Queen City Sounds and Art

Origami Ghosts Travel Through the Ephemeral Charms of Digital Life to the Human Yearning for Analog Connection on Psychedelic Pop Single “Virtual Reality Boy”

Origami Ghosts, photo by Brittne Lunniss

Origami Ghosts’ “Virtual Reality Boy” is musically reminiscent of something from the 2000s before indie rock and pop became too much of a genre branding exercise. Its idiosyncratic vocals and rhythms feel organic like something written because someone had a nice guitar melody and a concept that is beautifully realized in the animated music video with images straight out of early video art and resonances with a Daniel Johnston album cover. The song seems to be one of exploring the wonders of a virtual world and in the end a yearning to be back in one’s own meatspace even though real life can often be challenging and a bummer and lacking in supposed infinite choices. But the lack of actual connection and the underrated and often unconscious emotional adjustment of not being overstimulated and thus natural emotional regulation is something our minds crave even when we’ve convinced ourselves otherwise. The vocal melody suits the song and its tone well even if it’s not some overprocessed and conventionally “pristine” because it’s human and that is where the song’s appeal rings most true. Watch the video for “Virtual Reality Boy” on YouTube and follow Los Angeles-based, psychedelic pop band Origami Ghosts at the links below. The band’s latest album A fine time to talk about nothing released August 8, 2025 on vinyl, cassette, CD, download and streaming.

Origami Ghosts on Apple Music

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Origami Ghosts on Facebook

Origami Ghosts on TikTok

Origami Ghosts on Instagram

Origami Ghosts on Bandcamp

Pynch Speaks Eloquently to the Anxiety of an Era of Endless Choices on Genre Eclectic Single “Post-Punk/New-Wave”

London-based post-punk band Pynch will release its new album Beautiful Noise October 3, 2025 on vinyl, digital download and streaming. Its lead singles promise something more sonically rich and diverse than one might expect with any genre tagging and the cheekily titled yet endearingly rendered song “Post-Punk/New-Wave” speaks to that. In the current era it seems like every musical idea has been tried and every combination and trying to get a hook into a potential listener while remaining true to an idiosyncratic, and thus truly valuable, artistic vision and sensibility can be challenging. There is simply so much out there to cater to tastes but when those tastes are not necessarily cultivated either one can get caught up in trying to appeal to too much. But instead of trying too much the song has a simple melody and rhythm with lyrics that are just dead honest about the way all the possible options and the multitude of distractions and demands on your life and time can pull you apart into a state of perpetual existential crisis without committing to anything because doing so might mean you’ll miss out, be out of date and seem quaint by being about anything. The opening lyric spells this dilemma out nicely: “It’s post-punk, it’s new wave with a little bit of shoegaze, I want it all.” And don’t we all want to have options? And yet infinite options is exhausting and corrosive to a sense of self. Ironically, perhaps, the song does have an identity as an eclectic, jangly song with undeniable hooks that is all it aims to be while evoking modern angst in an era of social media and endless access to often meaningless choices. Watch the video for “Post-Punk/New-Wave” on YouTube and follow Pynch at the links provided.

“Tarha” is Bombino’s Uplifting, Tuareg Guitar Folk Tribute to Love, Friendship and the Beautiful Tranquility of the Desert

“Tarha” came about when Greatg Big Warm House invited Grammy nominated Tuareg artist Bombino into their space Villa Lala in Vienna to record. It’s a song about love, friendship and the desert but one doesn’t need to speak Tamasheq to feel the warmth and affection in the music. The intricate, fluid and energetic guitar work intertwines with the Bombino’s soft yet finely inflected vocals that rise above the rhythmic guitar leads and spare drones that serve as a narrative backdrop and emotional context to the music. It has the sound of tranquil journeys over sand to visit those closest to your heart and the yearning for that connection that gives you the peace of mind to endure the heat and exertion to reunite and share in the company of the people that help to fill your heart with meaning. Listen to “Tarha” on Spotify and follow Bombino at the links below.

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Doc No’s Live Modular Piece “Q-41_QV_050325a” is Charged With the Playful Percussive Tones and Bright, Sustained Harmonics

“Q-41_QV_050325a” sure does look like one of those file names that Aphex Twin uses for titles for tracks on some of his own releases. But it is part of Doc No’s latest collection Quimby Variations, Vol. 1 (released June 20, 2025). Its spacious resonances and vivid tonal quality sounds like the musical equivalent of a slow moving pinball machine with the ball hitting various objects as it bounces gently off walls as it’s guided through a gauntlet of widgets that change its trajectory and triggering unique sounds that are both percussive and rhythmic. All while swelling and fading drones give the foreground music a contrasting context of sustained harmonics. That the piece was part of a larger set performed through modular synths and recorded straight to tape makes it an even more impressive achievement of all but spontaneous composition. Listen to “Q-41_QV_050325a” on YouTube and follow Doc No aka Noah Davis at the links below.

