Song Review – Page 49 – Queen City Sounds and Art

Marina Yozora’s Deeply Melancholic and Wistful Dream Pop Single “Watermelon Pink Blue Skies” Resonates With the Emotional Essence of Heartbreak

Marina Yozora, photo courtesy the artist

Marina Yozora’s dream pop single “Watermelon Pink Blue Skies” finds a particularly poetic counterpart in the video shot and edited by Shoma Shibata. The color palette reflects the title of the song and captures the lonely beauty of the song. Yozora’s guitar sketches an organic rhythm that loops throughout the song while a second guitar intones an abstract, melancholic mood. Yozora’s voice nearly whispers in expressive arcs a reflective set of lines evoke the feelings of heartbreak and regret that come out of looking back on a time when one’s love dissolved and left in its wake confused feelings and a lingering longing for what once was even if it doesn’t always make logical sense in your mind or in a way you can easily articulate. In Yozora’s vocals you can hear a depth of feeling and an elegant refinement of emotion sensitive enough to express precisely those feelings in a way that’s resonant and moving while being self-aware enough to know that sometimes how you feel isn’t always in search of a solution or of being fixed because sometimes you just have to feel that moment to make sense of it all long term. Watch the video for “Watermelon Pink Blue Skies” on YouTube and follow the Tokyo-based songwriter at the links below.

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Chopper’s “Living for the Night” is a Post-punk Glam Pop Shaking Off of Modern Malaise

The video for the Chopper single “Living for the Night” shows gritty scenes from the night time with vocalist/songwriter Jonatan K. Magnussen sitting in a bathtub commenting on the conflicted acceptance of youthful nihilism. All while his other self travels the city at night smoking a cigarette in the back of a car and getting to a nightclub bathed in lurid lights and the kind of hedonistic fun one supposedly found at the legendary Manchester club The Hacienda in its heyday. But the song with its mélange of Madchester sleaze and what might be described as psychedelic darkwave glam juxtaposes that mood with the hyper-reality of modern desperation and malaise at what seems like a hopeless situation in the world and embracing getting in some enjoyment rather than be drug under by a despair that serves no one but those that benefit from the twenty-first century’s dystopian slide. Chopper leans into a different kind of spirited resistance even as the song uses a decadent aesthetic to shake off the doldrums. Watch the video for “Living for the Night” on YouTube and follow Danish post-punk/glam/avant-pop artist Chopper at the links below.

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The Video for talker’s “Easygoing” is Like an Elevated Horror Short About Being Fine With Having Zero Chill in Love

The video for talker’s new single “Easygoing” may disturb you or be eerily relatable (either in the moment or at some point in your life). There’s blood, obsession, scenes of anxious attachment taken to the extreme and yet there’s no denying it’s compelling like an Ari Aster short on a lower budget suiting the subject. And the song with its upbeat and earnest melodies serves as a great contrast to frank lyrics about real feelings in the moment and some of where they come from. When talker sings “I wish I could be easygoing/But that’s not me at least I know it/I’ll wear you out til you get holes in your sleeves/I wish I could be easygoing” it is clearly melodramatic but honest with a touch of self-awareness. When we see talker chase the object of her affections after she accidentally (was it accidental, though?) injures herself in an outburst of emotional excess and unself-aware expression of love looking like a maddened and driven stalker who immediately reminds one of the scene in Wild at Heart when Diane Ladd’s character smears on her lipstick in a desperate pantomime that in her mind probably feels like some measure of normal. In this video the chase scene seems ridiculous as well yet somehow funny though some may disagree. Whatever one’s interpretation, “Easygoing” is a well-crafted, indie pop song with poignancy and like the bombastic music video its unique charms linger with you.

