Marinara strikes an interesting note with “Adult Body,” the lead single from its debut full length album I Feel Like Dog due out November 8. The music video depicts scenes of adolescent hijinks in the kitchen interrupting the members of the band trying to do something as simple as cooking, an activity that we don’t often think of as adult but which really is. And cooking, not heating up a can of soup, making ramen or putting a frozen meal into the microwave. It represents the temptations to resist being an adult in even the most basic, functional ways as if we need to choose between being being responsible and having fun. The music, the kind of urgent, math-y rock that made and make LVL UP and Palm such interesting bands. The style lends itself well to being both introspective and a rhythmic urgency which Marinara uses to great effect during the course of the song not just to rock out at the end but to create an emotional contrast between the exuberance of youth tempered by the demands of being an adult that knows that partying every day and blowing off mundane responsibilities that need to be taken care of is no way to sustain the life you want long term. The video, directed by Alex Dzialo, looks like scenes from an apartment of a group of young men in their late teens and early twenties living together going to college, or first jobs out of high school and able to delay facing adulthood for a little longer with an exuberance that it’s dawning on them seems foolish and not really glorious because indulging your unevolved ambitious is not truly living your dreams. No one can clean up after you your whole life, take care of all your everyday responsibilities, make your band a well-functioning unit or sustain your best aspirations past the first wave of passionate impulses. It’s, frankly, a fun song about an unfun realization. The line “Never leave the apartment, the fun will never end” speaks so much about the personal epiphany expressed in the song and the necessity of breaking out of the cocoon of your immature self and the sophisticated ways this song embodies that moment. Watch the video on YouTube and follow Marinara at the links provided.
In giving their cover of Sparklehorse’s “Gold Day” a slightly more upbeat pace than the original, Hunting somehow managed not to kill the utterly sensitive and tender vibe of Mark Linkous’ treatment of the It’s a Wonderful Life track. The way the chords ring out and drip tones like sunlight while nearly hushed vocals bid the best and most wondrous times to the subject of the song preserves its warm spirit. The stop motion video with mice and other animals as the principal characters lends what could be a melancholy song a freshness and wholesome quality that also doesn’t come off saccharine. Rather it’s as though director Jessicka intuited the unironic sincerity and kindness behind the song’s writing as interpreted so well by Hunting. When the mouse with the horse mask sprinkles gold dust on the cat to stave off its hunting instinct, it’s truly a magical moment. Look for Hunting’s new album Whatever You Need due out November 1, 2019.
One might be excused for thinking a song called “Crazy Stupid Bitch” is an example of internalized misogyny when written by a woman. But Annika Grace calls to attention in her song the ways people tear each other down in myriad ways, dehumanizing each other across a spectrum of criteria by which we’d never want to be judged. If we want something for ourselves, we’re selfish. If we have sex outside traditional relationships and for pure curiosity or enjoyment of course one must be a person of low character. Whatever transgresses arbitrary norms that don’t really match most people’s actual experiences and against which many if not most of us will find ourselves failing to meet if we’re frankly honest with ourselves. Grace, in identifying this crassly judgmental and destructive mentality and put it into language that is plainly absurd and lacking in creativity both critiques and diminishes the power of that way of relating to people. That she chose to do so in a simple, succinct pop song with spare production and lightly processed vocals is a way to present a complex and nuanced social issue in a highly accessible and direct way. Listen to “Crazy Stupid Bitch” on Soundcloud and follow Annika Grace at the links below.
“Littelwaf Linden” finds TROVA exploring the use of textures and phasing as methods of conveying depth of audio field. The track creates a sense of space in your mind like driving through a part of a future city where the windmills are running slowly in the middle of a warm, midspring night, the blades of the windmills turning slowly as you edge past them, lights blinking at intervals up to their heights to signal aircraft, all but silently providing providing power with a mechanistic grace and efficiency. As you pass a field of them on your way to your destination to meet a friend for drinks and to hang out and discuss plans for the future, the windmills strike you as a constant presence that we will all come to take for granted as a means of a stable energy future that impinges little on our environment compared to the way our civilization now goes about things. Almost like the benefits of an old civilization that for a moment took the time to plan for a more sustainable future. Listening to the track in the present tense it puts you in a contemplative mood pondering how we might put in place new ways of being and living that would afford us the luxury of not always needing to work ourselves to the bone and have the time to ponder longer arcs of human civilization and our own lives as embodied by some of the great, large public works of the past that lasted decades or centuries for the benefit for those beyond the immediate generations of their establishment. Listen to “Littelwaf Linden” on Soundcloud and follow TROVA at the links provided.
