SubmitHub – Page 219 – Queen City Sounds and Art

“Bora Bora” is ImButcher’s Summer Action Adventure Blockbuster Soundtrack Made for the Dance Floor

ImButcher2_sm_crop — ImButcher, photo courtesy the artist

ImButcher perfectly balances the minimal, textured percussion track, the ethereal keyboard work, the nearly whispered vocal samples and a broad spectrum of tonal range and rhythms in the synth parts for his new track “Bora Bora,” In its depth of field you can hear the plane ride and the sun on the beaches, the waves and the sense of being carried along to an exotic locale where an unexpected adventure awaits. It’s like the music for the prologue of a summer action adventure blockbuster but meant for the dance floor. If only the Michael Mann movie of the series he directed in the 80s, Miami Vice, ended up being a movie like this song presages it would have fared better with critics and audiences alike. Listen to “Bora Bora” on Soundcloud and follow the Canadian artist at the links provided.

imbutcher.com
soundcloud.com/imbutcher
open.spotify.com/artist/7ISudeOdyC7sXu8prYHtIP
youtube.com/c/ImButcher
facebook.com/ImButcherMusic
instagram.com/imbutchermusic

“Ampulex compressa” is Dj Scape Ripper’s Techno Industrial Soundtrack to a Menacing Future

DjScaleRipper2_crop — Dj Scale Ripper, “Ampulex Trails” cover

“Ampulex compressa” sounds like what it would be like to be stationed on an orbital platform tasked with scanning the upper atmosphere with long range sensors for hostile cyborgs looking to get off world to wreak havoc in the colonies where their activities are far less circumscribed. The mechanical percussion sounds, the afterburn white noise of vehicle launch and the urgent industrial pacing speak to a moment of hot pursuit of. The distant tone is like getting a read on the objective while also being reminiscent of Meat Beat Manifesto’s “Paradise Now.” Perhaps a nod to Jack Dangers maybe more obliquely to the oscillations of Phaedra-period Tangerine Dream. The song conveys a sense of the otherworldly and menacing conveying an air of technology having grown beyond our capacity to manipulate it in the fundamentals ways we do now. Listen to Dj Scaleripper’s “Ampulex compressa” on Spotify and follow the artist at the links below.

soundcloud.com/djscaleripper
youtube.com/user/darkmindproject
twitter.com/DarkMindProject
facebook.com/DjScaleRipper

Bug’s “Walking With the Music” Oscillates Like the Musical Equivalent of a Dreamachine

Bug1_crop — Bug, image courtesy the artist

The rhythm and texture of Bug’s “Walking With the Muse” is in your face while the cycling harmonic atmospherics run in the background. The effect is a bit like running a film projector with the reels in front of you but with the visual magic happening far ahead of you. The physicality of the film is in your foreground, the sound of the reels running and of the film scrolling through hypnotically giving the illusion of movement. It gives the track a dimensional quality that entirely unconventional even given the realm of IDM with which its aesthetic might be most closely idenitified. It draws on your imagination to contextualize yourself in its atmospheres and rhythms without putting you off or demanding too much of your conscious mind. It’s like a sonic representation of a dream machine, oscillating and calming the mind and perhaps opening it to channels of normally untapped inspiration and creativity. Listen to “Walking With the Muse” on Soundcloud and follow Bug at the links below.

soundcloud.com/musicforbugs
bugly.bandcamp.com
instagram.com/typicalbug

“What Are We Doing” is EGOISM’s Song About the Beauty and Romance of Embracing Operating Without the Pressure of Having to Have a Plan

EGOISM1_sm — EGOISM, photo courtesy the artists

EGOISM’s new single “What Are We Doing” strikes a confident and expansive tone even given the hint of doubt in the title. Like Depreciation Guild its melodies are bright and colorful but its tonal dynamics indulge some My Bloody Valentine-esque tonal bends that warp the sound field enough to let you know that you’re listening to a song that despite its celebratory, summer jam-esque sound and dynamic, is in the end a reflection of human imperfection as not just normal but perhaps even a feature, not a bug, of human life itself and something to be embraced rather than wished away. The chorus of the song from which the title is taken celebrates the fact that you can get through life not knowing what you’re doing in that fake life expert way expected of us and from each other too often when if we let go of such nothings we can be more psychologically healthy people. Listen to “What Are We Doing” on Soundcloud and follow EGOISM at the links provided.

