Song Post – Page 33 – Queen City Sounds and Art

Business Cashmere’s “Like A Ghost” is Like the End of a Long Dream of Emotional and Social Isolation

Business Cashmere’s “Like a Ghost” (as in living like one) has an ethereal, slow roiling sound that brings to mind a pace like an icicle melting in sunlight. Its descending guitar line and background bass drone and a vocal that sounds like someone emerging from an extended slumber makes it difficult to pigeonhole for a genre. The lyrics paint a portrait of social disconnect and personal alienation but running through with a yearning for connection, for emotional intimacy against the habit and comfort of social isolation in which you risk nothing of yourself and can tell yourself how independent you are until your memory of what life can be when it’s not just being cloaked in a hermetic psychological zone. It’s a song about becoming vulnerable against your will and with great reluctance but as an impetus from a corner of your psyche that recognizes that the limitations you’ve imposed on yourself to prevent the kind of heartbreak and disappointment that happens during the course of a normal human existence. It’s a dreamy song for waking from a dream that served its purpose but like all dreams has to come to an end whether you will it or not. Watch the psychedelic and hypnotic video for “Like A Ghost” directed by George Till and Christine Makowski on YouTube and connect with the Denver-based Business Cashmere at the links below.

Business Cashmere on Facebook

Business Cashmere on Instagram

Business Cashmere on Apple Music

The Quiet Project’s Video For “Three Thousand” is the Perfect Fusion of Stop Motion Aesthetics and Musical Minimalism

The video for the Antarctica-based The Quiet Project’s “Three Thousand” pairs well with the intricate and rapid piano arpeggios and almost pointillist percussion. Like what appears to be a video made with stop motion style using PhotoShop to craft a short animated film with hundreds or even thousands of stills had a parallel with the composition of the song. Tiny bits of sound and progressions arranged and synced with the imagery until the end when a single flower in sunlight after the rapid succession of images across the sunny part of the day seems to encompass the complete wonder of nature and its multifarious expressions to which we were treated on the rest of the track. Watch the video for “Three Thousand,” which may be the number of stills involved in the crafting of the visual element, on YouTube and connect with The Quiet Project at the links below.

The Quiet Project on Instagram

Charlie Havenick’s “Sprinkler Song” is an Ethereal Slowcore Pop Song Striking for Its Profound Sensitivity and Psychological Insight

Charlie Havernick, photo courtesy the artist

Charlie Havenick’s “Sprinkler Song” employs a spare rhythm guitar riff through the first half of the song like an introspective mantra as slide guitar swells gently in the background as the backdrop to what sounds like part short story and diary entry. Havenick’s gentle vocals and lyrics establish a deep sense of place physically and in the mind. The given details of “a dog that barks when only I ride by” and “The sun stays out til I’m cloaked in the night” are subtly poetic in getting to the climax of the song when the guitar becomes distorted and all the sounds soar dramatically for a few moments before settling back into the more vulnerable and contemplative mood. It is at that point where Havenick reveals its a song that may be about conflicted and ambivalent feelings about loving someone with a self-awareness of her own that is mindful of how there are parts of your psychology that can be transformed for the worse when someone isn’t careful with your heart in the pursuit of a selfish emotional agenda. “I don’t want to hurt you. The kid with the wind in her sails” in the last two lines of the song is so sweet and tender and revealing that it’s easy to forget that Havenick’s song defies easy genre categorization and that it outros with ethereal piano work and you’re struck with the profound level of sensitivity and personal insight the songwriter brings to bear throughout what you’ve been hearing. Listen to “Sprinkler Song” on Spotify and follow Charlie Havenick on her website.

Free Refills Purges the Disappointment of Rejection With the Fractured Swagger of No Wave Post-punk Funk Song “Grounded”

Balancing a pop/slap bass line with a broken angular guitar riff Free Refills’ “Grounded” sounds anything but. It has a frantic spirit with a herky jerky rhythm that seems perfect for a song about someone who is maybe a little rough around the edges herself but who isn’t dealing so philosophically with being rejected by someone she’s into. The stuttering keyboard sound and the No Wave funk rhythmic structure is reminiscent of the borderline collapsing yet charming sound of early The Rapture and the more hectic end of Parquet Courts or Erase Errata with a vocalist who sounds very together but depicting a head space that isn’t yet there is an element of swagger that makes the song a bit of a benevolent diss track. Listen to “Grounded” on Spotify and follow Free Refills at the links provided.

