Song Post – Page 176 – Queen City Sounds and Art

Omer Gronich Dives Deep Into the Cycles of Life and Love on His Experimental Pop Gem “Azure”

OmerGronich2_crop — Omer Gronich, image courtesy the artist

“Azure,” Omer Gronich’s latest single, fades in with a warble of atmospherics before his vocals come in, slightly processed to have an otherworldly feel like you might hear on an early Peter Gabriel solo song. The repeating, simple guitar figure evolves subtly, floating through the song as a companion to the background vocals. But then in the last roughly third of the song synth beeps poke through what was the dreamy fog of the earlier part of the song and like waking up from a weird, troubling dream in which one relives the cycle of a love beginning and ending as a symbol for larger patterns in our lives whether birth to death and all the experience in between or in specific realms like the natural cycles of a career or creative path and how they interconnect and inform each other. By diving deep into these themes, Gronich untangles them a bit and makes them more discernible by connecting them to sounds in a song that doesn’t have to be fully understood on a conscious, logical level. Listen to “Azure” on Spotify and follow Gronich on his website linked below. Also, look out for his forthcoming album The Art of Sinking.

omergronichmusic.com

Julia And The Basement Tapes Will Put You In a Contemplative Mood With The Bluesy and Arresting “Something More”

JuliaAndTheBasementTapes1_sm — Julia And The Basement Tapes, photo courtesy the artists

Julia And The Basement Tapes employ some evocatively melancholic chords throughout its “Something More” single. It is reminiscent at times of Zeppelin’s “Thank You” and, curiously, Duran Duran’s “Ordinary World.” The shimmer around the gentle guitar work and the warm vocals, the piano accents and the tasteful pedal steel flourishes gives the track an expansive lushness and grace it’s easy to forget it’s firmly rooted in blues music. When the guitar takes a lead toward the end of the song it feels more like the climax of the piece and not merely an excuse to show off chops. And that’s it, all elements of this song showcase a band that writes to further the song and its impact rather than a display of individual ego. It’s an affecting song that puts you in a contemplative mood. Listen to “Something More” on Spotify and follow Julia And The Basement Tapes at the links below. Apparently “Something More” is the lead single on the group’s forthcoming album due out later in the year.

soundcloud.com/jatbt
open.spotify.com/artist/7fjf6EaZ9Dnmxh9FTAIDcE

Discrete’s Video for “In My Room” is an Urban Subterranean Science Fiction Horror Story

Discrete1_crop — Discrete, photo courtesy the artist

Working with Colin Greenwood, Toronto’s Kyle Yip has created a song and video called “In My Room” that sonically and visually feels like clandestine and arcane work in hidden places. The single bell tone marking time, the collage of metronomic percussion and tones, the nearly whispered vocals—all contributing to an evolving narrative wherein our usual rational methods of measure and assessing our reality come up wanting as we encounter higher or unhitherto known aspects of the universe around us. The video is like a David Cronenberg and Chris Cunningham science fiction/horror mash-up, the music like Aphex Twin gone minimal and mutated directly by aesthetics of free jazz. Watch the video on YouTube and follow Discrete at the links below including that of his music imprint Savvy Records.

savvyrecords.biz
soundcloud.com/discrete
twitter.com/_Discrete
facebook.com/DJDiscrete
instagram.com/kylepyip

Megan Dixon-Hood Evokes the Stark Beauty of Being Alone in a Snow Cloaked Home on a Mountain After a Blizzard on “Sea of Ice”

MeganDixon-Hood1_sm — Megan Dixon-Hood, photo courtesy the artist

Megan Dixon-Hood’s acoustic piano version of “Sea of Ice” sounds like it was written in a house on a mountainside looking down into white valleys after a quiet but powerful snowstorm. She sings of a sense of desolation but one that affords a climate where turning inward in meditative contemplation waiting by the fire is the only way to weather the chill alone. Dixon-Hood’s breathy, melodious voice and the spare piano work brings an elevated tone to what might otherwise be a purely melancholic and introspective piece. It’s not a contrasting quality so much as complimentary. It’s rare in the modern world that we are afforded such experiences without intentionally seeking them out. This song captures what might be magical about a situation that many would dread and find boring. Dixon-Hood draws out the harsh and stark beauty of having no options but patience and no companion but your own memories and imagination. Listen to “Sea of Ice” on Spotify and explore more of Megan Dixon-Hood’s new collection of singles comprising acoustic versions of her older material at the links below.

