The inspired sarcasm of Abe Feigenbaum’s “Try to Speak the Language” is especially choice given the tone of the music and it’s somewhere between 8-bit video game music and slackery indie pop. Even the guitar “solo” sneers at the compromises and imposed rhetoric, slang and jargon we’re expected to adhere to in order to gain access to society’s rewards whether in business, at jobs, in legal situations, in relationships instead of relating to each other as the idiosyncratic humans we all are. It’s not a critique of political correctness in the tired way that is often used to give a pass to abusive thinking and behavior, rather the conformity that makes everything seem uniform and takes the life out of life. The perspective in the song is Kafka-esque by way of Pavement and thus the humor while incisive is ultimately playful. Listen to the single on Soundcloud and follow Abe Feigenbaum on Spotify.
FYE & FENNEK have tapped into a corner of 80s pop influenced sound for their single “Better Lover” that casts some insight into why it’s re-emerged as a resonant style over thirty years hence. The song is rooted in the rhythm which in the original synth pop came out of post-punk, disco, Krautrock and R&B. “Better Love” echoes shades of Speak & Spell period Depeche Mode and, by extension through Vince Clarke, Yaz and Erasure. The bright melodies embedded into almost industrial rhythms served as an appropriate backdrop and sonic palette to comment on the nature of identity and relationships in an era of challenging politics between a right wing, austerity government (austerity for most, but not for the wealthy, naturally) and the threat of nuclear destruction while acknowledging the basic human need to have some joy out of life. It struck an interesting balance.
“Better Lover” has a similar vibe and, as it turns out, the political and economic environment is similar but the impending doom includes climate change ending life as we know it just on the horizon and more out of human control than simply exercising restraint and good sense in not launching nuclear missiles at one another. That background tension runs through “Better Lover” but so does the catharsis of finding fun in times of trouble. But the song is also about the virtue of being vulnerable and not always looking to trade up in your romantic relationships. Like the best pop songs there is more content than is obvious from the catchy melodies and lyrical hooks. Naturally, of course, FYE & FENNEK have brought modern sound processing, editing and current electronic music sensibilities to the composition giving the classic aesthetic a contemporary feel. Listen to “Better Lover” on Soundcloud and to other tracks from the production duo at the link below.
“It’s Still Storming For Me,” the title to the new Canadian Rifles single, speaks a great deal for what you’re in for in the listening. Textured atmospheres like fog and gently falling, thick snow all at once drift in with a flowing thrum of low end. It reflects a kind of post-malaise exhaustion even as the feelings still run strong or the kind of discomforting resignation that life’s troubles are hitting you without letting up and you can’t put a nice face on it anymore but it’s not new enough for dramatic expressions of your frustration and pain. Fans of Tim Hecker’s Ravedeath, 1972 or Isorinne’s Speechless Malison will find much to like in the introspective, hazy melodies and soundscapes that externalize and exorcise isolated melancholia with a gentle yet powerful touch. Listen to “It’s Still Storming For Me” on Soundcloud and follow Canadian Rifles at the links provided.
When Rusty Reid’s “I Went Searching” starts out you’re expecting to get lost in some Sinoia Caves style dark synth labyrinth into a murky dystopian science fiction future. But when the guitar, bass, drums and Reid’s vocals come in it morphs into an unconventionally psychedelic rock song about raising your own awareness and consciousness. It’s reminiscent of Kenny Rogers’ old band The First Edition and the sentiments reflect a search for peace, grace, love, truth and basic human decency and non-conformity. Hippie ideals. Marianne Williamson would be into these sentiments, the kind we need more of now in this rough age. The music, part psych folk and part country, is also grounded in a sound akin to Krautrock American style. It is fascinatingly out of step with what you might assume to be psych or country or art-y progressive rock and that’s what makes the song so immediately appealing if enigmatic. It’s not coming from a place meant to alienate or seem cooler-than-thou. And it’s unabashedly unusual, eccentric and ultimately accessible. Listen to the song on Soundcloud and follow Rusty Reid at the links below where you can also further explore Reid’s sprawling epic new album Head to Heart.
Immediately “Eyes Within Night” sounds like you’re getting a radio transmission from an AM college station in the late 1980s playing underground music in the pre-alternative rock era. Some of the frequencies sound washed out like it’s being played from a tape lovingly listened to countless times and preserved for posterity using a four track tape deck to convert it to digital. The keyboards and the Casiotone play off each other toward the end of the song like dueling synthesizers the dramatic way they might in some weird science fiction movie about rival gangs competing against each other in synth pop bands but with the vibe of Night of the Comet after an apocalyptic event that destroys most of the human race and people are rebuilding civilization and re-creating culture while solving conflict in artistic ways rather than through violence. Or like a New Wave Goth version of Breakin’ or Krush Groove. Who wouldn’t want to see that movie happen? Well memory theater, the Filipinx band from Berkeley, California has the perfect music for the soundtrack. Listen to “Eyes Within Night” on Spotify and follow the group on their Bandcamp page.
