The title track to Alex McArtor’s debut EP Heart Talk, Vol. 1 is part goodbye letter and and acceptance that the romance isn’t going to work out. She outlines the positive aspects of the relationship and what sparked an initial connection but then all the details of how those connections didn’t run wide or deep. That McArtor couldn’t fulfill a role expected of her that wasn’t her own identity. The song is a gentle refusal of warping her heart and psyche for a love that isn’t suitable. With finely textured acoustic guitar rhythms and soaring electric leads, a doleful synth melody and McArtor’s dynamic and passionate vocals, the song brings you into that moment when you cast off your own personal illusions about someone you love and are ready to walk away while acknowledging your own feelings in the process and recognizing your own part in how things went down, which is the harder realization to swallow for a lot of people, especially when you’re young and don’t have as much life experience. McArtor makes it sound not just melancholic but a necessary part of stepping away and that is actually saying so rather than ghosting. Listen to “Heart Talk” on Soundcloud and follow McArtor on Spotify.
LUC’s single “Glow” bursts with a fuzzy, funky synth pulse and soaring, soulful vocals that serve as almost a counterpoint to the grit of distorted processed guitar and bass that carries the main melody. In that way the track is reminiscent of the way Goldfrapp reconciles elements that seem to contrast but in the end compliment one another to give the music great momentum and emotional peaks that border on bombast but come off more like swagger. The mix of the track is fascinating in that it allows for the more granular sounds to shine as well as the ethereal soundscaping and the melodious and acrobatic vocal line. The Los Angeles-based project says the genre “is LA Garagetronic” possibly because its combination of electronic dance pop and garage rock but really it stands out for the super production and adeptness in making disparate elements work together to create something decidedly different than its component parts. Listen to “Glow” on Soundcloud and follow LUC at the links provided.
When “Gasoline” starts up, you think for a second that it’s going to go into a warped version of “Repo Man” by Iggy Pop but then the rhythm fully engages and its headlong pace and cutting but melodic guitar riff, helped by Rikk Agnew formerly of The Adolescents and Christian Death (circa the 1982 classic Only Theatre of Pain), are an integral part of the song and its tale of a combustible relationship that is mutually destructive but irresistible. The kind where both people know how fucked up it is but the drama and the darkness are a turn on for both people and they’re going to ride it out until it flames out in spectacular fashion. The metaphor of relationship as perilous car ride is borne throughout but especially the part that begins with “crash and burn” and completes with “built for speed,” I’m what you need.“ Singer Joie Blaney takes some lines and MisMaxine Murrderr others as they sing/scream almost as call and response but also together. And dark as the song goes there’s something sweet about it at heart like two cynical hedonists who’ve seen it all get each other and get to each other by bypassing their defenses and numbness to vanilla stimulation even if it will cost them in the end. Listen to “Gasoline,” produced by Paul Roessler of The Screamers, 45 Grave and Nina Hagen fame, on YouTube and follow Rx27 at the links below.
Since the beginning of the year, Ian O’Dougherty (of Uphollow, Slim Cessna’s Auto Club, Tauntaun and Fauxgazi among other projects), under his songwriting moniker Eolian, has been writing and releasing a song a week and collecting various tracks into albums. His April 2019 album Home conveys a sense of loss and yearning and rebuilding. The track “Be Home” in particular is an upbeat, Robyn Hitchcock-esque power pop ode to the ability of people to reclaim their personal power by making where they’re living their home and not just a place to put your possessions and sleep every night. Its urgent pace and lightly distorted guitar melody suggest movement and one can almost see the subject of the song putting personal touches on the house or apartment to make it feel like his own place, not the equivalent of a long term hotel. The idea of home can be elusive, amorphous quality for many but a sense many if not most people crave in some capacity—a place of your own to belong, whatever that looks and feels like. It can be taken away from you in various ways including when a relationship ends, one has to move for a job or one is displaced due to rent hikes, made homeless or perhaps worst, through natural disaster or war. O’Dougherty’s song, though, is aimed toward the spirit to put your personal stamp on where you’re staying and the significance of such for your psychological health. Listen to “Be Home” on YouTube and follow Eolian at the links below.
