Queen City Sounds and Art

“Drifting” by The Nomadic is a Song of Romantic Yearning and Reconciliation

TheNomadic_Drifting1_crop — The Nomadic “Drifting” cover (cropped)

In the video for “Drifting” by The Nomad, the singer is seen playing both the acoustic guitar and the semi-hollow Rickenbacker electric interspersed with scenes from the life of a young woman and the moments when their paths cross. The song begins with a story of someone who is melancholic about a person who seems to pass in and out of their life even though there’s clearly some kind of connection. The melody and the lyrics express a contemplative yearning. It embodies the adage of if you love someone set them free. By the end of the song that drifting leads the two people together but it’s something that happens organically and without anyone’s desperation as the catalyst. The spare guitar melody and the way it rings out with acoustic and electric complementing each other with elegant interplay is reminiscent of U2 and those lines that seem to reach to the horizon. There is a change up of sound and dynamics mid-song that takes it out of the languid mode but in the end it works because it helps to establish the heightened mood in the second half of the song that signals a blissful reconciliation. Watch the video for “Drifting” on YouTube.

Jakob Leventhal Takes a Step Into Emotional Memory Lane on “Back Again So Soon”

JakobLeventhal_BackAgainSoSoon2_crop — Jakob Leventhal “Back Again So Soon” cover (cropped)

Jakob Leventhal’s “Back Again So Soon” unfolds with a lingering guitar line and an expansive rhythm that sets a contemplative pace accented by melodic bass and impressionistic percussion. Leventhal sounds like he’s taking a deep, slow motion dive into melancholic, emotional drift. A bittersweet mood permeates the song like he’s taking a walk through an old house where he made so many memories that have haunted him deep but come to him so vividly when in a familiar environment and the way those can trigger memories you buried or left far behind in the living of your life. The lyrics sound like a one sided conversation, an observational confessional, between the author and his life and how he has lived it. Though the song works on its own, it is part of a larger record and it ends on a note that makes you want to hear more of what these reflective words might be about and the personal exploration they suggest is ahead. Listen to “Back Again So Soon” on Spotify and follow Leventhal at the links provided.

jakobleventhal.com
instagram.com/jakobleventhal

Remington super 60 Capture the Melancholy of Romantic Ambivalence on “I Don’t Wanna Wait”

RemingtonSuper60_IDontWannaWait1_crop — Remington super 60 *New EP* cover (cropped)

The luminous bell tones that carry the main melody of Remington super 60’s “I Don’t Wanna Wait” conveys the sense of ambivalence that runs through the lyrics. The vocalist intones wistfully about how she wanted things to be differently with someone but reconciling herself to the fact that she doesn’t really know what this person is about or their intentions and ponders if waiting to have a more solid emotional grasp of this person is worth the wait or if said person is someone who it would be foolish to think will come around and be the kind of person who gives one a sense of solidity of identity and whether or not the feelings of genuine affection and regard are returned. The elegance of the composition is striking and while the aforementioned electronic bell sounds and the resonant vocals catch one’s attention immediately, the incidental sounds that round out the melody give the song a strong sense of emotional impact by giving the resigned melancholy of the foreground music a grounding in something more vividly textural even as it rests on the edges of the song. Listen to “I Don’t Wanna Wait,” which appeared on the group’s January 2020 release, the simply titled New EP, on Soundcloud and follow the Norwegian group at the links below.

remingtonsuper60.com
open.spotify.com/artist/2hQlLDO5kKSz9v5e4ETpZg
facebook.com/remingtonsuper60

“Switch Off The Light” is a Spooky Yet Sweet Unconventional Love Song From Synth Pop Group Fragile Gods

FragileGods_SwitchOffTheLight_crop — Fragile Gods “Switch Off The Light” cover (cropped)

