Cat Tyson Hughes has been engaged in an Instagram-based project called Daily Improvisations (cleverly adapting the title from the concept of “daily affirmations”). It involves improvisational music created with field recordings, vocal loops and electronic sounds that are informed by the serendipity of daily encounters and composing those bits of inspiration in the form of a type of sound collage. Beginning on July 29, Cat has presented pieces significantly different from one another but unified by her sound palette proving that you can create broadly and with great diversity within the relative limitations of your tools as they inspire creative uses of what might normally be familiar elements. Each piece invites us into a unique iteration of everyday experience with tone, texture and informal yet organic rhythm. Each is short and economical in conjuring the essence of a moment or of the day. In particular, the piece titled “19 August 2019” employs a repeating synth figure and ghostly vocals for a song reminiscent of The Knife circa Silent Shout with its evocation of melancholic alienation. It also brings to mind the mysterious quality of the first half of Aphex Twin’s Ambient Works Vol. II the way it uses beatless repetition to establish a sense of psychological intimacy. Cat Tyson Hughes will release a full length album called Gentle Encounters with Things on October 31 so maybe these daily creative sketches and explorations will inform the fully developed work or give us a taste of a different side of the artist’s songwriting. But what has come forth so far is a fascinating string of sonic snapshots delivered with an admirable level of discipline and engaged imagination. Listen to “19 August 2019” below and follow Cat Tyson Hughes at the links provided. On her Soundcloud account you can give the other completed items in the series a listen. Not a huge commitment and rewarding to trace her developments across time.
The descending, spidery melodic figure in the beginning of Anna Rose’s “Broken is Beautiful” feels like the musical connecting tissue between the more fiery passages of the song. Rose herself transitions seemingly effortlessly between the introspective and the impassioned and bold. The contrasting moods and modes serve well a song about the recognition of the imperfection and frailty in human life and the complexity of everyone’s psyche. She sings about how some of the strongest people are those who know they’re fractured and even broken who yet continue to struggle and strive to have as good a life as possible and maybe help others to do so as well. Rose gives voice to the struggle with inner demons and the negative patterns of thought that can haunt you when anxiety strikes and the resultant worries about being exposed as a human who can get stretched then and whose emotional and psychological reservoirs are not endless. The delicate and the triumphant aspects of the song both celebrates and commiserates with those broad sweeps of the human experience. The single comes from Rose’s new album The Light Between, which is what she seems to find on “Broken is Beautiful” – that is to say she draws out and draws attention to the bright side of what might otherwise be considered flaws and weaknesses and finds the beauty in what makes us mortal and human. Listen to the song on “Soundcloud” and follow Anna Rose at the links provided.
Ainsley Farrell’s “Dark Spell” is overflowing with strong emotions barely reigned in. At times the singer’s normally confident, husky vocals break ever so slightly with the force of feeling as she reaches into her upper registers. But this works to humanize the vocals and renders them more powerful and relatable. Her words paint a portrait of a fractious and maybe dysfunctional love wherein the two people have hurt each other deeply as if under each other’s dark spell. She vividly describes the moments of the initial attraction and the anticipation of the moments of unforgettable connection. Then, enigmatically, “He wants me weak and under your dark spell” and “You know I’d never leave you with a heartache/so break me and tell me what hurts.” It’s as though Farrell is describing the kind of situation where you’re in a relationship with someone who wants to infiltrate every fiber of your being and then tell you what you feel even though you know better. Thematically its reminiscent of the mysterious quality of Peggy Lee’s “Is That All There Is” in that you know something dark and twisted went down somewhere but whose details elude easy analysis. In that way it’s also akin to the short fiction of Shirley Jackson where the prose is beautiful and powerful but speaks to a pain rooted deep in the psyche. Whatever the song is really about, Farrell’s powerfully expressive voice against a backdrop of textural and minimal music rightfully puts the agonized soulfulness of her singing at the center of the song where it belongs. Listen to “Dark Spell” on Soundcloud and follow the Australian artist by way of California at the links below.
The genre of the artist writing a song for their lover and the process is nothing new. But South African songwriter Wesley West brings to his third single “All The Time” an evocative multi-layered melody from spare guitar, warm vocals, textural percussion, synth figures and atmospherics to give the track a hazy uplift and sub-bass that seems to not only provide a strong backbone for a song with such a delicate emotional sensibility but the current of primary rhythm as well. West articulates in wistful fashion the feeling of having all the time in the world while in the throes of love without it seeming like a pop cliché. We get lost in the moment with him in the rich but subtle backdrop of music that feels like the embrace of the emotion as well. Listen to “All The Time” on Soundcloud and follow Wesley West at the links provided.
