Song Post – Page 179 – Queen City Sounds and Art

Soulful and Stark, Safer’s “All My Life” Single Combines Grittiness and Musical Sophistication

Safer1_lg — Safer, image courtesy the artist

Mattie Safer is perhaps best known up to this point as the bass player for The Rapture during its early heyday writing songs for and playing on its early albums including the 2003 classic Echoes. Since departing the band he’s played with Poolside and now his self-named band Safer. The single “All My Life” is almost an homage to the stripped down post-punk and art punk of New York with some guitar licks resonating with those of Television and the wiry yet tuneful quality that was one of that band’s signature sounds. “All My Life” is accented and driven partly by a strong, melodic bass line as would any song by one of the classic post-punk bands of yore. In the breakdown second around halfway through with Casey Butler on sax the song takes on the lush and majestic quality one might associate with some art glam band like Roxy Music. Mixing soulfulness and starkness, grit and sophistication, this debut single from Safer is promising indeed. You can catch Safer live at Alphaville in Brooklyn on Friday, July 12, 2019 with No Swoon, Campo Formio and Monograms. For now listen below and follow Safer at his website.

mattiesafer.com

Paso Viejo Take Us on a Post-Rock Journey With a Trickster Spirit on “Kitsune”

PasoViejo5_sm — Paso Viejo, photo courtesy the artists

Paso Viejo is an Argentinian band that mixes shoegaze soundscaping with post-rock structure and the textures and sensibility of native folk music styles. The result, at least in the “Kitsune” single, is music that sounds like it’s embodying elements of a landscape with branches of trees and grass blowing in a gentle wind—that level of detail that you take in but do not individually dissect yet intuitive understand. “Kitsune” is the Japanese word for fox and as the song progresses into moodier realms for tone and minor scale progressions it drifts further into more direct sonic movement like a fox meandering its way through a landscape shifting shape to suit its trickster goals as the animals are attributed with getting to in Yokai folklore. Later in the song the music becomes more intense and distorted perhaps representing the climax of one of the kitsune’s many caprices. Whatever the direct inspiration, the song is evocative and cinematic and goes beyond the usual tropes of the instrumental rock and post-rock genre by being more than pretty sounds and some conventionally solid musicianship. Paso Viejo are, after all, sonic storytellers whose language is the emotional content of their compositions. Listen below and follow Paso Viejo at the links provided.

open.spotify.com/artist/1NsKzt4PshyIXyw8lwgpZ2
pasoviejo.bandcamp.com

Charles Hamilton’s “Ralph Nader” is a Dreamlike Trip Down Memory Lane to Self-Liberation

CharlesHamilton2_lg — Charles Hamilton, photo courtesy the artist

Charles Hamilton’s lays out a litany of disrespect and nonsense blown his way from all corners on his new single “Ralph Nader.” In that way he has a self-deprecating pose like a low key, hip and jaded rap equivalent of Rodney Dangerfield. Except that Hamilton concludes that he doesn’t “give a fuck about what people say” and “neither should you.” As in not giving too much weight to the negative energy of anyone that only has time to chisel people down by picking them apart and trying to kick down their dreams because they have no real aspirations of their own. Cradled in an IDM-esque beat of ethereal bell tones the lyrics form a song that sounds day dreamily introspective and defiant at once. It should be mentioned that Hamilton has been through his fair share of ups and downs personally and professionally including struggles with bipolar disorder, being signed to two major label deals and losing both, encounters with music industry big wigs like Jimmy Iovine who he mentions in the song in a positive light. Those experiences, good and bad, are bound to leave you a little skeptical but it’s apparent Hamilton has been able to spin those tales from his real life into something as captivating and real as “Ralph Nader.” Watch the video and follow Hamilton’s new adventures in music at the links below.

soundcloud.com/charleshamiltonmusic
twitter.com/charleshamilton
facebook.com/charleshamiltonmusic