megandixonhood.com
soundcloud.com/megan-dixon-hood
open.spotify.com/artist/2Qy6aryNaJ4LJD0RiLMcpt
youtube.com/channel/UCoXnNcqFyASQ0YzxDG-4Wuw
twitter.com/MegDHmusic
facebook.com/megandixonhood
instagram.com/megdixonhood

sub sequence Evokes a Sense of the Mystical, the Mythic and the Primordial on “seize release”

SubSequence1_Crop — sub sequence, photo courtesy the artist

There is a sense of deep ocean and a dreamlike state on “seize release” by sub sequence. The chimes and bell tones amid a steady beat and organ resonating in stereo as female vocals intone in something like a chant suggest a subterranean journey of some kind to a place deep in the earth or deep in the heart, to a cthonic shrine where fiery coals burn with an incense designed to cleanse the brain of personal darkness. Fans of the more mystical side of William Orbit’s 1993 Strange Cargo III, in particular “The Monkey King” will appreciate the way the track engulfs you in a sense of the otherworldly and mythical with an expert use of depth of sonic field where low end is strong but of soft impact and the percussion tribal and hypnotic in counterpoint to the synth swells that exert their own trance-inducing effect. Listen to “seize release” on Soundcloud and follow sub sequence at the links provided.

soundcloud.com/subsequenz
subsequence.bandcamp.com

Joel Ansett’s “Slow Down” is a Rejection of the Modern Rat Race

JoelAnsett_SlowDown_cover_crop — Joel Ansett, “Slow Down” cover (cropped)

Joel Ansett was inspired by a Dallas Willard quote in writing “Slow Down”: “you must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.” In America where being a workaholic is praised and bravado about how hard one can work and always being on it’s easy to forget how that’s a pathological and unhealthy mindset that burns people out and causes early deaths through a variety of means. It also engenders a society where people don’t take time to assess and consider what it is they’re doing and why they’re doing it, what they say and why they’re saying it—in short, no time to be reflective when you’re always scrambling. The downtempo song with a robust low end, thick, textural atmospheres and Ansett’s vocals outlines how making ourselves performative creatures has warped our individual and collective psyches when we’d be better off with a more organic and human pace to life and creating and not expecting others to always be on and at our beck and call because of what? Money? Status? Ansett more than suggests our lives are worth more than a rat race to appease commerce and social pressure. Listen on Soundcloud and follow Ansett at the links below.

joelansett.com
soundcloud.com/joel-ansett
youtube.com/joelansett
twitter.com/joelansett
facebook.com/JoelAnsettMusic
instagram.com/joelansett

tummyache’s “In Between” Captures the State Between Bouts of Anxiety With Melancholic and Melodic Perfection

On “In Between,” Soren Bryce as tummyache really dives deep into what it feels like to be at the bottom end of your life and feeling helpless and lacking in the willpower to make it better and to help your friends. So you have to start with feeling better and hope that’s a rung on the ladder to better days. The swirl of guitar sparkling and humming to life is like the static and fog of emotions that are wrapped around you and they fade out for moments of clarity embodied by Bryce’s vivid vocals in which she confesses to being in a place of weakness and remorseful for having behaved badly and any acting out though unable to help herself at the time. The feeling of anxiety is so well articulated in the sense of being crushed and trapped by that feeling and not having control but yearning to transcend it because you have known a time in your life when it didn’t seem like your psyche was being smothered and wracked by an internal self-torturer. Bryce conveys perfectly how when suffering through those periods you have to snatch moments of feeling okay or comforted by small things because simply overcoming anxiety long term seems insurmountable and the work to get there overwhelming. It’s a song for soothing and exorcising those feelings with a wash of beautifully melancholic atmospheres and Bryce’s ability to demonstrate she’s been there and understands the crippling angst and emotional paralysis well.

