Queen City Sounds Podcast – Page 18 – Queen City Sounds and Art

Queen City Sounds Podcast S2E20: Patriarchy

Patriarchy is a band that came out of the ashes of vocalist/songwriter/musician/filmmaker Actually Huizenga’s solo project under her first name. Huizenga had intended to quit music and pursue film in more earnest but Andrew Means of industrial group 3TEETH encouraged further musical endeavors and worked on production for the 2019 debut album by Patriarchy, Asking For It. The name Patriarchy may seem like an unusual choice for a musical project fronted by a charismatic woman but it was a name that subverted the meaning of the term and explored the more mythological roots of its place in modern culture as well as drawing upon and commenting on the nature of that power in society and in the personal, lived experience. The music sounds a little like an industrial dance band with an array of influences in the mix like the high end disco production and composition of Giorgio Moroder and Trent Reznor’s deep dive into the dark places of the psyche for inspiration in crafting his own soundscapes. The 2022 album The Unself finds the project embracing an almost polished synth pop sound without compromising its darkly vital creative instincts in presenting pain and struggle in a context that reveals the vulnerability inherent to opening up to ideas and subjects many people would prefer to avoid or keep hidden. Visually the band taps into similar spaces as those of The Cinema of Transgression, the complex personal mythological noir of David Lynch and the lurid and stark visuals and moods of 1980s slashers. The cover of The Unself depicts Huizenga in what might be considered fetish gear and holding a pig. It’s that striking dream imagery that captures well the style and layers of meaning to be found in the group’s song titles, its presentation of the music bridging camp and glam and industrial culture and horror cinema while drawing inspiration from the world’s various ancient and modern mythologies.

Listen to our interview with Actually Huizenga and “The Drummer” (who along with “The Guitarist” perform anonymously) on Bandcamp and witness Patriarchy in all its glory on tour now including a stop in Denver at the Hi-Dive on Monday, November 7, 2022 with Street Fever, Sell Farm and sets by the Kill You Club DJs. Follow Patriarchy at the links below and check out some of the band’s beautifully transgressive music videos beneath the links.

actuallyactually.com

Patriarchy on Instagram

Patriarchy on YouTube

Patriarchy on Vimeo

Patriarchy on Facebook

Queen City Sounds Podcast S2E19: Lowertown

Lowertown is an avant-pop duo based out of Atlanta. Olivia Osby and Avsha Weinberg met in math class in high school and bonded over a mutual and deep appreciation for jazz. Weinberg was a classical pianist with aims of going to the conservatory and Osby was a fledgling yet prolific poet. Before graduating in 2021 the two released the Honeycomb, Bedbug EP (2020) and the critically acclaimed The Gaping Mouth EP after high school in September 2021 having been picked up by the Dirty Hit imprint. Those EPs revealed a great deal of creative sophistication and development with songs that tapped into electronic music aesthetics, pop, angular post-punk, jazz and folk for a sound that feels intuitive in a way that speaks directly to the lived emotional experience in a way vulnerable and knowing and comfortable in not being so certain. The 2022 debut album I Love To Lie retains all the insightful introspection but the songwriting seems more straightforward and accessible and its content is the most clearly political and incisively observant. “Bucktooth” in particular addresses gun violence, political extremism and the seemingly everyday crisis mode that pervades not just American culture but the state of much of the world. It’s an album written from the perspective of youth and informed by an underlying hopefulness in the face of the dire possibilities and likelihoods and its catharsis of that anxiety is heartfelt and immediately striking.

Listen to our interview with Lowertown on Bandcamp and connect with the artists at the links below. Lowertown performs at the Summit Music Hall on Saturday, November 26, 2022 opening for beabadoobee.

