SubmitHub – Page 109 – Queen City Sounds and Art

Morhaf Al Alchkar Crafts a Sense of Wonder and Yearning on Arabic Folk Rock Song “Malo Methal”

“Malo Methal” pair’s Morhaf Al Achkar’s percussive oud work with his lively vocals and a touch of flute helping to carry a melody over the top. One hears in Al Achkar’s voice a sense of curiosity, wonder and yearning. The orchestration of the song interweaves the instrumentation while allowing various aspects to shine in moments as rhythms complement each other in a dynamic that feels continuously expansive. The flute accents Al Achkar’s vocals as both counter melody and harmony and in the extended lines mid song there is a sweet spot of emotional resonance that sends the song into quietly transcendent spaces before reeling back into the grounding of oud to the front at song’s end. It’s an example of the beautifully thought-provoking and nuanced compositions to be found on Al Achkar’s album Mabsoota which released on November 4, 2022. Maybe it’s the fact that the musician is a survivor of stage IV lung cancer as of 2016 that gives the music a subtle vitality and intensity in its clear joy and playfulness but the work also speaks for itself in the imagination of its arrangements. Listen to “Malo Methal” on Spotify and follow Al Achkar at the links below.

Morhaf Al Achkar on TikTok

Morhaf Al Achkar on Instagram

Sun Kin Invites Us Into the Mysterious and Wondrous World of the Beaked Whale on Ambient Track “nursery talk”

In the background of Sun Kin’s “nursery talk” you can hear breaths over the dimly luminous tones like distant sunlight beneath the sea. The track comes from Sun Kin’s 2022 release painting whales, part 2, the second in the “Painting Whales” series, and one inspired in part by Ziphindae, the family of beaked whales of which we know very little and who are among the deepest diving of mamals with the Cuvier’s species going down to nearly two miles aka parts of the ocean the human race knows little about. The photo from this installment of the series appears to be one of the whales breaching the waters of the antarctic, a traveler of spaces humans tend to avoid. Sun Kin composer Kabir Kumar expresses the wonder and mystery of these creatures in the music that takes on the form of flowing drones, impressionistic guitar tones and a beatless, informal, intuitive structure that evades the human tendency for seeking organization that has clear lines and separations of self from nature and environment imposing a psychological and cultural meaning that would be alien to a whale. In conveying an approximation of a break from standard pop music forms and even conventions of ambient music, Kumar invites us to try on a way of listening and feeling that may seem otherworldly but which is adopted with ease. Listen to “nursery talk” on Bandcamp and follow Sun Kin at the links provided.

Sun Kin on Facebook

Sun Kin on Twitter

Sun Kin on Instagram

Rain Carnation Transforms Heartache and Betrayal Into Triumph in the Gloriously Melancholic Haze of “Liar”

Rain Carnation’s “Liar” is saturated with tone and emotion befitting the subject matter. Airy backgrounds and sweeps of distorted synth drones splash and splay into fadeout over the vocals as pulsing electronic bass recalls at once some late 80s synth pop and the chillwave of the late 2000s and early 2010s and the way that music often took painful heartache and soothed it with gorgeously expansive music that seemed to dilute that pain in the streams of outward melody and taking the time to fall back into the comfortable places of your mind to recover with the words speaking your emotional truth brewing and emerging with a forcefulness that former dissociation can no longer repress. Fans of Neon Indian’s Era Extraña (2011) will appreciate the vibes presented in this song. Listen to “Liar” on Soundcloud and connect with Rain Carnation at the links below.

