Queen City Sounds and Art

Iceage Puts in a Powerful Performance of its Post-Punk Glam Blues for Tapetown Sessions

Iceage in June 2018, photo by Tom Murphy

The Tapetown Session of Iceage displays a band in part studio environment and part live. But with this format the spontaneity and energy of the live show is preserved with the sonic fidelity that wouldn’t be possible in most concert environments. What also separates this footage from that admittedly excellent series of live sessions on KEXP is that the environment seems more gritty and like it could be in their own studio, perhaps, but is in fact the Tapetown Studio in Aarhus, Denmark. The band seems comfortable yet focused and performing a selection of seven songs from its two most recent albums Beyondless (2018) and Seek Shelter (2021). This set of songs has the Danish post-punk band in fine form performing a set of songs that showcase the breadth of its musical vision over the last few years having expanded well beyond the more angular post-punk of its early days into a fascinating amalgam of unvarnished punk waxing into forms that sprawl the sounds and the emotional expressions beyond any orthodoxy of style. This version of Iceage has as much in common with Stooges, New York Dolls and The Birthday Party as it does with hardcore and death rock mixing in elements of rockabilly, blues and country as well. Those hybrid impulses blended together could be a mess but here Iceage manages to synthesize it all with power and conviction for a music that because it can seem loose around the edges also conveys a sense of creative freedom and the ability to defy and grow beyond expectations set by its earlier music. Watch the Tapetown Sessions of Iceage on YouTube and connect with the band at the links provided.

iceagecopenhagen.eu

Iceage on Facebook

“Suspended In Blue” by Marigold Sun Articulates the Deep Sense of Peace and Awe at the Fingers of Sunlight of a Clear Sky On a Late Winter Morning

“Suspended In Blue” evokes the image of sunlight refracting in the sky and streaming down, sparkling now and then the way it seems to on a bright, late winter morning. Eric Li Harrison as Marigold Sun arranges the peaks of tones and fades of the track so that there is a continues flow of atmospherics so that the accents and lingering drones and gentle, subtle whorls of sound in the background stand out in with layers of sonic depth as though capturing that perfect moment when an icicle will catch the sunlight against a blue sky as well as the aforementioned streams of sunshine breaking the morning haze before the sun rises to the full power of its brightness in the sky. It’s a natural beauty that is difficult to express in words, as might be too obvious here, but it does have a restful and refreshing effect psychologically and the treatment of those feelings here is immediately affecting. It is reminiscent of some of the best library music of the 80s that are largely lost to time unless you have one of those great compilations of that music or you’re actively listening to the echoes of such in the work of Boards of Canada. Listen to “Suspended In Blue” on Soundcloud and connect with Marigold Sun at the links below.

marigold-sun.com

Marigold Sun on Instagram

“Feed Infinite” by London Jazz Group Binker & Moses is a Modal Act of Resistance to Today’s Spirit of Malaise

London jazz duo Binker & Moses brought in honorary third member Max Luthert to reassemble raw acoustic recordings of sax and drums in the studio. Saxophonist Binker Golding and drummer and composer Moses Boyd went in with no planned material and after Luthert’s treatments of the exercise in spontaneous composition the resulting track “Feed Infinite” (out now on Gearbox Records) comes off focused and fluid. It’s reminiscent of mid-60s post-bop, free jazz in the ways Boyd accents the beat and keeps the rhythm flowing with both contemplative minimalism and maximalist urgency later in the song. Golding brings a light touch to his tonal figures early in the piece as well before launching into elaborate and energetic modal passages with an expressive flourish to match Boyd’s pacing. It’s a beautifully synergistic piece that when assembled this way takes advantage of electronic touches and sounds that help bring out a contemplative mood that can turn quickly to a spirit of creative rebelliousness and resistance to the doldrums and resignation to mediocrity in life under late capitalism. The energy of the performance is the opposite of the malaise one might understandable feel these days. While tapping a bit into older jazz traditions the aesthetic is well placed in modern electronic music and the avant-garde with micro-dynamics that flow and evolve in a manner suggestive of free association. Listen to “Feed Infinite” on YouTube and connect with Binker & Moses at the links below.

gearboxrecords.com

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Streaming Platform Links for Binker & Moses

Lustmord & Karin Park Chart a Path Through the Dark Waters Ahead to a Mysterious Future With ALTER

Lustmord & Karin Park, photo by Edgar Bachel

Lustmord is perhaps best known for his extensive and varied career in crafting fascinating and evocative soundscapes and his work in and with SPK, Current 93, Jarboe, Clock DVA and Melvins. So it should come as no surprise that his collaborative album with Karin Park, vocalist and member of Swedish rock band ÅRABROT, would yield something different and a synthesis of his own creatives strengths and hers. ALTER (out now on Pelagic Records) is not simply clever wordplay suggestive of a place of spiritual practice and the act of transforming an object or identity. It would be tempting to compare this record to something you might hear from Dead Can Dance because of the emotional resonance and invoking the mystical by tapping into ancient and devotional musical ideas. But there is something deeply dark about the songs of ALTER that feel like you’re witnessing the decay and collapse of modern civilization in mythical terms, an end of the world we know and the emergence of the next as manifested in a film by John Boorman. The sound design on every song has that haze of deep mystery that hung at the edges of most of Boorman’s films with drones and processed white noise flowing in the background. Park provides the distinct emotional connection with her voice like a mournful incantation beseeching strength and wisdom from beyond time.

