Queen City Sounds and Art

Pharmacist’s Harrowing and Noisy Post-punk Single “Calculated Violence” is a Poignant Take on Psychological Abuse

Pharmacist spins a dark tale of manipulation and abuse in the harrowing and noisy passages of “Calculated Violence.” It begins with a splintering and distorted bass line and female vocals that sound like the narrative is being recalled some months and years down the line with the agony and psychological pain coming crashing in and well up all at once in dramatic waves. As the song progresses guitar comes in more as a vehicle for creating texture and noise like a mind becoming fractured and recovering with a desperate energy. In the last half of the song All sounds, percussion, bass, tortured guitar, vocals finally releasing the tension in cathartic, wordless utterances writhe around together upward and collide into the menacing outro. The line “there’s a calculated violence in everything you do” spells out succinctly the dynamic of someone who seems supportive and kind in the beginning of a relationship who gaslights you until you’ve lost your way until an abrupt and almost violent realization snaps you out of that spell and you find out what your real value was to the abuse. The closing line “The only thing that I can think is when you wish that I was dead” is stated almost matter-of-factly it’s chilling. Musically it’s in the realm of post-punk/art punk and noise rock but the execution and style is much more original than one might expect from mere genre tags. Think more Live Skull and Sonic Youth more than darkwave. Pharmacist is hitting upon a particularly creative and potent phase of its songwriting with its new set of releases. Listen to “Calculated Violence” and other tracks from the Swedish band on Spotify and follow the act at the links below.

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Laveda Fuses Raw Heartbreak With Uplifting Melodies on Its Latest Single Shoegaze/Dream Pop Single “F***”

The snow falling in the video for Laveda’s single “F***” seems timed perfectly for the recent cold wave that has swept through North America around the beginning of 2023. The rhythm guitar paired with Ali Genevich’s emotionally rich vocals at the beginning of the song are somehow both spare and lush as the sound evolves into wider-ranging sonics. Guitar texture turns to crunchy distorted atmospherics and shining keyboard work threads through the haze like the sun through a fading snowstorm. The lyrics about heartbreak, betrayal and coming into owning your anger after feeling like you had to keep it under wraps because it’s what’s expected of you are so raw but expressed in a way that is uplifting and liberating gives the song a depth of meaning that has been typical for the band’s songwriting up to now and in particular for A Place You Grew Up In (due Spring 2023 on Papercup Music), the follow up album to 2020’s What Happens After. Watch the video for “F***” on YouTube and follow Laveda at the links provied.

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Thrillhouse’s New Wave Inflected Post-punk Track “Fatal Flaw” is an Arrestingly Vulnerable and Affectionate Love Song

Thrillhouse may be tapping into some of the moods and melodic structures of classic 1980s post-punk bands like The Cure and Echo and the Bunnymen with its single “Fatal Flaw.” But the song has an undeniable inertia and the layers of guitar, vocal and synth melody that carries you along on a wave of introspective, romantic fervor. In moments it’s reminiscent of Ultravox’s 1982 hit “Reap The Wild Wind” but its lyrics seem to tell the story of someone being willing to open up, to be vulnerable, as a means of comforting someone they love who is in a place of hurt, offering solace in the form of a shared knowledge of joys of which only people who know each other well are privy. The line “I’ll take you to that secret place, the one that brings a smile back to your face” could be perceived as trite but in context there is a sweetness to it and an agenda free benevolence that speaks to genuine affection and concern. If it’s a love song it’s one rooted in an emotional nuance that demonstrates a sensitivity toward the needs of another person beyond their utility in one’s own life and that makes all the beautiful harmonies and melodic layering especially effective in the end. Listen to “Fatal Flaw” on Spotify and follow Thrillhouse at the links below.

