Sometimes you find yourself in a relationship that after the initial rush of attraction you wonder how you ever got involved with that person but you still try rather than give up because maybe you’re going through something in your own head. But then the core disconnect becomes more obvious and you find yourself finding excuses to spend less time with that person and that dynamic just causes unnecessary drama and things end in a less than ideal fashion. “@m hours” by baby back then is a song about that sort of experience and the conflicting emotions that seem to make a bad end inevitable but without bad intentions going in. The spare melody with guitar, minimalist percussion and breathy vocals express both sides of that experience eloquently and how most people enter into a doomed relationship without malice in the beginning or really in the end either. Listen to “@m hours” on Soundcloud and follow baby back then at the links below.
“Poppyseed” by Perfect Blue from Chicago sounds a little lo-fi for a song that balances out a broad spectrum of sound but that quality is what makes it reminiscent of C86-era bands and Shop Assistants in particular. Both bands share an affinity for raw compositions and upbeat melodies. Perfect Blue uses saxophone the way other bands might use bass as both a rhythm instrument and a carrier of melody at once. And at times it gives the song an unusual sound like if Felt (circa Crumbling the Antiseptic Beauty) and General Public did a song together. At the first the song may strike you a little odd but it rewards repeated listens in appreciating the layers and aesthetic that isn’t in some style being replicated endlessly even as darkwave and yesteryear post-punk has been mined well beyond the American and English strains of that music. Look for the group’s forthcoming self-titled EP but for now listen to “Poppyseed” on Soundcloud and follow Perfect Blue at the links below.
Ella Naseeb of Blushing Boy, photo courtesy the artist
Blushing Boy examines the way we’re indoctrinated to fill a certain role in society these days on its song “Consumer.” Frontwoman Ella Naseeb sings about the various ways we’re channeled into what we think are meaningful choices in life that shape our identity when really those identities are ways by which we can be marketed and fulfill our role as consumers pre-conditioned to consuming in specific ways streamlined to fit ourselves into a demographic that justifies research data to keep the international modern capitalist grind running smoothly. But everyone knows deep down that such a state of things is antithetical and even anti-human and unnatural. In declaring “I’m not a consumer!” amidst chilling keyboard atmospheres, expansive and caustic guitar feedback and brooding but urgent rhythms. The song sounds like a fire set to the notion of going along to get along with the machinery of oppression both internalized and otherwise. Watch the video for consumer below after the Soundcloud link to listen to the song and follow Blushing Boy at the links provided.
“Dipped in Gold” is a love song that begins in the round the way someone deeply in the throes of the emotion revisits the sense memories and visions reinforcing the feelings scroll through one’s thoughts. The image of “your name dipped in gold, the crown in your toes, lips and your nose, the gap in your smile” and being “too scared to sing songs because they’re all about you” and other turns of phrase uttered in awe of the beloved are actually touching. LO-FI LE-VI (born Levi Dronkert) has it bad and the fixation on his loved one comes off not obsessive or creepy so much as tender and earnest. The minimal guitar, bells and the unprocessed vocals are unvarnished yet convey a lushness that often requires more production to accomplish and what production there is lets those organic elements shine. Listen to “Dipped in Gold” on Soundcloud and follow Lo-FI LE-VI at the links below.
Joseph Dubay really nails the best side of that time in American culture and music where a certain stripe of teens were listening to dramatic music and not distinguishing between emo and Goth because no one told them those are distinctly, culturally different (which, let’s be real, they’re not when you get to the essence of them). A time when bands like My Chemical Romance and AFI helped define an aesthetic of Goth-and-punk crossover with make-up and stark imagery and Bayside, named in the song, worked with Gil Norton on its 2011 album Killing Time to not just bring his expert ear but the mystique of having worked on key 4AD records to the proceedings. Not that so many “pastel goths” did a lot of listening to Echo & The Bunnymen, Sisters of Mercy and Bauhaus. Dubay has all of that and a youth spent playing N64 with friends and crushing on girls who seemed so tough and cool and too good and interesting for you. Until you have the guts to become a character like you’re listening to in an emo song and express your feelings. And yet the song also acknowledges the poses people adopt to try to fit in while the music and culture they love is all about exposing frailty and vulnerability and expressing the insecurity, pain and feelings of inadequacy—the melodrama—of youth. Dubay honors those feelings many people go through when it all seems so poignant before the unsavory reality of some of those those musicians people held in such high esteem who seemed to articulate what you’re feeling so poignantly got exposed as abusers or UFO conspiracy theorists or simply flawed and human like everyone. But there’s something beautiful about remembering what it felt like to feel like you were really living and feeling and not adjusting to the consensus reality of drab, supposed adulthood. In title and story, Dubay gives us a poignant snapshot of an era. Listen to “Pastel Goth” on Soundcloud and follow Joseph Dubay at the link below.
