The spare piano progression at the beginning of Jaelee Small’s “TicToc” leads you to believe you’re in store for a simple but emotionally urgent song. But the song progresses into a more full sound in the choruses with horns, and a richer array of percussion than the metronomic time keeping when the song starts off. Along with the broadening of sound, Small’s vocals ring out and harmonize, drawing out notes and the swelling of emotions. The song is about Small’s having first been in touch with the father she never truly knew growing up and the complex emotions and confusion regarding what she was hoping to get out of the relationship before he passed away. The song also sounds like one of learning to be patient with yourself and kind about your insecurities and accepting that personal growth isn’t a step-by-step, liner process of progression for anyone and that identity is never as simple as discovering your roots, your genetic background or connecting with a subculture or any other demographical facts. Although a short song at two minutes thirty-one seconds, Small’s song seems to evoke that complexity alongside the deep human yearning to know. Listen to “TicToc” on Soundcloud and follow Jaelee Small at the links provided.
Sofie Milito as Seatkickr creates the perfect combination of sense memory imagery with a wistful melody and rhythms on her new single “Hands.” What begins as impressionistic thoughts evolves into a yearning and urgently melancholic declaration of what is so missing from our lives and past relationships. Those we wanted to have, those we thought we had, those that didn’t satisfy our deep needs but we wanted them to so desperately even if we couldn’t acknowledge that desperation within our own hearts but we sure felt what was lacking in a tactile if subconscious way. In singing “We just want someone to fight for us,” Milito articulates a need that we don’t often get to put out there that is someone in our lives close to us who isn’t passive about their love and concern for us beyond their immediate needs and consideration for their own comfort. Because sometimes we need someone who will fight for us whether that’s in standing up for us or to us or getting through times of struggle and not just giving up. Listen to “Hands” on Spotify and follow Seatkickr at the links below.
Divide and Dissolve aim to “decenter and destroy” white supremacy with their music. And “Prove It,” the lead single from the forthcoming 2020 album Gas Lit, sure sounds like it’s shaking the foundations and destabilizing norms. Fans of The Body, Lingua Ignota and Echo Beds will find much to like about the crushing industrial drone and the abstraction of social criticism into the very sound and structure of the music itself. The thundering, echoing drums in a kind of menacing dance with writhing, collisions of heavy guitar sound like a great edifice being torn down from the capital of an ancient, empire that has long ago lost its sense of mission and dominance, whose corruption is already cracking its own edifice and which must be cleansed from the world beginning with the symbols of its power. This is an expression of the fractures that have been exposed from within that power structure in our own world of white supremacy, racism, misogyny and all the forces that are maintaining an abusive and oppressive international system that is hurting everyone and the very environment we inhabit. Watch the video and listen to the song on YouTube and look out for Gas Lit due out hopefully in early 2020. The duo of Takiaya Reed and Sylvie Nehill has already been championed by the likes of Unknown Mortal Orchestra (whose Ruban Nielson produced the album) , Deafheaven, Sumac, and Poliça with opening slots on tour so with any luck we’ll all get a chance to catch the project live soon as well.
The title track to Alex McArtor’s debut EP Heart Talk, Vol. 1 is part goodbye letter and and acceptance that the romance isn’t going to work out. She outlines the positive aspects of the relationship and what sparked an initial connection but then all the details of how those connections didn’t run wide or deep. That McArtor couldn’t fulfill a role expected of her that wasn’t her own identity. The song is a gentle refusal of warping her heart and psyche for a love that isn’t suitable. With finely textured acoustic guitar rhythms and soaring electric leads, a doleful synth melody and McArtor’s dynamic and passionate vocals, the song brings you into that moment when you cast off your own personal illusions about someone you love and are ready to walk away while acknowledging your own feelings in the process and recognizing your own part in how things went down, which is the harder realization to swallow for a lot of people, especially when you’re young and don’t have as much life experience. McArtor makes it sound not just melancholic but a necessary part of stepping away and that is actually saying so rather than ghosting. Listen to “Heart Talk” on Soundcloud and follow McArtor on Spotify.
