Song Post – Page 4 – Queen City Sounds and Art

The Down & Outs’ “Mars” is an Edgy, Noisy Post-punk Song About a Twisted Romance

The beginning of “Mars” by The Down & Outs is a torturous sound like someone is playing some field recording of a feedbacking guitar in a subway and manipulating that signal so that you’re not even sure what you’re hearing. But it’s an apt introduction to the song ahead that itself sounds like glam rock influenced post-punk song being performed in the tight confines of a utility closet because it’s the only space available on the moon base from which a near future staging area for flights to the planet Mars are located. Sure the fidelity is hard to place because clearly the production has a keen ear for sonic detail. But the passionate performance and vocals that are reminiscent of what might have happened if Chrome was way more into Bowie and collaborated with The Faint to deliver what sounds like the story of a twisted romance. And in the end the vocals repeat the chorus of “We can go Mars sometime!” to the point of being nearly unhinged giving the whole song a genuinely edgy tone. Listen to “Mars” on Spotify.

Finnish Psychedelic Garage Punk Band Kaksipäinen Koira Debuts Lively Then Introspective Single “Kuolema voittaa aina”

Kaksipäinen Koira (in English, Two-Headed Dog) is a supergroup group Finland signed to All That Plazz that includes guitarist/singer Tero Huotari (Teksti-TV 666, HÄN and Kuusamo) and drummer/vocalist Aliisa Keränen (Bad Sauna, Lala Salama), “Kuolema voittaa aina” (“Death Always Wins”) with bassist/singer Otto Pekkola rounding out the live lineup. Its debut single “Kuolema voittaa aina” (“Death Always Wins” in English) is short (two minutes six seconds) but begins with a charging rhythm like a Reatards song inspired by Buzzcocks with a fuzzy melody and call and response vocals before shifting gears just over half way through to a more introspective and atmospheric feel with the previously urgent pace slowed to something more leisurely. The production is appropriately lo-fi but the range of sounds and in so economic a fashion points to promising material ahead for the new project. Listen to “Kuolema voittaa aina” on YouTube and connect with Kaksipäinen Koira, possibly a sly Roky Erickson reference, at the links below.

Kaksipäinen Koira on Bandcamp

Kaksipäinen Koira on Instagram

“Big Elsewhere” by vireo is a Tender Dream Folk Soundtrack to a Heartwarming Day Trip

“Big Elsewhere” by vireo sounds like something a bunch of super creative kids wrote in their tree house long before forming an actual band. It has that quality of openness and a sense of wonder and an unhurried spirit. Its chiming guitar work and bird-like keyboard melodies behind tender vocals individually and in harmony. The music video, made by Suzanne Gomes, looks like a fall weekend spent on the coast with gray skies and choppy waters. It’s all the spontaneous aesthetics of Super-8 and no strict narrative structure, just images like what you might shoot if you weren’t planning but merely documenting your experience for yourself. And the song feels like that too. It’s a mere one minute, fifty-three seconds but in that time vireo sounds both like a futuristic indie pop thing informed by the sort one heard and experienced in warehouses and house shows in the 2000s and early 2010s. The kind of music that has an undeniable charm and appeal but always very home made feeling like the choices of instrumentation are idiosyncratic executed with an unexpected originality. Maybe someone would call this band shoegaze but the sound is much more in line with the kind of borderline twee, dream pop folk that would fit well on a bill with say a Stephen Steinbrink or Microphones. Even Wolf Colonel. Its an intimate and inviting sound that seems to be a part of the group’s style that resonates strongly with the DIY musical experience of a decade and more ago. Watch the video for “Big Elsewhere” on YouTube and follow Pittsburgh’s vireo at the links below.

vireo on Facebook

vireo on Bandcamp

vireo on Instagram

Red Kate’s “Home of the Slave” is a Searing Punk Rock Take Down of the Persistent Ills of Genocide, Racism and Predatory Capitalism

With righteous fury, Red Kate in its song “Home of the Slave” draws a line connecting the genocide of indigenous people, slavery and white supremacy generally and the course of capitalism and its fallout for those that aren’t among the elite. The logic couldn’t be more obvious to anyone paying attention but Red Kate maps it all out in a relatable way without excessive abstraction. Musically the song rings some bells like its resonance with somehow both “T.V. Eye” by Stooges and early D.O.A. – just that kind of politically charged political punk of the latter and its undeniable hooks and the willingness to go off standard lines of rhythm and tone of the former yet propelled by an irresistible momentum that rages with the excitement of being able to utter the critical truths that are the song’s lyrics. Listen to “Home of the Slave” on Spotify and connect with Red Kate from Kansas City at the links below. The new Red Kate album Exit Strategy dropped on November 10, 2023 and now available on digital and vinyl as well as streaming.

