SubmitHub – Page 25 – Queen City Sounds and Art

Ceremony Shadows Have Crafted the Perfect Industrial Dance Song of Personal Empowerment and Body Autonomy With “Reclaim”

Ceremony Shadows, photo courtesy the artists

The attention to rhythmic and tonal detail in the production of Ceremony Shadows’ “Reclaim” helps to draw the listener into its message of empowering bodily autonomy, an all too relevant and poignant subject these days. The track could broadly be considered darkwave but its sonic richness and immersive, cinematic sound is reminiscent of Front Line Assembly particularly in the male vocals. But also more modern masters of industrial techno like Spike Hellis and Boy Harsher with the beautiful clarity and percussive quality of the synth lines and programmed drums. You feel like you’re there in the song experiencing it directly because the production creates such a sense of space an emotional resonance. Listening to the song feels like hearing the subversive danger of industrial music anew and the song while not aggressive fortifies a sense of personal empowerment that begins within and can expand and connect with like-minded others. It should be a darkwave/Goth dance club/night hit if it isn’t already. Listen to “Reclaim” on Spotify and follow Portland, Oregon’s Ceremony Shadows at the links below.

Ceremony Shadows on Facebook

Ceremony Shadows on Instagram

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eremony Shadows on YouTube

Cat Ridgeway’s Exuberant Yet Gutting “Sprinter” is a Song About Depression and the Loss of a Friend

The title track to Cat Ridgeway’s new album Sprinter expertly uses low and quiet dynamics to reflect how many things in your life can come at you in overwhelming blasts. If you’re mentally healthy you can weather that experience with some degree of success. But if you’re not doing so well you can ignore all the warning signs piling up under the belief you can outrun the momentum of accumulating stressors that aren’t going to go away if you don’t attend to them. The song is about a friend Ridgeway lost to despair and the line about “Still got that damn check engine light” as a metaphor for red flags in your mental health is memorable and poignant. The distorted guitar in that 90s alternative rock vein adds a dramatic flair to the song but Ridgeway’s songwriting isn’t a throwback and when the song hits the tender and tranquil outro the note struck is one of a deep sadness and sense of loss. For all the song’s early exuberance reflecting the sort of best face forward pantomime of confidence makes the ending all the more impactful. Ridgeway’s words of reaching self-awareness after the terrible fact and experiencing a gutting guilt too late to do anything other than compound the hurting linger with you long after the song is over. Watch the video for “Sprinter” on YouTube and follow Cat Ridgeway at the links below.

catridgeway.com

Cat Ridgeway on Twitter

Cat Ridgeway on Facebook

Cat Ridgeway on Instagram

Pink Must’s “Morphe Sun” is a Psychedelic IDM Pop Song That Beckons You Along With Its Otherworldly and Organic Flow

Pink Must is set to release its self-titled debut album on February 28, 2025 via the Dutch label 15 love. The single “Morphe Sun” reflects the process in which More Eaze and Lynne Avery engaged in part of the songwriting with Avery sending a recording to Eaze and the latter cutting the track up and reassembling it and sending it back before writing the next section of the song. It has jangly, melty guitar sounds and a processed sound like a 90s IDM track done on 4-track but with modern production techniques. Think like a turn of the century Boards of Canada track or early Black Moth Superrainbow through the lens of lo-fi pop. It has an otherworldly feel but imbued with an intimate emotional resonance. Perhaps a bit of the cut-up technique as applied to music as a sort of remix of a song whose previous form doesn’t exist. The touch of vocal processing just adds to the sense of the strange and left field in a way that is inviting in line with the song’s organic flow of rhythm and texture directed by an idiosyncratic sensibility that doesn’t demand being taken on its own terms as already establishing that connection with you immediately if you’re open to sounds that aren’t standard pop fare. Listen to “Morphe Sun” on Spotify and follow Brooklyn’s Pink Must on Instagram.

