New Music – Page 66 – Queen City Sounds and Art

“Painthing” by shedde0d is the Haunted Sound of Hope in the Aftermath of the Current Wave of Climate and Political Disaster

There is a distinct feeling of accidentally tuning into a secret television station before everything went digital when shedde0d’s “Painthing” begins. Hazy white noise with an unmistakable background presence. Then the distorted archaic keyboard melody comes in breaking and going off any standard, recognizable progression in key. More impressionistic like a robot out of an old Asimov or Philip K. Dick story woke up in the ruins of an abandoned amusement park on a remote planet left behind during the expansion of a galactic empire with a vague notion of its original programmed mission but enough self awareness to explore outside of those parameters and in the absence of other beings to provide input, set about to make its own carnival orchestra piece completely unaware of how it’s “supposed” to sound. It’s refreshingly reminiscent, on pure vibes alone, of the mysterious and psychedelic quality of science fiction cinema of the 70s like Zardoz or Logan’s Run where the future wasn’t so readily predictable and we could imagine the collapse of civilization into small, sequestered Utopias that can go sideways while the rest of the world recovers with the remains of our former, quasi-advanced civilizations. This song sounds like what it would feel like to take that as a launching off point of speculation into the kinds of music that might have been made if your point of reference was 1980s post-apocalyptic cinema but set in the sprawling “development” of an expansive galactic civilization where niche interests could survive and be left alone to progress on its own after the priorities once injected into them have moved on. Larry Niven and David Brin picked up where the ideas of the Foundation series left off and this song is like a musical equivalent of imagining a time and place that isn’t too far off and isn’t set in what seems like the likely aftermath of catastrophic climate change and the impending disaster of rising, global authoritarianism and austerity. This song is the sound of the hope of there being survival well into humanity’s future where someone or something picks up the fragments of culture and makes something hauntingly beautiful out of it. Listen to “Painthing” on Bandcamp and follow Portuguese experimental project shedde0d at the links below. The full album The New Kid dropped on December 24, 2023 and is filled with similarly fantastical music creations.

Shadow Sides’ Brooding and Ethereal “heroine with meaning” is a Dark Post-Punk Portrait of an Intense and Irresistible Yet Dysfunctional Romance

Shadow Sides, image courtesy the artists

Shadow Sides captures a certain post-modern decadence on what might be called its signature song “heroine with meaning.” One of the lyrics mentions the concept of shadow sides and how we all have them. For some it’s just the more emotional and non-linear logical, creative side, and for others it’s a definite dark side and probably for most there’s a little of both and it’s not as discretely sorted out as all of that. The song has a fantastically brooding bass line and ethereal post-punk guitar work with almost whispered vocals like a voice in that subconscious dark coming to the fore and speaking uncomfortable truths that one often fears admitting to oneself. It’s a song about an intense relationship between people who might just be bad for each other and the double entendre of the song title is surely no accident including the idea of how performative and ritualized it can all feel. Many people find themselves attracted to someone with a passionate intensity that bypasses reason and logic at some point in their lives and that can short circuit one’s ability to navigate challenging times in a way that’s healthy but that allure is undeniable even when you know it’s bad for you. And yet there is a whole body of creative work about that connection that for many people feels soul deep and difficult if not impossible to shake. The lurid tone of the song and how it sounds like a decadent and weary love ballad is definitely part of its appeal the way film noir and the novels of the likes of Bret Easton Ellis or Chuck Palahniuk can draw you in for a story that is going to have some wildly uncomfortable moments that fascinate nevertheless. Musically it’s in the vein of the darkwave end of post-punk but the strong bass line and present yet disembodied vocals set it apart from how some of that music can be a little sonically thin. As for the subject matter? If you’ve been in a relationship or few like that described above this song will absolutely speak to you. Watch the lyric video for “heroine with meaning” on YouTube and follow Los Angeles’ Shadow Sides at the links below.

Shadow Sides on Facebook

Shadow Sides on Instagram

Mathilda Bohman’s Orchestral Pop Single “Paradise” is a Soaring and Aching Tribute to the Loss of a Loved One

Mathilda Bohman, photo courtesy the artist

On her new single “Paradise” Mathilda Bohman sounds like she spent a lot of time feeling and thinking about issues of loss and coming to terms with what that means and how it affect how you conduct the rest of your life. The details in the song of words from a friend or a family member who died too soon written in a letter giving words of comfort, reminding those left behind that she was going to paradise and that she’ll be alright and that so will everyone experiencing the loss. The orchestral arrangements and the soaring and melancholic violin melody sync well with Bohman’s expressive and affecting vocals suit the subject matter well. There is no soft pedaling these events in our lives but hearing Bohman’s song even if you don’t share the same or even adjacent spiritual beliefs is a nice reminder that these losses can lead us to honor the lives in ways that help process the grief with creativity and grace while feeling it intensely without the reservations that can trap us in a cycle of grieving. Bohman may be a 17-year-old singer from Sweden but has clearly plumbed the essence of what it means to lose someone close and to find a way to keep going. Listen to “Paradise” on Spotify and follow Mathilda Bohman on Instagram.

