“Eyze,” the new single from Stray Fossa takes us along for a journey into the vagaries, the ups and downs of inspiration. Its breezy pace suits the way the way creativity can manifest in our imagination as a fleeting sprite of energy that we can follow to vistas fruitful for our work but which can flutter out of our grasp. But the song doesn’t feel like it comes from a place of frustration but rather acceptance of the ebbs and flows of that energy and the importance of channeling it into concrete work that can spark its own momentum when we’re falling short of the elusive quality of inspiration. As anyone that is involved in creative projects can tell you it is what you’re doing when inspiration isn’t directly there that makes for some of the most inspired and enduring creations because you have to draw on the memory of inspiration to drive them to completion. Fans of Beach Fossils will appreciate the song’s fluid guitar atmospherics and melodic bass counter melody. Listen to “Eyze” on YouTube and follow Stray Fossa at the links below.
Fragile Gods are rooted in 80s experimental electronic and post-punk bands like Cabaret Voltaire (think the more pop-oriented The Crackdown and The Covenant, The Sword and the Arm of the Lord period) and Nitzer Ebb. But its new single “Days Without End” strikes some vocal tonality reminiscent of David Bowie of the same era and a bit of Andrew Eldritch in his less angsty moments. Frederick Frantz and Aika Zabala compliment each other perfectly in creating that kind of lost public access video quality with the swarming-flowing synth track and stark atmospherics and the retro vocal processing throughout. But it doesn’t sound like retro-fetishism either. It’s a well-crafted song in which you can get lost in its foggy, introspective moods and vocal and melodic synth line interplay. The song doesn’t get stuck in a dynamic rut and evolves in interesting directions like you’re being lead through a night time urban landscape in the pre-dawn dark to one of the only remaining underground clubs where the music isn’t dictated or shaped by an algorithm and where you can be around like-minded connoisseurs of authentic underground culture. Listen to “Days Without End” on Soundcloud and follow Fragile Gods on their website or listen on Spotify where you can check out the rest of the band’s output including its EPs Cold Comfort and The Future Never Came.
August Ten uses layers of atmospherics in composing “White Walls,” the lead single off its second EP. Floating over the soothing procession of sounds are nearly ghostly vocals for an effect like a kind of dream pop and downtempo side of Legendary Pink Dots. There’s something enigmatic to this song about a breakup reflected on in the rear view with a rare personal insight into how that past relationship and breakup echoes into the narrator’s psyche now. The line “I can only sleep when I’m alone” is simple enough but speaks volumes of the emotional aftermath. This is not a song screaming in anguish, anger or bitterness, rather it’s poignant because it acknowledges the hurt long after and not having that all figured out. Subdued keys, light percussion with brushed snare, a progressive yet spare guitar line climbing elegantly up a melodic trajectory all make for a listening experience that is unobtrusive yet impactful. Listen below on YouTube and follow August Ten at the links provided.
A montage of what appears to be a passing bus in reverse and then I forward motion is the backdrop of “respawn,” the first single from bensnburner’s forthcoming album. The low textural drone flowing along with a cycling background melodic drone convey a dream-like energy as guitar strikes fractured and drawn out riffing and distorted synth winds warble and whorl. It’s reminiscent of the film Koyaanisqatsi in how the music and the footage are synergistic in highlighting how mysterious and alien every day, seemingly mundane events can be unless we truly pull back and examine what it is that’s really going on if we’re able and willing to strip it of the cultural knowledge and assumptions that give them the meaning suggested and programmed by cultural context. The concept of “respawning” in a video game is to die in game and then come back to life at a beginning point and to, in a way, to start over, have another chance to approach things from another angle or to make the same fatal mistakes all over again but without the consequences of actual death. The motion of the video and the recursive structure of the song is sort of an embodiment of respawning in musical form but with the iterations evolving as one hopes one would in a game setting. Watch the video below and follow bensnburner at the links provided.
The wash of textures and melodic strings of beeps and swirling up of bloops and the visceral sound of air bubbles all commingle in the organic flow of Kip LaVie’s “Time Enough.” It sounds like the musical equivalent of recreating the environment of a mountain bound wetlands. Electronic dulcimer casting a figure in the breeze as sculpted white noise and shiny tones blowing down from mountain peaks, the glisten off the water as arpeggiated distant notes, synth swells as the sunlight peeking through clouds. It presents an abstract analog of the inherent musicality of natural rhythms allowing the listener to take it in as a different manifestation of the experience. Often environment-oriented compositions try to create something more industrial or urban, “Time Enough” is a reminder that the field of this type of music rooted in minimal electronics is broad with possibilities. Listen on Soundcloud and follow Kip LaVie at any of the links below.