O Slow’s “Every Time You Come Back, You Come Colder” is a Downtempo Dream Pop Song About the Gradual Dissolution of a Friendship

You can hear an ache and a melancholic yearning in O Slow’s “Every Time You Come Back, You Come Colder.” The echoing tones, the delicate guitar work and the ethereal vocals are reminiscent of Björk’s more dream pop leanings with a similar intensity of feeling that can seem less committed unless you actually pay attention to what is being sung. The song is about a once close friendship that seems to be turning increasingly distant with no explanation and how that can feel like a strange betrayal in which one might rightfully seek a reason behind this change in the nature of the relationship. Perhaps one could interpret in the lyrics something more than feelings of friendship but in the modern era people can come to see a friendship as something casual when in reality friendships can often outlast romantic associations and prove more durable. One picks up on a well of sadness from the song’s gorgeous soundscaping and fans of The Knife will appreciate its rich sonic details in tone and rhythm and the dynamic structure of the song that keeps expansive yet introspective. Listen to “Every Time You Come Back, You Come Colder” on Spotify and follow O Slow on Instagram.

Envyes’ Video for Lushly Nostalgic Dream Pop Single “Blessings” Emphasizes Life’s Quiet Treasures

Envyes pairs its nostalgic and lo-fi hazy dream pop single “Blessings” with Hi-8 footage of the Baltimore Zoo and a cemetery in Hunt Valley, Maryland for an entrancing audio-visual experience. The aesthetics together reinforce the song’s themes of appreciating the things and experiences of your everyday that you take for granted. The presentation of the song demonstrates a connection with life’s liminal moments in contrast to the more overtly exciting and stimulating situations that we’re socially conditioned to value most. But it is the connective tissues of your life that are just as important in creating meaning, context and significance and often it is the things that don’t push themselves into your consciousness with what might be described as an existential aggression that linger in the mind, offering a sense of belonging and comfort. The drifting melodies of the song with guitar, piano and gentle vocals embody these elements of one’s life so the song while not bombastic has an overall effect of feeling like something one can live within and with without it needing to command one’s constant focus yet rewarding connecting with it. Watch the video for “Blessings” on YouTube and follow Envyes at the links provided.

Envyes on TikTok

Envyes on Bandcamp

Envyes linktr.ee

KAPUT Claws Back the Peace of Personal Time on Exhilarating Post-Punk Single “Sucker”

The wiry momentum of “Sucker,” the latest single from Chicago art punks KAPUT is seething with distortion and a kind of desperate exhaustion. That lends the song an edge that lends its pointed commentary about the seemingly constant static coming your way just getting through modern life and the demands and expectations for you constantly in terms of perceived duties, obligations and attention. Amid the claustrophobic, urgent cacophony and persistent rhythm Nadia Garofalo’s vocals provide a human clarity that becomes so poignant in the final chorus of “Hey give me a minute/Well what about me” as it speaks directly to how everything is demanded of you in late capitalism down to the any spare seconds and if you don’t at least try to claim that back without having to justify your own needs to not have every moment of life spoken for by someone or something else you’ll never get it. Anyone that has worked a regular job in modern America or anywhere else where the technocrats are selling their tools of holding everyone accountable for every minute through workplace surveillance systems of some kind and how that “striving” culture bleeds into everything will recognize the spirit of this song immediately. Whatever happened to just living and having time to have your mind wander where it will and simply enjoying your time not dedicated to commerce? Can’t have that in oligarch-dominated human society, sucker. Resisting this extraction of the vitality of life can and should be one of the lines of resistance to commodifying everything to the nth degree. KAPUT makes that act seem exciting. Listen to the song “Sucker” on Spotify and follow KAPUT at the links below.

KAPUT on Instagram

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Heavy Feelings Conjures the Essence of Feelings of Not Belonging on No Wave Gothic Rock Single “Breather”

Heavy Feelings, photo courtesy the artists

Heavy Feelings puts into words a difficult feeling to convey with accuracy on the “Breather” single. The title suggests multiple meanings including merely being a person who breathes like all humans must but also a need to get a break from feeling the pressure to conform instead of just be allowed to be different. To feel like you have to explain something about the way you are when you shouldn’t have to. And that sense of being stifled for nothing. The line “Someday I’ll run out of ways to explain there’s nothing to fix, it’s always this way, can’t find the right things to say” perfectly sums up the existential exhaustion you can reach when it feels like you’re being interrogated and picked apart by normies that feel like they have to figure out you can’t be just like them even if you’re not demanding they be like you. The urgent melodies and echoing vocals in the chorus express perfectly a discordant mood that is getting a bit of catharsis in the song’s asymmetrical structure and willingness to sprawl past the edges of conventional songwriting methods. It as its own kind of hooks and like the lyrics illustrate perfectly it demands acceptance on its own terms. If you like your post-punk a little more unconventional this song and the Anatomy EP (released December 20, 2024) are what you should make the effort to take in. Listen to “Breather” on Spotify and follow Heavy Feelings at the links below.

