Anthony Watkins’ slowly evolving dynamic on “Satellite (Sputnik mix)” evokes a sense of elegantly fluid movement. The building and dissolving tone over and around the minimal techno beat and rapidly echoing and decaying vocal sample marking the paces conveys a sense of wonder and openness appropriate to the title of the song. Like a snapshot of the life of that early satellite invoked in the sub-name of the mix as it traversed the sky marking an era of Cold War paranoia but also human technical achievement and in itself in the popular imagination the suggestion of endless possibilities of human achievement through creative use of technology. Surely an apt symbol for a song assembled from very basic elements but expressive of so much more than each alone. Listen to “Satellite (Sputnik mix)” on Soundcloud where you can hear some of Anthony Watkins’ other fine work in the realm of minimal techno.
The rapid cycling drone the introduces us to Matt Monsoor’s “Fog” is an apt introduction to a song and video like a diary entry of from the beginning of a novel about loss, wasted time and the will to find and create meaning in a world of deep uncertainty. The images of spider webs catching the dawn sunlight and of a graveyard in the early morning and a house and a town on a hill in the distance as the day begins serve as the contextual backdrop in the video so that immediately the lonely piano figure that comes in and runs through the majority of the song has a pastoral aspect that when coupled with the simple guitar line toward the end of the song lets us know this isn’t a tale of tragedy ahead but of exploration and perhaps redemption of self and forgiveness of past failings of one’s dreams. With words written by Jeff Skemp and echo plex performance by Casey Virock this song is more like a short movie or a tone poem than simply a song and even without the video it is powerfully evocative in a way resonant with the material Slint wrote for Spiderland. Watch the video for “Fog” on YouTube and follow Matt Monsoor at the links below.
A shimmery keyboard echo runs through the duration of “Åter åter” by Aina Myrstener Cello. Over the top of this repeated motif a cello resounds sharply in drawn out notes as percussive accents of plucked and struck strings alongside organic sounds like the crinkling of paper to simulate fire or an abstract texture and distant voices anchor the ethereal drift of the song. It sounds like the half remembered images of dreams as you awake from a night of slumber. The mood here is pure tranquility and an awareness of ambient sounds and energies like the sun through curtains and the movement of the world stirring into the new day. Listen to “Åter åter” on Spotify and follow the links there to other tracks by the artist or listen on YouTube linked below.
Ay Wing says so much in such a short period of time in her song “Ego.” The chill R&B beat around her warm, contemplative yet active vocals serves a song well in which Wing comments on the various ways in which our ego tries to control every situation and impose a way things “should” be and hold oneself to standards that have no relation to our lived existence like an internalized task master that reflects a culture and mindset that asks us to be on task in circumscribed ways that try to fit us into molds and modes that don’t suit our organic selves and a healthy emotional life. That conditioning Wing speaks of casting off by bringing the anxiety that comes with it under control because it not only interrupts sleep it also warps natural human emotional responses like sadness and anger because we’re so often encouraged to believe those to be negative emotions rather than a part of life that are normal if we don’t get stuck there and nothing to be ashamed of or to question oneself over. In the line “Why can’t I surrender to a place where I can be,” Wing touches on the path to get there because her instincts already know it exists, an important breakthrough when you feel stuck. Watch the video for “Ego” on YouTube which features the dancers Nora Hertwig and Francesca Farenga and connect with Wing at the links provided.
PICTURES touches on a lot of territory with the video for the song “Rockets.” Visually it’s colorful and psychedelic with more than a hint of ironic presentation like something from Adult Swim. But the song itself is unironic, effusive guitar pop. Vocalist Maze Exler asks multiple questions as observations about the human condition from imponderable tragedies to everyday aspirations as the band seems suspended in the depths of space. The expansive and buoyant synth line at the heart of the song sounds like a Mellotron but used to enhance a sense of this song being a bit like a bombastic glam rock version of Psychedelic Furs by way of Preoccupations. Despite the psychological quagmires and the aforementioned tragedies, PICTURES demands simply that we hold on because even if being on one of those rockets that takes off in life can seem disorienting and scary at least not everything is a hundred percent predictable and might take you some place exciting and different which is the vibe of the song and video. Watch “Rockets” on YouTube and connect with PICTURES at the links provided. Look for the band’s new album IT’S OK due out January 28, 2022.
