You buy a reel-to-reel recorder at a garage sale and use it to splice together samples of record white noise and a simple piano melody, reverse delay guitar recorded backward for even trippier effect, analog synth arpeggios gone wrong and spit an introspective set of bars over the top. That’s what it sounds like Mestozi did but obviously the production is more pristine than that but that the songwriter/producer had the imagination to pull so many disparate elements together in this way that sounds like it could be some kind of avant-garde electronics track with elements of abstract jazz is impressive. It, in fact, sounds like the musical equivalent of a pinball machine that has tilted with the attendant more modern meaning of the word applying as well. The lyrics hint at being knocked out whack by the off-putting actions and words of a friend. Fans of Dilla, cLOUDDEAD and Blockhead will appreciate what Mestozi does on “Tilted” and how it pushes notions of what can be done in hip-hop ever so slightly. Listen to “Tilted” on YouTube and follow Mestozi at the links provided.
Benjamin Berzerker’s video for Pencey Sloe’s “All OK” reflects the enigmatic quality of the band’s twin melodies, one bright and ethereal, the other textured and gritty. The image of the red cloth around the man’s head like a rose-colored shroud is more original than merely saying someone is living with their head in the clouds but that the filter can be removed if you really want it to and that if you walk out of your usual contexts and take on the world on its own terms it will, indeed, be OK. The soaring dynamic of the song recurving in on itself as the percussion moves forward in a steady procession while warm yet ghostly vocals all but whisper the narrative of stasis and liberation from your internal oppressor set this song and band apart from the crowd of neo-shoegazers of the past decade and a half. Watch the Berzerker video below and follow Pencey Sloe on Bandcamp where the group will release its debut album Don’t Believe, Watch Out on September 27.
With a sinuous bass line, breathy vocals and hanging guitar chords, Felines’ “Close To You” creates a dreamlike soundscape reminiscent of Sonic Youth’s “JC,” the song about Joe Cole. But the shimmer of of synths comes in to give a sense of the otherworldly mixed in with a wistful hazy quality that gives a different sort of emotional coloring to a song with a nostalgic undertone. When the vocals, the bass, guitar and drums pull apart ever so slightly it opens the song up in a way that allows it to hit your ears at a pleasantly slightly off angle while easing off the established dynamic and seeming to switch the momentum of the song fluidly. “Close To You” is bittersweet and melancholic in its romantic undertones with a spare musical complexity worthy of its refined emotional sensibility. The Copenhagen-based band will soon release its first EP Saying It Twice Makes It Real through Crunchy Frog and Burger Records. Listen to the song on Soundcloud and follow Felines at the links below.
What:Drab Majesty w/Body of Light, Xeno & Oaklander and DJ boyhollow When: Thursday, 08.22, 7 p.m. Where: 3 Kings Tavern Why: The darkwave show of the summer. Drab Majesty is a transgender, glam, post-punk, space alien duo that has been instrumental in making the new post-punk/Goth wave popular outside the usual circles and within the old school scene. The 2019 album Modern Mirror reveals the group’s for well crafted songs beyond the entrancing, atmospheric mood that could overshadow Deb Demure’s writing in the past. Body of Light has synthesized the minimal synth influences descended from early Depeche Mode and EBM into a dynamic, darkly ambient synth pop. Xeno & Oaklander’s minimal analog synth compositions suggest a foundation in cinema and it’s own 2019 album Hypnos takes the listener on a journey into a journey into a desolate and eerily lonely future where alien archaeologist/anthropologists study what happened to us foolish humans in the Twenty-First and Twenty-Second centuries with an emphasis on the art and music created around the turn of the Twenty-First century.
The Yawpers, photo by Megan Holmes
What:The Yawpers w/CITRA When: Thursday, 08.22, 6 p.m. Where: Leavitt Pavilion Why: The Yawpers bring their unhinged blues punk to Leavitt Pavilion for a free show. The trio’s most recent album, 2019’s Human Question, really does delve thoughtfully and urgently into what this whole mess of humanity is about and what we can and should be doing in this life individually and collectively given our flaws and deficits of feeling, of cognition, talent and capability. But The Yawpers suggest we can’t just quit as past civilizations faced similarly destructive situations politically, economically, spiritually, environmentally and culturally.
