New Music – Page 257 – Queen City Sounds and Art

On the Fiftieth Anniversary of the First Moon Landing, Justin Robinson Takes Us to Those Tranquil and Exciting Moments Prior With “Satellite (First Orbit)”

JustinRobinson1_sm — Justin Robinson, photo courtesy the artist

On the fiftieth anniversary of the first landing on the moon we present Justin Robinson’s song “Satellite (First Orbit).” Inspired in part by Brian Eno, and possibly in particular by the latter’s 1983 classic Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks, the song evolves slowly with sounds that capture the elegance and deep mystery of outer space and the sense of being suspended in the great beyond as your craft reaches a comfortable orbit. The subtle layers of drones and lightly struck strings and bell tones mark cosmic time as high frequency resonances sound like starshine and plasma trails, the white-blue haze of earth nearby, a constant presence that dominates your field of view. Robinson takes us to that moment that has changed the consciousness of everyone who has experienced it forever, the feeling of existing beyond mother earth, the only world that, as far as we know, all of humanity going back to its primordial ancestors have ever known. The enigmatic enormity of that moment looking back on the planet and to the nearby moon and floating weightlessly between. Robinson articulates that sense of calm and wonder perfectly. Listen below below and take in the meditative passages of “Satellite (First Orbit).”

Siv Disa’s Downtempo “Rooms” Evokes Late Night New Wave Jazz Lounges of the Near Future

SivDisa3_sm — Siv Disa, photo courtesy the artist

Siv Disa released her Waltzes EP in the fall of 2018 but is now re-releasing it as a visual album. The single “Rooms” is a downtempo, melancholic number that conjures images of the mythical late night jazz lounge. Except that its drones and tonal details like candlelight and twinkling crystal make it sound like a New Wave torch song. One gets the impression that you’re sitting with Siv Disa in an antiquated simulation of that jazz lounge like the Elvis simulation from Bladerunner 2049 that K experiences in post-industrial-collapse-abandoned Vegas—so compelling and yet surreal, haunting yet comforting. That is until the end of the song when the pounding drums and accelerated pace hit and you wake from the reverie in panic at the possibility of missing the last shuttle home from the platform with access to the all but abandoned nostalgia theme park that fell out of vogue in a future when most of humanity has entered into a period of galactic diaspora looking outward with little time for recycling or revisiting past popular culture. “Rooms” has the romance of a classic piano ballad and synthesizes a sense of the past with an ineffably futuristic sensibility and a nod to the fact that good songwriting has a timelessness that transcends trends. It is a perfect blending of sounds and aesthetics that provoke reflection as well as relaxation. Listen to “Rooms” and the rest of Waltzes on Spotify and follow Siv Disa at the links below.

sivdisa.com
open.spotify.com/artist/1DMhuX8DGsngDnjpNECYSm
instagram.com/sivdisa

The Lizards Take a Kaleidoscopic Trip Across Space and Time on “Astroboy”

TheLizards1_crop — The Lizards, photo courtesy the artists

“Astroboy” finds Birmingham, UK band The Lizards taking us on a trip down a worm hole of winding passages of color and hypnotic imagery. The bright synths glitter and seethe in and out of hearing as our guides carry us across a kaleidoscopic starscape of pleasantly disorienting melody in which its easy to get lost and hope back on for the ride to who knows where. To simply call this psychedelic rock does an injustice to how it has musical roots in stuff like Ozric Tentacles and its own beautifully bizarre mixture of folk, psychedelia, electronic music and prog. But The Lizards reign things in a bit on the sprawl out into musical outer space and ultimately don’t sound like much of anyone else while bringing together sonic elements that resonate with the mind-altering aesthetic of early Black Moth Super Rainbow and a more space rock “Madchester” band. However one might pick apart the song it will take you places if you let it and there isn’t nearly enough music that does so. Listen below and follow The Lizards at the links provided.

twitter.com/TheLizzzards
facebook.com/thelizzzards
instagram.com/thelizzzards

Theo Bard’s “Forget” is a Disaffected Song About a Love Lost

TheoBard_Forget_cover_crop — Theo Bard, “Forget” cover (cropped)

