Song Review – Page 53 – Queen City Sounds and Art

Ringo Deathstarr’s Remix of Lauren Lakis’ “Terror Tears” Transforms the Introspective Dream Pop Original Into a Beautiful, Industrial Darkwave Nightmare

Lauren Lakis, photo courtesy the artists

Ringo Deathstarr took Lauren Lakis’ “Terror Tears” and transformed the spacious, dream pop gorgeousness into a distorted and urgent borderline industrial song. Where previously the music felt introspective and tranquil, this version sounds like it was inspired by the title to engage in some deconstuction and in the last third of the song it is almost pure rhythm and rapidly echoing guitar stripped of all but the barest of melodies and the vocals like a ghost haunting an old television that bursts forth into vivid focus in the last moments of the song. It is nearly unrecognizable from the original and a remix that truly explores the possibilities of the songwriting. Listen to Lauren Lakis’ “Terror Tears (Ringo Deathstarr Mix)” on Spotify and follow Lauren Lakis at the links provided.

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Mikahl Anthony’s “Space Blue/Deep Ain’t It” is a Poignantly Poetic Meditation on World Weariness and Resilience Set to Cosmic Jazz, Blues and Psychedelic Soul

Mikahl Anthony, photo courtesy the artist

The applause the open Mikahl Anthony’s “Space Blue” give the song the air of an early 70s psychedelic soul/late night jazz lounge feel. Runs of keyboards burst and drift off into the cosmos and the vocals opine about the state of the world and the state of a relationship and the way those developments intersect. The track is two minutes seven seconds but Anthony seems to layer so many musical and thematic ideas into that small space with deft nods simultaneously to Stevie Wonder, Herbie Hancock and Dilla. It has a deeply introspective mood yet one that seems yearning for meaning and connection and a weariness with the way the world and life often are but aware that often one can’t make changes as quickly and as thoroughly as one would prefer. And thus the final line of the song “I sing the same old blues song” has a playfulness and resonance that hits like a complex truth expressed with a poetic poignant succinctness. Listen to “Space Blue” on Spotify.

M Wagner’s “Release Yrself” is a Joyous Catharsis Swimming in Urgent Grainy Melodies and Tranquil Tones

The distorted stream of sounds in M Wagner’s “Release Yrself” sounds like you’re hearing a joyous outburst of melodic tones through the filter of a blizzard. One imagines someone walking from a secluded manor up a path to the site where all the fun is happening having come late to the proceedings and missing the shuttle or the procession through a fog and snow shower but knowing you want to be there. And in the last just over a minute of the song the haze clears and crystalline bell tones ring out in the near distance signaling your arrival and freedom from the challenges and resistance encountered to and of the urgency of the effort. And in the end of the song the grainy effect on the tones returns like a reminder of how the journey had its own sense of significance and catharsis. The song as a whole is like a futuristic techno club hit. Listen to “Release Yrself” on Spotify and follow M Wagner at the links below. The artist’s new album We Could Stay releases on May 17, 2024.

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Daniel Ellsworth & The Great Lakes Burn Through a Sense of Social Stagnation in the Urgency of Indie Pop Single “EVERYTHING IS EVERYTHING”

Daniel Ellsworth, photo courtesy the artist

“EVERYTHING IS EVERYTHING” by Daniel Ellsworth & The Great Lakes surges forth from the beginning of the song with a sustained sense of joyful urgency. Ellsworth’s rich falsetto soars over and through the song and seems to both guide and carried on by the steady beat and ethereal synths like something out of a daydream, guitar providing both textured melody and arcs of bright tonality. It seems to be a song about a sense of how things and places can be essentially the same or feel familiar but always changing in ways that can seem overwhelming but also not fast enough in many ways. It’s about a sense of comfort with the familiar but also a desire for the world around you to progress at a pace that that matches an expectation that nothing can fully stay stagnant because the nature of existence is change. The song bridges synth pop, electro soul and indie rock in a way that feels fortifying and transporting at once. The group’s new album HIGH LIFE released February 16, 2024. Listen to “EVERYTHING IS EVERYTHING” on Spotify and follow Daniel Ellsworth & The Great Lakes and the songwriter’s other projects at the links provided.

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Shadow Sides Delves Into the Disconnect Between Romantic Fascination and Real Connection in the Delicate Dream Pop of “We Say Love But We Don’t Mean It”

Shadow Sides delves into another realm of human relationships that often goes unspoken or dimly understood with its new single “We Say Love But We Don’t Mean It.” Its languid pace and nearly whispered vocals with the pulse of a bass figure it’s musically reminiscent of the song “Seven Sisters” by Rainer Maria except for the icy synth that blooms throughout the song like a neglected part of one’s mind chiming in a reminder through pure feeling of a deeply buried yearning for real connection rather than those the logical mind has convinced itself would be cool and exciting and thus desirable. The title is the chorus of the song and as the narrative of the song unfolds the pace picks up and the line “Protect our hearts/Emotional blind spots/I want it, I need it/We say love but we don’t mean it” hits like a personal revelation wrapped in spidery, delicately chiming guitar work and the aforementioned bass line that now feels like a comforting presence. It’s a song about wanting someone to be something to you that they really aren’t and one’s willingness to look past red flags and deal breakers of behavior and personality because isn’t this superficially and attractive person the one you want to be with? Are you in this state of being capable of even knowing who you want to be with for longer than a day or a moment? Sometimes in life you don’t know and it’s part of the learning process for many people of learning how to actually love with integrity and not the charade of such based on an impulse and a whim. The song is about not quite being there but having an understanding that what you thought you wanted isn’t. Which is a stage of emotional evolution that some people never seem to get to stuck thinking they’re in love with people that are bad for them and torturing themselves by holding on when they should let go. Listen to “We Say Love But We Don’t Mean It” on Spotify and follow Shadow Sides at the links below.

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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.