Queen City Sounds and Art

Michelle Limanje’s “Sane” is a Dazzling Array of Musical and Emotional Contradictions Reconciled

Michelle Limanje’s vocals seem to invoke both the compellingly alien aspect of Grace Jones and sonically varied and imaginative traits of Lower Dens on her single “Sane.” The vocal processing gives the lyrical delivery an artificial human quality in moments and more vulnerably human in others. The guitar melody runs a gamut of textural and delicately filigreed in structure to more robust and distorted while engaging directly with the chorus. Synths give a counter melody that runs through the song and expressive percussion seems to control the flow of the song’s constantly evolving dynamic. And that’s what makes this song so interesting, it establishes a mood but its ways of maintaining that atmosphere shift from the beginning to the end so that it’s like a tour of some of the more experimental rock of the 1990s but with a hybrid aesthetic that could only be fully possible now with an almost sound design approach to the arrangements. It’s like a gentler version of Curve’s fusion of dream pop and industrial music and it’s treatment of the subject of a complex relationship and the suggestion of an element of co-dependence and dysfunction being worked out adds yet another layer of disparate energies reconciled as the song progresses to the end. Listen to “Sane” on YouTube.

The Soft Focus and Deep Mood of deo autem nihil’s Ambient IDM Track “vivere et vivere” Untangles the Knot of Learned Anxiety

A sound of rain outside the window and birds in the near distance accompanies a foggy, abstract melody like sunlight peeking through a morning bank of low hanging clouds. That’s the imagery conjured by the beginning of deo autem nihil’s “vivere et vivere” before a hovering, luminous drone fades in and out and an incredibly minimal set of texture tones establishes a spare beat. The main melody resonates out with a quickly decaying resonance that conveys a contemplative mood. The title of the song means “to live and to live” which may be a subtle statement on taking things day by day as a way to move through a period in one’s life where you feel compelled to spend long moments reflecting on your life as a path forward and to live with intention and with a simplicity of focus and patience for your limitations rather than the artificial and forced intensity often imposed on our lives. The song is reminiscent of 1980s library music and thus 1990s IDM but is not beholden to a specific aesthetic beyond its own which establishes a strongly identifiable yet gentle mood. Listen to “vivere et vivere” on Spotify and follow deo autem nihil at the links below.

deo autem nihil on Bandcamp

deo autem nihil on Instagram

deo autem nihil on Apple Music

O. Wake Contemplates the Faint Possibility of Hope in Dissociating Through the Worst of Times on “Let’s All Get Pessimistic”

O. Wake aka Ofer Shouval really takes aim at the tendency to dissociate in the current media and social environment on “Let’s All Get Pessimistic.” With bad news seemingly shotgunned our way in the news, non-stop shitstorm tweets and media coverage of narcissist former presidents during their recent administration and the myriad of challenges cascading down us because of the failure of the merely competent institutions that we’ve complacently depended upon maybe with a much deserved cynicism about their presumed essentially changeless nature with predictable cycles except none of predictable existence has been a thing for decades. We’ve just been able to pretend otherwise because it hasn’t hurt so bad or been in the faces of everyone so directly all the time unless you’re on the bottom rung of the social ladder. And in recent days everyone has had a hefty dose of that. It has just been impossible to ignore unless your powers of denial and filters are set high. Then maybe you get sentimental and cling to how you assumed things were and take comfort in nostalgia culture and comfort movies or TV. While the world burns and fascists are on the verge of taking over the country in America and oligarchs and fascists in other countries threaten to drop nuclear weapons more than 30 years after most people thought that a possibility and hey now nearly year round wildfires some even in winter and flooding where there hasn’t been much before oh and the north pole isn’t necessarily frozen year round either. O. Wake sets these ambient anxieties crushing anyone with any level of sensitivity (those without can damn well perish without knowing why while insisting it’s not going on from future pandemics to the kinds of climate change events human technology is inadequate to handle—no amount of money will suffice to thwart or escape the effects thereof) to a kind of upbeat, Strokes-esque, ear worm of a song. Given the lack of enlightened social vision and political will certainly deeply in America and not so impressive in most of the rest of the world our global human civilization and global capitalism are doomed as unsustainable in its present form. When Shouval sings “And now I’m living day by day/No longer burdened by the weight/Of all these hopes and expectations” that’s about the size of it, it’s the modern equivalent sentiment of when Johnny Rotten sang about people having “No future, no future, no future” for you in “God Save the Queen.” And yet one senses Shouval is not a nihilist, just not sure what might motivate people to set aside some petty differences and act with vigor and conviction to address problems that faith in political parties and certainly in outdated ideologies are inadequate to the situations at hand. One only hopes the meager hope Shouval senses in the power of people to get through this time intact is a reality and not a frail hope. Listen to “Let’s All Get Pessimistic” on Soundcloud and follow O. Wake at the links below.

