Song Post – Page 11 – Queen City Sounds and Art

Dick Dudley Exults in the Frustration Tensions of Dietary Restrictions on the Gnarled and Exultant Post-punk Song “Salt”

A thick bass line opens Dick Dudley’s “Salt” before the song opens up into a frantic and noisy clash of guitar and nearly shouted lyrics. It all sustains a borderline chaotic mood to the end with moments of suspended introspection as the song hangs and falls back into the swing of the this airing of frustrations and grievances that come from the reality of living with kidney disease and needing to avoid salt while staying hydrated. But the habits of living lead to an embarrassing situation like inviting friends over for dinner and saying one might cook but there’s no salt in the food and explaining why it doesn’t have the same flavorfulness it might have with a bit of salt. Although the song is about bemoaning the reality of one’s life circumstances it also has the spirit of embracing the limitations the way one might with the limitations you impose on creative work to encourage new manifestations of how the elements work out. But even then it’s nice to indulge the forbidden elements to exult in the full range of options open to our existence. “Salt” navigates those tensions with a joyful release of nervous energy. Listen to “Salt” on Spotify and follow Dick Dudley on Instagram.

Bad Flamingo’s Post-Apocalyptic Noir Americana “Oh My My” is a Timeless Love Song for a Cormac McCarthy-esque Future

Bad Flamingo, photo courtesy the artists

Bad Flamingo always seems to make changes to its sound and style with every single and “Oh My My” is like an early Americana and country song in its spareness of composition. Also kudos on having a great new photo with a signature style with every single. Other bands take note. The song has the kind of production you couldn’t have done quite the same a hundred years ago and yet the way the song is arranged and performed it’s elements could have come together before the advent of electric instruments and modern production methods. It’s yet another chapter in what seems to be the story arc of two rebels on the run from a stultified mainstream society. But this time there’s a sense that the duo are running from a world in the late stage of an empire and not depending the dubious comforts of what passes for civilization. The opening line “It’s desert on all three sides” sets the stage for a song filled with nice touches of tactile detail like “I stood up on the table, threw one back and peeled the label” and “I dance with the devil under the neon.” Musically it recalls Neil Young’s “Ohio” and “The Chain” by Fleetwood Mac at the same time and that sense of camaraderie in a time of troubles. The percussion provides as much texture as rhythm, hushed vocals convey the intimate energy of the lyrics and experiences shared by partners and the guitar and banjo combination give a sense of timelessness by evoking the past and the future at once. Listen to “Oh My My” on Spotify and follow Bad Flamingo at the links below.

Bad Flamingo on Facebook

Bad Flamingo on Instagram

Bad Flamingo on YouTube

badflamingomusic.com

Peter Martin’s Dream Pop Song “Musical Chairs” is a Wry and Subtle Dig at Incompetent and Corrupt Political Leaders

Peter Martin, photo courtesy the artists

A warm drone leads us into Peter Martin’s “Musical Chairs.” Vocals that float like an incandescent presence in the musical fog drift in and the song unfolds more brightly at the halfway point. Hovering tones haunt the background and a spare guitar figure contributes to an increasing luminosity of tone along with a gorgeous, slow synth burst toward the end before strings ease us out of the song. Overall it has an effect like someone waking up in the early morning, before sunrise with vague memories of a dream. Which is perfect considering the backdrop of the song written by the band in a single day was the resignation of Tory politician Liz Truss who was Prime Minister of the UK from September 6, 2022 until October 25 of the same year, her term in office an exercise in ineffective incompetence and a passing dream of a nation still mired in the supply side economic foolishness that plagues much of the Western world. Truss was just a blip on the Conservative Party continuum and this song and its tranquil vibes is like an amused noting of business as usual but perhaps more absurd than usual. The title of the song is both subtle and on the nose which is an achievement in itself. Given that part of the inspiration for the song was a reading of the writing of the great Mancunian poet John Cooker Clarke and his inspired witticisms the song seems like a fully realized work of dream pop and social commentary. Listen to “Musical Chairs” Spotify where you can find other songs by the band.

