SubmitHub – Page 17 – Queen City Sounds and Art

Tim Carr’s Hypnogogic Pop Single “Looking at Houses” is a Meditation on the Effect of Digital Existence on the Human Psyche

The saturated synth melodies and crystalline percussion sounds in Tim Carr’s “Looking at Houses” puts you in an immediately reflective mood. But there is an underlying sense of what might be called low-key urgency. The song seems to be a meditation on how we live and conduct our business so much in the digital world that the line between analog life as lived in one’s body and the psychological significance of needing to adapt to how the digital realm functions and the relative convenience of it that is really a way for corporations to force us further into their dictates by making us dependent on their systems. Carr’s song as soothing as it is with a mood and vibe that is undeniable late night drive soundtrack material speaks to our dependence on computers from yes looking at houses we might buy or fantasize about occupying and the seductive ability to book a flight to distant places we might like to visit. And it’s just that, the dullened yearning this mode of living has conditioned us to experiencing and finding satisfying enough. Carr tows the line between that complacency and self-awareness in his lyrics and in the lush, hypnotic pop songwriting. The song will draw you into its loop but it’s one you don’t mind being stuck within. Listen to “Looking at Houses” on Spotify and follow Tim Carr at the links provided. Look for Carr’s new album Pleasure Drives out soon.

Tim Carr on Twitter

Tim Carr on Facebook

Tim Carr on Instagram

TYGERMYLK’s Psychedelic Dream Pop Single “Natali” Combines Tragedy and Humor Into Personal Insight

“Natali” opens up with an ethereal, impressionistic melody that drifts and builds. The song by TYGERMYLK deftly combines ideas and sentiments that are tragic and humorous as the singer sketches a time in life that symbolized and embodied a kind of felix culpa, no pun intended, in which the seeming loss reveals the reality of the situation and a revelatory truth that changes the course of one’s life or in the case with the song a relationship that might have gone on causing more heartbreak if not for a freak accident instigating a short form Rube Goldberg wrecking machine of personal realizations one might not have otherwise seen as quickly. Songwriter Hayley Harland’s vocals float through hanging harmonics and harmonic swells in a song that is reminiscent somehow of both Actor-period St. Vincent and Radiohead’s “Subterranean Homesick Alien” yet very much with its own emotional resonances speaking to the skills of an artist gifted with turning a humorous phrase with sharp psychological insight. Watch the video for “Natali” on YouTube and follow TYGERMYLK at the links below.

TYGERMYLK on TikTok

TYGERMYLK on Instagram

AUS!Funkt’s Industrial Electroclash Single “C’est Parfait” is Dance Song Against Technocratic Fascism

AUS!Funkt’s “C’est Parfait!” is pulsing with an urgent, motorik beat and rich, retro synth tones. But its message is very much of the moment. It’s anti-grinding culture and succumbing to the constant pressure from capitalist culture to be more and more “efficient” and serve the demands of an inhuman system that cares more about endless growth regardless of the cost to actual, living beings. The sheer urgency of the song is easy to get caught up within but it also opens up to an expansive and spacious middle section that is much less in forward momentum and clearly a part of the point of the song with the more intense sections being a model for a rebellious will to break down the infernal machine of the current time. It’s a dance song against technocratic fascism through inspiring movement for the sheer joy of it rather than at the behest of some economic dictate. Listen to “C’est Parfait” on Spotify and follow AUS!Funkt at the links below. The Canadian group’s new album Rewire The Damage released April 25, 2025.

AUS!Funkt on Facebook

AUS!Funkt on Instagram

AUS!Funkt on Bandcamp

Karate, Guns & Tanning’s Epic, Electro-Shoegaze Single “Loons” is an Ode to the Majesty of the Great Northern Diver

Karate, Guns & Tanning, photo courtesy the artists

“Loons” finds Indianapolis-based trio Karate, Guns & Tanning contemplating the majesty of the Great Northern Diver in mythical terms. The song itself is an epic of pulsing rhythms and an emotional urgency that carries you along with its swirling tones teeming with a rich sonic detail and bird sounds. It would be tempting to pigeonhole the music as shoegaze but the attention to production and the robust electronic side of the songwriting makes it something more. The low end alone that runs through the song sets it apart from something more ethereal and Valerie Green’s (formerly of Denver art pop greats Good Housekeeping) melodious and moody vocals bring to the song a grounded quality that syncs well with the delicate guitar lines. It’s a song whose layers of sound are easy to get caught up in until the end for a sonic journey celebrating yes a particular type of bird but of the freedom and dignity it represents that it wouldn’t hurt to emulate as well. Listen to “Loons” on Spotify and follow Karate, Guns & Tanning at the links below. The group’s new album Krisis Genre, perhaps a nod to feeling no need to fit into a narrow style, released on May 23, 2025 on digital platforms and it is also available on 12” vinyl.

