New Music – Page 51 – Queen City Sounds and Art

“Pop Star Salvation” is don’t get lemon’s Somber Synth Pop Critique of the Expected Clout Chasing in the Arts

don’t get lemon, photo courtesy the artists

“Pop Star Salvation” is the concluding track of don’t get lemon’s new album Have Some Shame and ends the lushly melancholic album on a particularly thoughtful and somber note. As the title to the album suggests many of the songs within explore themes of aspiration and self-awareness, of romanticized melodramatic ego assertion and the limitations that sort of fake it until you make it spirit places on one’s actual achievements. The band this time around masterfully layers saturated synth, processional arrangements and soulful vocals on a foundation of elegantly textural bass rhythms. This song and its knowing observations on the illusion of the rewards of chasing clout as part of the whole game of being in a band or in any other creative endeavor is one of the weightier of synth pop songs in recent years and at the same time has emotional resonances reminiscent of the defiantly resigned tones of Protomartyr circa Under Cover of Official Right (2014). Listen to “Pop Star Salvation” on Spotify and follow don’t get lemon at the links below. Have Some Shame released on April 24, 2024 via á La Carte Records for streaming, digital download and limited edition vinyl.

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Charls Ava Rejects the Dubious Adulation of Aspirational Projection in Psychedelic Darkwave Single “Idol”

Charls Ava’s “Idol” is a song about a dynamic that many people experience in which someone becomes infatuated with you so long as the illusion of projected perfection lasts. When your flaws and your humanity seem to contradict that person’s idea of who they want you to be instead of a real person. Ava intones that she doesn’t want to be anyone’s idol because it’s a lot of unasked for pressure and too much to try to live up to even if you find that initial attention flattering. But it’s an interpersonal dynamic bound to leave the object of that idolization discarded, abandoned, in the end and it’s better to not accept such fickle adulation as a foundation for one’s self-esteem or emotional support. The song swirls Ava’s voice with saturated low end synth drones, guitar jangle in a Middle Eastern darkwave mode, splashes of psychedelic tones and splayed, minimalistic drum beats but her vocals expressive, intense and versatile is where the song shines most and at times her voice is reminiscent of that of Karen O. Listen to “Idol” on Spotify and follow Charls Ava at the links provided.

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ALIAS’ Avant-Synth-Pop Single “COCKTAILS AND DREAMS” Lures Us Out of Our Own Emotional Status Quo Into a Burst of Joyful Ecstasy

ALIAS brings to bear rich and saturated tones in “COCKTAILS AND DREAMS” with warm low end to help the low key vocals stand out before the song kicks into high gear in the last third of the song. The music video looks a bit like if Chris Cunningham and Terry Gilliam collaborated on a short film set in a 1980s bureaucratic office. The soft lighting a parallel to some of the tonal haze in the song’s soundscape. When the monochrome computer monitor scrolls “EMBRACE_CHAOS” repeatedly to the pulse of the accelerating pace and spectral yet uplifting, sustained synth melody it certainly feels like something of the status quo in the setting of the song has been disrupted. And the song itself is one of breaking from one’s everyday habits in favor of something that stirs the heart as embodied by initially dispassionate vocals to those shouted with a spirited gusto. Is it a synthpop song? More a conceptual avant-pop composition? It can be enjoyed on multiple levels and its easy for the song’s shimmery melodies and sensual rhythms to get stuck in your head. Watch the video for “COCKTAILS AND DREAMS” on YouTube and follow ALIAS at the links below.