Rocker C’s Lo-Fi Synth Pop Track “Time” is a Song About Indulging One’s Desires as a Path to the Vitality of Life

Rocker C adopts a layer of scuzzy production on “Time” with a heavily distorted synth line that sits in the foreground like in the early part of the song like an ambient reminder of a gritty reality all around us. But alongside and underneath is a moody, Giorgio Moroder-esque melodic line that accompanies the vocals that gives the song both a lo-fi edge and the quality of an obscure song you’d hear on an AM station in the 1980s that sticks with you for years but which remains an enigma in your brain until you rediscover it on a playlist that unearths forgotten greats of synth pop from outside the USA and the UK. On the surface level the song seems to be about how little time we have in life and we can waste it doing things we don’t enjoy or which don’t fill us with joy and vitality. Rocker C seems to suggest maybe waiting for those moments of passion can be frustrating but the fulfillment of which is what gives life a significance outside the drab and mundane experiences that seem to be part and parcel of everyday existence. Listen to “Time” on Spotify where you can find more music by the Swedish songwriter.

Gilded Creatures Ride a Wave of Wistful Hopefulness Out of Personal Gloom on Dream Pop Song “I Can Get Morose”

Gilded Creatures, photo courtesy the artists

Supposedly Gilded Creatures are “the worst country band to have ever existed.” But that failure of genre adherence has given us the gorgeously melancholic “I Can Get Morose.” If one were to get deep into the weeds of style diagnostics of the song one hears threads of stuff like early Big Head Todd and the Monsters and following that musical DNA further back some R.E.M. (the vocals are very reminiscent of Michael Stipe). Maybe there is a good solid chunk of being subjected to a playlist of the peak popularity tracks by Counting Crows by one’s parents or nascent youthful nostalgia. But the guitar work is ethereal and glittery and the rhythms expansive as though washing the personal darkness and gloomy moods that can weigh one down at the best of times and certainly when the weather is waxing cold. Is this indie rock or dream pop or soft shoegaze? Does it matter when the spirit of the song gets in your head with an undeniable melodic hook or five and words of emotional solidarity in capturing the vibe a headspace of being sunk in defeated thoughts and seeking a break from it however you can in order to move beyond it? Not really. Listen to “I Can Get Morose” on Spotify and follow Gilded Creatures at the links below.

Gilded Creatures on Facebook

Gilded Creatures on Instagram

IN LIFE’s Psychedelic Post-Punk Song “Deliverance” is an Anthem Against Succumbing to the Ambient Anxiety of Life in Our Modern Dystopia

Oakland’s IN LIFE wrote its new album Strawberry Blonde (released on September 8, 2023) trading ideas and music files back and forth during the peak isolation period of the COVID-19 pandemic as many musicians did. But there’s a coherence in the emotional resonance of its songs as they deal with the various ways life got precarious for all of us and the small things we took for granted and the ways we thought we could operate, particularly anyone in industries that require human contact either directly or indirectly as in the case of the music industry or music scenes or any of the performing arts, or the service industry entirely. The pandemic has highlighted in shocking detail the interconnectedness of human civilization and the drastic limitations of our current methods of organizing. In the music video for the song “Deliverance” we see the band operating as it once did with footage of the band live at venues like The Caravan and the legendary DIY space 924 Gilman spliced in with footage of the city and Nick Noro offering lines from the song clad in various band t-shirts including those for Sepultura and Drab Majesty. Musically the song walks an alluring tightrope between post-punk, psychedelic rock and shoegaze with fragile melodies on guitar and keyboards with percussion keeping a steady and hypnotic pace matched by Noro’s introspective cadence. The song both celebrates the beauty of the life that is so precarious while mourning the various ways we maybe got comfortable with operating though perhaps it nods to the complacency born of privilege or a survivor’s pragmatic dissociation in an unsustainable late capitalism Dystopia. “Deliverance” captures that mood of holding on to the ability to craft creative work to alleviate the ambient anxiety of today and not to be swallowed up by it entirely. Watch the video for “Deliverance” on YouTube and follow IN LIFE at the links provided.

IN LIFE on Bandcamp

IN LIFE on Instagram

SLW cc Watt Work Out Getting Clear of Suspect Associates on the Psychedelic Jazz Folk Song “Help Me”

