SubmitHub – Page 106 – Queen City Sounds and Art

Toebow’s “Kitchen” is a Brilliant, Eclectic Fusion of Styles Orchestrated to Express a Playful Amusement at Vainglorious Clout Chasing

The intricate arrangements of percussion, guitar and electronics in Toebow’s “Kitchen” conspire to create a unique mood and texture. When the vocals come in it helps to change the quality of the song like some bizarre and fascinating mix of folk rock, prog, R&B and psychedelia. In moments it sounds like the weirder end of an LCD Soundsystem song but if Adrian Belew was bringing some alien guitar sound and technical heft to the songwriting. The lyrics seem to be about clout chasing and wanting to win accolades and distinctions that don’t really add up to much. Casting these words into music that at times sounds like arty dream pop seems inspired and when the song waxes 1980s hard rock and Joe Satriani-esque jazz fusion the potential cheese factor transmogrifies into something that seems perfect in capturing the essence of pursuing vainglorious rewards. Listen to “Kitchen” on Spotify and follow Toebow (which includes former and perhaps current members of Zula, Peel Dream Magazine, Dirty Projectors and other noteworthy NYC ensembles) at the links below.

Toebow on Instagram

Toebow links

Charm the Riot Envisions a Future Guided by Intelligence, Imagination and Sensitivity on “Out There”

Charm the Riot, photo courtesy the artist

Charm the Riot’s video for “Out There” is a perfect companion to a hip-hop song that has some old school craft in the beat making but sounding not just modern but like a welcome next step. There are plenty of bad and boring trap beats that lack creativity completely. Charm the Riot takes some of that method in making percussion and injected it with a different palette of sounds so that the texture of the song is immediately noticeable like he’s striking bottles or actual drums and making them hit with an programmed precision. And maybe part of his creation of the song involved that level of detail. The keyboard tones are soft but resonant like a string of lights coming on in a dream as you walk by to mark the paces. The artist raps about learning from his losses, embracing being an outsider, taking chances with his life and his art, staying true to his roots, dodging ignorance and foolishness and making all of it into the kind of music that makes you take notice in spite of having heard a ton of all kinds of hip-hop on the radio, on playlists, on the street in cars driving by, in public spaces, online, everywhere. Watch the video one gets a sense of not so much the bleak and troubled world we live in now but of a world in the aftermath of the current drama and one where building a creative and hopeful future will require not just bold action and imagination but the intelligence and sensitivity Charm the Riot displays all across the track. Watch the video for “Out There” on YouTube and follow Charm the Riot at the links below.

Charm the Riot on TikTok

Charm the Riot on Instagram

Charm the Riot LinkTree

“Lover’s Eye” by moondaddy is a Gorgeously Gloomy Ride Through One’s Past and on Into Pursuing the Life One Wants

“Lover’s Eye” by moondaddy exudes a weariness with being held back by the past and memories of a time one has outgrown and from which one has already moved on in fact even if those ties linger in the heart. Its moody tones and downward progressions convey a heartsick melancholy that comes from being hit by memories that have such emotional weight you’re forced to reckon with them right there and then. Its blooms of sharp guitar and slow, swirling rhythm feels like being caught in a spiral of reverie but as the song goes on the spectral keyboard melody and shift from dark melodic rock to something that feels more electronic has the effect of leaving that time behind having reconciled with what you can’t go back to and what made aspects of it seem special and magical like the line “You were my kaleidoscope, beautifying my dreams” and its suggestions of someone who had the ability to allow you to influence your aspirations but also to follow them. Cara Potiker’s unique vocals are the perfect vehicle for this insightful and poetic set of words both self-aware and capable of uncovering old pains to move past them. Listen to “Lover’s Eye” on YouTube and follow moondaddy at the links provided.

moondaddy on Instagram

“City of Angels” from Ladytron’s Forthcoming Album Time’s Arrow Evokes a Hazily Dreamlike Cinematic Mood

