Treasure’s new single “Feelings” uses a gently subtle mix of sounds that allow for featured vocalist Maggy Lee’s vocals to shine and resonate. The mix on the percussion is so tasteful in how it sits in the mix and seems so unobtrusive but unmistakable in setting the pace as lingering synth notes set a contemplative mood as Lee’s voice tells the story of uncertainty about the title of the song by asserting she has various feelings and wondering if the object of the song shares them or even has them. But there’s no judgment in her tone, she seems to be looking back on her encounters with the subject of the song in the third person and observing that those feelings are there but that she is often left wondering. The song ends with the implied questioned unanswered or resolved but it also doesn’t require a resolution. It speaks to a spirit of knowing something is there but not wanting to pressure a deep commitment so early on. Listen to “Feelings” featuring Maggy Lee on Soundcloud and follow Treasure at the links provided.
Norwegian band Remington super 60 has been releasing left field pop songs since the late 90s and its latest single “Fake Crush” sounds like it bridges decades. Its exquisitely gentle guitar work and subtle bass line sit between 60s French pop and 90s downtempo with a tonal change in the verses that resolves in a way that transports the listener to some kind of exotic lounge in a cosmopolitan city as the vocals describes confused feelings about a love that feels in some senses real but with the certainty that it isn’t because a crush isn’t truly built to last, it’s just a fantasy as fragile and as delicate as the song’s melody. And this isn’t even a true crush but a fake crush like a feeling someone wants to have and thinks she should have but upon closer examination it’s better as a fantasy than as a reality. And yet it’s these thoughts that spark the imagination some and give one a sense of something to look forward to, which is sometimes all we need to get out of an emotional rut. Listen to “Fake Crush” on Soundcloud and follow the enigmatically named Remington super 60 at the links. Look for a new EP from the project due out January 24, 2020.
“Lovesick,” the final track from Maude Latour’s 2019 EP Starsick, is a song about a very real phenomenon that most people have experienced at some point in their lives. Using the vocabulary of a pop song and her knowledge of the way ancient Greek and Roman poets like Sappho and Virgil wrote about love as a disease to be treated, once diagnosed by doctors (perhaps figures like Hippocrates and Galen), Latour cleverly fuses suffering from being heartsick and the age old attempt to overcome it by figuring out a cure or something you can do that adheres to principles of reason and science. She describes those feelings with her vocals sitting in the mix in a way that sounds like she’s telling the listener these things in confidence with the listener sitting in for the object of that love. The song blossoms like a cherished memories of the best times of that love that sounds like might be gone and terribly missed by the end of the song. It’s a song that conveys heartsickness but it has a bit of a different feel because Latour doesn’t adhere to the usual song structures, rather the arc of the song is the arc of the course of the romance in miniature that, while it makes sense at the time is guided more by natural rhythms and intuition rather than an imposed framework. Listen to “Lovesick” on Soundcloud and watch the video for the song filmed by Fergus Campbell below.
Secret Shame “Haunter Remix by SKNQTR)” cover (cropped)
Secret Shame’s September 2019 release of Dark Synthetics introduced the world to a promising new post-punk band whose lushly moody tones, delicately evocative guitar work and duskily ethereal vocals was informed by a haunted grittiness. This remix by Skinquarter of “Haunter” emphasizes the way the band has crafted an emotional experience that can fit into a more electronic dance side of darkwave as much as it does the more rock aspect of its music. The synths are already part of the band’s music, Skinquarter (a side project of Ricky Olson with whom Secret Shame recorded Dark Synthetics) emphasized that and extrapolated that potential into different shapes so that the track’s dynamics bottom out and swell as if rippling through time in and out of phase. What was a beautifully introspective post-punk song thus had its potential tweaked for becoming a darkwave EBM and Goth club dance track. Listen to the Skinquarter remix of “Haunter” on Soundcloud and follow Secret Shame at the links below. Look for new music by Secret Shame in early 2020.
