Queen City Sounds and Art

Loic Moonmattress’s Ambient Hip-Hop Single “Last Nostalgia” Poignantly Signals Goodbye to a Previous Chapter in Life

Loic Moonmattress <i>Last Nostalgia</i> cover

A poignant self-awareness informs the title track to Loic Moonmattress’s new EP Last Nostalgia (December 18, 2025). In the song the artist looks back on a chapter in his life he recognizes has come to an end in a way that prompted some moments of self-examination with a sense of how that period like many distinct periods in our existence isn’t the beginning or the end but part of a hopefully long life story which helped to shape us for the better and the struggles that in retrospect were sometimes self-imposed by our attitudes in the complexity that is lived experience. The lyrics are like the impressionistic thoughts read in cadence over harmonic drones that resonate with the clarity of a waking dream while minimal keyboards keep the cadence and later on lightly distorted guitar lends the often borderline ethereal track a tactile immediacy that brings string of reflections back to the present tense and the world of this moment. The song blurs the line between experimental hip-hop, ambient and dream pop in a unique way that is welcome when a lot of music is trying to be in an established style but Loic Moonmattress has never really settled for being in some pocket seeming to prefer to chart a different and consistently fascinating musical path. Watch the video for “Last Nostalgia” on YouTube and follow the Edmonton-based artist at the links below.

Loic Moonmattress on Instagram

BAGGY GRL’s Heady Industrial Dance Single “Love is on the Screen” Comments on the Disconnected Nature of Virtual Associations

The distorted low end pulses and modulated beats that run through BAGGY GRL’s “Love is on the Screen” create a sense of headlong urgency. And one that is reflected in the music video with its flashes, jump cuts and lo-fi production like a found footage horror intermixed with scenes of the producer frolicking in a bathtub, on a balcony, on a psychedically colorful couch, in darkened rooms and in the depths of an interdimensional cosmos. The horror featuring BAGGY GRL as well like a miscreant loose in a hardware superstore. The pace of the song accelerates with a thrilling sense that you’re not quite where the song is going to go with its electronic industrial dance sounds that fans of Machine Girl and Boy Harsher will appreciate. There is a confrontational spark to BAGGY GRL’s performance that gives the song an edge to the playful spirit on screen as the artist offers perspectives on the nature of virtual relationships when the illusions of performative identity dissolve. Watch the video for “Love is on the Screen” on YouTube and follow BAGGY GRL at the links below. Her new album BADMOUTH dropped January 22, 2025.

BAGGY GRL on Instagram

“ryder” Finds lilith and V V N Weaving an Irresistible, Neo-Soul-Infused Hip-Hop Spell of Affection and Infatuation

Boston-based producer and DJ lilith teams up with V V N for a left field hip-hop single called “ryder.” The song is about deep affection for and infatuation with a loved one. The vocal delivery is wide-ranging and gentle but passionate and the beats and sound sculpting is like an evolution from classic neo soul with expertly crafted layers of rhythm bringing together ideas from classic hip-hop and strong electronic percussion and the textural feel of the best end of trap. It has that spontaneous and raw quality of a bedroom production but there is nothing lacking in the way the song brings you into the mood, the vibe, the moment. It sounds like the kind of song you’d want to hear from someone you love with all the sincerity and sensuality that would make it irresistible. Watch the video for “ryder” on YouTube and hear more of lilith’s choice cuts on Spotify.

Drew Danburry’s Wintry Indiepop Single “Love” Radiates a Touching Warmth

Drew Danburry infuses a tenderness and subtle poetry to “Love” that elevates a simple song about the way love for someone can help you get through some rough moments. The song is concise but captures that mutual feeling people have for each other in a way that feels complete. Musically it’s like if a Christmas song got an indiepop treatment and was about something deeply personal rather than about something like a season or a holiday yet contains that uplifting, warmly nostalgic energy that turns what might seem sappy into something that hits as poignantly sincere. Listen to “Love” on Spotify and follow all things Drew Danburry and his Telos Tapes label via the link tree on his Instagram profile. “Love” can also be heard on the Bird Songs EP which released on December 19, 2024 for streaming, digital download and cassette.

Oldest Sea Plumbs the Depths of One’s Personal Demons on the Orchestral Folk Single “All Shall Love Me and Despair”

Sam Marandola sounds fragile yet gritty on the new Oldest Sea single “All Shall Love Me And Despair” like Marianne Faithful taking over an abandoned music hall. In that hall assembling a group of musicians to haunt it with gorgeously gloomy sounds: lingering piano chords and pulses of strings, heartbeat percussion and other vocals joining the leads later in the song for a net effect like a quiet epic of impending doom. The title is perhaps borrowed from the line when in The Lord of the Rings Galadriel is offered the One Ring by Frodo and then utters those words in the end when she knows she can reject its dark temptation. The song, though, seems to be about being tempted by despair and self-loathing written in terms of personal mythology and manifested as one’s own demons and struggling with self-oppression mixed with the feedback and interactions outside one’s own head. The moods, textures and the style is a kind of Gothic folk akin to a darker cousin to Dead Can Dance and the song gets into your head with its fascinating, orchestral progressions and emotionally charged atmosphere. Listen to “All Shall Love Me And Despair” on Spotify and follow Oldest Sea on Instagram.

