SubmitHub – Page 130 – Queen City Sounds and Art

Lea Bromper Torches Try Hard Scenesterism on “Bellows And The Fire”

At the beginning of Lea Bromper’s “Bellows And The Fire” the guitar sounds like gouging through a dark mood and leaving jagged edges. Then even with the raw, splintery guitar sound the song swings some like a more punk-inflected post-punk song. And the lyrics poetically spell out forcefully in stark imagery the story of someone who has had more than enough of the phony and judgmental social scene that exists in most places where people are able to construct a false sense of their own significance and a persona that adheres to what is at best a temporary and/or tenuous position of power and influence, seduced by their own need to think they’re cool and basing that on the aforementioned. And anyone that has been in the ever evolving local music, art, creative, political or any social scene knows that there will come a time when you’re not going to be on top or near it and the people who aren’t really your friends will more or less abandon you in favor of whoever seems most exciting for similarly vapid reasons. It’s difficult to say what this song is really about but when the lyrics “Truth! Death! Excitement! Uniform drift! That’s where the ice is!” come into a particularly spirited part of the song followed later by the line “those motherfuckers didn’t care about you” it seems like a particularly pointed and poignant commentary on scenesterism and moving beyond it to preserve some of your own dignity. The chorus of “Grab the skull and let the saints come out” is perhaps more obtuse but the way some people hold on to their position in their social circle like it’s the source of their personal power is a little like people holding on to “holy artifacts” that are symbolic but meaningless and the actual power and sense of self comes from within. Musically it’s pretty lo-fi even for punk but also borders on death rock style particularly in the vocals and fans of Pop. 1280 will find something to like in the way Lea Bromper scorches the try hards and instincts in that direction. Listen to “Bellows And The Fire” on YouTube and follow Lea Bromper on Spotify and Instagram.

Stargirl’s “ゆりかごのうた”(“Gentle Lullaby”) is the Musical Manifestation of a Benevolent Spirit

Japanese experimental pop band Stargirl contributed it song “ゆりかごのうた”(“Yurikago No Uta” or “Gentle Lullaby” in English) to the Bughead Records compilation For Ukraine with the proceeds obviously going to support the people of that now war torn country. The gentle plucked guitar, the sound of flowing water perhaps created electronically or through processed guitar or actually a treated sample, accents of ethereal drone and female vocals singing as though contemplating what it would take for the world to reach a place of peace and tranquility. A piano figure enters into the mix toward the last part of the middle of the song giving it winsome quality that further establishes the premise of the song suggested by the title. Musically it’s reminiscent of the more fairy tale/otherworldly/intimate music of Cranes with its blend of the almost tactile and analog with the more dreamlike and transcendent. Whatever inspirations for the music or for contributing the song to the compilation the song is the sound of sensitive benevolence given voice. Listen to “Gentle Lullaby” on Bandcamp where you can purchase the track and contribute to the cause and follow Stargirl at the links below.

Stargirl on Twitter

Stargirl on Instagram

ViVii’s “Wrap Your Arms” is Like the Dream Pop Outro Music to a Romantic Thriller

“Wrap Your Arms” comes in with what sounds like reverse delay on a bright, distorted synth tone interlaced with the sound of horns giving the impression what you’re about to hear takes place in a daydream. The introspective male vocals take center in a reflective aspect shared by the female vocals that take the forefront later in the song like we’re hearing the outro music to a romantic thriller. The lush layers of atmosphere and the processional pace of the song brings to mind some parallel dimension Eurovision winning synthpop hit where the noir quality of the song coupled with its flavor of post-disco era ABBA-esque New Wave captured the imagination of millions rather than the sort of thing that normally does. The small sonic details of the song really stir the emotions with the bell tone highlights like a dusting of snow in the late afternoon as you mull over conflicted feelings and regrets even though you’re pretty sure the relationship is over. Listen to “Wrap Your Arms” on YouTube and follow ViVii at the links provided.

The Oozes Give Cathartic, Seething Form to Your Churning Feelings of Betrayal on “Sickening”

Queercore band The Ooozes from the UK scorches feelings of betrayal with the pointed and cathartic “Sickening.” The distorted guitars slash through the air propelled by the rhythm as the fuel for vocalist Tom Gilbert’s outburst of righteous frustration and disgust. “You know you you did something wrong/Oh you did something so very wrong” could be about any number of things but the way the song is written it can serve as a vehicle for purging those feelings for anyone without needing to interject a specific offense. Who hasn’t felt that way and hasn’t quite heard that intensity of feeling put out there in a way that seems more like productive anger than the kind more unhinged and destructive? When Gilbert sings “I need a time out/It’s fucking sickening to think about” and “Fuck excuses/They’re all useless” despite the fire with which those lines are delivered there is a nuance of expression there that doesn’t dehumanize as the words denounce in no uncertain terms. Fans of Bratmobile, Tribe 8 and even Leslie Mah’s previous band Anti-Scrunti Faction will appreciate the raw, tuneful punk rock The Ooze has been putting out into the world since 2018. Listen to “Sickening” on Spotify and follow The Oozes on Instagram.