Queen City Sounds Podcast S4E05: Lunar Tunes

Lunar Tunes is the the collaborative musical project from Felix Fast4ward (also Felix Ayodele) and Grant Blakeslee (MYTHirst and Skyfloor). The two musicians have been a staple of the local experimental music scene with music that blurs the boundaries between dance music, ambient, indie rock, folk and hip-hop. In both their individual projects and this collaboration, Felix and Grant utilize a spectrum of electronic instruments and those more analog for a hybrid style of performance and production that yielded a half dozen songs on the recent Pieces of Advice EP that are like the more playful and uplifting end of IDM. In moments songs hit like what chillwave might have evolved into had its primary songwriters been more steeped in jazz and avant-electronica. The songs are emotional expansive with even the hint of heaviness eased out of melodies and tonal choices that might be melancholic in the hands of other songwriters. The attention to percussion, rhythm and textural elements is impressive and reminiscent of more experimental hip-hop producers and IDM sound architects alike. Altogether it’s a testament to how the two musicians complement each other well with their individual sensibilities and musical skill sets. It’s an eclectic yet unified and coherent aesthetic of forward thinking, dance adjacent electronic music that is a hallmark to a monthly event Alphabeat Soup that Blakeslee helps curate the second Thursday of the month at The Black Box in Denver, Colorado.

Listen to our interview with Lunar Tunes on Bandcamp and follow the Felix Fast4ward and Grant Blakeslee at the links below. Also linked is the YouTube playlist for Pieces of Advice.

Felix Fast4ward on Instagram

Grant Blakeslee on Instagram

Kai Tak and Draag Deliver a Salve on Feelings of Guilt and Anxiety on Dream Pop Single “Jalen Rose”

Draag(Adrian Acosta (left) and Jessica Huang (right)), photo courtesy the artists

“Jalen Rose” originated in email and text conversations between Adrian Acosta and Jessica Huang of Draag during the pandemic lockdown of 2020 with a demo following in 2021. And now the song in its mature, properly recorded in the studio form is being released ahead of the debut LP from the project due out in late Spring of 2024 through á La Carte Records. Taking inspiration from late night walks through the Wan Chan neighborhood of Hong Kong, a locale that is both one of the busiest commercial districts in the city but also ample urban decay. Meaning it’s surely a place that has energy and a certain haunted quality to boot especially after the usual business hours of daytime. Musically the song is in the realm of dream pop but with more rich and textural guitar work mixed in with uplifting electronic melodies and beautifully ethereal vocals courtesy Huang, Acosta and Chelsey Holland. Acosta, Huang and Chris King, aka Kai Tak, of Cold Showers fame have crafted in this song a soundscape that is resonant with what Curve was doing in the early 90s and perfectly blending shoegaze tones and aesthetics with that of electronic music in a way you can easily get lost in for its just over three and a half minute duration complementing the vocals and buoying up their irresistibly transporting moods. Listen to “Jalen Rose” on Spotify and connect with Kai Tak at the links below.

Kai Tak on Instagram

Kai Tak on Bandcamp

Kai Tak on YouTube

Spectre Horsemen Pale With Dust Evoke the Sound of an Alien Cosmic Rite With the Dark Ambient Psychedelia of “The Stars Gaze Back”

The title of “The Stars Gaze Back” by Spectre Horsemen Pale With Dust evokes both Nietzsche’s words about looking into the abyss and knowing it looks back into us and the imagery and concepts of H.P. Lovecraft’s cosmic horror. Certainly the slow moving drone of the song creates a mood of tension and anticipation one might expect in a particularly dark thriller that heads in unexpectedly weird territory. With the sound of throat singing in the mix it already feels like something mystical but when a noise like a distorted oscilloscope hovers in like an alien vehicle paying a visit to a Stygian event the song warps into a more ambient version of what SunnO))) does with its own sonic architecture to open up the brain to emotional experiences that transcend linear time. Listen to “The Stars Gaze Back” on YouTube and follow Spectre Horsemen Pale With Dust on Spotify.

“Tug Champion” by Sailor Winters is a Fascinating Layering of Industrial Noise Drones and Abstract Looped Melodies

Sailor Winters, photo courtesy the artist

Sailor Winters is the project of noise artist Ryan Cox from the state of Georgia, USA. His latest single “Tug Champion” sounds like a distorted, flowing, abstracted howl layered over an enigmatic, repeating melodic figure reminiscent of the energetic yet melancholic piano work in Moby’s 1995 song “God Moving Over the Face of the Waters” as used to great dramatic effect at the end of the film Heat. The contrast between the two sounds paired together is fascinating on its own but the net emotional effect of the track is one of unease and catharsis. It sounds otherworldly like the field recording of an automated deep space mining robot relieving some of its own tedium with a bit of music as it repairs the life support system of a not often visited, asteroid mining colony. Whatever Cox’s inspiration the sound piece showcases the creative and expressive possibilities of not being tied to having to create music that adheres to a standard commercial genre or any of the tropes of harsh noise. Listen to “Tug Champion” on Bandcamp.