Lowertown on Instagram

Lowertown Streaming Links

Queen City Sounds Podcast S2E18: Vision Video

Vision Video is a post-punk band based out of Athens, Georgia whose self-styled Goth pop is infused with gorgeous melodic hooks and emotionally raw and honest lyrics. Visually the band looks like what you might imagine a Goth band from a movie might look like with the appropriate make-up and sartorial flair. But there is something darker and different yet also welcoming about that appearance and in performance, reflecting the ethos of the members of Video Vision who recognize the band and fan dynamic as being one of community. There is disarming earnestness in the songwriting coupled with a clear sense of humor and self-awareness in how Video Vision conduct themselves as people that signals an approachable quality that doesn’t undermine the serious and meaningful content in what the band is putting into its art. In recent years frontman Dusty Gannon has been releasing videos on the Video Vision TikTok in which he adopts the persona of “Goth Dad” who presents information about the Goth subculture in which he came up as well as real life issues with a sense of humor, affection and sincerity in a way that comes across as wholesome, a quality one doesn’t always associate with Goths. In 2022 Vision Video released its second album Haunted Hours, the much anticipated follow-up to its 2021 debut Inked in Red. Fans of The Cult and The Cure will find much to like about the flavor of both records as will anyone looking for modern post-punk with solid production, urgent dance rhythms and songs that really tell it like it is with the state of the world and the importance of embracing your own humanity and that of those around you even and especially as the world seems to be crumbling.

Listen to our interview with Dusty Gannon on Bandcamp, follow Vision Video at the links provided below and catch the group on tour now including a date in Denver on Halloween at HQ with Radio Scarlet, Redwing Blackbird and Witchhands.

videovisionband.com

Vision Video on Instagram

Vision Video on Twitter

Vision Video on Facebook

Queen City Sounds Podcast S2E17: Carbon Dioxide Ensemble

Carbon Dioxide Ensemble, photo by Tom Murphy

Carbon Dioxide Ensemble (CO2 Ensemble) is an avant-garde trio from Denver composed of the electronic music composer and the Mile High City’s premier Theremin player Victoria Lundy, her husband and mathematician Thomas Lundy and fellow practitioner of the electronic music arts Mark Mosher whose work in electronic music technology and visual synthesis has been a part of local music and art culture for over a decade. The three met through Mosher’s Rocky Mountain Synth Meet-Up events around 2012 where enthusiasts of that technology and methods for utilizing it in making music would meet up to network and share their passion for synthesizers generally. Shortly into their friendship the Lundys helped to organize an event called Concrete Mixer that has happened a handful of times over the past eight or nine years and a showcase for musique concrète, a type of music composition pioneered by French composer Pierre Schaeffer in the early 1940s with that term coined by Schaeffer in 1948. Those theoretical principles Schaeffer put into practice attracted the interest of composers Pierre Henry, Edgard Varèse, Iannis Xenakis, Karlheinz Stockhausen and others including a popularizer of the art form with one of Schaeffer’s students, Jean-Michel Jarre. The technique of manipulating recorded sound can be heard in looping techniques and the use of samples. CO2 Ensemble hearken back to the earlier method but utilize unconventional sound sources including a large, copper heart that Thomas Lundy rubs with pieces of dry ice to generate frequencies that Mosher processes to enhance and render into different musical forms. Victoria Lundy playing Theremin utilizes one of the oldest electronic music technologies having been patented by Leon Theremin in 1928 with a device that is controlled without physical contact by the performer. Everyone has heard one if they’ve watched any 1950s science fiction film with a spooky soundtrack. Working in tandem the CO2 Ensemble generate highly evocative compositions that suggest textures and primal emotional experiences. Victoria Lundy co-founded what was called the Carbon Dioxide Orchestra in the mid-90s employing similar methods but with less emphasis on the electronic production end and in the 2000s and 2010s she was the Theremin player in experimental pop band The Inactivists who are currently, what else, inactive. The Carbon Dioxide Orchestra concept she revived when Concrete Mixer started up. Mosher was the keyboard player for New Wave cover band Head Full of Zombies based in Colorado Springs from 1989-2003 before branching out into making his own music. The group’s current performance will be the live musical portion of Noche de Terror, a double feature of Rubén Galindo Jr’s Cemetery of Terror (1985) and Don’t Panic (1987) presented by Scream Screen creator and host Theresa Mercado. The trio has a shared affection for B science fiction and horror and cult movies as well as the musical avant-garde and their piece prior to the film screening suits well the Halloween season and the films at hand.

