Song Post – Page 138 – Queen City Sounds and Art

“Light In Your Window” is Esmé Patterson’s New Dream Pop Track About Being Kind To Yourself When You’re Still Working Old Habits Out of Your Heart

EsmePatterson_LightInYourWindow1_crop — Esmé Patterson, “Light In Your Window” cover (cropped)

“Light In Your Window” is the first single in a new chapter in the career of Esmé Patterson. While Patterson has made solid moves away from the type of folk and more traditional pop music that characterized the early part of her career as a member of Paper Bird with every one of her solo albums, this new single in the wake of her signing to BMG finds the songwriter exploring a new sonic palette as a vehicle for her characteristically nuanced and thoughtful lyrics. This time the sounds are more electronic, synth and keyboard driven, and recorded in a garage with Patterson’s friends in the pop band Tennis. It’s a song about the bad habits we find ourselves repeating based on past patterns that served us well but rather than necessarily casting these habits as bad, the song demonstrates some compassion for our past selves as a foundation for moving to where we want and need to be. “I can’t wait until it fades” is the telling line as an acknowledgment of how some ways become so ingrained in us it will take more time than we can predict for those modes of feeling and behaving to work their way out of us and while we really want to have moved on it’s okay to be patient with the way the human heart and mind work with the connections we have and have had with the people we love and loved. Listen to/watch the video for “Light In Your Window” on YouTube and look for the follow up to Patterson’s excellent 2016 album We Were Wild in 2020.

soundcloud.com/esmepattersonmusic

Dead Lucid Captures the Essence of its Live Alchemy on “Space Rock (Live at the VCR, 9/7/2018)”

DeadLucid1_crop — Dead Lucid, image courtesy the artists

Dead Lucid’s live recording of “Space Rock” at Chicago DIY space the VCR on September 7, 2018 is reminiscent of something you might have expected from a live Sleepers set as in the San Francisco post-punk band, not the Denver-based experimental rock band. The vocals seem to wander between pillars of rapidly cycling and shimmering whorls of melody accented by percussion. Like a noisy, psychedelic dream pop version of a jazz session. Like a lower fidelity Bardo Pond jam yet more coherent and focused. The sound is incandescent and lacking in the sound separation you’d expect from a studio recording but with the freshness that can only come from a live version of a song when a band can color outside the lines a little and adapt and work together to create a real moment for the people that show up. Some people think that a performance that sounds just like the album is the epitome of a great show when really it’s that unpredictability and the willingness to go beyond that makes live bands still worth going to see. This recording captures a bit of that living, breathing experience of a band recreating the magic of the essence of a song. Listen to “Space Rock (Live at the VCR, 9/7/2018)” on Soundcloud and follow Dead Lucid on the Bandcamp page.

deadlucid.bandcamp.com

Hannah Connolly’s Beautifully Fragile and Spare “House/Home” Evokes a Deepfelt Sense of Loss of Both

HannahConnolly_HouseHome_cover1_crop — Hannah Connolly, “House/Home” cover (cropped)

Hannah Connolly’s fragile and spare songwriting and performance on “House/Home” is the perfect format for a song about what it’s like to lose your home in the psychological sense. Pedal steel traces the fingers of dawn and dusk that seem to characterize the tone of the song. Connolly sings about how the house doesn’t seem like a home without the people she loves: “This house ain’t home without you, so there’s no reason left to stay.” With those simple words, Connolly articulates a feeling most people have had whether it’s living in a house you shared with a partner after the split up or going back to the family home after the members of your family that lived there have passed on or moved elsewhere and how those places can never be the same without the people in whom you invested your time and emotions, the people who give the idea of home context and meaning. It’s a sense of emotional intimacy and familiarity that you can’t simply buy or easily replace, it is something that must be lived and cultivated imbued with shared experience. Connolly captures the feeling of that loss with subtlety and and the strength of her poetic expression in words and music. Listen to “House/Home” on Soundcloud and follow Connolly at the links provided.

facebook.com/HannahConnollyMusic
instagram.com/hannahhconnolly
twitter.com/hannahmalynn
open.spotify.com/artist/1xpalQ3BhdYn8zfdE2tNag

Chillout Space Jazz Song “Lonely” by Aaron Matthew is the Perfect Soundtrack to Clearing Your Head in the Late Night Hours