Peter Compo’s arrangement of electronic sounds and informal rhythms on “Blade Runner 32” feel more like they were crafted for a sound design piece rather than a traditional song. The melancholic, drawn out drones that warp by and fade in the beginning give a sense of movement and as the soundscape blooms into multiple streams of bright sound and a more enveloping sound palette there is an unmistakable sense of wonder at a new world that seems darkly enigmatic. The title obviously references the 1982 science fiction film adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? While we often think of Rick Deckard as the only Blade Runner, one of the specially trained agents of the police force tasked to track down and “retire” rogue androids, he’s one of a crew as revealed more fully in the 2017 cinematic sequel Blade Runner 2049. Blade Runner 32 suggests music for a day in the life of another member of that Blade Runner corps. Thus the vague sense of menace and the sharp bleeps echoing as points of stimulation in a dystopian landscape and the drones as symbols of centers of activity and the haunting, large, intrusive advertisements that dominate many public spaces, impossible to ignore. In the context of Compo’s 2021 album Films, this song is a the audio equivalent of a cinematic experience with complex elements arranged in a way that creates emotional resonance employing the aesthetics of film rather than music but using sounds to attain that goal. Thus there is also a “Blade Runner 23,” a “The Year of Living Dangerously,” “North By Northwest” and even “Star and Other Wars.” Compo is inviting us to hear his own interpretation of these films and to perhaps to transform our own emotional resonances with familiar works of art. It’s a subtle but subversive approach to culture jam and remix what we think we already know. Listen to “Blade Runner 32” on Spotify where you can follow the links to hear the rest of Films for yourself and connect with Compo on his website linked below.
Ben Guihan is maybe too good at describing the crushing despair of a romance crumbling away on his song “Portrait in A.” A spare guitar line establishes a cadence while touches of pedal steel haunts the edges of the melody. It’s a framing that makes the pain seem not so bad and the poignant imagery full of idiosyncratic details of Guihan’s lyrics both serves to embed the mood and the forming image of someone dissociating from the direct impact of the romance dissolving from the inside out. The line “you say you take your love like you take your other drugs” sums up a good deal of the nature of the partnership depicted and how things have gotten to the point where the love shared has become a disposable amusement that is as toxic as it is sometimes still intoxicating. Guihan sings the lyrics like he’s reading the musings of someone who is in the middle of the terrible realization of things being irreparable and his phrasing is reminiscent of an Al Stewart or Robyn Hitchcock waxing heartbroken but staving off the darkest points of it by writing a song that blunts the pain through channeling it into a creative act that also captures well that moment when you’re ready to move on but you don’t want to let go. Listen to “Portrait in A” on Spotify, check out the rest of his recently released album Mise-en-scène on Bandcamp and connect with Ben Guihan at the links provided.
Arkle’s video for “Slowly Alive” is like a trailer for an A24 movie about existential, cosmic horror. The plot of the video seems to be about a woman who is taking her time wake up for the day and dreams of mythical landscapes depicted by colorful animation like something from a childhood story book crafted from illustrations and collage. The warping synth lines refracting and moving both forward and processed through light reverse delay at points sets a strong mood of otherworldly reverie. The insistent keyboard line serves as a tonal anchor point through the hazy soundscape as the visuals transition to abstract imagery of black and white kaleidoscopic visuals. The ghostly female vocals are like a tantalizing yet assuring beacon in the fog of this journey to wakeful consciousness guiding us to the track’s conclusion. Musically it’s reminiscent of a spooky and beatless Boards of Canada with Beth Gibbons-esque singing at her most icily ethereal. Watch the video for “Slowly Alive” on YouTube and connect with Arkle at the links below.
On a slowly pulsing electronic tone accented by spare keyboard notes Freedom Fry makes musically explicit the themes of its new single “Ego Trip.” In Beatles-esque vocals the song traces the easy way one can fall\ into a seductive spiral of becoming self-involved . Though the production on the song sounds like something that could have come out fifty years ago it also recalls the surreal pop quality of MGMT. The contrast really opens the song up so that there can be some sympathy for a person who maybe got so caught up in the conversations one has in professional life and certain social circles and being busy all the time with work and the leisure activities following that work that it becomes a ritualized experience. All the while drifting into a dissociated head space where your only break from your life is indeed being on an “ego trip” where you can take out the time to feel out “the vibe” and then, as the chorus of the song goes, get “lost in my head again.” The song casts no judgments on being in that place but does highlight how easy it can be to see the ingrained habits of your life are things you can rationalize to yourself as fun and being stuck in a perpetual state of stagnation that feels like you are feeding your ego in a healthy way rather than merely sustaining a cycle of soporific behaviors that shield you from exiting your comfort zone. Listen to “Ego Trip” on Soundcloud and connect with Freedom Fry at the links provided.
“Bright White” finds Lost Walks departing from the brooding, Gothic Americana of its 2017 debut album Wolf, Woman, Man. There has always been an orchestral aspect to the group’s music but this song in particular from the 2021 album Blood Lantern shows how Lost Walks uses the spacious tranquility that made its earlier material so compelling and inviting to fill with distorted drones and lines of granular melody and heavy, hanging guitar riffs that help the contemplative vocals stand out and uplift the spirit of this track filled with the imagery of menace and the aftermath of violent conflict. The emotional colorings and structure of the song suggest frantic movement to express the mythological dimension of this cyclic ritual of destruction and rebuilding and regretting the senselessness of not learning from repeating these self-catastrophic patterns. Fans of Swans and the more recent work of Wovenhand will greatly appreciate this song in particular and the album in general for the emotional heft and intensity of the songwriting and the way the music is both transcendent and gritty. Listen to “Bright White” on Spotify and connect with Lost Walks at the links provided.
Queen City Sounds and Art 
You must be logged in to post a comment.