New Music – Page 89 – Queen City Sounds and Art

Baleen’s Spirited Shoegaze Track “Ocean Hue” is Like an Exhilarating Trip Out to Sea on a Sunny Day

“Ocean Hue” begins with an ambient tranquility of floating and sparkling motes of sound before Baleen ramps the song into high gear with whirling guitar fuzz. The male and female vocals in ethereal tandem float on the soaring guitar melody and steady yet expressive percussion. The warping and winding dynamic of the song and its cool swirls of tone and the exuberant energy of the song embody a trip on the ocean on a sunny day coasting the waves at high speed. There is an exhilarating quality to the song that the band sustains until the very end when the sounds recede into the tranquil depths and warp out of tune in a wonderfully disorienting fashion. Listen to “Ocean Hue” on Spotify.

Skycabin’s Soul-infused Downtempo R&B Single “Somnia” Articulates a Deep and Hopefuly Yearning to Wake Up From the Collective Human Nightmare

“Somnia” is the culminating moment in Skycabin’s “waterfall series.” The single is steeped in the sounds of soul and R&B, with a commanding performance from acclaimed singer Denise Stewart, as well as 90s downtempo. The song has a defiant and striving tone but the lyrics are brimming with expressions of anxiety that most people living in the world and paying attention might feel themselves. And the chorus of “I’m living in a bad dream” has a hint that all of this chaos, conflict, static and desperate challenges feel like a moment in time that has been building for decades and longer from which we might find ourselves free if there was a collective shift in consciousness, a waking up, from outmoded and unproductive ways of thinking and being. For several years now it seems as though unfortunate and nightmarish events have been transpiring at an accelerating pace and it leaves little time for recovery so maybe you dissociate a little to survive the day but with the impending sense of what could come next. The song and its AI generated, Afro-futurist imagery suggests a hope against hope and a will to get through this period and shake off the collective human nightmare. One can only hope. Watch the video for “Somnia” on YouTube and follow Skycabin at the links provided.

Skycabin on Facebook

Skycabin on Instagram

Dax Collaborates With Ten Artists to Deliver a Powerful Message of Human Solidarity Through Embracing Our Mutual Frailty and Sensitivity on “To Be a Man”

Dax and his collaborators, image courtesy the artists

Dax tapped ten artists from his TikTok open verse challenge for the Mega Remix of “To Be A Man.” For the ten plus minutes of the song the various artists take a verse and give a multiplicity of voices and thus a different emotional and musical take on the subject of what it means to be a man struggling with the pressures and expectations of the modern world and the ways one copes that leads to self-neglect and often enough self-abuse. For Dax his source of strength in his lowest moments has been his faith but also his belief that there has to be something better than the tools he’s been given by culture and society and in evolving flashes of personal insight throughout his career as a songwriter thus far it is feeling the hurt, sadness and disappointment rather than burying it, to be vulnerable and share those moments of perceived weakness because running from them is the path to actual weakness, undermining you from inside. By the end of this treatment of the song Dax and his collaborators have taken us through a song that is essentially an epic R&B confessional and given it moments of vibrant hip-hop, pop and even country because the core of the song with a much wider resonance even beyond the struggles of being a man because in this world living as a human with our limitations in a civilization that seems bent on mutual destruction can wear you own. Dax sees solidarity in that truth that we all feel and we can all benefit from some sensitivity and the strength of being able to be so honest. Watch the video for “To Be A Man (Mega Remix)” on YouTube (for a full list of contributing artists, see the video notes) and follow Dax at the links provided.