Doc No on Instagram

Queen City Sounds Podcast S5E26: Janet Feder

Fred Frith and Janet Feder, photo courtesy the artists

Janet Feder is considered one of the world’s most inventive and innovative guitarists and she has been a fixture of Denver’s local avant-garde/experimental music scene for decades as a musician, songwriter and educator. Her prepared guitar technique has yielded a sound like a miniature orchestra of sounds, textures and rhythms. Feder grew up playing music in a more traditional style as a guitarist including folk and rock styles but discovered a new world of technique and creative outlet upon witnessing a Thinking Plague show and seeing Mike Johnson and the band going beyond mere progressive rock to something that challenged even what that could sound like. From there Feder became part of the Denver avant-garde as a respected artist in her own right. The guitarist has several albums to her name going back to the mid-90s including collaborative albums with the likes of Mighty Fine Productions head and sound engineer/multi-instrumentalist Colin Bricker, composer Paul Fowler and the legendary Fred Frith. The latter was a founding member of Henry Cow, one of the leading lights of the “Rock in opposition” movement turning convention on its head. His list of collaborations are lengthy and include working with and/or contributing to the works of The Residents, Jad Fair, John Zorn, Brian Eno, Bill Laswell, Robert Wyatt and Mike Patton. In 2006 Feder and Frith released an album called Ironic universe that showcased their chemistry as high level practitioners of improvisation and imaginative musicianship.

In 2017 Frith and Feder performed at show at the studio space for Mighty Fine Productions and recreated the magic of that collaborative album while hinting at further refinements in their technique developed during the intervening years. On September 16, 2025 the two guitarists perform live again at The Bug Theater in Denver for another display of left field musical creativity and practice courtesy Creative Music Works.

Listen to our interview with Janet Feder on Bandcamp and follow her and Creative Music Works (where you can purchase tickets for the show and future events of interest in the realm of avant-garde music) at the link below.

janetfeder.com

Janet Feder on Bandcamp

creativemusicworks.org

The Picture Tour Debuts Video For Shoegaze Noir Single “Nobody Cruises Anymore”

The Picture Tour is releasing its new album Blood. Machine. Gasoline. in late October 2025. Fronted by guitarist Billy Armijo The Picture Tour’s gritty psychedelia fuses dark melodies with an urgency in the rhythms that propel the songs through those moments in your mind when a melancholic mood can cause your heart to drift into lost places. The lead single from the album “Nobody Cruises Anymore” is a prime example of the way in which the group’s dynamic as a trio pushes is completely unified in driving the song beginning to end with a percussive forcefulness. Fans of A Place To Bury Strangers will appreciate how the atmospheric guitar breaks ever so slightly into controlled fuzz harnessed to maximum effect while the almost motorik rhythms pulse with in a headlong pace.

The accompanying music video shows the band playing just out of frame interspersed with scenes from night driving in the city. As the song’s title suggests there was a time in Denver and many other cities when night driving had a certain mystique and attraction to the imagination of a sense of adventure and getting out into unexplored stretches of urban landscapes and the hinterlands. It also represented a certain sense of freedom that existed before private equity firms and other corporations bought up and out all the urban decay, lower rent housing and small businesses and turned them into the blight that robs cities of much of their character and appeal. It’s a song that feels like it’s headed straight into the future but indulging a nostalgia and sense of romanticism for something lost that was, in a word, cool and which helped to shape your identity and sense of place. The video and the song together resonate with the aesthetic of a Nicolas Winding Refn film and that director’s gift for creating modern noir. The video was edited and directed by John Bishop with cinematography by Sara Armijo and Keturah Bishop who also did the color for the video which was produced by Josh and Keturah Bishop.

Watch the video for “Nobody Cruises Anymore” on YouTube and follow The Picture Tour at the links below. The band performs at Mutiny Information Cafe with Owosso on Saturday, September 13, 2025 at 3pm with an album release show for Blood. Machine. Gasoline. TBA.