Theo Bard used ice and snow to make the textural sounds heard on “Forget” instead of the usual percussion. At first it sounds like white noise but it has a little too much physicality and it’s a nice, subtle contrast with the staccato melody struck by the synth and the wash of droning sounds in the background. Bard sounds like he’s getting lost in the soundscape to soothe the pain of the realization that a relationship he wasn’t over has no chance of rekindling because the other party has obviously moved on to other people. The vocals express a wish to forget but the repetition as almost a mantra doesn’t necessarily manifest in the psyche. There isn’t anguish in the vocals, but a kind of disaffected, almost numb quality that people take on when they don’t want to believe something is true even though it’s before them and that the time to accept the truth was extended enough and the compartmentalizing of the pain to take in doses one can handle may be another process yet. Listen to “Forget” on Soundcloud and follow Theo Bard at the links provided.

soundcloud.com/theobard
open.spotify.com/artist/5agEEmWLm4t3O6Ra6pkMm6
twitter.com/theobard
facebook.com/theobardmusic
instagram.com/theobard

“Coast to Coast” by Coral Moon is a Loving Homage to Friendship and a Mutual Love of Esoteric Knowledge

CoralMoon2_cropped — Coral Moon, photo courtesy the artists

“Coast to Coast” is an loving homage to cross country late night driving and listening to the arcane lore broadcast on AM radio and hosted now by George Noory and George Knapp from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. Eastern but famously headed by its creator Art Bell. It’s a fitting song for a band of friends collaborated remotely from Austin, Texas, Louisville, Kentucky and Water Valley, Mississippi, calling themselves Coral Moon. Because Coast to Coast is syndicated its unusual stories of the paranormal and the unexplained serve as a kind of bond between fans of the program. Musically, the soft and playful pop song is reminiscent of a Jamboree-period Beat Happening song or something by Magnetic Fields circa Get Lost. Jangle-y guitar, violin cutting a figure over the proceedings and bleeps and bloops to represent switching stations to catch the aforementioned broadcast has the sound of like-minded friends getting together to talk about wild imaginative ideas late into the night. Coral Moon recently released its self-titled album and you can listen to “Coast to Coast” on YouTube as well as exploring the band’s catalog further at the links below.

earthlibraries.com/coral-moon
soundcloud.com/earthlibraries/coral-moon-dave/s-bjuw6

Ava Heatley’s “Shitty Tattoo” is a Cathartic Piano Ballad About the Ill-Advised Decisions We Later Regret But Can’t Fix

AvaHeatley1_sm — Ava Heatley, photo courtesy the artist

Anyone that’s ever felt like they get stuck emotionally and embarrassed by their own emotional stubbornness, perhaps born of some bit of arrested personal development, and acted out will relate deeply to Ava Heatley’s “Shitty Tattoo.” The song starts out simply enough with piano and voice outlining several times in life where everything feels raw and too real and you want to travel back to a time to fix the mistakes you made when you didn’t have adult responsibilities and maybe throwing a tantrum over much of anything wouldn’t be so consequential. The quiet part of contemplation escalates from the introspective yet dramatic self-loathing to an examination of repeating patterns of not wanting to deal with frustrating situations and poor life decisions. Even decisions as minor but so symbolic as an awful tattoo that one got thinking in the moment it would be something you wanted to commit to for the rest of your life because everything seems so significant to you in your tumultuous teen years and twenties when, really, as you get older you realize they didn’t matter that much—the relationships, the impulsive behavior in a moment of peak feeling, the angst over relatively minor matters. Guitar and drums come in to give voice to that cacophony in your head as every thing you think you fucked up and ruined come crashing in. If you live past thirty-five it’s safe to say you’ve been there and if not you probably are either in denial or have lead a boring life both outwardly and inwardly. Listen to “Shitty Tattoo” on Soundcloud and follow Heatley at the link below. Her new EP Beautiful/Terrifying is due for release on November 2 and she recently debuted “Shitty Tattoo” at The Bitter End in New York City on July 6.

soundcloud.com/user-949113108

Omer Gronich Dives Deep Into the Cycles of Life and Love on His Experimental Pop Gem “Azure”