Friday | August 23
Big Dopes, photo by Jake Cox
What:Big Dopes album release w/Spirettes and Whiskey Autumn When: Friday, 08.23, 8 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: Big Dopes releases its new album Crimes Against Gratitude tonight at the Hi-Dive. The trio’s songs combine a rich, moody low end courtesy Justin Catanzaro’s bass and Eddie Schmid’s rich vocals. Intricate melodies and dynamic rhythms with the band, including drummer Ricky Brewer, giving the songs a rare expressiveness and vibrancy. Schmid’s lyrics seem to come from poignantly observational biographical snapshots. In telling these stories the band tells the story of a generation coming to terms with diminished future possibilities but refusing to give into despair yet finding a way to cope with creativity and empathy rather than callousness. It’s guitar-based indie rock of a sort but one that seems as informed by the emotional resonance of R&B as by left field alternative rock.
What:The Bellweather Syndicate w/The Siren Project, Autumn and Julian Black When: Friday, 08.23, 7 p.m. Where: Herman’s Hideaway Why: The Bellweather Syndicate is William Faith and Sarah Rose. The former was a bassist in later era Christian Death with Rozz Williams as well as a longtime member of Faith & The Muse and playing in Sex Gang Children and The March Violets. The dark post-punk band has a driving low end and a sense of urgency to its ethereal yet gritty melodies. Autumn’s dream pop sounds like someone in the band, or everyone, listened to a whole lot of the Stone Roses, Chameleons and Kitchens of Distinction and took that as a launching point in crafting what is its own sound. The Siren Project from Denver is a synthesis of European post-punk sensibilities and emotionally expansive trip-hop.
What:Solypsis, Blackcell, Acidbat and Kid Mask When: Friday, 08.23, 8 p.m. Where: Thought//Forms Why: A more experimental take on electronic music, noise and the avant-garde all around at this show including Denver Goth-industrial/noise legends Blackcell, Kid Mask’s disregard for specific style in making his deeply emotional and affecting soundscapes, Acidbat’s glitchcore industrial ambient and Solypsis which is almost as much performance art as ambient industrial.
Saturday | August 24
Petite Garçon circa 2016, photo by Tom Murphy
What:The Pamlico Sound vinyl release w/The Soltones and Cosmic Joe When: Saturday, 08.24, 8 p.m. Where: Larimer Lounge Why: The Pamlico Sound is releasing its new album The Funk is Not For Sale on vinyl for this show. The Boulder-based group is lead by Will Baumgartner who has played in various funk bands in Denver for years but whose roots are in New York where he, as a young kid, went to Woodstock (the original) and who moved about and played in the No Wave scene of late 70s and early 80s NYC. So The Pamlico Sound, which is very much a funk band in the traditional ways has a little different flavor in its exuberance and weirdness. The Soltones also have some funk in its sound but its smooth songwriting is steeped in jazz and R&B and its lushly composed songs have a soothing mood that doesn’t wax into the soporific, just emotionally refined and transporting.
What:Lily & Horn Horse, Banny Grove, French Kettle Station, Petite Garçon and Egg Walk When: Saturday, 08.24, 9 Where: Rhinoceropolis Why: Lily & Horn Horse is a New York duo that would be difficult to define except to say that its horn, vocals and beat combination is jazz, dream pop, downtempo hip-hop and avant-garde. Which is just as well given the eclectic sounds on the rest of the bill including French Kettle Stations neo-No Wave, adult-contemporary pop and performance art and Petite Garçon’s own post-garage indie pop. Supposedly the latter has a new album out tonight as well but we can neither confirm or deny so best to bring some money to buy a copy anyway.
What:Oko Tygra w/Bluebook, Hifi Gentry and Cuckoo When: Saturday, 08.24, 7 p.m. Where: Globe Hall Why: Oko Tygra is the perfect blend of R&B and dream pop in the grand 4AD label band mold. Bluebook is an interesting hybrid of downtempo, Americana and the avant-garde. Cuckoo is like if a math-y indie band merged with a garage rock band and then forged a musical identity beyond that but rooted in the best aspects of both.
Sunday | August 25
Total Trash, DJ Couchman on right in sunglasses, photo by Tom Murphy
What:Shibui Denver #5: The Vagrant Sea, Tokyo Rodeo and DJ Couchman When: Sunday, 08.25, 7 p.m. Where: Mutiny Information Café Why: This edition of our monthly series at Mutiny features DJ Couchman of the band Total Trash and the DJ night Interesting Times spinning songs before the show and between sets. It will be the debut of The Vagrant Sea which includes former members of Tarmints, The Dirty Lookers and The Symptoms (among others) and rock and roll band Tokyo Rodeo will put in a performance fresh off the road.
