Queen City Sounds and Art

Easy Sleeper Puts an Upbeat Spin on the Introspective Melodies of Jangle-y Post-punk Single “Feeling Good All the Time”

Easy Sleeper, photo courtesy the artists

Easy Sleeper lays out “Feeling Good All the Time” in what feels like a collage of memory with effective uses of starts and stops. This suits what seems to be the themes of the song which are learning to appreciate the good things and the people in your life and be in the moment and to enjoy life’s little joys without coming to see them as ends I themselves. Musically the sparkling, jangly guitar work and the sometimes charmingly, intentionally rough vocals nearly shouted in moments provide the kind of contrast one hears in a Protomartyr song except that Easy Sleeper favors more ethereal melodies that lend the song an introspective quality that culminates in the beautifully orchestrated tonal bends and swirl to echo at the end of the song. Thus, what could be a paradoxically effervescent, melancholic song ends with an upbeat flourish. Listen to “Feeling Good All the Time” on Spotify and follow Easy Sleeper at the links provided. The group’s new album A Sacred Way of Living releases August 30, 2024.

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Margo Scout’s Shimmery Dream Pop Single “Otters” is a Song About Setting Boundaries and Not Getting Lost in Others or Yourself

Margo Scout’s shimmery guitar work on “Otters” is like something you’d hear off a late 80s Cocteau Twins record—faintly luminous, transporting and impressionistic in arrangement. But it is joined by flecks of tonal percussion over the more expressive rhythms. All in support of Scout’s melodiously breathy vocals intoning introspectively about habits of codependency in a relationship and learning to set the boundaries for oneself not only to protect oneself from the behavior of others but also as a means of living a psychologically independent life. The concluding line of the song “Gotta learn to breathe by yourself, I can’t be your only hope” spells out the dynamic Scout has explored throughout the song and the way it can be easy, in pursuit of love and showing love blurring those lines of self in unhealthy ways that be harmful to everyone involved. It’s a hard lesson but Scout expresses it in such lush and gentle tones that the song doesn’t hit as stark and harsh, rather delivered with an affectionate spirit. The title of the song and the subsequent imagery also suggests a playfulness that may not be obvious at first and in that the song conveys that we’re learning a lot of this as we go and we can be kind in our mistake making. Listen to “Otter” on Spotify and follow Margo Scout at the links below.

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Tom O C Wilson Coaxes Us Out of a Patch of Emotional Stasis With the Moody Synth Pop Single “Until I’m Out”

Tom O C Wilson, photo courtesy the artist

Tom O C Wilson expertly infuses his single “Until I’m Out” with saturated synth tones and low end so that it immediately has a sonic presence that immerses you in a reflective mood. David Brewis’ lead vocals on the track are reminiscent of a more melancholic Iva Davis of Icehouse and altogether the song feels like a series of sketches of taking a stroll in the mind to take stock of one’s relationship with oneself. Wilson pairs well streams of moody melody with couplets on how your thoughts can revert into a pattern of isolation when it has become a habit. That slow creep of anxiety that reinforces those habits when you can be just a little too stuck in your own head until you find yourself having to be outside of that pattern and your mind is forced into a different mode. Maybe the song isn’t about being depressed and the little things that can nudge you out of it and how sometimes you have to trick yourself into almost unknowingly to be away from what feel like immediate comforts and stimulate your mind beyond what might be described as a feedback loop. But the song with its sounds of moody comfort instantly dissolves anxiousness and the splashes of piano and other bright tones, the lyric “As I’m starting to hear the light” in the beginning of the song captures the impulse to a more engaged mode of living well, make the prospect of moving out of a state of suspended inertia seem inevitable and desirable. What makes the song seem especially effective is how it invokes feelings of nostalgia and musical styles of another era but employs them in a way that looks to the future with an apparent knowledge that often one needs to coax oneself into better head spaces. Music it’s like an update of an 80s synth pop song as envisioned by one of the classic art rock composers and because of that it’s a refreshingly original listen. Listen to “Until I’m Out” on Spotify and follow Tom O C Wilson at the links below.

