New Music – Page 82 – Queen City Sounds and Art

Swan Hill Navigates Nostalgia and Not Living in the Past on the Exuberant Fuzz Pop Single “Rosebud”

Swan Hill from Swansea, Wales, UK tap into a period of music that will remind you of what might be called “classic alternative rock” at this point in the exuberant drive of “Rosebud.” As the title suggests, assuming its something of a reference in some way to Citizen Kane, its a song about the sometimes crushing weight of regret when combined with nostalgia and how one’s own life and the world can pass you by so quickly in the living it can crash into your brain in near panic attack inducing waves of despair at the time you might feel like you’ve been wasting at doing what? The opening of the song and the way the more quiet opening riff gives way to a more urgent, fuzzy, guitar melody is reminiscent of something The Who might have done. But the rest of the song hits more like “Can’t Hardly Wait” or a particularly upbeat Dinosaur Jr song. The lyrics about “hundreds of old scratched copies of Otis Redding ‘s Blue, TV dinners cold, I get we’re getting old” conjures a specific time and place of life when maybe you had all the time and spare money to indulge a romanticized view of going to thrift shops in search of lost and neglected gems in the record section and eating quick meals on the cheap and not thinking about the future overmuch until it the time catches up to you. And what all of us think of fondly back with the lens of nostalgia eventually does catch up with us but so long as we can embrace what we cherished as having a value tied to a certain time in our lives maybe we can try not to live a lot in the past. “Rosebud” embodies and celebrates that moment of awareness and the navigation of memory, feeling and living in the present in a way that also feels vital. Listen to “Rosebud” on Spotify and follow Swan Hill at the links provided.

Swan Hill on TikTok

Swan Hill on Facebook

Swan Hill on Twitter

Swan Hill on Bandcamp

Swan Hill on Instagram

Nikodimos’ “Driftwood” is a Dreamlike Journey to Soothe a Devastated Psyche

The melting, drifting rhythm at the beginning of Nikodimos’ “Driftwood” and the way it progresses organically and seemingly intuitively with the off beat emphasized gives the whole song a mysterious and dreamlike quality. Like the ghost of J Dilla stepping in to guide the structure and flow of a more ambient Flying Lotus song. The vocals all sit behind the percussion seemingly commenting on a relationship that one suddenly realizes has never been rooted in a mutually beneficial association but rather in which you can be discarded once your immediate usefulness has passed. The unmooring feeling of that flash of insight that casts you adrift in your heart and mind and free floating in a morass of confused emotion until your find your footing once again. The song captures that feeling so accurately it is vivid and striking in its informal structure and shifting tonal arrangements. Fans of the aforementioned artists and the retrofuturist dub of Gonjasufi will appreciate Nikodimos’ willingness to go off standard musical devices here. Listen to “Driftwood” on Spotify where you can also listen to the rest of the new Nikodimos album What Colour is the End? which released on October 26, 2023 via Berlin-based label XYZ123.

Nikodimos on TikTok

Nikodimos on Instagram

Nighdrator’s Epic and Stirring Heavy Shoegaze Song “Frigid” Embodies the Storm of Contrasting Personality Types

Just in time for the cold to begin setting in with some bite and force is Nighdrator’s single “Frigid.” It’s sets a steady pace with the flooding distortion on the guitar wailing and floating like a bleak, icy, windswept landscape accented by the percussion and low end, the bass droning like mysterious and menacing rumblings in the distance. All while the vocals keep a sense of warmth and feeling in a song that seems to be about someone who is incapable of emotionally giving in a regular, human way even when you extend yourself to them whether that is the product of trauma or social conditioning the epic dynamics of the song embody an intensity of emotion when contrasting personality types come together. Fans of the more ethereal end of doom metal or the heavier end of shoegaze will appreciate the hybrid of styles Nighdrator brings to this song and its output thus far. Listen to “Frigid” on Spotify and connect with Nighdrator at the links provided.

