Hanna Ojala sounds like she’s singing to us from an alternate reality on “A Smoky Memory Of You.” The phasing synth drone is like the rippling of a field that allows communications between dimensions, a quantum transmitter of sound and ideas, the vocals dopplering through space and time. Perhaps Ojala in this song is like the first person to use a new form of transportation to visit remote spots in the multiverse and has had to jury rig a way to send messages back but because of the heretofore impossible gap between locations she’s been stranded and missing her beloved with a poignant ache and the transmission we’re getting is meant for that person and the desolated tones of her voice not intended for our ears as the message isn’t all love and yearning. The synth drones are reminiscent of late 70s Tangerine Dream circa the Sorcerer soundtrack when the band was at its enigmatic and melancholic peak. Watch the video for “A Smoky Memory Of You” below.
Sleepy Gonzales uses a simple, melancholic piano melody, strings and intermittent sounds, like sound effects in a movie to set a sense of place, as the backdrop to “Steady,” a song seemingly about modern malaise. The song unfolds like a series seemingly mundane yet poetic and thoughtful diary entries rich in detail and an almost eerie catalog of one’s disassociation from one’s own life with the music reinforcing a sense of resignation to a lesser life. Is it supposed to be funny in a maudlin way? Certainly lines speaking of one being “serotonin in human form” and collecting all the money one bets against oneself, the barista knowing your name but spelling it wrong and a billion candles “one for every time you let me down” and how “disappointment comes as easily as another breath” are dramatic enough to seem absurd and thus humorous. But that humor also comes from a place of deep pain the kind that seems impossible to fully soothe except maybe through writing a song and laying those thoughts out before you like you might in a journal so that it’s not those thoughts that become the truth but, rather, a sketch of the patterns of your thinking so that you can wallow further or to at least know you’re not like that all the time. Both have their uses and this song vividly captures that time, however long it lasts, a night, a few years, long stretches of one’s lifetime, when your sadness seems like it will never end yet you somehow keep going because this mood isn’t so abrupt and disruptive to your life would be a reason to despair and you know you’ll survive it, SOMEHOW. Fans of Rilo Kiley and Jenny Lewis will appreciate the wit and dry humor that runs throughout the song. Listen to “Steady” on Spotify and follow the Vancouver, British Columbia-based band at the links below.
In the video for “Me My Ghost,” as in the song itself, Mieko Shimizu haunts the koto loop and luminous and subtle synth line attempting to communicate with the ghosts outside her window. The image glitches and warps slightly with Mieko’s face floating in the dark in triple form at times, in silver party mask at others, in others, the face blown out in black and white. In her words, Mieko is trying to soothe the fears and trying to comprehend the anxieties of those aforementioned ghosts reminiscent of a kinder, gentler version of the plot to the 2001 ghost movie classic Kairo. The delicate, spare melody and textured rhythms weave together with Mieko’s all but whispered vocals in an organically ritualistic and inviting fashion that might actually calm disturbed spirits but also reconcile the unsettled parts of Shimizu’s own consciousness. The single is part of Mieko’s forthcoming 2020 album I Bloom and if “Me My Ghost” is any indication, the record will take us on a dark but necessary journey toward personal illumination and transcendence.
Astronaut 9 recently released the album Everything Like It’s the Last Time, a fusion of post-rock and spoken word poetry. The track “Sarah and Ludo CW: Sexual Assault, Suicide, Self-Harm, Eating Disorders” is an emotionally bracing and raw portrait of a friend that challenges you, whose insight, sensitivity and strength could not spare her the psychic ravages of a life hostile to her very existence. The content warning given previously is because the piece dives deep into the reality of that friend’s life and death and how nothing will ever fully fill the hole in your life left by that friend’s absence. As the song progresses it becomes a celebration of that friend and their impact on you and others because the only way to honor such people is to honor that impact and what it is about them that made them dear and special to you. The music goes from spare and almost stark to full and luminous. Listen to the track on Soundcloud.
The insistent cybernetic beat and distorted synth washes of Paragon Cause’s “Someone Else” provides a fascinating contrast with the song’s tuneful vocals. Its menace is both sonic and thematic. Like a reminder to oneself to trust one’s own instincts and perceptions rather than listening to “someone else” that might not have your best interests at heart or in matters that are better dealt with personally. The emotional urgency of the track and its enigmatic subject matter makes it seem like a good song for the soundtrack to a more fully realized film version of Æon Flux as its sound spans a 90s cyberpunk vibe and something more of the now looking forward, sounding like an edgily brooding downtempo track. Listen to “Someone Else” on Spotify and follow Paragon Cause at the links provided.
