Queen City Sounds and Art

Sal Dulu and StaHHr Spin Ambient Hip-Hop Gold With “Buzzcut”

Dulu_Buzzcut_crop — Sal Dulu “Buzzcut” cover (cropped)

In the beginning of “Buzzcut” by Sal Dulu we hear a layer of samples and a hazy dreamlike melody that give the impression of waking up mid-morning while people around you taking in various media and it somehow forms a collage of noises like an abstract impressionist tone poem. Then StaHHr comes in with a stream of words in short bursts throughout the song in her inimical style that sketches creative intentions and aspirations while making poetic commentary on everyday experiences and rendering them urban mythical with colorful interpretations of these seemingly mundane events. If one were to make an immediate comparison it would be to cLOUDDEAD circa Ten or some of Doseone’s solo pre and post cLOUDDEAD. That’s to say in the creative contextualization of words and the weaving of an evocative backdrop of sound like a multimedia experience in an audio track. Listen below and follow Sal Dulu at the links provided.

twitter.com/saldulu
soundcloud.com/user-727004974
facebook.com/saldulu

“Mi Alma” By Joel Phil is a Cinematic Ballad, an Entrancing Blend of the Exotic and the Familiar

JoelPhil1_sm — Joel Phil, photo courtesy the artist

Joel Phil strikes an air of mystery on the title track of his new album Mi Alma. Guitar accents and swirls up vocal melody like a flowering vine. One imagines Phil, Jonathan Richman style circa Something About Mary, strolling down a boardwalk singing this song and wryly observing people playing out their designs with each other. The soulful song, a blend of styles (perhaps tango, perhaps barchata, perhaps American folk) lends itself to cinematic expression. Like something you’d see in a club scene in an Almodóvar or something from Jim Jarmusch and their international sensibilities. Both exotic and familiar, “Mi Alma” is entrancing whether or not you speak Spanish. Listen to the track and the rest of Mi Alma below and follow Joel Phil at the links provided.

joelphil.com
twitter.com/joelphilnyc
facebook.com/joelphilnyc
instagram.com/joelphilnyc

“Like It Is” by Norway’s Saint Kodiak is a Left Field Post-Punk Song About Shaken Up to the Reality of Your Life

SaintKodiak1_sm — Saint Kodiak, photo courtesy the artist

Saint Kodiak’s “Like It Is” is inexplicably a bit like a Remote Luxury-period song by The Church and Beat Happening. In that the musical palette is that melodically expansive and contemplative sound The Church has projected across its entire career but especially so that early on. But it’s also a little rough around the edges with a fairly idiosyncratic vocal style and some unusual song dynamics that don’t scream out that it’s a little weird. Even though it sounds like it could be an indie power pop ballad there’s a certain left field quality to the track that keeps it interesting not to mention the gently scintillating lead guitar. A lot of bands tapping into the 80s for inspiration end up trying to sound like something more obvious and frequently referenced and Saint Kodiak here sounds more like it was inspired more by the artists mentioned above as well as the likes of Soft Boys and The The. That such a charming, beautiful song is about getting shaken into being awake to the reality of your life is a bonus in realm of music that’s often about retreating from such.

soundcloud.com/user-894717718

“Golden Hour” is the Downtempo Jazz Chillout Track Extraordinaire from Tieran’s Dreamy New Album Sunday

