There are examples aplenty of the negative and destructive side of humanity in the world. But Caoilfhionn Rose’s “Being Human” is a song that puts the focus on the appreciation for the people who enhance and nourish our lives in everyday often small ways. The video for the song was filmed at Fletcher Moss Park in Manchester, England at a time of day when the sun is on the horizon and casting a soft, nostalgic light with some lens flare visible in the shot on the proceedings but it suits the tone of the song that is one about the songwriter letting the people in her life that she likes being human with them and all that entails that is unique and valuable and beautiful about the experience if you’re able step away back and see yourself and the people around you from an expanded perspective. Rose doesn’t seem to romanticize so much as shine a light on the fragility of existence and the necessity of expressing your appreciation of people for who and what they are, flaws and all. The gentle, intricate melody of the song and Rose’s versatile and warm vocals give the sentiment of the song a refreshing authenticity that is much more effective than scolding people to be better and care for one another. Watch the video on YouTube and follow Caoilfhionn Rose at the links below.
“Nvr Loved U” by Father Sheed sounds like something put together inspired by checking your voicemail on an elevator ride up a tall office building and then later a train ride through late night rain, your face illuminated by your mobile device and refractions of light from sources nearby but indistinct. The voice message is of someone breaking up with you as gently as they can without leaving some painful hint that maybe you can patch things up. There’s no easy way to say you’re breaking up with someone but the voice in this song seems to make it not sound cruel. The arc of melody and percussive tones over the steady beat conveys a deep sense of isolation even given being in a big city with thousands if not millions of people. But the paradoxical sense of space and intimacy that this song captures makes that isolation seem almost comfortable. The title of the song suggests a realization either on the part of the woman leaving the message or the person listening to it but it also more than hints that the break is for good without the messiness of one of those dramatic partings that make some people think the relationship must have meant something. This song sounds like a breakup without the drama imbued with a sense of acceptance. Listen to “Nvr Loved U” on Soundcloud and follow Father Sheed on the Spotify account.
the Rec “(I don’t understand) town slang” cover (cropped)
When you’re away from where you grew up for a sufficiently long period of time and outside the contexts that reared you and on to something that makes more sense for the life you want or when circumstances force you onward, sometimes going back is an odd and alien experience because you’re forced to confront the fact that what is considered normal and acceptable is often contingent on context and not universal down to the local patois. UK group the Rec explores this phenomenon regarding the town in which they grew up, Oswestry in Shropshire located on the border between England and Wales, on the song “(I don’t understand) town slang.” The members of the band moved away from Oswestry in the 1980s and one can only imagine the culture shock when maybe you’ve been somewhere that isn’t trapped a little in the past or maybe a little culturally hermetic.
The story set to a dynamic beat with a surreal melody of shimmery synths and psychedelic keyboards like a post-punk song reminiscent of Sleaford Mods and its own vocal cadence and tone. The vocalist sings of having spent half a day driving to town and then crossing “the line into the alien zone” and running into blank expressions and thousand yard stares when he spoke because he wasn’t speaking in a way that made a lot of sense to the locals. Isn’t this his hometown? Then he escapes the situation and tries to find his brother’s place but getting lost and in fear of more encounters with people speaking “town slang,” some of which echoes in a chaotic, jumbled fashion that comes at you from all angles before the main melody of the song reasserts itself. The chorus about town slang making the singer feel “uncomfortable” might suggest some of this slang seems regressive the way some people use expressions and words so casually and unmindful that the rest of the world has moved on. The song ends with the singer relating how he went to the “taxi rank” to get some gas and then to drive as fast as possible to get to “a place that I can understand.” In a way the song is like a miniature horror story. Like the movie Get Out where you know something’s wrong but instead of the scenario in that movie it’s a culture you can no longer relate to and where you will never again fit in even if you try down to the local slang. It’s the classic you can never really go home story but told with a wry humor paired with a transporting electro post-punk melody that evolves throughout the song and on its own helps to keep your attention focused on the story and its mixing in keen local details and references. The song also seems to hint that sometimes you are stuck in that situation but aware that you don’t belong but the people in the Rec understand. Fans of the Happy Mondays and the aforementioned Sleaford Mods will find much to like here. Listen to the song below and follow the Rec at the links below.
