SubmitHub – Page 28 – Queen City Sounds and Art

Super Massive’s Retro Synth Pop Single “Caught In A Web” Highlights the Insidious Aspects of Our Hyper-Connected Culture

Super Massive, photo courtesy the artists

“Caught In A Web” sounds like Super Massive was tapping into some early 90s Berlin dance club that hosted Lene Lovich to infuse the song with some eccentric retro flavor. Its bouncy rhythms and percussive synth tones conspire to support the song’s themes of the modern fact of being connected with all kinds of people due to social media and the way technology interacts with our lives and impacts our psyches and self-conceptions, how that warps how we relate to one another and by association how modern life often makes being connected necessary to function with the economy even if we minimize our participation. Super Massive plays upon how that connectivity has its own seductive energy that encourages knowing too much about what other people are up to in an insidious kind of surveillance culture. Listen to “Caught In A Web” on Spotify and follow Super Massive at the links below.

Super Massive on Twitter

Super Massive on Facebook

Super Massive on Instagram

Super Massive on Bandcamp

Super Massive on YouTube

Robert Ascroft’s single With Britta Phillips “Where Did You Go” Finds Its Haunted, Sensuous Pop Manifested Vividly in a Brooding Noir Music Video

Robert Ascroft and Britta Phillips, photo courtesy the artists

The video for Robert Ascroft’s song “Where Did You Go” features vocalist Britta Phillips (Luna, Dean & Britta) driving down a lonely highway in black and white looking troubled while a less troubled version of herself occasionally seems to taunt her from the passenger seat. The song itself reflects this noir image with a light buzz of guitar and echoing piano lines with a slinky bass line that accents the steady percussion hitting the beats like the images of the dashed lines of the highway streaming behind the image. At some point the troubled Britta, who has been driving, disappears and the other Britta gets a moment of thrilled panic. The song itself seems to be about haunted insecurity and dissociation while contemplating the aspect of oneself that seemed to be able to hold it together and act with confidence and clear thought—about feeling lost and and not quite oneself to the point where you feel adrift from the course of your own life. The song is one of the singles from Ascroft’s forthcoming album Echo Still Remains is out January 31, 2025 via Hand Drawn Dracula which promises plenty of stories of contemplative melancholy and sorting through memory and the neglected places in the heart. Watch the video for “Where Did You Go” on YouTube and follow Robert Ascroft at the links provided.

robertascroft.com

Robert Ascroft on Twitter

Robert Ascroft on Facebook

Robert Ascroft on Instagram

Norwegian Ambient Artist springwell. Orchestrates Billowing Harmonic Drones and Gentle Breezes For Becalming Single “air”

“air” by springwell. emerges from the ether more than begins or ends. The sound of breezes pass through the sound field from various directions paradoxically slowly and with momentum. A harmonic drone flows in expanding and repeating slow arcs like clouds visibly floating across the placid sky or fog shifting in opacity as it passes into and through the landscape illuminated faintly by moonlight. The effect is almost tactile the way any of those weather phenomena often are and with the same calming gentleness and tranquility that can transfer those moods into your own consciousness and replace the usual, everyday anxieties and concerns. Listen to “air” on Spotify and follow springwell. on Instagram.

Expose’s Vivid Yet Enigmatic Noise Rock Single “The Constant” is a Trip Into Unorthodox Psychedelia

“The Constant” by L.A.’s Expose puts vivid and intricate, atmospheric guitar work to the forefront while the vocals haunt the background like a modern cognate to Slint gone psychedelic. And like the latter there’s a dreamlike haze to its drifting melodies and surges of rhythm. Those drifts of tone swirl a little like there’s a bit of wide-ranging phaser on the guitar allowing its soaring moments to seemingly move slowly but with a bit of incandescently fiery intensity. In the end the song settles into a spacious fade out with elements pulling back into a luminous sonic fog. The music is of a lineage that skips the past fifteen years of psychedelic rock and seems to tap into that time when The Flaming Lips still had Jonathan Donahue or when he was emerging with the early Mercury Rev recordings but the gentler and more mellow end of that without compromising on getting into noisy, mind-bending musical spaces. Watch the video for “The Constant” on Youube and follow Expose at the links below. The band’s album ETC releases on streaming, digital download and limited edition vinyl January 24, 2025 via Quindi Records.

“Double Blind” is tinvìs’ Heartfelt Song of Reflection and Regret for Love Lost

The undercurrents of “Double Blind” by Austin-based singer-songwriter tinvìs, aka Joel Daniel, run with a measured calm but over it in his vocals one hears the yearning, regret and pain paralleled by the simmer of rhythm and mournful strings. Together the elements create a rich tapestry of mood of someone who recognizes deeply how he more or less neglected an important relationship in consistently small yet significant ways taking it for granted in pursuit of a career blinding him to everyday life. But when that relationship is gone he loses track of time and a sense of place that means something to his core, a foundation to his life he failed to maintain. It isn’t a melodramatic song of heartbreak and heartache but one that feels more like the kind of deep and persistent hurt and and shame at not doing the right thing when it would have been so easy and should have come naturally. And yet it is this flash of awareness that seems to have instilled a dimension of emotional growth that will hopefully remain if the connections can be rekindled and if not a sensitivity to the needs of the people around one that will carry on to the next relationship because being a human and becoming the kind you want to evolve into can be a lifelong work in progress. Watch the lyric video for “Double Blind” on YouTube and follow tinvìs at the links provided.

tinvis.com

tinvìs on Instagram

Charm School’s Frantic and Edgy Noise Rock Eruption “Cherry Red” Is Like a Nightmare and Fever Dream Colliding With One Another