Rain Carnation on Instagram

Shumaila Hemani’s Powerful Track “Displacement” Evokes a Spirit of Perseverance in the Face of Devastating and Uncertainty in the Wake of the Floods in Pakistan

Shumaila Hemani, photo courtesy the artist

Shumaila Hemani starts “Displacement” with clips of news about the recent devastating floods in Pakistan from the raw destruction of the floods (June 14, 2002-October, 2022) themselves but also the aftermath in terms of a massive impact on the lives and livelihoods of the people of Pakistan.
The samples of news reports give the proper gravity of context for “Displacement” and its mournful yet hopeful tones. The music sounds rooted in a Hindustani classical style with a sustained harmonium drone and some expressive filigree and accents with harmonium, tabla and santur beautifully weaving together (Ojas Joshi on tabla and Mehdi Rezania on Santur). Hemani’s own resonant vocals traces a poetic narrative that even if you don’t understand her chosen language for the song convey a layered, nuanced and powerful expression of loss and perseverance. The song is part of the album Mannat released on October 7, 2022 and proceeds from the digital sales of the single go to benefit those impacted by the aforementioned floods in Pakistan. Listen to “Displacement” on Spotify, find more information on Hemani and her efforts on her website and purchase the song and the album on Bandcamp.

shumailahemani.com

The Night Agent’s Synth Pop Single “When You Dream” Celebrates the Sweet Anticipation of Romantic Reunion

The Night Agent, photo by Nikola Stankovic

The Night Agent began life when playwright and writer Jacob Hirdwall started releasing music under that moniker in 2020 involving singer and actor Christopher Wollter and guitarist Janne Schaffer (ABBA, Bob Marley, Ted Gärdestad). But in 2022 the trio has assembled with the intention of performing live music. The single “When You Dream” is teeming with bright synth melodies and widely expressive vocals reminiscent in moments of those of Interpol singer Paul Banks. The song is a melancholic yearning for a loved one who is by circumstance far away in distance and time. But the tone is one of mutual reassurance of the inevitable reunion. “When you dream, dream of me,” is the refrain but in a way that is filled with the anticipation of finally connecting again. It’s synth pop sound has resonance with something out of the 80s and with some tasty guitar solo work that enhances the sense of dramatic romance that runs throughout the track. Listen to “When You Dream” on Spotify where you can check out the rest of the debut The Night Agent album Stars Above Us which released on November 18, 2022.

Totem Pocket Exudes the Vibrant Energy of Turning Private Joyful Catharsis Into Expansively Colorful Music With “Keep It In Your Mind”

Totem Pocket, photo courtesy the artists

“Keep It In Your Mind,” the final track on Totem Pocket’s self-titled album that dropped on September 30, 2022 is a maximalist rock summary of what you’re in for in listening to the band and seeing it live. One hears vocals slightly behind the mix like something you’d hear on a Dinosaur Jr record. But there is an orchestration of tones and a swirling and energetic flow of guitar and percussion that in spite of being fairly spirited comes off as introspective. Like it was born of capturing private moments of joy and discovery and the catharsis that comes from being able to give voice to the kinds of feelings one has alone in creating the music. The touchstones are there with the tone bending toward the end of the song like the trailing ends of Loveless and the psychedelic freakout jam when Built To Spill launches into a confessional sprawl of yearning and reaching for connection with something bigger. Somewhere in the architecture of the music one can detect how maybe the members of the band had discovered playing rock music in some style popular among their collective peers but then got so bored with the conformity of that comfort and the fake rewards of adolescent popularity and decided to tumble headlong into more cosmic sonic territory as a palette for expressing genuine feeling. Listen to “Keep It In Your Mind” Bandcamp and follow Denver-based Totem Pocket at the links below.