The gentle oscillating tone at the beginning of Mending’s “Emma’s Morning” sounds like the first rays of dawn trickling through your window. And when the piano comes in, like waking up at your leisure. Then the story in the lyrics takes us into a slice of the life of a woman who takes stock of her life and ponders her existence in the context of her family history and the events that have shaped the direction of her life. It begins like a more conventional folk song but then that convention breaks down into interrupted melodies like a digital TV signal glitching out not unlike the way one’s direct connections to the people and the experiences of our past may distort as we proceed into the next chapters of our lives. It’s a fascinating approach to songwriting and it’s one part of the sprawling, conceptual album We Gathered at Wakerobin Hollow, a four hour, forty song “speculative narrative song cycle” released in nine chapters over eighteen months, using drone, noise, songwriting and tracing “the lives of a family and friends over a 40 year period in a series of connected vignettes.” The story is set in motion by a fire at an oil refinery in Odena, Alabama and follows the diaspora of those connected to the incident throughout the country. The project launched in August 2018 and concludes in January 2020. As a piece of art its reminiscent of some of Jeff Lemire’s poignant graphic novels about life in what might consider mundane places where he finds what is most interesting under the veneer of normalcy and brings it to life in a riveting fashion as he did in his also sprawling Essex County Trilogy and Roughneck. Engrossing and sonically daring, “Emma’s Morning” hints at what promises to be a revelatory story arc of a series of songs. Listen to the track on Soundcloud and follow Mending at the links below.
What:The Comet is Coming w/Joshua Trinidad When: Thursday, 10.10, 7 p.m. Where: Globe Hall Why: The Comet is Coming is a London-based trio whose synthesis of jazz, Afrobeat and electronic music is true improvisational kosmische for the modern era. Its two 2019 albums Trust In the Lifeforce of the Deep Mystery and The Afterlife take you on a journey to the outer edges of inner space with soundscapes that wouldn’t be out of place on the long running NPR ambient program Hearts of Space or in a musical realm of the 1970s where Tangerine Dream, Fela Kuti and Gong played the same circuit and mutually influenced each other. So who from Denver could open for this outfit? Only one name really comes to mind and that’s jazz scientist improviser supreme, Joshua Trinidad and his own daring displays of mind-altering sonic experimentalism within an expanded realm of jazz.
What:Cécile McLorin Savant When: Thursday, 10.10, 6:30-10 p.m. Where: Dazzle Why: Cécile McLorin Savant brings major late night vibes to this other great jazz show in Denver tonight. She takes feelings and stretches them out into a form more easily comprehended than the sometimes gnarled shapes they can take in our hearts. She gives them an air of elegance and soulful comprehension they deserve and interprets them back in her soaring, sonorous voice.
What:Tank & The Bangas w/Adia Victoria When: Friday, 10.11, 7 p.m. Where: Gothic Theatre Why: Adia Victoria’s 2016 album Beyond the Bloodhounds introduced the world to the songwriter’s brooding, expressive, bluesy songwriting. Her 2019 album Silences finds Victoria expanding her sound, now operating in a realm somewhere between Rubblebucket’s soulful pop and Nick Cave’s smoldering intensity. Tank and The Bangas’ hybrid of hip-hop, jazz and R&B is deeply eclectic, lively, layered and uplifting in a way that feels sincere and wholesome without being hokey or self-righteous.
What:Muscle Beach w/Palehorse/Palerider, Church Fire and Simulators When: Saturday, 10.12, 8 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: It’s been a few years since the release of Muscle Beach’s self-titled album. But that time has seemingly been spent honing its sharp edges and wiry and explosive dynamics. Now we have Charms, the new full-length being released at this show. Each track has the irreverently humorous and surreal titles you’d hope a band that sounds like a barely controlled psychotic break with every track would have to let you know that this music is an outlet for the kind of frustration and outrage that is part of everyday life these days. “Ballistic Medicine,” “Rage Charles,” “Swim Team Six,” “When Horns Grow Teeth”? Crazy stuff and the sort of precise yet unhinged post-hardcore that is easy to get wrong. The band’s shows are supercharged and dynamic minus any of the machismo the genre can indulge in too often. But Muscle Beach has never fit neatly into a genre and in its clashing crashing sound there is mood and moments of introspection spliced together with angst blown out into shards of pure catharsis. And the bill is fortunately not a lot of music like that. Palehorse/Palerider is like a doom band gone into some pagan tribal version of industrial space rock. Church Fire is purging ritual, politically incendiary, darkwave dance pop. Simulators is thorny, angular, ebullient post-punk. Easily the local line-up of the week to catch a nice representative slice of Denver underground.
