Blind The Thin King Evokes a Sense of the Cultural Ephemera of an Ancient or Alien Civilizations on its Sample Strewn New Ambient Single “Cloak of Misanthrope”

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Blind The Thin King, image courtesy the artists

Blind The Thin King’s aim is to make music that sounds like something from a lost or extra-terrestrial civilization or found by a far future society with no known cultural connection to our own—to make something for which the social and technological context is unknown. So the project’s latest single “Cloak of Misanthrope” comes across like the discovery of a music storage device that contained the information throughout an optical storage matrix that was found in pieces and through which we’re stimulating the crystalline structure to elicit sounds and we get a fascinating collage of tones, textures and a rhythm not based on anything normal but out of the cadence of seemingly random sonic data. Instead of a Hari Seldon type figure giving us the finest music of the era from the arts equivalent of Foundation, we get something like an even more corrupted, more randomized flow of sounds than the Elvis Presley hologram performance from Blade Runner 2049. It’s supposed to be challenging, it’s maybe even supposed to be off putting but there’s something about this track that keeps you listening, a sonic puzzle that tantalizes because some of the pieces are missing but if you pay close enough attention you will figure out the unifying element. Perhaps the connectors can be found across the Four Hymns LP from which “Cloak of Misanthrope” is taken. But even if not, “Cloak of Misanthrope” has an appeal similar to artifacts of ancient civilizations we don’t fully understand or the electronic transmissions from numbers stations. Yet there is a strange and haunting coherency to the song that is undeniable. Listen on Soundcloud and follow Blind The Thin King further there as well.

soundcloud.com/blindthethinking

The Mighty Avon Jnr Evoke the Harrowing Psychedelic Experiences of the Films of Herzog and Francis Ford Coppola on Industrial Post-Punk Track “Cobra, Dear Heart”

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The Mighty Avon Jr, photo courtesy the artists

Although Popol Vuh’s soundtrack to the 1987 film Cobra Verde, Werner Herzog’s fifth and final collaboration with Klaus Kinski, is perfectly adequate, this song, “Cobra, Deart Heart” by Irish experimental post-punk group The Mighty Avon Jnr, could very well step in with its gritty and colorful, sprawling and lush industrial soundscape. It might even work for Fitzcarraldo and Aguirre the Wrath of God as well. Bass throbs like the jungle swelter and the threat of hidden fauna, disease and the inner demons of other humans as their psyches crack under the strain of trying to survive and thrive in challenging environments. As the track progresses its vocals evolve into the realm of the wilder late 80s EBM and the distorted processing. And then the horns kick in giving the song a truly surreal feel like you’ve come upon some makeshift oasis in a hostile tropical landscape much as Willard and company did in the original cut of Apocalypse Now when they stumble upon the last refuge of former French colonists. All the shadows and light, the disorientation, the transcendence and mystery of the aforementioned films, the sense of them, flow through the entire composition. Overall the song is reminiscent of something Pigface might have done or some other Chris Connelly project but more melancholic and coherent yet just unbeholden to a narrow genre aesthetic. Listen to all nearly eleven minutes of this epic on Spotify and follow The Mighty Avon Jr at the links below.

mightyavonjnr.com
open.spotify.com/artist/4R8jAFIwOzE6L6wR1NwTQF
themightyavonjnr.bandcamp.com/album/hold-everything-dear
instagram.com/mightyavon

Video Premiere: Chimney Choir’s Fantastical and Poetic “An Alternate Life”

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Chimney Choir, photo courtesy the artists