AaronMatthew1_lg — Aaron Matthew, photo courtesy the artist

It’s difficult to tell if Aaron Matthew titled his instrumental, jazzy downtempo track “Lonely” because it sounds like you’re hearing it as though it’s bleeding from another part of a building in which you’re living or find yourself spending time alone. You hear this smooth, spacey lounge music that comes in and out with volume and intensity seeming to phase out and back into existence and you imagine yourself there with the music where cool people are getting into this chillout band that sounds a bit like Steely Dan had the group come up after Thundercat had a few records out minus the darkly surreal surreal vibe of so many of that band’s lyrics. Or it sounds like listening to a strange cool jazz station with spotty reception in the dark away from the glow of civilization and clearing your head while being drawn in by the mysterious music that seems to be the only thing you can get other than right wing talk radio and a blandly programmed community radio station is the frequency playing the hypnotic and soothing “Lonely.” Listen to the track on Soundcloud and follow Aaron Matthew at the links provided below.

aaronmatthewmusic.org
soundcloud.com/aaronmatthew
aaronmatthew.bandcamp.com
facebook.com/aaronmatthew.love
instagram.com/aaronmatthewmusic

The Kerosene Hours Lovingly Captures the Mix of Affection and Compassionate Agony at Seeing a Loved One in Denial About Coming Apart on “Hang On”

TheKeroseneHours_HangOn1_crop — The Kerosene Hours “Hang On” cover (cropped)

“Hang On” by The Kerosene Hours initially sounds a bit like a more corrupted version of that Elvis hologram in Blade Runner 2049. Like someone constructing an imperfect image of how they want to present a myth of themselves without being able to conceal all the flaws and demons. Blend together some strands of Roy Orbison, Suicide and chillwave and you get a song about a sibling who is crumbling under the strain of their troubled psyche but wants to maintain a veneer of competence and strength when vulnerability and honesty about their inability to keep it together would be easier to take and more understandable than the intense discomfort of that completely ineffective deceit grounded in ego and a need to keep up airs of normalcy when the time for such gestures have long passed because you’re fooling no one and trying to keep doing so is actually preventing getting help and hopefully getting better. It’s a bittersweet, nostalgic take on a complex subject that perfectly balances the feelings of love and compassion for the discomfort and agony sensed if not fully acknowledged. Listen to “Hang On” on Soundcloud and follow The Kerosene Hours at the links below including Spotify where you can listen to the rest of the Desperate Perilous Virtue EP.

soundcloud.com/thekerosenehours
instagram.com/thekerosenehours
open.spotify.com/album/0aUqJ2DUBa4fQVEANn84N8?si=zEPp4pGNSB6xw7oq64If4g

Animals In Exile Sketches the Scorched Cultural and Natural Landscape Under Late Capitalism on Jangle Psych Song “Misery”

AnimalsInExile2_lg — Animals In Exile, photo courtesy the artists

The “Misery” single by Animals In Exile, from the band’s third album Western Gothic, starts out in the jangle pop and psych mode that may be reminiscent to some of 90s-era Brian Jonestown Massacre or R.E.M. gone psychedelic with a dash of Americana flavor. But the songwriting takes the sound down some different paths than one might expect by bending the minor chord progression so that it blooms askew to illuminate a song that is a commentary on the way greed and how it manifests in the form of predatory real estate developers and rapacious industry is remaking our society and the world we live in into a product that is in turn used to get us to conform to patterns of behavior that reinforce that sort of economically authoritarian system and the seduction of that cycle as it is rewarded by the system in which we find ourselves living in through sheer inertia and adjusting to what we might think is inevitable change. And yet it’s a song that suggests we are aware of the destructive quality of this state of affairs and therein lies hope for change. Listen to “Misery” Soundcloud and follow Animals In Exile at the links provided.

animalsinexile.com
soundcloud.com/animals-in-exile
animalsinexile.bandcamp.com/releases
facebook.com/animalsinexile
instagram.com/animalsinexile