The Picture Tour on Facebook

The Picture Tour on Instagram

The Picture Tour on Bandcamp

Madeline Goldstein’s Darkwave Synth Pop Single “Apogee” is a Deeply Evocative Song About Embracing the Energy of Complicated Feelings

Madeline Goldstein, photo by Aleckz Picha

“Apogee” is the second single from Madeline Goldstein’s forthcoming full-length album set for release in fall 2025. It is the first and only co-written song with Matia Simovich (a producer on releases from Them Are Us Too, SRSQ, Riki, Houses of Heaven, Inhalt and others). The song has the hallmarks of Goldstein’s songwriting and vocal that have made her work today some of the most entrancing and sonically rich modern synth pop and darkwave happening. Goldstein’s 2023 EP Other World was a short release to get lost in with the noir storytelling and saturated synth melodies paired with Goldstein’s soaring, melodious and evocative vocals. “Apogee” has all of that but a step further in development with unconventional percussive elements that include field recordings of wrenches dragged across chain link fences and even more layers of synth and electronic drums.

All in all this deeply personal song that seems to be about being in that liminal space in your heart where you wonder if the situation you’re in with someone is reaching a high point or if it’s some kind of yearning that blurs the line between connection and something deeper. The dramatic bursts of crystalline synth tone and pulsing rhythm is engulfing and hypnotic like a melancholic dance song written to induce the crying out of confused and complicated emotions while stuck between feeling so strongly and not knowing if it’s reciprocated or if it’s all been in your head yet not being able to deny your own depth of feeling. And sometimes the best way to process that state of being is to write and hear a song that speaks so directly to an emotional state that is common enough but not often written about with such elegance and tonal precision. Listen to “Apogee” on YouTube and follow Madeline Goldstein at the links below.

Madeline Goldstein on Instagram

Madeline Goldstein on Bandcamp

Ava Della Pietra Reclaims Her Power by Turning The Tables on a Shady Lover on Alt-Pop Single “2 can play”

Ava Della Pietra, image courtesy the artist

Ava Della Pietra’s confident and sassy “2 can play” is a song about how sometimes we can all think we’re into someone who is bad for us and is bad news in general. In the song Della Pietra takes on a two faced lover or would be lover who seems to think it’s fine to play the field among her friends like they wouldn’t talk. There’s a term for this kind of man that includes the word “boi” but it’s not mentioned in the song because this guy doesn’t even rate that. Della Pietra reclaims her dignity by walking away after first feeling a little hurt as you do and turns the tables on the fool who probably won’t be able to handle it. The playful rhythms arranged with the pace of the story and how it sketches out the sitch lends the song some unconventional structure that reflects the lived of experience of being done wrong and then finding a way to turn that shady behavior sideways on the perpetrator. Watch the video for “2 can play” on YouTube and follow Ava Della Pietra at the links below.

avadellapietra.com

Ava Della Pietra on Twitter

Ava Della Pietra on Facebook

Ava Della Pietra on Instagram

Trentemøller’s Rework and Remix of Tan Cologne’s Shoegaze Single “In Resin” Sounds Like a Daydream of Itself

The Trentemøller rework and remix of Tan Cologne’s dream pop single “In Resin” renders it all but unrecognizable beyond the entrancing melody. Rather than centered on guitar the driving sound is a simple piano figure underneath vocals that seem to appear and dissolve in the mix only to reappear later like clouds in the late spring daytime. The minimal percussion accents provide a grounding textural element that guides rather than anchors the song which seems to be flowing and drifting where it will but with a soothing and hypnotic quality like getting lost in a daydream of the original composition. Listen to “In Resin (Trentemøller Rework)” as remixed by Trentemøller as well on YouTube and follow north New Mexico duo Tan Cologne at the links below.

Tan Cologne on Instagram

Fletcher Tucker’s Organic Ritual Drone Track “To Light a Fire” is a Mystical Rite of Birth and Renewal

Fletcher Tucker, photo courtesy the artist

The enigmatic, slowly evolving harmonics of the drone that introduces Fletcher Tucker’s “To Light a Fire” from his new album Kin (out August 15, 2025 via Gnome Life Records) complements well the video footage of a fire burning in a pile of grass and other dried vegetation. The way a fire is in variation of form as influenced by the flow of oxygen around it but of uniform character. Then the voice comes in talking about building a bonfire in the snow far from the nearest road to commune with ancient human existence in a ritual surrounded by nature. The words speak to connecting with one’s ancestors and the generations to come. At the halfway point flute-like Mellotron figures and resound across the field of sound with minimal percussion (provided by Phil Elverum) accenting and brushing about like it is embodying the crackle of branches breaking down in the fire and the gentle sound of flames consuming wood. In the end of the song it becomes obvious that the song has been a kind of birth rite welcoming new life into the world in a way that would have been familiar to humans millennia ago and imbuing it with a mystic power often missing from human experiences in the present. Watch the video for “To Light a Fire” on YouTube and follow Fletcher Tucker at the links below.