Fragile Gods tap into a lo-fi 80s synth pop sound for its single “Switch Off The Light.” The processed male vocals sound like something channeled from AM radio floating over spare electronic percussion and a bouncing, distorted synth line accented by playful tones and counter melody on another synth. Even when joined by female vocals, the whole song has the quality of a lost gem of a song one might find on a VHS of cable access/public television music video shows. Sonically it’s reminiscent of Pseudo Echo, Landscape and The Human League if that music was recorded in a home studio with a lead singer who is clearly inspired in part by Peter Murphy and David Bowie. The words to the song hint at supernatural themes but as a pretext for people getting together. The lines “You’re not the only who hears whispers in the night/you’re not the only one who sees things in the dark” solicit a common bond, a solidarity of uncommon sensitivity. When the vocalist sings “There are ghosts that occupy my dreams, now I fear I’m coming apart at the seams, switch off the light, it’s alright, hold me tight,” it comes from a place of not wanting to be alone amid one’s fears and anxieties, whether of the actual supernatural variety or of those that can feel like it in the moment. Perhaps an unusual and unconventional love song but one that becomes a bit of an earworm. Listen to “Switch Off The Light” on Soundcloud and follow Fragile Gods on the group’s website linked below.

fragilegods.com

Bright Analog Synths Give Lift to Russian Trip-Hop Band AIST’s single “Rocket Fuel” in Conveying a Yearning for the Inspiration to Reach the Life You Want

AIST_RocketFuel2_crop — AIST, photo courtesy the artists

On its single “Rocket Fuel” Russian trip-hop band AIST gives us a glimpse into a future when the international angst of today has been eased and everyday human life isn’t as distorted and amplified by world events in a direct and urgent way. The bright analog synths shimmer and trail off to give the song an upward drifting quality while propelling the melody forward as the female vocalist sings a song about yearning and striving for the life you want and finding the impetus to get there. Is the “rocket fuel” of the song a metaphor for the support and love everyone needs to make it far in life, to achieve their dreams? Perhaps, but either way, the way the group arranges its tones from the pulsing synths, drones, percolating tones and winsome vocals gives the song a quality of having come to us from a near future that seems impossibly relatively carefree compared to the dark intensity of the present but not one where humans still struggle with discouragement embrace inspiration where they can find it. Listen to “Rocket Fuel” on Soundcloud and follow AIST at the links provided.

vk.com/insideaist
soundcloud.com/aist-580331044
facebook.com/insideaist
instagram.com/insideaist

Tracy Karam’s Powerful Video For Sandmoon’s “Angels” Highlights the Feelings of Displaced Emotions and Rootlessness in the Wake of the Loss of a Parent

Sandmoon2_sm — Sandmoon, photo courtesy the artists

Tracy Karam’s video for “Angels” by Lebanese experimental rock band Sandmoon gives a visual interpretation of a song about a 12-year-old kid who loses a parent and haunted by memory and loss, acts out in unpredictable ways as one will when trying to make sense of what seems and is deeply unfair and which unmoors your life. The youth puts some of his energy into playing drums and some of his time trying to make sense of the new reality of his life. The song’s sparkling and shimmering melodies and gently introspective but emotionally vibrant vocals are accented perfectly by percussion that sets a progressive pace like life passing you by as you feel swept along in its wake when you’re grieving. The tone of the song is one of compassion and patience even when the momentum of life’s demands would like you to move on before your heart is ready. Watch Karam’s powerful and evocative video on YouTube and follow Sandmoon at the links below.

soundcloud.com/sandmoon
open.spotify.com/artist/4omCgekRoMrLhx2POoCx9n
youtube.com/sandmoonmusic
facebook.com/sandmoon
instagram.com/sandmoonmusic

“Saturn” by Comfort Level 7 is An Ambient Soundscape of Cosmic Horror in the Gulfs of a Cold Planet

ComfortLevel7_bindrune_cover_crop — Comfort Level 7, *Bindrune* cover (cropped)

If there was a space station in orbit around the titular planet of Comfort Level 7’s “Saturn,” the soundscape of the song is the analog of the both the endless mystery of the gas giant and the dark thoughts that might run through your mind if you were a scientist stationed there, remote from all civilization for months on end. The white noise drones and distant sounds of who can say playing about like a kind of bleak space wind you couldn’t possibly hear but which might exist like a ghost in your imagination where lie vague memories of Lovecraftian horror with the Great Old ones and their offspring colonizing not just earth but the outer planets of the solar system as well. The ululating tone that runs through the piece and the staccato arpeggiated rhythmic tone gives voice to imagined horrors out in the deeps of the planet named after an ancient Roman deity. The song isn’t easy listening but its brooding drone and spooky vibe is nevertheless entrancin. Listen to “Saturn” on Soundcloud and follow Comfort Level 7 at the links below where you can also find the project’s 2019 EP Bindrune which includes this track.

