Queen City Sounds and Art

CoastalDives’ “75” and the album Next Light (DATA104) are Like the Soundtrack to an Enigmatic and Existential Science Fiction Thriller

Pairing a simple arpeggio with a lush background drone on “75,” CoastalDives evoke the feeling of an existential science fiction thriller. The melody seems to accelerate slightly as the song goes along and an undertone of emotional urgency and intensity colors the enigmatic feel of the song creating a sense of anticipation of what might be awaiting us on the other side of the musical journey like the point in the movie when the cumulative knowledge acquired in the first half leads the protagonists to a place or to a meeting that will decide the future going forward. Listen to “75” on Spotify where you can further explore CoastalDives various works including the rest of the Tangerine Dream-esque, 2022 album Next Light (DATA104) mastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri of The Sight Below and follow Coastal Wives at the links provided.

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Lonely Lions of Alabama Lures You Into the Grand Adventure of Its New Album With Cinematic Opening Track “Ocean – Intro”

When you listen to the beginning of “Ocean – Intro” by Lonely Lions of Alabama (a project based in Minsk, Belarus) it’s not like listening to a song per se but a soundtrack to an epic and mysterious adventure. The sound of birds by the seashore lead to wind sweeping in from the coast and a spiraling sound in the distance like a beacon, the pulse of a lighthouse in the night. Then streams of distorting synth and a more atmospheric sheet of tone before the action of the song begins with whorls of bright and then ethereal sounds over a touch of percussion. In moments it recalls Carmine Coppola’s work for the soundtrack to Apocalypse Now in stimulating the imagination and sense of wonder with the promise of something engrossing and transformative ahead. Listen to “Ocean – Intro” on Spotify where you can listen to the rest of the album Синдром отрицания (in English, the suggestive and provocative title Denial Syndrome) and follow Lonely Lions of Alabama at the links below.

Lonely Lions of Alabama on Facebook

Lonely Lions of Alabama on YouTube

Lonely Lions of Alabama on Instagram

Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys Capture the Maddening and Mechanistic Ritual of Life With a Dysfunctional Psychology on “Burning Building”

On the single “Burning Building” Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys tell the tale of a person who is living with a dysfunctional situation but yearning to escape. Across the song we learn that our narrator rationalizes to him or herself the normalcy of living inside the closing walls of an unsustainable mode of existence as evidenced by the lines “I’m watching the world from a burning building” and “It’s the only home I know.” When the precariousness of life is always threatening to you and you learn to survive and are always in survival mode it can do a number on your head and your ability to function outside of that context without trying to recreate it even when you don’t need to. The angular and even mechanical dynamics of the song are reminiscent of a Lene Lovich song gone industrial and it suits perfectly the ritualistic and maddening manner of knowing things aren’t right but not seeming to be able to do something to remove oneself from a way of life that will, yes, crash and burn and maybe take you with it. But that nugget of an impulse to change is there and it’s kind of the hook of the song. Listen to “Burning Building” on Spotify and follow Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys at the links below.

Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys on Bandcamp

Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys on Instagram

lucykrugerandthelostboys.com

Grocer’s “Downtown Side” is an Incisive Deconstuction of the Everyday Impact of Late Stage Capitalism

Grocer sound a little like a modern version of Steinbeck by way of Pixies on its single “Downtown Side” from its newly released EP Scatter Plot. The playful melody has a discordant quality and unraveling edges that reflect a quiet desperation that boils under the surface of much of American society and everywhere else in the world where people are coming to the realization that grinding to get by is really no longer the delusion that it can lead to getting ahead which was a fiction twenty-five years ago and a completely fraudulent prop to late capitalism. What Grocer expresses so well to address this reality of modern life is the massive self neglect into which we’ve talked ourselves: “I could be bleeding from my head on the side of the curb/Am I dreaming that I’m even waiting for a desert?” That image and so many of the other poetic and clever metaphors that are in ever stanza of the song’s lyrics zero in on an inability to keep fooling oneself when reality the reality of life is punching you in the face every day whether you want to acknowledge it or not. The whistles and off the cuff percussion at one point in the song is almost like a mockery of engaging in that pantomime of healthy productivity. A slide whistle would have really been over the top but Grocer kept it to a lean and efficient gesture because “I guess it’s not that funny anymore/Maybe I lost that light, and it’s a heavy way forward.” Indeed. But this burst of self-awareness placed so well in a song that erases a boundary between pop, post-punk and psychedelia hits in exactly the right way without overstating the direness of a situation we could overcome if we had the collective will to do so or understating the challenge of reaching an easily attainable better world if society wasn’t so hypnotized by the illusion of mythologized and culturalized success. Listen to “Downtown Side” on YouTube and follow Grocer at the links below.