“Jomon (Preservation Rework feat. Armand Hammer)” by Hatis Noit Synthesizes Shamanic Vocals and Spiritual Hip-Hop Poetry

Renowned producer Preservation (MF Doom, RZA, Mos Def) felt a connection with experimental composer and vocalist Hatis Noit’s audio and visual aesthetic and heard a resonance between her work and that of NYC hip-hop duo Armand Hammer. The result was a rework of the single “Jomon” originally found on Hatis Noit’s 2022 album Aura. This new version of the song takes out of regular time and place to a realm where shamanic vocal soundscaping and rhythms and streetwise poetry can intermingle and inform one another in a brilliantly syncretic musical fusion. Preservation certainly heard the way the simple percussion of the song suited Armand Hammer’s spoken word style and elevated poetic meter and how Hatis Noit’s hypnotic and transporting mantra-esque delivery threaded through and around Armand Hammer’s vocals could give each other an emotional resonance and context that probably no one else was thinking of combining. It’s a powerful piece of music that links the primal, instinctual places from which the creativity of everyone involved in the project stems. Listen to this rework of “Jomon” on YouTube and follow Hatis Noit at the links provided.

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Ariane Gabriel Reconnects With Her Sensual Impulses on Sultry Synth Pop Single “i wanna have sex”

Ariane Gabriel, photo courtesy the artist

The title of Ariane Gabriel’s song “i wanna have sex” seems simple and straightforward and in a way it is a song about erotic desire. It’s ethereal synths and Gabriel’s confident yet vulnerable vocals carry with them a feeling of rediscovery and wanting to enjoy the titular experience in all its pleasurable possibilities including the feelings surrounding it. But in the tenor of the song one picks up on the undertones and backstory of the song and a prolonged period of self-denial and accepting sex as a normal and desirable human experience. Gabriel had been abused and it zapped her sex drive for a long period of time when even the thought of sex was traumatizing. Trauma can linger with you for a year or a lifetime and everyone processes it in their own way and on their own schedule but in Gabriel’s vibrantly soft toned synth pop song one hears the sound of someone who still remembers how things were yet doesn’t want to let that limit her joy of life. Rather, fully embracing it with a refreshing frankness. Listen to “i wanna have sex” on Spotify and follow French pop artist Ariane Gabriel at the links below.

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Neil Foster Graces Us With a Bit of Unstructured Time With the Immersive Ambient Track “Kite Dreams”

Neil Foster, as he often does, offers a composition that is so minimal and rich in sonic detail that it eases into your conscious with gentle textures and tranquil melodies that stretch out into endless vistas of sound. “Kite Dreams” includes field recordings of birdsong in the Irish woodland likely in or near Killyleagh where the track was composed and recorded. Shimmering, abstract bell tone echo, a slow roiling drone weaves together with string arrangements embody the dynamic grace of kites in the sky on a sunny yet partly cloudy day. Assembled together the song evokes a pastoral image of having the free time to spend flying kites, a perhaps quaint pastime we often chalk up to the careless days of childhood, and taking in the sounds, sights and sheer physical presence of nature without needing to mind the intrusion of the demands of regular life. The song embodies the concept of unstructured time even though it is of finite duration and built on the elegant mathematics of song and these days we need more of this kind of experience even if we can sometimes only get from indulging a song. Listen to “Kite Dreams” on Spotify and follow Neil Foster at the links below.

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Bad Flamingo’s Americana Noir Song “Fast” is a Tale of Life on the Edge and Outrunning Boring and Tamed Normiedom

Bad Flamingo, photo courtesy the artists

It’s really remarkable at this point how Bad Flamingo can take similar instrumentation with guitar, some percussion, banjo, maybe some mandolin, bass, synth and nearly whispered vocals and arrange it in endlessly different ways with a seemingly deep well of material that is the personal mythology of someone who is living on the edges of society as a rebel storyteller who is caught up in melodramatic tales with the gritty feel and sense of underlying menace in a kind of urban Americana noir. “Fast” finds the band offering evocative couplets with the construct like the lyric “I’m a fist waiting for a fight” and “I’m a wolf waiting for the night.” We hear about money hidden in a mattress that is rapidly running out and yet our narrator and their companion seem to run just ahead of the negative consequences of a life lived outside the bounds of straight society. This time out the music gets some rush of low end atmosphere to heighten the sense of danger and that just renders the song yet another great entry in the duo’s consistently growing body of work that remains distinctive yet not completely classifiable which seems to suit the vibe of what the band is about.