LUC’s single “Glow” bursts with a fuzzy, funky synth pulse and soaring, soulful vocals that serve as almost a counterpoint to the grit of distorted processed guitar and bass that carries the main melody. In that way the track is reminiscent of the way Goldfrapp reconciles elements that seem to contrast but in the end compliment one another to give the music great momentum and emotional peaks that border on bombast but come off more like swagger. The mix of the track is fascinating in that it allows for the more granular sounds to shine as well as the ethereal soundscaping and the melodious and acrobatic vocal line. The Los Angeles-based project says the genre “is LA Garagetronic” possibly because its combination of electronic dance pop and garage rock but really it stands out for the super production and adeptness in making disparate elements work together to create something decidedly different than its component parts. Listen to “Glow” on Soundcloud and follow LUC at the links provided.
When “Gasoline” starts up, you think for a second that it’s going to go into a warped version of “Repo Man” by Iggy Pop but then the rhythm fully engages and its headlong pace and cutting but melodic guitar riff, helped by Rikk Agnew formerly of The Adolescents and Christian Death (circa the 1982 classic Only Theatre of Pain), are an integral part of the song and its tale of a combustible relationship that is mutually destructive but irresistible. The kind where both people know how fucked up it is but the drama and the darkness are a turn on for both people and they’re going to ride it out until it flames out in spectacular fashion. The metaphor of relationship as perilous car ride is borne throughout but especially the part that begins with “crash and burn” and completes with “built for speed,” I’m what you need.“ Singer Joie Blaney takes some lines and MisMaxine Murrderr others as they sing/scream almost as call and response but also together. And dark as the song goes there’s something sweet about it at heart like two cynical hedonists who’ve seen it all get each other and get to each other by bypassing their defenses and numbness to vanilla stimulation even if it will cost them in the end. Listen to “Gasoline,” produced by Paul Roessler of The Screamers, 45 Grave and Nina Hagen fame, on YouTube and follow Rx27 at the links below.
Since the beginning of the year, Ian O’Dougherty (of Uphollow, Slim Cessna’s Auto Club, Tauntaun and Fauxgazi among other projects), under his songwriting moniker Eolian, has been writing and releasing a song a week and collecting various tracks into albums. His April 2019 album Home conveys a sense of loss and yearning and rebuilding. The track “Be Home” in particular is an upbeat, Robyn Hitchcock-esque power pop ode to the ability of people to reclaim their personal power by making where they’re living their home and not just a place to put your possessions and sleep every night. Its urgent pace and lightly distorted guitar melody suggest movement and one can almost see the subject of the song putting personal touches on the house or apartment to make it feel like his own place, not the equivalent of a long term hotel. The idea of home can be elusive, amorphous quality for many but a sense many if not most people crave in some capacity—a place of your own to belong, whatever that looks and feels like. It can be taken away from you in various ways including when a relationship ends, one has to move for a job or one is displaced due to rent hikes, made homeless or perhaps worst, through natural disaster or war. O’Dougherty’s song, though, is aimed toward the spirit to put your personal stamp on where you’re staying and the significance of such for your psychological health. Listen to “Be Home” on YouTube and follow Eolian at the links below.
Dog Basketball, still from video for “Gold Dust Falcon Crest”
For the last year and a half Zack Marshall has been writing, producing and recording his forthcoming EP due fall 2019 under the name Dog Basketball. The Denver-based project was adapted to a live band including Jack Long, Ben Eberle, and Kylie Ludvig, members of Denver punk/hardcore bands Use the Sun and Screwtape. Marshall, a former member of his high school band Use the Sun, took a departure from his roots in emo, pop punk and math rock in favor of a more pop-oriented, mellow, abstract electronic sound.
The EP’s lead single, “Ghost Dust Falcon Crest,” is reflective of the, as Marshall says, “moody/off-kilter electronic indie pop w/ jazz and ambient influences.” Using samples and field recordings of “bones, coins, birds, metal gates, etc for either percussive purposes or atmospheric / impressionistic purposes,” the single will remind some listeners a bit initially of IDM artists that favor the use of organic sounds in their tracks like Boards of Canada but the song quickly evolves into a delicate, introspective pop song. While tempting to compare the song to some music by Microphones, for which there are certainly resonances, it might be better compared to Clairo’s brand of lo-fi pop and its intimate and personal character.
