SubmitHub – Page 99 – Queen City Sounds and Art

Father Baker’s “The Downhill Chill” is a Hip-Hop Poem and Mantra of Resistance to Complacency

Father Baker imbues “The Downhill Chill” with an air of bravado in the face of resignation in bracing for the inevitable turn of fortune in one’s life, especially in the long term and the limited time we all have in life to attempt to do something meaningful or at least truly desirable with our lives while we can. The production by CEE GEE and Camouflage Monk of Griselda Records loops a haunting guitar part and swells of strings and a hypnotic beat really cloaks the track in a sense of menace and anxiety. And yet Father Baker’s refrain of “chill the fuck out and breathe” is like a mantra out of focusing on inevitable cycles that you see coming when “all the shit flows downhill.” The sample that closes out the song wherein a speaker talks about the social conditioning we receive in life and how individuality, and really creativity and imagination, are discouraged and often beaten out of people in various ways and that most people “don’t have enough so you become watchers of game shows and things like that.” This song appears to be an attempt to at least remind the artist and listeners that it doesn’t have to be that way even when headed into middle age and beyond and that awareness is one of the first steps to change and establishing better habits of mind. Fans of Anticon projects like Deep Puddle Dynamics and early Atmosphere or the likes of cLOUDDEAD or Hymie’s Basement will find much to enjoy here. Listen to “The Downhill Chill” on Spotify where you can listen to the rest of the recently released Towers EP and follow Father Baker at the links below.

Father Baker on Facebook

Father Baker on Instagram

fatherbakerknows.com

The Audio/Visual Dept.’s Cathartically Ambient “Healing Happening” Soothes the Jagged Places in the Mind

“Healing Happening” is the fourth track from The Audio/ Video Dept.’s latest album …it all felt so real (which dropped December 9, 2022). Though part of a larger larger project involving saturated tones and elegant use of space and musical texture the song stands on its own as an expression of the release of fixed energy into a billowing flow. Chimes, metal and wood, sound in the entrancing swirl like a slow moving frequency that works out the stubborn jagged spaces in your psyche that sit there as bad habits of mind upon which one’s ability to move on to greater fulfillment can get snared. The sound sounds also like a great and gentle untanglement. It’s echoing ripples and expansive dynamic is not merely tranquil, it flows into and out of the mind leaving clarity in its wake. Listen to “Healing Happening” on Spotify and follow The Audio/Visual Dept. at the links below.

The Audio/Visual Dept. at Instagram

The Audio/Visual Dept. on Apple Music

Stargurl’s “Floral Hotline” is a Chill and Tranquil Journey Into the Depths of the Night Time of Dreams

Stargurl sets a scene of chill tranquility and dreamlike introspection with the opening section of “Floral Hotline.” The sound of wind flowing as a backdrop and intermittent tones like stars in the night or the twinkling of distant city lights. String synths stream in dusky resonance. At the halfway point a gently echoing saturated melody drifts through the mix like a buried emotional memory surfacing but still amorphous and mysterious as it takes form in the mists of the subconscious and dissolving back into that fog. The song is like an extended dream sequence soundtrack from a lost section of the film Monsters (2010) and Stargurl’s chosen tones more the night time counterpart to John Hopkins’ own sunny electronic sequences. Listen to “Floral Hotline” on Spotify and follow Stargurl on Instagram.

Neil Foster Evokes the Hushed Energy of the World After Sunset on “Nightfall”

With the gradual replacement of sunlight with the shadowy low light and darkness of the night sky, Neil Foster arranges layers of airy drones and streams of melodic tone on “Nightfall.” What is gradual becomes an engulfing flow of cool sounds and echoing winks of single note arpeggios dotting the soundscape and rays of subdued sonic luminosity streaming through the murk like rays of moonlight. The cover image for the single shows hills shaded and billowy, gray clouds partially masking the setting sun. The song embodies the kind of hush immediately after the sun sets and before full moonrise and depending on the time of the year when the evening can seem darkest. But Foster also conveys the underlying activity that continues well after daylight takes a break before the next morning but with a sometimes subdued energy as diurnal activity transitions to the nocturnal. Foster’s composition maintains a sense of liminal wonder and tranquility that one doesn’t regularly hear in the realm of music and the track begins as it ends with a subtle fade out into what comes next. Listen to “Nightfall” on Spotify and follow Neil Foster at the links below.

Neil Foster on Facebook

Neil Foster on Bandcamp

Neil Foster on Instagram

Vague Lanes Craft a Spacious Sense of Emotional Suspension and Release on “We’ll Always Have Never”

The sharp, edgy and lingering guitar work at the beginning of “We’ll Always Have Never” by Vague Lanes is anchored by a subtle but moody bass line and propelled by the accents of percussion. It’s a dynamic that gives the song great sense of space and brooding atmospheres. When the vocals come in they sound like someone suspended in that space and when all the music more or less tops you can almost feel the source of the voice fall off a cliff into the splashes of rhythm and tone and the flow of synth melody that carries you until the end. The song somehow brings together the intimacy of a lo-fi recording with the detail of a full studio recording and its’ particular flavor of post-punk has more in common with early Skinny Puppy and Fields of the Nephilim at once than modern darkwave in its expert use of electronics and live instrumentation in crafting an emotive aural experience. Listen to “We’ll Always Have Never” on Bandcamp and follow the Swiss band at the links provided. The new album Foundation and Divergence released on December 24, 2022 on digital, CD and vinyl formats available through the Bandcamp link.