Majority Razorblade Deconstructs Nostalgic Sounds to Craft Dreamlike Ambient Pop on “Infinite Golden Egg”

Majority Razorblade, photo courtesy the artist

Majority Razorblade sounds like a future, musical archaeologist on “Infinite Golden Egg.” Like he’s sifting through layers of media content that blurs indie pop stems and analog synth collages separated from their original contexts by time. The song has cohesion and also feels like a flowing experiment of sounds and textures like he’s reassembling bright, ambeint pop songs by real time finding the tonal and stylistic threads and mixing them together to see if that creative DNA resonates and not quite knowing if it’s an exact replica of the original. Who can say what approach songwriter Colin Pate took to assembling this song and the rest of Mr. Moonlite simply listening to these beautifully strange compositions but fans of The Spirit of the Beehive, Black Moth Super Rainbow and Boards of Canada will appreciate the ways in which Pate takes sound ideas and puts them into arrangements that could seem haunted and spooky but the vibe is comforting and benevolently entrancing. Listen to “Infinite Golden Egg” on Spotify where you can listen to the rest of the album and connect with Majority Razorblade on the project’s LinkTree.

Majority Razorblade LinkTree

The Auxiliary Charts the Challenging Path of Self-Deception to Self-Awareness on “Overture”

The vocal processing and overall production to “Overture,” the latest single from The Auxiliary aka Russell Howard, enhances the impression of waking up through one’s own fog into awareness. Paired with a music video in which the character in the song converses with a figure that is at times a mannequin and other times an unresponsive human the muted aspects of the vocals feel gentle like the flickers of intuition that make suspicions or hunches flow into emotional certainties when one’s cognition keys into aspects of the world around you and truths you had ignored or put aside come into focus. There is a low key horror or thriller film aspect to the music video where the horror might be coming into the understanding that you’re with someone that isn’t really paying attention to your needs even as you try to anticipate theirs and do things for them any normal person would in any normal loving relationship. At the end of the video there is a video projector casting the image of the beloved on the wall like the projection of one’s own fantasy of that person as the human you want them to be but aren’t. Although a blunt metaphor it speaks well to the ways we allow ourselves to get into situations that don’t suit us because we insist they are something we want instead of what they are even when all along we’ve known it’s not true but we so desperately want to believe something that fulfills our heart’s desire that we will go along with that fantasy until enough is triggered in our minds that the truth hits hard. The way Howard structured and executed the song from early, soft musical touches to more sonically saturated passages parallels perfectly the cinematic depiction of the process of being willing to feel the pain of breaking free of limiting fantasies and walking toward a life we would want instead of the one we’ve fooled ourselves into thinking we have. Watch the video for “Overture” on YouTube and connect with The Auxiliary at the links below.

The Auxiliary on TikTok

The Auxiliary on Instagram

The Auxiliary website

Leah Dunn Awakens to Her Own Existential Breakthrough on “Wrong Place”

It’s really easy to let the momentum of your life carry you along to a place of stagnation and confusion disconnected from your self-conception and the life goals you had in place in your mind and then have that awareness snap into your mind like a flood of personal insight. That’s the head space Leah Dunn describes so well in her song “Wrong Place.” Musically it employs expansive melodies and evolving dynamics that switch up from direct to drifting to reflect the will to propel oneself out of your emotional stasis and taking the time out to consider the benchmarks one had in mind and the things you’d think you’d have accomplished by a certain point in your life set aside pursuing what? It’s easy to forget when you’re just living life and hanging out with people who don’t really have any goals except maybe to get into the cycle of getting altered for fun and maybe showing up on time to some job to fund an uninspired hedonistic lifestyle while pretending to go to school only to stumble into middle management because it’s easy to fail into comfortable mediocrity and never question what it is you really want out of life except for telling yourself it’s going on vacation once or twice a year so that you can tell your friends you’re cultured but behaved essentially the same as you do in everyday life while visiting some exotic place or simply another part of the country you’ve never traveled to prior. In this song with its Camper Van Beethoven-esque guitar jangle and deft dynamic shifts, Leah Dunn more than suggests she’s woken up to the life she remembers she wanted even if it has pitfalls along the way, even if it’s not perfect, but something with a sense of purpose and knowing one’s own value and to have actual values and not simply those that justify your lifestyle and keep you complacent. Throughout the song one gets the sense that Dunn or the subject of the song has been the one to be responsible for others too often but is now applying that skill set to benefit herself which is a refreshing change of cognitive orientation for a rock or pop song. And there’s no judgment in the lyrics, just a sudden realization that maybe it’s time to step out of the fool’s carousel and do something. Listen to “Wrong Place” on Spotify and follow Leah Dunn, who has been writing a song more or so once a month on her own way to her next album.