Red Kate on Facebook

Red Kate on Twitter

Red Kate on Bandcamp

Red Kate on Instagram

Red Kate page on Black Site

C.O.F.F.I.N.’s Proto-punk Thrash Rager “Factory Man” Captures the Vitality and Tragedy of the Industrial Working Class

Sydney-based rock band C.O.F.F.I.N. (aka Children of Finland Fighting in Norway) dropped its latest album Australia Stops on September 15, 2023 via Damaged Record Co and its singles have revealed the growth of the group’s ferocious punk sound. “Factory Man” is a burst of proto-punk and boogie rock, think Radio Birdman, The Saints and a touch of Motorhead. The song begins as like the kind of hard working and loving blue collar song to a man’s lover and how he has everything you need and if not he’ll get it and be a non-stop kind of guy. But halfway through the song it slows some and the lyrics turn to the reality of how living that way and being ground down by the work and perhaps die on the job as yet another disposable member of the proletariat in the cogs of industry. In showing that spectrum of the actual lived experience of a lot of people the group lends some dignity to the lives of people society and certainly the economy depends upon but readily anonymizes as a statistic whether things go right or wrong. C.O.F.F.I.N. captures both the vitality of industrial workers and the tragedy of an early death in “Factory Man” which is something one doesn’t hear much in rock and roll. Watch the live music video for “Factory Man” on YouTube and follow C.O.F.F.I.N. at the links below.

C.O.F.F.I.N. on Facebook

C.O.F.F.I.N. on Instagram

coffinband.com

Band Spectra Gives in to the Faint Hope Love Provides in a Time of Deep Melancholia on Dream Pop Single “Freckles”

Band Spectra’s “Freckles” somehow seems more resonant in Fall when the daylight hours diminish. A hazy sweep of a sound resonates with the paces in the song as a melancholic synth melody and simple beat create a mood of bittersweet resignation. The vocals courtesy Mary Leay are a near whisper like someone writing a letter to someone with whom they have a loving but complicated relationship or speaking softly to them late at night. Multiple interpretations could be drawn from the song but lines about needing to be brave in a moment but failing to do so because “I’d rather feel the safety of my doubts” and being demotivated by life’s downbeats and the ensuing unease that takes the wind out of one’s sails. The bit about “best days running toward the past” feels like something someone had to have written later in life and not the product of youthful bravado. But at the heart of the world-weary song is a faith in something in a bond with someone even if things seem challenging, perhaps to even give up one’s tendency to surrender to feelings of uncertainty. The song has a sad tone but in its entrancing atmospheres and its gentleness there is more than a trace of finding something good even when things feel desolate. Fans of Electric Youth and Chromatics will appreciate the songcraft and the deep sense of tapping into tender feelings here. Watch the colorfully minimalist video for “Freckles” on YouTube and follow Band Spectra at the links provided. The group’s self-titled album released on September 28, 2023.

Band Spectra on Facebook

Band Spectra on Twitter

Band Spectra on Bandcamp

Band Spectra on Instagram

Montañera Expresses the Richness and Vitality of the Immigrant Experience With a Gentle Spirit and Grace on Ambient Pop Single “Tú – El Borde de Mi Arista”

Montañera aka María Mónica Gutiérrez floats in the slow flutter of swells and flourishes of textured, rhythmic tone on her single “Tú – El Borde de Mi Arista.” The track from her new album A Flor de Piel (released November 17, 2023 on Western Vinyl) examines the immigrant experience. The name of the song translates loosely into “You – The Edge of My Edge” in English. But more poetically, perhaps, the line of intersection between people and cultures and the arbitrary lines and boundaries we draw between people and cultures even when there’s overlap geographically, culturally and historically. The song’s tones are soft, gentle and enveloping and Gutiérrez’s vocals inviting and warm. There is a circular flow to the rhythms like a hypnotic frequency that is layered throughout and about which the atmospherics drift and reiterate as though guided by the words. Musically it fuses an environmental ambient aesthetic with a New Age pop feel akin to some of the later cosmic jazz compositions of Alice Coltrane. Whatever its roots of inspiration and direct or indirect meanings the song conveys a sense that the immigrant experience is rich and offers much to the nations where immigrants land and expands the reach and influence of the cultures from which they come as part of the grand vista of the human experiment on earth. Listen to “Tú – El Borde de Mi Arista” on YouTube and follow Montañera at the links below.