Wes Fowler uses a familiar conceit in his song “Time Machine.” The whole wishing one had a time machine to go back and fix all his mistakes with a loved one. Weaving in samples from an answering machine, it feels like Fowler is revisiting the kind of personal pain that a guilty conscience will not let you leave behind. But there isn’t a perverse obsession expressed in this song, just a gentleness of spirit, genuine contrition and a deep sorrow with which he’s just now coming to terms. While we’re never told in the song what happened to the subject of the song whether maybe they have passed or whether the song’s narrator has damaged the former relationship beyond repair. But the love he realizes he lost comes through strongly in his vocal inflections and through the spare guitar melody. So much so that the final line of the song hits strongly, “You were the love of my life and I never even let you know.” Listen to “Time Machine” on Spotify and follow Fowler at the links provided.
Aish’s “Joy & Sorrow” is reminiscent of some of Peter Murphy’s solo work in the cadence and tenor of the vocals especially given Murphy’s penchant for writing music in compound time and non-Western musical structures in general. The orchestral pop and subtle blending of electronic elements with acoustic give the song a gentle texture that is complimented well by the visually stunning music video, the first shot at Angkor Wat, the ruins of the temple of the dedicated to Vishnu for the Khmer Empire in the late twelfth century in what is modern day Cambodia. Angkor Wat is the world’s largest religious structure and represents a synthesis of cultures that finds a parallel expression in Aish’s art pop song and its expansive spirit that embraces the full spectrum of the human experience as suggested by the title. Watch the video on YouTube and follow Aish at the links provided below.
Helenor’s new single “Landslide,” from the debut album something twice, is a surreal pop parable about disaster, natural and in one’s own life and how there’s simply no roadmap to situations that are beyond anyone’s expertise. The loping bass line, the warped synth melody and the slackery vocal delivery enhance the unreality of the situations songwriter david DiAngelis lays out for us in his words. “Everyone is sloppy in the landslide,” he sings, “simply grab your things and go away. It’s not all that complicated, trust yourself if you need a lot of help today.” The line seems so dark and heartless but, really, did anyone send in the chopper to rescue Pliny the Elder when he insisted on documenting the eruption of Vesuvius? Not only no because helicopters didn’t exist then but his nephew had to be the one to preserve the account of the event for posterity in his own writings as someone who fled from the disaster and didn’t stick around in the name of science. DiAngelis suggests that in dire situations we may feel like we have a command of the situation when no one could and that there will be a time when we’re on our own. If some violent person is breaking into your home your alarm system won’t put up a force field between you and the violator and if you find yourself in a situation like The Night of the Living Dead you’re going to have to make do even if you look ridiculous doing so and not count on the authorities to act quickly enough to make a difference for you. As Bill Hicks famously joked about Reginald Denny maybe needing to put on the gas instead of stopping for the rioters who beat him up during the 1992 Los Angeles Riots, perhaps decorum isn’t always the best choice. You simply have no time to scramble or get stuck when shit goes down. There are no judgments in this whimsical pop song just a stark reality and finding the dry humor in it all. Listen to “Landslide” on Soundcloud and follow Helenor at the links below.
With her luminous new single “Dance in the Rain” Jess Chalker uses the sounds and rhythms one might expect from a 1980s pop song, maybe something by Bonnie Tyler or Kim Wilde, to sing about a subject so resonant then as it is now. The lush synths and vividly dramatic and dynamic vocals and slap bass accents place the songwriting style well as it suits the subject matter perfectly. In the 1980s the right wing in America and the UK had turned over decades of the opposite and an era of crass materialism and commercialism reigned supreme. Fast forward a few decades and we have a corrupt international system of commerce with even more dangerous right wing regimes in power in the UK and across the pond in the USA with the international oligarchy given economic and political privileges unseen since the early twentieth century. Chalker in putting a personal touch to the subject using it as a cultural backdrop and singing to a former love about the year they spent taking chances and living by ideals and not selling off their time to a corporation that isn’t compensating adequately and thus adding one’s, as Chalker deftly puts it, “shine” to the “corporate lights” and losing sight of one’s dreams and one’s inherent dignity and that of others. The song is introspective but has a thrilling emotional urgency and delicacy that is often underappreciated in 80s synth pop. Perhaps that’s some of the appeal of that music for the past decade to a decade and a half as a kind of resistance to the prevailing politics and its resultant culture was embedded into quite a bit of that music. Listen to “Dance in the Rain” on Soundcloud and follow Chalker at the link below. Look out soon for the monochrome, stop-motion animation video out soon.
Hot Snakes circa 2018 at the Oriental Theater, photo by Tom Murphy
What:Hot Snakes w/SPELLS When: Thursday, 09.05, 7:30 p.m. Where: Oriental Theater Why: It would be too facile to cite biographical information about Hot Snakes at this point. Influential noise rock band from San Diego comprised of former/current members of Drive Like Jehu, Rocket From the Crypt, Pitchfork and Obits. Its shows are incendiary, its songs imbued with a dark yet dry sense of humor and its angular guitar rock also not short on dynamic grooves that seem too confrontational to work as unconventional dance music but don’t tell that to John Reis. The group is currently re-touring in support of its monumental 2018 album Jericho Sirens. If you go early to catch SPELLS, just think of them as an 80% version of Hot Snakes because that’s good enough. And other inside jokes that don’t work on the internet.
