Song Review – Page 51 – Queen City Sounds and Art

Easy Sleeper’s “Timekeeper” Highlights the Ways Our Internalized Regulation of Time Negatively Impacts Our Quality of Life

Easy Sleeper, photo courtesy the artists

The breezy guitar jangle of the opening of Easy Sleeper’s “Timekeeper” suggests the song may be about some nostalgic portrait of a poignant earlier time in life. But the guitar work is soon joined by vocals that seem a little strained and at points punctuating the chorus with shouted lines because the song is about the pressure time exerts on all our lives from the time we’re forced to be aware of it early in life to the way it regulates the existence of most of us, the conscious awareness and imposed adherence to time tables, from school, work, other obligations, social and otherwise, and in the last third of the song the guitar turns from beautiful and borderline pastoral to distorted and intense like the weight time weighs on us all. After all what could be more demented and destructive than imposing a time of your life at which you’re supposed to accomplish this or that or when you’re an artist the demand for inspiration and creative development as a product that can be reliably produced when so many of our actual timelines are idiosyncratic and not subject to the whims of a marketplace. The fact that the song goes from organic whimsy to anxiety-wracked angularity is a brilliant mirror of life from the childhood of most people to adulthood. There has to be a better way. Listen to “Timekeeper” on Spotify and follow Easy Sleeper at the links provided.

Easy Sleeper on TikTok

Easy Sleeper on Instagram

Vania and Cravat Come Together For the Entrancing IDM Chillwave Fusion of “Only You”

NYC-based singer and songwriter Vania teamed up with Spanish experimental electronic pop band Cravat for an utterly transporting and entrancing single “Only You.” The song is about a relationship that really isn’t so great for either person but in which there’s something to the bond even though it involves hurt feelings as the cost of staying together. Vania’s lilting vocals with a touch of processing sounds like a pop star from another world dancing in the unconventional rhythms crafted as tonal swells and drifts of percussive tone guided by a pulsing rhythm. It’s like a true fusion of chillwave, hyperpop and IDM and drawing on the sense of melancholic nostalgia of the first, the otherworldly structures of the second and the free association of aesthetics, sounds and technologies to craft beats borrowed from across decades baked into the third. Though the song is frank in its winking embrace of the elements of dysfunction that are part of many relationships that aren’t meant to last it celebrates the feelings that went into forming them. Listen to “Only You” on Spotify and follow Vania at the links provided.

“If Your Sky Should Fall” by evrshde is a Tender Dream Pop Song of Affection and Understanding

“If Your Sky Should Fall” finds evrshde draping a measured, echoing beat in billowing tones and descending, gauzy tones. It’s a love song but invokes a more unconventional, nuanced and complicated understanding of what it means to actually relate to anyone who is sensitive and has struggled with the disappointments we all face, scarred a bit by emotional abuse and weary of potential mistreatment, guard up and hesitant to be involved—wary of needing to fulfill an idealized role that they can’t really consistently live up to. The pacing of the song is like a slow walk down a darkly foggy path with the music swelling up with incandescent flares of warmth and light periodically to light the way. And that’s the vibe of the song in general, gentle, unobtrusive but reassuring. Fans of HTRK and the more enigmatic and ambient end of Enya will appreciate the song’s soundscapes. Listen to “If Your Sky Should Fall” on Spotify and follow evrshde at the links below.

evrshde on Facebook

evrshde on Instgram

Mary Middlefield’s Live Video for “Heart’s Desire” Reveals the Dream Folk Song’s Dark Yet Joyful Catharsis

Mary Middlefield “Heart’s Desire” single art

Mary Middlefield’s live performance video for “Heart’s Desire” lends a more grounded and human face to its dark story of a young woman and her interactions with an older man who abuses his position of relative authority. The intricate guitar work and orchestral arrangements and Middlefield’s vulnerable vocals for most of the song gives it a quality that one might expect out of a sort of indie folk inflected dream pop song but the lyrics reveal a lot about a warped interpersonal dynamic that doesn’t lead to healthy places. In the video Middlefield looks like she’s re-living some of these harrowing experiences without being explicit in the sordid details. It’s a conventionally beautiful song in its arrangements and lively rhythms and flow of melody. But there’s a surprise for everyone that watches to the end because the lyrics end in a different way than the studio version that’s readily available and Middlefield sings in the end, screaming with her entire being and arching backward with the force of emotion, “You grow old and I’ll watch you die” and repeating the line. But it’s not dark so much as cathartic for everyone who has been in a situation like the kind she outlines in the song and for far too many young women it isn’t uncommon. Watch the video for “Heart’s Desire” on YouTube and follow the Swedish singer-songwriter at the links below.

