Mobile Steve and the Grand Slam, image courtesy the artists
The curiously named Mobile Steve and the Grand Slams offer us its new single “Landing.” The analog electronic high pitched bubbling, the distorted low end synth and circular drum figure that runs in the first half of the song sounds like an update on the theme music for the 1967 limited series television show The Prisoner. But then the song goes in a direction more abstract with throbbing sounds like a jet engine of a craft gone sinister and the engine of a transport that is taking us to some clandestine rendezvous where we’ll be asked like Snake Plisskin in Escape From New York to do some daring rescue mission with little reward for the risk. If this is meant to convey a landing as the title suggests, it’s one done after dark and in a secret location. Listen to “Landing” on YouTube and follow Mobile Steve and the Grand Slams at the links below.
Jr. Rhodes takes some risks on “Trust Nobody” in taking the first verse from the perspective of a woman, the second from the point of view of a man, both in a relationship together and airing frustrations. The first verse ends with the call to a voicemail. The second ends with listening to the voicemail left. The words illustrate a basic miscommunication and misapprehension between the two people but it doesn’t try to cast one or both parties as having ill intent or casting the other as irrational–no one is the villain of the piece. We just hear confusion and a yearning for reconnecting in a way that works for both people but most importantly, the expectations and needs spelled out explicitly and none of which sounds overly demanding, just not met. All while a spare, melancholic guitar melody sketches the lines of tear-streaked misery happening in the song and an even more minimal beat keeps a pace that while obviously programmed, comes off as accenting the vibe of the moment. While the song sounds like the beginning of the end of the relationship one also hears how with a little trust, perhaps the ability of which was damaged by past relationships, these two can patch things up. Listen to “Trust Nobody” on Soundcloud and follow Jr. Rhodes on Instagram linked below.
Kris Kelly’s vocals on “Cracked Porcelain” have a graceful, fragile quality matched by the delicate guitar work and luminous orchestral melody. It suggests a grand arc of a story and reflecting on the events that have transpired. Like an extended prologue before the main story takes place, introducing themes that recur throughout the narrative. The music video is like something out of 1970s manga depicting two figures making their way through a desert and reaching an oasis together where they indulge delights of the senses represented by endless food and drink and other hedonistic pursuits. One of the figures makes a break from this trap of endless indulgence and while the song comes to an end we are left wanting more of the story. The lyric, “We couldn’t see what we sacrificed for our gala” sums up the story so far well and the perils of a life out of balance and also suggests more to come. Turns out “Cracked Porcelain” is at the halfway mark of Kelly’s 2019 album Runaways and thus the turning point of a story of a young person’s journey from youthful wanderlust and excess to a place of love and belonging after making mistakes along the way, in form and structure the equivalent of a Bildungsroman. Watch the video on YouTube, visit Kelly’s website (linked below) to further explore the new album and follow the artist at the links provided.
“Sunco,” the lead single from the new, self-titled album by Asbury, NJ-based band stillhungry takes a simple but intricate melody as the backdrop to finely complimentary vocal harmonies that sound like the affectionate but weary letter to a friend or a rehearsal for a serious conversation about life and where it’s going because some conversations are more difficult than others to have when maybe you need to take a different approach than you normally would. The gorgeously composed guitar work and the expertly cast keyboard atmospheres and seemingly steady but subtly dynamic pace is reminiscent of Low in the twenty-first century as is the countrified flavor of certain aspects of the songwriting but that all serves to give the song a crucial earnestness and warmth of tone for its lyrics to work. Everyone has had plans for life that didn’t work out or crashed nearly catastrophically and certainly friends and relatives who have had that experience. Because the seduction of those plans maybe made you ignore some of the warning signs of where it could go wrong. In the line, “Technicolor makes you wonder why it hurts so bad, thought you saw it coming but it was only a dream you had,” stillhungry acknowledges that way we will justify so much in the name of what we want or think we want. And in the aftermath of our world crashing down it’s so tempting to wallow in bitter misery and to reject the world, which the band articulates so well in singing, “You care so much about not caring at all/I know you’ve been slumping wearing dirty rags and sittin’ still/ Promised your mother you wouldn’t break it but you will.” But it isn’t a song about making judgments so much as it is about accountability and a gentle reminder that one needn’t cling to dreams and ideas that aren’t working by punishing yourself by holding the failure so close and doing little to nothing to move on. We’ve all been there if we’ve done anything even semi-significant in our lives. Listen to “Sunco” on Spotify and follow stillhungry at the links below.
Fluttering breezes of melody swirl around the synth swells in the beginning of Wandour’s “Flux” before vocals come in like speech coming in from real life into a dream. A crystalline arpeggio echoes gently in the distance when the song reaches the cruising velocity it seemed to be aiming for earlier in the song as all sounds floated upwards even as the vocals say, “Going nowhere.” Nowhere physically, maybe but certainly the vibe of the song is transporting and transcending everyday concerns. But no specific destination in mind or through intention. The bright streams of incandescent sound give way to almost atonal, processed bell tones before the the song lands in the fadeout with an effect akin to the heady effervescence of Slowdive’s cover of Syd Barrett’s “Golden Hair.” There is a coolness to the song that parallels the arrival of fall making this latest single by Wandour arrive at exactly the right time. Listen to “Flux” on Soundcloud and follow Wandour at the links provided. Also check out Wandour’s equally entrancing Night Wandering EP on Spotify.