What:Cherubs w/Moon Pussy and Quits When: Saturday, 10.12, 8 p.m. Where: Moe’s Original BBQ Why: Cherubs formed in 1991 in Austin, Texas and were plugged into the milieu of noisy, weirdo post-punk that one might have associated with the Amphetamine Reptile record label. Except that Cherubs were signed to Trance Syndicate, the label owned by Butthole Surfers’ drummer King Coffey. Think something like Jesus Lizard, Unsane and a doomier Failure. The band broke up in 1994 but came back together twenty years later and have been back to making heavy psychedelic music not much like anything else that overtly claims to mix either. Its new record, 2019’s Immaculada High, is a colossal slab of disorienting riffs and surreal imagery. Opening are two of Denver’s own finest noise rock outfits. Moon Pussy is a trio who improbably combine fluid dynamics with sharp edged soundscaping and emotionally exorcistic vocals. Quits includes current and former members of Denver noise rock legends Git Some, Hot White and Sparkles.
What:Stiff Little Fingers w/The Avengers When: Saturday, 10.12, 7 p.m. Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Stiff Little Fingers from Belfast, Ireland and The Avengers from San Francisco, USA formed the same year, 1977. The Avengers even opened for the Sex Pistols at their final show at Winterland in 1978. Both bands had significant releases in 1979 and Stiff Little Fingers’ Inflammable Material took the subject of the “Troubles” in Northern Ireland at the time as a through line for the songs and their stark depiction of life in their hometown and the violence and political oppression then hitting hard. The Avengers’ self-titled EP minced no words on critiquing American culture and racism. Seems the subject matter of their songs are all too relevant again so this tour together is timely.
What:Zizia, Ryan Mcryhew and Ryan Seward When: Saturday, 10.12, 7:30-10 p.m. Where: Glitter City Nights Why: Zizia is Amber Wolfe and Jarrod Fowler who perform a kind of environmental audio experience. Like ambient but it brings in field recordings that bring a sense of place with more traditional instruments and sound-making objects for a unique listening experience. Ryan Mcryhew has performed as Entrancer making forward thinking electronic dance music with modular synths and he is currently expanding his methods to explore the possibilities of those methods in expressing ideas and concepts beyond the purely artistic. Ryan Seward is an avant-garde, improvisational percussionist who for this show will perform Michael Pisaro’s 2011 composition, “A drum acted upon by friction, gravity and electricity.”
Starcrawler, photo by Autumn de Wilde
What:Starcrawler w/Poppy Jean Crawford and Pink Fuzz When: Saturday, 10.12, 8 p.m. Where: Lost Lake Why: On the Starcrawler’s latest album Devour You, the band’s fetchingly fuzzy punk reaches new heights as the group expands its song dynamics and refining its fiery delivery and mixture of distorted and clean sounds across the board. The crashing atonality the group is willing to entertain in the new batch of songs delivers on the promise of its earlier efforts as it moves beyond the sort of sludgy post-grunge doom pop that rightfully garnered it attention as a band to watch with a charismatic frontwoman in Arrow de Wilde.
What:Sleater-Kinney w/Joseph Keckler When: Sunday, 10.13, 7 p.m. Where: Lost Lake Why: In the mid-90s Sleater-Kinney brought some raw emotional power and intellect to its wiry post-punk and spent the next twenty plus years or so refining that vision and making poignant and inspiring social commentary about what you can aspire to and achieve as a woman in a culture hostile to your dreams. The trio touring for the first time without long time drummer Janet Weiss, and with new drummer Angie Boylan, is taking the music of it’s latest album, the St. Vincent produced The Center Won’t Hold.
What:Ron Pope When: Sunday, 10.13, 6 p.m. Where: eTown Hall Why: Ron Pope is a prolific songwriter from Marietta, Georgia who now calls Nashville home. In a city with numerous singer-songwriters, Pope has stood out with his keen ear for hearing and articulating the thoughts and feelings of the most lonesome times in your life when you’re in your own head sorting through and processing the feelings you don’t often get to when you’re meeting the demand on your psyche of everyday life. His introspective lens and ability to communicate that interiority in a relatable way can be heard across his catalog of spare yet evocative songwriting.
What:Chameleons Vox and Theatre of Hate and Jay Aston When: Tuesday, 10.15, 7 p.m. Where: Herman’s Hideaway Why: Chameleons Vox is Mark Burgess, iconic vocalist of Manchester-based post-punk band The Chameleons (in the USA often as The Chameleons UK) who started up in 1981 and whose deeply atmospheric and emotionally raw songs were a major influence on most of the shoegaze bands of the late 80s and beyond with echoes of influence reverberating throughout the post-punk revival of the 1990s and early 2000s to the darkwave of the past decade. Socially critical and thought-provoking, The Chameleons’ body of work had plenty of style but as a kind of compelling delivery system for psychically nourishing content.