Samuel Locke Ward from Iowa and Mike Watt from Pedro (maybe you know him for his stints in Minutemen, The Stooges, fIREHOSE and other notable bands) delivered another fine collaborative record as SLC cc Watt in Purple Pie Plow out now via Kill Rock Stars on vinyl and digital. The lead single “Help Me” is like a psychedelic folk indiepop campfire glam rock song. It’s the kind of song with a rhythm and pace that would invite some group participating clapping along to the beat. It’s reminiscent of the kind of bands you’d see at DIY spaces around a decade and a half ago but with a sound more borne of recent years. Like an even more charmingly slackery The Flaming Lips. The song seems to be able taking action you think is going to improve your life but you get caught up in doing so with a bunch of people who turn out to be disreputable jerks and you realize maybe you have a bit of that in you but that in coming to the realization of your associations comes the awareness that you have much more to offer as a human than where you might be now and it’ll just take that extra step to get away to a better place. For the album Ward and Watt worked with drummer Dean Clean and tapped friends Joe Jack Talcum of Dead Milkmen fame and Bob Bucko Jr., an Iowa avant-garde music luminary who is a member of free jazz and electro duo Sex Funeral and noise rock jazz Krautrock combo New Standards Men. It’s a sprawling odyssey of poetry and storytelling set to earnest, jazz flavored psychedelic folk and delicately rendered pop rock. Listen to “Help Me” on YouTube and follow the links below to connect with the project, hear more tracks and to order the record.

SLW cc Watt on Bandcamp

SLW cc Watt on killrockstars.com

Seja Rides the Waves of Psychedelic Melodies and Motorik Rhythms of “Time To the Brim” to a More Fulfilling Place

“Time To the Brim” by Seja is teeming with layers of tone from guitar, to pulsing and shimmering synth with a steady, almost motorik beat and in moments is reminiscent of a 90s trip-hop band but more psychedelic. It progresses in steps with lyrics like personal mantra coaxing oneself out of static headspace and diving into how the music breaks out of the repetitive rhythm in the last half of the song with swirling guitar sound that goes off standard rhythmic meter while still anchored to the beat until the end when the haze of synth slow arcs to silence. Emotionally it’s like Seja trusts in the float of the slow momentum of the song to nudge herself to a place she wants to be and leans into the melody with her vocals. Fans of Curve and the more electronic end of Blonde Redhead may enjoy the physicality and entrancingly disorienting melodies running through this sing. Listen to “Time To the Brim” on Spotify and follow Seja at the links below. The new album Here Is One I Know You Know was released on August 4, 2023 via It Records.

Seja on Facebook

Seja on Instagram

REYSHA RAMI Industrial Hyper Pop Hip-Hop Song “S0ULFUL_4NARCHY_EXUM” Casts Off Oppressive Cultural Legacies

The beginning of “S0ULFUL_4NARCHY_EXUM” had a sound like you might imagine would precede the hunters team arriving for another round of attempting to wipe out the alien invaders in the manga Gantz—a distorted, accelerating tone. REYSHA RAMI’s processed vocals drop in like a digital avatar of a human in a virtual landscape. It’s just over two minutes of industrial hyper pop hip-hop with some lines dropped in by guest vocalist Exum. It’s a song of liberation from oppressive cultural legacies that fans of early Crystal Castles will appreciate and when Exum comes in one is reminded of Doesone lending a further dimension of science fiction flavor to the song. So many ideas are packed into the song it feels like it couldn’t possibly be so brief in duration yet it flows with a commanding energy. Listen to “S0ULFUL_4NARCHY_EXUM” on Spotify and follow REYSHA RAMI at the links below.

REYSHA RAMI on TikTok

REYSHA RAMI on YouTube

REYSHA RAMI on Instagram

McKenzie Stubbert Orchestrates a Journey From Quiet Tension to a Place of Solace on Electro-Acoustic Ambient Track “Err”

KcKenzie Stubbert recorded the piano part of his song “Err” on a 1949 Acrosonic with the subtle touches of analog imperfection that ends up giving the piece some character without having to manufacture sound anomalies in post-editing. The spare and drawn out dramatic aspect of the song with the accompanying ethereal drone lends the whole an air of mystery. The music video written and directed by Habitual Loss and featuring Crissi Badurina and Sarah Minor is like an elevated horror short about two women who go to a remote location, a winter retreat perhaps, to deal with religious trauma after undergoing the sort of conversion therapy to drive out “inappropriate” impulses or thoughts, whatever those might be. We see one of the women floating in air at one point and later writing and turning and twisting in bed all before that experience has been cast off and an emotional reconciliation can begin. Which is also the emotional arc of the song that starts with tenderness, grace and subtlety and across the journey of the composition Stubbert brings us to a place of great calm. Watch the video for “Err” on YouTube and follow Stubbert at the links below. His new album, from which this track hails, Waiting Room was released on August 18, 2023 via Curious Music.

McKenzie Stubbert on Bandcamp

McKenzie Stubbert on Instagram