“Gabriel” is the title track to Carlos Antonio’s forthcoming debut EP. It’s the story of the songwriter’s relationship with a closeted, Hollywood actor and the their desire for their relationship to be a known quantity and for it to be accepted in a society that continues to reveal itself to generally be, to varying degrees, hostile to such relationships to the point that it can still affect someone’s career and life prospects. The music is lushly orchestrated with delicate and intentional guitar textures providing the more tactile rhythm as background string and electronics melodies help Antonio’s emotionally vibrant and breathy vocals to stand in front in passages of compelling vulnerability that express the intensity of feeling and the frustration of having to keep a cherished relationship more or less hidden because of social pressures even in 2024. Fans of Jeff Buckley and Iron & Wine will appreciate Antonio’s depth of mood, emotional nuance and command of tone. Listen to “Gabriel” on Soundcloud and follow Carlos Antonio at the links provided.
Letting Up Despite Great Faults, photo courtesy the artists
Letting Up Despite Great Faults delivers its follow up to 2022’s entrancing album IV with Reveries with mixing by Melina Duterte (Jay Som) and mastering by Simon Scott (Slowdive). Lead single “Powder” dips a little into the band’s early days with some playful synth sounds like something one might more hear coming from a reprogrammed Famicom and fans of the long defunct The Depreciation Guild will appreciate the vulnerable sounds and delicacy of orchestration in the song’s melodies and rhythms. Guitar notes linger, electronic motes hit with a percussive quality over the rush of spare percussion. The vocals intone like fragments from a diary placed expertly together to comment on the unease of being in a liminal space in one’s life where you think about how people tell you to give up on anything fun and creative in order to “grow up.” But what about what’s in your heart to do and who would want you to give up what brings more than a fleeting shred of joy into your life? The line “You only love the things pinned to the ground” perfectly expresses how some people relate to those they would aim and profess to love—by controlling them and make them into a static entity. A museum piece of life. The song is about resisting that but also the hint of thinking of succumbing to that spirit diminishing but comfortable status yet in the end leaning heavily toward uncertainty in some areas of life over giving it all up for someone that doesn’t truly value your deep happiness. It’s a lot to pack into two minutes twenty seconds with a rare level of emotional and psychological nuance but Mike Lee and the band have a knack for saying meaningful things with great economy in songs that have great forward and outward momentum. Listen to “Powder” Spotify and follow Austin, TX-based Letting Up Despite Great Faults at the links below. Reveries will become available for streaming, download and on vinyl October 11, 2024.
“Afterglow,” the title track from Ohr’s forthcoming album (due out 8/30/24 via Headstate Records) uses vintage electronic sounds and modern production to create something that musically resonates with 90s British, electronically infused, exuberant psychedelia like Primal Scream in the latter half of the decade. But also Currents-period Tame Impala. There’s something celebratory at the core of “Afterglow” and its insistent beat that given its lyrics speaking to not feeling limitations so much but the heat of the momentum of where you’re going and what you’re growing into without completely losing sight of where you’ve been. The warm tones of the song swirl and sparkle throughout and team into the fade in the end. There’s something about the song that gets into your head and ends with feelings of comfort and reassurance which helps it to linger long in the mind. Watch the visualizer video for “Afterglow” on YouTube and follow Ohr at the links below.
Seth Evans of Paul Babe, photo courtesy the artist
Paul Babe’s video for “Cliff Diver” is shot in a backyard and has cameos from the likes of Nathaniel Rateliff and The Night Sweats guitarist Luke Mossman, drummer Carl Sorensen, Rhodes player/vocalist Joseph Lamar, percussionist/singer Jess Parsons, bassist Kramer Kelling and Julia LiBassi on synth and vocals. Of course on lead vocals and guitar is songwriter and band leader Seth Evans. Though Paul Babe is based in Brooklyn, New York, the line up is a handful of Denver (former or current) music luminaries as Evans once fronted the pop band Rossonian while based out of the Mile High City. The song is like a psychedelic funk song in a more mellow and soothing mode with rich vocal harmonies and multiple voices bringing a diverse sound to a song that has an immediate appeal because it’s an entrancing journey that benefits from musical chops that are all channeled into a song about recognizing one’s vulnerabilities and lingering ills and getting to a place of wellness individually and collectively. There is a lightness to the song that uplifts but anchored by coming from a place of earnest emotional expression. What is most obvious from the video that perhaps listening to the song alone is how each musician contributes greatly to the song’s interlacing layers of rhythm and tone to create the kind of song that stays with you not just because it has tasty hooks but because there’s a sense of something bigger to what the song represents beyond being a well-crafted psychedelic pop funk song. Watch the video for “Cliff Diver” on YouTube and follow Paul Babe at the links below.