Free Refills on TikTok

Hypnogogic Ambient Track “svæpha” by Swedish Experimental Electronic Project oplen Has the Warm Haze of Music From a Dream

“svæpha” by Swedish experimental electronic project oplen combines saturated melodic synth melodies with white noise to create a flowing mood with texture. Like listening to a found cassette in an old studio run by a lost composer of library music. The track is upbeat yet often drifts outside a conventional rhythm structure for an effect that gives it a spontaneous energy with the beautiful non-pristine sound of an analog recording conducted under less than ideal recording conditions with gear not designed to deliver a sanitized sonic imprint. This is what gives the song an emotional resonance like something remembered right after waking from a dream but with the ability to return to that feeling freely. Listen to “svæpha” on Spotify and follow oplen at the links below.

oplen on Facebook

oplen on Bandcamp

oplen on Instagram

MP Shaw and Nick Andre Craft an Urgent Atmosphere of Dark Mystery on IDM/Ambient Track “Electric Company”

MP Shaw and Nick Andre teamed up to create the sort of techno track with “Electric Company” that was written for the soundtrack of the short film “Return of the Sleepwalker” but wouldn’t be out of place in a Michael Mann or William Friedkin film. It has an enigmatic duskiness and strong tonal pulses and an urgent rhythm that contains a hint of menace or at least focused purpose. A melodic line will trace a short arpeggio and burst into a short echo as the song pushes forward. One hears the touch of the influence of Giorgio Moroder and late night video game play reaching to finish an important section of a horror or thriller RPG you wish existed and may yet be. Listen to “Electric Company” on Spotify where you can listen to other tracks including Shaw’s excellent and evocative cover of Brian Eno’s “Deep Blue Day.”

Erik Hall’s Interpretation of Simeon ten Hold’s “Canto Ostinato Sections 74-87” Adds Soothing Textures to the Entrancing Minimalism and Energy of the Original

Erik Hall’s interpretation of Simeon ten Holt’s “Canto Ostinato Sections 74-87” has a very live and spontaneous sound. The original Canto Ostinato was written for four pianos from 1976 to 1979 has a certain lively energy that runs through the marathon composition. It is a fine example of Twentieth Century minimalism with the shifting tonal harmonies but without the the slide into dissonance. Hall captures the easy yet irresistible pace and seemingly over the top of the relaxing sounds of a flowing creek to give what might be an ethereal work of richly details sonics playing out in an ever-evolving manner as per the aesthetics of minimalism. Listen to “Canto Ostinato Sections 74-87” on YouTube and follow Erik Hall at the links below. Hall’s full treatment of Canto Ostinato released on February 24, 2023 on Western Vinyl available on multiple formats on Bandcamp linked below as well.

Erik Hall on Facebook

Erik Hall on Twitter

Erik Hall on Instagram

CoastalDives’ “75” and the album Next Light (DATA104) are Like the Soundtrack to an Enigmatic and Existential Science Fiction Thriller

Pairing a simple arpeggio with a lush background drone on “75,” CoastalDives evoke the feeling of an existential science fiction thriller. The melody seems to accelerate slightly as the song goes along and an undertone of emotional urgency and intensity colors the enigmatic feel of the song creating a sense of anticipation of what might be awaiting us on the other side of the musical journey like the point in the movie when the cumulative knowledge acquired in the first half leads the protagonists to a place or to a meeting that will decide the future going forward. Listen to “75” on Spotify where you can further explore CoastalDives various works including the rest of the Tangerine Dream-esque, 2022 album Next Light (DATA104) mastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri of The Sight Below and follow Coastal Wives at the links provided.

Coastal Dives on Facebook

Coastal Dives on Instagram

Lonely Lions of Alabama Lures You Into the Grand Adventure of Its New Album With Cinematic Opening Track “Ocean – Intro”

When you listen to the beginning of “Ocean – Intro” by Lonely Lions of Alabama (a project based in Minsk, Belarus) it’s not like listening to a song per se but a soundtrack to an epic and mysterious adventure. The sound of birds by the seashore lead to wind sweeping in from the coast and a spiraling sound in the distance like a beacon, the pulse of a lighthouse in the night. Then streams of distorting synth and a more atmospheric sheet of tone before the action of the song begins with whorls of bright and then ethereal sounds over a touch of percussion. In moments it recalls Carmine Coppola’s work for the soundtrack to Apocalypse Now in stimulating the imagination and sense of wonder with the promise of something engrossing and transformative ahead. Listen to “Ocean – Intro” on Spotify where you can listen to the rest of the album Синдром отрицания (in English, the suggestive and provocative title Denial Syndrome) and follow Lonely Lions of Alabama at the links below.

Lonely Lions of Alabama on Facebook

Lonely Lions of Alabama on YouTube

Lonely Lions of Alabama on Instagram

Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys Capture the Maddening and Mechanistic Ritual of Life With a Dysfunctional Psychology on “Burning Building”

On the single “Burning Building” Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys tell the tale of a person who is living with a dysfunctional situation but yearning to escape. Across the song we learn that our narrator rationalizes to him or herself the normalcy of living inside the closing walls of an unsustainable mode of existence as evidenced by the lines “I’m watching the world from a burning building” and “It’s the only home I know.” When the precariousness of life is always threatening to you and you learn to survive and are always in survival mode it can do a number on your head and your ability to function outside of that context without trying to recreate it even when you don’t need to. The angular and even mechanical dynamics of the song are reminiscent of a Lene Lovich song gone industrial and it suits perfectly the ritualistic and maddening manner of knowing things aren’t right but not seeming to be able to do something to remove oneself from a way of life that will, yes, crash and burn and maybe take you with it. But that nugget of an impulse to change is there and it’s kind of the hook of the song. Listen to “Burning Building” on Spotify and follow Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys at the links below.

Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys on Bandcamp

Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys on Instagram

lucykrugerandthelostboys.com