SubmitHub – Page 95 – Queen City Sounds and Art

I Want Poetry’s “People at Parties” is a Dream Pop Enticement to Break With Merely Yearning for Genuine Experiences in Our Socializing

I Want Poetry, photo by Elisabeth Mochner

“People at Parties” by German electropop duo I Want Poetry creates an incredibly melancholic mood from the very beginning. Lonely piano echoes ever so slowly along with the processed percussion and when the hazy swells of synth drift into the song and strings sashay into what feels like a slow dance through a deep passage of existential contemplation it gives a strong emotional resonance with the song’s lyrics. Tine von Bergen’s voice sounds like its coming to us from a dream as she offers a view of the way one’s social scene can feel very disconnected and performative and lacking in genuine connection. When she sings “we’re dancing in circles” and captures the ritualistic behaviors that enter into the realm of the dissociative except we all really want to have a real moment and to live in the moment rather than the second rate version that we often engage in when we go along to get along and lose ourselves a little. This song speaks to that yearning to break that cycle so deeply that even with its processional pace and ethereal tones it gently encourages following those instincts for pursuing more genuine experiences. Listen to “People at Parties” on Spotify and follow I Want Poetry at the links below.

I Want Poetry on Facebook

I Want Poetry on YouTube

I Want Poetry on Instagram

GoGo Penguin Orchestrates Tone, Rhythm and Mood to Convey Achieving Clarity and Closure on “Glimmerings”

GoGo Penguin’s “Glimmerings” begins as the name suggests with a faint, sub-ambient stirring of sounds that blooms into a finely accented bass line arpeggio and percussion shuffle over a slowly unfolding, background synth wash. When the piano comes in to provide a structured melody with a sense of urgency it’s like all the elements combine to heighten a sense of emotional cleansing through rigorous and intricate expressions of pure feeling. The complimentary tonal motion and collective mood conveys a strong sense of coming to a realization after mulling over disparate thoughts and feelings for a sense of uplift and clarity. Listen to “Glimmerings” on YouTube and follow the UK trio at the links provided.

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Sik Sik Sicks’ “Lie In It” is a Lively Pop-punk Call Out of Toxic Poseur Behavior

Sik Sik Sicks, photo courtesy the artists

Sik Sik Sicks begin “Lie In It” like a radio broadcast for the BBC announcing the track. But then the charged up beat goes directly into what sounds like the pop-punk equivalent of a diss track with specific references to the kind of person in your life who is a clinger on that contributes nothing to your life but gloms on to other people’s styles and lives and heads off criticism with a victim pose. But when you’re faking it trying to milk sympathy as a passive-aggressive power play for street cred. There are some choice digs in the song like “I will never run your race and yes you’re still the runner-up” and the chorus of “You’ve made your bed, you lie in it and that’s my final fuck you.” We’ve seen this dynamic in many social circles and the song speaks to how it takes entirely too long for anyone to call out shitty misbehavior by line after line doing so. Listen to “Lie In It” on YouTube and follow Sik Sik Sicks at the links below.

Sik Sik Sicks on TikTok

Sik Sik Sicks on Instagram

Biljana Heights’ Video for Soulful Dream Pop Song “Stranger” is a Mood Piece for Reconnecting With Your Authentic Self

Biljana Heights, photo by Sophie Caroline Gohr

In Biljana Heights’ video for “Stranger” we see her juxtaposed between dreamlike scenes in a cornfield and those in what looks like a luxury apartment in isolation. In both places she discovered an ashen orb that seems to be a catalyst for change by mere contact. The song is about being a stranger to oneself and rediscovering your identity, your authentic self and figuring out what it is in your life that you adopt to fit in to expectation, the personae and emotional habits one adopts that facilitate a socially pleasing façade and getting lost while paradoxically fitting in but at what cost? The song and its lush and subtle production and Heights’ soulful, sultry vocals are reminiscent of Lana Del Rey’s moodier compositions and with cinematic quality of the video and music together should appeal to fans of the work of Alex Garland and the music videos of Perfume Genius. Watch the video for “Stranger” on YouTube and follow Biljana Heights at the links provided.

Biljana Heights on Facebook

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Winter Hell’s Bedroom Dream Pop Song “High Time” is the Ideal Soundtrack For Creative Self-Indulgence on a Snow Day

Sioux Falls, South Dakota seems like an unlikely place to find left field music but with the independent record store Total Drag bringing in up and coming bands on the underground and indie circuit and the existence of noise rock/post-punk band Off Contact (formerly Lot Lizard) among others it’s difficult to say what you might find. And thus Winter Hell whose Lindy Wise is the singer in Off Contact. Winter Hell is a different sound entirely and its single “High Time” has a bedroom pop chillwave vibe that weaves together elegant and gentle melodies with Wise’s introspective vocals floating in a teaming flow of distorted synth and lo-fi electronic percussion. It has the quality of cassette you might find at a thrift store and not know where it’s from or when except that its sounds have an undeniable charm in how it subtly invites you into a journey into stay at home during a blizzard and get lost in musical daydream energy that would’t work with a higher fidelity production. Listen to “High Time” on Spotify and follow Winter Hell at the links provided.