karategunsandtanning.com

Karate, Guns & Tanning on Instagram

Karate, Guns & Tanning on Facebook

Karate, Guns & Tanning on YouTube

Kaput Saws Into the Fake Security of Complacency on Industrial Post-Punk Single “Small Talk”

The accents on the layered rhythms of “Small Talk” by Kaput gives it an especially heady pace. The sawblade edginess of the synth sound frames the vocals well as they ring out and echo ever so slightly like there’s a bit of dub production to the whole song. Tones whorl and rattle, buzz and fry lending an era of menace and confrontation. It’s a song about complacency and how it can’t protect you forever. When atrocity is happening right in front of you in forms that only a completely delusional person could pretend is something else. The line “Break your neck to look away” speaks to the cost of this level of self-deception and the effort required. “The lies you tell/It’s gonna be ok/It’s all gonna be ok/It’s not you today/You’re not afraid” also hits hard. Without being topical it seems clear the song is about so much of what’s going on in the world right now and not necessarily the obvious subjects of genocide, fascism, political malfeasance, police brutality, the crushing reality of wealth concentration and hovering pandemics but also climate change and how that’s the elephant in every room. The song is just one of a debut album full of commanding songs that are an evocation of ambient anxiety, desperation, insecurity, anger and sadness running rampant. That album titled I was released April 25, 2025 digitally and available as limited edition vinyl. Listen to “Small Talk” on Spotify and follow Chicago’s Kaput at the links provided.

Kaput on Instagram

Kaput on Bandcamp

Kaput on YouTube

Sheri Miller Channels the Idealism, Passion and Fearlessness of Another Era on the Acoustic Version of “Chelsea Summer Nights”

Sheri Miller’s “Chelsea Summer Nights” in its acoustic version is vivid in its capturing the spirit of a time and place in 1960s Manhattan when the Hotel Chelsea was home to elements of the American creative class like Bob Dylan and associates of Andy Warhol. Miller’s vibrant vocals command attention with expertly cadenced lyrics that make you feel like you’re there experiencing a time of youthful romance in a context where idealism seemed to be readily at hand and folk music could be radical and even revolutionary as a vehicle for a generational zeitgeist. Miller effortlessly taps into that energy in her performance with only vocals and acoustic guitar and makes it obvious that the resonance of a cultural moment she channels powerfully in the song could be something we could have now and to feel that purity of love, endless possibilities and fearlessness many people yearn for but don’t always get to indulge in this deeply conflicted and diminished era. Listen to “Chelsea Summer Nights (acoustic)” on Spotify and follow Sheri Miller at the links below.

Sheri Miller on Twitter

Sheri Miller on Facebook

Sheri Miller on Instagram

Sheri Miller on YouTube

Elegant and Tender Shoegaze Single “Freeze Frame” by Chicago’s Slow Mass is a Masterful Evocation of Processing Heartbreak

The video for Slow Mass’ elegant and tender “Freeze Frame” is a black and white collection of scenes from studio work with the band and it looks like something from another decade. The music itself with its layered rhythms, minimalist aesthetic, great delicacy of feeling and entrancing melodies is reminiscent of something from the later era of Unrest. Musically it has an increasing dynamism reminiscent of one of the early slowcore bands like Codeine and Low. The tension and the tranquility breaks toward the end with surges of guitar distortion and an opening up of the rhythm but it all shifts effortlessly into the quiet and heartbreaking outro. Its a master class of arrangements that work perfectly and smoothly together to deliver the emotional peaks and valleys in a way that makes you feel better in the end if with a touch of the bittersweet. Watch the video for “Freeze Frame” on YouTube and follow Chicago’s Slow Mass at the links below. The band’s new album Low on Foot released May 16, 2025 on Landland Colportage on limited edition colored vinyl and digital formats.