What:The 5.6.7.8s w/The Ghoulies and The Vanilla Milkshakes When: Thursday, 09.05, 8 p.m. Where: Streets Denver Why: The 5.6.7.8s are a lively surf rock and rockabilly band from Japan who came to a larger public consciousness in the West after appearing in Kill Bill Vol. 1. The Ghoulies are a similarly-minded sorta rockabilly garage punk band and The Vanilla Milkshakes will make all the awkward jokes that desperately need to be made and break up the evening some with its well-crafted, outsider pop punk.
What:The Funs, Sweetness Itself, American Culture, Natural Violence When: Thursday, 09.05, 8 p.m. Where: Rhinoceropolis Why: The Funs is a band from Illinois that combines a twee indie pop sensibility with a dream pop sound palette. Think Black Tambourine post-shoegaze. American Culture took the Dinosaur Jr and Meat Puppets thing and put it through an indie pop lens and listened to a bunch of Cure records and came up with something different but bearing the fingerprints of all of that in its sound and ethos. Natural Violence is Michael Stein’s (Homebody, School Knights) latest project. A kind of spindly, super refined post-punk pop band.
What:Mystic Wool, Arc Sol and Total Trash When: Thursday, 09.05, 9:30 p.m. Where: Mercury Café Why: Arc Sol is former Silverface guitarist Michael Thompsons’s new band that somehow welds Neil Young-esque rock wih psychedelia without really sounding like he’s trying to be in the same lineage as any of that in the past decade and that’s impressive on its own. Total Trash is a Denver indie rock supergroup including former and current members of Fingers of the Sun, Fissure Mystic, Lil’ Slugger, Quantum Creep and Eyebeams. Mystic Wool’s synth compositions sound as though someone had to go on some prolonged retreat with no access to the internet and just a music player that had the Deerhunter discography, early Air albums, Candy Claws and Harmonia albums.
Saturday | September 7
Mannequin Pussy, photo courtesy Epitaph
What:TEARS to LI6HT, Hate Minor and Claudzilla When: Saturday, 09.07, 7 p.m. Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective Why: This show is a fundraiser for ProgressNow Colorado’s Keep Abortion Safe initiative and it will include sets from experimental electronic artist TEARS to LI6HT, experimental noise rock duo Hate Minor and Claudzilla’s melodica Goth strangeness.
What:Mannequin Pussy w/Destroy Boys and Ellis When: Saturday, 09.07, 8 p.m. Where: Larimer Lounge Why: Mannequin Pussy’s melodic punk is anthemic, emotionally raw and affecting. Like some sort of power pop band from the 80s with the expansive songwriting style and inventive dynamics but whose lyrics are soul searching and pointed but never cruel. The group’s 2016 album Romantic was full of joyful chaos exorcising trauma and sadness with bursts of sound and energy. The new record, 2019’s Patience, is more introspective but no less imbued with the radical vulnerability and personal insight that has made its music worth a deep listen from the beginning.
What:Audio Dream Sister, Whiskey Orphans, Austin Sterling When: Saturday, 09.07, 9 p.m. Where: 3 Kings Tavern Why: Audio Dream Sister hasn’t played in a million years. Meaning maybe in half a decade or more or so it seams. The sludge rock band from Denver was a staple of the heavy rock and punk scene for years and its adept songwriting and psychedelic sensibilities set it apart from the “stoner rock” set of the day.
What:De La Soul w/DJ Mick When: Saturday, 09.07, 8 p.m. Where: Ogden Theatre Why: De La Soul brought something a little strange to hip-hop when it came onto the scene in the 80s blending psychedelic rock aesthetics with weirdo funk and rap. It also used that perspective to examine social issues from a different angle and in its own way had as incisive a social critique as contemporaries like Public Enemy and The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy.
Sunday | September 8
Old Sport circa 2018, photo by Tom Murphy
What:King Crimson When: Sunday, 09.08, 6:30 p.m. Where: Paramount Theatre Why: King Crimson was one of the earliest of the progressive/art rock bands to have emerged in the late 60s, incorporating classical music concepts and a sense of dramatic orchestration into ambitous rock songs. Its 1969 debut In the Court of the Crimson King set a creative high water mark for the progressive rock genre with imaginative lyrics and songwriting that employed musical chops with real creativity to write emotionally arresting songs like the title track and “21st Century Schizoid Man.” While guitarist Robert Fripp is the sole remaining original member he has been the musician in the band that has steered the ship consistently from the beginning through its various phases from the early sort of amalgam of folk, rock, jazz, classical and psychedelia through the experimental hard rock phase of the 2000s through to today.
