Song Post – Page 183 – Queen City Sounds and Art

LP’s “Shaken” is a Powerful Anthem to Radical Vulnerability and Self-Care

LP sounds on the verge of breaking down while embracing the inherent power of her sensitivity and vulnerability on “Shaken.” Rather than out on a tough front after a break-up, LP feels that moment with every fiber of her being and speaks to that moment of intense pain with an unvarnished honesty and the knowledge that to deny the hurt is to dishonor your own reality. LP knows the peaks and valleys of love and when it ends, for whatever reason it ends, putting on dispassionate airs may make it easier to get through the worst of those moments but just feeling it with immediacy can so often make it easier to cope. The vocals on the track reach to your core and make it okay to join her in the heights of radical vulnerability throughout the song and beyond. Listen below and follow LP’s musical adventures at the links provided.

soundcloud.com/iamlpmusic
open.spotify.com/artist/0J7U24vlOOIeMpuaO6Q85A
twitter.com/iamlp
facebook.com/iamLP

“Never Look Back” From Rainbow Riots India is a New Disco Anthem to the Inevitability of LGBT Rights Being Seen as Human Rights Globally

Rainbow Riots India is a compilation of music featuring LGBT artists from India and released through the Rainbow Riots organization. The video for “Never Look Back” isn’t just a music video, it’s a documentary short about Paras, a member of Dancing Queens. Though the music is written and produced by Rainbow Riots founder and creative director Petter Wallenberg, an artist and musician in his own right in Sweden, the performances showcase the talents of noteworthy Indian musicians including, for “Never Look Back,” India’s first openly lesbian singer Pragya Pallavi. The song is reminiscent of Madonna circa the early 90s or Donna Summer and her collaborations with Giorgio Moroder in that sense of forward momentum into a more fulfilling future. At a time when the cultural currents of reactionary politics are trying to turn back the clock on progress in the realm of furthering human rights, this documentary shows how even in a fairly conservative country like India that strides are being made and the song the triumphant embodiment of those efforts. Watch the video below and check out more Rainbow Riots content at the link provided.

soundcloud.com/user-982619949

Tony Njoku’s “HAPLESS” is a Wry and Melanchoy Trip to Sonic Weirdsville

TonyNjoku_cover_crop — Tony Njoku, single cover, cropped

Tony Njoku uses truly unconventional sounds and layers of rhythm on “HAPLESS.” A mid-range bass line seems to be the through line in the song but the sounds of springing and warping synths, staccato synth figures, whorls of ethereal tone like something from the welcome screen of a 90s video game, what seem to be the sharp, insistent samples of insect noises amplified or a typewriter EQ’d to sound like sub-industrial clicks and Njoku presiding over this organized chaos like a trickster omniscient narrator reflecting on his life and changing aural shape at will. No need to slap a genre designation on this song but fans of Prefuse 73 and Autechre will appreciate Njoku’s sonic gyrations and trips to colorful Weirdsville. His next album is due to drop in October but for now listen below and follow Njoku at the link provided.

soundcloud.com/tonynjoku

HELGA’s “Haunted” is Imbued With an Ineffable Sense of the Sinister

HELGA_ErikLarsson1 — HELGA, photo by Erik Larsson of Apocalypse Orchestra

HELGA’s origin story to some extent is that she lives in a cabin in the forests of Dalarna, Sweden where her main companion is her guitar and, one would presume, communing with her own demons and the ghosts of her ancestors. The video for her “Haunted” single appears to be the story of a bride who killed her wealthy husband and now wracked with guilt faces the consequences of her actions in the community and to her own psyche. While it may be sort of horror story it’s also a metaphor for feeling as though you’ve take action in your life with irrevocable negative consequences. The guitar swirls around driving drums in and out with abstract tones and fiery riffing. Visually its reminiscent of Valhalla Rising or The Witch with the colors, the pacing and the ineffable sense that something sinister is afoot just out of conscious perception. Epic in its melodramatic strains, “Haunted” sounds exactly like it is so. HELGA recently performed her first lives shows accompanied by Jonathen Hulten of Tribulation and the photographs from the event are promising. Watch below and follow HELGA at the links provided. The Autumn Lament EP is due out later in the summer.

open.spotify.com/artist/7qseRh3ouracYc1Sy0NENa
facebook.com/helgadalarna

On “Running Away” Noé Solange’s Delicacy of Feeling has a Lingering Emotional Impact

NoeSolange_RunningAway_crop — Noé Solange, photo courtesy the artist

A candle light in the fog quality imbues Noé Solange’s “Running Away” with an heartfelt lonely and lost quality as her voice intones a desire to escape a relationship that has turned toxic leaving complicated emotional tanglements in the wake of its dissolution. When the vocals seem to rush into a gentle flurry of sounds it’s like Solange is able to get lost in a crowd to succeed in that escape. The soft but rippling tones and minimal beats seem to reinforce a sense that the narrator of the song had to calm her own mind and steel her resolve to make the break for real instead of an urgent notion never acted upon. The delicacy of feeling with the underlying intensity gives the song an unexpected power that lingers with you. Solange is currently unsigned and self-releasing her music so follow her trajectory on her Spotify account.

scorediggers “Brandenburg Beat” is a Brilliantly Subversive Re-Purposing of the OG Classics in the Tradition of Wendy Carlos and Walter Murphy

scoredigger1_crop — scoredigger, photo courtesy the artist (cropped)

