SubmitHub – Page 163 – Queen City Sounds and Art

moodring’s “Poison” is a Hearbreaking Lo-Fi Dream Pop Reminder to Let Go When the Love is Gone

moodring packs a lot of surprises into its song “Poison.” In the beginning it sounds like a modern version of a slackery, lo-fi indie rock song. But Charli Smith reflects on the ways in which one has conflicted feelings about the person you love. The gentle, ethereal guitar work and minimalist percussion and lingering, melodic drones coupled with Smith’s laid back delivery give the impression of someone walking leisurely through a gallery of memories, many of them painful, while trying to maintain a sense of cool, of composure, while laying out a litany of heartbreaking thoughts like a goodbye letter to a relationship that has worn to nothing. Yet sometimes even those awful relationships are hard to let go when it’s one of the only things in your life giving it steady meaning. Smith’s lyrics speak directly to those complex feelings even when you know it’s over. When she sings “You’re breaking me down, you’re drying me out” it sounds like that final realization that you have to move on if you’re to make it through even as melodramatic as that may seem to you in that moment. Brandon Brewer’s production casts it in the musical equivalent of washed out lo-fi colors but that in some ways makes the song hit harder like you’re hearing your own words through an AM radio like a ghost of your old self reminding you of where you’ve been and don’t want to go again but may follow those bad habits and instincts without having your own words as a reminder to do better for yourself. It’s like a diary entry or a letter to the offending party you never send but have to write out for yourself to see as a form of self-therapy. Listen to “Poison” on YouTube and connect with moodring at the links below.

moodring on Instagram

Tishmal Finds Glimmers of Hope in a Deeply Uncertain Present on “On My Way Up”

“On My Way Up” resonates with a dreamlike tone as though its melody is coming through a light fog. It comes from a place of melancholic contemplation but one striving for the things she sees as possible in the future. It’s not the sort of song informed by a grind-y bravado. Tishmal acknowledges the uncertainty and relative lack of control in which she’s existing with patience and acceptance waiting for events and opportunities unfold as they often do. The line “I’m drifting through now, I’m on my way up, I’ll never come down” speaks directly to this state of being as is “I’m on my way to make better days.” These are words that come from a place of making your own sense of hope when there seem to be none knowing no situations are permanent. It is interestingly enough a song of faith and hope but one without a naive outlook. It hearkens back sonically to the peak of chillwave but the vocal range and nuance of emotional expression is striking and soothing in a powerful way. Rachel Brockbank took on the name Tishmal from the Luiseño word for “hummingbird” (a nickname she was given as a young girl) which is fitting for the subtle grace, energy and vulnerable power found in her songwriting and singing on this debut solo project for the artist in collaboration with producers Christian Medice and Daniel Pashman. Listen to “On My Way Up” on Soundcloud and connect with Tishmal at the links provided.

Tishmal on Facebook

Tishmal on Instagram

Tishmal on YouTube

“Midnight Star” is the Epic Synth Pop Glam Rock Title Track to the New Album by David Lynch Collaborator Chrystabell

“Midnight Star” is the title track to Chrystabell’s forthcoming, fifth full length album. The singer, songwriter, model and actress came to prominence for her work with David Lynch starting in the late 90s and for her role as FBI Agent Tammy Preston in Twin Peaks: The Return. With the new record Chrystabell has set aside guitar and drums in favor of synths. Her layers of atmospheric melodies and tonal accents has resulted in music that has cinematic quality like a synth pop glam rock song. “Midnight Star” showcases the singer’s finely honed, expressive vocals and an impressive command of a broad range of singing styles. Fans of Eurhythmics will appreciate the strong, confident and controlled aspect to Chrystabell’s performance throughout “Midnight Star” and the way she sync’s perfectly with the swirling progression of sounds the way Annie Lennox did in the synth pop heyday of her own band. The mix of soulfulness, grit and ethereal dreaminess gives the song as well as the soon-to-be-released single “Suicide Moonbeams” an immediately compelling presence. Listen to “Midnight Star” on Spotify and connect with Chrystabell at the links provided.