When Julia Easterlin’s vocals float over the intricate guitar line of “Morning Smog” by Age of Reason we get a sense that the narrative of the song is coming from someone who has stayed up all night to observe the parts of the day between sunset and sunrise bringing forth insights about human existence as the sun burns away not the fog so much as the smog as the musings, perhaps jotted down, perhaps committed to memory, are happening during a walk through Midtown Manhattan. Distorted keyboard sounds drifting in are like clouds temporarily blocking the moonlight, the shimmery guitar with its own raw distortion is like the choke of morning traffic even before the sun properly takes to the sky. The lyrics seem to take in the proportion of human existence referencing things like “small men, tall towers” and how in that environment it’s easy to feel forgotten and lost in the late hours like Griffin Dunne’s character in After Hours. The song, conceive of and written by songwriter Steve Hudock, perfectly captures the surreal tranquility of a big city at night compared to the hustle and bustle of the daylight hours and how those who live mostly by night for work and by nature relate to the jarring pace of the city during standard business hours. Listen to “Morning Smog” on Bandcamp.
WRENN’s single “Psychosexual” will get all kinds of comparisons to 90s artists that came out of alternative rock and modern artists who have drawn on that realm of music for inspiration. But WRENN’s clear, melodic vocals alongside bouncy rhythms and guitars both fuzzy and swirly will remind connoisseurs of 90s alternative rock of the likes of Hammerbox and Medicine. Not as weird or as experimental as the latter and not rooted in jangle-y 80s college rock as the former, WRENN fortunately, isn’t really following the musical path of either, it’s just the same willingness to blend diverse musical interests into the songwriting rather than try to fit in within a specific, already established musical niche. The lyrics speak to the vagaries of modern relationships and how so many of our mediated experiences and ways of interacting with the world might be complicating our lives in historic ways and warping our sense of what’s authentic even though we need authentic experiences with authentic people for life to feel like it has any essential meaning. Listen to “Psychosexual” on Soundcloud and follow WRENN at the links below.
“Southern Hospitality” depicts the thoughts and the sounds of cruising through Memphis as told by Coldway. The Tennessee city known for being a little on the gritty side but one that has produced some of the country’s most hungry and vital musical artists. Coldway displays a demanding swagger that challenges the city’s rep for both inspiring a determination born of a challenging social environment and the kind of Southern hospitality that is supposed to be a virtue and can often manifest in unusual ways. Coldway demands that warmth and regard on its face as if to say, “If this isn’t a joke then how about some of that generosity and kindness you pride yourselves on.” While driving through town musing on these concepts a beat reminiscent of 70s R&B like Delfonics, Curtis Mayfield or mellower Gamble and Huff track runs through. The metaphor of “southern hospitality” works as both code for sexual favors and being made to feel welcome in a town that may not be your own unfolds with a steady stream of clever wordplay and a story commenting on everyday desires and observations with the drive symbolizing not just a slice of life but the southern urban black experience not romanticized but expressed with an easy going swagger. Listen to “Southern Hospitality” on Spotify and follow Coldway at the links below.
“EATR” is a song by Swedish band Phogg written from the perspective of a robot named Mofeto driven to misanthropic heights by its anger at the recklessness and wanton destruction humankind has wreaked upon the earth and other living creatures. Sounding like it was recorded in a secret, underground lair constructed from the salvaged fuselage of Mofeto’s would be escape vehicle from humanity’s self-inflicted environmental apocalypse, “EATR” has the quality of an urgent and corrosive, headlong psychedelic thrash to reflect the robot’s uncontrollable outrage at the “hundreds of years” humans have had to tumble the natural world toward becoming an uninhabitable wasteland. Listen to Mofeto’s lament, “EATR,” on Spotify and follow Phogg at the links provided.
Gold Spectacles sound like the duo listened to a bit of Anne Dudley’s work in Art of Noise and her subsequent soundtrack work in crafting the music for the single “Stranger Than You.” Unconventional percussion like the sound of bottles struck, the sound of a small bell being struck and clicks of sticks on the rim of the drum as well as minimal drum kit rhythms give the song some of its atmospheric quality like some kind of clockwork narrative. The sound sounds like an experimental, downtempo jazz pop that settles into a nice groove but doesn’t get stuck in a creative rut with a soundscape that’s constantly, if subtly, evolving. Flutes and ethereal vocal choruses serve as a counterpoint to the lead vocal line which is playful yet pointed analysis of a relationship that could but won’t because of a basic disconnect of personality and temperament. The narrator anticipates daily conflict in the relationship in which she’ll be baited into a fight but won’t give the man the satisfaction because it’s all part of a meta narrative of gender roles. One of the lyrics speaks directly to this issue with “I never really understand the need to be an alpha man.” As if such a display of ego, bravado and physical dominance hides all the insecurity. As if to suggest existing outside of that mode of being the chorus of the song is “Maybe I’m a little bit stranger than you, darling.” Strange because of not adhering to values of being and identity that limit one to such regressive cognitive orientations that are, in fact all too common. “Strangeness” and being the other in the case of this song is an act of resistance to a culture of self-oppression reinforced by internalizing a harmful identity politics that anyone can step away from by simply questioning one’s assumptions of the “normal.” The song is the eleventh in the band’s “full moon” series culminating in the release of a full album release on November 15, 2019. Listen to “Stranger Than You” on Soundcloud and follow Gold Spectacles at the links below.
Queen City Sounds and Art 
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