Listen to our interview with Carbon Dioxide Ensemble on Bandcamp and for more information follow the group through its LinkTree. For details on Noche de Terror on October 29, 2022 (the event begins with a costume contest and more at 5:30 with the musical performance at 7) please visit the event link here.

Queen City Sounds Podcast S2E15: Peel Dream Magazine

Peel Dream Magazine, photo by Samira Winter

Joseph Stevens has released three fine full length albums over the past few years under the moniker of Peel Dream Magazine including the 2022 record Pad. The 2018 debut album Modern Meta Physic presented a sound that had obvious musical touchstones in My Bloody Valentine, Velvet Underground and Stereolab as well as their own sources of inspiration. The hypnotic drones and fuzzy melodies over steady beats an obvious ear for crafting textural aesthetics that helped to shape the structures in the music. 2020’s Agitprop Alterna cemented Stevens’ reputation as a songwriter and artist who could combine heady atmospherics and widely dynamic music with poetic and insightful personal and cultural commentary. With Pad Stevens gently but significantly broke his own mold by swapping in a different sound palette including banjo, chimes, vibraphone and more extensive use of keyboards to create a softer sound that is more reminiscent of Harry Nilsson’s early 70s psychedelic pop albums and like those records there is a creative concept that runs through the album which is a journey in which Stevens is ejected from his own band, which is in most ways a solo project, and undertakes a journey to find a way back in. Though the soothingly dreamlike melodies and free weaving in elements of Bossa Nova and ambient folk gives the album an immediately palatable quality it is about the disconnect and anxieties that have careened into the general culture while taking a chance in finding ways to make connections again and to process the anxiety and trauma in a way that lands us in a better place. It reflects Stevens’ own journey from being a bit of a New York-based outsider to a member of the Los Angeles creative community. The album is worth a deep dive and allow its retro-futuristic sounds and style to sink into your brain with its therapeutic frequencies.

Listen to our interview with Joseph Stevens of Peel Dream Magazine on Bandcamp and follow the artist at the links below. Peel Dream Magazine performs at The Skylark Lounge on Wednesday, October 26, 2022 (doors 7 p.m., show 8 p.m.) with Calamity and Duck Turnstone.

Peel Dream Magazine on Instagram

Peel Dream Magazine on Facebook

Queen City Sounds Podcast S2E14: Rebecca Pidgeon

Rebecca Pidgeon, photo courtesy the artist

Rebecca Pidgeon is a singer and songwriter who was the lead singer of British pop band Ruby Blue in the late 80s. Around that same time Pidgeon embarked on her distinguished, professional acting career with her feature film debut in The Dawning (1988) starring alongside Anthony Hopkins, Jean Simmons and Hugh Grant. After Ruby Blue split in 1990 Pidgeon would eventually go on to release her debut solo album The Raven in 1994 launching a prolific career in music in parallel to her pursuits in acting which has lead to roles in films like State and Main (2000), Red (2010) and Bird Box (2018). Pidgeon’s latest album, which released on September 24, 2022, is Parts of Speech Pieces of Sound now available on CD, digital download and streaming on the various platforms one might expect. The album showcases Pidgeon’s multi-instrumentalist skills and richly melodic voice, Fernando Perdomo (bass, guitar, keys), Andy Studer (strings), Matt Tecu (drums) and Satnam Ramgotra (tablas). The use of drone, texture and melody might be compared favorably with the works of Jarboe and Alice Coltrane and likewise has an organic production style that lends the record an immediacy even as its compositions are simultaneously grounding and transporting to a tranquil and reflective headspace. The music connects her artistry with her explorations into science behind her lifelong yoga practice. It’s a unique pop record with evocative ambient soundscapes and delicate folk sensibilities.