“Bucket List” is Carina T’s Subversively Pragmatic Song of Self-Affirmation

CarinaT4_sm — Carina T, photo courtesy the artist

Carina T lists all the discouraging messages thrown your way by other people and your own brain throughout “Bucket List.” But part of those narratives is the illusion of infinite choices and why choose any of them when you can pursue something provided for you. But Carina wades through the competing voices with some self-belief and a vision of the life she wants for herself. The music is reminiscent of one of those pop ballads of the 80s or 90s that is part of a montage of a character setting aside distractions and naysayers and getting things done but without malice. She also introduces the idea of how you often need to keep your dreams to yourself to protect them from those who would prefer to see everyone around them striving for the middle, threatened by anything or anyone that stands out, spewing words dismantling fledgling plans and positive impulses as silly or impractical before they get off the ground. On the surface it’s a positivistic, self-affirmation song but its undercurrent is more subversive in acknowledging the existence of legitimate concerns and doubts but putting the defeatist messaging in its proper perspective. As the title of the song suggests, it’s important to have goals but also not to get bogged down by accomplishing them all and certainly not insist they happen in a particular order. Listen to “Bucket List” on Soundcloud and follow Carina T at the links provided.

carinatmusic.com
carinatmusic.bandcamp.com/releases
twitter.com/CarinaTMusic
facebook.com/carinatofficial
instagram.com/carinatmusic

“The Journey” by Emiji is a Doorway Into the Tranquil Places of Your Mind

Emiji_TheJourney1_crop — Emiji “The Journey” cover (cropped)

“The Journey” finds Emiji exploring the concept of travel both physically, emotionally and psychologically through finely modulated dynamics and syncopation. Like several different sounds set to different ways of counting time and measuring distance, layered upon each other the way we are hit with new stimuli as we travel through a landscape or in the imagination. But Emiji leaves room for the space and thus a place for the mind to expand and process rather than simply take in a solid feed of information. In that way it’s a little like the mythological journey in which adventures and stimuli are undertaken and then made sense of in cultural context later on to convey to the tribe. Except that this journey is no epic adventure but rather a doorway into the calm places of the mind where peaceful moments can linger in your mind and go back to when life gets more complicated. Listen to “The Journey” on Soundcloud and follow Emiji at the links below.

emijimusic.com
facebook.com/emijimusic
instagram.com/emijimusic

With Elegant Skepticism Pop Band Seatbelts Skewers Conventional Wisdom of Embracing All Change as Equal and Inevitable on “Black Spring”

SEATBELTS1_sm — Seatbelts, photo courtesy the artists

Produced by Edwyn Collins, “Black Spring” by Seatbelts was inspired in part by Henry Miller’s classic work of the same name. It tackles the issue of great changes that hit us whether we’re ready or not. It challenges the often spurious notion that one must embrace all change because it’s inevitable. But is it always for the positive, must it be welcomed in all circumstances? Do some changes that seem beneficial at first eventually become agents of a negative upheaval? The tone of trepidation and skepticism that imbues the R&B inflected melody seems warranted given how the modern world in the West has meant shrinking prospects for dignified work that doesn’t bleed over into all hours of the day with you being on call much of the time at the behest of customers in a way that isn’t adequately compensated but what else is there for some of us? The dubious promises of a better life for all with Brexit and cutting taxes for the ultra wealthy and for some reason imagining ensuring the so-called donor class being allowed to hold on to greater shares of unearned largesse will translate to better economic conditions for all when history consistently shows the opposite is the backdrop to this introspective and gently scrappy song. Listen to “Black Spring” on Soundcloud and follow Seatbelts at the links provided.

soundcloud.com/user-466191958/hey-hey-tiger_mix-c
facebook.com/wearseatbelts

Ariza’s Cinematic, Downtempo IDM Jazz Track “Find Me” Is Like the Soundtrack to Deep Secrets Spoken Aloud Only When Alone

Ariza_FindMe1_crop — Ariza “Find Me” cover (cropped)

Ariza’s use of space on “Find Me” gives the track a fascinating dynamic both sonic and emotional. It begins with the sounds almost sitting in the background before flowing effortlessly into the foreground as Miette Hope’s vocals come into vivid focus with the rest of the music. The production suggests a visual aesthetic to the composition and at times there is a layer of gossamer noise floating over Hope’s voice as it weaves through the track like a jazz ghost reminiscent of Beth Gibbons but less dramatic and alien. And yet Ariza places the voice in balance with meditative pace so that it sounds as though you’re hearing deep personal secrets normally spoken, if at all, alone to a bedroom mirror. The parts are woven together with glitches that manage to be smoother than usual while maintaining the flow. Although a different musical flavor in that way Ariza’s songwriting bears comparison to Broadcast and its perfect melding of ethereal downtempo, experimental electronic music and sound design. Listen to “Find Me” on Soundcloud.