Hanna Ojala’s new single “Incantation” embodies the concept as she uses layers of vocals processed and bleeding around the edges as she implores an outside power or her inner self to transform her and illuminate her consciousness. “Carve out my demons, set them free / Burn my mind, and burn my past” she cries out calling down a purifying fire to purge her being of those elements that no longer serve her and a force to come in and forcefully remove her baser and self-destructive behaviors that seem so firmly anchored in her spirit like a possession, like a psychic cancer. It’s less a song, per se, and more like a ceremony of personal mythology designed to cast out the detritus of spirit in an effort to move into a new phase of evolution. But without the naivete that this fix is permanent but knowing that from time to time we need to cast off off the shackles of our outmoded habits and ways of being. Listen to “Incantation” on YouTube.
Angel Olsen performs at Gothic Theatre December 14and 15, photo by Cameron McCool
Friday | December 13
Tourist, photo by David Ellis
What:Tourist w/Matthew Dear and Swim Mountain When: Friday, 12.13, 8 p.m. Where: Globe Hall Why: English electronic musician Tourist aka William Phillips is currently touring in support of his 2019 album Wild. Though known for his production and remixing work for higher profile pop artists, his own music is becoming known for his spacious and emotionally luminous compositions. His mastery of sculpting the sound in the mix and crafting vivid soundscapes that take you out of mundane life into a realm of bright colors and tranquil, uplifting moods is impressive. Also on the bill is aesthetically like-minded musician and producer like Matthew Dear whose 2018 album Bunny is imbued with its own head-space-shifting energy.
What:Lot Lizard w/No Gossip in Braille, Old Soul Dies Young and more When: Saturday, 12.14, 7 p.m. Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective Why: Lot Lizard is a post-punk band from Sioux Falls, South Dakota whose debut full-length released on December 6, 2019 and made it as a late entry into our Year End Best List (to be published over six weeks soon). Rather than take cues from the current darkwave movement, Lot Lizard’s noisy, moody songs have more in common with the likes of Iceage, Pere Ubu and bands on the Amphetamine Reptile imprint than the usual suspects. Yet its songs are accessibly melodic and rooted in songwriting rather than bludgeoning volume while also indulging in plenty of noisescaping when the moment strikes right. Denver-based post-punk band No Gossip In Braille recently released its own album in 2019 called Bend Toward Perfect Light, capturing the overpowering despair and sorrow of the past few years in the American psyche, especially in the realm of underground music and art and among those not favored by a system seeming to only boost the interests of the economic elite. Rather than wallow in despair No Gossip in Braille channeled those feelings into a hopeful energy that honors the hurt.
What:Angel Olsen w/Vagabon When: Saturday, 12.14, 8 p.m. Where: Gothic Theatre Why: Angel Olsen has consistently written fascinating music that pushes her own frontiers as an artist and as a vehicle to challenge cultural norms. Her 2019 album All Mirrors is a “[poignantly] dreamlike examination of identity in an age of universal scrutiny” (from our year end best albums coverage). It is a lush sound environment in which to get lost and rediscover yourself.
What:Harry Tuft w/Rich Moore, Glenn Taylor, Bill Rich, Ed Contreras, John Magnie When: Saturday, 12.14, 7 p.m. Where: Swallow Hill Daniels Hall Why: Harry Tuft is the godfather of all folk from Denver and the Front Range since the early 60s and founding the Denver Folklore Center as well as Swallow Hill Music in the 70s. He’s been performing his own music in the last few years and proving he’s a gifted artist as well as interpreter of the work of others.
What:Plaid w/Nasty Nachos and Xoxford When: Sunday, 12.15, 7 p.m. Where: Larimer Lounge Why: Plaid is one of the foundational projects of IDM and modern experimental electronic music. Since 1991 the group has helped to redefine and evolve beat-driven synthesizer music while mixing in live instruments and samples. Its 2019 album Polymer which has as its subject the examination of the nature of technology and our use of resources and the myriad ways in which they benefit and potentially harm us.