Dax on TikTok

Dax on Facebook

Dax on Instagram

La Sécurité’s “Hot Topic” is a Post-Punk Dance Anthem of Feminist Solidarity

La Sécurité’s vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Éliane Viens-Synnott worked with Gabriel Lapierre to produce the music video for “Hot Topic” and give it the air of a choreographed, avant-garde dance piece. Turns out it’s an edited version of an original performance video by Viens-Synottt but it fits the angular post-punk song perfectly. Its driving bass line has a danceable fluidity like something out of a Bush Tetras song but its unconventional percussion part – an almost motorik beat mixed with a percussive keyboard figure intertwining with splashes of guitar and vocals declaring self-affirmative sentiments setting boundaries in no uncertain terms. “Is there something I can do/To make this any clearer for you?/I don’t wanna talk/I just wanna dance/I don’t owe you any answers/You can fuck off with your banter/Cut the crap, you’re not funny/I don’t need a drink/I make my own money” – those words and more in the rest of the song are the kind you wish you’d hear more often even beyond the context of a dance floor where some people, almost always men, think they can take liberties because they think the setting entitles them to doling out unwanted, often aggressive attention. This song pairs a whimsical melody like a casual dismissal of the nonsense with an edgy, pulsing rhythm and dark atmospherics for an unbeatable net effect of wit and strength. Watch the video for “Hot Topic” on YouTube and follow La Sécurité at the links below. The group’s new album Stay Safe! dropped June 16 via Mothland.

La Sécurité on Facebook

La Sécurité on Instagram

Sivan Levy Plumbs the Obscured Places of a Loved One’s Heart on the Tender Ambient Pop Song “I Thought I Heard You Call My Name While You Were Sleeping”

Sivan Levy brings you into “I Thought I Heard You Call My Name While You Were Sleeping” with ambient sounds of birds in the distance. You may wonder if it’s from the song or outside your window. But then her ethereal vocals come in on a steady electronic beat and resonate in drawn out repetitions at the end of a line of lyrics. The melody is formed out of those processed vocals and background drones so that the whole track has an introspective luminescence, the musical equivalent of soft lighting and fog. Which fits the song seemingly about buried and guarded emotions that Levy is trying to reach past to get to the feelings she knows are there but which life experience and socialization obscures with unconsciously adopted, expected behaviors. It’s a tender and unconventional love song in a situation that seems challenging without the sensitivity to navigate ingrained habits. Fans of Jenny Hval and Kelly Lee Owens may appreciate Levy’s command of atmosphere and nuanced emotional expressions in this song. Listen to “I Thought I Heard You Call MY Name While You Were Sleeping” on Spotify and follow Sivan Levy at the links below.

Sivan Levy on TikTok

Sivan Levy on Facebook

Sivan Levy on Instagram

Mali Hâf’s Utterly Unique Blend of Organic Textures and Electronic Pop Songcraft on “SHWSH!” is Also a Creative Statement on the Right to Express One’s Gender Identity

Mali Hâf not only employs a unique blend of rhythmic, textural and tonal elements to craft the song “SHWSH!” but she also sings in the Welsh language. In the music video we see her auditioning for the part of a “woman” in a dance studio and in a variety of outfits to the theatrical to those more associated with ballet. And it all represents the point of the song which is to encourage listeners to be their authentic selves in the face of cultural and social forces reinforced by media and social media images and narratives to conform to someone else’s standards. The music, which may have resonance with dream pop circa Cocteau Twins, New Age pop and IDM, invites you to take it and accept it on its own terms and for its part is imbued with an energetic dynamic and immediacy that facilitates that acceptance. In writing the music this way with this intention, in a seemingly exotic yet locally completely common language like Welsh, Mali Hâf conveys the message that these identities including gender identity is personal to the individual and that you should be free to express it because it is another facet of the human experience worthy of respect. Watch the video for “SHWSH!” on YouTube and connect with Mali Hâf at the links below.

Mali Hâf on Twitter

Mali Hâf on I nstagram

Figure Eight Deliver an Epic Noise Pop and Shoegaze Single With the Splintery and Frayed-Edged “Altar”