It’s been awhile since we’ve heard from Colorado-based avant-pop band Chimney Choir. But as the seasons are crossing over from the heart of summer to the cool of fall, the group has gifted us with a new single and video with “An Alternate Life.” The video depicts a mythical humanoid opening a suitcase filled with a mysterious, glowing white energy that opens a gate to an expanded universe, an alternate dimension of wondrous creatures and a luminous nightscape of rich colors that evolves into a daylit world wherein the sun is embodied as a curiously ominous figure. The conventional logic of symbols and imagery is challenged in a playful way that offers an alternate interpretation of myth, personal and cultural, set to a bright, expansive melody, textured rhythms and vocals harmonies that embrace us with the introspection of the coming cold and the warmth of the dreams and hopes we harbor for the future. As the title suggests the song and its entrancing animated video is about our ability to dream of a life beyond the one we have right now and the inherent possibilities in that faculty to create the world we want. The single comes ahead of the band’s plans for the release of its new album as outlined in Chimney Choir’s statement on the video and the new record.

“’An Alternate Life’ is the first music video and single from Chimney Choir’s upcoming album, (light shadow). The single, which includes lush alien strings, syncopated bubbly synths, mishmashed beats and evocative vocal play, accompanies a swirly colourful cartoon world drawn by Tom Varani and animated by Evan McCandless. Chimney Choir is currently fascinated with the tilted turning of the planet, human beings’ search for their place in the cosmos, and the mind-bending interplay between light, motion, and time. The new single is emerging around the Autumnal Equinox, when the Northern and Southern hemispheres receive an equal amount of light and shadow, when a brief moment of equilibrium occurs between the ‘Yang’ of summer and the ‘Yin’ of Winter. The (light shadow) album represents the deepest down and the farthest in that the band has ever gone in both collaborative writing and sound design. (light shadow) will be released on Winter Solstice, December 21st and Chimney Choir will be having an album release party on December 31st at The Mercury Cafe in Denver.”

As per past album release parties, Chimney Choir will have an utterly unique experience that will involve theater, the participation of those in attendance and special guests making it, truly, an event of the season. Watch the video for “Alternate Life” below and follow Chimney Choir at the links provided.

www.chimneychoir.com
www.facebook.com/ChimneyChoir
www.instagram.com/chimneychoir
chimneychoir.bandcamp.com

Non-Functional Harmony’s “—b— (the Torri in Sabina Ambient Remix)” is a Guided Meditation Through Layers of Textural and Tonal Flow

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Non-Functional Harmony, “—b—” cover (cropped)

“—b— “ (the Torri in Sabina Ambient Remix) finds Non-Functional Harmony in a mode of abstraction like the charting of undercurrents in what seems to be a still body of water. Its flows of drone layers and textures are subtle as though you’re contemplating vectors of nearby breezes while meditating on the minutiae of the natural world around you to get you out of your usually conscious perspective. Tones ring out like rivulets on the desert post spring drizzle and others hover like the Aurora Borealis or clouds moving rapidly in the sky against the sun from fast moving wind that isn’t touching the ground. As your mind takes in these stimuli and your imagination and consciousness drift into an altered state the gentle winds and streams of the song’s leaves you in a zone of tranquility with the worries of everyday life dissolved by erosion in miniature. Listen to “—b—” on Soundcloud and follow Non-Functional Harmony at the links below.

nonfunctionalharmony.com
soundcloud.com/nonfunctionalharmony
open.spotify.com/artist/0qKhXF7qAINNad9x0qiRBo
twitter.com/nfharmony
instagram.com/nonfunctionalharmony

Neuland Charts the Path of Humanity’s Brighter Future Path on “Longing in Motion,” the Single From its Self-Titled Debut

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Neuland, photo courtesy the artists

“Longing in Motion,” the debut single from Neuland’s self-titled double LP due out October 25, is like the musical analogue of that moment when the human race takes the first trip through a functioning worm hole to a remote part of the universe dense with stars. The luminous elegance of that moment and the unprecedented emotional impact of the certain knowledge and direct experience of the realization of a peak of human imagination and intellect but of worlds beyond what we will have been able to see with our own eyes until that first contact. Maybe we will not have matured enough as a species to not have agendas of profit and exploitation of resources and the development of a weaponized use of that technology leading up to that time. But the sheer sense of wonder is something no one will be able to deny and in that moment there is hope. It is the same sense astronauts who have been to the moon and back have described and even a yearning to experience again but on a galactic and intergalactic and perhaps even interdimensional scale. The music hints at a knowledge of a new kind of liberation from former limitations and a hint that we can be more than the current ideologies and belief systems have limited our thinking and consciousness. The accompanying music video beautifully illustrates this sense of expanded view that the song expresses in sound.