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Blondfire Dives Headlong Into Love Once Again on Immersive Synth Pop Single “Foolish”

Blondfire takes a dive off the deep end into love once again on “Foolish.” The title of the song might sum up the spirit of the songwriting and the impetus behind it but it also speaks to a a self-awareness and a trust in one’s own instincts rather than the second guessing that can keep you from doing something or being involved with something or someone that might be good for you even if just for a little while. When you know you might be acting foolishly it gives you a certain thrill unless it goes tragically sideways. And sometimes even then. But Blondfire goes all in with the commitment in the lyrics and in her willingness to cast aside the fears and insecurities that can cause you to stumble. Musically the rich and glimmering synth melodies and Blondfire’s own commanding vocals have echoes of Nik Kershaw’s “Wouldn’t It Be Good.” But rather than it seeming derivative it resonates with the romanticism of that song and taps into feelings of nostalgia without needing to look back on some fondly remembered time, rather, the rush of inexplicably warm feelings that can propel you forward into a good mood perhaps reconnecting with your ability to completely giving yourself up to moments of sustained passion and affection. Listen to “Foolish” on Soundcloud and follow Blondfire at the links below.

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Dax Bares the Destructive Consequences of Emotional Abuse on “Narcissist”

The video for Dax’s new single “Narcissist” is like a surreal horror movie short but one with a much more personal touch. It shows Dax being controlled in a web of strings that pull on various parts of himself, trapping him within a tapestry of interconnected points of influence. When he trades vocal centerstage with Phix we see a situation more like the Bluebeard myth but with the same effect. In each case the vocalist recounts the experience of trying to relate to a narcissist and the destructive outcome. How the narcissist will come in attractive and charming and once you’re invited into their world it’s little or not so little emotional snares reinforced by a shifting mosaic of lies and gaslighting couched in terms of a special connection but all along it’s abuse. When Dax sings “The key to your heart/Opens up a place I’m not safe in…Waking up to all your faces/Trapped inside this cage” he captures the dynamic well and his tone and that of Phix is one of vulnerability and hurt and though each sings about those feelings it never waxes aggressive the way it might if the song was about some misguided spirit of revenge. Once again Dax in his songs that mix hip-hop and other musical styles (in this case, indie pop) offers a parallel perspective than the usual pop music tropes. Watch the video for “Narcissist” on YouTube and follow Dax at the links below.

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Anna Walsh Dares to Choose a Better Life For Herself on “Plan B”

Anna Walsh genre bends a bit in her single “Plan B” but that blend of Americana, pop and warmly rendered indie rock serves the song well. The lyrics tell a story many people know well or have been on either end of that interpersonal dynamic, or certainly witnessed it, and the life events that spiral out from there. Many songs are written from the perspective of the narrator as the main character. But Walsh approaches the narrative from the direction of someone who others have tried to turn into a side character like the guy who tells the narrator she was his plan B, the kind of male who acts like he understands others not as an act of empathy but of manipulation to get a weird, low vibration thrill of delusional power and influence in his social circles. But the narrator of the song even though she’s 20 has enough of a sense of self to not go through with a pregnancy or get spooked by some pharmacist because she wants different things for her life and makes for directions to better figure out what life holds for her. The guitar work and the vocal choruses become more elaborate, energetic and upwardly mobile in spirit toward the end of the song with an exhilarating sense that there’s much more to life than to be than the narrow and diminished dreams someone with no imagination and certainly not your best interests in mind has vaguely planned for you. The line “Ruminating on his fantasies/Could never have changed/What was/In front of me” rings so true in the context of the song and expresses the decisive shift in consciousness clearly because most people deserve better than they typically get or have been taught to expect for themselves. Listen to “Plan B” on Spotify and follow Anna Walsh on Instagram.