Mary Middlefield on TikTok

Mary Middlefield on Instagram

Mary Middlefield on Bandcamp

Beans Maintains a Zenlike Calm in the Hyperkinetic Urgency and Relentless Word Flow of “ZWAARD 1”

Beans is back with his bravura display of verbal mastery in “ZWAARD 1,” the opening salvo for his forthcoming album ZWAARD (out March 15, 2024 via his own imprint Tyger Rawwk Rcrds). This time out the rapper worked with Finnish producer Sasu Ripatti aka Vladislav Delay. The song is the first of fourteen tracks with the same title followed by the corresponding track number. Beans seems to be exploring the current state of hip-hop and his own struggles and coming to terms with his own mortality while still being caught up in pushing his art forward. The rapid-fire flow of poetry while hyperkinetic percussion and splashes of melodic keyboards looped set a nervy urgency pulls us along in the wake of Beans’ headlong pace as he makes observations about how things are and despite how the song has that irresistible forward momentum the rapper sounds like he’s taking it easy and provides a model for keeping an even keel even when you are operating in a world and an environment that seems in a hurry. He maintains an artful grace in the face of an accelerated culture. Listen to “ZWAARD 1” on YouTube and follow the former member of legendary hip-hop crew Antipop Consortium Beans at the links below.

Sivan Levy’s Ambient Pop Song “My Far Away Femme” is a Windswept Epic of Heartbreak and Reckoning With the Truth

The softly percussive atmospheric sounds at the beginning of “My Far Away Femme” by Sivan Levy is so hushed and ethereal it’s ghostly in its presence but seems to transform into vivid piano tones that ripple like droplets in a pool of water as the tipping off point for the singer’s vocals. At around the halfway point there is a string chord progression that turns as though processed through a phaser conveying a sense of desolation so complete so efficiently it’s gently heartbreaking. Washes of white noise in the distance like a ferocious coastal wind give the song a deeply haunted quality that truly enhances the lyrics that might be despairing words to a loved one or to oneself about how it’s easy to fall in love with the ideal of someone at a distance when that image isn’t reality and those feelings built on a foundation of nothing. “Your fantasy does not exist,” Levy sings to sum up the actual reality of the situation and sometimes the truth hurts even when surrounded with gossamer flows of sound and a soft delivery as Levy offers here. The song is a sort of art dream pop with an ear for layers of ambient soundscapes that feel like one is stripping away layers of wishful thinking. Listen to “My Far Away Femme” on Spotify and follow Sivan Levy at the links below. Levy’s latest EP side:w released on February 4, 2024.

Sivan Levy on Facebook

Sivan Levy on TikTok

Gabbarein Weave a Primeval Greeting to the Sun in the Video For the Ritualistic Folk of “Ra Rising Sun”

Gabbarein is a project of Cecile Hafstad, a Norwegian vocalist and sound healer, and American composer-producer Christopher Bono. The duo recorded its self-titled debut album due out April 5, 2024 on a fjord within the Arctic Circle in northern Norway. Whether or not that adds an ineffable mystique or energy to the sounds captured for the songs the lead single “Ra Rising Sun” with the video produced and directed by Ragnarok Film (filmed near Trondheim, Norway at various sites including Trollkirka aka Troll Church) it looks and sounds like something from the Eddas. Hafstad sings and chants in a language that she’s “channeling” meaning they’re all sounds that made sense with the music and with the moods and meanings going into the music. We see a woman singing in a cave near a waterfall and a mother and child playing in a forest and enjoying the morning sun and the soft moss and other greenery. The aforementioned woman is presumably Hafstad with Bono playing what look like traditional drums and striking archaic looking instruments that one imagines are supposed to create the thrumming drone that runs through much of the song and the rest the organic percussion and kalimba that convey a sense of delicacy and mystery. In the video it looks like a trio of figures are performing a mystery ritual in the aforementioned forest in black robes and one figure wearing antlers, later all in white at dusk on the beach. Altogether between the visuals and the meditative music one gets a sense of getting a peak into ancestral memory of culture as it emerged from a time of the creation of myths. Watch the video for “Ra Rising Sun” on YouTube and connect with Gabbarein at the links provided.

