighborhood in which you might live. Or if you were in New York City while Michael Bloomberg was mayor one of over a thousand or two thousand black youths a month who were stopped and frisked for guns to with a one tenth of one percent success rate to justify a Gestapo-like policy. The more synth-y part of the beat of this song matches the heightened sense of emotional urgency of the words while the deep bass-infused middle emphasizes the heaviness of the situation that one would hope would be better with the higher level of scrutiny police brutality has received but about which not nearly enough has been done on a national level. Yet, Hunnid manages to have written this song in a way that is compelling and doesn’t downplay the subject of his song without it being a complete bummer, instead it draws attention to persistent and deadly social ill that shouldn’t be swept under the rug during election season. Watch the video for “Hang On” on YouTube and follow Hunnid at the links provided.

keepit1oo.com/home
soundcloud.com/hunnid-2
open.spotify.com/artist/2fA2gTgVlYNhArTuXvHwy0
youtube.com/channel/UCkIiLVOUS_yNjNPYMKTxq5A
twitter.com/Hunnid_CCG
facebook.com/HunnidCCG
instagram.com/hunnid_ccg