soundcloud.com/egoismband
open.spotify.com/artist/6bTkIQfvR8nlRCHLAvbfOD
egoismband.bandcamp.com
facebook.com/egoismband
instagram.com/egoismband

“Paranoia de Nuevo American” by Anchorbaby is a Broodily Urgent Examination of Topical Cultural Tensions

Anchorbaby1_sm — Anchorbaby, photo courtesy the artist

Ricky Shimo may be on your radar because of his great, noisy psychedelic rock band Lenguas Largas. Anchorbaby is a bit different, more stripped down and all Shimo’s creative vision. If his new single “Paranoia de Nuevo Americano” is any indication, it’s a more direct songwriting style reminiscent of early offerings from The Soft Moon. The driving, mid-range accented bass line, the lyrics in Spanish, the urgency of the vocals and the fuzzed out yet ethereal guitar work suggests a menacing landscape reflective of the way Shimo felt when he first moved to the United States. There’s the image the nation likes to project and insist is true then there’s the reality of life in the USA, especially if you’re an immigrant from any part of Latin America. That Shimo named this project Anchorbaby is political and the song title is easy enough to suss out unless you’ve managed to get through life living in the USA picking up no bit of Spanish and are completely clueless about the shared linguistic roots of English and Español. All of the Americas are polyglot, multi-racial, multi-ethnic societies whether certain people want to accept the reality or otherwise and this song speaks directly to those tensions over such considerations. Look for the album Groovysmo out soon on Midtown Island Records. Listen to “Paranoia de Nuevo Americano” on Bandcamp and follow Anchorbaby at any of the links below.

Groovysmo by Anchorbaby

artists.spotify.com/c/artist/3td16HR8l9RIiNhvK60zqp/profile
youtu.be/XlFQprWVyC8
facebook.com/ricky.shimo
instagram.com/rickycustodioshimomoto

Outside The Academy’s Raucus “M.Y.O. Fiction” is a Much-Needed Pinprick to This Era’s Political Pomposity

OTA_Upside-DownLayeredCosmic_sm — OTA, photo courtesy the artist

“You’re a fuckwit” is not a line you hear in many songs. But in Outside The Academy’s “M.Y.O. Fiction” the band lays out some serious sarcasm wrapped up in its wiry and urgent noise punk. In doing so the group bares an understandable frustration with a political milieu where everyone imagines themselves an expert no matter what they know or their relative level of knowledge and forget remember one’s humanity when dealing with “the other.” It doesn’t sound like some simpering centrist call for “civility” in an era when a mythical notion of such went out the window given the corruption rife in the economic and the political system most places even in the face of environmental breakdown threatening all life as we’ve ever consciously known it. The internecine strife when actual fascists seem to operate openly and protected by the police. The insistence of purity in some realms of one’s life but not others and holding everyone to a standard you couldn’t adhere to if the tables were turned with a different set of criteria thereof. And to top it all off that the drudgery of the political as we know it now needing to dominate and permeate all art and creative expression or it has to be seen as some low rent version of “counter revolutionary.” We are there and Outside TheAcademy’s “M.Y.O. Fiction” (presumably “Mind Your Own Fiction” but interpretations will vary) is a send up of all of it. You can tell from the lyrics that all of that matters but to survive these times intact we’re going to have to not dissect everyone and everything all the time in the process. In a crisis it’s too easy to forget that your knowledge of everything is as limited as your universal expertise so best to maintain a little existential humility. Listen on Soundcloud and follow Outside The Academy at the links below.

soundcloud.com/outsidetheacademy
open.spotify.com/artist/0yJaXRFo7sYuUK69i5Z4d7
outsidetheacademy.bandcamp.com
twitter.com/O_T_A
facebook.com/OutsideTheAcademy

The Titular Character of “Mr. Polydactyl Cat” by Levitation Room is the Trickster Gangster We Need in Must See Video