Nighdrator on TikTok

Nighdrator on Bandcamp

Nighdrator on Instagram

“My Head” is Soft Punch’s Indie Power Pop Song About the Will to Push Past Everyday Anxieties and Frustrations

“My Head” by Soft Punch sounds a little like an indie rock update of New Wave power pop and XTC. It has those attentions to detail and uplifting melody with lyrics about a seemingly never-ending struggle with a bevy of things to get through the day. And in the end the song goes off the rails into triumphant and gloriously chaotic noise to burn out the anxieties and frustrations outlined in the song. Singer and songwriter Rye Thomas is based in Washington, D.C. and he’s no stranger to overcoming seemingly impossible barriers to a normal life. In 2013 he acquired a mysterious, debilitating illness that left him home bound as someone who was already an active musician (touring in bands like Pash and Tereu Tereu) but for whom then many sounds triggered severe migraines. But he didn’t stop writing music even if that meant 30 minutes a day with just a minimal keyboard and a cassette recorder to capture his song ideas that when his health improved some he was able to hone into a fine body of work which can be heard on his album Above Water which released on Bad Friend Records on September 15, 2023. Watch the video for “My Head” directed by Jonathan Howard on YouTube and follow Soft Punch at the links below.

Soft Punch on Facebook

Soft Punch on Twitter

Soft Punch on Bandcamp

Soft Punch on Instagram

Queen City Sounds Podcast S3E32: Reign LaFreniere of Bluphoria

Bluphoria is a band now based in Nashville, Tennessee that originally formed in 2019 when lead singer and lead guitarist Reign LaFreniere moved to Eugene, Oregon to study film. LaFreniere grew up in the East Bay and South Bay in California loving horror shorts and went to an arts high school that allowed students to rent/borrow video equipment and production software. Raised in a musical family, LaFreniere didn’t really start playing music until high school in his sophomore year after getting a guitar. On a trip on the John Muir trail a friend only had Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and some Simon and Garfunkel songs on a player and being in a setting where music wasn’t as readily accessible for long stretches gave him a deeper appreciation of its importance listening to that music. When he returned from that hiking trip he got into Jimi Hendrix as someone who looked like him playing music of that caliber with Hendrix’s singing style an inspiration for LaFreniere’s fledgling attempts as a vocalist. But his focus was on film until he got to Eugene, Oregon when he met like-minded students like Dakota Landrum (rhythm guitarist, backing vocals) and Rex Wolf (bass).

At one of the band’s house shows an EDGEOUT Records intern was in attendance and signed the group to EDGEOUT/UME/UMG in January 2021 around the time when drummer Dani Janae joined the group. A year later Bluphoria drove to Tennessee to record their self-titled debut full length album which released on May 5, 2023. Even a casual listen to the songs and even the band’s 2020 debut EP Alone reveals a knack for entrancing melodic hooks in a power pop style mixed with touches of psychedelic rock and what might be described as soulful garage punk. With LaFreniere’s commanding vocals providing some of the grit and emotional resonance fans of The Replacements and The Plimsouls will find a lot to like about what Bluphoria has to offer.

Listen to our interview with Reign LaFreniere on Bandcamp and follow the band at the links below. The group makes its Denver live premier at The Black Buzzard on Sunday, October 29, 2023 co-headlining with Noah Vonne and The Disasters and Sunstoney as support.

bluphoriaband.com

Bluphoria on Instagram

Bluphoria LinkTree

Queen City Sounds Podcast S3E31: Courtney Whitehead of Bison Bone

Bison Bone recently released its new EP 40 Grit. As the name suggests the stories across the EP’s five tracks are tales of everyday endurance and honing the rough edges of life to where it more suits your existence in the moment and to get through more trying patches. Its warm melodies and Courtney Whitehead’s introspective yet direct vocal style engages thetpo listener and the elegantly orchestrated music pulls you into an intimate and vividly observed moments the highlight moments that aren’t the stuff of striving and grinding and performative positivity of a lot of pop and rock music. But they are the stuff of real life that anchor your memories and stay with you for a lifetime. Whitehead seems skilled in putting together his own experiences in contexts that can resonate with people who recognize the psychological and emotional truth in a well crafted narrative enmeshed in music. Bison Bone formed in the mid-2010s after Whitehead moved to Denver from Oklahoma via Texas and found a community in which he could share his songwriting and find collaborators who got his creative vision and style of working class stories that didn’t glorify the lifestyle so much as highlight the inherent dignity of experiences most of us have and which translate well to the style of music Bison Bone offers which is to say Americana and at times a touch of psychedelia and country but informed by the humanistic psychological insights and poetry of Bruce Springsteen and Uncle Tupelo.

