“Kid A” by Mercy Land is like a backward look at a time and place in one’s life when your brain is caught up in both the strong feelings of late adolescence and complex emotions. The driving beat, gorgeous synth dissolves and female and male vocals strike the right tone to create a sense of melancholic nostalgia that is more like reflecting on how easy it is to romanticize someone that strikes your fancy even if they’re not right for you because your heart wells up for whatever reason at the thought of that person and you find yourself obsessing a little and your recollections of what they’re into live in your mind as something to focus on unbidden. But then one day you realize it’s all been in your mind and not in theirs or at least not in the reciprocal way you would hope. In that moment you feel a little silly but also crushed by this simple fantasy having no foundation in reality. Yet that capacity to feel that way about someone isn’t so wrong and it’s an emotional resonance that any thoughtful person will connect with immediately in this darkwave dance pop single. Listen to “Kid A” (not a cover) on Spotify and follow Mercy Land on Instagram.
“Known Shape” finds Rival Consoles seeming to model a process video in a song. We hear individual rhythmic pieces working in conjunction with each other in a techno beat, accenting melodic tones, background harmonics and a slow-moving textural stream beside it. In the foreground there are bright filigrees of tone as well as hushed low end swells. It’s a bit like getting lost inside the hidden world of a computer at work and being somehow aware of all the components functioning in a way that makes all the things we take for granted with electronic devices happen. Being able to take in this granular detail abstracted to sound has a parallel to both musically and conceptually to Kraftwerk’s classic 1974 song “Autobahn” in being a musical expression of human technological achievement but focused on a smaller scale yet creatively on the same plane of conception. Listen to “Known Shape” on Spotify and follow Rival Consoles at the links below. The new record Landscape from Memory is out July 4, 2025 via Erased Tapes.
The sense of space and rich tonality of the beat on Big Cairo’s track “Mesh Rage3” is what impresses immediately. That and how expertly the Auto-Tune is employed in processing the vocals like a tightly controlled pitch shifting that augments rather than really transforms the quality of the vocals. It lends it a more hypnotic quality even if, like this reviewer, you don’t know much if any Arabic. The rhythms and sound palette are largely Middle Eastern in flavor but the production methods feel more in line with a trap beat. But with the instrumentation and percussion choices it just hits as more interesting and robust. With production by George Masri the phrasings take on a dramatic dimension that meshes hip-hop and the aesthetics of Arabic dance music. Listen to “Mesh Rage3” on Spotify and follow Big Cairo there and on Soundcloud.
The title of Velantine’s song “Till Death We Do Art” is a clever turn of phrase on its own but one that seems earnest while not coming across as try hard. The lyrics reflect a will to keep at the creative efforts we’re driven to pursue in spite of outside recognition and affirmation of of the worth of what it is we do. The song and its melancholic overtones, its low-end saturated atmospheres, measured yet low-key urgent pace serve well with vocals that hold an even yet expressive quality with words that capture a broad range of what motivates most creative people including the sensitivity and attunement to the social and political forces in the world that inform and too often come crashing down on anyone that dares to express anything outside what is deemed acceptable by any culture narrow in its conception of “normal” in thought, behavior and sentiment. The song could be loosely described as in a style of lushly atmospheric darkwave pop but what the song has a clearly broader appeal and its message a universal statement of being in the creative life for the long haul. Watch the colorful video for “Till Death We Do Art” on YouTube and follow Australia’s Velatine at the links below.
When “Nowhere To Turn” by IN COVERT first crashes into your ears it’s like hearing a bizarre amalgam of grunge if one of those bands leaned more into the influence of Flipper: challenging, archly noisy, disorienting. But as the song’s clashing sonics progress it’s reminiscent of the edgy hardcore and deathrock hybrid of Final Gasp. But in the mix are clear strands of electronic sounds that both propel and hold together the surging energy of the track like the underlying skeleton of a whirlwind of thorny emotional fragments that the band orchestrates to great, cathartic effect as the feral vocals seem to spin a desperate tale of hypocrisy, abuse and abject neglect. When the song ends it’s like you’re hearing he door to a chaotic dimension close and the world feels all too normal again and you miss the onslaught of feelings and the cacophony. Fortunately, rather than relive the experiences that may have inspired the song, one can simply press play again. Listen to “Nowhere To Turn” on Spotify and follow IN COVERT at the links below. The band’s album Bleak Machinery released on May 9, 2025 via Dune Altar on vinyl and digital formats.