Montañera on Facebook

Montañera on Bandcamp

Montañera on Instagram

Phosphene Casts Off Creeping Doomerism Once Again on Gritty Shoegaze Single “Levitation”

Phosphene puts a bit of a crackly edge in the guitar sound of “Levitation.” There’s a bit more of an urgency in the song than much of the rest of the band’s new album Transmute (which released on September 15, 2023). The record was more or less born during the peak COVID-19 pandemic period and often written and recorded as the duo practiced and worked from home and the increased proximity fostered a spirit of creatively expanding upon where the band had been before. This including themes of troubling current events and the existential anxieties that seemed to course through human civilization and manifesting in various ways and mutating into strange notions exacerbated by new use of technologies like deep fakes and the widespread proliferation and consumption of misinformation. Phosphene explores these themes and more in deeply atmospheric melodies and poetic and sometimes humorous observations on world events and how they influence everyday life. “Levitation” with its loops of distorted, incandescent guitar and propulsive rhythms and lyrics seemingly about the challenge of taking on so many of the stresses pushed on to you in getting through the world these days and internalizing them more than usual because it all seems to be hitting us hard and fast without much letup. But then to cast off that anxiety and bitterness from the burnout of processing it all again and again and starting to wonder if you still can. The sheer momentum of the song suggests that you can and that even if you’re not feeling it better to give it another shot rather than succumb to hopelessness. Listen to “Levitation” on Spotify and follow Portland, Oregon’s Phosphene at the links below.

Phosphene on Facebook

Phosphene on Instagram

Endearments’ “Hazy Eyes” is a Refreshingly Earnest, Unconventional Dream Pop Love Song

Listening to Endearments’ “Hazy Eyes” and watching its performance music video is reminiscent of going to see shows in warehouses and DIY spaces in the late 2000s and early 2010s. The music is well-crafted dream pop with gorgeously minimal synths, inviting rhythms and vocals with a soft but emotionally rich immediacy. The lyrics are an unconventional love song where there are words about how normally feeling so close with someone and welled up with excitement often involves the kinds of substances people take to feel open to others but with a certain someone special that feeling is persistent and requires no indulging anything but honest feelings. There could be a layer of irony in the song but it just has a refreshing earnestness that makes it immediately accessible and with a freshness of spirit that pulls you in. But those projections on the band in the video of colored patterns and early video art really taps into a specific resonance of nostalgia but without the baggage of being overly sentimental. There’s an unvarnished quality to it that gives it a home made feel that makes anyone remember what it was like to go to shows at unconventional venues where someone would do visuals for all the bands and make it special on a low budget and how there was more a feeling of togetherness and community to that that hasn’t happened as much in the past several years in many places. Endearments makes it feel like we can have that again somewhere, some time with people who want to experience that again and for the first time which plays into the spirit of the song. It’s a whole package. Watch the video for “Hazy Eyes’ on YouTube and follow Endearments at the links provided. The group’s new EP It Can Be Like This dropped on November 3, 2023.

Endearments on Instagram

Endearments on Twitter

Endearments on Facebook

Endearments on TikTok

BRATTY’s Poignantly Melancholic Indie Pop Single “Ya No Es Lo Mismo” is an Examination of the Grief and Confusion a Faded Love

Mexican indie pop phenom BRATTY released her new album TR3S on November 3, 2023 via Universal Music Mexico. Her single, co-written with fellow Mexican singer/songwriter Billy Miamor, “Ya No Es Lo Mismo,” which roughly translates into English as “It’s Just Not The Same,” is a bittersweet and melancholic song that examines the grief and confusion that happens when you feel like your once strong connection to a loved one is fading and is now shadow of what once added a layer of uplift to your life, a feeling that you both shared. In BRATTY’s vocals there is a poignancy to that sense of loss that is palpable. Sonically its reminiscent of chillwave artists of the early 2010s and seems to tap a bit into the 80s New Wave synth pop for the emotional and musical resonance but BRATTY’s vocals lend it a grounded quality that gives it an immediacy that’s impossible to resist. The music video shows BRATTY walking about a dark, fantastical landscape of masked figures with symbols on their faces like they resemble some secret code that once unlocked might lead to her figuring out what went wrong but in the end BRATTY shows us that sometimes it’s better to accept that mystery, mourn it and move on. Watch the video for “Ya No Es Lo Mismo” on YouTube and connect with BRATTY at the links below.

BRATTY on Facebook

BRATTY on Instagram