“Sand Monster” is the first in a series of video releases from Portland, Oregon’s Sea Fuzz. The action is a psychedelic dream sequence in which the lead character is abducted by a creature that looks a bit like a kelp-fringed Creature From the Black Lagoon who takes him to a secret cave where it uses magic to induce a trance while under the care of three beach witches who humorously torment him in various ways before he ties to effect his escape. It’s a plot in miniature right out of a Troma movie with a similar execution. Except our plucky hero defeats the monster and the witches with the power of fiery psychedelic surf music. He has, in effect, turned the spell and other magics back on the monster and his minions who turn on the creature. In the end the guitar hero wakes from the experience not knowing if it was real and instead of walking off into the sunset he walks toward the camera where it focuses close to his eye where we find out his pupils have turned into a spindle shape at an angle. What could it mean except that monsters and magic are real, at least in the context of this ongoing story. The song, too, is a step forward for what has become a bit of a tired genre as Sea Fuzz plays with the parameters and pacing and dynamics of the music with some imaginative performances and tasteful exuberance. Watch the video on YouTube and follow Sea Fuzz on their Soundcloud account.
Keenan Branch (aka Rohne) brought to his remix of Henry Green’s dream pop song “Stay Here” an ear for expanding the range of the atmospherics while making the song’s organic elements (percussion, strings/guitars and Green’s vocals) more distinct. Like firm lines drawn on a water color, light distant lightning against an inky stormy sky at dusk. The atmospheres seem to ripple out and run longer ever so slightly enhancing the ability of the song to feel like you’re lost in the feelings of longing Green conveys so poetically and with his unique emotional nuance. Listen to the Rohne remix of Henry Green’s “Stay Here” on Soundcloud.
The languid pace of Jaguar Moon’s “Ostrich” makes its use of space all the more evocative with lingering tones providing a backdrop for the texture of the instrumentation and the vocals to stand out even more. The song uses the metaphor of an ostrich with its head in the sand as standing in for our ability to steadfastly not see what we choose to ignore whether it’s institutionalized social injustice, economic inequality eroding the entire society from within or how you and someone you love don’t share the same ideals, goals and personal vision and how, really, the relationship is over before it’s had a chance to really get off the ground and before one or both parties are willing to admit it. The song is bittersweet and resigned and not aggrieved or disappointed because from the perspective from which the song was written the agony is over and an acceptance and peace with the situation has come to pass even though a certain sadness lingers. It’s tough knowing a relationship that felt good for at least a little while was never meant to last. Look out for Jaguar Moon’s debut EP due out later in 2019 or early 2020. Listen to “Ostrich” on Soundcloud and follow the Danish band Jaguar Moon at the links below.
Surface level take, H.A.R.D.’s “Thank God There Are People Like Me” is an exuberant song about being a moderately functional, but not consistently, drunk and romanticizing that lifestyle a bit. The chorus of “Thank god there are people like, people like me who relate when I drink,” in sing-a-long fashion seems to to give a pass to self-destructive behavior with an expression of how cool it is and the consequences for others is fine as long as you get away with it. But the song goes into the downside of living your life drinking like there’s no tomorrow because you’ve set your life up to stay wasted as often as possible. A lot of garage rock in recent years and the their ilk that seemed to say it can go on forever if you have the guts. The moment of truth, though, for this song is in a few lines toward the end of the song: “I say I’m a musician but I mainly sell drugs/I spend my nights drinking thinking I should give up/And I just keep talk, talk, talking and I never shut up.” Some of us have known people on that death spiral that romanticize being an unaccountable fuck-up because of some dubious cool factor to never being what you dream of or accomplishing the things that would do something toward legitimizing your cool status. Those people in “bands” who play for beer every week or less but can say they’re a musician and think that makes them an outlaw when their music isn’t legit enough for outlaw status. This song is about that and while it doesn’t condemn it does throw some humorous sarcasm because we either know those people or we’ve been those people but that maybe celebrating loserdom isn’t all its cracked up to be. Bill Hicks once said something about how your friends will christen your dumpster. This song has a similar message. After all, no one wants to be Dwight Yoakam’s character from Sling Blade even minus the domestic violence. Listen to “Thank God There Are People Like Me” on Soundcloud and follow H.A.R.D. at the links provided.
The video for “What’s Wrong? Pt II” by Fake Dad looks like we’re in store for a horror movie scenario going through a boat ride through a realm of fake dinosaurs. Singer Andrea de Varona looks impressively unimpressed while Josh Ford seems to take some amusement from the fake dinosaurs, unaffected by the lit “EXIT” signs and de Varona’s blasé reaction to the odd sights. Visually the video matches the spirit of the song that seems to be about pondering a state of ennui or even existential stasis despite the wonders all around you in which to be engaged and take pleasure instead “chasing after something I don’t believe.” The song articulates well the way we become alienated from ourselves when we convince ourselves we want something because we think we should want those things or to be with those people or in situations we intellectualize a little too deeply we should want even if they don’t suit us. So instead of chasing our actual dreams, we put our energy after what we don’t and then wonder why we’re dissatisfied and jaded. The song sounds like it’s about these sorts of things and yet it has a classic pop sensibility to it and there is inherent in the lyrics and de Varona’s vocal delivery a self-awareness that in itself is hope for change. The passage through the tunnel is an obvious symbol of personal transformation but that there is no dramatic change at the end is a tacit acknowledgement that it’s going to take some work. Follow Fake Dad at the links below.
Queen City Sounds and Art 
You must be logged in to post a comment.