New Music – Page 270 – Queen City Sounds and Art

“Molly” by Velcro Mary is a Tender Ballad to a Relationship Gone Awry

velcro_mary_cbg_sm — Velcro Mary, photo courtesy the artist

Velcroy Mary may be “the only band in North Carolina that did not record their last album with Mitch Easter at The Fidelitorium” but maybe it’s single “Molly” was recorded with Chris Schultz at Wavelab Studios in Arizona because it’s melancholic anthem is reminiscent of DeVotchKa circa How It Ends. The doleful accordion melody and the words of resignation and yearning bracketed by gently strummed guitar spells out a message meant to offer comfort and reassurance to someone who might be going through a period in life fraught with insecurity and emotional fragility. Tender and touching it’s simple structure and graceful performance makes what is hinted at by “this time apart’s supposed to help us grow” and “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree” and a troubled relationship that has all but drifted apart for good. Listen below and follow Velcro Mary’s excellent string of singles at the links following.

VelcroMaryMusic.com
soundcloud.com/velcromary
velcromary.bandcamp.com
twitter.com/VelcroMary
facebook.com/velcromary

cityGirl’s Poignant “Curled” Embodies the Concept of Saudade

cityGirl_crop — cityGirl, artwork, cropped

Although the main melodic line is a bright toned keyboard figure on cityGirl’s “Curled,” one gets the distinct impression of this song coming from a place of pain. Maybe not anguish or the sharp kind that comes from losing someone forever. But the kind where someone who made a strong impression on you who helped define an important period in your life in a way only someone with whom you’re spending a great deal of time can. And when that person exits from your circle of relationships, for whatever reason, instead of being angry you can only feel sad and a little confused as your affection for that person would be dishonored with unworthy and aggressive emotions. In Portugese there’s a word “saudade” that means, according to Wikipedia, “a deep emotional state of nostalgic or profound melancholic longing for an absent something or someone that one loves.” The mood of the song conveys well a bittersweet sensibility that expresses the good times not forgotten but overshadowed in the moment by the feelings of loss. It is kind of a simple pop song but given all the elements it expresses a complex state of mind and being that is often challenging to articulate. Give the song a listen and follow cityGirl at the links following.

soundcloud.com/citygirl-2
artists.spotify.com/c/artist/2XkJtfRO0ldQw3CjNGZ5hN/profile

D.D. Island’s Manifestation of the Halcyon Days of a New Love on “Sawtooth Sunshine”

DDIsland_LostDog_sm — D.D. Island *Los Dog* cover

“Sawtooth Sunshine” by D.D. Island is something best heard in headphones to take in the full range of the sounds of the song. It’s main guitar melody, reminiscent of “Carolyn’s Fingers” by Cocteau Twins, and the texture of the acoustic strum, electronic drums and Brandon Rhodes’ wistful vocals sketch out the emotional image of the early, fresh stages of a new love when everything feels good and right. In the context of the new full length Lost Dog (released June 8) it’s part of a natural arc of the human experience and not a place to get stuck and hung up on like your lowest points. And yet one to enjoy and savor for as long as it lasts. Listen to the track and explore D.D. Island’s work further at the links below. Also, look out for the band live around the USA in 2019.

open.spotify.com/artist/3vuZryGDMqcVxiAiBvNi5X
https://ddisland.bandcamp.com/album/lost-dog
facebook.com/d.d.island.music
instagram.com/d.d._island

“TIIMALASI” by Roca. is Evocative of Urban Isolation and a Yearning for Connection

Roca1-lg — Roca., photo courtesy the artists

Roca.’s latest music video for “TIIMALASI,” with clear visual references to Georges Méliès’ 1902 landmark film Le Voyage dans la lune, is a surreal collage of colors, imagery about time and the rushing about of humanity in groups rushing about but emotionally and socially isolated from one another. There is a bit of the aesthetic of the mediated experience one sees in the horror films of Koji Shiraishi and Norio Tsuruta and that gives the experience of the song an unsettling, haunted quality. Musically it echoes a bit of mid-80s Kate Bush minimalism and evokes the emotional isolation depicted perfectly. The incandescent bell tones, ambient washes of sound, warm keyboard drones and high and low arc of the vocals is the sound of modern urban life in Twenty-First Century oligarchy in which true connection to others is discouraged but now more necessary than ever. You can explore more from the Tokyo-based duo and its recently released Gene EP at the links below following the video.

rocabandinfo.wixsite.com/rocaband
soundcloud.com/rocaband

“Vacuum Weels” by Gaëtan Vigier is the Perfect Music for the Next Grand Theft Auto Game

Gaëtan Vigier aka Chrono Triggers has been producing some lively and gritty electro dance industrial/synthwave music under his real name including the single “Vacuum Weels.” The video with artwork reminiscent of Charles Burns gone more abstract and Métal Hurlant-period Nicole Claveloux (but with art by Clémentine Giraud – any relation to Jean aka Moebius? [she probably gets asked that all the time] – and motion design by Sophie Pastorello) is like an expressionist road adventure video game. The music is also driving, throbbing and imbued with great, headlong momentum and fire. It’s the kind of music with distorted tones and escalating progressions that the bad guys in Mad Max would be listening to if they wanted to chill out some and enjoy life a little.

gaetan-vigier.com
soundcloud.com/gaetan-vigier

Obstacle’s “Unknown Number” is a Free Flowing Puzzle of Ambient, IDM, No Wave Funk Noise