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Grocer on Instagram

Pink Sky Eases Off a Spiral of Melancholia With a Gentle Mantra on “False Aralia”

Animator Julie Seaward brings to Pink Sky’s single “False Aralia” a real embodiment of the deep sense of isolation and loss one hears in the song. And as with the ethereal, dreamlike music and almost childlike hopefulness in the lyrics we see a a young woman who spends time walking alone in the rain and staring into clouds, yearning and hoping for the kind of reconciliation that can feel out of reach when you feel like you’ve lost someone because of some actual or perceived transgression and your mood spins off into a spiral of desolation that feels melodramatic later but because of the strength of the bond you felt seems so significant can feel so overwhelming. But there isn’t anger here, just echoes of melancholia. In the chous of “I am here don’t feed the fear I am here don’t feed the fear” we hear the reassurance needed to avert the hypnotic narrative into personal darkness. Watch the video for “False Aralia” on YouTube and follow Michigan-based dream pop duo Pink Sky at the links below. Its new album Total Devotion released February 17, 2023.

pinkskymusic.com

Pink Sky on Facebook

Pink Sky on Instagram

Queen City Sounds Podcast S2E39: King Tuff

King Tuff is the creative moniker of Kyle Thomas who has established himself as an artist whose imaginative and eclectic songwriting has evolved over the course of several imaginative albums. His style might be traced to some roots in psychedelic and garage rock but what shines in his recorded output and performances is Thomas’ craft as a storyteller whose lyrics illuminate aspects of American life and culture through the lens of his own experiences and their grounding details. With his latest record Smalltown Stardust, Thomas reflects on the small town life hailing from Brattleboro, Vermont that shaped him and drawing on warm memories to inform a set of songs that sound like an affectionate exploration of how reconnecting with a past one left behind in pursuit of one’s life goals can enrich an appreciation of where you are now and where you’ve been. Beginning to end it’s an album of uncommonly well crafted pop melodies that feel grounding and comforting after a time of some of the greatest chaos and uncertainty for any musician hoping to share their music with a public in living memory. The record is also a celebration of the community and context of Thomas’ musical life and conceived and recorded while his housemantes Meg Duffy (Hand Habits) and Sasami Ashworth (Sasami) were putting together their own extraordinary records of the past couple of years (Fun House from 2021 and Squeeze from 2022 respectively). Some of that spirit creative spirit and good will seems to have intermingled into Smalltown Stardust as well.

Listen to our interview with King Tuff on Bandcamp and follow the artist at the links below. King Tuff performs at Globe Hall on Saturday, March 11, 2022 with Tchotchke and The Savage Blush, doors 8, show 9.

kingtuffworld.net

King Tuff on Instagram

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King Tuff on Twitter

King Tuff on YouTube

King Tuff on Apple Music

Elly Kace Dissolves the Layers of Ego on Experimental Jazz Pop Single “Disappear”

Elly Kace’s versatile voice is at the center of “Disappear.” The rhythmic deployment of guitar and bass early in the song, returning like a theme later on, frame Kace’s widely emotive vocals processed to enhance a sense of a centered focus and of introspective expansiveness. Vocals lines are layered upon one another in a gently cascading flow of melody like leaves falling from a tree and swirling slowly around, facets of emotion that express a tapestry of expressive complexity in a manner that feels organic even if planned and executed with an impressive display of skill in production and performance. And for a song that seems to be about the acceptance of the impermanence of life and the folly of clingy attachment it manifests the shedding layers of ego in the way the song goes from a clarity and jazz-like informal structure to a haze of elements dissolving into a tonal brightness. If it’s a pop song it’s more like something avant-garde electronic composer Laurel Halo or ambient folk auteur Julia Holter might do. Watch the video for “Disappear” on YouTube and follow Kace at the links provided.