Slow Mass on Instagram

Slow Mass on Facebook

Slow Mass on Bandcamp

AAA Gripper’s Jagged Post-Punk Single “The Arcade Claw King” is an Acerbic and Thrilling Commentary on the Essential Scam of Neoliberalism

The sped up footage of people passing by an arcade in black and white for the video of AAA Gripper’s “The Arcade Claw King” is the perfect visual representation of a song about being a working class person in the consumer culture rat race most people living under Western capitalism exist within as if it’s a genuine choice of “lifestyle.” The jagged, clashing chords and nearly spoken word lyrics reminiscent of the delivery style of both Sleaford Mods and IDLES. And with a similar political orientation. But this song feels more discordant than either but with a similar edge. The title of the song brings to mind the machine that is emblematic of the whole neoliberal shebang/scam where you pay to feel like a winner like you’ve actually accomplished something if you do happen to be able to dislodge a prize from a game that’s rigged for someone to succeed with a skill set that doesn’t reflect their lived experience and talents, rather your energies and attention are channeled into an incredibly narrow range of activity and the best prizes need someone to dislodge those less exciting but it’s all a pile of junk in the end but the thought of attaining one of these trinkets feels like it means something in the moment. The song sounds like that desperation and conscious realization that most of what’s asked of us everyday is a load of shite and a distraction from how society is set up to funnel all goods and the fruits of label are channeled to the top and often not to a human but an organization that is “owned” by people largely detached from how that wealth is created on every level. The song is just one part of a fantastic album full of incisive commentary about life in the world we live in today mixing post-punk angularity with a composer’s sense of atmosphere but implemented to augment a sense of unease and hanging catharsis that does burst into flares of release now and then but not so much that you feel like you’re being pandered to by someone who is going to lie to you and tell you it’s all going to be okay if you just play along with being exploited like a good proletarian. Watch the video for “The Arcade Claw King” on YouTube and follow AAA Gripper from ‘round about Glastonbury, UK at the links below. The band’s album We Invented Work For The Common Good came out on May 16, 2025 via Wrong Speed Records on the 12” LP format and the usual digital versions.

AAA Gripper on Instagram

Scared Little Toaster Gives Voice to the Delicate Balancing Act of Internal Psychological Tensions on Instrumental Noise Rock Song “NO DECAF”

Scared Little Toaster, photo courtesy the artists

Typically when one is told “No decaf” at a coffee shop you might think that’s a good thing. But Scared Little Toaster’s song “NO DECAF” sounds a little frustrated, gnarled with some internal back and forth expressed as tonal runs at a lower register and then a higher register like if Hella was way more into stoner rock and toned down the frenetic energy but kept to the math-y structure and performance. And hey, sometimes maybe caffeine is just the thing to send you spiraling. Mid-song the sounds turn more melodic and contemplative with an undertone of anxiety as the spoken word vocals come in going on about a breakfast meal that is just going to go sideways after all. There is an absurdity to that fitting the song but also an understated humor that pairs well with the sentiment suggesting it might be more amusing to express that kind of frustration even if it does make one’s life a little bit more glum for a day and thus threatening to be the tiny bit to set you over the edge in the already brittle psychological territory we often have to navigate in everyday life. It’s not quite like Mr. Creosote having a “wafer-thin” dinner mint in Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life but close enough. Listen to Scared Little Toaster’s instrumental, noisy math-rock single “NO DECAF” on YouTube and follow the UK band at the links provided.

Scared Little Toaster on Instagram

Mercy Land Taps Into Memories of Melancholic Nostalgia on Darkwave Dance Pop Single “Kid A”

“Kid A” by Mercy Land is like a backward look at a time and place in one’s life when your brain is caught up in both the strong feelings of late adolescence and complex emotions. The driving beat, gorgeous synth dissolves and female and male vocals strike the right tone to create a sense of melancholic nostalgia that is more like reflecting on how easy it is to romanticize someone that strikes your fancy even if they’re not right for you because your heart wells up for whatever reason at the thought of that person and you find yourself obsessing a little and your recollections of what they’re into live in your mind as something to focus on unbidden. But then one day you realize it’s all been in your mind and not in theirs or at least not in the reciprocal way you would hope. In that moment you feel a little silly but also crushed by this simple fantasy having no foundation in reality. Yet that capacity to feel that way about someone isn’t so wrong and it’s an emotional resonance that any thoughtful person will connect with immediately in this darkwave dance pop single. Listen to “Kid A” (not a cover) on Spotify and follow Mercy Land on Instagram.