SubmitHub – Page 148 – Queen City Sounds and Art

“Следы Великана” (Giant Footprints) by Andrey Pobem is an Ambient and Field Recording Journey to Reconnecting With the Youthful Mind

Andrey Pobem has created a non-linear cinematic listening experience for us with his song “Следы Великана” (in Latin alphabet “Sledy Velikana” or “Giant Footprints”). A female vocalist hums the traditional lullaby “Hush, Little Baby” in a fashion suggesting a distant, childhood dream comes in with an incandescent drone as the sound of children on a playground hangs in the near distance. But where the song hits perhaps most evocatively is in the middle when drawn out organ sounds and processed bells swim with lingering major key tones and a simple, impressionistic piano figure. It suggests being in a state of journey into deep memory and the subconscious. Sharp, bright sounds pop into the mix and spiral off like otherworldly birds startled into flight. The processional pace brings to mind that timeless quality of a dream that has escaped from the everyday references into more expansive existential possibilities. The arc of melody wrapped around growing through layers of hazy drones feels like the shaking off of the mind’s conscious limitations into the realm of pure imagination unhindered by anything needing to obey the logic of regular life. Children more easily tap into that region of the brain freely and the sounds of children returning later in the track as a kind of unspoken motif is a reminder to the listener that it’s very healthy to embrace that aspect of our brains to replenish the spirit. The outro reprising the “Hush, Little Baby” section from earlier serves to solidify the heady moments experienced throughout the rest of the song, bookending this musical tale of journeying back to a youthful state of mind with one’s adult knowledge intact. The challenge is what will one do with this perspective we often forget? Listen to “Следы Великана” on Soundcloud and follow Andrey Pobem at the links below.

Andrey Pobem on Apple Music

Andrey Pobem on Instagram

Andrey Pobem on YouTube

Absinthe Vows Urge Us to Fight Through Our Insecurities on “In The Fray It Wouldn’t Factor”

“In The Fray It Wouldn’t Factor” by Absinthe Vows will probably hit many ears as having descended from Floodland period Sisters of Mercy except for the vocals which sound like they were recorded in a darkened closet initially until they become more frenzied and distorted toward the end of the song. The bass line is simple but commanding and the guitar hovers around like a ghost both carrying melody and breaking up into atmospheric textures as it lays back in the mix rather than dominating like it might in another rock band. The lyrics are about a great internal struggle and one against perceived social pressures that in the end don’t really matter as the title of the song suggests. As the song becomes more chaotic in the last third with the vocals urging one to “fight” against insecurity and anxieties one might think of more modern post-punk bands like Pop. 1280 and A Place to Bury Strangers and their own collage of lo-fi, contorted atmospherics and urgent dynamics. Listen to “In The Fray It Wouldn’t Factor” on Spotify and connect with Absinthe Vows on Bandcamp.

Turquoise Urge Positive Action Now on Glowingly Urgent Post-punk Single “Tumulte”

Turquoise, photo courtesy the artists’ Bandcamp

Based purely on its single “Tumulte,” Belgian band Turquoise is appropriately named. Its urgent atmospherics are bright yet moody and its musical palette a gorgeous mix of elements: driving, melodic bass lead and spiraling guitar leads with perfectly accented percussion. The collage of styles places the song well within the realm of modern post-punk but with some aesthetic nods to early Ministry, knowingly or not future members of Ministry in Blackouts and more recent practitioners of melancholic pop like Actors. But Turquoise infuses the song with a wiry energy that hints at roots in punk. Certainly the lyrics, which are in French, hint at political themes of frustration at the status quo and the way many people intellectualize the very things that torment them and make their lives more difficult and insist on gradual change when that can be inadequate to the moment. You know, like waiting for “the market” to take care of pressing social and ecological issues, waiting for elites to come to a consensus on how to handle climate change. “Tumulte” isn’t necessarily calling for revolution but it sure does sound and feel like a declaration of resistance to abstracting people’s lives to some theoretical exercise and a need for action sooner than later. Listen to “Tumulte” on YouTube and check out the other track on the single “Voix off.” Keep up with Turquoise on Bandcamp, Soundcloud and Spotify linked below.