Leah Dunn on Instagram

Leah Dunn website

Rota Traces the Path of Hope and Light Through the Fog of the Troubled Mind on “How Not To Write A Poem About Depression”

Rota’s spoken words song “How Not To Write A Poem About Depression” recalls the contemplative style of Hymie’s Basement. But rather than that blend of nascent 2000s indie rock and alternative hip-hop, the sounds that accompany the words here seem to have the aesthetic of what might be described as time lapse beat making with the environmental sounds one might hear on a walk Rota takes to clear his head of the nervous energy and existential crisis imbued, daydreamy self-examination. Various tones run through along with percussive sounds that change throughout the piece so that one can’t really pigeonhole the rhythm to a specific style, rather it mirrors the free verse structure of the lines of poetry. One hears thoughts on very immediate and relatable strategies for holding it together and staying focused like trying to be well in order to keep going and “hoping not to be broken just open and candid.” Rota considers the subtle but pervasive power of loneliness as an aspect of depression that Prozac can dull but not completely vanquish. But perhaps the most perceptive and poignant parts are when Rota discusses the overused metaphor of artist or any human as a phoenix being reborn after burning out and how that cognitive construct can limit your ability to reconceptualize your life in healthier and more sustainable ways even though it’s better to be “more phoenix than zombie, more rib cage than metaphor.” The organic structure of the song flows in a way that seems to reinvent itself at every turn like so many of those turn of the century alternative rappers did while adopting soundscapes that more creatively and accurately established and complimented mood in a manner synergistic. Rota seems intimately aware of the need for verbal precision and in capturing the different pathways the mind of the thoughtful and mindful person follows it seems like he gathered potentially divergent ideas into a coherent if informal statement. Listen to “How Not To Write A Poem About Depression” on YouTube and connect with Rota at links below.

Rota on Twitter

Rota on Instagram

Gus Englehorn Chuckles at His Own Youthful Naivete on the Gloriously Strange “Exercise Your Demons”

Gus Englehorn appears as a charismatic Christian minister in the video for “Exercise Your Demons” in full sales/charlatan mode, suit, headset mic and all. But this far too convincing strangeness goes into an exercise video like you’d see on late night TV but this one blurring the metaphor of exorcism and exercise as in to bring forth one’s demons and let them fly out for a change instead of holding them in or trying to expunge them from the psyche. This all set to a propulsive guitar jangle pop song and Englehorn’s always bizarrely fun and unique vocals. When Englehorn repeats mantra-like the lines “young and dumb,” “for years to come” and “I was so dumb” you recognize that truth and regret for yourself. The combination of spoken word and singing on the tracks from the singer-songwriter’s forthcoming album Dungeon Master (due out April 29, 2022 on Secret City Records, pre-order here) combined with eerie yet cheerful synths and unexpectedly solid pop songcraft including this track promise one of the standout albums of 2022 in terms of originality and making odd yet incredibly relatable ideas accessible through a cultural insight that only coming at subjects from an idiosyncratic angle and yield.

Gus Englehorn on Facebook

Gus Englehorn on Twitter

Gus Englehorn on Instagram

gusenglehorn.com

Belief Imprints Soothing Textures and Soundscapes on Your Brain With “Ulu”

A tonal wind in the distance brings us in to Belief’s single “Ulu” before a steady minimal beat indicates the next phase of the song. Although that wind persists like an emotional context for the song, a lightly distorted synth melody flares falls in the mix, subtle winding drones whisper in the middle distance, a simple, light electronic bass line joins the shuffling rhythm that takes over as the melancholic wind fades to be replaced by a hazy keyboard figure. But the motifs return before the outro and the mood is reminiscent of late 2000s minimal and dub techno, with roots in 90s dance-oriented IDM, in its evocation of a soothingly chill atmosphere of deep contemplation. The project is comprised of Stella Mozgawa (perhaps best known as the drummer for Warpaint whose considerable skills and perceptive ear has contributed to records by Kurt Vile, Kim Gordon, Cate Le Bon, Courtney Barnett and others) and Bryan Hollon aka Boom Bip (who is in the electronic group Neon Neon, in which Mozgawa once toured) and if this track is any indication it taps into their collective knack for generating textures and soundscapes with rhythms to anchor the emotional imagery in your brain with a gentle touch. Listen to “Ulu” on YouTube and follow Belief at the links below.

Belief on Instagram