The low end pulsing buzz that runs through Oscar Mic’s “Sun Star” is like the constant and menacing influence hinted at the in the song. The lyrics describe an impulse to destruction that seems to run through societies and manifests in individual and collective behaviors like an in practice incarnation of the second law of thermodynamics in which entropy increases until it reaches a maximum state. Vocalist Seamus Hayes seems to describe these primitive urges of human beings in terms of their cognates in cosmic and mythological forces and how interpersonal dynamics can hit your direct experiences with the weight of things much bigger in the world. The backbeat percussion and bass drone from Taan Parker and Rex Erex respectively give Hayes’ playful delivery the context for his more melodic voicings and those more in the realm of rap MC need for the song to hit with both a sweetness and menace. If Beck had been able to collaborate with The Beastie Boys it might have sounded like this. Watch the psychedelic music video directed by Dovile Meilute on YouTube and connect with East London’s Oscar Mic at the links provided. Look out for the trio’s debut album out in 2025.
“Derecho” with its subtle use of white noise as background texture with a foreground of hazy synths and percussive sounds in non-standard rhythms finds Photay in music time traveling mode well served by the music video. We see arrows in motion in arcs and in a spiral with luminous ripples to demonstrate the percussion all in luminous colors against darker backdrops both black and deep, vibrant blue. The visuals pair the aesthetic of a 1990s VHS video art piece and the library music-esque tone of the song itself. It creates a fairly playful mood that immerses the listener in textures and organic rhythms like an update of early 2010s minimal techno and deep house. While the song is not dance music it inspires a similar emotional response. The song is from Photay’s new album Windswept out on streaming, download and vinyl September 20, 2024 via Mexican Summer. The record was inspired in part by the sound of wind and the flow of the music has that kind of familiarity and spontaneity that makes it a refreshing listen even with the beneficially weird places it goes.
CATBEAR’s appropriately titled “Rush” has real momentum behind its vulnerable and irresistible melodies. It’s a song about being in the moment, in older parlance of being in the zone, when you feel engaged and filled up with the emotional energy that feels vital and infuses every moment with a sense of purpose and excitement. Many things can inspire these feelings (being in love, feeling like you’re in the right place at the right time in life, a stretch when things seem to be going just right for you) but whatever it is it uplifts one’s spirit and makes having motivation feel effortless. It is the opposite of being depressed without being in a manic mode. The band’s use of sweeps and accented tones over a propulsive yet minimal beat makes the song reminiscent of a mid-80s synth pop song except rather than an excessive guitar solo pulls an almost spoken word line to add a moment of dramatic seriousness that helps to provide contrast and makes the music on either side of it shine even brighter. Interestingly though the song is about, yes, a rush of feeling the band reigns in musical excess in favor of a focus that really gives the song its consistently impactful boost. Listen to “Rush” on Spotify and follow London’s CATBEAR at the links below.
Elly Kace blends impressionistic, orchestral strings with shimmery jazz-y flourishes in the percussion on “I Did My Best” for an effect like a deeply melancholic torch song. The organic flow of sounds makes for a song that provides an ever evolving textural and tonal backdrop to Kace’s mournful yet rich vocals so that the song sounds like a direct connection to its words about a relationship in shambles that was never on the right footing from the beginning and which couldn’t be salvaged with earnest effort on the part of one person to make it all happen. In moments Kace’s vocals are reminiscent of Björk at her most vulnerable but overall the song resonates strongly with the art pop of Julia Holter and its pure fusion of pop, jazz and the avant-garde in a personal creative comment on one’s own limitations and blind spots. Listen to “I Did My Best” on Spotify and follow Elly Kace at the links below.
Swedish ambient artist Sthlm Blush attempted to express the act of growth on “Växer” (Swedish for “growing”). To accomplish the sonic manifestation of what can be a nearly impossible to trace whether through direct observation or the experiencing of it as a human, Ludvig Kullberg aka Sthlm Blush, assembled bell tones, background flows of white noise, echoing, the stretching sounds like insects and birds communicating with one another, processed, abstract synth tones and an array of impressionistic layers of sound in what sounds like an open environment in which all can interact. There is a trace of a crystalline melody that enters into the field of hearing near the middle of the song like an animating energy to shift the dynamic of the system ever so slightly. It’s a bit like listening to the sounds inside a tropic cave and being able to immerse oneself in the complexity of the place as a whole experience rendering its essence more explicable than separated elements. Kullberg’s command of texture as atmosphere and tone is impressive throughout and rather than serve as background music in the ambient mode the song makes staying present easier than if you consciously focus on being so. Listen to “Växer” on Spotify and follow Sthlm Blush at the links below.
“American Song” is Paper Citizen’s tribute to singer/multi-instrumentalist Claire Gohst’s experience with live music in the USA. Gohst is originally from Singapore but moved to Boston to study recording and jazz violin at Berklee and inevitably discovered the local and underground music scene and the various opportunities to witness live original music and to write and perform music of her own. The music video, directed by Alissa Wyle, shows the band performing in a garage, truly a long-standing mainstay in music across America with friends coming over to share in that experience and being together as a community. The song is a lighthearted yet exuberant bit of indie pop with some tasty soloing by Gohst on guitar that highlights the level of musicianship in the band. But the heart of the song is an earnest and endearing portrait of how in Gohst’s mind, and likely in the minds of many listeners, how the music community can bring people of disparate backgrounds together in a mutually supportive spirit of camaraderie in a very unpretentious, grass roots way accessible to virtually everyone. Watch the video for “American Song” on YouTube and follow Paper Citizen at the links provided.
Queen City Sounds and Art 
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