Not everyone is thinking to steal, “note by note from Brandenberg concerto No. 2 by Johann Sebastian Bach.” But scoredigger has and incorporated it into a progressive hip-hop beat. Sure, “cratediggers” have sampled everything under the sun to find the choicest sounds, rhythms and ideas to re-purpose and transform into something more modern. Wendy Carlos released the 1968 classic Switched-On Bach, a synthesizer-based interpretation of Bach including Brandenberg Concerto but No. 3 not No. 2. And of course Walter Murphy had a hit in 1976 with “A Fifth of Beethoven,” a disco dance floor smash. So scoredigger is in great company and this morphing of Back into a cool downtempo track is brilliant in its own right. Listen on Soundcloud and check out scoredigger’s further exploits at the links following.

soundcloud.com/scoredigger
r-cr.bandcamp.com/releases
instagram.com/scoredigger

Lady Jay’s single/video “Freedom” Is a Soaringly Soulful Embodiment of the Very Concept

LadyJay1_crop — Lady Jay, photo courtesy the artist

Ghanaian singer and songwriter Lady Jay delivers a powerful example of her soulful and sultry voice on her new single/video “Freedom.” A song about personal empowerment in what seem to be especially dark times right now. Without aiming the song to be about a particular demographic or nationality, Lady Jay’s song has a universal quality with its soaring choruses and written in a pop style that doesn’t suggest a narrow subgenre but, rather, classic songcraft and accompanied only by a hint of chimes and expansive but subtly tasteful piano. It is a declaration of liberation that can resonate with anyone while also working as simply a great song with arresting vocals. Jay and her pianist are garbed in white raiments and jewelry with caged doves that are symbolically set free as Jay floats upward off the ground as if imbued with divine powers, the spark of which various world spiritual traditions believe exist in everyone and everything and which is justification enough for mutual respect and freedom. Symbolic but not heavy handed, the video for “Freedom” is a beautiful and compelling expression of Lady Jay’s words and her own obvious passion for all people to experience the freedom about which she sings. Watch/listen below and follow Lady Jay at the links provided.

ladyjaymusic.com
open.spotify.com/artist/0rNTIEZKm4LYPn16AcpTaS
twitter.com/LadyJayLives
facebook.com/LADYJAYOFFICIAL
instagram.com/ladyjaylives

“Thru the Vines” by Jane In Space is a Psychedelic Industrial Worm Hole Trip

JaneInSpace1_sm — Jane In Space, photo courtesy the artists

New York’s Jane In Space strikes that sweet spot where industrial, post-punk and psychedelia meet on “Thru the Vines.” The video is like something that was originally filmed on VHS with the glitches and all and the then clumsy visual effects but then processed using modern editing software. The worm hole/fractal trip a little halfway past the song is reminiscent of the introduction to Doctor Who and the face like the id monster from Forbidden Planet. The pulsing then droning bass, textures and white noise processed to provide the industrial noise equivalent of a melody may remind some listeners of a strange hybrid of Author & Punisher and LIARS with the vocals of Ian Astbury. Whatever the actual influences or roots of this sound its contorted sonic brutality and surreal soundscapes and visuals are striking. Watch and listen below and follow Jane In Space at the links provided.

soundcloud.com/janeinspace
open.spotify.com/artist/1yoRV2D5XUYL6gIe1tywhy
twitter.com/janeinspaceband
facebook.com/listentojaneinspace
instagram.com/janeinspace

Captain Kudzu’s “Months” is a Dark, Winding, Trippy, Self-Accounting Psychedelic Pop Song

CaptainKudzu1_sm — Captain Kudzi, photo courtesy the artists

There’s a bit of Nicolas Winding Refn style in Captain Kudzu’s video for “Months.” The vivid colors and seemingly stream-of-consciousness-yet-focused pacing join the meditative percussion and bass in anchoring the drift-y melody and languid guitar work even when it blossoms in distorted vortexes in the moment when the guitar head stock seems to puncture reality itself. The vocals sound borderline affectless but it suits the dreamlike quality of the song and its progression into a deconstructed ending with a sound like melting film projected on the big screen as the center, the through line, running throughout the song. An unusual downtempo psychedelic pop in sound and structure seemingly about not making excuses for the self-created chaos in your life because it eventually catches up to you whether you’re prepared or not. Watch the video below and follow Captain Kudzu at the pinks provided.

earthlibraries.com/captain-kudzu
facebook.com/captainkudzu
instagram.com/captain.kudzu

For Anyone That Has Let Their Feelings Run Away With Them, Callum Pitt Has a Song For You in “Slow My Heart Rate Down”

CallumPitt2_crop — Callum Pitt, photo courtesy the artist

Callum Pitt sounds like he’s sitting back from everyday life floating on clouds of memory on “Slow My Heart Rate Down.” His expressive falsetto meshes perfectly with the build of piano, synth, guitar and drums before transitioning to an impassioned peak and falling back into a tranquil infinity. It’s a song for anyone who has ever let their feelings get ahead of them or who feel so strongly that it hurts. The inevitable comparisons to Radiohead and Jónsi will happen with the finger picking and the falsetto but Pitt’s own fluidly versatile singing style and songwriting, as with the aforementioned, goes beyond superficial similarities and on the other songs on the Poisoned Reveries EP, his oh-so-subtle quaver and vibrato demonstrates a connection to a deep well of emotion that can only be individual. Give the song a listen and follow Pitt at the links below.

soundcloud.com/callum-pitt
twitter.com/callumpittmusic
facebook.com/callumpittmusic