Anastave’s Darkly Etherea “Sacrifice” Gets Behind the Eyes of a Narcissistic Abuser

Anastave brings a darkly ethereal, soothing sound to the “Sacrifice” single. The hushed vocals sound so up close and intimate and the background synth melodies and textures sound like a needle was dropped on a record made for the occasion to play while the vocals were recorded. The lyrics seem like a weird series of short diary entries written to someone but perhaps in the style where the words are a manifestation, a summary, of sentiments and words spoken to the author like assuming the persona of an abuser to make more sense of a challenging situation as a vehicle for therapy through art. Though the song does sound very much like it’s all but whispering in your ear there is a sense of spaciousness like taking the time to speak one’s truth into actual space instead of keeping them merely to yourself and even though the song’s lyrics speak of toxic interactions and a terribly controlling relationship down to threats of violence and holding a lethal consequence offered if the abuser feels the abused is worthy. In the chorus there is talk of sacrificing everything for the malignant narcissist and their own expressions of a deranged sense of personal aggrievement which seems so relevant to social dynamics we have largely left unexamined as a culture. It goes to some darkly personal places and in doing so with the level of honesty and reality demonstrated allows for the truth to shine rather than get to hide because of one’s own internal censor and social cover for horrible behavior serve as an illusion to cover over the harm done. The luminously airy composition is dreamlike in its delivery of its layers of mood and in being so easily accessible it makes the content easier to take on its own terms. Listen to “Sacrifice” on Spotify and follow Anastave at the links provided.

Anastave on Instagram

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Lo Artiz’s Downtempo Electro Soul Single “11:11” is a Musical Salve for the Anxious Mind

Lo Artiz’s arrangements on the “11:11” single uses a subtle, sparkly tonal backdrop that sound like winking starlight as the setting for the song’s deeply contemplative tenor. The song has layers of vocal melody like something one might expect in a electro soul song akin to something you’d hear on an Erykah Badu record. The song is about sorting out the ways a person struggles with the anxieties that haunt them without allowing those disruptive waves of mood to circumscribe one’s entire life. But in those moments when your personal demons hit so deep into your mind that you have a difficult time shaking off their grip sometimes you really need some things to hold on to to pull yourself out of those dark corners of the soul and sometimes it’s the ability to dream of a different time and place for yourself, sometimes little activities and joys that serve as the scaffolding of your psyche so that even if you fall far into personal darkness you can at least have something that stimulates your brain beyond its self-immolating fixations. The recursive pulse of the rhythm with ethereal tones that unravel anxious reactions are like a salve themselves especially with Lo Artiz’s soulful and commanding vocals that serve less as a demand for better for yourself than a hypnotic reminder that the worst moments in your head are not the entirety of who you are and that even without insipid positivity and bravado that you can in face find a way to go on even when you don’t think you can. Listen to “11:11” on Spotify and follow Lo Artiz at the links provided.

Lo Artiz on Facebook

Lo Artiz on YouTube

Lo Artiz on Instagram

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Conflict at Serenity Pools’ “faraway” is Like the Mysterious Opening Sequence to a Lo-Fi Cosmic Science Fiction Noir

Conflict at Serenity Pools, photo courtesy the artist

The rippling sideways cascade of sounds and flow of texture in the beginning of “faraway” by Conflict at Serenity Pools pairs well with the rippling painterly naturaly imagery in the music video. Plants warp and move in tandem with the arc of the music, like a sine wave form treatment on the footage. Together it reinforces the song’s sense of otherworldliness, discovery and serenity. We hear birds in the background like we’re catching these views in the early morning hours before the beat of the sun drives all creatures into seeking shade and cooler places. It has the feel of the introduction of something. The organic atmospheric quality with resonant bell-like tones echoing and the sound of a breeze as background distorted drone suggests an old 70s, Utopian science fiction movie. Without invoking library music and media archaeology the song conveys a the mood of a neglected aesthetic like mixing avant-garde folk with IDM in a way that hasn’t already been done by Boards of Canada. Like an experimental music video shot to Hi-8 and rediscovered decades hence with no identifying markers and the technology used to make it the only signifier of context. If the intro to an album is supposed to get you to listen to more or the opening of a film to get you to commit to viewing the whole this song with its attendant video accomplish just that.