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Springworks’ Deconstructed Psychedelic Pop IDM Song “Nigerian Slum” Pushes the Boundaries of What Constitutes the Accessible

If Anne Dudley relaunched The Art of Noise as an IDM project, it might sound like what Springworks has done with “Nigerian Slum.” It sounds like it brought in samples from toy instruments and vintage, eccentric synth sounds to make the slinky bass line. But then the song shifts into an unusual retro psychedelic pop song with twin vocals that seem to weave in and out of the spectral keyboard work and sleigh bell-esque percussion. In trading off the lines syncopated the way they are it’s reminiscent of The Happy Mondays had that group of yobs went the route of indie pop but bringing in an echoing saxophone to trace the drawn out paces. It’s the kind of song that should have been a hit in the logical third generation in the wake of Madchester had it more fully absorbed the influence of late 80s Cabaret Voltaire. Truly a psychedelic pop song following the songwriters’ most experimental instincts in expanding what can constitute the accessible. Watch the video for “Nigerian Slum” on YouTube and follow Springworks at the links below.

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Worker & Parasite Parody the Compliance Culture of Corporate Domination Under Late Capitalism in the New Wave Post-punk “The Silent Majority”

Worker & Parasite, photo courtesy the artists

Worker & Parasite uses the imagery of the corporate machine from clothing to visual design in the video for “The Silent Majority.” Its spiky guitar, eccentric anti-melodies and rhythmic accents reflect an awkward, robotic, conformist aspect of how we’re expected to be in the context of late capitalist economic arrangements where your aspirations are all but dictated to you and your horizons defined by what the corporate world has decided fits into its programme. Musically fans of stuff like Devo, The Fall, The Mathematicians and Les Savy Fav will appreciate the surreal and socially critical aspect of the song and video as well as the clear songwriting and performance chops channeled into a whole creative expression of the kinds of thoughts and feelings those of us who have been subject to the strictures of corporate culture know to well, which is to say most of us. Watch the video for “The Silent Majority” on YouTube and follow Worker & Parasite at the links provided.

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YUNGMORPHEUS Contemplates the Virtues of Keeping an Even Keel in Life’s Storms of Highs and Lows on “Sonny’s Triangle”

“Sonny’s Triangle” by YUNGMORPHEUS is a little like the inversion of the standard hip-hop song arrangement. It begins with a voice sample of an older man giving some dubious advice to a younger person that has some harsh truth about basically not being able to completely depend on anyone else but yourself so take care with your actions. Then the song eases into a loop like a downtempo production on late period Sly and the Family Stone funk sample all while there’s a leisurely rap opining introspectively on how trying to take short cuts in life didn’t really get him ahead and how discerning between what’s real and what’s performative and boastful. The contemplation further offers how all the choices one makes come with conditions and consequences and how being involved in anything important can put pressures on you that can push you to the breaking point but that if you weather these highs and lows and try not to believe too much in how either will be ongoing and reliable. It’s a song about being realistic about what happens in life and staying focused on doing what matters and keeping an even keel rather than being too caught up in the high of success and the despair of perceived failure. Listen to “Sonny’s Triangle” on YouTube and follow YUNGMORPHEUS at the links below.

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Maja Lena’s Art Pop Single “Portal” is a Mysterious Path to Transformative Self-Discovery

Maja Lena’s experimental pop song “Portal” with its pulse of minimal percussion as rhythm track and melodic drone leading into the songwriter’s almost sing-song-y vocals has an immediate accessibility in spite of its unconventional, more intuitive structure and pacing. Its poetic lines do not follow any standard form of verse and its more avant-garde leanings fit well the beautifully symbolic language and imagery. The music video and its enigmatic footage of dark roads at night, brightly lit vegetation against a dark backdrop and mysterious figures whose faces are hidden by shadow somehow makes the music make more sense in a concrete way in the manner with which Kate Bush’s more structuralist film format videos and the post-modern aesthetic of repeated images and themes reinforcing and evolving meaning with every iteration did for some of her own music. The playful woodwind sounds in this song and Lena’s wide ranging vocals in counterpoint with each other might be compared favorable as well with Cate Le Bon’s wonderfully alien pop songcraft. You hear it and you know that you’re in for a musical ride into realms that will expand one’s emotional knowledge and gain a language for articulating aspects of existence that elude standard use of language. Lena speaks to the way our imagination though a wonderful tool and at the core of our existence and cognitive orientation can run away with us and how we can be compelled by unconscious influences to act in unpredictable ways that are perhaps best understood through imaginative constructs like mythology. When Lena sings about “answering to Pluto,” “answering through fire” and “answering through desire” maybe it’s intended in a way to be literal but Pluto can symbolize the shadow side of ourselves and fire and desire the passions and inspirations that can drive us. But however one interprets Maja Lena’s richly diverse set of symbols as employed in the song, the mysterious allure of “Portal” suggests a transformation in stepping through whether as a life changing decision, choosing to take a path of possible peril but also reward or into the world of another with its personally crafted vision guiding the experience. Watch the video for “Portal” on YouTube, follow Maja Lena at the links below and perhaps give a listen to the rest of the new album Pluto which released on December 2, 2022.

