New Music – Page 23 – Queen City Sounds and Art

Public Health’s Noise Rock Single “Goblets” Begins With Angular Moodiness and Ends in an Explosion of Sonic Catharsis

Public Health, photo courtesy the artists

Listening to the angular rhythms and harmonic motes of tone over the main riff in Public Health’s vibrant post-punk/noise rock single “Goblets” will remind some of DC post-hardcore, Efficies and even that band’s Chicago hardcore rivals Articles of Faith. The driving bass and the abstract guitar hanging off it while vocals hang slightly in the background When the cleaner lines in the beginning of the song head into more chaotic and intense territory you can’t help but be swept along into that catharsis. In the end the song is more reminiscent of the gnarly yet disciplined dissonance of Chicago noise rock bands of the 90s but with the dynamic swing and moodiness of a Dischord band. Listen to “Goblets” on Spotify and follow Hamilton, Ontario’s Public Health on Instagram.

LunaLight’s “Tranquility” Embodies the Calming Spirit of the Title With Layers of Luminous Atmosphere

Julia Thomsen aka LunaLight, photo courtesy the artist

The subtle depths of soothing ambiance of LunaLight’s “Tranquility” feels like easing into a universe of open spaces and gentle energy. The sound of water flowing and luminous breezes of tone alongside the minimalist keyboard melody softened into the sense of lingering, fond memories without the need for language to express that immediate human feeling is sustained throughout the song. It’s only two and a half minutes but doesn’t seem to short and the arrangement is the sort of thing you could listen to on a loop until any anxieties in your brain loosen out of your psyche. Listen to “Tranquility” on Spotify and follow composer Julia Thomsen and her projects Calm Senses and LunaLight below.

Julia Thomsen on Instagram

Julia Thomsen on YouTube

Johnny Falloon’s Furious Post-Punk Song “Circumcision” is a Surreal and Absurdist Treatment of the Curious Practice

Johnny Falloon from Athens, Georgia deliver a musical body horror song in “Circumcision.” It launches with fury and intensity like a post-hardcore noise rock song that fans of Amphetamine Reptile and Touch and Go bands will immediately find resonates with that realm of music well. And in the last third of the song the Jesus Lizard-esque madness gives way to a calm passage that is nearly spoken word as the singer sounds like an even more deranged Jim Morrison going on in fever dream fashion about his foreskin to some odd yet amusing free jazz that fit the subject matter perfectly. The song takes aim at a “health practice” that is very common in the Western world and even a tradition even though it’s not biologically necessary or even advantageous. The song’s lyrics depict the foreskin as a character that becomes a replacement for our narrator in his own life. It’s an absurdist treatment of honestly a curious practice which is probably the only way to treat what for many will be an uncomfortable subject. Listen to “Circumcision” on Spotify and follow Johnny Falloon on Instagram. The band’s new album Tell Hell I’m Not Coming dropped on May 30, 2025.

Tom O C Wilson’s Spectral Pop Single “Better Off” is a Song About Reconnecting With Oneself

Tom O C Wilson, photo courtesy the artist

Tom O C Wilson takes a fascinatingly left field turn with his experimental, electronic pop single “Better Off.” Bringing in Australian singer-songwriter The Magic Lantern on vocals, the song’s tones echo rapidly and convey a sense of being out of phrase with normal reality. The melodic shimmer of bell tones with crystal clear vocals and minimalist percussion manages to somehow be surreal and intimate and accessible at the same time. And the song seems to be about a person coming to terms with breaking up with someone whose influence forced them to bury or otherwise subsume parts of themselves to adapt to their particular and likely peculiar demands. It’s ultimately a song about reclaiming one’s psyche and making sense of what happened and how one can and should exist outside of an oppressive social context even if one was willing to enter into that situation to begin with because of a sense of affection that might have worked at one time and the early phases of which one is often willing to overlook how one is diminished and truncated in the attempt to be part of someone’s life. The song sounds like something spooky from the Warp Records catalog and it pushes the notion of what pop music can sound like just a little further afield. Listen to “Better Off” on Spotify and follow Tom O C Wilson at the links below.