Dog Basketball, still from video for “Gold Dust Falcon Crest”
For the last year and a half Zack Marshall has been writing, producing and recording his forthcoming EP due fall 2019 under the name Dog Basketball. The Denver-based project was adapted to a live band including Jack Long, Ben Eberle, and Kylie Ludvig, members of Denver punk/hardcore bands Use the Sun and Screwtape. Marshall, a former member of his high school band Use the Sun, took a departure from his roots in emo, pop punk and math rock in favor of a more pop-oriented, mellow, abstract electronic sound.
The EP’s lead single, “Ghost Dust Falcon Crest,” is reflective of the, as Marshall says, “moody/off-kilter electronic indie pop w/ jazz and ambient influences.” Using samples and field recordings of “bones, coins, birds, metal gates, etc for either percussive purposes or atmospheric / impressionistic purposes,” the single will remind some listeners a bit initially of IDM artists that favor the use of organic sounds in their tracks like Boards of Canada but the song quickly evolves into a delicate, introspective pop song. While tempting to compare the song to some music by Microphones, for which there are certainly resonances, it might be better compared to Clairo’s brand of lo-fi pop and its intimate and personal character.
Ahead of the November 22 release of the EP, mixed and mastered by Berlin-based producer Dan Taro, formerly of Denver and who contributed production elements, Dog Basketball is releasing the video for “Gold Dust Falcon Crest.” Looking like a cross between a 1980s public access art or nature video with the glitches and visual quality to match the gloriously refined amateur sound of the music. It’s a complete aesthetic. Directed by Nick Goforth, the video was filmed in Estes Park, Colorado and inspired by the genre of found footage and “lost tapes” that you can find all over YouTube and the internet in generally if you go looking and which has been the subject and aesthetic of multiple movies, often in the realm of horror. While not horrific minus large cockroaches toward the end, the video is meant to convey a sense of being followed by something out of sight. Like the song, more impressionistic than defined, it invites the imagination to contemplate what it might mean and where it might go from finding the mysterious book. It draws you in to the kind of mystery the lead character in the video is experiencing and thus a sense of wonder. The video and song are analogs of one another while complementing each other perfectly.
Watch the video below and catch Dog Basketball at DIME in Denver on October 25 and on November 1 at 40 West Studios for a Halloween-themed video game soundtrack covers set. Follow the project at the links provided below.
Earth Control Pill, August 2019, photo by Tom Murphy
Earth Control Pill is releasing its first music video for two songs paired together, “Fan/Pool.” The project, which is comprised of Kathryn Taylor (formerly of political punk band Future Single Mom and noise/performance art duo Sex Therapy and noise rock group Born Dumb) whose unearthly drones are hypnotically soothing and reflect a kind of collage aesthetic abstracted to soundscapes. In the video, like a lo-fi David Lynch short, Taylor (in blue gloves) and friends undertake some kind of benevolent ritual. The cast includes video director Laura Conway in teal gloves, Mattie Gonzales of New Skin Magazine in pink gloves, artist Meghan Meehan (Conway’s partner in monthly DJ night Night Shift) in yellow gloves and, later, performance artist/musician Coleman Mummery of Goblin King of the Pop Stars comes in first wearing teal gloves and switching to purple. At times the video treatment by Conway and Anna Winter, with contributions from filmmaker Kim Shively, is reminiscent of the surreal quality of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls or Troll 2, like it’s out of phase with normal reality. The song is a little different for Earth Control Pill too as it’s more a conventionally jaunty melody that almost sounds like music for a kid’s show and the video captures the dancing and silly antics friends get up to when no one is watching. The informal sacredness of those moments done in an environment decorated as if from weeks of thrift store finds turned into something magical so everyone who goes there knows they’re in some place different where the mundane stuff of everyday life doesn’t belong. The visual effects are subtle and humorous like the reverse effect of the cigarette un-ashing back to Taylor’s face. There is a darkness and lightness to the video that may or may not reflect the purity of the moments on screen but done as a private thing to share among friends. Nothing nefarious, just a little silly at moments. Dreamlike and subtly humorous like an inside joke at no one’s expense, the video helps making music that might seem abstract much more accessible.
