Queen City Sounds Podcast – Page 6 – Queen City Sounds and Art

Queen City Sounds Podcast S4E40: Pulsars

Pulsars is a band from Chicago that released one album, the 1997 self-titled LP, but which has a bit of a cult following. Though the band was around from 1994-2000 with a 2009 reunion and despite playing with some of the more well known alternative bands of its era Pulsars never entered the mainstream. But its embrace of New Wave synth sounds and power pop melodies was slightly ahead of the curve of a similar fusion of early synth pop and experimental electronic music with other popular music forms that informed the music of the likes of The Faint, !!! and later MGMT. chillwave and darkwave. But Pulsars’ music is a little grittier and in moments sounds like it has more sonically in common with The Jesus and Mary Chain and Dinosaur Jr at their most poppy and upbeat. In 2024 the group’s record was released for digital download, streaming, compact disc and vinyl.

Listen to our interview with Dave Trumfio of Pulsars on Bandcamp and follow Pulsars at the links below. Trumfio some may know for the band but many more may be familiar with his production work with Wilco, My Morning Jacket, Grandaddy and American Music Club among many others at his Kingsize Soundlabs also linked below.

thepulsars.com

kingsizesoundlabs.com

Queen City Sounds Podcast S4E38: Evan Taylor

Evan Taylor is the former bandleader of the Bernie Worrell Orchestra as well as a producer and musician of note. He has worked and collaborated with the likes of Mike Watt, King Tuff, members of Talking Heads, members of Black Flag on country-influenced records, Marc Ribot, The Chapin Sisters and Sean Ono Lennon. Worrell is of course the keyboard/synth player who helped put some of the cosmic weirdness into the music of Paliament-Funkadelic as well as a much broader swath of music across decades than may seem obvious and worth exploring. When Worrell passed away in 2016 he left behind a rich legacy of great music including a plethora of unfinished and unreleased projects. Some of those were entrusted to Taylor to complete and bring into the world in a form that one hopes would have made Worrell proud. The first of those is Bernie Worrell: Wave From The WOOniverse which released on vinyl on Bernie’s birthday April 19 on Record Store Day 2024 via Org Music and became available for streaming on June 28. It includes contributions from some of the aforementioned as well as Bootsy Collins and members of TV on the Radio, Fishbone, Living Colour and Cibo Matto and B-52s. The compilation additionally features an unreleased Funkadelic song “Confusion.” Altogether the album is a rich tour through the career of one of popular music’s most beloved and influential figures.

Listen to our interview with Taylor on Bandcamp and follow his musical endeavors at the links below for his own website and that of his record label Loantaka Records.

loantakarecords.com

evantaylormusic.com

Queen City Sounds Podcast S4E37: Nina Nastasia

Nina Nastasia, photo courtesy the artist

Nina Nastasia is the critically acclaimed songwriter currently based in Seattle who grew up in Hollywood but moved to New York before making a name for herself as a gifted musical artist who worked throughout much of her career recording with Steve Albini. Due to years of abuse by her then partner, Nastasia left music in 2010 before returning to writing and releasing songs Her return to releasing music was the 2022 album Riderless Horse, an album or tender sounds and textures but whose subjects are a rich tapestry of the evocation of love, despair, loss, and finding moments of joy and humor in the great sprawl of life especially when you’ve been suppressing your creative gifts and now finding your vehicle of expression once again free of former limitations. The album charts the aftermath of the death of Nastasia’s former partner in 2020 and her own rediscovery of being able to write music with integrity after around a decade of finding herself unable to do so. It’s a record of rare beauty and deep personal insight that while bearing the hallmarks of going through periods of personal darkness ends up being an uplifting record and a declaration of self-empowerment. While writing and recording that record, Nastasia was simultaneously crafting the songs that would comprise the 2023 self-titled debut album by Jolie Laide, a duo with Nastasia and Jeff MacLeod. Both records have a noir quality in the nuance of emotional expression and entrancing moods that have a cinematic quality that one might compare favorably to Lana Del Rey and Cat Power.

Listen to our interview with Nina Nastasia on Bandcamp and follow Nastasia at the links below. She performs on the final night of Ghost Canyon Fest on Sunday, August 25, 2024 at the Hi-Dive. For more information and to purchase tickets visit the fest’s website here.