Ahead of the January 20, 2023 release of its new album Time’s Arrow, Ladytron offers a glimpse of what we’re in for with the music video for the lead single “City of Angels.” Directed my Manuel Nogueira the video shows figures caught up in a dance in a dimly lit underground setting like a a forgotten dance club out of a dystopian science fiction film. The haze and shadow fit well with a song that while buoyant and pulsing with a subtle momentum is an orchestration of sonic opacity between vocals and layered melodic lines that are reminiscent of New Wave era synth pop so that one has a sense of navigating not just an environment the likes of which is depicted in the video but the social landscape as well with its competing demands on your attention and regularly evolving signifiers. If the song references Los Angeles it does so in capturing how a big city built on both traditional commerce and the entertainment industry is always more complex and nuanced than any romanticizing or cynicism is adequate convey with accuracy. Rather, Ladytron’s gift for crafting colorfully atmospheric rock music is akin to the way William Friedkin imbues his own films, and his own depiction of Los Angeles as a kind of character as well as setting, with grit, deep mood and an eye for fine details. Ladytron’s cinematic sensibilities have been there since its 2001 debut album 604 and it appears Time’s Arrow as hinted at by “City of Angels” will be full of the band’s signature set of observational stories set to evocative soundscapes. Watch the video for “City of Angels” on YouTube and connect with Ladytron at the links provided.

Ladytron on Facebook

Ladytron on Twitter

Ladytron on Instagram

“REINCARNAGE” by mirrored fatality Subverts Conventions of Punk, Industrial and Noise to Challenge Our Internalized Hostility Toward the Natural World and Ourselves

mirrored fatality, photo courtesy the artists

“REINCARNAGE” finds mirrored fatality utilizing layers of drone and textural rhythms in a hypnotic drift to draw you into its ultimately harrowing examination of the destructive impact of modern human civilization and our internalized attitudes of hostility and consumption toward the natural world, what we often perceive to be outside of human culture, and within ourselves. What starts as gentle and tender shifts to reflect the brutality humans have come to accept as the norm in conceptualizing the natural world and our collective existence as necessary sacrifices for the almighty “economy” as a higher nature than nature itself. The song disrupts being able to hold to that mode of thinking by subverting conventional song structure and aesthetics and inviting one to take on the song on its own terms outside of any settled genre but with a distinct identity that isn’t ossified into fixed categories. Yes, if you’re someone that appreciates noise, industrial music, glitch, grimier hyperpop and outsider punk you’ll find some touchstones of appreciation. But really its a listening experience that is about something and evokes that perfectly. Listen to “REINCARNAGE” on Bandcamp and follow mirrored fatality on Instagram.

“Conqueror Worm” by Blue Sunshine is a Maximalist Free Jazz Blast of Ritualistic Processional Cinematic Noise

Blue Sunshine, photo courtesy the artist

Blue Sunshine’s “Conqueror Worm” blasts open with a cacophony of saxophones before receding to soft voices speaking in an almost conspiratorial chorus out of which emerges the parade of horns and chant-like vocals. Tortured screams join this procession of sound like the early Residents covering Magma. The song title is perhaps a reference to the 1968 folk horror film The Conqueror Worm starring Vincent Price as Matthew Hopkins who is appointed Witchfinder General by Cromwell to extract confessions from witcvhes throughout the countryside. The song has that kind of menace and intensity but cast in the form of a deconstruction of avant-garde free jazz into a conceptual, maximalist composition that is as sonically confrontational as it is challenging and fascinating. Listen to “Conqueror Worm” on Spotify and follow Blue Sunshine (a project name that is itself a reference to the 1978 psychedelic, cult science fiction horror film) at the links below. Blue Sunshine’s debut EP titled, appropriately enough, Folk Horror released on October 21, 2022 with physical editions on vinyl, cassette and CD.

Blue Sunshine on Instagram

Blue Sunshine on feralcuts.com

Blue Sunshine on YouTube

Erika Wester’s Heartbreaking and Gentle “Fifteen” is a Song About the Power of Small Gestures of Compassionate Affection

Erika Wester sounds like she’s brushing the gentle guitar chords throughout “Fifteen.” It provides the fragile textures and tenderly vulnerable mood of a song that is at once nostalgic and deeply melancholic. With each line Wester offers a vivid memory of a time that could be 10 years ago, 20, 30 or today. She taps into an emotional resonance that you never really age out of unless you get to a particularly callous and hard hearted place in your life. She recalls when she felt like she was growing up too fast and spouting off the kinds of sentiments that many bravado laden youths put out into the world that do the kind of emotional harm for which an apology can never be enough. But the song takes a turn from a memory of being fifteen and riding her bike to a time when she tries to console a friend or lover even though “I can’t fix the problems in your mind, god knows I barely tackle mine.” But she offers to a very basic, very simple but meaningful gesture of contact and comfort and says, “I’ll hold your hand in the dark if you want me to.” We don’t get to know the exact sources of pain, the searing images that stick with you that are hard to talk about and which no explaining away can easily soothe. We do hear about the aftermath in the song and some of the only ways that seem to work to help in a direct way that goes beyond mere words and straight to a sensation that communicates care without drama but imbued with significance. Listen to “Fifteen” on YouTube and follow Wester at the links below.