Totem Pocket on Instagram

12 Ruinas Weave a Deep Sense of Menace and Ambient Horror in the Video for the Dark, Industrial Hip-Hop Song “Como Fue”

Miami-based Cuban rap group 12 Ruinas offer an ominous music video to accompany the sinister-sounds of the song “Como Fue” (“As Was” in English). We see a figure who has driven to a wooded area with a satchel who seems to be looking to find a place to hide or otherwise dispose of the contents. He comes upon a chilling scene of a man who has been bound and gagged. The whole video looks like it was filmed in the early 80s with sepia tones like something a serial killer or the murderer for a gang is using to catalog his misdeeds. And indeed at the end of the video the man with the satchel appears to be finishing off the man who has been left in forest. What was his crime? Perhaps if this writer’s knowledge of Spanish was greater that would be obvious but the dark, industrial synth drone that lurks in the background of the song is undeniably creepy in a way that enhances the rapping that sounds like it’s telling the lurid tale of gangland crime and the dark underbelly of local culture with visuals that are more compelling than most true crime or horror cinema of recent years. Together it creates a deep mood that fans of the recent horror film The Black Phone might appreciate for its grimy tones and unsettling atmosphere. Watch the video for “Como Fue” on YouTube and follow 12 Ruinas at the links below.

12 Ruinas on Instagram

“Too Long” by Graphinity is a Melancholic Hip-Hop Song About Leaning Into Feeling the Hurt of Heartbreak

Graphinity eases into “Too Long” with some lo-fi moody guitar work that loops throughout the song and helps to maintain a melancholic spirit befitting the vivid tale of heartbreak. The song is one of a modern relationship with references to electronic communication and social media accounts like Tumblr through which we get a glimpse, at best, into the lives of others when we can’t be around them. The level of details feels very real here even if there’s any consolidation of experiences informing the songwriting like how our narrator bonds with the object of his affection over things like being an older sibling and being a flawed person who accepts those flaws in others only to find that the level of understanding and devotion he’s brought to the situation isn’t returned. He feels like he’s given so much of himself but in the end maybe he’s chosen to connect with someone who isn’t interested after all and that the emotional investment they shared didn’t seem to mean as much and he feels hurt and lost in the end. We hear some anger and resentment in the song but mostly it’s just the hurt and the raw vulnerability in being so confessional about where things sit and beyond the bitterness a willingness to accept that hurt as a genuine feeling and one that is better to feel in full rather than bury it in a secret place in the psyche. Listen to “Too Long” on Spotify and follow Graphinity at the links provided.

Graphinity on Facebook

Graphinity on Instagram

Purple Decades’ “Geometry” is the Sound of the Tranquility of Unstructured Time

Purple Decades, photo courtesy the artist

In a series of repeating hazy swells that never seems repetitive, Purple Decades’ “Geometry” sounds like what it would be like to be able to lay back onto thermal drifts into a warm sunset. As you float leisurely over waters reflecting the waning sun in purples and vibrant orange off the waves of the tide coming into shore your mind eases out of the mundane concerns that dominate your life and you enter into a mode of pure feeling and acceptance of a tranquility that can’t exist if you’re always at the beck and call of the immersive demands of economy as we generally live in modern life. And for several moments you can remember that living doesn’t mean surrendering and subjecting every moment to and thought and feeling to how it can be monetized and that it is possible to let that mentality go and imagine and even make a world where you can not just indulge but encourage unstructured time for everyone at their own pace and have a society where not everything is aimed at commerce and an unending rat race. Listen to “Geometry” on Bandcamp and follow Purple Decades at the links below.

Purple Decades on Facebook

Purple Decades on Twitter

Purple Decades on YouTube

Purple Decades on Instagram

tristaneckerson.com

YUNGMORPHEUS Chooses Integrity and Living According to One’s Moral Compass on “Distant Place”

“Distant Place” finds YUNGMORPHEUS dabbling into the similar realms of intuitive musical spaces that Flying Lotus dipped into in terms of the seemingly casual flow of jazz samples and tightly syncopated drums with impressionistic vocals that seem to tell the story of a guy who had to get out of realms of work and life situations that required compromising one’s integrity. It sounds like the kind of music you’d want to hear if you got off a New York subway late in the evening but not ready to go home and stumbled into a residency of a hip-hop crew that’s doing something rooted in classic style and experimentation and inspired by the likes of A Tribe Called Quest and Cannibal Ox. Listen to “Distant Place” on Spotify and follow YUNGMORPHEUS at the links below. The project’s new EP Burnished Sums dropped on November 18, 2022.