There’s a fragile sparkle, shimmer and grit in the guitar work in Avery Friedman’s “New Thing.” The song is the title track of her debut album (out April 18, 2025 via Audio Antihero on 12” vinyl, download and streaming) and it is like the signature song of the whole record. It’s melancholic in the way that feels like a letting go of the feelings that have held you back for so long. Before July 2024 Friedman hadn’t played a show but by then had found an impetus and inspiration to put the strong feelings she had been harboring into song and “New Thing” perfectly articulates a sense in oneself of needing to gently but with decisiveness and confidence to unravel the gnarls in one’s psyche that have been limiting one’s growth and healing. The vulnerability heard in the songwriting and Friedman’s vocals are a clear example of how that can be done by approaching the raw side of the psyche with a nurturing spirit and a sense of play. Listen to “New Thing” on Soundcloud and follow Avery Friedman at the links below.
There is a bluesy undertone to DEADSET’s songwriting and sonics on the “Party Line” single. It’s a moody post-punk reflection on the worrying upswing of misogyny and violence against women in recent years and the brooding, melodic bass line paired with the edgy guitar tone and nearly ragged vocals fit the subject matter well. The song soars and burns and sways with an internal pressure that cycles up with an intense urgency as the song progresses and flames out in the end. Fans of Bambara’s own genre-bending and Iceage’s swing to dark glam punk will appreciate the style here and the way DEADSET combines a sensitivity with the subject matter and a dramatic flair for rock theater in the songwriting. Listen to “Party Line” on Spotify and follow DEADSET from Hull, UK at the links provided. The group released its latest EP A Place Called Home on May 16, 2025 via Man Demolish Records.
In the heyday of America’s DIY music world of the 2000s and early 2010s The Mae Shi were stars in their own right as staples of the eclectic and joyous milieu around the venue The Smell before splitting up the first time in 2009. In 2022 Tim Byron felt like he had another story to tell that led him to bringing the band back together for another, initially final, album. But those plans evolved and the new album had to be made as a re-branding of The Mae Shi as HLLLYH, the title to the group’s 2007 former swansong, a move to reflect a link to the past and the creation of something new. Informed by Twentieth century mystics like Gurdjieff, Crowley, McPherson and McKenna the new album titled URUBURU relates a tale of a hero’s journey to the spirit world and back but that hero could really be anyone willing to undertake the trials and tribulations involved. The new album is brimming with the raw exuberance, anthemic hooks and analog electronic weirdness that made The Mae Shi so appealing.
Lead single “Dead Clade” with its music 2010’s-era video game graphics video seems to be tapping into a moment of modern doomerism but delivered with a playful abandon. Images of dinosaurs and humans frolicking about getting downed by natural phenomena and other refinements run through the video. And the lyric about “How we’re not special, we’re just what’s left, we’re not chosen, we’re a dead clade” is a bit arcane except for the sentiment about how humanity thinks its the end of the evolution of life on the planet while we’re doing our level best to ensure our extinction and replacement by a successor dominant species through the self-destructive folly of our current civilizational program. HLLLYH, though, with its upbeat melodies and soaring vocals remind us that it’s not all over for the planet when climate change wipes out the human race as it is and the precious artifacts of all we value and hold dear are swept away, but it is probably over for life as we know it. And there’s something comforting in that thought in the grand scheme of things. Of course it’s tongue in cheek but rarely has the end of the world seemed so cheerful and something to celebrate. Watch the video for “Dead Clade” (a “clade” is a “group of organisms believed to have evolved from a common ancestor) on YouTube and follow HLLLYH at the links provided.
The Chanel Beads rework of “Corners” by Brooklyn-based experimental pop group LEYA from its 2024 EP I Forget Everything pulls its essential textures and melodic elements and recontextualizes them. The intricate harp work sits back while the stroke of the violin is emphasized as a rhythmic feature and the atmospheric ambiance becomes the salient musical feature preserving the song’s sense of mystique. The original’s use of flecks of discordant tonal structure is deconstructed into the flow of sound where the edges of sound are brought to the center to shine. It’s a fascinating remix that gives a new angle on a song that one might not think of as being able to be remixed in such a transformative way. Watch the video for “Corners,” which is very different in appearance if not in spirit from the original music video, on YouTube and follow LEYA at the links below.
Bad Flamingo has made quite a career for itself with endlessly being able to spin variations on themes of being a rebel on the run from mainstream society and its restrictive social mores. Its “Miles” single shows the band putting some spare yet fiery guitar solos into its tale of passion, lust and a love as star crossed as Bonnie & Clyde. But in that mix too is the group’s always rich array of instrumentation with slide guitar accents, banjo, minimal drum machine and a touch of synth to give some emotive backdrop. But none of those components are throwaway, all serve the song and its mood of leaning into a vagabond love on the run and exulting in the hedonism without shame. And, really, who doesn’t want a love like that where you can be who you are with someone that gets it and celebrates what you have together? It’s a stylistic evolution for the enigmatic duo that always delivers superb songwriting and an ever-growing mythology of noir pop. Watch the video for “Miles” on YouTube and follow Bad Flamingo at the links below.
Queen City Sounds and Art 
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