“Delivery” by Ducks! is Like a Puzzle Montage of Tone, Texture and Rhythm

Ducks1_lg — Ducks!, photo courtesy the artists

Lani Bagley and Craig Schuftan have been writing their idiosyncratic dance music together since 2014 as Ducks! Their new single “Delivery” comes with a collage art animation video worthy of the duo’s imaginative and eclectic compositions. The song sounds out of time like it could have been composed any time in the last fifty or sixty years except that some of the technology to process the track probably didn’t exist in quite the same form in the 1950s. The playful and organic percussion and buoyant melody sounds like the duo sequestered themselves somewhere and took in only a whole lot of bossa nova, Raymond Scott, Rubblebucket, David Byrne and some Anne Dudley soundtrack work as well as her recordings with her old band The Art of Noise. It sounds like music put together like an adaptive puzzle wherein the songwriters plucked sounds and ideas that would sound good together and whimsical yet not perverse. Not unlike Tim Klein’s puzzle montages in which he uses the pieces from the same manufacturer to create alternative images, “Delivery” is a pop song from the left field application of the musical imagination. Watch the video and follow Ducks! at the links below.

ducksmakemusic.com
soundcloud.com/ducksmakemusic
open.spotify.com/artist/0espCQxUrldKBF5bYMdULj
youtube.com/channel/UCQdwJP-_yD4XxQKnkzZcSQg
ducksmakemusic.bandcamp.com
twitter.com/Ducksmakemusic
facebook.com/ducksmakingmusic
instagram.com/ducksmakemusic

Birthday Boy’s “Fool’s Paradise” is the Catharsis of an Imploded and Dysfunctional Relationship

BirthdayBoy1_sm — Birthday Boy, photo courtesy the artists

The descending bass line that drives Birthday Boy’s “Fool’s Paradise” is what pushes it out of post-hardcore into something more introspective and ultimately more expressive. The effervescent and melodic guitar riffs flow forth not with force so much as an impressionistic fountain of sparks with the guitars playing off each other in complimentary rhythms. The way the vocals emote place it well within the realm of post-hardcore except that the more impassioned parts are coherent and evoke the desperation and pain of feeling powerless in the face of an imploded, dysfunctional relationship. Watch the video below and follow the Philadelphia-based band at the links provided.

linktr.ee/bdayboyofficial
bdayboy.bandcamp.com

“Re-Cover-Re” is KIN CAPA’s Musical Feedback Loop Out of Complacency and Stagnation

KinCapa_Re-Cover-Re_cover_lg — KIN CAPA, *Re-Cover-Re* cover (cropped)

For the interval phase of the upcoming KIN CAPA album, THE AMERICAN OPERA Act Two, Lee Capa wrote and recorded “Re-Cover-Re,” a song that sounds like a lot of pent up energy being held in check to feed back in on itself. The circular surging main riff ripples responsively to Capa’s vocals and the guitar sounds like it was recorded in a giant can with the sounds bouncing back to double the impression of feedback and, indeed, of a feedback loops. Also known as “The Scream,” this song includes a feral scream on both ends of the song as if the narrator of the larger story is burned by the feedback just a little. The title suggests the process of recovery through music with “re” being both the repetition and the second note in a major scale. Like actual recovery maybe you end up trying the same old tricks to get a fix of what gave you pleasure initially but now brings only pain, going at this music thing only to find yourself following familiar pathways rather than creative growth and being pained by how well you’ve trained yourself into musical complacency. But there is momentum behind the song in spite of its clever, recursive construction and that promises liberation from the stasis of artistic and personal stagnation and, given the name of the album, a social and even spiritual place of stale, outmoded and self-destructive patterns. Listen below on YouTube and look for the new album sometime this summer on the KIN CAPA website (link following song).

kincapa.com

Mwahaha Returns With the Lush and Brooding Cyber Funk Anthem “Sundown”

Mwahaha1_crop — Mwahaha, photo courtesy the artists

You’ll have to wait until September 6 to hear Lovers, the new album from Oakland quartet Mwahaha. But for now you can give a listen to its brooding yet progressively syncopated song “Sundown.” If Clark, Robert Alfons and LCD Soundsystem circa “Starry Eyes” wanted to make a track that would fit a science fiction noir soundtrack driven by the music itself. A story about in the classic mold of passion and betrayal, reconciliation and justice but with an ending that isn’t as neatly resolved as a cheesy mainstream movie. Something more like life where you have to continue on with the mundane tasks of life once the adventure and crisis has passed. That the record was started before former member Cyrus Tilton passed away from cancer in 2017 perhaps gives context for its heavy and somber tone. But that the band could come back to the material and imbue it with life and an inventive low end architecture is truly a tribute to the band’s lost comrade who worked on the music through his illness. Even without that context the track has enormous momentum carried across by all the performances and Ross Peacock’s relatively stripped down vocals. Very promising stuff from one of the most promising bands of recent years. Listen below and follow Mwahaha at the links provided.