OmerGronich2_crop — Omer Gronich, image courtesy the artist

“Azure,” Omer Gronich’s latest single, fades in with a warble of atmospherics before his vocals come in, slightly processed to have an otherworldly feel like you might hear on an early Peter Gabriel solo song. The repeating, simple guitar figure evolves subtly, floating through the song as a companion to the background vocals. But then in the last roughly third of the song synth beeps poke through what was the dreamy fog of the earlier part of the song and like waking up from a weird, troubling dream in which one relives the cycle of a love beginning and ending as a symbol for larger patterns in our lives whether birth to death and all the experience in between or in specific realms like the natural cycles of a career or creative path and how they interconnect and inform each other. By diving deep into these themes, Gronich untangles them a bit and makes them more discernible by connecting them to sounds in a song that doesn’t have to be fully understood on a conscious, logical level. Listen to “Azure” on Spotify and follow Gronich on his website linked below. Also, look out for his forthcoming album The Art of Sinking.

omergronichmusic.com

Julia And The Basement Tapes Will Put You In a Contemplative Mood With The Bluesy and Arresting “Something More”

JuliaAndTheBasementTapes1_sm — Julia And The Basement Tapes, photo courtesy the artists

Julia And The Basement Tapes employ some evocatively melancholic chords throughout its “Something More” single. It is reminiscent at times of Zeppelin’s “Thank You” and, curiously, Duran Duran’s “Ordinary World.” The shimmer around the gentle guitar work and the warm vocals, the piano accents and the tasteful pedal steel flourishes gives the track an expansive lushness and grace it’s easy to forget it’s firmly rooted in blues music. When the guitar takes a lead toward the end of the song it feels more like the climax of the piece and not merely an excuse to show off chops. And that’s it, all elements of this song showcase a band that writes to further the song and its impact rather than a display of individual ego. It’s an affecting song that puts you in a contemplative mood. Listen to “Something More” on Spotify and follow Julia And The Basement Tapes at the links below. Apparently “Something More” is the lead single on the group’s forthcoming album due out later in the year.

soundcloud.com/jatbt
open.spotify.com/artist/7fjf6EaZ9Dnmxh9FTAIDcE

Discrete’s Video for “In My Room” is an Urban Subterranean Science Fiction Horror Story

Discrete1_crop — Discrete, photo courtesy the artist

Working with Colin Greenwood, Toronto’s Kyle Yip has created a song and video called “In My Room” that sonically and visually feels like clandestine and arcane work in hidden places. The single bell tone marking time, the collage of metronomic percussion and tones, the nearly whispered vocals—all contributing to an evolving narrative wherein our usual rational methods of measure and assessing our reality come up wanting as we encounter higher or unhitherto known aspects of the universe around us. The video is like a David Cronenberg and Chris Cunningham science fiction/horror mash-up, the music like Aphex Twin gone minimal and mutated directly by aesthetics of free jazz. Watch the video on YouTube and follow Discrete at the links below including that of his music imprint Savvy Records.

savvyrecords.biz
soundcloud.com/discrete
twitter.com/_Discrete
facebook.com/DJDiscrete
instagram.com/kylepyip

Megan Dixon-Hood Evokes the Stark Beauty of Being Alone in a Snow Cloaked Home on a Mountain After a Blizzard on “Sea of Ice”

MeganDixon-Hood1_sm — Megan Dixon-Hood, photo courtesy the artist

Megan Dixon-Hood’s acoustic piano version of “Sea of Ice” sounds like it was written in a house on a mountainside looking down into white valleys after a quiet but powerful snowstorm. She sings of a sense of desolation but one that affords a climate where turning inward in meditative contemplation waiting by the fire is the only way to weather the chill alone. Dixon-Hood’s breathy, melodious voice and the spare piano work brings an elevated tone to what might otherwise be a purely melancholic and introspective piece. It’s not a contrasting quality so much as complimentary. It’s rare in the modern world that we are afforded such experiences without intentionally seeking them out. This song captures what might be magical about a situation that many would dread and find boring. Dixon-Hood draws out the harsh and stark beauty of having no options but patience and no companion but your own memories and imagination. Listen to “Sea of Ice” on Spotify and explore more of Megan Dixon-Hood’s new collection of singles comprising acoustic versions of her older material at the links below.

megandixonhood.com
soundcloud.com/megan-dixon-hood
open.spotify.com/artist/2Qy6aryNaJ4LJD0RiLMcpt
youtube.com/channel/UCoXnNcqFyASQ0YzxDG-4Wuw
twitter.com/MegDHmusic
facebook.com/megandixonhood
instagram.com/megdixonhood