What:King of Heck (NV), Endless, Nameless, Old Sport and Zephyr When: Sunday, 09.08, 8 p.m. Where: Rhinoceropolis Why: King of Heck from Nevada is a “desert rock” band that sounds like it came up on a lot of Gravity Records bands, Fugazi, melodic post-hardcore and modern underground emo. Old Sport from Denver is a great blending of post-hardcore and noisy proto-alternative rock like Dinosaur Jr.
Monday | September 10
Voight, photo by Tom Murphy
What:Voight, Dancing Plague (OR), French Kettle Station and Luxury Hearse When: Monday, 09.09, 7 p.m. Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective Why: A darkwave show at Seventh Circle with Denver’s shoegaze/post-punk/industrial synthesists Voight, EBM/dance Goth group Dancing Plague from Oregon, French Kettle Station and his animated 80s adult contemporary/avant-garde/New Wave music and Luxury Hearse’s beat driven ambient pop.
What:Hazel English w/Modern Leisure When: Monday, 09.09, 7 p.m. Where: Larimer Lounge Why: Hazel English is oft compared to another Oakland, California artist Day Wave. But one might just as well compare her hazy, bright dream pop to the work of Alvvays because it has a similarly wistful and expansive quality that gives one a sense of introspective yearning. Joining her on the bill is Denver indie pop group Modern Leisure. Singer Casey Banker has been crafting some of the more thoughtful and impassioned pop songs out of Denver for more than a decade and Modern Leisure is the continuation of his legacy.
Tuesday | September 10
Silence in the Snow circa 2017, photo by Tom Murphy
What:Kristin Hersh (electric trio) w/Fred Abong When: Tuesday, 09.10, 7 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: Kristin Hersh formed post-punk band Throwing Muses with Tanya Donelly in 1981 when both were fourteen years old. But that band went on to be one of the early alternative rock bands that helped to define the aesthetic of the UK record label 4AD with its emotionally powerful music and inventive songwriting. In that band and as a solo artist Hersh has used mythology and culture and her own struggles with mental illness to produce a body of work that is both startlingly intimate and imaginatively far reaching in scope. Her latest record, 2018’s Possible Dust Clouds draws on specific mythologies and personal history to deliver a set of songs that strikes deep emotional chords expressed with Hersh’s signature, textural voice and warmth as well as unconventional rhythms and guitar voicing. Somehow Hersh’s songs seem like manifestations of archetype and the forces of nature cooperating to speak eternal yet personal truth through her.
What:Silence in the Snow, Echo Beds, Blood Loss and Causer When: Tuesday, 09.10, 8:30 p.m. Where: Rhinoceropolis Why: Oakland’s Silence in the Snow sometimes comes off like a neo-darkwave band because it is but its root is an urgent post-punk akin to the likes of Red Lorry, Yellow Lorry and Xmal Deutschland. Its new record Levitation Chamber finds the band mixing ethereal guitar with high emotive vocals and deep, irresistible rhythms.
“Treehouses” by Bamboo Smoke sounds like the theme song for the project entirely. The lyrics speak of the mythical treehouses where as kids maybe you went to hang with friends and share ideas and feelings and let your imaginations wander where they will. It’s a place where you have your own kind of secret society safe from the interference of people, a world and a social setting that wouldn’t understand the inside jokes, share a spirit of acceptance but also an ability to help each other grow in a more nurturing environment of friendship, to create without having those creations need to “go anywhere.” As it turns out these are things we need just as much in adulthood but rarely get because being grown up means too often that you’re all but dead inside and have adapted to a work world that functions almost entirely for making profits for someone else and not a cultivation of you as a human. “Treehouses” is a modest pop song but it embodies a resistance to what seems inevitable as we grow up.
Musically the song sounds like a a mixture of pop songwriting nd sampling and comes off like a natural evolution and blending of downtempo, indie pop and hip-hop. Electronic and acoustic instruments, organic and processed sounds, all assembled to give a flow like a fond memory and imbued with the romance of the aforementioned treehouse of childhood but recreated for relevance as an adult, a temporary autonomous zone where you can really live, even though maybe you surrender many hours to a traditional job to be able to survive, and create new meaningful experiences for yourself through the kind of creativity that gets pushed out of most people before their years of secondary education. “Treehouses” is a charming reclamation of that psychological space, whether or not there is a corresponding physical space in which to do so, but cast in the specific context of the songwriters. But if you listen and abstract those ideas into your own life you will hear that call to bring back a little magic into your own world. Listen to “Treehouses” on Soundcloud and follow Bamboo Smoke at the links provided.
Queen City Sounds and Art 
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