open.spotify.com/artist/3Qj0Sos2RvizJ6GmB8FIxz
youtube.com/channel/UCGLcDA_Vtz_ingcT8yQJzMA
twitter.com/mwahahamusic
facebook.com/Mwahahamusic

“Tremolo” by White Elephant Orchestra is an Anthem to Emotional and Creative Awakening and Independence

WhiteElephantOrchestra_Tremolo_crop — White Elephant Orchestra “Tremolo” single cover, image courtesy the artist (cropped)

The distorted, cycling synth that introduces White Elephant Orchestra’s “Tremolo” sounds like the title of the song as though a streaming synth were put through a hard panning tremolo effect so that it comes out the other end almost echoing. But the song quickly sweeps up into an anthemic realization of the need to shake up outmoded patterns and habits and training picked up from others to reconnect with one’s natural way of being and the genuine core of one’s creativity and passion. Songwriter Andy Stochansky certainly spent several years as a sideman and drummer for Ani DiFranco where his chops as a musician and performer got a workout. But with White Elephant Orchestra he’s getting to more fully explore his own musical voice and “Tremolo” is sort of a signature song for that process of discovery and the sense of awakening in the song is unmistakable. Expect his new album with the project, aptly titled Debut, out soon. For now listen to “Tremolo” below.

VIETNAMINGO$ Splice Cowboy and Outlaw Urban Culture With Swagger and Humor on “Khmer Krom Kowboyz”

Vietnamingos1_crop — VIETNAMINGO$, image courtesy the artists

VIETNAMINGO$ display plenty of swagger on “Khmer Krom Kowboyz” splicing cultural references with a sly disregard for time frames and geography. Bookending the track with samples from Marty Robbins’ “Prairie Fire,” the the duo names the song by transforming the spelling of “cowboys” and imbue that with the kind of rebel/outlaw attitude of the present and giving it an alliteration using the term for the part of Vietnam that was once part of the southeastern part of the Khmer empire. The lyrics are about authenticity and hustling how you must to get by when no matter where you are your cultural status might be in question even as you’re making music in a country where there isn’t nearly enough Asian public representation in the arts. You know, a country where Joel Grey played a Korean in Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins, for starters. In adopting the gangster stance VIETNAMINGO$ is calling bullshit on all of that and asserting the ability of people of Asian extraction to draw on the stories and mythology both ancestral and urban American culture to create music that is informed fully by both.

soundcloud.com/vietnamigos
instagram.com/vietnamigos

Lindsey Stirling’s Colorful Video for “Underground” is a Science Fiction Fantasy Extravaganza For the Senses

LindseyStirling1_crop — Lindsey Stirling, image courtesy the artist

Lindsey Stirling is rightfully known for bringing violin to electronic music and mixing a classical set of chops with a popular musical form without pretension. On her new single and video “Underground” Stirling conjures a sense of the fantastical and futuristic at once and that aesthetic compliments her eclectic style. Yes, the sort of hybrid of the aforementioned classical music and hip-hop and EDM, but also an expressiveness that crosses over into an amalgam of progressive rock and pop. Her precision as a player coupled with a fluidity and creativity that allows for a wide dynamic range is what truly sets this song apart from anything that defines itself by genre considerations. If Stirling merely had chops and if it was merely a gimmick to combine a broad musical palette with violin it wouldn’t be interesting. But Stirling’s cultivated imagination has long served her well. Look for her new record out in September through BMG. Watch the video below and follow Stirling at the links provided.

lindseystirling.com
soundcloud.com/lindseystomp
open.spotify.com/artist/378dH6EszOLFShpRzAQkVM
twitter.com/LindseyStirling
facebook.com/lindseystirlingmusic
instagram.com/lindseystirling