Queen City Sounds and Art

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

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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.

AUS!Funkt on Facebook

AUS!Funkt on Instagram

AUS!Funkt on Bandcamp

AUS!Funkt on YouTube

Tan Cologne’s Dream Pop Single “In Resin” is an Enigmatically Evocative Summation of the Cosmology of One’s Life

Tan Cologne infuses into its dream pop single “In Resin” strands of hypnotically repetitive guitar figures under and over gossamer, melodic guitar drones and shimmery leads. In the middle of the song the main progression shifts from a melancholic augmented chord into a minor chord for an effect that stirs feelings of deep reflection. The whole song is reminiscent of a late-80s period Cocteau Twins but with a touch of desert rock shoegaze but think more like Morricone than Kyuss. The song’s twists and turns are gentle like it’s guiding you to a better place in your head. The song is the concluding track from the band’s new album Unknown Beyond which was released on June 20. 2025 and it’s hard to imagine the record going out on a more evocative note. Listen to “In Resin” on Spotify (where you can check out the rest of the album) and follow Tan Cologne on Instagram.

Tan Cologne on Instagram

Dumomi The Jig’s Dub Pop Ballad “My Own” is Tender Declaration of Romantic Devotion

Dumomi The Jig, photo courtesy the artists

Dumomi The Jig’s “My Own” takes a fairly traditional approach to the subject of love for a woman with expressions of devotion, appeals to formal commitment and even declarations of wanting to meet her parents and introduce her to his own. It’s a tender gesture of getting approval of and sanction for what he already knows is real and enduring love. The song itself is like a dub ballad sung in both English and Nigerian Pidgin with layers of soft percussion and sensuous rhythms with luminous tones bursting softly in the background and sax adding a touch of dynamic mood that lingers and trails perfectly into a stream of sounds that fade into what is almost an unfinished sentence of music suggesting that this story of love is always going to be continued. Listen to “My Own” on YouTube and follow Dumomi The Jig at the links below.

Dumomi The Jig on Instagram

Freedom Fry’s Dark Disco Synth Pop Single “Best Friend” Is Imbued With an Air of Crime Noir

Sure the Freedom Fry song is titled “Best Friend” and superficially it sounds like the words of someone who wants to be more than a lover to someone but also, indeed, a best friend. The vocals are melodic and sweet but the bass line has a menace like something out of a crime or spy thriller soundtrack. It has a seductive tone especially with the dreamlike melodies and the sultry aspect of that bass line. But the lyrics contain promises and mentions of sticking a needle in one’s eye and hope to die rather than break the narrator’s word to the object of her affection. It’s reminiscent of an Air song through the filter of a darker LCD Soundsystem tune and something made for a skate disco party in a Guy Ritchie film. The surreal claymation style music video seems to confirm the suspicions of skullduggery or at least criminal conspiracy afoot and holding the couple together but fortunately it is that of the more musical variety and Freedom Fry offers yet another memorable song to its already impressive catalog. Watch the video for “Best Friend” on YouTube and follow Freedom Fry at the links provided.

Freedom Fry Facebook

Freedom Fry Instagram

The Fantasy-Themed Music Video for myah’s “Dodging Bullets” Perfectly Reflect the Often Brutal Costs of Romantic Obsession

The Game of Thrones-esque aesthetic of the music video for myah’s “Dodging Bullets” is perfect for a song about loving the wrong person. The singer’s confident vocals match the sentiments within that seem confused and undeterred by the object of her love rebuffing her amorous gestures at the expense of keeping on getting hurt the way many of us will allow ourselves to be hurt by those who we set our mind to getting into our lives because it feels right and in an alternative universe maybe it would be but blinded by passion and fantasies that should be a reality but aren’t. The lines “built my future around you/now I’m stuck in the present without you/trust issues, long overdue/my life’s a mess living in deja vu” vividly sum up the situation because maybe at some point it seemed like something was possible and it hurts so much to find out it never really was. The finely syncopated bass line exchanging moments with the vocals and the slightly fuzzy guitar riff gives the song an uplift that carries an emotional momentum to the song’s conclusion hinting that despite our folly we can survive and overcome the situation and turn things around even if it doesn’t end up in an ideal situation. Watch the video for “Dodging Bullets” on YouTube and follow myah at the links below.

myah on TikTok

myah on Instagram

Kin Capa’s Urgent Yet Melancholic Indie Folk Ballad “Wreckless Ruins” Mourns the Rapid Decline of America

Kin Capa takes a bit of a different tack when writing about an uneasy spirit regarding one’s own home country on “Wreckless Ruins” (aka “Living With America”). With layered acoustic strumming to establish a dappled tonal sheen and lively rhythm to accompany a tinge of melancholic tension in his vocals, Capa creates an urgent but not hurried pace as he spins the idea of coming to terms with living in a country that is bordering on unrecognizable as a relationship with someone with whom one recognizes has changed in ways that seem to be causing you to drift apart at a rate that would trouble anyone. All while casting the song as one for a hope for a reconciliation of some kind, a shift in spirit and in character that can turn things back to a positive path but being unsure if that’s possible. That kind of nuance runs through the song though it works well as simply a finely crafted, indie folk ballad but the emotional colorings and Capa’s arrangements from guitar to percussion truly make this one of the songwriter’s best and most compelling creations including the nice use of neologism in the title. Listen to “Wreckless Ruins” on Spotify and follow Kin Capa at the links below.

Post Death Soundtrack’s Menacing, Industrial Post-Punk Single “A Monolith of Alarms” Seethes With Righteous Fervor

As “A Monolith of Alarms” by Post Death Soundtrack progresses from its sinister, murky beginnings with a shuffling beat and the echoing vocals come in, the song becomes increasingly reminiscent of something that might have appeared on the 1994 Killing Joke album Pandemonium. The guitars are both moody and savagely cutting, haunting synths cast a simple and icy figure in the background and the rhythms are insistent and hypnotic. But the whole while the song sounds like it’s on edge and ready to unravel at any moment as the singer relates what sounds like a harrowing tale of deceit and manipulation with a dramatic illumination of the truth that will bring down the cycle of abuse and control. It’s a heady song that should appeal to fans of the more industrial end of post-punk. Listen to “A Monolith of Alarms” on Bandcamp and follow Post Death Soundtrack at the links provided. The band’s new album In All My Nightmares I’m Alone dropped May 30, 2025.

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