Listen to our interview with Rebecca Pidgeon on Bandcamp and connect with the artist at the links below where you can find the places to order and listen to Parts of Speech Pieces of Sound.

rebeccapidgeonmusic.com

Rebecca Pidgeon on Instagram

Rebecca Pidgeon on YouTube

Rebecca Pidgeon on Facebook

Rebecca Pidgeon on Twitter

Queen City Sounds Podcast S2E13: ABANDONS

ABANDONS is an experimental rock trio from Denver comprised of guitarist Brenton Dwyer, bassist Nate Colbert and drummer Sam Mowat. The group met through Craigslist ads and coalesced to start writing their first instrumental tracks in 2019 before looking to play shows. It was an odd time in the Denver underground scene with not as robust an infrastructure for bands not playing fairly established styles of music to perform for a potential audience as there had been in years past and then of course the 2020 pandemic hit. During the long period when no responsible person that wasn’t desperate wasn’t playing shows ABANDONS recorded a live EP at Mutiny Information Café on August 29, 2020. The recording is the group’s sole available release on Bandcamp and the entire performance was released on YouTube. ABANDONS hadn’t played many shows in general before 2022 due to the obvious restrictions but the band quickly found like-minded artists in the local post-rock and art rock community such as exists in the current phase of the Denver music scene. Projects like New Standards Men, Brother Saturn, Only Echoes, Moon Pussy and Almanac Man are some of the peers, none of which sound remotely alike, with whom ABANDONS has found some kinship. Its own mostly instrumental, music rooted in improvisation is cinematic, takes strands of post-rock structure, noise rock intensity and its own flavor or vibrantly emotional soundscape-y compositions.

Listen to our interview with ABANDONS on Bandcamp, check out the live video and the EP linked below and follow the project on Instagram and Facebook.

Queen City Sounds Podcast S2E12: Taleen Kali

Taleen Kali took a fairly unorthodox path to being a performing musician. She grew up in Los Angeles and attended shows at DIY spots like The Smell and Pehrspace before moving to New York City for a few years where she lived near legendary DIY spaces like Death By Audio and 285 Kent and took in the one off house and the like. But she went to Chicago to attend art school and became immersed in the underground music scene there and regularly attended performances by the wide array of noise artists in and touring through the Windy City. Returning to Los Angeles in the early to mid-2010s Kali ended up forming her own band TÜLIPS which was a potent hybrid of punk and and shoegaze. But by summer 2017 Kali debuted her solo act. Across a handful of singles and EPs like 2018’s Soul Songs, Kali has revealed herself to be an imaginative songwriter and lyricist able to translate those concepts to a powerful live presentation with an undeniable mystique. The forthcoming, full-length debut album Flower of Life showcases the work of an artist capable of fusing styles to suit moods and to somehow be both ethereal and introspective and ferocious and gritty often within the same song. The style is very much her own and that of her collaborators but she has truly synthesized elements of garage rock, classic pop, punk, shoegaze and psychedelia to craft her own sound that suits well the heartfelt and heady subject matter of her lyrics.

Listen to our interview with Taleen Kali on Bandcamp where we discuss her roots in music and evolution as an artist. The aesthetics of her songwriting and her appreciation for the Jim Jarmusch film Only Lovers Left Alive, the title of one of the singles on Flower of Life. Connect with the artist at the links below and catch the band currently on tour in the US including at the Hi-Dive on Sunday, October 16, 2022 with Tuff Bluff, Galaxies and Princess Dewclaw.

