New Music – Page 268 – Queen City Sounds and Art

“Weightless Dreams” by Domus is the Sound of an Inspiring and Forward Thinking Future

Domus_0019 — Domus, photo by Max Kjellberg

“Weightless Dreams” by Domus is like music for a video game about exploring the ruins of the home world of a benevolent galaxies-spanning civilization that left behind technologies that welcome and reward curiosity and productive engagement with the world. A sense of wonder imbues its almost 8-bit, Metroid-esque minus a sense of foreboding, soundscape. You can almost see the moving sculptures in Rube Goldberg device fashion on a faraway planet as you float from place to place powered by gentle force fields. If Buckminster Fuller had tried his hand at science fiction this would be the soundtrack, one that dares to imagine an inspiring and forward thinking future—an anti-dystopia. Listen below and look forward to the album from the Stockholm-based duo out soon.

open.spotify.com/artist/7LPfsCldn6uvdPsljQkTw5
facebook.com/domussthlm

The Lates Laces Single “moved” Sweeps You Up in its Moody Wave of Emotion

Laces1_sm — LACES, photo courtesy the artist

When she was a teenager Jessica Vaughn caught the attention of a mainstream public as Charlotte Sometimes before retiring the name in favor of a new project moniker LACES in 2014. Her latest single “moved” is a dusky pop song about the complex nature of love driven by Vaughn’s smoldering, passionate vocals reminiscent at times of Martha Davis of The Motels. Vaughn is adept at giving voice to self doubt and doubts about the motivation of the loved one and how undeniable feelings of deep affection and love and connection can sweep aside the way we intellectualize and dissect our relationships often to their detriment. There is an enthralling depth of emotion that runs through the song that carries the listener away as well. The slow wave of feeling and the refreshingly real and poetic lyrics re-establish LACES as a pop project that spares us platitudes and delivers more than a few moments of beautifully expressed honesty. Listen below and follow LACES at the links following.

soundcloud.com/iamlaces
open.spotify.com/artist/6yMmGdc524t6LunXvGeffb
youtube.com/headbtchmusic
twitter.com/headbtchmusic
facebook.com/headbtchmusic
instagram.com/headbtchmusic

TROVA’s Tranquil “Silver” is the Perfect Track to Kick Off a Peaceful Summer

Trova1_crop — TROVA, photo courtesy the artist

TROVA “Silver” is the first release of his “Elements” concept recordings. And its minimalist, arpeggiated synth melodies repeating through and swimming in layers of drones flowing drones conveys a sense of underwater movement. One imagines whales and dolphins dancing to this in their elegant movements in the deep South Pacific where humans rarely venture to interrupt their way of life. The feeling of tranquility the song conveys is nearly irresistible as its dynamic arcs are long but never tedious. It’s an ambient track but one that is more on the end of beatless deep house and library music. Whatever TROVA’s true inspirations or process behind producing the song it expresses the feeling of endless early summer days in a now impossibly temperate climate with time to let the demands of everyday life untangle. Listen below and follow TROVA at the links provided.

music.apple.com/us/artist/trova/59287114
soundcloud.com/user-487741800
open.spotify.com/artist/5pOnm9kSmgcipVGbvyVknv
twitter.com/TROVAOfficial
facebook.com/TROVA.Ambient
instagram.com/trova.official

Lucius and The Silver Lake Chorus Evoke a Freshness of Spirit With the Dreamlike and Melancholy “Not Not”

The Silver Lake Chorus is no stranger to taking songs written for it by indie musicians (for example, Sia, Tegan and Sara and Bon Iver), and “Not Not” is a collaboration with the band Lucius in partnership with Van Dyke Parks (who is and should be known widely beyond his work with The Beach Boys) and producer Luke Top (of Fool’s Gold fame). The song with the impressive vocal harmonies and minimal instrumentation have the lightness and freshness suggested in the music video. And contained with it a clandestine melancholy represented by the dreamlike and surreal aspect of the visuals which seems somewhere between late-80s David Lynch, Heathers and a Los Angeles edition of Portlandia. Transcending such comparisons, The Silver Lake Chorus’ exquisite vocals shine on their own which the low key musical accompaniment highlights and accents with a masterful touch. Follow the group at the links below.

www.facebook.com/TheSilverLakeChorus

twitter.com/TSLChorus

www.instagram.com/tslchorus

www.thesilverlakechorus.com

Ashley Zarah’s “AWAKE” is a Cross-Cultural Pop Glimpse of a Better Tomorrow

AshleyZarah1_crop — Ashley Zarah, photo courtesy the artist

With “AWAKE,” Ashley Zarah has perfectly synthesized Western pop songcraft with traditional Iranian music and other cultural musical styles. Her vocal cadence is partly based on Iranian cha-cha which gives it a fluidity and flexibility in compound time that also gives it that entrancingly hypnotic quality. The broad arrange of instrumentation in the percussion and stringed instruments goes beyond giving the song an exotic edge as they are fully integrated into the songwriting and in the modern era when pop artists are pulling from so many sources through samples and working cross genre and cross method one would assume that there would be more cross-pollination of influence the way African rhythms and sounds were adopted even more directly by American and European artists in the 70s and the 80s. Sure, Eddie Vedder and Massive Attack worked with Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, the first international star of qawwali, on some brilliant pieces and “world music” may have been very much a thing for nearly four decades, but in Zarah’s songwriting you hear a sound of the future where all cultures can coexist and peacefully influence each other in a manner fruitful and edifying. As an advocate for mental health awareness, suicide prevention and gender and cultural representation, Ashley Zarah imbues her music with those perspectives as well. Watch the video and follow Zarah at the links below.

