Queen City Sounds and Art

Queen City Sounds Podcast S5E35: The Silver Snails

The Silver Snails, photo by Jasmine Ward

The Silver Snails has been percolating its new album Speed of Light for over a decade since the 2012 release of its debut album The Seven Melodies. The core of the group is husband-and-wife duo Lucas Ward and Elisa Fantini and fashions itself a “glam rock space pop family band.” Even a casual listen to the new album reveals great attention to songwriting detail, performance and production. It has a huge, uplifting, deeply melodic sound and in moments it may remind listeners of something Jeff Lynne and Trevor Horn had their hands in making. In fact, the group covers “Video Killed the Radio Star” by Horn’s New Wave band The Buggles (the video for the original song was the first to be broadcast on MTV) for Speed of Light including a music video made by the members of The Silver Snails. The couple’s three children Jasmine, Celeste and Elias also contribute to the project’s creative efforts including live performances. Long before The Silver Snails became a band Ward was a close friend of singer/songwriter Elliott Smith from whom Ward took some inspiration in his own musical endeavors as someone who writes and records his own songs with keen attention to craft and performance. The album is indeed like a glam rock affair but one that is just as informed by the playful, experimental and imaginative psychedelic rock of Flaming Lips with some sonic resonances with the more space rock end of ELO. Co-produced by Dylan Magierek, mixed by Peter Katis and Adam Selzer and mastered by Greg Calbi and Sterling Sound, its an album that sounds like something from a classic era of pop but with an immediacy that hooks you in with every song. Speed of Light was released on September 5, 2025 on streaming, digital download and CD.

Listen to our interview with Lucas Ward on Bandcamp and follow The Silver Snails at the links below.

thesilversnails.com

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The Silver Snails on Bandcamp

“Sunshine” is Your Friend Nirantha’s Tender Dream Pop Song of Affection and Appreciation For a Loved One

Your Friend Nirantha, photo courtesy the artist

Your Friend Nirantha released the debut EP Desire Path on September 25, 2025 and the lead single “Sunshine” is a quiet and delicate epic. Minimal percussion keeps the pace as spare, ethereal guitar traces the background spaces of the song and lightly distorted bass provides the deeper mood and Nirantha Gopal’s voice sits in the foreground with of affection and appreciation. In the end with the child’s voice one might rightfully assume it’s sort of a creatively ambitious song for one’s child. Hearing bells and in the mix to add a touch of texture enhances the impression of this song coming out of more a desire to convey a feeling more than being influenced by a specific style of music. It’s not really dream pop or indiepop but fans of both will find something undeniably appealing here. Fans of Black Belt Eagle Scout circa Mother of My Children will hear some resonance with the way Katherine Paul crafts melodies with great emotional nuance. Listen to “Sunshine” on Bandcamp and follow Your Friend Nirantha at the links provided.

https://yourfriendnirantha.bandcamp.com/track/sunshine

yourfriendnirantha.com

Your Friend Nirantha on Instagram

Your Friend Nirantha on Apple Music

Bad Flamingo Leans Into Defying Conventional Morality on the Languid, Noir Folk Single “The Fruit”

Bad Flamingo, photo courtesy the artists

With “The Fruit” Bad Flamingo takes a more gentle tone from the dark edge of some of its other songwriting. Some tasteful slide guitar work and folk-inflected delicacy gives a new quality to the band’s tales of being from the wrong side of the tracks and leaning into sweet temptations. Bad Flamingo is expert at implying people in the throes of a romantic and sexual relationship or rare connection and passion. But this song is more like having the time to reflect on yet another facet of that relationship in a moment with the typical, and refreshing, lack of regret for transgressing conventional behavior and morality in pursuit and service to something real and vital. The title of the song and references to snakes cleverly allude to original sin while discarding such spurious notions and taking a thrill at defying god/mainstream society at the same time. In the video we see the be-masked members languishing about in what looks like a hotel room from the 1970s, an aesthetic suiting their vibe and the late night musings of the song. Watch the video for “The Fruit” on YouTube and follow Bad Flamingo at the links below.