Planet of Ghosts Manifests the Warped Distorted Reality and Anxieties of the World Today on Jangle Noise Psych Song “Flatlined”

Planet of Ghosts, photo courtesy the artists

Planet of Ghosts is a band that formed in 1991 and after some local success the group parted ways until during the pandemic lockdown of 2020-2021 the four-piece started writing new songs and recording in ways and sharing contributions in a way that modern technology makes possible that was absolutely not an option in the early 90s. The result is a new self-titled album the lead track of which is “Flatlined.” Is the name of the song a reference to the prospects of the human race? With a lyric like “No more space and no more time” that’s entirely possible. The song, though, is a well crafted blend of psychedelic rock, folk, punk and lo-fi. Though the song is well written and has a hook or two what helps it stand out these days is where the recording leaves some of the rough edges that give a rock song character in place like when the feedback flies in the beginning and the middle of the song. It makes it feel like you’re seeing the live band rather than a mediated version of that band. Of course that was an intentional choice but it feels less calculated and more being true to themselves. One might describe the sound as jangle noise psych a little like early Hawkwind with a 90s emo flavor, like Sebadoh collaborating with Alice Donut but maybe not quite that surreal. On the album cover there’s a UFO abducting a tricycle and perhaps the child pictured below. Given the challenges and anxieties the band outlines in the song, who doesn’t not so secretly wish some advanced civilization would come to whisk you away to a better place or to enact benevolent regime change worldwide right now? Listen to “Flatlined” on YouTube and explore other tracks from the album on Spotify.

Paris Jones and K’Saan Preston Sketch the Textures and Depths of Grief on the Vulnerable and Tender “Willow”

Paris Jones worked with K’Saan Preston for the track “Willow,” a meditation on depression as a stage of grief. It’s a song from the album Zephaniah’s Book of Trees about those stages and Zephaniah being the name of Jones’ son who passed away in 2015 from complications of birth. That’s a heavy thing for anyone to have to deal with much less find any motivation or strength to work on music. And “Willow” uses a very simple piano melody and spacious production to allow the vocals to sketch a string of thoughts contemplating the meaning of all the identities, values and aspirations we question in the wake of tragedy when it doesn’t seem to mean nearly as much as the pain we feel that is difficult and sometimes impossible to take on all at once especially when we don’t know if it will ever really fade into something that crushes us when we least expect it. Interpolating Frank Ocean’s “Songs For Women” for the chorus, Paris fills this vulnerable track with the light of his faith that he holds on to to get through this wave of grief by spelling out the little things that connect us to our everyday life in a way that we take for granted when life is in normal mode. Listen to “Willow” on Soundcloud and connect with Paris Jones and K’Saan Preston at the links below.

Paris Jones on Twitter

Paris Jones in Facebook

Paris Jones on Instagram

Paris Jones on YouTube

Anaamaly’s “Passing Moments” is an Ambient Embodiment of Unstructured Time

Listening to Anaamaly’s “Passing Moments” is like watching a snow globe in slow motion and taking the time out to imagine what life might be like spending a tranquil afternoon there looking out a window near a river. A drone enshrouding an echoing cascade of tones rippling in the soft sound of wind and hints of water flow mixing together under a pale grey sky as large snowflakes fall all around. Motes of distant sounds peek through dusk like nearby street lights catching your attention periodically when the fog thins or the snow lets up for a moment. Indeed these passing moments aren’t common because there is so often too much in life to push you along or that demand your attention but when they do hit you they seem significant and a point of acute awareness of the need for unstructured time in life. Listen to “Passing Moments” on Spotify or Bandcamp and give a listen to the rest of the Geometric Moods album for similar vibe. Connect with Anaamaly at the links below.

Anaamaly on Facebook

Anaamaly on Instagram

Anaamaly on YouTube

SUEVERIE Voices the Collective Ache Over Separations From Our Loved Ones During the Pandemic on Dream Drone Track “VEKI”

Echoing percussion and a low key urgent swirling drone introduces us to SUEVERIE’s song “VEKI” and in the music video we see a corresponding visual of rippling waters at dusk. Vocals come in with a similar dynamic of echo crying out for relief from an ache of loneliness. For this duo it’s a matter of lockdown and the ongoing pandemic that has forced their separation as each lives in a different country, quite an imposed long distance relationship compounding the isolation and relative lack of contact we’ve each, those of us observing basic precautions anyway, undergone for nearly two years. The slow turning drone and introspective, haunted vocals embody that state of affairs and at the same time sounds like a best attempt to breach that chasm in the ways we can. Sure the members of SUEVERIE like all of us can keep in contact in virtual ways and even make creative work together but it’s not quite the same and the prolonging of these separations have had psychological impacts that are going to affect people for years to come. “VEKI” and the distorted soundscapes and the way it ends in what sounds like a signal breaking apart due to some breakdown in technology sounds like that psychic distortion and disruption. The tone is despairing, and the intensity of feeling is palpable, but the vocals glow with a hope for a break in the worst impacts of the global health crisis so that loved ones can be reunited despite the challenges we all still face put on the backburner by an immediate crisis. Watch the video for “VEKI” on YouTube and follow SUEVERIE at the links below.