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Mary Ocher Entreats the World to Awaken to its Human Solidarity on Operatic Art Synthpop Single “Syhmpathize”

Mary Ocher’s single “Sympathize (featuring Your Government)” is well represented in the music video that shows the artist floating in a turquoise ocean on a rubber raft looking like a character from the end of The Lord of the Rings who has returned from the Undying Lands in white robes and rams horns. Nearby a cluster of refugees from the ravaged world frolic on an island of junk with a “For Sale” sign while industrialists in a red ship demonstrate their designs on what’s left of normal people. All while Ocher sings “Sympathize with us!” in entreatment to the basic humanity of those who might just snuff out what there is left of a world not completely unconquered by rapacious economic interests. Musically Ocher’s operatic vocals and beautiful pulses of synth melody and circular rhythms are reminiscent of something Lene Lovich or Nina Hagen might have written for one of Jim Jarmusch’s or Wim Wenders’ more eccentric and engrossing globe hopping films. Watch the video for “Sympathize” on YouTube and follow Mary Ocher at the links below. Her new album Your Guide to Revolution releases on June 14 in the EU and in the rest of the world on July 19 via Underground Institute.

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MOLTENO’s Brightly Melodic Dream Pop Single “Clouds” Invites the Listener to Connect Through Our Mutual Experiences With the Natural World

“Clouds” is MOLTENO’s third single from her Element 2 EP as part of her series of releases celebrating the elements and the way we’re connected with nature. With a pulsing beat like a train running along tracks and streams of bright drone MOLTENO intones about connecting with others through the vehicle of clouds which most humans experience as a phenomenon in the sky in all their diversity of shapes and manifestations and features like thunder and lightning and which have the capacity to stir the imagination and perhaps to wonder who else might be sharing a similar experience. Molteno’s clear and warm vocals and uplifting tones, , in moments reminiscent of Björk, provide vivid tonal imagery enshrouded with gentle hazy textures that transcend while honoring individual experiences with the natural world. Listen to “Clouds” on Spotify and follow MOLTENO at the links below.

“Old Enough” is talker’s Exuberant and Poignant Song Mourning the Special Connections of Youth Lost When Your Life Moves Forward

In “Old Enough,” talker almost brazenly broaches the topic of personal boundaries and how those change across a lifetime. Friends you once spent so much time around when you were young with no seeming boundaries with time limits and shared subjects who in some ways help define who you are as a person. But then as you grow older you will often grow apart because maybe you develop in ways that push you apart and if one person continues to cling to how things were without the self-awareness to realize that things are different it can prove painful, recognizing that barrier where once there was intimacy. The song is so upbeat and exuberant in talker’s typical fashion with spirited vocals and emotionally-charged melodies it can be easy to miss how insightful it is about changing interpersonal dynamics that work best if both people recognize and accept growth and even some natural distance that develops when you can’t spend so much easy and free time with each other that conveys a sense of closeness that is, to a large extent, circumstantial. It’s special for a time and that connection can stay special but it also has to change. The songwriter speaks poignantly to that moment of realization and a willingness to grow even if it means it has to hurt a little bit, even if it means we can feel lost for a time before we come to recognize and value the new connections we form as a natural outcome of growing up and yes being old enough to know that having a slumber party every weekend in the summer or hanging out until all hours because you feel like you have all the time in the world in a certain part of your life isn’t part of your current life and knowing that’s okay and even desirable. Watch the video for “Old Enough” on YouTube and follow talker at the links below. Look out for talker’s debut album out later in 2024.

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Russian Baths’ Gritty and Ethereal Post-Punk Single “Bind” is a Harrowing Journey Through the Mind’s Dark Places

Russian Baths combines an elegant, ethereal guitar riff with one more gritty and dark throughout “Bind.” It lends the track a heaviness and dreaminess to match its subject matter that seems to be about the weight of family legacy and freeing oneself of its worst aspects cast in mythical terms with words about getting lost in darkness and trying to drown painful feelings and memories but never quite being able to escape them. The spooky motes of tone and dissonant drones that haunt the song highlight its more driving moments. It’s a song of great contrasts and tensions that build until the end when it dissolves and breaks down into the sound of wind. One imagines the influence of Bauhaus here or the more post-punk shadows in mid-80s Sonic Youth, no pun intended, but Russian Baths also manage to embody modern post-punk without succumbing to the stylistic trends of thin sonics that have made too much modern darkwave a bit cookie cutter. Listen to “Bind” on Spotify and follow Russian Baths at the links below. The band will have an album release show for its new record Mirror (to be available on streaming, digital download and as a vinyl LP) on the night of its album release day, June 14, at Main Drag Music in Brooklyn, New York, doors 8pm, $10.