Gabbarein on Instagram

Micro/macro’s “Reassembling the Self” is an Extended Mantra of Emotional Healing Set to an Ambient IDM Beat

Composer Tommy Simpson is releasing the song “Reassembling the Self” as a single under his experimental electronic moniker of Macro/micro. The track was originally written as part of the score to a forthcoming science fiction short film called R.A.E.R. BETA 0027 about, according to the film’s tagline, “a woman struggling to overcome a traumatic loss” who “seeks out help from a tech developer with a device that promises to accelerate the emotional healing process.” The beat-driven track works separate from that context as a song with a melancholic tonal echo of a melody that resonates in the near distance while a gentle industrial beat traces what feels like a process suggested by the title. Knowing some of the plot of the film only helps to hear in the song the kind of grace, patience and care one needs to exercise when you feel like you’ve come apart a little or more than a little and you want to get yourself on a better footing and often that takes some meticulous and steady effort without rushing yourself like you’re a mass manufactured product. Maybe some guided work can feel like you’re re-engineering your psyche some and that can help the process of coming back into yourself go more quickly. It’s a short song but it hits like a nuanced and extended emotional mantra that helps you to wrangle up some of the rough edges and put them back into place. Not a meditation so much as a set of sounds that keeps you on a track to center yourself as you ease yourself into a better place. Listen to “Reassembling the Self” on Spotify where you can hear the rest of Simpson’s deeply evocative score to the film and follow Micro/macro at the links below.

macromicromusic.com

Macro/micro on Instagram

Macro/micro on Bandcamp

Macro/micro on YouTube

Louise Lemón Bids a Farewell to a Relationship Past Its Due By Date on the Passionate Dream Pop Single “Tears as Fuel”

The Queen of Death Gospel, Louise Lemón, is set to release her third album Lifetime of Tears on February 23, 2024 via Icons Creating Evil Art. The current single “Tears as Fuel” is emblematic of a record that began in the aftermath of a breakup and parting ways with a chapter in the songwriter’s life. The video for the song filmed in Barcelona (directed by Johan Lundsten) shows Lemón walking the beach and overlooking the city while the wind tumbles through her hair, later walking through the city’s night scenes as the lush piano work and brushed, finely cadenced percussion accompany her words about feeling like all she had in a relationship at a certain point was tears and the pain especially after the realization that she had nothing with the person she had loved. When you’re in that state sometimes you just want to hold on to something that meant something to you and the emotions you invested into the relationship so you revel in that emotional pain at least for a while. The flaring guitar in the last part of the song alongside the psychedelic organ melody and Lemón’s soaring and passionate vocals leaves you with the impression that this melancholic yet triumphant dream pop song is an expression of the acknowledgment that there’s nothing left of the relationship and it’s time to give up any lingering hope or attachment to it and move on even if your feelings can still be affected by your memories of the pain and when things didn’t seem off. Watch the video for “Tears as Fuel” on YouTube and follow Louise Lemón at the links below.

louiselemonmuisic.com

Louise Lemón on Facebook

Louise Lemón on Instagram

Mayzie Scorches Ego-Driven Male Misbehavior on the Caustically Noisy Post-punk Song “Boys Will be Boys”

Mayzie sounds like she’s awash in static and boiling frustration on “Boys Will Be Boys.” The menacing and dark sparkle of the guitar work is reminiscent of both Fields of the Nephilim and Babes in Toyland at once. The attitude and vocal tone is oddly reminiscent of Romeo Void’s “Never Say Never” as the vocalist describes the essence of the ways certain male musicians, even now, even after decades of the accomplishments of female artists creatively and professionally, center themselves at the expense of others in ways and with a consistency that deserves a reckoning. Mincing now words, Mayzie delivers a bit of that here. The song’s thrilling and darkly noisy post-punk flavor serves the subject matter well by conveying perfectly the disdain and invective Mayzie pours into the song with a caustic atmospheric quality that isn’t short on splintery texture. Listen to “Boys Will Be Boys” on Spotify and follow Mayzie on Instagram.