taleenkali.com

Taleen Kali on Bandcamp

Taleen Kali on Instagram

Taleen Kali on Twitter

Taleen Kali on Facebook

Queen City Sounds Podcast S2E11: Molly Nilsson

Molly Nilsson is a Swedish born electronic pop artist now based in Berlin. Since 2007 she has been creating a rich body of work including ten albums starting with These Things Take Time (2008) which yielded her first widely recognized single “Hey Moon” and covered by experimental electronic artist John Maus on his 2011 album We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves. The introspective sounds and luminous melodies with measured yet accented beats of Nilsson’s early work and her poetically illustrative lyrics brought to the songs a mystique that has endured throughout the songwriter’s career. Her embrace of a lo-fi aesthetic and organic noise in her songs also gives the music a sense of immediacy and intimacy that other artists at her level of accomplishment, development and influence might have chosen to edit out in pursuit of a kind of fictional purity. This core humanity to Nilsson’s work is one of its perhaps often unspoken appeal and it helps to ground some of the heady concepts she infuses into her lyrics. There is a political element in much of her music that explores concepts of power, our notions of identity and the foundation of what we aspire to achieve and do with our lives and how that is so often driven by the prevailing economic system controlled by the interests of elites until we learn to disentangle our dreams and psychology generally from the ongoing process of commodifying every aspect of our lives. This examination always seems to be carried out in a compassionate and imaginative way and never comes across in didactic fashion. Her 2022 album Extreme (out now on the artist’s own imprint Dark Skies Association) brings together Nilsson’s various impulses and instincts as a uniquely creative musician who imbues accessible pop songs with rich conceptual content that most directly yet not explicitly explores the place and role of power in the world and how it manifests in society and in our own consciousness and how we can challenge the less savory aspects of it in the world and in our own hearts. It’s a thematically deep record that works on the level of a poignant social critique and as pure pop songcraft. It is yet another chapter in Nilsson’s ever-evolving artistic journey and one worth taking in from beginning to end.

Listen to our interview with Molly Nilsson on Bandcamp, connect with the artist at the links below, check out a couple of the videos for songs from Extreme and perhaps see the artist live on our current US tour including the date in Denver, Colorado on Sunday, October 16, 2022 at Glob with Water on the Thirsty Ground and French Kettle Station.

Molly Nilsson on Facebook

darkskiesassociation.org

Queen City Sounds Podcast S2E10: Sydney Sierota of Echosmith

Echosmith is a pop band that formed in 2009 in Chico, California. The former and current quartet are siblings Sydney, Noah, Graham and Jamie Sierota (Jamie having taken a break from the band from 2016-2022). Adopting the moniker when the group signed to Warner Bros. Records in 2012 (previously having performed under the name Ready Set Go!), Echosmith released its debut album Talking Dreams in 2013 which yielded the hit single “Cool Kids” about not really fitting in with the popular crowd but being comfortable with being different. Following the performance and touring cycle behind the debut album on a major label, Echosmith found itself saying yes to every opportunity to advance the band and listening to industry people in helping to further their career and that meant long term that there wasn’t enough time to write and develop new material aside from an occasional EP until the group took steps to do so in time to issue the sophomore album Lonely Generation in January 2020. With the onset of the pandemic and the enduring and continuing impacts on tour and thus supporting a new record Echosmith had time to reassess its priorities and reconnect with the ideas and inspirations that initially got the group off the ground into a serious project and during that process went with a more open approach to its songwriting as heard on new singles “Hang Around” and “Gelato” hinting at the new chapter of Echosmith’s creative development.

Recently “Cool Kids” garnered some renewed interest when it was used in TikTok videos by the likes of Demi Lovato, Drew Barrymore, Lindsay Lohan, Addison Rae and Hayley Kiyoko who felt the song expressed their own feelings about looking back and seeing how far they’ve come as people. The trend of utilizing the song has garnered more than six million views to date. Echosmith in response to that did a new version of the song with a new music video with “Cool Kids (our version)” (linked below).

Listen to our interview with Echosmith on Bandcamp, check out the videos for the new singles, connect with the group at the links provided and catch Echosmith live at The Marquis Theater in Denver on November 8, 2022. The national tour kicks off on October 14, 2022 in Atlanta at The Loft and the rest of the dates can be found on the Echosmith website linked below as well.

echosmith.com