Figure Eight, photo courtesy the artists

Oakland-based noise pop group Figure Eight has a number of self-recorded tapes and demos out in the world but “Altar” represents its debut releasing a “proper” recording. But in doing so the band didn’t bother with taming its sound or smoothing over what some might consider the rough edges of its songwriting and performance. Rather, the bendy, distorted guitar riffs and ghostly, winsome vocals, melodic bass lines and generally flooding bursts of dense yet ethereal sounds are preserved like you’re listening to a band that dangled a single wide spectrum mic over its practice space to capture the essence of what it would be like to be there and experience that while of sound and its beautifully and blissfully disorienting quality. Immediate comparisons must be drawn with My Bloody Valentine because of the dreamlike noisiness of the song and its disregard for conventional song structure in favor of a more organic flow. In doing so Figure Eight has crafted a song whose influences seem obvious but whose sonics invite repeated listens because it hits with an analog charm that seems like something that when you see it live would be a little different every time because the musicians are letting the wild nature of the way the electric instruments process the signal go off the rails a little bit with every performance. Listen to “Altar” on Spotify and follow Figure Eight at the links provided.

Figure Eight on TikTok

Figure Eight on Instagram

Manpreet Kundi’s “salvage” is a Palpably Vulnerable Song About a Relationship in Irreconcilable Shambles

Manpreet Kundi, photo courtesy the artist

The colorful urban backdrop to Manpreet Kundi’s music video for “salvage” establishes a mood of normalcy and the mundane while she walks in what looks like a park with trees in twisting shapes like she’s singing the painfully confessional song in a secret and protected haven. With a minimal piano melody and mournful strings tracing her resonant and vulnerable vocals, Kundi conveys a tender pain that comes through accepting that a relationship is over and that really it got to the point where there is no way to salvage what bond and connection there once was, even assuming there was one because in the song we hear the realization that all the real communication and genuine feeling came from one party and seemingly little from the other and somehow that hurts worse than if the split was born of a normal conflict or disconnect that develops out of points of incompatibility. What makes the song especially poignant and effective is that it comes from a place of resignation and not rancor and because of that it hits a little harder emotionally. Watch the video for “salvage” on YouTube and follow Manpreet Kundi at the links below.

Manpreet Kundi on TikTok

Manpreet Kundi on Facebook

Manpreet Kundi on Instagram

Manpreet Kundi Website

Wasabi Club’s Introspective and Ethereal “Convergence” is a Gentle Song About Rediscovering and Reconciling a Troubled Romance

Rikalet de Lange of Wasabi Club, photo courtesy the artist

Wasabi Club establishes a delicate mood at the outselt of “Convergence” with the spare guitar figure echoing into a minimal soundscape. When the vocals come in they introduce an introspective element that floats in the lush haze over impressionistic beats. There is a tone in the beginning of the song that also sets up a dynamic of the melody curving back in on itself which is hypnotic and makes the repetition of themes work like the ebb and flow of memory. For a song that seems to be about people learning to relate to each other again or perhaps for the first time on a truly authentic basis and coming together to appreciate what each has to offer and reinvent and reconcile the bond with a gentleness of spirit that invites true intimacy. Fans of Beach House will appreciate the emotional nuance of the track. Listen to “Convergence” on Spotify and follow the South African shoegaze and dream pop band Wasabi Club at the links provided. The new Wasabi Club The Last of the Dreamers released on May 12, 2023.

Wasabi Club on Facebook

Wasabi Club on YouTube

Wasabi Club on Bandcamp

Wasabi Club on Instagram

El Señor’s “Dirty People” is a Noisy and Electrifying Psychedelic Punk Song About Class Solidarity

With a seething intensity and noisy urgency El Señor brings to the song “Dirty People” an electrifying conviction to its message of compassion and class solidarity. Mid-song when the vocals hit a more defiant tone that amplifies the sentiments about having a love for the people that certain corners of society reject and declare dirty, undesirable and generally “other.” The buzzsaw guitar and dissonant and angular attack of the music somehow combines a Ty Segall-esque tunefulness with the sonic mayhem of a song by a band like The Gordons and infused with a restless spirit that gives the song an irresistible immediacy. Think a psychedelic garage rock group with the sensibilities of a hardcore band. Listen to “Dirty People” on Spotify where you can listen to the rest of the album Affection to Belong and follow El Señor at the links below.

El Señor on Facebook

El Señor on Instagram

El Señor LinkTree