It sounds like there’s a touch of reverse delay on the guitar in Suzy V’s “Gone Tomorrow” like a touch of psychedelia in a Flamenco-inflected pop song. Her breathy vocals sound like they’re coming in from another time like a translucent overlay of a narrator in a movie scene lamenting what could have been. The reverb on her singing reinforces the sense of lonely desolation, inconsolable. In some ways the song hearkens to a prologue to a Jim Jarmusch movie because while distinct and concrete it has a fully-integrated, multicultural sensibility and the impression that it is not drawing on a single, fixed, cultural time frame and without topical and specific references to ground the song in a narrow context in which it must have been made. Blending the exotic and the familiar with the classic and modern flourishes in production, Suzy V has crafted a timeless, melancholic, existential composition.
On the fiftieth anniversary of the first landing on the moon we present Justin Robinson’s song “Satellite (First Orbit).” Inspired in part by Brian Eno, and possibly in particular by the latter’s 1983 classic Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks, the song evolves slowly with sounds that capture the elegance and deep mystery of outer space and the sense of being suspended in the great beyond as your craft reaches a comfortable orbit. The subtle layers of drones and lightly struck strings and bell tones mark cosmic time as high frequency resonances sound like starshine and plasma trails, the white-blue haze of earth nearby, a constant presence that dominates your field of view. Robinson takes us to that moment that has changed the consciousness of everyone who has experienced it forever, the feeling of existing beyond mother earth, the only world that, as far as we know, all of humanity going back to its primordial ancestors have ever known. The enigmatic enormity of that moment looking back on the planet and to the nearby moon and floating weightlessly between. Robinson articulates that sense of calm and wonder perfectly. Listen below below and take in the meditative passages of “Satellite (First Orbit).”
Siv Disa released her Waltzes EP in the fall of 2018 but is now re-releasing it as a visual album. The single “Rooms” is a downtempo, melancholic number that conjures images of the mythical late night jazz lounge. Except that its drones and tonal details like candlelight and twinkling crystal make it sound like a New Wave torch song. One gets the impression that you’re sitting with Siv Disa in an antiquated simulation of that jazz lounge like the Elvis simulation from Bladerunner 2049 that K experiences in post-industrial-collapse-abandoned Vegas—so compelling and yet surreal, haunting yet comforting. That is until the end of the song when the pounding drums and accelerated pace hit and you wake from the reverie in panic at the possibility of missing the last shuttle home from the platform with access to the all but abandoned nostalgia theme park that fell out of vogue in a future when most of humanity has entered into a period of galactic diaspora looking outward with little time for recycling or revisiting past popular culture. “Rooms” has the romance of a classic piano ballad and synthesizes a sense of the past with an ineffably futuristic sensibility and a nod to the fact that good songwriting has a timelessness that transcends trends. It is a perfect blending of sounds and aesthetics that provoke reflection as well as relaxation. Listen to “Rooms” and the rest of Waltzes on Spotify and follow Siv Disa at the links below.
What:Michael McDonald w/Strange Americans When: Thursday, 07.18, 5:45 p.m. Where: Denver Botanic Gardens – York Street Why: Michael McDonald’s smooth and soulful vocals have been a part of American rock and pop music for over four decades now. Whether as a singer in Steely Dan (both live and in studio), The Doobie Brothers, as a solo artist and in his numerous collaborations including with the likes of modern hip-hop/jazz genius Thundercat, McDonald brings a deep musicality and keen ear for melody that transcends genre. This concludes his run of shows in Colorado over this past week.
What:Usnea, CHRCH, Zygrot and Limbwrecker When: Thursday, 07.18, 7 p.m. Where: Rhinoceropolis Why: Kind of a funeral doom show at Rhino tonight w/Portland, Oregon’s funeral doom juggernauts Usnea and the transcendental occult feral drone of CHRCH from Sacramento.
Friday | July 19
Spirettes, photo by Tom Murphy
What:We Are A Glum Lot and Spirettes dual album release w/Turvy Organ When: Friday, 07.19, 8 p.m. Where: Lulu’s Downstairs – Manitou Springs Why: Dream pop band Spirettes and neo-math-emo-indie rock band We Are Not a Glum Lot are releasing their new albums simultaneously this evening at Lulu’s Downstairs in Manitou Springs. Spirettes’ album being Esoteria and We Are Not a Glum Lot’s titled The Price of Simply Existing.