What:Empath w/American Culture and Reposer When: Tuesday, 12.17, 7 p.m. Where: Bluebird Theater Why: Psychedelic noise punk band Empath put out its debut full length in 2019—Active Listening: Night on Earth. But the Philadelphia-based group has been making waves in the underground for the past few years for its creative take on punk as not just as a sound but as an attitude and ethos. And yet its spirited performances are pure punk—a catharsis of emotion and inspiration.
When Vesperwynd’s “Breathe in the Blood” begins it leads you to believe it’s going to be an able and slightly different black metal track with the feral vocals and grinding guitar sound. But as the song progresses an almost symphonic keyboard progression comes in to help the guitar trace expanding, caustic figures like tendrils of smoke. Then near the three minute mark the song takes a markedly different direction into the realm of darkwave like an unusual mixture of early Christian Death and Wolves in the Throne Room. The song hangs suspended for a moment in guitar drone before coming crashing back in with that majestic blend of cutting guitar sound, ethereal synth and processional rhythms into the outro. The song defies expectations beginning to end with where it’s coming from or where it’s going beyond the tone of the epic like a White Light From the Mouth of Infinity-period Swans song cast in black metal and ethereal post-punk tones. Listen to “Breathe in the Blood” on Spotify and follow Vesperwynd on its Facebook page and Instagram account linked below.
Dead Little Penny’s distorted vocals and guitar work create a gritty if hypnotic effect against the steady drum machine beat on “Talk Show Goth.” It’s hazy and disorienting like a lo-fi Curve song or like something Dirty Beaches might have done in his early days. Synths wash in like a bad video glitch on a VHS tape of the talk show in the title, obscuring the main musical line ever so slightly before the dirt in the mix clears up some toward the end of the song and yet it still sounds like it was recorded with some of the levels pegged like maybe Dead Little Penny listened to a bit of Times New Viking when considering the production on the song as the other songs on the Urge Surfing album aren’t as in the red sonically but share the same beautifully grimy quality that sets the project apart from bands that seem to be coming from the realm of shoegaze and psychedelic rock. Dead Little Penny’s production seems too intentional for it to be a matter of lack of access to recording equipment and the conscious choice to trust in what might be perceived as imperfections by those looking for tamer faire. Listen to “Talk Show Goth” on Spotify and follow Dead Little Penny at the links provided.
Nomke takes us far beyond the usual tropes of a song about heartbreak and yearning for something more authentic and substantial on her single “Ended (by the morning sun).” Yes, there are choruses and exquisite structure, her urgent guitar work, bright, upbeat vocals and observations about life and her relationships that didn’t work out worded in a way that’s more poetic than most of us come up with every day. But then she sings these lines that seem so vivid and compelling: “When my dreams try to break me / I want to touch something real / but this town is full of ghosts.” In those lines Nomke expresses how sometimes what we think we want and dream about ends up being if not a nightmare far less than the real, heartfelt experience we want and if we live somewhere long enough our memories of our experiences with other people haunts us and makes it challenging to get out and not feel like you’re repeating past mistakes or risk running into the people you don’t want to see anymore if you can help it. It’s a fascinating line in what might otherwise feel like a breezy pop song but even the guitar work and song dynamics have a complexity that serves the sophistication of feelings expressed and thus the song bears repeated, rewarding listens. Listen to “Ended (by the morning sun)” on Spotify, follow Nomke at the links provided and look for her album True Queen due out in January 2020.
Italian rapper Dydo’s song “Tacchi & Jordan” is in Italian but one needn’t understand the lyrics to appreciate his artistry. He deftly switches between rapping styles throughout the song with great nuance conveying urgency and contemplation. The beat employs organic and electronic instruments and the production balances an expansive melody with rhythmic texture and vibrant layers of atmosphere. Fans of artists on the Rhymesayers Entertainment imprint will appreciate Dydo’s forceful presentation and mastery of wordplay paired with dynamic music that suggests a reflective quality even as the moment of the song is clearly aimed at moving forward. Listen to “Tacchi & Jordan” on Soundcloud and follow Dydo at the links below.
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