Song Review – Page 41 – Queen City Sounds and Art

Jodie Nicholson’s “You Wanted This” is a Lush and Moody Song About the Tensions and Compromises of Living Out Your Dreams

Jodie Nicholson reflects on her life as a musician in “You Wanted This” and the complex dynamic between self and one’s aspirations and the realities of navigating the world of being a songwriter in the music industry of today. She begins by singing, “I wanted this, I wanted this” and then shifting into “You wanted this, you wanted this” in a simple yet deft turn of internal dialogue all while surrounded by lingering synth tones both in higher and lower registers like a hazy drone. A spare piano part accents the mood and when the rhythm kicks in so does a full range of moody atmospheric swells that conveys a sense of the songwriter trailing off the thoughts and walking into the evening with a light sprinkling of rain fall all around. The production on the song and its tonal shifts is masterfully subtle yet impactful centering on Nicholson’s expressive and melancholic vocals and gift for augmenting the melodic range of the arrangements. Altogether it allows for Nicholson to speak eloquently to the tensions and sometimes uneasy acceptance of the pluses and negatives as they are in order to do the most important things in your life. Listen to “You Wanted This” on Spotify and follow Jodie Nicholson at the links below. Nicholson’s new album Safe Hands released May 10, 2024.

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Elektrokohle Darkwave Garage Rock Single “I Wanna Cry” is a Song About Yearning to Break Out of Emotional Paralysis

Elektrokohle, photo courtesy the artists

Elektrokohle waste no time getting into the thick of “I Wanna Cry” and its urgent mix of dark post-punk noisy punk driven by a motorik beat. In the black and white music video and it’s flashing lights, stark shadows, haunted underground settings and those more like the interior of a repurposed, abandoned school the band looks like a darkwave version of some kind of psychedelic garage rock band from Memphis or The Cramps. And this aesthetic reinforces the desperate themes of the song of feeling stuck and despairing at not being able to satisfy a loved one and give them what they want and vice versa and not knowing how to break out of that terrible emotional deadlock. Elektrokohle perfectly captures that breaking point of not knowing what to do next but knowing that maybe a good cry would purge that blockage of feeling and that sense of powerlessness. Watch the video for “I Wanna Cry” on YouTube and follow Berlin-based post-punk band Elektrokohle at the links below. “I Wanna Cry” is out now on a seven inch b/w “Abstand” available through the group’s Bandcamp page.

Elektrokohle website

Elektrokohle on Instagram

Swim Deep Transmutes Helsinki Lambda Club’s Indie Pop Single “Good News Is Bad News” Into Existential Slowcore Gold With New Remix

Helsinki Lambda Club, photo courtesy the artists

Swim Deep did us all a favor taking the upbeat, Strokes-esque song “Good News Is Bad News” hit song by Japanese pop band Helsinki Lambda Club and finding all the moody, downbeat, introspective possibilities to put forward in the remix. Instead of the admittedly thoughtful indie pop of the 2020 original this one shimmers in slowcore style with long echoing guitar and vocals sounding lost in a fog of reflective moments lingering long in a state of existential uncertainty caught somewhere between romantic feelings, yearning and doubt. It is Galaxie 500-esque in its establishment of gossamer sonic textures and pastoral moods and a fully-realized re-imagining of a song into something new. Listen to Swim Deep’s remix of Helsinki Lambda Club’s “Good News Is Bad News” on Spotify and follow Helsinki Lambda Club at the links provided.

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The New Division’s Synth Pop Single “Lust For Lies” Pairs Ennui With Lively Bright Rhythms to Break With a Cycle of Bad Habits

The New Division, photo courtesy the artist

The New Division’s synth pop single “Lust For Lies” and the rippling neon color outlines in the music video will trigger memories of another era for many listeners/viewers. The rhythm has the immediacy of Jan Hammer’s “Miami Vice Theme” with the blend of rock instruments and rich synths of that song and the sweeping grandeur, energy and melodic layering of Simple Minds’ “New Gold Dream (81/82/83/84)” as it was used to contrast with the decadence of the scenes in the opening sequence of the 2008 film The Informers. And the song itself resonates with some of the themes of that film and how we can get stuck in a cycle of habits that feel like empty rituals that we may not truly enjoy anymore but find ourselves drawn back into out of an ingrained instinct of joys once had. It is an effective pairing of ennui and lushly entrancing soundscapes that suggest that awareness is key to breaking out of a rut. Watch the video for “Lust For Lies” on YouTube and follow The New Division at the links provided.

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The New Division on Facebook

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The New Division on Bandcamp

Matt McLean’s Lo-Fi Psychedelic Power Pop New Wave Single “Some Real Havoc” is a Testament to the Realization That What and Who You Are Is Good Enough

Matt McLean’s “Some Real Havoc” begins as a wistful, nostalgic, folk-inflected pop song with some gently sparking synth to complete a dreamlike whimsy. But before mid-song the tone of the song switches gradually into a caustically exuberant takedown of celebrity culture and chasing cultural clout and dreams presented to you as the answer like moving to a hip city to make your creative aspirations come to fruition. McLean seems to speak to the realization that part of being satisfied as a creative person or a human being in general is making the world around you into something inspiring and appreciating what you have on hand instead of the very common attitude that if only you could have what someone else has then you’d have it made while leaving behind what made you and your experiences unique and worthwhile on their own. In the story of the song McLean uses nostalgia for what he’s experienced and lived through to fuel an organic aspirational spirit. Musically and thematically fans of Flaming Lips and Dead Milkmen will appreciate the style and attitude here. Listen to “Some Real Havoc” on Spotify and follow Matt McLean on Instagram.