The Maximalist Approach to Minimal Techno on Israel Kimchi’s “Live DJ FilmSet #1” Gives it Riveting Diversity and Depth

IsraelKimchi1_crop — Israel Kimchi, photo courtesy the artist

Israel Kimchi meticulously crafts a short set on the video for “Live DJ FilmSet #1.” Bringing in echoing tones, pulsing electronic bass, a driving cadre of percussion (electronic and acoustic—much of which he performs live) brought to bear creatively throughout and a progressive house compositional sensibility that centers the sounds and keeps a focus even as seemingly endless layers of sound are brought in without crowding the sonic field as Kimchi expertly adds and removes layers with a seamless precision. He brings in elements of the exotic in the percussion and samples and his builds dropping off into space are masterful rather than predictable. This track may be “Minimal Techno House” but Kimchi’s approach is maximalist in the sound palette and judiciously employed throughout the song’s more than sixteen minutes in a way that holds your attention with enough both variety and consistency. The pace is consistent but the use of dynamics in conjunction with bringing in sounds and themes gives the song a wonderfully colorful quality beginning to end. Including in the last third of the song where there’s a great use of samples of “Psycho Killer” by Talking Heads. Watch the video on YouTube and follow Israel Kimchi at the links provided.

israelkimchi.com
soundcloud.com/israelkimchi
youtube.com/IsraelkimchiOfficial
facebook.com/IsraelKimchiOfficial
instagram.com/israelkimchi

Richard Swingle Brings Fire Down on Local Greed and Corruption on the Passionate “Gravy Train”

RichardSwingle1_crop — Richard Swingle, photo courtesy the artist

Richard Swingle’s “Gravy Train” single from his new EP Older Bones starts off sounding like a typical Americana blues track with the shuffling percussion and borderline bluegrass if not for the slide guitar putting some atmospheric touches at the edges. As the song progresses the vocals become more intense and the guitar work and rhythm unfurl in bursts of emotion. The raw quality of the song at that point is reminiscent of Sixteen Horsepower and the way that band held the fire in check until it was time to let it out. Thematically the song is a pointed critique of greed and the assumption of dignity and respect one has when moneyed even when that wealth is at the expense of those that helped create it. Swingle punctures that bubble with some choice rhetoric delivered with passion. Listen to the song on Soundcloud and follow Swingle at the links below.

open.spotify.com/artist/3Qy8eg9VXUgZ9x8T58ZbvD
richardswingle.bandcamp.com

Drug Hunt Blow the Lid Off the Foundations of Modern Conformity With “The Tower”

DrugHunt1_crop — Drug Hunt, photo courtesy the artists

“The Tower” by Drug Hunt fools you a little with the warping grind of the opening stretch of music and when the vocals come in like they might in a Kyuss or Sleep song it evolves during the course of its nearly six and a half minutes into raga-inflected art rock passages circa the weirder ends of Emerson, Lake & Palmer, fiery yet fluid runs and majestic, crushing, dark blues. The title of the song is interesting given the lyrics outline a situation happening in the world today when the vested authority structure is crumbling in America and beyond and many people cling to what they know rather than embrace change and thinking for themselves outside their usual cultural and political affiliations. Of course in America this has been helped along by a figure whose policies boost and support the power of his own oligarchic class and the establishment generally but whose cognitive ability is so lacking he is destroying the foundations at the same time. The Tower in the Tarot is a card signifying both the destruction of the established power structures and authority, turning the existing order upside-down, it represents revolution and instant enlightenment and illumination in the eruption of the top of the tower. The card correlates to the astrological sign Sagittarius and thus a Bill Hicks connection that would suit the psychedelic sound here as well. The song itself escalates to that moment and brings the symbolic flame out to a satisfying denouement. Listen to “The Tower” on Soundcloud and follow Drug Hunt and their experimental and conceptual psychedelia at the links below.

facebook.com/drughuntband
instagram.com/drughuntband