What:Bryan Ferry w/Femme Schmidt When: Sunday, 08.25, 6:30 p.m. Where: The Paramount Theatre Why: Bryan Ferry is the charismatic singer of pioneering glam rock/experimental band Roxy Music. The latter was a huge influence on punk and alternative rock and whose music has managed to remain somewhat timeless as its classic songwriting style and willingness to go off the deep end into adventurous sonic territory has endured as captivating and relevant. Ferry’s solo work has a similarly creatively refined sensibility and flair for thoughtfully poetic lyrics.
What:KRS-One w/Righteous Revolution and illosophy When: Sunday, 08.25, 7 p.m. Where: Oriental Theater Why: KRS-One was the thought-provoking MC who was the frontman for influential hip-hop crew Boogie Down Productions. His whole career KRS-One has shined a light on society’s ills with an incisive and creative critique.
Monday | August 26
Mogwai circa 2011, photo by Tom Murphy
What:Mogwai w/Papa M When: Monday, 08.26, 7 p.m. Where: Summit Music Hall Why: Scottish instrumental rock band Mogwai play majestic, even epic journeys into rock music’s outer edges informed by a healthy sense irreverent humor. Papa M is the long running experimental guitar and atmospheric moods project of David Pajo. You know, the guy who brought so much imagination and genius guitar work to Slint, Stereolab, Will Oldham, Royal Trux, The For Carnation, Zwan, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Dead Child and Interpol.
What:The Vibrators, Filthy Hearts, Cyclo-Sonic and The Pollution When: Tuesday, 08.27, 7 p.m. Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective Why: The Vibrators were an early English punk rock band who managed to stay around and still write worthwhile punk in the classic vein. If Stiff Little Fingers name themselves after one of your songs and go on to be a seminal influence on bands like Green Day your legacy is secure and yet The Vibrators bring a spirited live show that is worthy of that legacy as well. Its debut album Pure Mania should be in the library of any true punk connoisseur.
Wednesday | August 28
Black Flag, photo courtesy Artists World Wide
What:Black Flag w/The Line Cutters When: Wednesday, 08.28, 8 p.m. Where: Oriental Theater Why: It’s not the classic line up of Black Flag but Greg Ginn still rips out that iconic guitar work like he wrote it last week with the unalloyed joy of a young buck. Seeing Ginn lay waste to the room that way alone is worth the price of admission.
On “Don’t Save Me” Glass Spells uses the sound of an upbeat melody and urgent rhythm, in the classic mode of post-punk, to make a disheartening point about humanity while giving you something for the message go down better. The lyric “I took the darkness of your lies, the unknown pleasures of your past” speaks much when followed by “Don’t save me now, don’t tell me how” to the way so much, not just online but in our everyday lives, is mediated so that many people think they can just change in and out of identities and personalities like their personal history never happened and as though regular human attachments including the reality of your life as a mortal human is contingent as long as it suits a narrative however questionable. The song is like a plea for something authentic in a person and in experiences in an era where presentation seems to have more cachet than the genuine article. Fans of Violet Tremors, early Ladytron and The Vanishing will appreciate the way this trio crafts synth-driven post-punk in a way that transcends the conventions and embraces the way you can make a disco and electroclash beat moody and urgent. Listen to “Don’t Save Me” on Soundcloud and follow Glass Spells at the links provided.
“Let’s Get Out” on the surface level is a summer love chillwave anthem. The ascending, bright melodies and expansive vocals and the kind of rhythm that sounds like you’re gearing yourself up to be motivated to make it a great summer or at this late stage in the season one last hurrah before the weather begins its descent into colder temperatures. It’s a celebration of long nights indulging hedonistic fun. But David Provenzano, whose solo project Margot Polo happens to be, gives us details about the experiences he relates outside the choruses that give the song some concretizing vividness including some inside jokes for those in the know as with the line “Have you ever felt like you’ve come undone, like you want to go west on Highway 1” to indicate that you want to do something reckless since Highyway 1 runs north and south. References to the moon on the ocean and being shown the constellations on someone’s phone and other refinements makes the song a kind of fantasy about getting away from the humdrum of the everyday which is perfectly safe in the daydream world of a song and Margot Polo (points for an inspired project name) invites us to take that mythical road trip in our minds for a few moments to transport us to a place where summer never ends and it’s a time when some, if not most of us, can remember a time when we were free to do as we will for what seemed like forever. Listen to “Let’s Get Out” on Soundcloud and follow Margot Polo at the links below. Look for Margot Polo’s debut, 5-song EP out in the fall.
