Queen City Sounds and Art

“La nuit renait toujours” by Ce qui nous traverse is cinematic post-rock to ease the tensions of a tumultuous year

The video treatment that Guillaume Vallée & Larissa Corriveau brought to the impressionistic ambient and musique concrète composition “La nuit renait tourjours” (trans. “The Night Is Always Reborn”) by Montreal-based musical ensemble Ce qui nous traverse takes us through an arc from sunrise to nightfall. Drawn out guitar drones, long-bowed notes on strings, the samples of early morning bird song and accented percussion soundtrack what looks like a road trip throughout a day, mountainous bluffs in the distance, fields at hand out the window, filmed on Super 8 or 16 millimeter. It’s reminiscent of what a Stan Brakhage vacation film might look like with the layered, processed and treated images with the glitches, textures and decayed and damaged bits of film left in. The action of the song sneaks up on you and takes you along for an emotional ride through moments of afternoon reverie and on into a tranquil yet dramatic sunset with the instrumentation reprising for a whirling of elements into a a climax of activity before a fadeout with resonating keyboards. Cinematic post-rock to ease the tensions of a tumultuous year. Watch the video for “La nuit renait toujours” on YouTube, listen to the new album Le sacre de Sainte-Barbe on Bandcamp and connect with Ce qui nous traverse at the links below.

cequinoustraverse.ca

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Desert Liminal Uses a Beautifully Hazy Sound to Encourage us to Dream Better For Ourselves on “Flicker Screen”

Desert Liminal, photo courtesy the artists

“Flicker Screen,” the latest single from Desert Liminal’s 2021 album Glass Fate, comes on like a parallel universe version of Chromatics: Lush, warm vocals, ghostly atmospherics and strong melodic lines on the piano paired with assertive yet finely accented percussion. It’s a song whose emotional flavor is nostalgic because it’s about memory, identity, our cognitive orientation and aspirations. The flicker screen of the title invokes the mechanics of cinema and how those mediated and highly processed images can embed themselves in your imagination though as your own interpretation of events and when you impose that type of understanding and interpretation on living people who don’t live episodically within neat frame lines and according to a script with a narrative through line or according to a cohesive aesthetic to suit anyone’s tastes. Yet the song isn’t a stripping back of a romanticized view of the world. It does employ hazy layers of atmosphere and an introspective vocal delivery but its yearning for something better and more organic and thus more unpredictable and un-controlling in which everyone involved can be who they are authentically. Listen to “Flicker Screen” on Spotify where you can listen to the rest of Glass Fate and follow the band at the links provided.

Desert Liminal on Facebook

Desert Liminal on Instagram

Desert Liminal on YouTube

The Ballroom Thieves Weave a Poignantly Accurate Portrait of Despair and the Will to Move Forward on “Shine”

The Ballroom Thieves, photo by Shervin Lainez

The Ballroom Thieves turn the spare guitar part and raw, tender vocals of “Shine” into a song that achingly and beautifully depicts what it feels like to be desolate, burned out and floating in moments of dissociated observations and holding on by a thread to something even if nothing seems to matter or make sense. Calin “Callie” Peters uses the image of light as a metaphor for the energy that uplifts and brings comprehension and meaning which can have fluid qualities that flow in and out of our psyche and without it we feel lost. The way the guitar phrases frame the lyrics and with touches of cello to shade in the background of the music the song comes across like a very sharp and sensitive portrait of depression and how it’s easy to get stuck when the vital energy of life and the will to be active and engaged seems out of reach and you seem unable to get out of a perpetual twilight and mostly in existing in the dark of your personal night. But the line “shine a light, turn the night back into morning, shine a light, take the night away from me” points to at least desire for help in easing out of that gloom that seems impossible to escape. The pastoral feel of the song in the end becomes a perfect vehicle for expressing some very heavy and real states of mind without the clumsy hubris and toxic positivity that is too often brought to bear on the subject. Listen to “Shine” on Spotify and connect with The Ballroom Thieves at the links below.

ballroomthieves.com

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The Ballroom Thieves on Instagram

Anna Larson Gives us a Musical Vision of a Comforting and Nurturing Presence in Our Lives With “Constant Star”

Anna Larson’s piano accents on her modern classical piece “Constant Star” give an emotional nuance and an atmospheric mood that sketches an elegant and vivid sonic image of object of the title. The background electronic drone lends an added luminous aspect to the tonal choices employed in the composition and in doing so suggests multiple meanings and interpretations to the song including an unmistakable sense of emotional intimacy with the “Constant Star” not only being a celestial object inspiring imaginative speculation but a person or a passion that seems to always be there as a beacon in challenging times. It’s certainly a musical work that suggests cinematic qualities and immediately brings to mind the classical music Ken Burns has chosen for his various documentary series and here it’s part of an EP of similarly evocative soundscapes poetically titled Returned Light. Listen to “Constant Star” on Spotify and the rest of Returned Light there as well, both linked below.