The title track to post-rock band Heron’s new album Sun Release is like the dawn itself. Guitar intones with an impressionistic figure, minimal and calm. Then around the three minute mark multiple guitars flood forth with a fiery swarm of majestic riffs to make one forget that it was once quiet and introspective like the dark of night between when there is a moonset and the inevitable sunrise. The song captures the false dawn and then the tentative flickers of illumination before the sun rises into the sky in all its cosmic glory illuminate the world into wakefulness. With drums and the full instrumentation engaging Heron captures that moment between a sleepy early morning and full-flung day. Listen to “Sun Release” on Soundcloud and explore follow Heron and explore Sun Release further at the links below.
BellaBoo’s remix of “SATURDAZE” by def.sound inverts the emphasized sonics in a way by bringing the Clear Mortifee’s and def.sounds’ vocals to the forefront while emphasizing the beat over the sharply focused synth melody of the original. The cymbals and bass are given a dub treatment to echo with an ever so slightly phased effect to expand the hypnotic and otherworldly feel. The subdued tones are brought up to lend the remix a downtempo quality even as the vocals take on the properties of a sample used as part of the dub as well. It displays the producer’s talents for creative re-imagining in his own style as his original songs favor organic percussion sampled and spliced in with electronic beats and dreamy, cool color atmospherics with a gently playful sensibility like he lets daydreams take bits of sound, rhythm and melody and run with them until they make a kind of subconscious sense that translates into an aesthetic that seems pleasantly familiar but mysterious all at once. It’s a way of approaching making music that remixer and songwriting seem to share thus a fine match. Listen below and follow def.sound at the links provided.
With a palpable vulnerability and affection, frogi’s “time” is overflowing with expansive melodies and an elevated tone. There is a soft touch to the songwriting as she sings to her significant other about how maybe time will heal the ailing relationship in which she sees some hope. And that if what’s left isn’t nurtured it will be the end. She doesn’t want it to be the end but she feels powerless over what seems to others inevitable. The undertone is a sense of hopeful resignation, resisting what she knows is already over while acknowledging for herself that letting go will hurt so much if she doesn’t give it the spark of a chance it deserves. The song employs unconventional structure aimed more at the emotional impact and experiential aspect of the songwriting and frogi’s singing style a fascinating mix of free verse poetry and classic pop. Listen to “time” on Soundcloud and listen to her other recent single “peace of mind” on Spotify.
The music video for Oliver Marson’s “Cocaine Romance” is like a short Panos Cosmatos film about the paranoia and amplified unreality that the title of the song suggests. The female lead runs through glowing red forests and other characters, like rejects from the Black Lodge, look on with an eerie knowing of her dark end after losing her mind while driving away desperately to escape from her tormentors. It’s Lovecraftian in that way minus overt denizens from a dark, menacing part of the universe. The music is like a synth pop song written by The Damned with dramatic vocals and a neo-Gothic story about a doomed romance based on the shaky foundation of a fondness for substances and not something more substantial. Though upbeat and melodic there is a darkness to the song that resonates with juxtaposition of brightness with personal darkness in the likes of New Order’s “True Faith” and Depeche Mode’s “Never Let Me Down Again” and their own surreal videos. Oliver Marson is tapping into similar sensibilities but his sound is a more contemporary take on the aesthetic of that era with more distorted synths and a hint of self-awareness. Watch the video below and follow Oliver Marson at the links provided.
Remi’s new single “5 A.M.” features his friend and collaborator Whosane and together the two artists vividly evoke how the mind in extreme circumstances often forces us to the dark places of the truth we might otherwise leave buried. It was inspired by a time when Remi had been sick with the flu and as his body was processing out the virus in its various ways his psyche was bubbling with past emotional trauma that had not been properly processed either yet sparking in Remi the need to articulate that for himself the experience and then to cast it forth as a song with the help of his friend Silent J’s (no relation or connection, really) beat. The result is a vibrant song that is haunted by atmospheric synths, expertly syncopated electronic percussion and self-avowedly self-deprecating and shockingly frank and vivid lyrics that swim and flow with uncomfortable truths amid dreamy melodies. Listen to “5 A.M.” on Soundcloud and follow the Australian hip-hop artist Remi at the links below.
Queen City Sounds and Art 
You must be logged in to post a comment.