You probably don’t need to know that Dominic Sen is something an alter ego of Alexandra Lily Cohen and the seventh only surviving child of the black hole at the center of the galaxy called M64 who barely survived being swallowed by the event horizon and made their way way to Earth where pop music, fandom and the mythology of stars (movie, music etc.) proved enduringly fascinating to appreciate “Hear Me.” You probably don’t need to be immersed in a ton of nerdy lore to appreciate the signifiers in the retro-futurist science fiction themed music video. You don’t even need to have read John Christopher’s The Tripods, A.E. Van Vogt, Octavia Butler, Ada Palmer, Ann Leckie, Yoon Ha Lee, Jy Yang or Samuel R. Delaney to understand the song or its video, though that knowledge helps contextualize how deep the creativity and conceptualization runs with the song. But none of that would matter as much of the song itself wasn’t an emotional journey written as a charming dream pop song with unconventional percussion to give it exotic highlights. The song is a evocation of the experience of being objectified rather than being heard and appreciated as a full human being. That the song is upbeat and bright more than hints that Dominic Sen isn’t interested in being so defined by other people and free to let go of attempts to pen them in. In a way it’s symbolic of Cohen’s writing songs as Dominic Sen as a reconciliation of a writer of cool pop songs and nerdy pursuits and interests from a young age. Watch the video for “Hear Me” below and follow Dominic Sen at the links provided.
“CAER” was TROVA’s first single in 2017 but we’re featuring it here on Queen City Sounds and Art in the context of the project’s “Elements” series in which TROVA took a concept and the ideas inherent to that element to craft an evocative ambient composition. “CAER” is under two minutes long but its nimbus of phased, streaming melody suggests the imagery of a mysterious, mythical place. Those familiar with The Chronicals of Narnia will know the name Cair Paravel, derived from the same word in Welsh, as the seat of power for the characters who come to Narnia in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe to cast down the wicked regime to rule with benevolence and wisdom. The legendary Welsh king Arthur similarly ruled from a castle, a caer, Camelot and later perhaps reigned in absentia on the mysterious island of Avalon in a similar setting. C.S. Lewis and earlier storytellers used this imagery to suggest a place that represents the best of human ideals and achievements. This song, though short, suggests a glimpse of such a place we might attain if we have the imagination and will to decency to try. Listen to “CAER” on Soundcloud and follow TROVA at the links below.
Kelsey Wilson of Wild Child and Glorietta uses a sort of funk sound palette to craft a 70s A.M. radio R&B-inflected pop on “Making Love,” her second single with new project Sir Woman. The insistent electronic tambourine, warbling, Worrell-esque synth and fluid, soft-edged bass line sounds like the kind of disco song you wish you would have heard at skating rinks in their heyday in the 1970s. Wilson deftly navigates that aesthetic with lyrics that reflect a modern sensibility on the nature of gender and relationships. The swagger expressed in the song is framed in a way that inverts the misogynistic viewpoint of a lot of music of the era it’s invoking while casting no judgments as there is something about that vibe and that way of songwriting that has resonance for the present. Listen to “Making Love” on Soundcloud and follow Sir Woman on Spotify. Look for the debut Sir Woman album Party City out soon.
Mariami reveals her own experience of managerial abuse in the music industry in her song “Fit To Heal The Devil.” With drifts of moody atmosphere and bright, melodic vocals Mariami outlines how so much of that abuse is internalized as she felt she had to bury her pain and sense of having to hide what was going on under the idea that maybe that was what everyone had to tolerate in order to have a real career in music. Fortunately Mariami found pretending that everything was okay intolerable enough to part ways with her manager but the poignancy of the tone of her vocals evokes the time before she had the impetus to seek better for herself. Sure, the song is specifically about the music industry, which was revealing itself to have more than a few pockets of shady behavior before the #MeToo movement got off the ground for example when it was revealed that a well-known PR company representative turned out to be an abusive creep, but it could be relatable to anyone who has been suffering abuse and exploitation in any context. The power and clarity of Mariami’s voice in the song shining through the haze and downtempo beat of the song, even as they compliment and highlight the message, is stirring stuff. As the title of the song suggests it’s not a moment to sink into despair but a starting place of reconciliation, holding the violators to account and to heal from the effects of abuse. Listen to “Fit To Heal The Devil” on Soundcloud and follow Mariami at the links below.
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