Listen to our interview with Courtney Whitehead on Bandcamp and follow Bison Bone at the links below. Bison Bone is celebrating the release of 40 Grit with a show at The Skylark Lounge on Friday, October 27, 2023 with The Patti Fiasco at 8pm.

bisonbone.com

Bison Bone on Facebook

Bison Bone on Apple Music

Metro Riders’ “Aenigma,” Inspired by Lucio Fulci’s Film of the Same Name, Resonates With a Darkly Enigmatic Menace

Metro Riders’ “Aenigma” was inspired by Lucio Fulci’s 1988 horror film of the same name. And in the video we see a chain of gossip in a classroom at the boarding school where the film was set. Which fits track that has a clandestine feel, one might say it has a mood of late night contemplation and after dusk secret adventures. There is a slow oscillating melody over a pulsing low end drone and minimalist percussive tone holding an informal rhythm. But it maintains a deep sense of mystery and when the flourish of other keyboard sounds come in it feels like other secrets are unveiled even though we know nothing of the exact thoughts going into the track’s composition, it just imparts the emotional resonance of traveling further into an alluring mystery that might go tragically but not without a certain dark fascination with a tantalizing enigma. Watch the video for “Aenigma” on YouTube and follow Metro Riders at the links below. The new Metro Riders album Lost in Reality became available on September 29, 2023.

Possible Motive Records Facebook

Possible Motive Records on Bandcamp

Possible Motive Records on Instagram

Sonny & The Sunsets’ “Androids” is a Modest, Indie Garage Folk Protest Song Against Ritualized Conformity

Sonny & The Sunsets, photo by Sarah Moore

With the title “Androids” you may not be expecting the folk-inflected garage pop song Sonny & The Sunsets have given us from the Self Awareness Through Macrame album that released on September 1, 2023. The bright accents in the jangle give it a physicality that gives its circular riffing some real momentum and at times it’s reminiscent of some of New Order’s more garage-y moments like “The Village” or like later period Beat Happening. But Sonny Smith’s words about wanting to be able to honest and comfortable in his truth and genuine feelings with another person give context to “Androids” as a symbol for how we so often have to be politic in life and adopt a depersonalizing presentation to fit in with a technocratic view of humanity that seems in place in so much of public life. So this song is about a quiet resistance and rebellion for one’s humanity in the face of the pressure to conform and become a product to be tweaked like, yes, some android. The rest of the record has similar expressions of moments of focusing and thinking about presumed norms and things we take for granted without ever examining whether they’re really of value or whether its more dead weight conforming impulses and ritualized behavior. Listen to “Androids” on Spotify and follow Sonny & The Sunsets at the links below.

Sonny & The Sunsets on Facebook

Sonny & The Sunsets on Bandcamp

Sonny & The Sunsets on Instagram

A Beacon School Coaxes Us Into Stepping Into Our Best Life With Effervescent Dream Pop Song “KITM”

A Beacon School, photo courtesy the artist

A Beacon School unfurls a swirling, kaleidoscopic melody to wash around the introspection expressed in “KITM” (which means keep it to myself). This finds entrancing form in the music video by Alex Beebe and Chase Wagner with illustrative colors, geometric shapes and spectral overlays and following some seemingly educational film footage about a variety of red flowers that grow on trees and bushes. But the colors are all otherworldly with the blues overwhelming the greens and the rose tones enhanced. We see an image of a boat coming into harbor in the night and hands placing tiles as colors switch and flash. It’s all very surreal yet oddly reassuring. The song is like if Animal Collective collaborated with Washed Out to make a tonally rich yet hushed shoegaze track. It teems with energy yet doesn’t overwhelm and because of that it invites an immediate re-listen. For a song that seems to urge you to stop procrastinating and take that next crucial step into a rewarding life it coaxes more than cajoles and that makes all the difference. The new A Beacon School album yoyo released on October 13, 2023. Watch the video for “KITM” on YouTube and follow A Beacon School at the links below.