Obstacle1_sm — Obstacle, photo courtesy the artist

On “Unknown Number,” instrumental trio Obstacle brings to bear technical chops both in performance and in post-and-live processing of sound to create this brilliantly strange and always evolving track that one wants to call ambient, post-rock, IDM and No Wave funk. And it’s all of that with the finely processed and reassembled bits of sonic texture and architecture. Each fragment of sound is vivid and intersecting with what sounds like a natural rhythm with every other and placed expertly in the mix. In that way it is somewhat reminiscent of Sirens-period Nicolas Jaar minus vocals—where even the most outré sound is intentional and helps to draw you into the songs specific experiential world. What Obstacle is doing here straddles the world of musique concrète, noise and experimental electronica with an exquisite compositional balance. Listen for yourself and follow Obstacles further adventures into the artful assembling of sound at the links below.

obstaclemusic.com
open.spotify.com/artist/4Jf2iLfFvViJO0ApXPDqJ5
obstaclemusic.bandcamp.com
instagram.com/obstaclemusic

“As Yet” by In Sonitus Lux is Like an Ambient Jazz Expedition into Jon Hassell’s Fourth World

InSonitusLux_AsYet_crop — In Sonitus Lux, As Yet cover (cropped)

When “As Yet” by In Sonitus Lux starts out and gets going I couldn’t help but think of “Delta Rain Dream” by Jon Hassell and Brian Eno from Fourth World Vol. 1: Possible Musics. Similar processed horns in the distance but with the Hang (a steel percussion instrument) giving a steady texture as distorted synth swells echo out and stretch into mysterious shapes and fade out like a blast of gas fire from the local oil refinery towers. Science fiction writers Lucius Shepard and Ian McDonald write about the kinds of worlds this music would suit well: those where technology didn’t turn out to be a Utopian panacea to solve all human problems but had the usual unintended consequences well have to live with yet it didn’t all turn into cyberpunk-esque dystopia or life under Skynet. Where corporate and military science backfired and space exploration created not the world of Star Trek but a string of human settlements with their own cultures and subcultures because that’s what humans do better than anything else when adapting to new environments. It’s music for a synthesis of ideas and society while capturing the spirit of that path into a future we never really could have predicted. Listen below and then feel free to delve further into this project’s interesting body of work at the link provided.

soundcloud.com/serson-brannen

“We Will All Die” by MIRRORS is the Sound of Urban Pre-Gentrification Apocalypse

Mirrors1-sm — Mirrors, photo courtesy the artist

The cycling sequence of bright tones transitioning to more distorted yet still melodic sounds and vocoder is a familiar element in modern electronic music of a certain stripe that taps into 80s synthesizer music. What MIRRORS does on “We All Will Die,” though, is bring in some sequenced rhythms that work in counterpoint to the main progression giving the track a subtle weightiness that anchors the song into a lived experience like memories of living in a warehouse district and waking up earlier than you might otherwise and seeing the dawn start to break and the city coming back to life. Granted, such imagery is more or less long gone from Seattle where Sean Goldie of MIRRORS calls home by a decade, the song captures that cusp of a time when American cities of some size still had plenty of urban decay and creative people could find a place to flourish before rampant gentrification came and poached virtually every space. The song is the sound of pre-Apocalypse where everything feels normal and that it could go on for years but part of you knows it will come to an end sooner than you’re ready. Give “We Will All Die” or the new MIRRORS EP Homesick in its entirety a listen and follow Goldie’s further exploits at the links below.

open.spotify.com/artist/3eT4n27PpZJh2h0sJXUKPy
youtube.com/channel/UCSMaj_d8gadS1OECBwQDKzA
twitter.com/iammirrors
instagram.com/mirrors

Friends of the Bog Wax Poetic With Wit and Charm About Love Lost on “Earthworm”

FriendsOfTheBog1 — Friends of the Bog, photo courtesy the artists

What makes “Earthworm” by Chicago’s Friends of the Bog is that it uses some of the instrumentation you might hear in a folk or Americana song (banjo, accordion, gently strummed guitar, piano, violin, brushed drums et. al.) but as simple elements that contribute to a greater, well-orchestrated whole with a few changes. This is no mean feat for a song that is all of one minute fifty-three minutes long. The vocals, winsome and introspective, emotionally generous, stand ever so slightly in the foreground as if you can almost visualize the band on stage un-mic’d. Fans of early Jenny Lewis solo records will appreciate the songwriting here as well as Beth Hyland’s spare yet warmly expressive vocals and native wit. Released as one side of a two song single “Glow/Worm” (the other side “A Glow”), “Earthworm” is practically a master class of brevity and poignancy. Give this charming song a listen and follow the band’s further adventures at the links below.

facebook.com/friendsofthebog
instagram.com/friendsofthebog

“Sniper” by Color Theory is a Brilliant Cyberpunk Synthwave Story Song

ColorTheory3_sm — Brian Hazard of Color Theory, photo courtesy the artist

Brian Hazard as Color Theory has in “Sniper” a fast-paced electronic pop song that combines minimal synth dance sensibilities with some 8-bit tones. Difficult to say if he used a modified Famicom to put the beats and sounds all together but fans of Depreciation Guild will appreciate the modes and tones employed here. By using digital noise elements in an otherwise melancholic melodic song with a fairly dark theme, Hazard is showing how, like Kavinsky, you can do a kind of cyberpunk short story collection based in an 80s that never happened. With the first two Color Theory singles from the forthcoming eleventh album (tentatively titled Lucky Ago) “Backward” and “Feral” Hazard is developing a bit of a conceptual narrative that interrelates while each song stands very much on its own. For the project, Hazard has some strong ideas about how he put the record together and conceptualized it beginning to end and after listening to the song you can explore the artist’s richly imaginative body of work and progress toward the release of the new album at the links below.

soundcloud.com/colortheory
open.spotify.com/artist/7uWMG0Go7YMKqVG1fbsOBO
youtube.com/colortheory
colortheory.bandcamp.com
twitter.com/colortheory
facebook.com/colortheory
instagram.com/colortheory