The duo responsible for this music are no strangers to transcendent and mind-altering compositions. Peter Baumann was a keyboardist of pioneering synth and art rock band Tangerine Dream during the critical years 1971-1977 including working on the landmark 1974 release Phaedra and the soundtrack to the 1977 film Sorcerer. Paul Haslinger later played keyboards and guitar in Tangerine Dream from 1986-1990 and worked on the soundtracks to Near Dark and Three O’Clock High and the albums Canyon Dreams and Melrose, among other releases. With this collaboration broached three decades ago, the self-titled debut is not beholden to past accomplishments, having been impacted by groundbreaking modern masters of synth composition, rather it looks to soundtracking humankind’s inevitable brighter future. Listen to and watch the video for “Longing in Motion” on YouTube and follow Neuland at the links below.

soundcloud.com/neulandproject
youtube.com/channel/UCZTOabpxPCRPRkIIJWE–jg
facebook.com/neulandproject
instagram.com/neulandproject

The Stargazer Lilies Warp Forward and Back in Psychological Time on the Fuzzy, Mind-Bending New Single “Living Work of Art”

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The Stargazer Lilies, photo courtesy the artists

The Stargazer Lilies’ “Living Work of Art” begins like an unmarked cassette found at a thrift store with some tape hiss and white noise the picks up into a fuzzy, warping, worn VHS collage of granulated, phasing melodic tone over which female vocals intone winsomely, occasionally glitching out. Though clearly a modern recording, the band has opted for the opposite of slick production but not quite lo-fi as the sounds are strong and clearly intentional if not 100% calculated. The track comes from the band’s forthcoming album Occabot, out on November 1 on Rad Cult. The latter is more than a clue that Tobacco of Black Moth Super Rainbow is involved and in fact is the producer of the record. But this doesn’t sound like he took over the sound of the band, he just encouraged their natural instincts for going outside their own lines and rules and make an experience as much as individual, coherent songs. “Living Work of Art” seems to simultaneously go forward and backward in an entrancing loop and to evolve in organic ways much as the title suggests. Listen to the single on Soundcloud and follow the band from northeastern Pennsylvania at the links below.

open.spotify.com/artist/0BykdcTFMgGvvyySXL7yGI
twitter.com/TheStrgzrLilies
facebook.com/thestargazerlilies
instagram.com/thestargazerlilies

Tablefox Subverts the Bravado of 80s Action Movie Rock to Deliver a Tenderly Confessional Pop Song

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Tablefox, photo courtesy the artists

One its new single “Always Always,” New Zealand’s Tablefox strikes triumphant tones with an epic upsweep of chords and rhythm. But this upbeat tone comes with a deeply confessional story of a person who admits to shortcomings in their relationships with a specific person. But wanting to make up for those failings by being present now and not running from admitting to an emotional connection that was always there. It’s an interesting piece of music considering the core message seems to be the singer admitting to pursuing nonsense that in their own minds seemed more exciting and important but that it was simply “My foolish paradise.” Musically it sounds like one of those badass pop anthems that might have appeared in a Sylvester Stallone movie crossed with one The Call’s spiritual power pop ballads. Except it subverts the macho bravado of the former and embraces the earnestness of the latter in delivering a song that is sweeping and heartfelt. Listen to “Always Always” on Soundcloud and follow Tablefox at the link below.

soundcloud.com/tablefox

Honey Creeper’s “Killer Gourmet Burgers” is the Sound of a Wise-Ass Coming to Terms With the Mortality of a Loved One