Evo Auxilium’s Techno-Industrial Post-Punk Single “chop it up!” is a Song About the Comforts of Friendship With One’s Creative Peers

Evo Auxilium builds the electronic bass driven “chop it up!” on a foundation of rich low end. The percussive synth tones and the songwriter’s attention to the textural qualities of all the sounds in the track is impressive and easy to get lost within as melodic spirals pulse outward and dissolve in your mind. Stylistically it fuses post-punk moodiness with the techno impulses of Clark and the latter’s use of percussive melodies. It’s a song about reconnecting with a friend one doesn’t get to see often that lives out of town but when you’re together you can fall into welcome familiar patterns of hanging out and talking about the usual concerns perchance work on some creative work time permitting. It’s a nice mix of playfulness and sonic intensity reminiscent of Sextile’s most recent album Crash but in this case the techno mixes with perfectly with industrial sensibilities rather than those more shoegaze adjacent. Listen to “chop it up!” on Spotify and follow the Minneapolis, Minnesota-based artist Evo Auxilium via LinkTree.

Queen City Sounds Podcast S4E48: Oryx

Oryx is a trio based in Denver that has been evolving its evolving its unique style of heavy music since forming in 2012. When the band emerged it’s grittily colossal metal sound fit in well with the then ascendant doom metal underground with roots in sludge rock and grindcore. Early Oryx shows and releases showcased a band seemingly able to balance a precise musicianship with a wall of sound that felt spontaneous and on the verge of collapse. It suited well the band’s lyrics that evoked the precarious place the world has been in due to the effects of human civilization under the yoke of rapacious capitalism driven by greed and the accumulation of wealth into a few hands at the expense of all.

Some of Oryx’s early music had a thrilling density of frequency and rhythm but something about their shows have felt cathartic and liberating. That component of the group’s identity has manifested most fully in terms of songwriting on its new record Primordial Sky. The album doesn’t skimp on the beautifully brutal riffs and elegantly pummeling rhythms but also there is a wide open quality that while the lyrics describe a world on the brink of being post-human due to the hubris of societies that seem to be taking a casual attitude toward anthropogenic climate catastrophe and feckless approach to the rise of fascism and authoritarianism worldwide which have historically accelerated mass destruction. And yet the Oryx album doesn’t sound like it’s built on despair. Instead its poetic and mythical lyrics and the sound of the music come off as both looking at the world to come and looking back from another era when the current one we’re living in has passed. The band’s 2021 album Lamenting a Dead World seemed like an angrier affair but one with an accurate diagnosis of the state of things. The new album isn’t hopeful per se but realistic in its spirit of looking forward to a time when things can begin again without the toxic legacy of the world now to poison the possibilities.

Listen to our interview with Oryx on Bandcamp and follow the group at the links below. Primordial Sky is available on streaming, digital download and cassette from their Bandcamp page and on colored vinyl through Translation Loss Records.

Oryx on Facebook

Oryx on Instagram

Oryx on Bluesky

Oryx on Translation Loss Records

Oryx LinkTree

Haotian’s Ambient Pop Single “Karst Caves” Blends a Sense of Geologic Time With a Personal Emotional Journey

Haotian brings to “Karst Caves” a sense of a jazz spawned from an underground world where new age ambient soundscapes fused with the quasi mystical art pop of the band Japan. Synths flow in background harmonics as the songwriter’s vocals paints a scene that tells the tale of the formation of the kinds of geographical landscapes and its manifestations throughout the world. It’s a fine chapter of Haotian’s latest album Story of Leaves (released December 6, 2024) that offers a loose story arc beginning with “Day” and ending with “Night” and vignettes of a journey of wonder and discovery in in the seven songs between cast as mellow pop songs imbued with a spirit of introspective poetics. Listen to “Karst Caves” on Spotify and follow Haotian at the links below.

Bad Flamingo’s Dark Americana Pop Single “Frying Pan” is a Cinematic Ballad of Doomed Romance on the Edge

Bad Flamingo, photo courtesy the artists

Bad Flamingo switches up its song structure style a lot more on the single “Frying Pan” leaving ample open space into which the vocals cast a character study worthy of the duo’s previous material. It’s a tale of impending peril, doomed romance, a life lived on the edge but done so without regret. The banjo and slide guitar this time also providing some of the percussion as well as the textured tones that grounds this noir pop song with a tactile immediacy, which the band always seems to accomplish in various ways. The lyrics employ inventive thematic couplets that pair ideas that express similar ideas in divergent applications such as “I don’t feel safe, I don’t feel sound” and “I lose my shit, I lose myself, and I don’t like to lose.” Those couplets also include contrasting thoughts like a more creative way of conveying conflicting feelings the narrator has reconciled. Is this a country song? No, but the outlaw country sensibility is there. It’s like a dark Americana but of Bad Flamingo’s signature style of smoldering, moody, dreamlike pop with enough grit to keep it from ever sounding safe. Listen to “Frying Pan” on Spotify and follow Bad Flamingo at the links provided.

badflamingomusic.com

Bad Flamingo on Facebook

Bad Flamingo on Instagram

Bad Flamingo on YouTube

ASA 808’s Ambient Pop Single “Let ur heart breathe” Sounds Like the Real Time Feeling of that Expansion of One’s Capacity For Sensitivity and Empathy

The title track to ASA 808’s EP Let ur heart breathe (released December 13, 2024) has a dreamlike warmth and playful energy in equal measure. It is somehow both introspective and expansive with layers of rhythm and melody that intermingle and intertwine with an airy tonality in a minimalist yet detailed ambient soundscape that resonates like the title suggests and the heart having that freedom grows stronger and more confident and more capable of feeling more freely and with an augmented sensitivity. Rather than this opening of the self to hurt it is a refreshing growth into capacities long forgotten, neglected and or until now unexercised but which now feels good and comfortable and even comforting like getting to where you should always have been. Listen to “Let ur heart breathe” on Spotify and follow ASA 808 on Instagram.