Tieran4_sm — Tieran, photo courtesy the artist

Columbus-based rapper and producer Tieran recently released his album Sunday. The warm tones and hazy drones framed with nearly meditative percussion and minimal guitar is like a twenty-first century, sample-based bit of library music composition. The titles of other tracks on the record like “TV,” “Wonder,” “Raindrops,” “Daydream,” “Video Games,” “Reminisce” and “Sleep” suggest music written for gloomy midwestern months where every day seems to tick by and to get through it you find a way to turn the doldrums into not desperation but contemplative art through a productive outlet and companion music to more chill, quiet activities when rain and snow keep make getting out and maybe getting into trouble seem like more of a hassle than it’s worth. Though Columbus is likely undergoing the same process of gentrification of any city of size these days, it also seems to be a place where urban decay still exists and where you can still project your dreams into spaces, emotional and otherwise, and have them manifest and be accepted and even embraced. That’s the vibe of the single “Golden Hour” and of Sunday generally. Clearly a sonic descendant of the likes of Boards of Canada, Dilla and cLOUDDEAD, Tieran’s Sunday stimulates the same places in the brain as the aforementioned. Listen below and follow Tieran at the links provided.

tieranofficial.com
soundcloud.com/tieranofficial
open.spotify.com/artist/3qi3TC2Z3ZZ0WuRNabcWNN
twitter.com/TieranOfficial
facebook.com/TieranOfficial
instagram.com/TieranOfficial

Lyrah’s Stripped Down Version of “Down Low” Gives a Deeper Shade of Meaning to its Thoughtful Lyrics

Lyrah1_cropped — Lyrah, photo courtesy the artist

Lyrah’s vocals on “Down Low” sound like a close focus on the situation about which she’s singing with the music, as step away yet framing and accenting the melody with moody atmospherics and texture. As a stripped down version of the original from Lyrah’s Chemicals EP, it feels like a complete re-imagining of the song besides the lyrics. Where the original has more processed vocals and more electronics and texture, this version of the song with its moodiness and more expansive feel fits the theme of the song even further of a commentary on a clingy and possessive lover in what was understood to be a casual, even short term relationship with someone essentially incompatible. Whatever the exact circumstances, Lyrah’s vocals and songwriting demonstrate a command of dynamics and melody that allow for a broad range of expression in the context of a pop song. The interesting juxtaposition of subtle focal elements in the track for this version of the song also shows Lyrah’s versatile talent as a songsmith capable of reworking the tone of a song to suit a mood.

soundcloud.com/lyrah
twitter.com/iamlyrah
facebook.com/iamlyrah
instagram.com/lyrah

ROOM8 Brings Its Signature Gift for Retronoir Synth Pop Soul to New Single “West (ft. Mavrick)”

ROOM8_West_art_cropped — ROOM8, “West (ft. Mavrick)” single cover (cropped)

ROOM8, the Stockholm-based production duo, always gets compared to the soundtrack to Drive. But it’s really the quality of that sound that resonates. That sense of time and place that blurred the line between an 80s synth pop sensibility with the R&B inflection favored by many of the groups from the UK and modern electrosoul compositional style made its songwriting ideal for a film with the aesthetics of Drive. Its new single “West (ft. Maverick)” has a similar vibe with bright tones and synth swells coupled with gently soulful vocals. A bit like a cross between Foreigner on “Waiting For a Girl Like You” and Giorgio Moroder’s “Scarface (Push It to the Limit).” A midpoint between the urgency of the latter and the languid pace of the former but that dreamlike quality of both and the vibrancy of sound placing it in a similarly compellingly liminal emotional space. Fun fact: Ezra Reich’s father is legendary avant-garde composer Steve Reich.

soundcloud.com/room8-official

Shawnee’s “Ur the Only One” Evokes a Powerful Sense of Loving Devotion

Shawnee1_sm — Shawnee, photo courtesy the artist

Two Spirit singer-songwriter Shawnee has written a luminously soulful ballad in “Ur the Only One.” With multiple vocal styles woven deftly into one song the love song has a level of emotional and sonic depth that wouldn’t otherwise be possible. Off of Shawnee’s ethereal yet warm vocals tones of guitar and synth dribble off and float away like embers from a campfire. While it’s a solid downtempo, R&B-inflected pop song some of the songwriting and production is reminiscent of something Radiohead might do with the attention to detail in the sound design from the dynamics of atmosphere to the processing of all elements of the track. It’s a strikingly gorgeous track that also powerfully evokes a sense of loving devotion. Listen below and follow Shawnee at the links provided.