Lustmord has created a sense of space like a cavernous cathedral but one whose shifting sounds and textures is more like a tunnel down which Park travels on a journey in the near dark. The album would feel claustrophobic if the sounds weren’t also so expansive and suggestive of the wide open. Yet it also hints at a way of shielding oneself from a coarsened and perilous world until such a time as it might be safe to re-emerge and rebuild, to establish new myths for a better future while witnessing those that have served as the framework for the modern iteration of human culture to wither away and dissolve. Overall it’s reminiscent in a way of many of those Utopian science fiction films and works of the 1970s and 1980s like Logan’s Run, Zardoz (as hinted at earlier with the Boorman reference), J.G. Ballard’s most unusual novels and Gene Wolfe’s Urth of the New Sun series. All depict a future we never could have predicted and this album sounds like the music of the passage to that unprecedented future during a time of crises beyond the ability of our current social organizations and belief systems to weather intact. A dark, deep yet ultimately rewarding album of completely unconventional and enigmatic beauty that seeps into your consciousness and lingers long afterward. Listen to/download ALTER on Bandcamp and watch the video for “Song of Sol” on YouTube.

Sell Farm’s Pressure is a Genre Swapping Masterpiece of Industrial Darkwave Dub

Forget the images the name Sell Farm might bring to mind. Pressure might be described as an industrial darkwave dub album but it also has as much in common with ambient music and the avant-garde pop music Phil Elverum has been making for over 20 years including his time with Old Time Relijun, Microphones and Mount Eerie. There is no attempt to stick to genre convention or instrumentation. Imagine an album made by later 90s era Swans through the lens of indie pop. “Fools” introduces us with lush and lo-fi soundscapes produced by distorted white noise and repeating motifs of stringed instruments and processed drones giving a sense of grittiness like an old and decaying film print of a stranger’s 8 millimeter reel of a family holiday celebration. Though there is a mysterious accessibility here the whole album sounds like a long lost cassette culture industrial product out of the 80s underground. The vocals even when they’re at their most melancholic reveal some roots in the influence of R&B via Prince and D’Angelo. But you could also hear this on the soundtrack of a future David Lynch film, especially the brooding and foggy “Ideas and Missiles.” The album ends with the propulsive title track that hits like a dub-infused EBM song akin to an older Nitzer Ebb track circa That Total Age. Live all of these songs have such a startling power, particularly “Pressure,” but even on these recordings you have to wonder when these songs were written and recorded which is a testament to Sell Farm’s ability to free associate styles across decades. Listen to Pressure on Bandcamp and pick up one of the limited edition cassettes if you’re so inclined.

Vague Lanes Manifest a Path Through the Dark Spirit Haunting the Zeitgeist on “Here :: Now.” From Its Debut EP Cassette

Vague Lanes create a sound that resonates with the decaying culture and political infrastructure of the USA with its 2021 track “Here :: Now.” Achieving a good deal of grit with two basses, one driving and grinding along with the insistent drum machine, the other carrying a bit of the melody in the upper registers. The vocals sound like they were recorded in a tunnel in a forgotten part of the city while the track itself produced and then mixed for effect in a similarly clandestine location for an effect that is cathartic and expansive even though a mood of oppression, dissolved for a few moments by the momentum of the music, can be felt and heard haunting every moment of the song. Fans of Comsat Angels or All Your Sisters will appreciate the way the vocals a expressively wide-ranging and reach deep into a place of desperation and a yearning for liberation from the ambient gloom that seems to have settled on the zeitgeist. Listen to “Here :: Now” on Spotify and perhaps buy a copy of the duo’s debut EP on Bandcamp titled Cassette as it is available on a limited run tape. Connect with Vague Lines at the links provided.

vaguelanes.com

Vague Lanes on Instagram

Queen City Sounds Podcast Ep. 14: Jim McCarty of The Yardbirds on His New Memoir She Walks In Beauty

