“Come Set Me Free” finds Miles Monroe getting things going with what might be described as a psych grunge dub of echoing vocals and riffs. As though he’d listened to a whole lot of Adrian Sherwood laying down the bizarro remix on a Siltbreeze noise punk cut-up tape. Something which the producer never did. But that’s the kind of strange Monroe brings to the first half of the song. Then it becomes some kind of lo-fi Alice Donut inspired stream-of-consciousness warped raga akin to early Butthole Surfers or Flaming Lips. If Eat Skull, Psychedelic Horseshit and Pink Reason decided to record with more conventional clarity they might be making something like this now. Take a big draught of the song below and follow Miles Monroe’s adventures to sonic outer space at the links provided.
Tsägä’s “Tuuleen” builds with some unconventional percussion reminiscent of Can into a chill soundscape with expressive vocals floating into ethereal heights. The lyrics are in Finnish so if you don’t understand Finnish don’t worry. It is, after all just a relatively short song and not The Kalevala if you’re trying to figure out the actual lyrics. At any rate, plenty of us listened to Sigur Ros and had no clue what those songs were about especially when the claim was it was in “Hopelandish,” a made-up language. But the music was moving and Jónsi such a gifted vocalist he conveyed an emotional truth that could resonate with anyone. As with that band the tone of the singing here communicates the mood powerfully as well with a melancholic urgency. Musically it sounds like something that could have come out of Bristol in the 90s combined with the more organic Krautrock of the 1970s—manipulation of textural tones and all. If a post-punk band skipped three or four decades of obvious influence and took in not only what influenced the likes of Bauhaus and Joy Division but also 90s and 2000s downtempo, deep house and minimal synth it would sound as wonderfully unusual and haunting as “Tuuleen.” Listen below and follow the band from Vallila, Finland on their Facebook page.
Sara Gougeon’s “Invisible Closet” calls for coworkers, friends and family to respect the space of those who are not ready to come out yet. The spare guitar and gently strummed guitar melody and Gougeon’s intimate vocal delivery could apply to any situation calling for grace, sensitivity and respect for the boundaries of other people. The hush cymbals and minimal percussion and strings bring out the delicacy of the composition beautifully. While not obviously influenced by “Silent All These Years” by Tori Amos and “If It Be Your Will” by Leonard Cohen it shares with those songs a tender and compassionate sensibility that is rare in popular music where often ego, swagger and brashness are the most valued qualities. Sometimes a gentle touch is much more powerful and benevolent sensitivity a more effective frame of mind in songwriting. Listen below and follow Sara Gougeon at the links provided.
Like beams of sunshine streaming deep into the algae rich waters of a hidden lake, the melodic drone of “Lightworker” by Aura Gaze brings a sense of calm and wonder. The enigmatic wind chimes and breezy white noise swirl around a shimmering synth figure, following it beyond the immediate reach of that solar illumination, which in the field of sound becomes a vague notion in the blue green mist. Alternately it suggests great vistas of arboreal splendor protected from the ravages of human industry by mountain peaks forbidding to summit and to descend into the immense valley where earth’s oldest living plants have taken root since time immemorial. It’s reminiscent of Popol Vuh’s work for Werner Herzog’s Aguirre the Wrath of God. But whereas there is an immense sense of melancholy to that work, there is a one of warmth and benign spirits to this song. Listen below, listen more to the full-length Eternal Hymns and follow Aura Gaze at the links provided.
“Me and Bonnie,” the latest single from the Rio Grande EP by Freedom Fry could be said to simply be an affectionate ode to the duo’s dog. Granted, their dog goes on all their tours and is a constant presence in their life. In the song Freedom Fry takes Bonnie for a walk as usual but this walk, as mundane and ritualistic as it can be, turns into something extraordinary and colorful as both band and Bonnie take in the world’s hidden features by paying closer attention to their surroundings while simultaneously allowing their imaginations to roam and getting into the hypnotic, and inherently gently trippy, aspect of the daily repetition and its endless variety if you’re not tuned out of your everyday world. And when you’re on tour a nowhere town or rest stop can be an adventure if you’re in the right frame of mind. Freedom Fry has a gift for taking simple elements and combining them in a manner that gives repetitive musical figures an expansive and entrancing quality. Check out the video below and follow Freedom Fry at any of the links provided.