https://open.spotify.com/track/4Aq2gwL6I1VfUKCmfWYEIe

Heavy Feelings on Amazing Radio

Heavy Feelings on Instagram

Bending Grid and Jolie Grieco Team Up For a Tale of Love in a Hurry on Synthwave Single “Neon Heat”

The saturated synths and percussive electronic bass lines in Bending Grid’s “Neon Heat” catches you up in the song’s upbeat momentum from the start. When Jolie Grieco’s vocals come in they’re like something you’d expect to hear on the soundtrack to a better yet still bombastic 80s action movie or a 2020’s tapping into that vibe with the clarity of modern production. Fans of synthwave will appreciate the way the heady rhythms and rich tone pair well with melancholic melodies and the expertly placed transitions into spacious introspection before the song gets back into high gear before transitioning into a satisfying ending. The song’s arc reflects the thrilling melodrama of a story of lust, seduction and love in a hurry but without the desperation one might expect. Listen to “Neon Heat” on Spotify and follow Bending Grid at the links provided.

Bending Grid on Twitter

Bending Grid on Facebook

Bending Grid on TikTok

Bending Grid on Instagram

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Bending Grid on YouTube

Loic Moonmattress’s Ambient Hip-Hop Single “Last Nostalgia” Poignantly Signals Goodbye to a Previous Chapter in Life

Loic Moonmattress <i>Last Nostalgia</i> cover

A poignant self-awareness informs the title track to Loic Moonmattress’s new EP Last Nostalgia (December 18, 2025). In the song the artist looks back on a chapter in his life he recognizes has come to an end in a way that prompted some moments of self-examination with a sense of how that period like many distinct periods in our existence isn’t the beginning or the end but part of a hopefully long life story which helped to shape us for the better and the struggles that in retrospect were sometimes self-imposed by our attitudes in the complexity that is lived experience. The lyrics are like the impressionistic thoughts read in cadence over harmonic drones that resonate with the clarity of a waking dream while minimal keyboards keep the cadence and later on lightly distorted guitar lends the often borderline ethereal track a tactile immediacy that brings string of reflections back to the present tense and the world of this moment. The song blurs the line between experimental hip-hop, ambient and dream pop in a unique way that is welcome when a lot of music is trying to be in an established style but Loic Moonmattress has never really settled for being in some pocket seeming to prefer to chart a different and consistently fascinating musical path. Watch the video for “Last Nostalgia” on YouTube and follow the Edmonton-based artist at the links below.

Loic Moonmattress on Instagram

BAGGY GRL’s Heady Industrial Dance Single “Love is on the Screen” Comments on the Disconnected Nature of Virtual Associations

The distorted low end pulses and modulated beats that run through BAGGY GRL’s “Love is on the Screen” create a sense of headlong urgency. And one that is reflected in the music video with its flashes, jump cuts and lo-fi production like a found footage horror intermixed with scenes of the producer frolicking in a bathtub, on a balcony, on a psychedically colorful couch, in darkened rooms and in the depths of an interdimensional cosmos. The horror featuring BAGGY GRL as well like a miscreant loose in a hardware superstore. The pace of the song accelerates with a thrilling sense that you’re not quite where the song is going to go with its electronic industrial dance sounds that fans of Machine Girl and Boy Harsher will appreciate. There is a confrontational spark to BAGGY GRL’s performance that gives the song an edge to the playful spirit on screen as the artist offers perspectives on the nature of virtual relationships when the illusions of performative identity dissolve. Watch the video for “Love is on the Screen” on YouTube and follow BAGGY GRL at the links below. Her new album BADMOUTH dropped January 22, 2025.

BAGGY GRL on Instagram