ninanastasiaofficial.com

Nina Nastasia on Instagram

Nina Nastasia on Facebook

Queen City Sounds Podcast S4E36: Animal Bite

Animal Bite in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy

Animal Bite is a band from Casper, Wyoming that has folded into its sound a hybrid of thrash, noise rock and hard-edged, industrial post-punk. It’s the kind of music that simultaneously resonates favorably with The Dillinger Escape Plan, The Jesus Lizard and Killing Joke. There’s a psychedelic aspect to the music that pairs well with the disorienting energy and intensity of the music. The group’s existence spans both sides of the 2020 pandemic but its membership has come out of the Casper underground in bands like Juice Falcon and Doggod that didn’t feat neatly into punk or grindcore or metal but featured the hallmarks of eclectic musical roots. Guitarist Brandon Schulte has been a bit of a figure in the current network of American underground music setting up shows for touring acts in Casper who might otherwise not have a place to play in the middle western part of the country as well as hosting left field music locally and otherwise. In 2021 Animal Bite released its first full length album Harsh Chemicals with visual aesthetics that remind one of Future Sounds of London’s Dead Cities or a Death album cover. It’s the kind of impression that prepares you for the gloriously post-apocalyptic music within.

Listen to our interview with Brandon Schulte of Animal Bite on Bandcamp and catch the group live at the final night of the Ghost Canyon Fest on Sunday, August 25, 2024. The fest begins on Friday August 23 at The Skylark Lounge and continues with a matinee show at Mutiny Information Cafe on Saturday, August 24 and the evening showcase at the Hi-Dive that same evening. But tickets to the fest here and connect with Animal Bite at the links below.

Animal Bite on Instagram

Animal Bite on Bandcamp

Queen City Sounds Podcast S4E35: Lake Mary

For over a decade, Chaz Pyrmek has been a prolific artist releasing recordings as Lake Mary and as a member of various ensembles including the free jazz group Fuubutsushi. Prymek has found himself in various environments over the years including his hometown, where he is now once again located, of Salt Lake City, Columbia, Missouri and Denver, Colorado but in each case the environments have impacted the composer and multi-instrumentalist in terms of the physical and cultural landscape. Prymek’s music could broadly be described as ambient improv and abstract Americana created with an intuitive, improvisational approach to the songwriting. Whether edited later or the inspired moments simply captured and released into the world, Prymek’s musical endeavors sound fresh, intimate and welcoming. In recent years Prymek has collaborated with free jazz saxophone legend Patrick Shiroishi in the aforementioned Fuubutsushi as well as on Lake Mary recordings and the 2024 album Eventually The River Rises Here Too, As It Always Has as a trio with Prymek, Shiroishi and Thom Nguyen.

Listen to our interview with Chaz Prymek on Bandcamp and follow the links below to listen to his music and keep appraised of his live performances and other adventures in music. Lake Mary will perform at the Ghost Canyon Fest the afternoon of August 24, 2024 at Mutiny Information Cafe. To buy tickets to the festival visit the website here.

chazprymek.com

Lake Mary on Bandcamp

Chaz Prymek on Instagram

Queen City Sounds Podcast S4E34: Lung

Lung is an experimental rock duo from Cincinnati that formed in 2016. Vocalist/cellist Kate Wakefield and drummer Daisy Caplan had both been involved in bands prior to Lung including Caplan’s stint as the bassist for glam pop band Foxy Shazam but with this musical collaboration both musicians utilize musical chops to craft a raw and commanding style of what might be called art punk that pairs Wakefield’s powerful and trained voice and cello prowess and Caplan’s creative command of rhythm. The result is imaginative and emotionally charged songs that translate well to the band’s deserved reputation as an intense and entertaining live band. One might compare the band’s music to the type of resonance evoked by PJ Harvey’s moments of waxing into the unhinged and inspired and the earnest emotional warmth and raw power of The Gits. All with an undeniable knack for rendering left fields ideas accessible. Lung tours extensively every year it’s been possible and it has garnered a reputation as fine citizens of the underground music scene. Its most recent offering as a record is 2023’s split album with Conan Neutron and the Secret Friends called Adult Prom.

Listen to our interview with Wakefield and Caplan on Bandcamp and follow Lung at the links below. The duo will perform at Ghost Canyon Fest the first night of the festival on August 23 at The Skylark Lounge. But you’ll want to catch as much of the festival as possible if you’re a fan of the different in underground music. The festival continues with a matinee show at Mutiny Information Cafe on Saturday, August 24 with the night show at the Hi-Dive with the concluding night of the fest on Sunday August 25 also at the Hi-Dive. For more information no the festival and to buy tickets click here.

Queen City Sounds Podcast S4E33: Ex Everything

Ex Everything is a band based out of Oakland that released its debut album Slow Change Will Pull Us Apart in 2023 The group launched in 2018 with guitarist Jon Howell (Kowloon Walled City) and Ben Thorne (Low Red Land, Tartuffi) who were seeking a vehicle for musical ideas and interests that didn’t fully fit in with their then extant and current outfits. As Ex Everything was putting together its more full-fledged lineup the pandemic hit necessitating incubating song ideas that in the long arc of how the pandemic stretched most if not all musical project timelines meant the quartet was able to hone its concepts and sounds for a record that is equal parts angular post-hardcore and caustic noise rock that fit in well with the Neurot Recordings imprint that ended up releasing the album. The record’s lyrics are scathing examination of destructive human behavior but expressed in a way that has built into the words that suggests the possibility of moving through the worst aspects of modern human civilization. This has meant that the music though intense and heavy is in the end cathartic and a decidedly not nihilistic assessment of the prospects for our collective species.