Tom O C Wilson on Twitter

Tom O C Wilson on Instagram

Tom O C Wilson on Bandcamp

TV FACE Scorches the Sociopathy of Oligarchs on Noisy Post-Punk Single “Boots Pocket Coffin”

Lancaster, UK’s TV FACE is back with another ferocious, noisy and scathing dig at the economic elite with “Boots Pocket Coffin.” The song as wonderfully pointed as it is has an undeniable dance beat punctuated by spirals of hysterical guitar sounds and angular rhythms. The song builds a heady momentum from the beginning and pulls you into its catharsis immediately as well. There is a playfully mocking tone to the lyrics that suits well its depiction of the dire fate to which the ultra-wealthy seeming casually willing to throw the bulk of humanity as disposable bits of paving on their highway to pointless economic excess and for what? Sane civilizations do not suffer billionaires and hundred millionaires to exist. But here we are and TV FACE spell out so well how everything is not enough to sociopaths who live only for accumulating wealth and doing nothing positive or even really visionary or interesting with their unjust theft of the public good. Look for the new TV FACE album Wolf Rents Bark due out September 2025. Fans of stuff like mclusky and Viagra Boys will definitely find a great deal of appreciations for the rhetoric and headlong pace of this band’s output generally. Watch the video for “Boots Pocket Coffin” (warning on strobe effects) and follow TV FACE at the links below.

TV FACE on Instagram

TV FACE on Facebook

TV FACE on Twitter

Tim Carr’s Hypnogogic Pop Single “Looking at Houses” is a Meditation on the Effect of Digital Existence on the Human Psyche

The saturated synth melodies and crystalline percussion sounds in Tim Carr’s “Looking at Houses” puts you in an immediately reflective mood. But there is an underlying sense of what might be called low-key urgency. The song seems to be a meditation on how we live and conduct our business so much in the digital world that the line between analog life as lived in one’s body and the psychological significance of needing to adapt to how the digital realm functions and the relative convenience of it that is really a way for corporations to force us further into their dictates by making us dependent on their systems. Carr’s song as soothing as it is with a mood and vibe that is undeniable late night drive soundtrack material speaks to our dependence on computers from yes looking at houses we might buy or fantasize about occupying and the seductive ability to book a flight to distant places we might like to visit. And it’s just that, the dullened yearning this mode of living has conditioned us to experiencing and finding satisfying enough. Carr tows the line between that complacency and self-awareness in his lyrics and in the lush, hypnotic pop songwriting. The song will draw you into its loop but it’s one you don’t mind being stuck within. Listen to “Looking at Houses” on Spotify and follow Tim Carr at the links provided. Look for Carr’s new album Pleasure Drives out soon.

Tim Carr on Twitter

Tim Carr on Facebook

Tim Carr on Instagram

TYGERMYLK’s Psychedelic Dream Pop Single “Natali” Combines Tragedy and Humor Into Personal Insight

“Natali” opens up with an ethereal, impressionistic melody that drifts and builds. The song by TYGERMYLK deftly combines ideas and sentiments that are tragic and humorous as the singer sketches a time in life that symbolized and embodied a kind of felix culpa, no pun intended, in which the seeming loss reveals the reality of the situation and a revelatory truth that changes the course of one’s life or in the case with the song a relationship that might have gone on causing more heartbreak if not for a freak accident instigating a short form Rube Goldberg wrecking machine of personal realizations one might not have otherwise seen as quickly. Songwriter Hayley Harland’s vocals float through hanging harmonics and harmonic swells in a song that is reminiscent somehow of both Actor-period St. Vincent and Radiohead’s “Subterranean Homesick Alien” yet very much with its own emotional resonances speaking to the skills of an artist gifted with turning a humorous phrase with sharp psychological insight. Watch the video for “Natali” on YouTube and follow TYGERMYLK at the links below.