Conflict at Serenity Pools on TikTok

Conflict at Serenity Pools on Instagram

The Bodies Obtained Combine Techno, IDM and Post-punk Aesthetics for the Evocatively Intricate “Do Nothing, Be Nothing”

The Bodies Obtained (presumably the name of the project is named after the lyric from the Joy Division song “Day of the Lords”) title its single “Do Nothing, Be Nothing” and invoke expectations of something that might sound like a Discharge song. But no, it’s a wonderful combination of post-punk and IDM-infused techno like a Depeche Mode and Clark mash-up. Its sound brings together textural tones and layers of rhythm like a melodic electronic bass line given a percussive quality so that the driving dynamic of the song seems to vivid with multiple through lines that carry an irresistible aggregate of momentum even as the song diverges from what is initially established as the main musical theme and then consolidates the strands of sonic ideas by the end. We’ve heard elements of this song before in other styles of music but it’s not often we hear a project truly thread together minimal techno, post-punk’s moodiness and IDM’s propulsive atmospheric qualities in such an intricate yet uncomplicated way with strong musical lines that complement each other so effectively. Listen to “Do Nothing, Be Nothing” on Spotify and follow The Bodies Obtained on Soundcloud.

Death Hags Offers a Soothing Haven for the Realization of Dreams on “This ∞ Mind”

Death Hags brings to the single “This ∞ Mind” (from the album Big Grey Sun #4) a rather tonally vivid dream pop sensibility. There are ethereal melodies but there are jagged edges that give definition to their character that are bit like lightning in a storm allowing delineation of the boundaries of clouds in a thunderstorm. The album itself is a bit of a journey through luminously dreamlike soundscapes with a touch of fuzzy psychedelia providing some bite to the soothing aesthetic of the songwriting. This song in the beginning is reminiscent of Midwife’s 2020 album Forever but rather than the soul shearing heartache the track feels like the other side of that emotional black hole and a contemplation of possibilities that one hopes for and seem within reach if you truly take the time to plot some trajectories for your energies in making what are now mere hopes and dreams happen. Watch the gorgeously mysterious and colorful music video for “This ∞ Mind” on YouTube and follow Death Hags at the links below.

Death Hags on Twitter

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Graffiti Welfare Guide’s the Mind to a More Blissful State With Hypnogogic Pop Single “Just Follow”

Graffiti Welfare’s single “Just Follow” sits somewhere between gentle, drifty psychedelia and ambient IDM dream pop. Think a lo-fi and more chill Big Black Delta and Washed Out. Melody and texture flows through the song like water and wind, pooling in eddies of sound before dissolving into silence leaving the lightly echoing vocals which haunt the track like the voice of a lingering spirit. In moments it’s reminiscent of parts of The Helio Sequence circa Young Effectuals with the blissed out vocals and layers of hazy melody. Whatever the exact shape, impact and texture of the music the music video for the song is brimming with signifiers synced with what we’re hearing with vocals coming in paired with plants coming into bloom, the vocals represented by abstract fireworks float over the rippling texture of flowing water in a river. Guitar too accompany the burst of blooms and give way to percussion counting the moments as the whole takes a casual pace, dreamlike in a steady flow of soothing energy. It is like a dynamic collage of pop songcraft and symbolic imagery. As the title of the song suggests sometimes it’s best to go with a benevolent flow rather than overthink. Watch the video for “Just Follow” on YouTube, give the rest of the new album Revolving Shores when it releases to Spotify on June 17, 2002 and follow Graffiti Welface at the links provided.

Graffiti Welfare on Twitter

Graffiti Welfare on Instagram

theWorst’s “Hurt Forever” is a Raw and Powerful Expression of Radical Vulnerability and a Will to Self Love

“Hurt Forever” showcases theWorst’s ability to deliver blistering melodies as expressions of a sensitivity abused by bad faith actors far too many times. But also not being willing to lose that vulnerability that makes one open to oneself and others in spite the of the risk of running afoul of people who think you’ll just take their abuse without comment. Joshua James Hand’s video treatment for the song has Brooke Binion in a mental health facility with other people also often stuck in such places when family and society doesn’t know what to do with people who have hit some sort of breaking point often as a normal reaction to extraordinarily harmful situations. We see the stark conditions and the surreal quality of that experience until that imagery and that of being in a rock band is juxtaposed perhaps revealing how creative work and pursuing one’s non-destructive passions can be a way out of that state as a positive way to build the psychological infrastructure to sustain a functional existence. Maybe rock music as therapy is a bit on the nose but it really works here because there is no suggestion that having creative outlets for your psychic agony is going to solve all your problems or soothe the tender places where you still hurt from a lifetime of abuse, self-inflicted and otherwise. When the end of the song comes and Binion is cloaked in a plastic drape singing quietly with only an acoustic about a yearning for genuine connection after much of the rest of the song raging with channeled frustration at having no control over one’s life and no meaningful agency it hits perhaps hardest because it’s where the anger and furious energy are set aside to express what everyone wants and needs with the simplicity of an unvarnished truth. Watch the video for “Hurt Forever” on YouTube and follow theWorst at the links below where you can also listen to the rest of The Worst’s new album Yes Regrets with released on 6/2/22.