In some near future Cubgod and KingPup’s song “Little Butt” is a classic of not just IDM/Industrial-inflected hip-hop but of free verse cultural reference poetry. The opening line sounds like a a sample coming to us from the past via a time traveler recording a secret message made on a 78 record, grainy, mysterious and initially seeming sinister but ultimately a surreal swagger delivered in a way that subverts the aggression. Something like Danny Brown gone not cyberpunk but steampunk. The lyrics extol the virtues of everyday joys like you would hope for at a minimum in a good hip-hop song but the wordplay is so well structured and evocative, so vivid in its imagery, so poignant in its crafting of emotional memories that it’s almost easy to miss how in just over three minutes the duo has taken us deep into a slice of life that weaves together the painful experiences of childhood as overlapped with resonances with adulthood and the oppression many of us experience in another form and how we manage to get a little fun out of life with the thrill of exorcising some of that angst through a creative outlet that embodies and honors those experiences and thus releasing some of that tension. And on “Little Butt” Cubgod and KingPup do so with a playful creativity with a beat that is not simply the sampling of a tried and tested aesthetic, rather, a collage of sounds that serve as a direct analogue of the internal emotional experience of a dystopian present projected onto the future in order to escape it. Maybe that’s overthinking a simple song but the unpacking its complexity and sophistication is a rewarding endeavor. Listen to “Little Butt” on Soundcloud and follow Cubgod further there as well.
On their new single “Situations” Wolf & Moon seem to sing to us or to themselves a song of hope and encouragement. The trading vocal leads and harmonies give the song an almost informal dynamic that gives it an emotional momentum that the songwriters seem to want to project to the listener to achieve their hopes and dreams despite whatever situation we may find ourselves in by imagining an opportunity for us to take out of a feeling of stasis and stagnation. The accented bass line that grounds the song and gives it a steady but upbeat quality is the fulcrum of that momentum, the consistent presence that drives the song forward. We’ve all been in a place in our lives where everything feels like you can’t catch a break and you get stuck and we need something to happen that we couldn’t have predicted which Wolf & The Moon articulate with the final full line, “You’re going to make an impossible move out of this situation.” The song and its spare, spacious melody, encourages the listener to have some faith in forces in your own mind and in your life that operate beyond your conscious thinking and to accept that unexpected inspiration and chance when it comes. Listen to “Situations” on Soundcloud and follow Wolf & Moon at the links below.
Sulkin’ Raven’s “Run” has a melodic progression that turns on a fine emotional line like you’re moving headlong forward while scenes and experiences stream by you as though you’re the one doing the running from awkward situations and failures. The chiptune synths toward the end of the song mixed with the dreamlike tone of the composition is reminiscent of something Depreciation Guild might have done and with the same melancholic and surreal overtones but darker in a way. The song feels like the soundtrack to a new Inio Asano graphic novel but one that ends inconclusively rather than in the sinister places Asano sometimes takes his work. Even though the beat is consistent throughout with an even pace it serves as the song’s anchor and the dynamic qualities are found in the expressive guitar work in sync with dispassionate but introspective vocals and beautifully composed synth lines that take you to an otherworldly place that you’d rather be than trapped in a place in your head that seems to make everything impossible. In the end the song strikes one as a vehicle for using imagination and creativity to transform the energy of emotional paralysis and self-loathing into something productive. Listen to “Run” on Soundcloud and follow Sulkin’ Raven at the links below.
Stand Up And Say No’s Andre Nault takes an interesting approach to world events on “Daily Reminders.” Rather than directly prescribing solutions, he asks questions of himself, of others and the world. He gives voice to a natural impulse to need to shield oneself from the seemingly endless barrage of bad news and overwhelming developments of late and not be subjected to the ruthless scrutiny that seems to have been projected at everyone in public life of late. He implores, albeit it offhandedly, to “ let me know when it’s over” and asking “Does it really work out? Can the good guys win?” The latter because seemingly anywhere and everywhere the forces of authoritarianism generally, fascism in particular, have seized the reigns of power and poisoned civil society. And yet, in his questioning, Nault suggests we have the power to turn back that tide if we’re willing to make the effort and not simply surrender to the type of despair and nihilism born of being overwhelmed by the wave of nonsense but that maybe we can take a break from taking it all in so that we can more ably stand against the erosion of our own quality of life and be part of a ripple effect that will ensure a better, or at least a slightly more fulfilling future. Cast in scintillating synth melodies, fluid yet angular bass lines and vocals that sound both disaffected and defiant, “Daily Reminders” is the sound of a songwriter who has found his voice again with more conviction behind it minus the unrealistic expectations of youth. Listen to the song on Soundcloud and follow Stand Up And Say No at the links below.
Queen City Sounds and Art 
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