TYGERMYLK on TikTok

TYGERMYLK on Instagram

AUS!Funkt’s Industrial Electroclash Single “C’est Parfait” is Dance Song Against Technocratic Fascism

AUS!Funkt’s “C’est Parfait!” is pulsing with an urgent, motorik beat and rich, retro synth tones. But its message is very much of the moment. It’s anti-grinding culture and succumbing to the constant pressure from capitalist culture to be more and more “efficient” and serve the demands of an inhuman system that cares more about endless growth regardless of the cost to actual, living beings. The sheer urgency of the song is easy to get caught up within but it also opens up to an expansive and spacious middle section that is much less in forward momentum and clearly a part of the point of the song with the more intense sections being a model for a rebellious will to break down the infernal machine of the current time. It’s a dance song against technocratic fascism through inspiring movement for the sheer joy of it rather than at the behest of some economic dictate. Listen to “C’est Parfait” on Spotify and follow AUS!Funkt at the links below. The Canadian group’s new album Rewire The Damage released April 25, 2025.

AUS!Funkt on Facebook

AUS!Funkt on Instagram

AUS!Funkt on Bandcamp

Karate, Guns & Tanning’s Epic, Electro-Shoegaze Single “Loons” is an Ode to the Majesty of the Great Northern Diver

Karate, Guns & Tanning, photo courtesy the artists

“Loons” finds Indianapolis-based trio Karate, Guns & Tanning contemplating the majesty of the Great Northern Diver in mythical terms. The song itself is an epic of pulsing rhythms and an emotional urgency that carries you along with its swirling tones teeming with a rich sonic detail and bird sounds. It would be tempting to pigeonhole the music as shoegaze but the attention to production and the robust electronic side of the songwriting makes it something more. The low end alone that runs through the song sets it apart from something more ethereal and Valerie Green’s (formerly of Denver art pop greats Good Housekeeping) melodious and moody vocals bring to the song a grounded quality that syncs well with the delicate guitar lines. It’s a song whose layers of sound are easy to get caught up in until the end for a sonic journey celebrating yes a particular type of bird but of the freedom and dignity it represents that it wouldn’t hurt to emulate as well. Listen to “Loons” on Spotify and follow Karate, Guns & Tanning at the links below. The group’s new album Krisis Genre, perhaps a nod to feeling no need to fit into a narrow style, released on May 23, 2025 on digital platforms and it is also available on 12” vinyl.

karategunsandtanning.com

Karate, Guns & Tanning on Instagram

Karate, Guns & Tanning on Facebook

Karate, Guns & Tanning on YouTube

Queen City Sounds Podcast S5E05: Detention

Detention (back left is Kevin Shields), photo courtesy the artists

Kevin Shields enlisted in the Coast Guard when he was 17-years-old. But as fate would have it he was stationed in Alameda, California as he was growing tired of 70s rock and learned about punk. That post allowed him the time to go to Mabuhay Gardens in San Francisco a few nights of week to witness firsthand the excitement of early West Coast punk acts Dead Kennedys, DOA and Black Flag among others. When he got back home to New Jersey in 1981 he had all the inspiration he needed to start his own band so he recruited his brothers and himself bought a bass that he would eventually learn to play. Their band Detention was a raucous and wiseacre bunch whose first show at Raritan Manor was hosted by Matt Pinfield when he had his first radio DJ stint at WRSU at Rutgers. The police busted the show. But the band went on to record several of its songs many of which were filled with an irreverent spirit but others with more than a touch of social consciousness. Detention put out a self-produced, self-titled album in 1985 before breaking up. But the band’s legacy continued in college radio and beyond up to now with the wonderfully humorous and tasteless “Dead Rock ‘n Rollers” single. Its cover art has been endlessly imitated and the song itself in the realm of “Take The Skinheads Bowling” as an underground classic. The single and choice cuts from the self-titled album as well as unreleased material was released on vinyl in 2024 as Dead Rock ‘n Rollers on Left For Dead Records.

Listen to our interview with Kevin Shields on Bandcamp and visit the Left For Dead Records for more information and to order the vinyl.

leftfordeadrecords.com