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BODEGA Joyfully Mocks Mechanized Consumer Culture in the Pop Post-Punk of “ATM”

BODEGA, photo courtesy the artists

Brooklyn’s BODEGA free associate the concepts of convenience, transactional relationships and culture on “ATM.” The animated video is playful enough in what looks like an older art style like something from an early 2000s web cartoon which fits the almost tribal rhythms of the song. The overall effect is like Killing Joke or Gang of Four indulging in a bit of pop punk whimsy. But the lyrics are incisive in sussing out how in all transactional relationships and the way capitalism has been baked into how we interface with much of the world and the culture and thus into at least some aspect of our psyches reducing organic and not-digital associations to those more monetizable and to think in that way. It’s insidious and BODEGA pokes fun at this aspect of our lives because you have to point out the absurdity of it all at least once in awhile or you end up, and pardon the expression, buying into the conceit that all things are economic acts in the classical “liberal” mode. In mocking how a-human it is, and with clever wordplay including juxtaposing the phrase “at the moment” (often reduced to “atm” in text speak) with the familiar cash dispensing machine, BODEGA shows us yet another way to hold onto our humanity and dignity because in many ways it’s all we’ve got. Watch the video for “ATM” on YouTube and follow BODEGA at the links below. The group’s recently released album Our Brand Could Be Yr Life is out now on streaming, digital download and vinyl.

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Bug Facer’s Exuberantly Cacophonous “Fiery Demon Attacks Old Man on Bridge” is Like a Post-hardcore, Post-Surf Blast of Raw Power

Bug Facer displays a joyous cacophony throughout “Fiery Demon Attacks Old Man on Bridge.” That uplifts the impression that the song title and raw exuberance of its performance came right out of late nights playing D&D or some other fantasy RPG among bandmates (nevermind the photo) who later undertake the ritual of writing a song based on the marathon gaming session. This of course following having witnessed the surreal majesty of surf rock mutants Daikaiju and the inspired costume synthwave heros Magic Sword. Except that Bug Facer sounds like a psychedelic rock band that decided to deconstruct King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard into a primal essentials and blasted it back out in spirited lo-fi garage punk fashion including distorted vocals like shouted incantations. It’s a thorny mess that manages to also be hypnotic and infectious and unlike any obvious musical touchstones. Listen to “Fiery Demon Attacks Old Man on Bridge” on Spotify and follow Bug Facer at the links below.

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“On Fire” by Influential Slowcore Band IDAHO is an Elegant and Evocative Call to Indulge Your Humanly Creative Impulses Because Life Doesn’t Last Forever

Influential slowcore outfit Idaho returns with its first album in over a decade with the May 31, 2024 release of Lapse (via Arts & Crafts on CD, LP, digital download and streaming). Lead single “On Fire” has a title that is perhaps a nod to foundational slowcore band Galaxie 500 but Idaho’s hushed and finely detailed sonics are its own. Liquid melodic lines flow and sparkle and fade in sync with Jeff Martin’s delicately rendered couplets. Call and response riffs intertwine with whorls of psychedelic shimmer all while the song’s layered dynamics complement each other with an elegant grace. The song seems to be one encouraging the listener, perhaps as an initial message to self, to indulge the inner life and cultivate the core of creativity within all of us and do something with it while you can because life doesn’t last forever and let’s face it so many pursuits we’re told matter more and what we often need to do to survive matter a lot less than in the grand narrative of our lives than getting to what is in our hearts to do with the time we have. Listen to “On Fire” on Spotify and order Lapse from Arts & Crafts here.