If Birdman Cult’s song “Snakes” wasn’t a jaunty, fuzzy post-punk garage rock song its video would come off more like the notorious “11B-X-1371” clip that circulated a few years ago. A hooded and robed figure in a bird mask bearing tilted pentagrams presents as the high priest of some nefarious cult handling snakes like he’s officiating at something more sinister than the “Cremation of Care” ceremony at Bohemian Grove. Rather, the symbols are more primal connecting the vitality of the song itself to more elemental forces than the theatrically wicked. The “snake” in this song also taps into mythology and turns the symbol on its head with the temptations of the city and its culture serving as transformative role through corrupting an outmoded set of values and sensibilities. If you turn off the sound the optics are certainly spooky but the music gives it the playful context much as many things seem far scarier than they are if you don’t know much about them and this song challenges that cognitive dissonance beautifully. Watch the video for “Snakes” on YouTube and follow Birdman Cult at the links below.
RARE CIGARETTES is the alias of producer Daniel Gol who in the single “Amygdala,” made in collaboration with ZAAR, gives us a downtempo exploration of that most modern of ailments, anxiety. The vocals seem very chill on the subject but in the music with the distorted synth haunting after the finely textured beats and enshrouding the other elements of the music you hear how those emotions can overwhelm so much of your life. The vocals can’t escape it, the rhythm can’t and in the end those distorted drones and synth arpeggios close out the track. In expressing the power of those phenomena of the mind, though, Gol suggests we can externalize and express those feelings and perhaps better understand and get a grasp of them so they do not have undue power over our minds. Listen to “Amygdala,” a word that refers to the part of the brain that processes emotion, another nice touch to the song, on YouTube and follow RARE CIGARETTES at the links provided.
A distant drone flecked with the sound of static or a nearby flame introduce us to Voga’s new track “A Render in Sepia.” When the strings come in with the melodic and drifty companion tone like a processed organ one does get the sense of looking at an old photograph. The song has the mood of a window onto a time and place of rustic simplicity. Like sitting by the fire in your cottage in the woods as the snow falls outside in heavy but quiet layers, reading from a beloved book and pausing now and then to stoke the fire and contemplate the fact that you don’t have to be anywhere for days compounded by the snowstorm. Because of this the quiet part of your mind can merge with the imagination and put your mind in its own storytelling mode as you finally get to writing your own book of wonder and adventure. This song feels like a prelude coming from a place of supreme tranquility. Created with synth drones, strings and muted horn the track was re-recorded through a cell phone and thus the sense of another time or cut off from civilization is an illusion but one that seems welcome fantasy away from the rate race most of us live in today. Listen to “A Render in Sepia” on Soundcloud and follow Voga at the links provided.
The floating eye in the middle of the collage of footage of technology and society gone awry in the video for Cares’ single “Lucid” looks troubled. As if to suggest we see all of this happening but we are also a bit dazzled by the seeming options and frontiers it opens for us without considering how it might all impact our lives in ways we can’t predict. Footage of black bloc protesters, looting and high speed rail, body sculpting and a pit where a fire has been going on for perhaps decades, car crashes and crash test dummies are all reminders of the compromises we’ve all made to make life easier when really we’ve also made it more mediated and enriched a ruling elite who seethe vast majority of us as interchangeable and when we act up maybe someday they’ll send in the automated army. In the background sub bass pounds with the heartbeat of civilization, sub-howling white noise streams and after disappearing for a few minutes the eye returns with visible tears as if to suggest we could stop this if we wanted to or is it too late? Are these trends documented in the video beyond our control? The track comes from the latest Cares album Control Isn’t Real and you can watch the video on YouTube and follow the project on Soundcloud.
Queen City Sounds and Art 
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