What:Hammer’s House Party: MC Hammer, Sir Mix-a-Lot, Sisqo, Biz Markie, 2 Live Crew, The Funky Bunch When: Friday, 07.19, 6:30 p.m. Where: Fiddler’s Green
Why: At this show you can party like it’s 1992 or 1999 depending on who you’re going to see. MC Hammer was ubiquitous in the early 90s with multiple hit songs that helped to put hip-hop into the mainstream. Sir Mix-a-Lot is perhaps best known for his hit song “Baby Got Back” but he was a big deal in Seattle before that and his records worth listening to generally for their swagger and sly and pointed humor. Biz Markie is a character in hip-hop who burst the boundaries of what was acceptable by owning being a little rough around the edges in his rapping and his outlandish performance persona. His 1989 song “Just a Friend” is a classic of the genre. 2 Live Crew traded in x-rated rap for years and garnered attention for its high profile lawsuit regarding its 1989 album As Nasty As They Wanna Be over the record’s alleged obscenity. Seems quaint and inconsequential now considering how the President of the United States has and continued to talk about women but back in the day it made the news and catapulted the underground group into the national consciousness. Sisqó is the lead singer of Dru Hill but in 1999 he had hit songs like “Thong Song” and “Incomplete.” So you’ll get to take in a good swath of 90s mainstream hip-hop in one concert if you go.
Saturday | July 20
Flipper circa 2012, photo by Tom Murphy
What: Flipper 40th Anniversary Tour with David Yow When: Saturday, 07.20, 8 p.m. Where: Marquis Theater Why: David Yow of The Jesus Lizard and Scratch Acid will front the notorious San Francisco post-punk band Flipper for this tour and he’s one singer who still seems to have some disregard for his personal safety as a performer.
Sunday | July 21
Elizabeth Colour Wheel, photo courtesy the artists
What:Elizabeth Colour Wheel w/Drowse, New Standards Men and BleakHeart When: Sunday, 07.21, 8 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: Elizabeth Colour Wheel’s ritual drone, blackened shoegaze, mystic doom, pagan crust sound on its 2019 album Nocebo is Diamanda Galas-esque in its cathartic intensity and SubRosa-like in its sense of mystery.
Tuesday | July 23
Starcrawler, photo by Cameron Mccool
What:Beck w/Cage the Elephant, Spoon and Starcrawler When: Tuesday, 07.23, 4:30 p.m. Where: Fiddler’s Green Why: Beck went from eccentric underground artist with releases on K Records and Flipside early in his career to late-era alternative icon in the mid-to-late 90s with hit songs and videos on MTV to mature singer songwriter with a gift for inventive soundscaping. All the while Beck’s genre-bending instincts and disregard for expectation and convention has meant all of his albums are worth a listen. Cage the Elephant has made a bit of a name for itself by mixing together punk, psychedelia and bluesy garage rock. Even though Spoon has hit the greatest hits compilation (minus tracks from great albums like Girls Can Tell and Hot Thoughts), the Austin-based, arty post-punk outfit has raised its songwriting bar with every album since its 1996 debut Telephono bringing in electronic elements more to the fore on 2017’s Hot Thoughts and always with the rhythm anchoring and guiding the music. That politicians and public radio station managers cite Spoon as a favorite band shouldn’t be held against them. L.A.’s Starcrawler opens the show with its mélange of punk, 70s glam and stoner rock. Which might get the group lumped in with the recent wave of 90s fuzz rock worshippers. But Starcrawler’s songwriting tends to unironically embrace the swagger of yesteryear and take inspiration from the bands that influenced grunge rather than simply the 90s amalgamation of all of it.
“Astroboy” finds Birmingham, UK band The Lizards taking us on a trip down a worm hole of winding passages of color and hypnotic imagery. The bright synths glitter and seethe in and out of hearing as our guides carry us across a kaleidoscopic starscape of pleasantly disorienting melody in which its easy to get lost and hope back on for the ride to who knows where. To simply call this psychedelic rock does an injustice to how it has musical roots in stuff like Ozric Tentacles and its own beautifully bizarre mixture of folk, psychedelia, electronic music and prog. But The Lizards reign things in a bit on the sprawl out into musical outer space and ultimately don’t sound like much of anyone else while bringing together sonic elements that resonate with the mind-altering aesthetic of early Black Moth Super Rainbow and a more space rock “Madchester” band. However one might pick apart the song it will take you places if you let it and there isn’t nearly enough music that does so. Listen below and follow The Lizards at the links provided.
Queen City Sounds and Art 
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