itunes.apple.com/us/artist/ashley-zarah/1187718176
soundcloud.com/ashleyzarahmusic
open.spotify.com/artist/7zx2lEBvJVxPcD4INOgloz
youtu.be/zHF5nb_Cc8U
twitter.com/ashzarah
instagram.com/ashzarah

JAF 34’s Video For “Now” is a Powerful Commentary on Our Over-Mediated Age

JAF341_crop — JAF 34, image courtesy the artist (cropped)

Episodic, segmented, mediated, captured, documented, stored away, surface level memory, endless variety, life connected.referenced to popular culture artifacts, organic and meaningful choices channeled into a product delivered to us by phone. That’s the world, the modern world in which we too often find ourselves. Musically the track is brilliantly peppered with sonic fragments to reflect this flow of information that bombards us all day but in the background of the background is the reminder that we have a voice and an existence that transcends the ways in which we’ve been taught and taught ourselves to interact with the world and other humans. When the static and samples fade out into minimal strings and hushed vocals talking about stopping and observing the world as it is instead of through a screen, JAF 34 seems to have reached an authentic human place in the song and how crucial it is to be there and be present whenever we can. Watch below and follow JAF 34’s further musical and multi-media adventures at the link provided.

jaf34.com

“scifiFANTASY” by joswayah is a Psych-Noir Downtempo Chillout Track

joswayah1_crop — joswayah, photo courtesy the artist

Joshua Trimmell has done a bit of musical time traveling on his new single “scifiFANTASY” under the moniker joswayah. The repeating ethereal guitar figure sets the pace and backdrop of haunted horns (sax, maybe a bassoon) processed to give them futuristic feel if you were standing in 1974 London hanging out with members of Roxy Music and Hawkwind and, of course, Michael Moorcock, discussing doing some kind of mellow “folk” record based on a more low key episode in one of the author’s “Eternal Champion” yarns. Of course they would have put reverse delays on parts of the recording so it’s even more tripped out than merely delays and other processing on organic instruments. In getting it done they would let the avant-psych jam go and then cut the tape before things got too out of hand. Safe to say Trimmell doesn’t have a time machine he’s telling us about but his weaving together so many sounds that seem specific to certain contexts across space and time makes the title of the song entirely appropriate. Take that trip below and follow joswayah at the link provided.

just666.bandcamp.com

Sky Civilian’s Single “Let’s Be Easy” is a Glimpse Into a Kinder, Gentler, More Colorful Future

SkyCivilian1_cropped — Sky Civilian, image courtesy the artist

Sky Civilian’s “Let’s Be Easy” trickles in tones into an evolving flow of sound until Maggie Thornton’s vocals drift in with the layers of minimal percussion and horn. Its downtempo but progressive tempo is the kind of music you’d want to hear someday if and when someone builds one of those space elevators theorized by scientists since the late Nineteenth Century and by science fiction writers like Arthur C. Clarke, Kim Stanley Robinson and Joan Slonczewski. It would be the kind of chillout song to make going above and beyond the world as we know it on that journey between planets and space stations easier to take on and to enjoy. And it’s just one of a few tracks from Sky Civilian’s new EP Open Door. The whole EP is the sound of looking forward and stepping into the future not with aggression but with an open attitude and a calmness of spirit. This isn’t the dystopian cyberpunk future but one more likely and one we’d all rather experience of more nurturing societies and mutually fulfilling lives. Thornton is one of the minds behind artist collective Meow Wolf’s truly mind-bending, multi-dimensional funhouse of art installations House of Eternal Return and the depth of creativity and attention to detail that she and the other members of the collective brought to that undertaking can be heard echoed on Open Door as well.

soundcloud.com/sky-civilian
atomnation.bandcamp.com
facebook.com/skyciv
instagram.com/skyciv

Sal Dulu and StaHHr Spin Ambient Hip-Hop Gold With “Buzzcut”

Dulu_Buzzcut_crop — Sal Dulu “Buzzcut” cover (cropped)

In the beginning of “Buzzcut” by Sal Dulu we hear a layer of samples and a hazy dreamlike melody that give the impression of waking up mid-morning while people around you taking in various media and it somehow forms a collage of noises like an abstract impressionist tone poem. Then StaHHr comes in with a stream of words in short bursts throughout the song in her inimical style that sketches creative intentions and aspirations while making poetic commentary on everyday experiences and rendering them urban mythical with colorful interpretations of these seemingly mundane events. If one were to make an immediate comparison it would be to cLOUDDEAD circa Ten or some of Doseone’s solo pre and post cLOUDDEAD. That’s to say in the creative contextualization of words and the weaving of an evocative backdrop of sound like a multimedia experience in an audio track. Listen below and follow Sal Dulu at the links provided.

twitter.com/saldulu
soundcloud.com/user-727004974
facebook.com/saldulu

“Mi Alma” By Joel Phil is a Cinematic Ballad, an Entrancing Blend of the Exotic and the Familiar

JoelPhil1_sm — Joel Phil, photo courtesy the artist

Joel Phil strikes an air of mystery on the title track of his new album Mi Alma. Guitar accents and swirls up vocal melody like a flowering vine. One imagines Phil, Jonathan Richman style circa Something About Mary, strolling down a boardwalk singing this song and wryly observing people playing out their designs with each other. The soulful song, a blend of styles (perhaps tango, perhaps barchata, perhaps American folk) lends itself to cinematic expression. Like something you’d see in a club scene in an Almodóvar or something from Jim Jarmusch and their international sensibilities. Both exotic and familiar, “Mi Alma” is entrancing whether or not you speak Spanish. Listen to the track and the rest of Mi Alma below and follow Joel Phil at the links provided.

joelphil.com
twitter.com/joelphilnyc
facebook.com/joelphilnyc
instagram.com/joelphilnyc