Elly Kace on TikTok

Elly Kace on Facebook

Elly Kace on Twitter

Elly Kace on Instagram

Queen City Sounds Podcast S2E38: David Libert

David Libert, photo courtesy David Libert

David Libert has lead a storied life in his more than fifty years in rock and roll as a musician, songwriter, tour manager, booking agent, producer and, briefly, drug dealer on Sunset Strip. He recently collected many of his memories of that career in his recently released autobiography Rock and Roll Warrior (September 23, 2022, Sunset Blvd. Books). In his youth Libert was a member of The Happenings who scored hit records including “See You In September” and a cover of “I Got Rhythm” that spent several weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles charts peaking at number 3. While in that band Libert was the de facto guy that did all the unglamorous things in a band that a manager usually performs and that lead to his stint as the tour manager for Rare Earth before taking on that role with the band Alice Cooper from 1971-1975—arguably the group’s most productive creative period. After moving to Los Angeles following that run with Alice Cooper he came to represent George Clinton and Parliament/Funkadelic, Bootsy’s Rubber Band and The Runaways. Libert also represented Living Colour, Sheila E., Vanilla Fudge, Cactus and a bevy of other artists. Libert turned 80 on January 20, 2023 and his autobiography and his recollection of his life and career are extraordinarily lucid and entertaining. In the interview listen for Libert’s amusing and interesting story about Guns N’ Roses.

Listen to our interview with Libert on Bandcamp and to order a signed copy of Rock and Roll Warrior please visit Sunset Blvd. Books.

Project Icarus Recreates the Constant Industrial Stimulus of Industrial Civilization on Ambient Drone Track “WITHIN THE FLESH”

Within the rush of granular haze of Project Icarus’ “WITHIN THE FLESH” one hears the faint metallic sounds of unidentifiable mechanical processes going on in the distance. It sounds like what it might like to be blindfolded and set to wandering in the back corners of a giant factory that manufactures hydraulic pipes or a smelting plant that has a wing that does industrial welding. But as the track outros the distorted sounds gives way to higher pitched metallic resonances that fade into silence like you’ve been carried free of the kind of kinetic presence of sound that can seep into your psyche after prolonged exposure and and create a vague emotional pressure that when gone feels like liberation. Listen to “WITHING THE FLESH” and take some moments to experience this passage into what it might be like to live near a factory in the mid-to-late twentieth century or more precisely what it might be like to work in one and feel the everyday weight of the industrial world on human consciousness and consider how we might improve the lives of people by giving them regular time away from that insistent, ambient presence and stimulus moving forward as a species that employs technology and allow it to make us aware of ways in which that subtle demand on our psyches are happening now that we accept as a condition of participating in civilization as we know it.

Dax Delivers a Harrowing and Devastating Treatment of the Subject of Sexual Abuse on “PTSD”

Whenever hip-hop artist Dax releases a song and video you know you’re probably in for something remarkable both musically and visually. His single “PTSD” begins with credits like a short film and the production on the song is like a street rap piece with trap style beat but of course Dax injects it with elements that elevates it beyond musical tropes and even the touch of auto tune elevates the sense of despair and desolation appropriate to what’s being presented. In the video we see Dax looking like his mind has been shattered by a shocking experience and then we a privy to the story of a young man being sexually assaulted by his priest. Before that narrative begins image of Dax stumbling forth in the present tense as the beat pulses seemingly causing the visual frame to pulse along in its low end wake as he repeats the refrain of “I was walking home on a Sunday,” which we later learn is an emotionally anchoring mantra of sorts to attempt to hold himself together. As the song progresses we hear a wave of emotion that captures the mixed and intense feelings of violation, rage, confusion, sadness, sorrow coupled with conflicted thinking that happens with victims of sexual abuse. That and the way memories of a traumatic experience can come crashing into your mind with an unexpected suddenness and painful clarity. And later in the video we witness a twist in the expected plot as Dax is in church when the victim of the priest comes in with a rifle to inflict retribution,on the priest. Dax makes eye contact with the killer when he kills himself after the vengeful rampage and in that moment it seems obvious Dax finds himself identifying with the victim while knowing the act of violence can never truly bring justice and in turn traumatizes others. The song outros with wind and Dax walking with the sunset at his back as he falls to the ground with the weight of what he has just seen, the sheer and inexplicable heaviness that leaves you changed forever. In the end there is a message about where victims of sexual abuse and/or those that care about them can get help. A devastating and beautifully executed treatment of an all too common experience that seems to touch the lives of us all. Watch the video for “PTSD” on YouTube and follow Dax at the links below.