Jim McCarty is a founding and current member of The Yardbirds. The latter was one of the most influential and creative of the blues rock bands of the 60s whose membership included Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page who, when the band broke up in 1968, formed Led Zeppelin. With a string of hits that include “For Your Love,” “Shape of Things,” “Heart Full of Soul” and “Over Under Sideways Down,” The Yardbirds were one of the key bands in the development of British blues rock and psychedelia. After the group split, McCarty became part of a variety of bands across the 60s, 70s and 80s (Renaissance, Together, Box of Frogs et. al.) and has released solo albums under his own name but since 1992 he’s also been part of the reformed Yardbirds. In 2018 McCarty issued his autobiography, focused on the career of his most well-known band, Nobody Told Me to great critical acclaim. On June 7, 2020 McCarty’s wife of over 25 years Elisabeth (Lizzy) passed away from cancer. The tragic event propelled the musician to look back on his life and examine his personal journey as a creative person fascinated by larger questions about life and left field realms of knowledge and comprehension of spiritual and philosophical issues. In the subsequent memoir, She Walks In Beauty (invoking the title of the Lord Byron poem) McCarty charts that path in an unpretentious and engaging way tracing the line between his imagination being sparked by the landmark British television show The Quatermass Experiment in 1953 through science fiction, an interest in UFOs, esoteric knowledge, the occult, Buddhism, mysticism, spiritual mediums and all manner of ideas that stir creative pondering and exploration of ideas and concepts that also informed the music. It is an intimate and touching portrait of a time and the people, including Yardbirds singer Keith Ralf who shared McCarty’s interests in unusual subjects, McCarty met along the way including Lizzy. We had a chance to speak with McCarty about the book and the fascinating details of his journey through learning about a wide range of Western and Eastern esotericism and spiritual traditions and its overlap with creative work as he followed his instincts and curiosity even as someone who was and remains a skeptic but one open to possibilities.

Listen to the interview on Bandcamp below and for all things Jim McCarty please visit the following websites:
www.theyardbirds.com
www.jamesmccarty.com

Jamie Rhodes Sagely Articulates the Need to Let Ego Give Way to Growth on “Bring The Wine”

Jamie Rhodes sounds like he’s composing a letter to a loved one or to himself to read later when he’s in a different emotional place when he delivers the vocals on “Bring The Wine.” The song has a slow, orchestral build that builds to a gloriously dramatic conclusion and fade out that is the perfect accompaniment to a song that seems to be about the realization of the impermanence of so many things in life and learning to let go of even cherished notions we maybe thought of as core to our identity. The simple refrain of “the answers, they come and go” points to those stages in life where we think we have things figured out but those answers don’t serve us for a lifetime. The pastoral pace and tenor of the song as well as Rhodes’ half spoken singing really enhance the impression of a person having learned not to hold on so strongly to cherished notions largely anchored on ego that aren’t as significant for a lifetime and to move on and not get so attached to aspects of our personality that we can come to see as integral to our existence when evolving into other modes of thinking, believing and being might be better for us as we learn and grow as people, embracing the fact that things change whether we’re ready or not. Certainly a poetic truth that more humans could learn. Listen to “Bring the Wine” on Spotify, listen to the rest of Rhodes’ 2021 album The Mighty Mighty Something on Bandcamp and connect with Rhodes at the links provided.

Jamie Rhodes on Instagram

Voluptuous Panic Reinterprets Marvin Gaye’s Psychedelic Holiday Classic “Purple Snowflakes” Into a Dream Pop Song For All Seasons

Voluptuous Panic, photo courtesy the artists

Holiday music can be insufferable starting right after Halloween. But Voluptuous Panic’s interpretation of Marvin Gaye’s 1965 psychedelic holiday song “Purple Snowflakes” puts the emphasis on the original song’s surreal and ethereal quality unusual for its time. Using electronic drums to keep a steady beat, steady sleigh bell and what sound like physical bells to trace the counter melody to Gretchen DeVault’s (frontwoman of The Icicles) brightly resonant vocals and Brian J. Bowe’s low, hushed backing vocals, this treatment of the song sounds less like a holiday classic and more like a mysterious almost retro dream pop song that wouldn’t be out of place on a Jim Jarmusch soundtrack. Listen to “Purple Snowflakes” on Bandcamp and connect with Voluptuous Panic at the links below.

Voluptuous Panic on Twitter

Voluptuous Panic on Facebook

Voluptuous Panic on Instagram

“Dawn Patrol” is The Square Community’s Musical Collage Hologram of a Tarnished Pastoral American Dream

Assembling “Dawn Patrol” from cassette loops, Johnny Gutenberger collages what sounds like some old freak folk like outtakes from a lost John Fahey session, decayed trumpet, faded strings and distorted ambient sounds to craft a fractured pop Americana overlaid with segments of harmonica as the reel ends. Its multiple reference points work well together to create a mood reflecting an imperfectly remembered moment of cultural nostalgia like degraded holograms overlaid on one another to make a uniquely haunting image. In that way it’s like the tarnished yet vaguely romantic American dream cast in pastoral moods in the musical equivalent of sepia tones. Listen to “Dawn Patrol” on Bandcamp where you can also explore the rest of the Words Are No Constellation album out now on No Pressure Records. And if you’d care to follow The Square Community and other Johnny Gutenberger projects, please click on the links provided.