The new MONOGEM single “Soy Lo Que Soy” is a sultry electronic pop homage to one’s roots and heritage. The accents of synth arpeggio, shakers and Latin rhythms with the Spanish language lyrics (the title translates to “I Am What I Am”) defies easy categorization. It’s a downtempo song with a sound palette different from what we’re used to hearing in that style of music. It’s also a break from the lush and hazy, soulful synth pop that MONOGEM has released thus far. But as with her other songs, on “Soy Lo Que Soy” MONOGEM makes expert use of space. The vocals sit just right in the mix, the aforementioned arpeggios are quick and just as quickly decay in fast echo. The songwriting gives you the room to take it in on its terms and your own, meeting you partway by leaving the emotional and sonic space in its dynamics. The song was inspired by MONOGEM’s abuela Hortensia to never stop speaking Spanish and holding onto the culture. And thus aside from the language in the song and the touchstones of Latin music, its deeply introspective tones and sonic economy suggests some interesting directions of groth for the artist. Listen to “Soy Le Que Soy” on Soundcloud and look for MONOGEM’s full-length So Many Ways due out October 18. Follow MONOGEM at the links below.
Lejonhjärta’s new single “I Try Alone” alternates between passages of dense distorted synths and clean, spare passages through which sounds traverse whether that’s a single strand of the aforementioned synths, or ethereal guitar. Through it all the hushed vocals draw you in to a narrative about the personal ghosts of anxiety that keep some of us self-isolating when we yearn to be out doing the things that seem important or even merely normal and how in breaking that pattern we are largely on our own. The contrasting sounds and dynamics of the song provide the dramatic energy not unlike the sort of compositional style as you might hear on an early Fad Gadget track or Xeno & Oaklander channeling their atmospherics and textures into more overtly pop shapes. And although the song seems to be about a kind of soul deep loneliness reinforced by aspects of your personality it is one whose core melody strikes one as being hopeful. Like the song is an acknowledgment of a phase that will pass even though it has felt like forever. Listen to “I Try Alone” on Soundcloud and follow Lejonhjärta on Facebook linked below.
“Screaming Banshees” by Oh Mr James is the lead single from the latter’s new EP Primer. At first one hears the urgent breakbeats, alien robotic voices and ambient swells and take into consideration that the project is called Oh Mr James and wonder if that James is Richard D. James of Aphex Twin fame operating under a different moniker as the artist is also from Cornwall and the song wouldn’t be out of step with Aphex Twin’s most recent compositions. Whether that’s true or not, this song doesn’t sound like an omen of death so much as multiple planes of musical ideas working over and with each other in sync. The electronic percussion parallels and reinforces the staccato yet bouncing bass progression sounding like a frantic teletype receiving portentous news. Multiple synths come together throughout the song as the carriers of the melody while background atmospherics are the connective tissue for the song which you come to realize is a bit like the musical model of the functioning of a fast moving animal that races across the earth and arrives at its destination and place of rest at song’s end. Whatever the purpose of the song it takes us on a journey of texture and emotion rich in detail and expertly executed polyrhythms that make it impossible to ignore yet non-invasive enough to stimulate your brain into creative realms of thought. Listen to “Screaming Banshee” on Soundcloud
Marinara strikes an interesting note with “Adult Body,” the lead single from its debut full length album I Feel Like Dog due out November 8. The music video depicts scenes of adolescent hijinks in the kitchen interrupting the members of the band trying to do something as simple as cooking, an activity that we don’t often think of as adult but which really is. And cooking, not heating up a can of soup, making ramen or putting a frozen meal into the microwave. It represents the temptations to resist being an adult in even the most basic, functional ways as if we need to choose between being being responsible and having fun. The music, the kind of urgent, math-y rock that made and make LVL UP and Palm such interesting bands. The style lends itself well to being both introspective and a rhythmic urgency which Marinara uses to great effect during the course of the song not just to rock out at the end but to create an emotional contrast between the exuberance of youth tempered by the demands of being an adult that knows that partying every day and blowing off mundane responsibilities that need to be taken care of is no way to sustain the life you want long term. The video, directed by Alex Dzialo, looks like scenes from an apartment of a group of young men in their late teens and early twenties living together going to college, or first jobs out of high school and able to delay facing adulthood for a little longer with an exuberance that it’s dawning on them seems foolish and not really glorious because indulging your unevolved ambitious is not truly living your dreams. No one can clean up after you your whole life, take care of all your everyday responsibilities, make your band a well-functioning unit or sustain your best aspirations past the first wave of passionate impulses. It’s, frankly, a fun song about an unfun realization. The line “Never leave the apartment, the fun will never end” speaks so much about the personal epiphany expressed in the song and the necessity of breaking out of the cocoon of your immature self and the sophisticated ways this song embodies that moment. Watch the video on YouTube and follow Marinara at the links provided.
In giving their cover of Sparklehorse’s “Gold Day” a slightly more upbeat pace than the original, Hunting somehow managed not to kill the utterly sensitive and tender vibe of Mark Linkous’ treatment of the It’s a Wonderful Life track. The way the chords ring out and drip tones like sunlight while nearly hushed vocals bid the best and most wondrous times to the subject of the song preserves its warm spirit. The stop motion video with mice and other animals as the principal characters lends what could be a melancholy song a freshness and wholesome quality that also doesn’t come off saccharine. Rather it’s as though director Jessicka intuited the unironic sincerity and kindness behind the song’s writing as interpreted so well by Hunting. When the mouse with the horse mask sprinkles gold dust on the cat to stave off its hunting instinct, it’s truly a magical moment. Look for Hunting’s new album Whatever You Need due out November 1, 2019.
Queen City Sounds and Art 
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