Listen to our interview with Jon Howell on Bandcamp and follow Ex Everything at the links below. The band performs on the first night of Ghost Canyon Fest on August 23, 2024 at The Skylark Lounge. Tickets for the festival can be purchased here for the second annual event showcasing left field rock and experimental music.

Ex Everything on Instagram

Ex Everything on Neurot Recordings

Queen City Sounds Podcast S4E32: Karen Haglof

Karen Haglof is a veteran musician and songwriter whose fourth full-length album One Hand Up was released on June 14, 2024 on CD, digital download and via streaming services. Haglof began her career in music in the late 70s Minneapolis scene rubbing shoulders with the likes of pioneering Twin Cities punk band The Suicide Commandos which helped to launch the underground scene that produced the likes of Hüsker Dü, The Replacements and Soul Asylum. When Suicide Commandos bassist and vocalist moved to New York, Haglof followed suit in 1980 but found herself immersed more in the world of avant-garde and experimental music playing in Rhys Chatham’s ensemble and later joining Band of Susans. By the early 1990s Haglof realized she didn’t want to be working in restaurants for the rest of her life so she finished college and went to medical school and quit music for many years as being in hematology and oncology didn’t leave a lot of time to pursue music with the focus and energy she once had. Haglof has since retired from medicine in 2022 but prior to doing so she returned to making music in 2014 and ten years later she has released not only one of the most fascinating sets of music of her career thus far but one of the most innovative guitar and synth records of 2024. One Hand Up sounds like an art rock, power pop, jazz Americana record. Its rich tones and nuanced moods, it’s orchestration of detailed performances to convey a retrofuturist honky tonk post-punk aesthetic and a sense of a place in the none-too-distant future at a late night lounge catering to left field music. Parts of the album had contributions from legendary producer Mitch Easter who also performed Moog synth parts to the track “Slinky 66.” But the songwriting is rooted in Haglof’s richly creative imagination.

Listen to our interview with Haglof on Bandcamp and follow her at the links below.

Karen Haglof on Instagram

Karen Haglof on Facebook

Queen City Sounds Podcast S4E31: As For the Future

As For the Future, photo courtesy the artists

As For the Future released its self-titled and self-produced debut full-length album on June 14, 2024 via download, streaming and on 12” LP vinyl and deluxe edition CD (with alternate mixes, dub versions of tracks and other edits). The music is inspired by Brazilian music incorporating various styles (bossa nova, samba, Música popular brasileira) and combining them with rock, jazz, folk and soul to create a sound that is both familiar and like a retrofuturist film soundtrack set in South America but performed in underground clubs in America. The lyrics are at once personal, surreal and wryly humorous and incisive in its socio-political commentary like a Tropicália edition of Steely Dan along with the intricate and sophisticated instrumentation and songwriting for late night lounge listening. With songs written by band founder and multi-instrumentalist David Nagler, the As For the Future album has classic pop aesthetics and attention to sonic detail fused with modern cultural sensibilities that resonate with the subversive ways Brazilian music has been employed in the past.

Listen to our interview with David Nagler on Bandcamp and follow As For the Future at the links below.

As For the Future on Facebook

As For the Future on Instagram

As For the Future on TikTok

As For the Future on YouTube

Queen City Sounds Podcast S4E30: The Burrito Brothers

The Burrito Brothers, photo courtesy the artists

The Burrito Brothers is the current incarnation of the musical legacy of of a band whose roots began with The Flying Burrito Brothers who helped to pioneer country rock with a touch of psychedelia in 1968. Across its decades of an evolving membership with keyboardist and vocalist Chris James, a former music journalist with industry experience, taking up the de facto reigns of leading the band around 2010 the group has turned in finely crafted music with impressive musicianship. In 2023 The Burrito Brothers released its latest record Together reflects the eclectic influences that have shaped the sound with some atmospheric shimmer and warm melodies that render the songs both pastoral and expansive. Album closer “History Suite” ties together how the record embraces where the band has been and the contributions of its vast membership while looking forward to where it will go next through the metaphor of how personal relationships change across time.

Listen to our interview with Chris James on Bandcamp and follow The Burrito Brothers at the links below.

theburritobrothers.net

The Burrito Brothers on Facebook

The Burrito Brothers on Apple Music