Eve Essex’s “The Fabulous Truth” is a Brooding, Post-Punk/Art Rock Deconstruction of Ego

The distorted drone that runs through Eve Essex’s “The Fabulous Truth,” the title track to her forthcoming full-length (which releases on June 20, 2024 via Soap Library on digital, cassette and LP) conveys a sense of introspection and a taking an assessment of how things have been and one’s place in it all. The languid guitar provided by Jenghis Manning-Petit burns in Essex’s lush and hazy washes of atmosphere and together with the accents of electronic percussion creates a sound like something one would hope to hear in a soundtrack for a film made from one of Moebius great science fiction epics. The music video for the song certainly has an aesthetic like one had the legendary artist used 90s computer game design tools to create a look like an artificial universe in 16 bit where people go to deconstruct the illusions of ego which seems to be the theme of Essex’s lyrics in the context of a world in which we all all operate and so much of navigating the world is presentation and the construction of identity to present when a real one that should be regularly evolving exists. The brooding drones and dramatic, soulful vocals are a little like if Light Asylum made a desert rock album and came out with something weirder and cooler. Watch the video for “The Fabulous Truth” on YouTube and follow Eve Essex at the Links below.

Eve Essex on Twitter

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“Pop Star Salvation” is don’t get lemon’s Somber Synth Pop Critique of the Expected Clout Chasing in the Arts

don’t get lemon, photo courtesy the artists

“Pop Star Salvation” is the concluding track of don’t get lemon’s new album Have Some Shame and ends the lushly melancholic album on a particularly thoughtful and somber note. As the title to the album suggests many of the songs within explore themes of aspiration and self-awareness, of romanticized melodramatic ego assertion and the limitations that sort of fake it until you make it spirit places on one’s actual achievements. The band this time around masterfully layers saturated synth, processional arrangements and soulful vocals on a foundation of elegantly textural bass rhythms. This song and its knowing observations on the illusion of the rewards of chasing clout as part of the whole game of being in a band or in any other creative endeavor is one of the weightier of synth pop songs in recent years and at the same time has emotional resonances reminiscent of the defiantly resigned tones of Protomartyr circa Under Cover of Official Right (2014). Listen to “Pop Star Salvation” on Spotify and follow don’t get lemon at the links below. Have Some Shame released on April 24, 2024 via á La Carte Records for streaming, digital download and limited edition vinyl.

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Charls Ava Rejects the Dubious Adulation of Aspirational Projection in Psychedelic Darkwave Single “Idol”

Charls Ava’s “Idol” is a song about a dynamic that many people experience in which someone becomes infatuated with you so long as the illusion of projected perfection lasts. When your flaws and your humanity seem to contradict that person’s idea of who they want you to be instead of a real person. Ava intones that she doesn’t want to be anyone’s idol because it’s a lot of unasked for pressure and too much to try to live up to even if you find that initial attention flattering. But it’s an interpersonal dynamic bound to leave the object of that idolization discarded, abandoned, in the end and it’s better to not accept such fickle adulation as a foundation for one’s self-esteem or emotional support. The song swirls Ava’s voice with saturated low end synth drones, guitar jangle in a Middle Eastern darkwave mode, splashes of psychedelic tones and splayed, minimalistic drum beats but her vocals expressive, intense and versatile is where the song shines most and at times her voice is reminiscent of that of Karen O. Listen to “Idol” on Spotify and follow Charls Ava at the links provided.

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ALIAS’ Avant-Synth-Pop Single “COCKTAILS AND DREAMS” Lures Us Out of Our Own Emotional Status Quo Into a Burst of Joyful Ecstasy

ALIAS brings to bear rich and saturated tones in “COCKTAILS AND DREAMS” with warm low end to help the low key vocals stand out before the song kicks into high gear in the last third of the song. The music video looks a bit like if Chris Cunningham and Terry Gilliam collaborated on a short film set in a 1980s bureaucratic office. The soft lighting a parallel to some of the tonal haze in the song’s soundscape. When the monochrome computer monitor scrolls “EMBRACE_CHAOS” repeatedly to the pulse of the accelerating pace and spectral yet uplifting, sustained synth melody it certainly feels like something of the status quo in the setting of the song has been disrupted. And the song itself is one of breaking from one’s everyday habits in favor of something that stirs the heart as embodied by initially dispassionate vocals to those shouted with a spirited gusto. Is it a synthpop song? More a conceptual avant-pop composition? It can be enjoyed on multiple levels and its easy for the song’s shimmery melodies and sensual rhythms to get stuck in your head. Watch the video for “COCKTAILS AND DREAMS” on YouTube and follow ALIAS at the links below.

ALIAS on Facebook

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Mary Ocher Entreats the World to Awaken to its Human Solidarity on Operatic Art Synthpop Single “Syhmpathize”

Mary Ocher’s single “Sympathize (featuring Your Government)” is well represented in the music video that shows the artist floating in a turquoise ocean on a rubber raft looking like a character from the end of The Lord of the Rings who has returned from the Undying Lands in white robes and rams horns. Nearby a cluster of refugees from the ravaged world frolic on an island of junk with a “For Sale” sign while industrialists in a red ship demonstrate their designs on what’s left of normal people. All while Ocher sings “Sympathize with us!” in entreatment to the basic humanity of those who might just snuff out what there is left of a world not completely unconquered by rapacious economic interests. Musically Ocher’s operatic vocals and beautiful pulses of synth melody and circular rhythms are reminiscent of something Lene Lovich or Nina Hagen might have written for one of Jim Jarmusch’s or Wim Wenders’ more eccentric and engrossing globe hopping films. Watch the video for “Sympathize” on YouTube and follow Mary Ocher at the links below. Her new album Your Guide to Revolution releases on June 14 in the EU and in the rest of the world on July 19 via Underground Institute.