Meow Piglet’s “Doors” (featuring Luke Batista) is an IDM Genre Bending Examination of the Elusive Meaning of Recurring Dreams

Meow Piglet’s icily haunting track “Doors” is about recurring dreams and how each can be a portal to another part of one’s subconscious or to another iteration of experiences from one’s unwaking hours. The human mind is often drawn to memories of dreams as potential answers to questions that occur while awake and for the song the image of doors and falling through them resonates with the familiarity of the dream state and how people and stimuli from that time are often unfamiliar yet seem a normal part of dreaming. The song itself is a series of portals into various realms of music. The beginning has a ring of menace and of dark spaces with a circular, slightly distorted vortex of tone and a minimal, percussion beat like the sound of a train track before shifting to more textural sounds as the focus and then on into gorgeous passages that may remind certain listeners of the blissful noises of 1991, foundational IDM song “Papua New Guinea” by The Future Sound of London. And yet further into the song there is an indie electronica passage where we hear singer Aurora Hentunen’s melodious voice offering a poetic rendering of a concrete description of the aforementioned dream exploration and the cyclical nature of dreams and how their true significance, assuming there is any, can elude us even when we turn to them for answers. Though the song traverses various moods, styles and genres of electronic music it all feels somehow like a unified aesthetic the way our dreams feel like a continuous experience that too shifts throughout their duration. Listen to “Doors,” with contributions from audio-visual artist Luka Batista, on Spotify and follow Helsinki, Finland’s Meow Piglet at the links below. The group’s latest album Deeper released on December 1, 2023.

Meow Piglet on Facebook

Meow Piglet on TikTok

Meow Piglet on Instagram

Meow Piglet on YouTube

Alfah Femmes New Wave Art Pop Song “Trench Coats” is a Playfully Subversive Homage to Its Hometown of Gdańsk, Poland

Alfah Femmes is a band from the metropolitan area of Poland and specifically Gdańsk. It’s particular aesthetic draws on a variety of styles for inspiration, blurring the lines between post-punk, New Wave, art-pop and indie rock and its new single “Trench Coats” is a playfully subversive take on a song about one’s hometown. In the music video we see vocalist Sofia Bartos in black and white dancing against the backdrop of colorful views of the band’s home city with the lyrics seemingly addressed to some guy in a trench coat who seems occupied with looking at his Tissot (a luxury brand of Swiss wristwatch) but who could very well be plotting a bit of skullduggery. The sparkling guitar melody and steady drum beats sound like something that one would expect from one of the artier New Wave bands from California in the 80s like Romeo Void and with a similarly irreverent edge to the songwriting. That Tricity is considered the California of Eastern Europe seems like a more than passing resonance in terms of the tone and musical style. And yet the chiming guitar work and warping synths and Bartos’ melodious vocals are also reminiscent of the jangle-y college rock of the American Southeast of the 80s as well particular when a string part graces the later parts of the song when Bartos’ head and hands become disembodied for a moment like a nod to the Cheshire Cat from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Visually and musically “Trench Coats” seems simple in its charms but contains in both a referential complexity that keeps it a fascinating experience rewarding those who take the song in beyond its obvious charm and solid pop songcraft. Watch the video for “Trench Coats” on YouTube and follow Alfah Femmes, whose name is an obvious nod to Violent Femmes and not so obvious reference to Australian indie rock group Danny Kelly & The Alpha Males, at the links below.

alfahfemmes.com

Alfah Femmes on Twitter

Alfah Femmes on Facebook

Alfah Femmes on Instagram

Crawling Vines’ Moody Shoegaze Single “ON A BRANCH” Navigates a Yearning For Connection When Things Feel Like They’re Falling Apart

Crawling Vines, photo courtesy the artists

Chicago’s Crawling Vines released its Who Killed William Goose? album on January 5, 2024 and the single “ON A BRANCH” hits a specific emotionally complex resonance. That being an emotional rawness and fragility a and yearning for connection when it feels like things are falling apart. The guitar progression and the way it flares forward in moments and embodies a spare minimalism in others is reminiscent of something New Order would have done later in the 80s or maybe Bernard Sumner’s project with Johnny Marr, Electronic. But also of modern shoegaze/dream pop bands like Beach Fossils but with more fuzz tone. Yet in the vocals and overall tone of the song it has a similar embrace of human vulnerability and acknowledging needing people for whom one’s feelings are complicated. That interpersonal dynamic informs much of the rest of the album giving it a deeper mood than many other artists exploring this particularly spacious and sophistipop end of the shoegaze. Listen to “ON A BRANCH” on Spotify and follow Crawling Vines at the links below.

Crawling Vines on Instagram