Honey Creeper’s catalog up to now is a surreally nightmarish songs throwing up the more unsavory side of the American psyche for display in an absurd and humorous, if sometimes edgy, fashion. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say some of the artwork and song titles and songs themselves are within the realm of “NSF.” But think more in the spirit of early Ween than something like Brainbombs. This song, “Killer Gourmet Burgers,” submitted to us from an EP that seems to have emerged in 2017, is actually a short song as a testimony to a parent, a grandparent, a mentor missed deeply. It’s a tender ode to someone you took for granted in your life who is suddenly gone and you don’t quite know how to deal with it so you write a weary song with a warped jangle and your voice slowed down to enhance the sense of poignantly confused loss. It’s a song that sounds like someone used to poking fun at and laughing at everything with no sacred cows finally has to come to terms with the mortality of someone they care about and there’s no glossing over the hurt with humor. Follow Honey Creeper at the links below.

https://soundcloud.com/user-177357622
https://www.facebook.com/pg/honeycreeperfuxsquad

daisy’s Debut single “BLEACH” is a Song About How Starting Over Sometimes Takes Extreme Measures

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daisy, photo courtesy the artists

The throbbing distortion of daisy’s new single “BLEACH” is reminiscent of the era of music represented on the Amphetamine Reptile imprint at its peak from the 80s through the 90s. Its pounding beat and atonal noise hooks with just shy of tortured vocals create a disorienting haze well complemented by the music video. The plot of the latter seems to be of young women, disillusioned with the hypocrisy, abuse and warped cult-like nature of their evangelical upbringing turn to what seems the opposite in occult practices inspired by what they’ve seen in movies depicting Satanism. The video is even more low budget than Ti West’s chilling 2009 early 80s inspired horror film The House of the Devil. But that’s what gives it an unsettling authenticity. Once the women walk up a sinister looking set of poorly lit stairs to a secluded apartment the visuals are blown out in smoky orange that settles into a candlelit circle and they are welcomed to the other side as in video footage of faith healers and phone numbers to call to donate run on screen like memories being expunged from consciousness as the repeating, pins and needles guitar figure, like an amp picking up cel signal, takes us out of the song. Though perhaps not explicit the song with the video suggests that personal darkness can come from anywhere inside us as we’ve internalized what’s outside of us and that to rebuild the kind of authentic self we need maybe a little psychic bleach will help. Watch the video on YouTube and follow daisy, which includes members of Bleached and Warpaint, at the links provided.

open.spotify.com/artist/2LAyBWkYdMBf6VfrT8HSZn
instagram.com/daisydaisyofficial

Shore Drive’s New Single “Chaser (feat. Stella in the Clouds)” is Like Listening to a Poetic and Refreshing Dream

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Shore Drive “Chaser” cover (cropped)

The finger picking on Shore Drive’s “Chaser (featuring Stella in the Clouds” creates a hypnotic loop of texture that serves as a kind of canvas for the emotional impressions and storytelling ahead, cast in impressionistic couplets. The tight vocal harmonies are just above hushed and conjure cherished sense memories tied to poignant details of the kinds of experiences that define an especially significant era of one’s life. The vivid snapshots paired with their emotional context in the song is an effective technique that makes the song stick with you long after it’s done as though you’ve been given some of your own memories back after years of neglecting them in some dusty corner of your brain maybe discarded as a painful time but Shore Drive has shone a light on what was beautiful about those chapters of your life’s story. As the song is on its way to ending, the music seems to swim through the cycling glimmer of synth drone and ethereal vocals like a pleasant dream fading out while you wake up refreshed. Listen for yourself on Soundcloud and follow Shore Drive at the links provided.

shoredrivemusic.com
soundcloud.com/shoredr
youtube.com/user/shoredrmusic
shoredrive.bandcamp.com
twitter.com/Shore_Drive
facebook.com/shoredr
instagram.com/terliz9