SubmitHub – Page 83 – Queen City Sounds and Art

Chris Portka’s Gloriously Wild and Raw Noise Pop Song “your music is trash” is the Deconstructed Rock and Roll We Need Now

Chris Portka’s “your music is trash” sounds like something Ween and the Flaming Lips secretly did together in the early 90s before a larger public got hip to their deal. It’s a gloriously noisy, brashly lo-fi psychedelic anti-rock, splintered and deconstructed melody with vocals that are blown out with much of the rest of the sounds beyond explicable recognition other than keeping a strange consistency and a tripped out sweetness in the song. Had this been the 2000s you’d assume this was a new band on the Siltbreeze label or a cousin band to Times New Viking. That vibe that isn’t for everyone but true connoisseurs of untamed and rebellious weird music. And Portka released an entire album of this sort of thing with various incarnations and sounds like a dissected and reassembled No Age with a cool bit of freak folk dropped in called what else but Trash Music which released on August 1, 2023 and available now on streaming, digital download and very limited edition vinyl. Listen to “your music is trash” on Spotify and connect with Portka at the links below.

Chris Portka on TikTok

Chris Portka on Facebook

Chris Portka on Twitter

Chris Portka on YouTube

Chris Portka on Bandcamp

Chris Portka on Instagram

Charm School Casts Off Fake Generational Cultural Inheritance on Noisy Post-Punk Single “Simulacra”

Charm School, photo by Destiny Robb @allfunk

Charm School seems to have tapped into a well of influence on the angular and splayed dynamics of “Simulacra” that includes both The Fall and Pere Ubu and more modern No Wave-esque post-punkers Lithics and Protomartyr. The steady bass line carries the lifeblood pulse of the song on a slow arc of tonality. Guitar spikes and quick echo fades off like the musical equivalent of splashes of garish color on a white background. At other times the guitar provides a haunted melody before transforming back into a more mechanistic sound. The drums frame it all with rapid fills and moments of sustained texture. All as enhancements of a song that seems like pointed commentary no the youth culture of today and the context in which it emerged in a fractured and dissolving political monolith like “the skittish empire of the ‘United’ States/trying to make haste to eliminate each other.” The lyrics mention the counterfeit endless copies of everything being peddled as something to be excited about and the counterfeit personal gestures and aspirations that serve as a psychological and civilizational feedback loop to nowhere. But the closing line of these litanies “But I’m not listening” suggests the option of rejecting the foundations of these ersatz choices which was as Greil Marcus said over the course of his classic 1989 book Lipstrick Traces: A Secret History of the 20th Century one of the great contributions of punk as passed down from the Situationists and their spiritual and philosophical ancestors. But here it sounds like a knowing way to call all the hullabaloo about nothing real a load of nonsense no one needs to take seriously. Listen to “Simulacra” on Spotify and follow Charm School from Louisville, Kentucky at the links below. The band’s EP Finite Jest, which as a title speaks much and more succinctly clever than it has a right to be, released on July 21, 2023.

Charm School on Bandcamp

Charm School on Instagram

Anton Barbeau’s Psychedelic Power Pop Single “Waiting On The Radio” is a Soothing Dose of Sanity in Less Than Sanguine Times

Anton Barbeau is one of those musicians still very active and prolific whose roots stretch back to American and international underground music with great creative distinction if not household fame. He has worked with the great neo-psychedelic band The Bevis Frond, he has collaborated with the late, great Scott Miller of The Loud Family and Game Theory fame, and for the new album his guest performers include Colin Moulding (XTC), Andy Metcalfe (Soft Boys/Robyn Hitchcock’s The Egyptians) and Chris Stamey (dB’s). That new album being Morganmusik/Nachtschlager which released on September 22, 2023. The lead single “Waiting On The Radio” features Barbeau on a trip on a bus across the country bemoaning the tire on the bus being busted yet taking solace in the promise of hearing “something golden” on the radio. In the story we get updates about how the driver should have retired years ago but in this America needed the money to get by and how everyone on the bus including himself is losing patience. But Barbeau and the band take us into gloriously beautiful psychedelic passages of expansive melody. It’s the kind of power pop song that made the first wave of “college rock” in the 80s so rewarding with tight yet imaginative songcraft that could resonate with frustrations of everyday life yet provide the kind of emotional release that was both soothing and captivating. Yet the song doesn’t feel like a throwback. Rather, it highlights how everyone has static in their lives that they have to get through and it needn’t feel like some end of the world inconvenience. It’s a very sane song in less than sanguine times. Watch the video for “Waiting On The Radio” on YouTube and follow Anton Barbeau at the links below.

