Queen City Sounds and Art

Reiyo The Giant’s Hyper Pop Song “The Show Must Go On” is Otherworldly Downtempo for Fans of Glitchcore

Reiyo The Giant, photo courtesy the artist

Reiyo The Giant demonstrates a facility with delicate yet soulful vocal power on “The Show Must Go On.” The song begins like a post-Crystal Castles hyper pop song that flows into being carried hefty, big beat rhythms. But the arrangement of the song deftly drops off all low end so that the unconventional melody commands with its drift through nearly silence like the moon rapidly progressing through the sky. But the irresistible rhythm returns to accent the end of the song as it slows down into a paradoxically rapid chillout into silence. It’s the kind of song that at 3 minutes one second feels too short yet takes the listener through a full emotional arc of exuberance and post-performance tranquility. Listen to “The Show Must Go On’ on YouTube and follow Reiyo The Giant at the links below.

Reiyo The Giant on Instagram

Cartamira’s Downtempo Synth Pop Single “Look at Me” Captures the Yearning Hopefulness of Unrequited Love

Cartamira’s “Look at Me” is a downtempo pop song about unrequited love and yearning. In evoking these feelings it captures the emotional intensity of that headspace and how you can feel like you’re perpetually in an unresolved dream and sitting between hopeful and resigned melancholy. Musically the song utilizes light dance beats and luminous and lush melodic, lingering chords to frame vocals processed to be slightly out of phase with everyday reality. It enhances the sense of floating between fascination and a blind hope for connection and recognition that may or may not manifest. Watch the video for “Look at Me” on YouTube and follow the Italian experimental pop project Cartamira at the links provided.

Cartamira on Apple Music

Cartamira on Facebook

Cartamira on Instagram

Cartamira on Bandcamp

Queen City Sounds Podcase S5E21: Suicide Cages

Suicide Cages is a band from Denver whose sound draws on various strands of heavy music and punk into a seething maelstrom of channeled outrage and raw emotion. More less a product of the social and civilizational wrecking ball of the COVID-19 pandemic, Suicide Cages came together among friends who knew each other prior and finally came together for a project that could express ideas about society, culture and the fragility of life with focus and integrity. Some might hear the music and take away that it’s an imaginative take on math-y metalcore with the kind of momentum and controlled chaos that that music manifests so well. But anyone that takes a listen to the group’s new EP Live Without there is a lot of pain and despair given air and room to breath and to let it drift some out of the psyche through the sheer release of performance and for the audience sharing in the energy of those moments. Suicide Cages also refreshingly and explicitly, according to its Bandcamp page, “stands against white supremacy in all its forms.” It’s a stance that has become increasingly brave with the rise of racist fascism and all that descends therefrom.

Listen to our interview with Devin Rombough and Mhyk Monroe of Suicide Cages on Bandcamp and follow the band at the links below.

Suicide Cages on Instagram

Suicide Cages on Twitter

Suicide Cages on Facebook

Suicide Cages on Bandcamp

Queen City Sounds Podcast S5E20: Scorplings

Scorplings is a noise rock/post-punk trio from Denver that started in 2023. The group quickly wrote and recorded demos it uploaded to Bandcamp beginning in June 2024. Along with its subsequent demos it was recorded at Scorplings’ rehearsal space and studio the Spaghetti Warehouse The band jokes about how its members met via music classified ads and longtime Denver indie rock musician and songwriter Bryon Parker (Accordion Crimes, Raleigh, Simulators) seemed to find his future bandmates out of a mutual interest in math-y post-rock band Slint as well as like-minded artists. Andres had recently moved from Los Angeles and drummer Dan had come to Denver from Chicago while Parker from the East Coast in the early 2000s but all finding a community in Denver for a type of left field punk rooted in jazz and angular song structures. At the same time one hears an instinct for informal atmospheric elements in the vein of a slowcore band and the unconventional pop song structures and melodies reminiscent of Yo La Tengo. There is a cinematic aspect to the songwriting like it’s inspired by the pacing and dynamics of classic movies. Fans of classic Chicago noise rock and DC post-punk will find a great deal to appreciate about Scorplings’ core sound.

Listen to our interview with Scorplings on Bandcamp and follow Scorplings on Instagram. Catch them live at Ghost Canyon Fest on the first night, Thursday, August 21 at What’s Left Records in Colorado Springs.

lylyn’s IDM Single “4m Hiero” Flows From Digital to Analog Sounds and Back in its Sparkling Evocation of Joy

“4m Hiero” sounds like something constantly unfolding in chapters. On this track lynlyn seems to cernter each section around a tone that expands and blossoms carried by finely accented rhythms. The song slowly accelerates and then pulls back to passages with an aspect of reflection, floating without the rhythm propelling the atmospherics forward, allowed to drift in space. In the video companion we see the visual representation of this with images more rounded before the rhythm reasserts itself in the end into a more angular, digital representation although like a fractal that freely dissolves and takes on coherence to match the beat. By the song’s end it all fades to a restful abstraction. The song is part of lylyn’s new IDM-adjacent album Ixona due out September 5, 2025 on digital, CD and LP. Watch the video for “4m Hiero” on YouTube and follow lynlyn at the links below.

lynlyn on Instagram

lynlyn on Bandcamp

S.C.A.B.’s Warmly Melancholic “4th of July” is a Song About Lingering and Unresolved Affection

S.C.A.B. seems to be in a mode of writing songs about complex and nuanced moments in relationships. Its single “4th of July” has melancholic yet warm, splayed, expanding guitar work with each riff trailing off before repeating like a persistent lingering memory of someone that unravels into an unresolved moment in the end. It’s a perfect dynamic for capturing the essence of a relationship that feels so intense and close in moments but in which each person withdraws even as they yearn for each other because the connection seems so special. The song’s conclusion actually leaves you wondering how the story ends. Listen to “4th of July” on YouTube and follow S.C.A.B. at the links provided.