shawneemusic.com
soundcloud.com/shawneemusic
open.spotify.com/artist/3Xs0Bqgw4Ckj96TjcLmp8v
youtube.com/officialshawnee
twitter.com/shawneemusic
facebook.com/officialshawnee
instagram.com/thisisshawnee

MAGUIRE’s “Strangers” Examines Our Relationship Between Fantasy and Reality

The shifting moods of the piano work on “Strangers” by MAGUIRE paired with vocals that one imagines singing out a window into a dark, rainy night by candlelight perfectly suits the contemplative lyrics and story of the song. The narrator projects hopes and dreams of personal fulfillment on a stranger she has seen in public, imagining the possibilities she’s pinning on a stranger who she doesn’t know and doesn’t have to know in order for the fantasy to serve as a beacon of hope in the loneliest of moments. It’s a safe if somewhat unhealthy fixation but one most people can relate to, feeling unfulfilled and needing something or someone to pull them out of their funk and the romance of it even if it’s completely in one’s imagination. When the vocals echo and the music effervesces toward the end and the fantasy ends it is a bit like coming out of that moment of reverie yet taking pleasure in those moments of whimsy never acted upon. The song cautions against the act of romanticizing a person or a situation by embodying the ways in which we seduce ourselves into imposing what we desire onto people and things they may not be. “Strangers” is from the new EP Préludes and you can listen below and follow MAGUIRE at the links provided.

soundcloud.com/lynn-maguire
instagram.com/maguiremusic

Kelan Galligan Evokes a Sense of Our Place in a Loving Universe on “Satellites”

kelan-galligan-cover_lg — Kelan Galligan, photo courtesy the artist

Kelan Galligan feels like he’s singing directly to your sense of wonder on his new single “Satellites.” With the delicacy of the guitar work and minimal piano setting the emotional space, Galligan prepares you to join him in contemplating the intersecting contexts in which we exist and how a change of orientation can shift consciousness. His use of various metaphors and observations anyone can make is both insightfully poetic and moving. Especially interesting Galligan’s mention of the “kiss of snow” and “gentle brush strokes” because it concretizes those simple things we can all know and observe and experience as unconventional paths to greater understanding of the world through tactile sensations difficult to describe with such economy and the creative act suggestive of an interactive model of the quantum universe. That the songwriter can convey so much within an intimate-sounding pop song speaks well to what we can come to expect from Kelan Galligan. Listen to “Satellites” and follow Galligan at the links below.

soundcloud.com/kelangalligan
open.spotify.com/artist/4Lv1DbkSq3Ev1R6658zUIu
facebook.com/KelanFGalligan

“Heaven” by Enigmatic Band Paperface Processes Existential Crisis In a Soaringly Radiant Pop Song

The collage and animation video for “Heaven” by Paperface (done by the artist as well) really conveys the sense of wonder and confusion about one’s own identity after discovering the world isn’t quite what you assumed for years and that your dreams and aspirations are called into question because your very foundation as a human is now so tentative. The metaphor of getting some distance on your whole world via airplane and hot air balloon is obvious but it never seems heavy handed with the vocals intoning into a vast open space as percussion and piano keep up a simple rhythm and melody. Guitars fill in some of those musical spaces a bit, ringing out, backing vocals trickle in just before the song dynamic shifts and keyboards and distorted come in to accent climax of the song and the moment of realization as the narrator descends back into his body in a hospital and accepting life as it is rather than the alternative of escaping this mortal coil into infinity. It is a cycle of emotion, thought and personal transcendence cast into song. Other than that Paperface lives in a lighthouse and claims to add an orchestra in Prague and Budapest before finished and mixing the music in a borderline ruins of a chateaux outside Paris, the artist likes to keep things under wraps. That said, you can follow him and his work at the links below.

paperfacethemusic.co.uk
facebook.com/paperface