The sound of distant conversation and equally distant saxophone float in the minimal beat and synth drone like the haze of an underground speakeasy. Or you’re standing on the deck of a cruise ship alone at night as the boat hits a mild bank of fog with the sounds of other human activity indistinct but oddly comforting so that you know you can’t quite let your imagination let you fantasize for a moment about being on ghost ship. As you stand there and take in the vision of the light fog floating past the ship and over the ocean it strikes you that this is as close as you’re going to get from the hustle and bustle of everyday life because there’s nowhere to go to distract yourself from contemplating what it’s all about. But you come to no real conclusions because you don’t have to solve the world’s problems, as if you could do that alone anyway, and you didn’t arrange to go on this vacation to focus on the demands of your life like you normally would. So you accept that these neurotic impulses can be put to rest and you can come to just accept that having the luxury of taking in the view and taking on its tranquility is as perfect a moment as you’ll get, a Zen epiphany. We’ve been talking about UK downtempo project Castle1’s track “Eye On The Ocean” which you can listen to on Soundcloud and follow Castle1 at any of the links below. The new EP from which “Eye On The Ocean” is taken was released on Bandcamp and Soundcloud as a free download.
“Speed And Chaos” sounds like Dr. LaFlow practiced for composing the track by having a few computers listening to different internet radio stations and took note of whatever sounded interesting and fit an overarching theme he had in mind and later dreamed up a rap to fit the resultant sonic puzzle pieces he had assembled. Apparently he came up with the lyrics while restocking the cooler during his gravyard shift at CVS. Which is how a lot of great creative ideas come together—while we let or imaginations roam as we do mundane work at mundane jobs rather than focus on a task that takes so little of our focus. Dr. LaFlow came up with some choice surreal one-liners like “Smoke so loud I woke the neighbors,” “Popeye’s over Colonel Sanders,” and “No days off until I’m faded” and arranged them in stream of consciousness style in a song with a sample that sounds like something from a Betty Boop cartoon and somehow it all makes sense. Like you need to keep your mind working the nights and it takes whatever can stimulate it in the moment because it sure isn’t the canned music or the fluorescent lights and not often enough the scintillating late night conversation of your co-workers. This song is so relatable in its lines about staying motivated and thinking about what the money from this work will get you in order to be where you want to rather than get stuck in the drudgery of the moment. Working late nights is a completely different vibe and energy from the daytime world and Dr. LaFlow has captured that in the mood and pace of “Speed And Chaos.” You go into work when it’s dark, you come out when it’s light, it disorients your perspective, you go in when the world is working at a slow pace and coming out of work when it’s ramping up or up to full speed. It stretches your psyche and forces it to work in various modes and to adapt in ways that not everyone will ever know. Listen to the song on Soundcloud and follow Dr. LaFlow at the links below.
Sometimes you find yourself in a relationship that after the initial rush of attraction you wonder how you ever got involved with that person but you still try rather than give up because maybe you’re going through something in your own head. But then the core disconnect becomes more obvious and you find yourself finding excuses to spend less time with that person and that dynamic just causes unnecessary drama and things end in a less than ideal fashion. “@m hours” by baby back then is a song about that sort of experience and the conflicting emotions that seem to make a bad end inevitable but without bad intentions going in. The spare melody with guitar, minimalist percussion and breathy vocals express both sides of that experience eloquently and how most people enter into a doomed relationship without malice in the beginning or really in the end either. Listen to “@m hours” on Soundcloud and follow baby back then at the links below.