Winter Hell on TikTok

Winter Hell on Facebook

Winter Hell on YouTube

Winter Hell on Bandcamp

Winter Hell on Instagram

Akts’ Kawaii Hyperpop Hit “Spirit Machin” Is Refreshingly Hype Yet Chill

Listening to “Spirit Machine” by Akts one might imagine a top 40 dance pop performance show that exists in an alternate universe of kawaii anime. The playful rhythms are a truly realized fusion of glitch pop, IDM and hyperpop. Even though the lyrics are all but impossible to suss out they convey meaning and when the song chills out toward the three minute mark like a frolic in a park that somehow manifests mid-song or taking a break out to get a drink in a pop-up cafe that will disappear in mid-moment with the logic of a stream of conscious video game where the utility of a material object only lasts as long as it’s necessary. There is a fresh energy to the song that as alien as it is in some respects it’s the kind of alien experience in music you want to have because it’s hype without being overwhelming. Listen to “Spirit Machine” on Spotify and connect with Akts at the links below.

Akts on TikTok

Akts on Instagram

Schnoz Slyly Uses the Metaphor of Being a Creature From Space for Social Persecution of Being the Other on “Aliens”

“Aliens” by Miami-based hip-hop artist schnoz sounds playfully mysterious like the alternative soundtrack to the video game Metroid. But when his vocals kick in with a story about being a “bonafide alien” he brings a bit of swagger to a story that could be a surreal take on what it must feel like to be a classic alien coming to earth via means not familiar to us humans and how even if you aren’t coming with nefarious intentions, human beings will act with terror and suspicion about your nature and motives. But isn’t that really also a metaphor for how we too often treat each other when we encounter someone that doesn’t look like our in group (racially, ethnically, socially, religiously, culturally etc.) and how many people will act like they don’t even know how to relate to that person and treat them accordingly. Schnoz identifies what it feels like to not want to start trouble but having it delivered to you merely because you are sufficiently different. Fans of Aesop Rock may appreciate schnoz’s cadence and use of creative beats drawing on mood more than mere rhythm. Listen to “Aliens” on YouTube and follow schnoz’s further exploits on Spotify.

Bondo’s Slowcore Post-Rock Song “New Brain” is a Contemplative Exploration of a Yearning for a Psychological Reset

Bondo’s contemplative yet uneasy “New Brain” brings us in with a lonely, spare, borderline atonal guitar line with drums like something born out a creative cauldron in which its players dropped Slint, Codeine, Unwound and Sonic Youth to produce a something melancholic and yearning. Toward the last fourth of the song the once tranquil musical elements come together in a clashing passage of heightened emotional intensity before easing back into impressionistic guitar work and rhythms. The minimal vocals are like neo-Beat poetry, the guitar progressions are like a call and response answer to self in an informal structure like a free jazz piece aiming to take on the quality of water with the tones resonating like droplets creating lingering waves creating interference patterns with one another that somehow resolve into evocative intersections. Its an apt dynamic for a song seemingly about wanting to have a new brain and reset one’s life, one’s habits and one’s possible future trajectory and having to come to terms with that not being a realistic outcome even if it would make everything easier. Listen to “New Brain” on Spotify and follow Bondo on Instagram.

Lynx the Indigo Child Wades Through Modern Life’s Everyday Struggles in the Mantra-Like “Without”

Lynx the Indigo Child, photo courtesy the artist

Lynx the Indigo Child speaks for a lot of us somewhere or throughout “Without” in listing a dazzling array of misgivings, frustrations and everyday horror and despair. His expert pacing of lyrics is like an impressionistic journey through American society and culture of the past several years but really the past few decades. But the list of grievances also includes his own shortcomings in the stream of things like medical bills, social media, the fiscal cliff, misogynist media grifters like Andrew Tate, those who would aim to be our masters or gurus like his own anger building and his own outlook that can trip up getting to where you want to be in life. Yet in this flow of grievances Lynx admits vulnerabilities and very direct human needs like how he can’t do without love or respect or “this foolish doubt” that make it easier to stave off the stream of static that can bring you down. The beat in the background of his rap is like something out of what Dilla did for A Tribe Called Quest or Champion Sound—dreamlike and hypnotic in its repetition like a soulful mantra of intent as context. Paired with a song that seems to be about enduring and holding onto hope against the odds it’s a perfect companion to the lyrics. Listen to “Without” on Spotify and connect with Lynx the Indigo Child at the links below.

Lynx the Indigo Child on TikTok

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American Watercolor Movement Launches Into Its Epic Science Fiction Concept Album The Odyssey of Captain Vivian Ribbons With Propulsive Lead Single “Onward the Night”

American Watercolor Movement, photo courtesy the artists

American Watercolor Movement is a New Jersey band that has taken forays into concepts for previous albums going back to its earliest releases in the late 90s. And its latest album The Odyssey of Captain Vivian Ribbons (which released on February 17, 2023) is the story of a future earth struggling to survive as it sends Captain Vivian Ribbons out into the cosmos to find a habitable planet necessitating transcending the usual mortal human limits of space and time and thus standard physical existence. It sounds like a story out of some universe Hayao Miyazaki might have concocted in the 80s and the the music is a glorious mix of soundtrack pieces, art rock, synth pop, post-punk and various other styles serving the the place in the grand narrative. The single “Onward the Night” is about the Captain leaving earth on the aforementioned mission of hope against hope and the irresistible, driving bass line is motorik in the precision of its rhythms allowing for the rest of the music to anchor off of it. The song stands alone separate from the concept as just an exciting, epic song whose textural detail and great momentum traced in psychedelic tones bring you along for a ride like a song that might have been in that 1980s Transformers movie minus the cheese. The music video is equal parts 1980s anime, Dash Shaw and something one might expect out of a The Flaming Lips production and thoroughly enjoyable beginning to end. Watch the video on YouTube and follow American Watercolor Movement at the links below.

American Watercolor Movement on Instagram