SUEVERIE on Apple Music

SUEVERIE on Bandcamp

SUEVERIE on Instagram

Crackberry’s “After You” Manifests the Specter of the Negative Influence of Algorithms on Our Consciousness

“After You” initially strikes as a strange techno track and the processed vocals like a vocoder making innocuous statements as a melodic note sequence blossoms accenting the rhythm. But even from the beginning there’s a dark undertone that makes you wonder when the shoe is going to drop on a piece of music that minus the lyrics could be the music you’d hear in the foyer of an electronics boutique in some near future space station. But the words point to an artificial intelligence that has awakened to its uses and abuses and awareness of its connection to our dependence on technology and ability to tap into and manipulate our inner selves. “I will take your soul, then I’ll see what’s next” is such a chilling line and also serves as a creative bit of social commentary about how we’ve already succumbed to algorithms and current, crude artificial intelligence manipulating our desires, our reactions to virtual social situations and even the stock market and the evil of reputation sites or, if you’re in China and other authoritarian societies, your reputation score designed to keep you in line. For such a pleasant foreground vibe, the background and clandestine content makes this apparently short and simple song a pointed examination of our relationship with technology and how it has come to warp our very consciousness. Listen to “After You” on Spotify, explore the rest of the Fever Dream album and follow Crackberry at the links below.

Crackberry Manylink

Crackberry on Twitter

Crackberry on Instagram

Red Mecca’s “Without a House, Without a Door” is Lush Darkwave in Cosmic Colors

The enigmatically titled new Red Mecca single “Without a House, Without A Door” presents us with a wall of steady, powerful percussion and a distorted shimmer of drone through which flares of bright melody pierce periodically as a Susanne Jonsson vocalist graces this stark yet full soundscape with human presence. The effect has the kind of grandeur one often heard in the more hypnotic and drone laden works of Sky Cries Mary with Johnsson’s performance very reminiscent of the expressive and alluring vocal style of Anisa Romero. But Red Mecca, with its name a very cool and obvious nod to the third, great, 1981 studio album by Cabaret Voltaire, is very much more in the post-punk by way of modern darkwave mode with its processional pace and deeply lush, finely textured electronic soundscapes. Think Big Black Delta, think the more modern offerings from Gary Numan. Gorgeous stuff that captivates the imagination. Listen to “Without a House, Without a Door” on Soundcloud and connect with Red Mecca at the links provided.

Red Mecca on Facebook

Manpreet Kundi Encourages us to Connect With Our Intuitive Self on “Don’t Wake Me”

Manpreet Kundi, photo courtesy the artist

Manpreet Kundi paces her single “Don’t Wake Me” like a casual stroll down a luminous, fog enshrouded pathway. Her breathy vocals sketches memories and hopes mixed together in the infinite potential of life in dreams. During the course of the song Kundi examines her feelings and desires for life with a spirit of gentleness and asking no one wake her from this state where the mind is whole and functioning outside the divide of rational and irrational, emotional and logical, we assume during our waking moments. In the state of lucid dreaming suggested by Kundi’s lyrics we are perhaps most free to reach toward personal truths that can manifest in beneficial consequences for life once we wake up if we indulge the time to go with the flow of what might be called dreamtime in the sense of the Aboriginal concept and our connection to it as an intuitive process that synthesizes all aspects of our minds. Kundi sings about this in a more poetic fashion utilizing imagery and experiences from dreams but the message is clear that we want ourselves and others to allow us to learn to trust our best internal voices in self-healing and to make our most authentic choices. The soothing, dream pop in which Kundi sets her song to spare piano, ethereal strings and washes of synth only makes the heady content more easily accessible. Listen to “Don’t Wake Me” on Spotify and connect with Manpreet Kundi at the links below.

Manpreet Kundi website

Manpreet Kundi on Facebook

Manpreet Kundi on Instagram