Ahead of the November 22 release of the EP, mixed and mastered by Berlin-based producer Dan Taro, formerly of Denver and who contributed production elements, Dog Basketball is releasing the video for “Gold Dust Falcon Crest.” Looking like a cross between a 1980s public access art or nature video with the glitches and visual quality to match the gloriously refined amateur sound of the music. It’s a complete aesthetic. Directed by Nick Goforth, the video was filmed in Estes Park, Colorado and inspired by the genre of found footage and “lost tapes” that you can find all over YouTube and the internet in generally if you go looking and which has been the subject and aesthetic of multiple movies, often in the realm of horror. While not horrific minus large cockroaches toward the end, the video is meant to convey a sense of being followed by something out of sight. Like the song, more impressionistic than defined, it invites the imagination to contemplate what it might mean and where it might go from finding the mysterious book. It draws you in to the kind of mystery the lead character in the video is experiencing and thus a sense of wonder. The video and song are analogs of one another while complementing each other perfectly.
Watch the video below and catch Dog Basketball at DIME in Denver on October 25 and on November 1 at 40 West Studios for a Halloween-themed video game soundtrack covers set. Follow the project at the links provided below.
Earth Control Pill, August 2019, photo by Tom Murphy
Earth Control Pill is releasing its first music video for two songs paired together, “Fan/Pool.” The project, which is comprised of Kathryn Taylor (formerly of political punk band Future Single Mom and noise/performance art duo Sex Therapy and noise rock group Born Dumb) whose unearthly drones are hypnotically soothing and reflect a kind of collage aesthetic abstracted to soundscapes. In the video, like a lo-fi David Lynch short, Taylor (in blue gloves) and friends undertake some kind of benevolent ritual. The cast includes video director Laura Conway in teal gloves, Mattie Gonzales of New Skin Magazine in pink gloves, artist Meghan Meehan (Conway’s partner in monthly DJ night Night Shift) in yellow gloves and, later, performance artist/musician Coleman Mummery of Goblin King of the Pop Stars comes in first wearing teal gloves and switching to purple. At times the video treatment by Conway and Anna Winter, with contributions from filmmaker Kim Shively, is reminiscent of the surreal quality of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls or Troll 2, like it’s out of phase with normal reality. The song is a little different for Earth Control Pill too as it’s more a conventionally jaunty melody that almost sounds like music for a kid’s show and the video captures the dancing and silly antics friends get up to when no one is watching. The informal sacredness of those moments done in an environment decorated as if from weeks of thrift store finds turned into something magical so everyone who goes there knows they’re in some place different where the mundane stuff of everyday life doesn’t belong. The visual effects are subtle and humorous like the reverse effect of the cigarette un-ashing back to Taylor’s face. There is a darkness and lightness to the video that may or may not reflect the purity of the moments on screen but done as a private thing to share among friends. Nothing nefarious, just a little silly at moments. Dreamlike and subtly humorous like an inside joke at no one’s expense, the video helps making music that might seem abstract much more accessible.
If Birdman Cult’s song “Snakes” wasn’t a jaunty, fuzzy post-punk garage rock song its video would come off more like the notorious “11B-X-1371” clip that circulated a few years ago. A hooded and robed figure in a bird mask bearing tilted pentagrams presents as the high priest of some nefarious cult handling snakes like he’s officiating at something more sinister than the “Cremation of Care” ceremony at Bohemian Grove. Rather, the symbols are more primal connecting the vitality of the song itself to more elemental forces than the theatrically wicked. The “snake” in this song also taps into mythology and turns the symbol on its head with the temptations of the city and its culture serving as transformative role through corrupting an outmoded set of values and sensibilities. If you turn off the sound the optics are certainly spooky but the music gives it the playful context much as many things seem far scarier than they are if you don’t know much about them and this song challenges that cognitive dissonance beautifully. Watch the video for “Snakes” on YouTube and follow Birdman Cult at the links below.
Queen City Sounds and Art 
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