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Chon’s “Roses” is a Love Song Rooted in Humility, Affection and Sensitivity

In the spare performance video for “Roses,” Chon (pronounced “Chern”) is cast in black and white with just the songwriter and acoustic guitar in frame though we hear other instrumentation like an electric guitar and a touch of synth. What shines most is Chon’s delicate energy as a vocalist. It’s a bit different from her former life as the lead vocalist in Vietnamese Nü Metal band Bodies On the Floor but the weight of emotion remains and even through the subtle layers of melody and texture, Chon’s voice is an apt vehicle for lyrics that are romantic in tone and reflect a personal insight into the essence of another person that can only come from knowing oneself unguardedly with a compassionate sense of self-awareness that the cruelty of the world often comes from internalizing its trauma and interpreting it back out. But with this song we hear a songwriter for whom a rote pronouncement of love is a shallow platitude and “Roses” comes off more like extending a humble insight with care, affection and sensitivity. There may be a folk element with the song but its musical alchemy transcends genre specificity. Watch the video for “Roses” on YouTube and listen to more Chon on Spotify.

“Martial Meditations” by narducci is a Cinematic Soundscape of Sultry, Late Night Jazz Lounge Moods

Somehow narducci has used what sounds like a rainstick, some sultry late night jazz saxophone processed for maximum foggy moodiness and minimal synth drones with spoken word in Japanese interspersed with non-verbal soulful vocals to craft a different kind of cinematic song. It has a duskiness that sounds like something that one might expect to hear in the opening sequences of an animated version of Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood. It works as a song in itself with an arc of emotional resolve from reverie to acceptance but something about its arrangement suggests strongly as a companion to a visual narrative in which each complements and enriches the effectiveness of both. Maybe at some point narducci will find a way to make “Martial Meditations” into a short film or get it expertly placed onto a soundtrack but for now you can listen to the song on YouTube and follow narducci at the links provided.

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Oldest Sea Builds a Cosmic Scaffolding Out of a State of Emotional Void With the Colossal and Transcendent Black Metal Track “Consecration”

The stately and desolate riffing that Oldest Sea uses to introduce “Consecration” sounds like something you’d hope to hear from a band with a name like that and a song title with that resonance of language. It’s crackling distortion sculpting and hanging dynamics in the classic transcendental black metal vein. But when the vocals come in they are ghostly yet emotionally rich. The lyrics seem to take a feeling of emptiness and of being at a low point and turning that into something transcendent and climbing the lurching steps of the crushing guitar chords and finely accenting drums to a different place outside of that void that you know you’ll find yourself in once again but also knowing you can build a ladder out of it with seemingly nothing at all if you can imbue it with a meaning that comes from a place beyond your immediate psychological state. Fortunate are the people who have never been in a place in their head where you feel like you have nothing left, the product of a slow or even quick descent into depression and what once sustained you seems beyond reach and maybe something so seemingly unlikely like a heavy and cosmically melodic black metal song feels like a scaffolding to a space where one’s connection to at least that emotional uplift eases a sense of meaning and positive emotional sensation into your brain. Listen to “Consecration” on Spotify and follow Oldest Sea on Instagram.