S.C.A.B. on Twitter

S.C.A.B. on Facebook

S.C.A.B. on Instagram

S.C.A.B. on Bandcamp

Mary Middlefield Indulges in the Joys of a Casual Romance on “Summer Affair”

Mary Middlefield, photo courtesy the artist

Mary Middlefield looks like she’s frolicking at some kind of adult summer camp in the video for “Summer Affair” including a rope swing and a hedgerow pathway. The song and its luminous melody and lively energy is a full embrace of following wherever one’s impulses take one emotionally and spending time indulging hedonistic pursuits of all kinds with someone of choice and take those moments for what they are and not imbuing them with more significance than appropriate. Sometimes you end up in a short term relationship with someone for fun and then it stops being as fun and then as the song suggests maybe you’ve had a second thought about that person with whom you had some light fun and an enjoyable dalliance. Will it lead to more? Does it have to? Middlefield seems content to not have to have those questions answered after all not all relationships need to lead to a serious or forever situation and better off as something casual. Watch the video for “Summer Affair” on YouTube and follow Mary Middlefield at the links below.

Mary Middlefield on TikTok

Mary Middlefield on Instagram

Tim Car’s Low Key Chillwave Single “Pleasure Drives” is a Song About the Joys of Traveling Without Having to Have a Set Destination

Tim Carr’s hazy backdrop, minimalist percussion and introspective vocals on “Pleasure Drives” sounds like an even more lo-fi chillwave celebration of the charms of being able to get in a car and head to no destination in particular. This is not the emotional disconnect and alienation depicted in Gary Numan’s “Cars,” this is more the relaxing and escapist possibilities of driving without an agenda but taking in some of your favorite tunes while your mind wanders in the realm of putting behind you the immediate context of the sources of any anxiety and taking some time to forget about it all while your focus is on the road ahead. It’s definitely a phenomenon not just of decades past but of the present if you’re in a place where you can go some distance and have the option of turning back easily if you’ve sufficiently unraveled what’s unsettling your mind. Driving for pleasure is not as cheap as it once was and most cities don’t have a lot at the edges that don’t seem completely taken over by private equity firm development but you can still take those rides on your terms. It’s a lower key work for the songwriter whose tonally rich synth pop is transporting, but this song accomplishes much the same with a different sound palette that feels like its marking the miles between you and more familiar environs with a relaxed but direct pacing. Listen to “Pleasure Drives” on YouTube and connect with Tim Car at the links below.

Tim Carr on Twitter

Tim Carr on Facebook

Tim Carr on Instagram

Tim Carr on Bandcamp

Josh Jacobs Takes Aim at Racism, Classism and Bigotry While Embracing His Cultural Heritage on “LANDfill”

Josh Jacobs raps deftly with righteousness and swagger over a blend of bomba and trap beats on “LANDfill” taking on racist right wingers directly. But he doesn’t stop at the clever invective nor at racism but religious bigotry and classism. His flow and delivery is reminiscent of Vast Aire the way the latter will take some bars in a higher register and seem to answer back but elaborate in a different tone while maintaining a compelling narrative. It’s a refreshingly unapologetic song that embraces the the artist’s Hispanic heritage while calling out those who choose imagined safety in their relatively privileged economic status. Listen to “LANDfill” on Spotify and follow Josh Jacobs at the links provided.

Josh Jacobs on In Lite End

Josh Jacobs on Facebook

Josh Jacobs on Instagram

Josh Jacobs on TikTok

AUS!Funkt’s “Follow the Impulse to Insanity (Black and White)” is Subversive, Anti-Authoritarian, Krautrock Disco

The motorik beats of “Follow the Impulse to Insanity (Black and White)” by AUS!Funkt accented by the fluid bass line are like a guide out of the straight jacket of late capitalist, technocratic control over too much of our lives. The vocals nearly whisper in the first half of the song but echo in near hysteria in the second half as though shaking off the “logic” of conforming to the dictates of “pure” economic decision making that isn’t done for the benefit of real humans but of a system that is designed to funnel the goods of society upward rather than distribute them in even a rational way that would ensure the well being of civilization. The sound of the song as it gets noisier and more psychedelic is a rebellion against your conditioning to go along with something bad for you. The title of the song spells that out and suggests that maybe “insanity” or the awakening to the “irrationality” of wanting to live as a human with the analog “flaws” and emotional responses to situations intact. The chorus of “I can’t accept these new conditions” speaks directly to how in corporate controlled environments parameters are changed regularly often to maximize your your use of time and demand increasingly more until you can give nothing else. The song is anti-authoritarian krautrock disco at its finest. Listen to “Follow the Impulse to Insanity (Black and White)” on Spotify and follow AUS!Funkt at the links below.