Charm School, photo courtesy the artists

Charm School’s edgy and frantic guitar lines that run through “Cherry Red” gives the song an unsettling and chaotic quality. Like a manic, desperate repeating scream of guitar alongside another riff of pulsing, distorted bursts creating an asymmetrical rhythm that comes together in moments while the vocals almost deadpan seem to paint the picture of someone debauched and corrupt who stumbles into their comeuppance or into their accumulated consequences of a life ill lived. Altogether the song sounds nightmarish and fever dream-like at once ending on roaring whorls of sound and shouts of the chorus of “I’ll be what fucks you up!” The song has the intensity and sonic violence of a hardcore song but its tonal choices and structure is more unorthodox and more in the realm of the likes of noise rock bands like Chat Pile and Mclusky in both sound and substance. Listen to “Cherry Red” on Spotify and follow Louisville, Kentucky’s Charm School at the links below. The band’s new album Debt Forever is out January 21, 2025 on limited colored vinyl, digital download and streaming.

Charm School on Instagram

SKLOSS Marshall the Massive, Doomy Shoegaze For the Fiery and Hypnotic “The Pattern Speaks”

In watching the video for SKLOSS’s “The Pattern Speaks” a bit of the mood is set when the neon light above the doors to a night time hours BRODIE FOOD MART only has the letters to “DIE MART” lit up as the clerk cleans the doors the a refrigerated case. What could be next? Security camera footage and one of the employees reading Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States before getting on the mic to sing after yet another has started a fuzzy, moody guitar riff. Customers file in seemingly in a hazy frame of mind while the song expands into a kind of heavy, driving psychedelic drone and ghostly vocals courtesy the drummer who mere moments before was reading that Zinn book. The song ramps up to hypnotic, fiery propulsive passages before going off the forward progression established into another pattern and the guitarist joins on vocals trading vocal lines with the drummer whose hat clearly says “Die Mart” and hey both are wearing that had as the customers nod and groove to the undeniable primal rhythm the band has established. But the fun draws to a close with people checking their phones and the band back to duties working the convenience store. But it’s also nice to know that some six plus minutes seemed to just breeze by in the wake of SKLOSS’s sonic frisson. Watch the video for “The Pattern Speaks” on YouTube and follow SKLOSS on Spotify. The duo’s debut album, also titled The Pattern Speaks, is due out March 7, 2025 via Fuzz Club for download, streaming and limited edition cloudy orange vinyl.

SKLOSS lnk.to

Motherhood’s Charmingly Eclectic “Grow High” Juxtaposes Whimsical Playfulness With Post-Punk Aggression

Motherhood charges right into the beginning of “Grow High” with a charming exuberance. But then treats us to some unorthodox rhythmic changes throughout the song that transforms what some might interpret as quirky into some exciting and intense passages of raw post-punk fury on full display in the imaginative musical video. The juxtaposition of playfulness with scenes seemingly of people checking out a solar eclipse, as many did in 2024, and the climax of the song and its nearly hardcore punk level of aggression makes “Grow High” seem like a wonderful dream in miniature with all the drama and unique melodic appeal one might want from a song that doesn’t restrict itself to a narrow genre. Watch the video for “Grow High” on YouTube and follow the trio from Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada at the links provided. The group’s new album Thunder Perfect Mind is out January 24, 2025 on vinyl, CD, digital download and streaming.

motherhood-music.com

Motherhood on Facebook

Motherhood on Instagram

Non-Functional Harmony’s Ambient Modern Classical Piece “Days” is a Sustained Expression of Melancholic Emotional Solidarity

An unsettled, melancholic, almost resigned mood courses through Non-Functional Harmony “Days.” It’s nearly abstract, processed piano chords stream into the horizon and a simple string line like a pall over a desolate space drifts in and through the soundscape in seeming mournful resonance about uncertain and perilous times. There is a palpable sense of loss in the track that looms even more when the vocal sounds bloom in cold sonic colors, slowly expanding arcs of tone like penitents seeking mercy from a seemingly hopeless situation for which they don’t know the reason for their suffering. It’s a moving song and while it doesn’t offer false hope or faint fires of resistance it expresses a feeling like one will have to gird oneself against a wave of darkness in the world for awhile even after what feels like years of struggle and sustained perseverance. And yet there is a comfort in its sounds through a spirit of emotional solidarity. Listen to “Days” on Spotify and follow Non-Functional Harmony at the links below.

nonfunctionalharmony.com

Non-Functional Harmony on Twitter

Non-Functional Harmony on Instagram

Per Störby Jutbring’s Cinematic, Melancholic and Heartbreaking Single “Swan Shaped Kite” Fuses Pop Accessibility and Classical Music Elegance

Per Störby Jutbring, photo courtesy the artist

Per Störby Jutbring combines pop song ideas with classical music performed by the Swedish The Malva Quartet for the warmly rendered album Tenants Of Misty Mansion (According To The Landlord) (out November 22, 2024 via HOOB Records). In the video for the lead single “Swan Shaped Kit” we see an elegantly detailed stop motion animation reminiscent of Wes Anderson’s 2009 film Fantastic Mr. Fox. But in the song there is a sense of melancholic reflection and quiet yearning evoked by interweaving stings floating over rich low end. We see anthropomorphic figures going through the motions of daily mundanity within the cut out view of a house that sits empty part of the time conveying a sense of loneliness and isolation. The figures sometimes seem to stand as if caught in a moment of poignant reverie on the brink of crying but not quite crossing over. It’s a beautiful piece of music and without needing the underlying narrative it is both musically and with the accompanying video visually affecting. Watch the video for “Swan Shaped Kite” on YouTube and follow Per Störby Jutbring at the links provided.