Chrystabell on Facebook

Chrystabell on Instagram

Chrystabell on YouTube

Qwiet Type Celebrates Setting Boundaries for Users and Abusers on “Uninvited”

Calling Qwiet Type’s “Uninvited” a diss track from his new EP of the same name might be a bit dramatic. But it does outline how someone went from a friend or more to someone who isn’t welcome in the songwriter’s life once it’s discovered that person only really wants him around when times are tough as an emotional crutch. And in the end it’s a song celebrating setting boundaries and sticking to them and not regretting doing something for the sake of your own sanity but yes declaring that the offending party is uninvited from when times are good. Musically it’s like an indie rock pop song in the vein of early 70s Todd Rundgren, Walter Egan and Sniff ‘n’ The Tears drawing on their sense of humor and irony as well a knack for genre-bending and in this case a nod to New Wave and disco. And in typical Qwiet Type fashion, songwriter Matt Powell turns the heartbreak and anger into something fun as a way of creatively transforming what could be hurt and negative emotions into a party. Listen to “Uninvited” on YouTube and connect with Qwuiet Type at the links below.

Qwiet Type on YouTube

Qwiet Type on Facebook

Qwiet Type on Instagram

The Beautifully World Weary Title Track to Easy Jane’s New Album Play is Like a Conflicted Farewell to a Relationship Gone Awry

The title track to Easy Jane’s second album 2021’s Play has a complexity of emotional impact that might not be obvious from its gorgeously lush layers of sound and expansive dynamic. The mood is melancholic and pitched in tones that suggest resignation to the reality of one’s association with another and the need to let go. In an album that delves into the dark side of relationships and the ways in which we awaken to our involvement in them especially when it would behoove us to dissolve them or exit the situation as best we can. In “Play” the guitar traces an outward spiral of an atmospheric riff in the verses that is both bracing and sounds like the closing chapter of something with no sequel. The track is reminiscent of what Crime & the City Solution got up to circa Paradise Discotheque (1990) with its poetic lyrics and cinematic sound. Listen to “Play” on YouTube, check out the rest of Play on Bandcamp and connect with Easy Jane at the links provided below.

Easy Jane on Instagram

Easy Jane on Facebook

Iceage Puts in a Powerful Performance of its Post-Punk Glam Blues for Tapetown Sessions

Iceage in June 2018, photo by Tom Murphy

The Tapetown Session of Iceage displays a band in part studio environment and part live. But with this format the spontaneity and energy of the live show is preserved with the sonic fidelity that wouldn’t be possible in most concert environments. What also separates this footage from that admittedly excellent series of live sessions on KEXP is that the environment seems more gritty and like it could be in their own studio, perhaps, but is in fact the Tapetown Studio in Aarhus, Denmark. The band seems comfortable yet focused and performing a selection of seven songs from its two most recent albums Beyondless (2018) and Seek Shelter (2021). This set of songs has the Danish post-punk band in fine form performing a set of songs that showcase the breadth of its musical vision over the last few years having expanded well beyond the more angular post-punk of its early days into a fascinating amalgam of unvarnished punk waxing into forms that sprawl the sounds and the emotional expressions beyond any orthodoxy of style. This version of Iceage has as much in common with Stooges, New York Dolls and The Birthday Party as it does with hardcore and death rock mixing in elements of rockabilly, blues and country as well. Those hybrid impulses blended together could be a mess but here Iceage manages to synthesize it all with power and conviction for a music that because it can seem loose around the edges also conveys a sense of creative freedom and the ability to defy and grow beyond expectations set by its earlier music. Watch the Tapetown Sessions of Iceage on YouTube and connect with the band at the links provided.

iceagecopenhagen.eu

Iceage on Facebook

“Suspended In Blue” by Marigold Sun Articulates the Deep Sense of Peace and Awe at the Fingers of Sunlight of a Clear Sky On a Late Winter Morning

“Suspended In Blue” evokes the image of sunlight refracting in the sky and streaming down, sparkling now and then the way it seems to on a bright, late winter morning. Eric Li Harrison as Marigold Sun arranges the peaks of tones and fades of the track so that there is a continues flow of atmospherics so that the accents and lingering drones and gentle, subtle whorls of sound in the background stand out in with layers of sonic depth as though capturing that perfect moment when an icicle will catch the sunlight against a blue sky as well as the aforementioned streams of sunshine breaking the morning haze before the sun rises to the full power of its brightness in the sky. It’s a natural beauty that is difficult to express in words, as might be too obvious here, but it does have a restful and refreshing effect psychologically and the treatment of those feelings here is immediately affecting. It is reminiscent of some of the best library music of the 80s that are largely lost to time unless you have one of those great compilations of that music or you’re actively listening to the echoes of such in the work of Boards of Canada. Listen to “Suspended In Blue” on Soundcloud and connect with Marigold Sun at the links below.