“Mr. Polydactyl Cat” by Levitation Room sounds like some kind of 1960s garage rock lounge song and surreal enough on its own. But the video with a human-sized cat in a suit and early in the video bogarting a joint only to run to escape and get hit by a car and knocked right into animated cat Heaven?In that section we see the cat as can of cat food and the full range of cat evolution. But hey, guess what? Our scallywag hero wakes up and makes off with the car like a boss who discovers a bag of cash on the front seat. And gold coins. Some cats merely have nine lives, this cat is luckier than that until he wrecks the car on someone’s lawn and collapses on his porch. But maybe it was all the musings of the cat at the end of the video watching a mysterious being on television calling him back to the homeworld. What is the exact nature of Mssr. Polydactyl Cat? Is it just the extra toes that gives him the preternatural ability to dodge out of trouble like an interdimensional trickster traveler? We may never find out but maybe Levitation Room will clue us into more of the hijinks when its album Headspace comes out on Oct 4, 2019 through Greenway Records. Follow Levitation Room at its Soundcloud account.

soundcloud.com/levitation-room

Ivar Wigan’s Treatment of the Video For One Eleven’s “American” Matches Supernatural Horror to the Song’s Transporting Melodies

OneEleven1_lg_crop — One Eleven, photo courtesy the artists

Ivar Wigan took One Eleven’s song “American” and made a video with some choice visual references one might infer like The Wicker Man, John Boorman’s hazy, surreal atmospheres and The Blair Witch Project. Like a supernatural horror film invoking ancient religions and dream visions. It suits the song with its rich soundscapes and breathy, Toni Halliday-esque vocals and brooding dynamics. Guitarist Ollie had been playing with Roxy Music for some time when he met singer Fyah who was working for Bryan Ferry and helping with recording sessions with Prince. So the sophistication of the songwriting and the production should come as no surprise. That the song also courses through your imagination with its transporting melody is not something everyone with a similar background and chops manages to accomplish. The duo will perform Wednesday, October 23, 2019 at The Bermondsey Social Club in London.

soundcloud.com/user-420210294-345932521
https://open.spotify.com/artist/5vjo7iIjY0MFytklVwoe7V

Mestozi’s “Tilted” is an Introspective Noise Jazz Hip-Hop Meditation on Being Put Off by a Friend

Mestozi1_sm — Mestozi, photo courtesy the artist

You buy a reel-to-reel recorder at a garage sale and use it to splice together samples of record white noise and a simple piano melody, reverse delay guitar recorded backward for even trippier effect, analog synth arpeggios gone wrong and spit an introspective set of bars over the top. That’s what it sounds like Mestozi did but obviously the production is more pristine than that but that the songwriter/producer had the imagination to pull so many disparate elements together in this way that sounds like it could be some kind of avant-garde electronics track with elements of abstract jazz is impressive. It, in fact, sounds like the musical equivalent of a pinball machine that has tilted with the attendant more modern meaning of the word applying as well. The lyrics hint at being knocked out whack by the off-putting actions and words of a friend. Fans of Dilla, cLOUDDEAD and Blockhead will appreciate what Mestozi does on “Tilted” and how it pushes notions of what can be done in hip-hop ever so slightly. Listen to “Tilted” on YouTube and follow Mestozi at the links provided.

open.spotify.com/track/6EArLVdLteBNJCKzwuhgYc
mestozi.bandcamp.com/album/peak-communication

Pencey Sloe’s “All OK” is a Song About Living Life Without Unnecessary Filters

PenceySloe1_sm — Pencey Sloe, photo courtesy the artists

Benjamin Berzerker’s video for Pencey Sloe’s “All OK” reflects the enigmatic quality of the band’s twin melodies, one bright and ethereal, the other textured and gritty. The image of the red cloth around the man’s head like a rose-colored shroud is more original than merely saying someone is living with their head in the clouds but that the filter can be removed if you really want it to and that if you walk out of your usual contexts and take on the world on its own terms it will, indeed, be OK. The soaring dynamic of the song recurving in on itself as the percussion moves forward in a steady procession while warm yet ghostly vocals all but whisper the narrative of stasis and liberation from your internal oppressor set this song and band apart from the crowd of neo-shoegazers of the past decade and a half. Watch the Berzerker video below and follow Pencey Sloe on Bandcamp where the group will release its debut album Don’t Believe, Watch Out on September 27.

penceysloe.bandcamp.com/album/don-t-believe-watch-out