“Poppyseed” by Perfect Blue from Chicago sounds a little lo-fi for a song that balances out a broad spectrum of sound but that quality is what makes it reminiscent of C86-era bands and Shop Assistants in particular. Both bands share an affinity for raw compositions and upbeat melodies. Perfect Blue uses saxophone the way other bands might use bass as both a rhythm instrument and a carrier of melody at once. And at times it gives the song an unusual sound like if Felt (circa Crumbling the Antiseptic Beauty) and General Public did a song together. At the first the song may strike you a little odd but it rewards repeated listens in appreciating the layers and aesthetic that isn’t in some style being replicated endlessly even as darkwave and yesteryear post-punk has been mined well beyond the American and English strains of that music. Look for the group’s forthcoming self-titled EP but for now listen to “Poppyseed” on Soundcloud and follow Perfect Blue at the links below.
Ella Naseeb of Blushing Boy, photo courtesy the artist
Blushing Boy examines the way we’re indoctrinated to fill a certain role in society these days on its song “Consumer.” Frontwoman Ella Naseeb sings about the various ways we’re channeled into what we think are meaningful choices in life that shape our identity when really those identities are ways by which we can be marketed and fulfill our role as consumers pre-conditioned to consuming in specific ways streamlined to fit ourselves into a demographic that justifies research data to keep the international modern capitalist grind running smoothly. But everyone knows deep down that such a state of things is antithetical and even anti-human and unnatural. In declaring “I’m not a consumer!” amidst chilling keyboard atmospheres, expansive and caustic guitar feedback and brooding but urgent rhythms. The song sounds like a fire set to the notion of going along to get along with the machinery of oppression both internalized and otherwise. Watch the video for consumer below after the Soundcloud link to listen to the song and follow Blushing Boy at the links provided.
“Dipped in Gold” is a love song that begins in the round the way someone deeply in the throes of the emotion revisits the sense memories and visions reinforcing the feelings scroll through one’s thoughts. The image of “your name dipped in gold, the crown in your toes, lips and your nose, the gap in your smile” and being “too scared to sing songs because they’re all about you” and other turns of phrase uttered in awe of the beloved are actually touching. LO-FI LE-VI (born Levi Dronkert) has it bad and the fixation on his loved one comes off not obsessive or creepy so much as tender and earnest. The minimal guitar, bells and the unprocessed vocals are unvarnished yet convey a lushness that often requires more production to accomplish and what production there is lets those organic elements shine. Listen to “Dipped in Gold” on Soundcloud and follow Lo-FI LE-VI at the links below.
Joseph Dubay really nails the best side of that time in American culture and music where a certain stripe of teens were listening to dramatic music and not distinguishing between emo and Goth because no one told them those are distinctly, culturally different (which, let’s be real, they’re not when you get to the essence of them). A time when bands like My Chemical Romance and AFI helped define an aesthetic of Goth-and-punk crossover with make-up and stark imagery and Bayside, named in the song, worked with Gil Norton on its 2011 album Killing Time to not just bring his expert ear but the mystique of having worked on key 4AD records to the proceedings. Not that so many “pastel goths” did a lot of listening to Echo & The Bunnymen, Sisters of Mercy and Bauhaus. Dubay has all of that and a youth spent playing N64 with friends and crushing on girls who seemed so tough and cool and too good and interesting for you. Until you have the guts to become a character like you’re listening to in an emo song and express your feelings. And yet the song also acknowledges the poses people adopt to try to fit in while the music and culture they love is all about exposing frailty and vulnerability and expressing the insecurity, pain and feelings of inadequacy—the melodrama—of youth. Dubay honors those feelings many people go through when it all seems so poignant before the unsavory reality of some of those those musicians people held in such high esteem who seemed to articulate what you’re feeling so poignantly got exposed as abusers or UFO conspiracy theorists or simply flawed and human like everyone. But there’s something beautiful about remembering what it felt like to feel like you were really living and feeling and not adjusting to the consensus reality of drab, supposed adulthood. In title and story, Dubay gives us a poignant snapshot of an era. Listen to “Pastel Goth” on Soundcloud and follow Joseph Dubay at the link below.
Queen City Sounds and Art 
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