marigold-sun.com

Marigold Sun on Instagram

“Feed Infinite” by London Jazz Group Binker & Moses is a Modal Act of Resistance to Today’s Spirit of Malaise

London jazz duo Binker & Moses brought in honorary third member Max Luthert to reassemble raw acoustic recordings of sax and drums in the studio. Saxophonist Binker Golding and drummer and composer Moses Boyd went in with no planned material and after Luthert’s treatments of the exercise in spontaneous composition the resulting track “Feed Infinite” (out now on Gearbox Records) comes off focused and fluid. It’s reminiscent of mid-60s post-bop, free jazz in the ways Boyd accents the beat and keeps the rhythm flowing with both contemplative minimalism and maximalist urgency later in the song. Golding brings a light touch to his tonal figures early in the piece as well before launching into elaborate and energetic modal passages with an expressive flourish to match Boyd’s pacing. It’s a beautifully synergistic piece that when assembled this way takes advantage of electronic touches and sounds that help bring out a contemplative mood that can turn quickly to a spirit of creative rebelliousness and resistance to the doldrums and resignation to mediocrity in life under late capitalism. The energy of the performance is the opposite of the malaise one might understandable feel these days. While tapping a bit into older jazz traditions the aesthetic is well placed in modern electronic music and the avant-garde with micro-dynamics that flow and evolve in a manner suggestive of free association. Listen to “Feed Infinite” on YouTube and connect with Binker & Moses at the links below.

gearboxrecords.com

Binker & Moses on Instagram

Binker & Moses on Facebook

Streaming Platform Links for Binker & Moses

Vague Lanes Manifest a Path Through the Dark Spirit Haunting the Zeitgeist on “Here :: Now.” From Its Debut EP Cassette

Vague Lanes create a sound that resonates with the decaying culture and political infrastructure of the USA with its 2021 track “Here :: Now.” Achieving a good deal of grit with two basses, one driving and grinding along with the insistent drum machine, the other carrying a bit of the melody in the upper registers. The vocals sound like they were recorded in a tunnel in a forgotten part of the city while the track itself produced and then mixed for effect in a similarly clandestine location for an effect that is cathartic and expansive even though a mood of oppression, dissolved for a few moments by the momentum of the music, can be felt and heard haunting every moment of the song. Fans of Comsat Angels or All Your Sisters will appreciate the way the vocals a expressively wide-ranging and reach deep into a place of desperation and a yearning for liberation from the ambient gloom that seems to have settled on the zeitgeist. Listen to “Here :: Now” on Spotify and perhaps buy a copy of the duo’s debut EP on Bandcamp titled Cassette as it is available on a limited run tape. Connect with Vague Lines at the links provided.

vaguelanes.com

Vague Lanes on Instagram

Jamie Rhodes Sagely Articulates the Need to Let Ego Give Way to Growth on “Bring The Wine”

Jamie Rhodes sounds like he’s composing a letter to a loved one or to himself to read later when he’s in a different emotional place when he delivers the vocals on “Bring The Wine.” The song has a slow, orchestral build that builds to a gloriously dramatic conclusion and fade out that is the perfect accompaniment to a song that seems to be about the realization of the impermanence of so many things in life and learning to let go of even cherished notions we maybe thought of as core to our identity. The simple refrain of “the answers, they come and go” points to those stages in life where we think we have things figured out but those answers don’t serve us for a lifetime. The pastoral pace and tenor of the song as well as Rhodes’ half spoken singing really enhance the impression of a person having learned not to hold on so strongly to cherished notions largely anchored on ego that aren’t as significant for a lifetime and to move on and not get so attached to aspects of our personality that we can come to see as integral to our existence when evolving into other modes of thinking, believing and being might be better for us as we learn and grow as people, embracing the fact that things change whether we’re ready or not. Certainly a poetic truth that more humans could learn. Listen to “Bring the Wine” on Spotify, listen to the rest of Rhodes’ 2021 album The Mighty Mighty Something on Bandcamp and connect with Rhodes at the links provided.

Jamie Rhodes on Instagram