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CTZNSHP Returns With the Dark, Moody and Dissonant Post-Punk Song “Hawaii”

CTZNSHP recently released Lost Loves (A Collection Of Rarities), a compilation of early demos, practice space recordings, previous and more recent studio recordings. The Montreal-based post-punk band garnered attention a little over a decade ago for its commanding and spacious guitar and emotionally charged vocals with lyrics of uncommon psychological insight. The lead single “Hawaii” sounds more melancholic like a dark surf rock song Chris Isaak might sing. Its lightly distorted guitar lead threatens to break apart in any moment and the vocals similarly so in its urgency. And as the song progresses that initial impression splinters because it sounds more desparate and dissonant than anything you’d expect from Isaak and more like something in the vein of Preoccupations or Protomartyr and how both bands can dip into a fractured sensibility and then back into coherence reflecting the actual experience of having a moment of peak emotion. Listen to “Hawaii” on Bandcamp and follow CTZNSHP on Instagram.

014LN’s Darkly Sensuous and Alluring Downtempo Neo Soul Single “Creep With Me” is Overflowing With a Yearning For Complete Connection

01L4N (pronounced Oilan) recently released the downtempo neo soul single “Creep With Me.” The song with production by Brittany Campbell (aka 01L4N), Aaron Day and Dayloop with vocal contributions from The Last Artful, Dodgr has a dreamlike quality that draws you into its words of desire and a yearning for complete connection and commitment with one’s beloved in a deeply emotional, physical and spiritual way. The loping bass line pulses with a lingering dynamic off which hazy atmospheric melodies flow with the sensuous vocals in luminous cool colors of tone. The mood of the song is reminiscent of the more experimental moments of Erykah Badu’s New Amerykah albums with commanding and alluring performances from Campbell that bring you back in to revisit the spell the song weaves. Listen to “Creep With Me” on Spotify and follow Brittany Campbell at the links below.

Brittany Campbell on Twitter

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Brittany Campbell on YouTube

Queen City Sounds Podcast S5E34: PINES

Josh Hight is a former member of post-punk band The Detachment Kit until the mid-2000s when the group relocated to Brooklyn. He operated for a time as a solo artist under the moniker Irons before relocating to the UK and immersing himself in the world of photography, film and soundtracks. The later came about in part after Hight met Richard Norris at a Stone Club event in London. Norris is perhaps best known for his production work with the likes of Psychic TV, Marc Almond, Sun Ra, Robert Fripp and Joe Strummer but also as a member of influential electronic dance group The Grid. In 2025 Hight released his debut EP from his new solo project PINES with In His Wake, produced by Norris. The record as the name perhaps hints at is a product of grief, disillusionment and the soul searching that happens subsequent to hitting life’s low points. But the music that has come about is made up of gorgeously melodic atmospheres and poignant expressions of loss, the dull reality of much of adult existence and its relative lack of inspiration and leaps of discovery, melancholic reflections on past relationships and a yearning for the collapse of the current mode of human civilization and its capture by oligarchic monetization through digital channels and a more transcendent and vital future once that dissolution is well under way. Musically it’s like a cosmic slowcore, pastoral shoegaze form of psychedelic pop that at times is reminiscent of Hawkwind’s more accessible moments and shades of The Zombies. With guest musicians like Andy Bell (Ride, Oasis), Emmett Kelly (Bonnie “Prince” Billy, The Cairo Gang) and Dottie Cochran (Deary) it’s a richly emotional experience and one that seems more complete than EP often does.

Listen to our interview with Josh Hight on Bandcamp and follow PINES on Instagram.