Vague Lanes on Instagram

vaguelanes.com

Guram Tsagareishvili Captures That Liminal Moment of Catharsis at the Intersection of Despair and Hope on “Gzajvaredinze”

“Gzajvaredinze” by Guram Tsagareishvili has some charm and energy in its post-punk style with the urgent, almost pointillist guitar lead over spare drum machine. But the distorted vocals and parallel melodic, more elaborate guitar lead opens the song up emotionally and musically while honoring mixed and intense feelings of melancholic catharsis. The title is Georgian for “At the Crossroads” and the songwriter offers a tidbit of its inspiration being how “everything happened at the crossroads” including a breakup and a promise “the next song would be called ‘Crossroads’ and it would be the best thing I’d ever write.” Certainly this song expresses a mood of being at a point where everything has crashed in on you and you have nowhere to go but forward in any direction that seems right in that moment. With any luck there’s plenty more to come and further creative achievements but this song should appeal to fans of French Police, Haunt Me and Molchat Doma. Listen to “Gzajvaredinze” on Spotify and follow Guram Tsagareishvili at the links below.

Guram Tsagareishvili on Facebook

Guram Tsagareishvili on Instagram

The Acoustic Version of Vox Rea’s “Julia” Showcases the Band’s Gift for Evoking Raw Emotional Intimacy

The acoustic version of Vox Rea’s “Julia” highlights the delicate textures and raw emotional intimacy of its tight vocal harmonies. But those harmonies like the expressive guitar work expands and blossoms with a dynamic unpredictability in emotional swells like a specific sense memory of someone coming to you suddenly. It’s a complete rework of the more rock-oriented original. The urgency is maintained but here that energy is much more immediate in a different way with everything but the essence of the feelings underlying the original stripped away and given the space for a direct expression. Both versions are so different from each other with neither outshining the other, just fascinating interpretations and manifestations of the inspirations behind the songwriting. Listen to the acoustic version of “Julia” by Vox Rea on Spotify and follow the group, slated to perform at Treefort Music Fest in March (22-26), at the links below.

voxrea.com

Vox Rea on Instagram

Detective Larsson Strokes a Tone of Warm Romantic Affection on Dream Folk Single “Lisberg”

Detective Larsson, photo courtesy the artists

From the opening guitar riff and haze of synth of “Liseberg” there is a mood of a deep dive into an emotional memory. Detective Larsson in using guitar and strings to bolster the warmly introspective vocals truly evokes an intimate tone of romantic affection that lingers well after the song ends and through the ending in which the artists left a touch of post-song guitar sound the way you’d hear if you were there to witness the song live. And that air of spontaneity is what keeps the energy fresh and sincere. There is a bit of Swedish folk music flavor on the track perhaps brought to the table by singer Amanda Larsson who is from Skövde, Sweden, but it also resonates with other folk traditions and it is that enigmatic yet welcoming aspect of the song that sets it apart from something that might easily be placed in a specific subgenre of pop or folk or rock. Listen to “Lisberg” on Bandcamp and follow Detective Larsson at the links below.

J.PERIOD Pays Tribute to Hip-Hop Culture and Legends in the Richly Creative Content of the Song/Video “The Legend of Globetrottin’”

In song and short film for J.PERIOD’s “The Legend of Globetrottin’” is an animated comic book and live action featurette that charmingly relates the tale of one of the greatest basketball matches in history between Masego and J.PERIOD. But it’s more than that, of course. It begins in a record store where crate diggers are looking for solid wax to sample when they think they spot DJ Jazzy Jeff and indeed in puppet form it is the legendary DJ. The song deftly samples sounds of a basketball game and various MCs taking verses in classic hip-hop style telling the story and the jazz samples and unconventional beats like a nod to one of DJ Jazzy Jeff’s collaborators years ago in J. Dilla. This rich fusion of elements, style and presentation really speaks directly to hip-hop culture as a significant creative subculture of American and global culture but in tying it with comics it layers storytelling styles and elements in a way that is highly accessible and experimental at once resonant with what Dmitri Jackson did with his 2018 comic collection Blackwax Boulevard: Five Years, What a Surprise (2012-2017) Watch the video for “The Legend of Globetrottin’” on YouTube and follow J.PERIOD at the links below.

J.PERIOD on Facebook

J.PERIOD on Twitter

J.PERIOD on Instagram

J.PERIOD on Apple Music

Six by Seven Transforms Supercaan’s “Zoetrope” Into a Gripping and Unsettling Soundscape From a Dark Dimension

The Six by Seven remix of Supercaan’s “Zoetrope” maintains the introspective mood of the original but highlights the otherworldly aspects of the track and its textures. It is slower, spookier and given a similarly black and white video treatment by Simon Peecock as well the song becomes an unsettling dip into a bleak mirror image of the song like Six by Seven turned the vibe inside out and stretched the breezy pop sound of the single to its limits. Lars Von Trier did not direct the video, Swans did not do the remix but that intensity and emotional menace and desperation runs through the remix and the video seems to be coming to us from the same sinister alternate dimension from which we hear the sounds of the Black Lodge from Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. Suspended tones and vocals that echo in the distance and hit us up intimately close. It’s disorienting and compelling at once and completely spins “Zoetrope” into a song that is basically unrecognizable from the source material which is what some of us want from a remix worth our time. Watch the video for “Zoetrope [Six by Seven remix]” on YouTube and follow Supercaan at the links below.