If you live in a city of any real size there’s probably an district or oil refinery or a similarly bleak urban/suburban feature that seems at odds with a good human life and yet which offers a kind of tranquil if brutal beauty contrasted with the lights of the city center. “Distance” by Wandour articulates that space, psychologically and physically, well and how they’re often not so far apart and visible to each other. The orange haze of sodium bulbs painting the night sky a pale tangerine unless you’re sufficiently far enough over the horizon to escape its nimbus. The bell tone, on the border of being off-putting, is the sound of the train gates alerting drivers to stop or be aware of a rail-traveling behemoth on the way whether transit or hundreds of coal cars in winter to potentially interrupt your journey through town. It is the sound of the late night when the lights of the city signify mostly signage of corporate giants broadcasting their dominance over the landscape rather than actual human activity. And yet there’s a certain dystopian beauty to it that only people who have lived in towns with ample urban decay can fully appreciate because that distance between the business centers and the spaces where industrial activity occurs is where creative people have long been able to conduct their activities in the passive benevolence of parts of town considered undesirable. Parts of town, frankly, quickly disappearing in most cities considered cool and made that way by the city’s artists and visionary entrepreneurs. Is the song mourning the erosion of that reality? Perhaps but in doing so Wandour has captured the essence of that experience before gentrification and reckless development have washed it all away. The song is from the Night Wandering EP and a more perfect title for this kind of music would be difficult to conjure. Listen below and follow Wandour at the links provided.
When the rain stick and gentle strum come in with Finja Olsen’s all but wordless vocals at the beginning of “Calling You Home” by Olsen’s project FINJA it might make some listeners think of all that New Age/pagan music from the 80s and early 90s that was trying too hard to mix folk with alternative spiritual ideas. Like wannabe Patrick O’Hearn or Clannad. There is some of that here but upon further listening to the song it’s obvious that Olsen and her collaborators are willing to get a little weird as the track progresses with inventive use and processing of sounds like a toy piano and cajon to make for an array of sounds rich in texture and coming together in a complex but never over-complicated dynamics. And there’s no knocking the message about listening to your inner voice, the one connected to a benevolent collective unconscious, when it comes knocking on your conscious, sometimes overly locked into a stream of linear logic, and trust the messages from within, instinct as a tool to trust and have some faith in your own capacities freed of terror the Western cultural conditioning often has of the “irrational” and the dark side of the psyche. As Olsen sings, “fear and insecurity do not look good on thee,” a message inherent in some Eastern spiritual traditions as well as Western mysticism and a theme of Ursula K. Le Guin’s original Earthsea Trilogy in the reconciliation between the dark and the light side, the rational and the irrational. In so many ways it would be easy to dismiss this as some hokey hippie stuff but FINJA aims at a more cosmic perspective with the lyrics and personalizes them and grounds it in music that reflects the paradoxically myriad simplicity of our existence and our interconnectedness with the universe.
Maria Skaaren’s vocals brings a brightness and warmth to “She…Breathes” by Pulseblink. The latter is producer Tim Brookes’ project in which he composes the track and recruits collaborators from around the world including the aforementioned Norwegian singer. The song sounds like a particularly smoothly assembled and laid out set of evocative samples. The short bursts of white noise as percussion, brooding piano, arcs of synth, minimalist bell tones, bubbling electronic sounds and washes of sound give the song a textural and melodic aspect that combines the qualities of both while giving an informal depth of sonic field. It speaks to meticulous and thoughtful editing. There are through layers and sections that repeat but the overall effect is one that envelops you in a shared moment of emotional intimacy and a mutual compassion for human frailty. Listen below and explore Pulseblink’s catalog further at the links provided including his new Reveal EP.
Unwed Sailor’s new album Heavy Age came out in May 2019, its first since 2008. The veteran post-rock band lead by former Pedro the Lion bassist Johnathan Ford excels at a balanced dynamism between all the instrumentation. Too often post-rock bands are dominated by guitar but the main melody at least on the band’s new single “Gone Jungle” is carried and even driven by buoyant bass chords. Keyboard texture-tones shimmer sharply throughout and the percussion switches smoothly between a tribal beat and a more prog rock style compound time signature. That kind of structure to the song, with its interlocking streams of sound, allows for a wide range of expression and an adaptive rhythm. The song evolved effortlessly from great forward momentum to introspective passages where minimal guitar figures stand out by not being flashy. That the emphasis is on the rhythm is what separates this song from a lot of post-rock where the atmosphere and melody is dominant. That Unwed Sailor is a trio makes this an even more impressive feature of the songwriting. “Gone Jungle” was recorded after the Heavy Age sessions and points to an interesting direction for the band going forward. Listen below and follow Unwed Sailor at the links provided.
Grey Mcmurray is a co-leader of Tongues in Trees with Samita Sinha and Sunny Jain. He’s worked as a musician with the likes of Gil-Scott Heron, Tyondai Braxton, Beth Orton, Colin Stetson and John Cale. To name a few. His new solo album Stay Up as represented by the single “Wanting Ways” begins as a kind of alien pop song with his almost spoken tenor spinning a reflective tale of mental and chronic illness and the struggle to keep from going completely over the edge. Throughout Mcmurray exerts an inspired control over where the guitar, nearly unrecognizable as such, to accent and keep pace as synths wash and elevate the mood. The song balances perfectly an enigmatic quality, playfulness and an emotional openness. If the song is the sound of falling apart it is also that of pulling oneself back together through the aforementioned creative capacities and turning turmoil into art. Listen on Soundcloud and follow Mcmurray’s eclectic and distinguished career at the links below.
Queen City Sounds and Art 
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