simulacrarecords.com
comfortlevel7.bandcamp.com

“Osc Nova” by at her open door is Like the Soundtrack to a Lost Dystopian Future Videogame of the 80s

AtHerOpenDoor_OscNova1_crop — at her open door, photo courtesy the artist

“Osc Nova” by at her open door sounds like the soundtrack for a bizarre video game set in the universe of 80s science fiction cinema and video games. Distorted synth drones are the baseline with minimal electronic percussion pounding an descending tonal progression. Highly processed guitar sounds flare as though the representation of either intense combat or action in some kind of competitive exercise. The production is a hybrid of classic hip-hop and Herbie Hancock-esque experimental jazz and modern 8-bit giving it that touch of retro electronic musicality composed from a more modern sensibility and freeform blending of styles that would rarely have been threaded together in years past and not with the same freshness of approach in seeing all sounds and methods as fodder for songwriting. Listen to “Osc Nova” on Spotify and follow at her open door at the links provided.

soundcloud.com/atheropendoor
open.spotify.com/artist/5t3oFbi9B3YQwWNWcjLKpU
youtube.com/channel/UCA1brFVgWw6cgEy0gIzowRA
atheropendoor.bandcamp.com
twitter.com/at_heropendoor
facebook.com/pg/atheropendoor

“The Childish Tendency to Speak of Events as Coincidences” is Isik Kural’s Environmental Ambient Evocation of the Landscape Taking Shape as the World Wakes Up With the Dawn

IsikKural_TheChildishTendency2_crop — Isik Kural, image courtesy the artist

Isik Kural’s enigmatically titled “The Childish Tendency to Speak of Events as Coincidences” begins with a gentle oscillating tone that increases in volume slowly before its intertwining layers vividly manifest, like an object in the distance before dawn, illuminated to reveal itself as more than another shadow of the skyline. The tone fades into melodic drones punctuated by higher pitches and textural sounds like glasses struck slightly nearly out of hearing. Toward the later middle part of the song these abstractions solidify some with what sounds like a piano figure heard from a building on another floor of a building drifting in through the window as birds greet the sun edging higher in the sky, its golden strands expressed as bright, streaming tones and a breeze through branches as white noise. Less a song than the evocation of an environment expressed through sonic analogues of that experience, the track is a great example of how music, imaginatively conceived and executed, can convey a sense of time and place better than words and visual representations alone. Take a listen to “The Childish Tendency to Speak of Events as Coincidences” on Spotify.

“Trail Through the Underbrush” by Yellow Rainbow is the Evocation of a Full Sensory Snapshot of the World Around You

YellowRainbow_TrailThroughTheUnderbrush2_crop — Yellow Rainbow, image courtesy the artist

Yellow Rainbow’s single “Trail Through the Underbrush” sounds like a journey along the track that is the title. But a journey that takes in the rich details of the surrounding landscape, all its textures, its interweaving ecological systems, the ambient energy of the area. This deep taking in of the myriad details our conscious minds gloss over in seeking out what we usually deem the most salient data makes you aware of the mystery and the beauty in what might otherwise seem mundane. Composer Brian Lee uses field recordings taken in the Canadian Rockies to give this ambient track a concrete sense of place and texture while slow sweeping drones give an informally melodic voice to natural light, slowing it down in the listening and in the experiencing of that light as it plays on leaves and branches in the ever changing visual stimulation of the natural world paired with its full sensory experience. “Trail Through the Underbrush” conveys this taking the time to absorb what the world is giving to you in as much of a whole as possible given human limitations and in doing so it whispers into your mind a deep sense of peace. Listen to the song on Spotify and follow Yellow Rainbow at the links below.

soundcloud.com/yellowrainbowmusic
open.spotify.com/artist/4gknoqFJpaXgFSNaaZcJFl
yellowrainbow.bandcamp.com
facebook.com/yellowrainbowmusic
instagram.com/yellowrainbowmusic