Pullman Returns With Pastoral Ambient Single “Weightless” Featuring Former Members of Tortoise, Codeine and Eleventh Dream Day

Pullman returns after two decades with a new album Pullman III due out January 9, 2026 on Western Vinyl. The group which includes former members of Tortoise, Codeine, Eleventh Dream Day and Rex is primarily a studio project recording pastoral soundscapes with mostly acoustic instruments offers us a new single in “Weightless” with a free flow of warm guitar, textural and impressionistic percussion and a nearly hypnotic rise and fall dynamic as the main harmonic sounds seem to shimmer and glimmer in an organic pattern. It has a quality like a sonic suspension constantly resonating and revealing details of its quality with each moment. Listen to “Weightless” on YouTube and follow Pullman at the links below.

Pullman on Bandcamp

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Kat KIKTA’s Sound Art Piece “Your Voice In My Ear” Challenges Conventional Notions of Desire and Romance

It’s best to set aside musical expectations when hearing/watching the video for Kat KIKTA’s sound piece “Your Voice In My Ear.” The background harmonics establish a dreamlike mood and the dialogue between a human woman and a processed voice whose source is implied to be a sentient machine intelligence in which there is a sensuousness and even sexual aspect to the way the voices interact. The touch of delicate rhythm along with the drones is very much more an ambient companion to the mood in the sonic foreground. It may be conceptually something like science fiction without the special effects but it speaks to the very human phenomenon of people falling for each other purely through vocal contact or even indirectly through letters or online because they feel a connection for the other person and a sense of ease, comfort and emotional attraction that can bond people together in a way that transcends more outward and superficial factors. It captures the essence of a modern experience of desire in a way few “songs” ever do. Watch the video for “Your Voice In My Ear” on YouTube and follow Kat KIKTA at the links below.

kiktamusic.com

Kat Kikta on Twitter

Kat Kikta on Facebook

Kat Kikta on TikTok

Kat Kikta on Instagram

Kat Kikta on Bandcamp

Queen City Sounds Podcast S5E33: Laveda

Laveda formed as a dream pop band in Albany, New York in 2018. The core duo of Ali Genevich and Jake Brooks released two outstanding albums of deeply introspective, atmospheric and tender records with 2020’s What Happens After and 2023’s A Place You Grew Up In. As though the title of the latter was a prompt to evolve creatively Laveda relocated to New York City the same year and whether it was already happening then or more came together once in the big city the band evolved in a decidedly different sonic direction without losing its instincts for crafting memorable melodies and vivid, emotionally vibrant and immediately relatable lyrics. 2025’s Love, Darla marked a change in style for a more gritty, more angular, almost No Wave sound as though Genevich and Brooks had delved further into the Sonic Youth catalog and found their way to the likes of Live Skull and, perhaps unrelated, The Cleaners From Venus. The new album sounds like the work of people who made the move to pursue their art further and didn’t come out the other side jaded. Instead transformed and challenged to do something to reflect their own development as people and artists.

Listen to our interview with Genevich and Brooks on Bandcamp and follow Laveda at the links below.

Laveda on Instagram

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Cry9c’s Darkly Moody and Enigmatic “Play Pretend” is Reminiscent of Modern Avant-Post-Punk and Early Ambient Industrial

“Play Pretend” has a kind of icy moodiness, enigmatic energy and imaginative production that makes you wonder if Cry9c is tapping into the same frequency of creativity as more left field post-punk bands like The Serfs, Kaput and Luna Honey. The interweaving layers of rhythm, minimal guitar riffs, drones, distorted harmonics and lightly echoing vocals are reminiscent of an update of late 70s and early 80s proto-industrial pop like the members of the band listened to a lot of Cabaret Voltaire, Indian Jewelry and Drab Majesty at the same time. But the song has its own wonderfully dark resonance like the more accessible band at the noise show or the startling refreshingly different arty Witch House band at a more generally conventional post-punk show. The energy of the music is reminiscent of late 2000s American DIY scene with an elusive air of mystique and that’s a rarefied quality these days. Listen to “Play Pretend” on YouTube and follow Cry9C at the links below. The self-titled EP released October 16, 2025 and is available for digital download, streaming and on cassette.

Cry9c on Bandcamp