Anton Barbeau on Instagram

Anton Barbeau on Bandcamp

Abadongo Abaganda’s “Okukomawe” Brings a Sustained Burst of Passionate Fiddle Music From Kampala, Uganda Circa 1948

“Okukomawe” or “The Return Of The King Mutesa” is a song by Abadongo Abaganda recorded in 1948 in Kampala, Uganda. It is part of an LP that released on September 15, 2023 called The Secret Museum of Mankind: Atlast of Instruments – Fiddles Vol. 1 available now on digital and vinyl as well as a special limited edition with a lithograph through Jalopy Records. The song has a sound that seems like it had to have been accomplished through electronic means today but the rapid solo on the endingidi (tube fiddle) was done with analog instruments played with an energy and mastery of the fiddle that allows for a resonance that goes beyond everyday experience with a hearty vocal delivery in the local language of the time of the recording that too transcends time and specific cultural context. The white noise from imperfections of transference to now just adds to the authenticity and charm of the music as something a modern producer might introduce digitally whereas here it’s unclear when or where this track might be from and yet it keeps you listening in to its passionate performance for the nearly three minute duration. Listen to “Okukomawe” on YouTube and for more information on the album and to order please visit the links below.

The Secret Museum of Mankind: Atlast of Instruments – Fiddles Vol. 1 on Bandcamp

jalopyrecords.org

Alex McArtor Looks Back in Love and Nuanced Regret on Moody and Upbeat “Oxygen Thief”

Alex McArtor returns with a new single called “Oxygen Thief.” The guitar sound sits in the background like droplets of water on the ocean and the bass sound and percussion setting a steady pace as McArtor relates a story of love and conflicted feelings about its dissolution. Clearly the song is written from the perspective of having moved on but looking back with some yearning for what that bond brought into their shared life and the sense of romance and sweet feelings and how in some ways it felt like a relationship defined by a kind of unspoken dependence and McArtor sings about how she felt addicted to the love of her beloved like oxygen and that she was the oxygen thief. It’s a clever and revealing twist in the song that lends some weight and depth to a song that has such an upbeat mood underneath the touch of melancholic mood and ethereal atmospheres and a creative flourish that McArtor has brought to her body of work thus far. Watch the lyric video for “Oxygen Thief” on YouTube and follow McArtor at the links provided.

Alex McArtor on Facebook

Alex McArtor on TikTok

Alex McArtor on Intagram

alexmcartormusic.com

The Seshen Help Us to Gentle Embrace Impermanence and Uncertainty in a Time of Turmoil With Dreamy Are Pop Single “Lost at Night”

Bay Area art rock/post-punk luminaries The Seshen is releasing its new album Nowhere on October 6, 2023. The album traces the group’s development and struggles as people and as a band with the marriage and divorce of Lalin St. Juste and Aki Ehara as part of the backdrop and emotional resonance of the songwriting. The single “Lost at Night” evokes a deep sense of personal disconnect and wistfulness for a time and place when things felt “normal” or at least like one was on some kind of footing even if that could feel tenuous at times. But everyone in the past few years has probably had their foundations shaken a little personally and in life in general. This song and its hazy production and echoing melodies with spectral tones and warping, bending guitar sounds in the mist of synths with St. Juste’s soulful vocals and the propulsive percussion anchoring the song and keeping those disconsolate moods from carrying us off to places even more removed from our center. It’s a song that feels gentle and compassionate in its ability to transport us from a place of utterly mystified reverie to one of acceptance of the inherent impermanence of almost all things in our lives and to find hope in how things can resolve when we make the effort or have the privilege of indulging patience in allowing events and hearts to reach their eventual places when they are beyond our ability to influence them. Listen to “Lost at Night” on Spotify and follow The Seshen on Instagram.

Dick Dudley Exults in the Frustration Tensions of Dietary Restrictions on the Gnarled and Exultant Post-punk Song “Salt”

A thick bass line opens Dick Dudley’s “Salt” before the song opens up into a frantic and noisy clash of guitar and nearly shouted lyrics. It all sustains a borderline chaotic mood to the end with moments of suspended introspection as the song hangs and falls back into the swing of the this airing of frustrations and grievances that come from the reality of living with kidney disease and needing to avoid salt while staying hydrated. But the habits of living lead to an embarrassing situation like inviting friends over for dinner and saying one might cook but there’s no salt in the food and explaining why it doesn’t have the same flavorfulness it might have with a bit of salt. Although the song is about bemoaning the reality of one’s life circumstances it also has the spirit of embracing the limitations the way one might with the limitations you impose on creative work to encourage new manifestations of how the elements work out. But even then it’s nice to indulge the forbidden elements to exult in the full range of options open to our existence. “Salt” navigates those tensions with a joyful release of nervous energy. Listen to “Salt” on Spotify and follow Dick Dudley on Instagram.