Soheill Encourages Us to Step Through the Portal Into Our Best Lives in the Orchestral “The Doorway”

Soheill structures the single “The Doorway” so that it reflects its message of encouraging the listener to embrace one’s authentic self and to take the important first step of trusting your instincts and not the voices of self doubt inside your mind that prevent you from living a full life. The spare piano and Soheill’s emotive vocals coax that flicker of self awareness into action and to reach for and walk through the threshold into a new life casting off the ways that didn’t suit you even though they became a habit that met with social sanction and conformity to a standard that had nothing much to do with who you really were. The instrumentation swells in orchestral fashion and includes slowly dramatic percussion and layers of evocative keyboards and synths The arc of the song gently makes that final step into the future seem not only possible but inevitable in service to your best self. Listen to “The Doorway” on Soundcloud and follow Soheill at the website or through any of the links and social media accounts accessible through the artist’s Linktree.

soheill.com

Soheill Linktree

Sandwoman’s Warmly Intimate “Hot December” is a Tender Expression of Not Wanting to Ruin a Friendship Because You’re in Love

Sandwoman originally wrote “Hot December” in 2015 as a way to express that moment when a friendship becomes something more romantic. And this 2021 release manifests those early thoughts and songwriting in a song that places words about the fear, uncertainty and vulnerability when you take that step to see if that’s where things are going and the risk of humiliation and changing the friendship in ways that make things uncomfortable and awkward from then on forward. The word “hot” may refer to the ways it is often used but here it seems more to embody that feeling of energy welling up in you that is a welling up of anxiety over the possible consequences of your actions however they may turn out. It’s never easy opening yourself up the way you need to in order to tell someone how you feel about them in a romantic way and Sandwoman captures those waves of being on the verge. Her warm vocals processed into an ethereal bliss later in the song and the cloud of synth drone, lingering guitar washes, sleigh bells and electronic drums make it not just an actually touching and not corny love song but one that is also something of a holiday tune without explicitly being so. In Sandwoman’s case things worked out with her producer Grant Carey so it could for you too. Listen to “Hot December” on Spotify and connect with Sandwoman at the links below.

Sandwoman on Bandcamp

Sandwoman on Instagram

Mount Mural Reconciles a Conflicted Psyche on “Sickboy”

Mount Mural’s use of two seemingly opposite dynamics in “Sickboy” highlights its theme of conflicted feelings and self-examination. One of those streams of sound has a simple guitar line that traces a clear musical path and other is noisier and messier. Like one line is where one wants to be and the other is where one often is in one’s head. By the end of the song, though, it seems as though there is a reconciliation of these urges of the emotional self and not a rejection of one as both come together to work in tandem to move forward into a healthier headspace. Perhaps at that point the titular persona comes to accept himself as a being who is not just imperfect but that the antagonized aspect of his mind is really perhaps an unconscious message and impulse, an energy, to deal with issues long neglected. Fans of the more melodic end of late 90s emo and 21st century experimental guitar bands like Ought and Pile will definitely appreciate the vibe of this song. Listen to “Sickboy” on Spotify and follow Mount Mural at the links provided.

Mount Mural on Facebook

Mount Mural on Instagram

Mount Mural on YouTube

“Mirror Tooolz” Finds Ehiorobo Brilliantly Synthesizing Hyperop, Leftfield Underground Hip-Hop and Glitchcore

For the uninitiated, go into Ehiorobo’s “Mirror Tooolz” with an open mind and for just over two minutes you’ll hear a flurry of musical ideas that tie together surprisingly well even though it seems to be one string of free-associating words and ideas. The vocals have a dreamlike tenor and sound like a list of thoughts on the concept of dance and the mash-up of that and the trappings of dance culture and stylistic permutations over the last twenty-five years. Ehiorobo quite succinctly and deftly brings that together with a condensed expression of the heady emotions involved all while bringing us back to a chilled out contemplation on the future of dance. The song’s synthesis of hyperpop, leftfield underground hip-hop and glitchcore can seem disorienting at first but once the brilliance of its composition and genuinely creative use of tone and rhythm hit you in a way that makes this song an earworm. Listen to “Mirror Tooolz” on YouTube, give the rest of the Joltjacket album a listen and connect with Ehiorobo at the links provided.

Ehiorobo on Twitter

Ehiorobo on Facebook

Ehiorobo on Instagram

The Frenetic Cool of Duchamp-Killer’s “BDA – Domestic affairs” is Like the Soundtrack to a Noir Set in a Bustling City

There is an undercurrent of menace and unease in Duchamp-Killer’s song “BDA – Domestic affairs.” The trumpet sample that runs through with the fragmented and off-kilter piano loop and the piano figure near the beginning that goes off of any standard melody with the start and stop percussion all while a spectral drone resonates underneath identifies this as a jazz song in the expanded sense of that genre. Like an experimental, samples based jazz song that could serve as the opening sequence soundtrack to a gritty modern noir. Though highly detailed and packed with musical elements the song has a cool vibe that would suit an Ed Brubaker graphic novel set in a busy metropolis rather than the sleepy settings and quiet, dark underbelly environs that are usual for him. Listen to “BDA – Domestic affairs” on Soundcloud.