Erika Wester on TikTok

Erika Wester on Instagram

Erika Wester on Apple Music

Xena Glas Manifests a Deep Sense of Physical and Psychological Movement on “To the A”

Xena Glas drifts her wordless vocals into the languid flow of tones of the beginning of “To the A” like a ghost inhabiting a public light display. The stereo effects on the track both pull us into the emotional frame of the sounds and allow us to share in the experience of engaging emotionally with a flow of sounds that is luminous and warm yet otherworldly. Rather than expressing what it might be like to jack into an AI circa early cyberpunk, it gives a sense of perhaps what it would be like to be an AI jacking into the brains of an organic being and wading through the intricate gossamer pathways constantly creating new pathways in fractal patterns of the raw stuff of memory and creativity. And yet there is a sense of a journey through this interior world that reveals in the end that maybe the sounds reflect how we navigate to utilize a large physical network like a subway system. And yet both resonances work as Xena Glas calls upon a more abstract sense of journey with her tonal arrangements so that one can hear whatever journey is most prominent in one’s mind and find in the song the frequencies to reflect our sense of passage. Listen to “To the A” on Spotify, connect with Xena Glas at the links below and listen to the rest of the evocative new EP Movement which became available on October 28, 2022.

Xena Glas on Twitter

Xena Glas on Instagram

xenaglas.com

Bad Flamingo Speak to a Sudden and Vulnerable Awareness of Mortality and the Preciousness of Life on “I Won’t Let You Die Young”

Bad Flamingo, photo courtesy the artists

The creepy guitar squiggle at the beginning of “I Won’t Let You Die Young” finds Bad Flamingo employing another effective method in complementing its imaginative songwriting. Throughout the song that sound like if a sleepy frog was an instrument isn’t overused, it just serves to let the ghostly other guitar work shimmer out more vividly and the melancholic vocals to glider over the song even though they sound particularly intimate with the sound of a toy xylophone struck to add a nice touch of delicacy for a song about mortality and feeling that so acutely and wishing a long life for a loved one. The way the twin vocals harmonize captures a vulnerability that’s palpable and sounds like it comes from a place of knowing too well and too often what it’s like to lose important people in your life too soon and yes entirely too young and the ache that can revisit you suddenly and put you in a place where you feel it all over again. It could be a bummer but there’s something reassuring about remembering that connection and the immediacy and unguarded moments that feel like life shared in the present tense. Listen to “I Won’t Let You Die Young” on Spotify and follow Bad Flamingo at the links below.

Bad Flamingo on Facebook

Bad Flamingo on YouTube

Bad Flamingo on Instagram

badflamingomusic.com

Spirits in the Pillar Dissect and Dismantle the Corrosive Effects of Capitalism on the Human Spirit on “Stack Lyf (Inauguration of the Megaslump)”

Spirits in the Pillar, photo courtesy the artists

A title like “Stack Lyf (Inauguration of the Megaslump)” can be a lot to take in but Spirits in the Pillar infused its latest album Scaled-down Expectations (which released on October 7, 2022) with a great deal of creative ambition and deep social awareness. This song gets to the crux of the core anomie of the modern era by laying out a visceral, experiential perspective on how modern capitalism has extracted value not just from the environment but from all realms of human endeavor and existence down to how you spend your time and channeling your dreams and aspirations along specific lines to bolster the process of funneling all goods to narrower destinations at the highest places of the economic ladder. Iain Rowley gives voice to the pain and desperation and frustration of the time with a palpable intensity of feeling and the music that winds around and helps to manifest a critique of and resistance to the process is somewhere between art rock and the angular post-punk one would expect out of a band on Dischord. Think early King Crimson meets Fugazi. This aesthetic runs throughout the album and the band offer us a particularly vivid and poetic distillation of the psychological pain of an era and an analysis that points to ways of dismantling the process at least in the way one orients with the world as it is. Listen to “Stack Lyf (Inauguration of the Megaslump)” on Bandcamp where you can also listen to the rest of Scaled-down Expectations and connect with Spirits in the Pillar at the links below.

Spirits in the Pillar on Twitter