Bad Flamingo’s Post-Apocalyptic Noir Americana “Oh My My” is a Timeless Love Song for a Cormac McCarthy-esque Future

Bad Flamingo, photo courtesy the artists

Bad Flamingo always seems to make changes to its sound and style with every single and “Oh My My” is like an early Americana and country song in its spareness of composition. Also kudos on having a great new photo with a signature style with every single. Other bands take note. The song has the kind of production you couldn’t have done quite the same a hundred years ago and yet the way the song is arranged and performed it’s elements could have come together before the advent of electric instruments and modern production methods. It’s yet another chapter in what seems to be the story arc of two rebels on the run from a stultified mainstream society. But this time there’s a sense that the duo are running from a world in the late stage of an empire and not depending the dubious comforts of what passes for civilization. The opening line “It’s desert on all three sides” sets the stage for a song filled with nice touches of tactile detail like “I stood up on the table, threw one back and peeled the label” and “I dance with the devil under the neon.” Musically it recalls Neil Young’s “Ohio” and “The Chain” by Fleetwood Mac at the same time and that sense of camaraderie in a time of troubles. The percussion provides as much texture as rhythm, hushed vocals convey the intimate energy of the lyrics and experiences shared by partners and the guitar and banjo combination give a sense of timelessness by evoking the past and the future at once. Listen to “Oh My My” on Spotify and follow Bad Flamingo at the links below.

Bad Flamingo on Facebook

Bad Flamingo on Instagram

Bad Flamingo on YouTube

badflamingomusic.com

Peter Martin’s Dream Pop Song “Musical Chairs” is a Wry and Subtle Dig at Incompetent and Corrupt Political Leaders

Peter Martin, photo courtesy the artists

A warm drone leads us into Peter Martin’s “Musical Chairs.” Vocals that float like an incandescent presence in the musical fog drift in and the song unfolds more brightly at the halfway point. Hovering tones haunt the background and a spare guitar figure contributes to an increasing luminosity of tone along with a gorgeous, slow synth burst toward the end before strings ease us out of the song. Overall it has an effect like someone waking up in the early morning, before sunrise with vague memories of a dream. Which is perfect considering the backdrop of the song written by the band in a single day was the resignation of Tory politician Liz Truss who was Prime Minister of the UK from September 6, 2022 until October 25 of the same year, her term in office an exercise in ineffective incompetence and a passing dream of a nation still mired in the supply side economic foolishness that plagues much of the Western world. Truss was just a blip on the Conservative Party continuum and this song and its tranquil vibes is like an amused noting of business as usual but perhaps more absurd than usual. The title of the song is both subtle and on the nose which is an achievement in itself. Given that part of the inspiration for the song was a reading of the writing of the great Mancunian poet John Cooker Clarke and his inspired witticisms the song seems like a fully realized work of dream pop and social commentary. Listen to “Musical Chairs” Spotify where you can find other songs by the band.

Rocker C’s Lo-Fi Synth Pop Track “Time” is a Song About Indulging One’s Desires as a Path to the Vitality of Life

Rocker C adopts a layer of scuzzy production on “Time” with a heavily distorted synth line that sits in the foreground like in the early part of the song like an ambient reminder of a gritty reality all around us. But alongside and underneath is a moody, Giorgio Moroder-esque melodic line that accompanies the vocals that gives the song both a lo-fi edge and the quality of an obscure song you’d hear on an AM station in the 1980s that sticks with you for years but which remains an enigma in your brain until you rediscover it on a playlist that unearths forgotten greats of synth pop from outside the USA and the UK. On the surface level the song seems to be about how little time we have in life and we can waste it doing things we don’t enjoy or which don’t fill us with joy and vitality. Rocker C seems to suggest maybe waiting for those moments of passion can be frustrating but the fulfillment of which is what gives life a significance outside the drab and mundane experiences that seem to be part and parcel of everyday existence. Listen to “Time” on Spotify where you can find more music by the Swedish songwriter.