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Bad Flamingo’s Leisurely Jazz Pop Single “Days of Mellow” Celebrates Having the Luxury of Unstructured Time

Bad Flamingo, photo courtesy the artists

The slinky guitar line in Bad Flamingo’s “Days of Mellow” is a different vibe for the mysterious duo. But it embodies the title and the energy of the song. It’s like a loop that in an extended groove and riff manner is a little hypnotic. This time it’s not a song about desperate love and the hint of a dark past and being on the run. Instead lines like “I do have the time” and “Saturdays, cartoons” it’s one about relaxation and having the luxury of indulging a leisurely pace and not being on edge and ducking the consequences of perceived misdeeds. Yet for those more familiar with Bad Flamingos’ past work the song does retain the fantastic level of sonic detail with guitars, bass and percussion going off the main stream of sounds in a playful way that lends the music a playful and cinematic quality. Listen to “Days of Mellow” on Spotify and follow Bad Flamingo at the links below.

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Michael VQ Lays Waste to Sociopathic, Wannabe Oligarch Failsons on Colorful Breakbeat Track “RICH P”

In “RICH P” Michael VQ seems to be taking direct aim at one of those people who it’s said were born on third base and thought they hit a triple. The kind of person who never really had to work for their health and then tell other people who weren’t born to great money to work hard and be frugal if they want to be as successful as they are. The blend of hip-hop word flow and Jack Dangers-esque production in an breakbeat style really suits the righteously caustic invective that takes down the lifestyle and mentality of the ultra rich. The lines about how “he” doesn’t pay his bills makes one think of a particular racist would be oligarch but of course no need to name someone specific because all kinds of upward failsons and daughters seem to find themselves “miraculously” successful. Being handed 413 million dollars by your dad can sure make you look like an accomplished big shot despite having few actual accomplishments to your name and yet for certain people and their ego and low self-esteem that’s not nearly enough privilege in life. All hints and allegations aside, the song and its video making various forms of cash look like warped symbols of corruption is perfectly paired in the takedown of a monstrous mindset and how society and culture is poised to prop up and perpetuate it. Watch the video for “RICH P” on YouTube and follow Michael VQ at the links below. Look out for the album 4U&URMØN$TER on Tanoshi Crime School Records coming soon.

Michael VQ on Instagram

Alas de Liona’s “Violet” is Kate Bush-esque Dream Pop

Alas de Liona, photo courtesy the artist

“Violet” by Alas de Liona is one of the most melodious songs about anxiety-induced insomnia of recent years. The layers of gossamer vocals over and around the lead vocals are dream-like and transporting and Alas de Liona does what looks in her own video like a nod to Kate Bush’s moves in the video for “Army Dreamers” but musically the song has a soothing and otherworldly quality that resonates strongly with the “Love Theme” from the soundtrack to The Breakfast Club. Though de Liona’s dream pop confection of a song is about feeling overcome with nerves and worry its energy is that of finally finding that tranquil place in the mind where sleep and rest are possible and the end of the song feels like relief is already gently here. Watch the video for “Violet” on YouTube and follow Alas de Liona at the links below. Her new album Gravity of Gold is out 13 September on her own Deli Owner Records via Absolute Label Services.

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Savanna Leigh’s Tender and Vulnerable “reminders of you” is a Song About Being Willing to Really Feel Your Sadness and Hurt Rather Than Run From Them

Savanna Leigh’s warm and breathy vocals on “reminders of you” linger ever so slightly like the memories that seem to trail her like a haunting. Leigh renders these feelings with a resonant familiarity and with a delicacy of expression that doesn’t simply try to process the feelings in that way we all wish we could with some efficiency and finality, to have closure even if that’s not always such a realistic way to operate as a human. Instead, the song is more like feeling those feelings again with an emotional honesty and coming to accept them as not things to be shed or discarded but part of who you are, a part that you can’t simply carve out of your mind but which you can remember and still find emotional energy within even if it doesn’t quite have the power to overwhelm you in the long run as they might if you simply buried them and pretended they didn’t exist. Leigh’s simple arrangement of spare guitar, minimal percussion and piano enhance the songwriter’s tonal richness in a song that with a wide open and vulnerable spirit. Watch the video for “reminders of you” on YouTube and follow Savanna Leigh at the links below.

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Ok Cowgirl Finds Some Absurd Humor in the Existentially Exhausting Grind of the Modern Everyday on Fuzz Pop Song “Larry David”

Don’t be fooled by the whimsical music video for Ok Cowgirl’s “Larry David” in which the band members are made up like the titular, legendary comedy writer and actor. The gloriously effusive guitar solo that comes in the middle of the first half of the song lets off some of the steam of the sentiments expressed in the song, the kind anyone with any level of honesty and sensitivity has felt like everything is, yes, fucked, in everyday life even if you’re living what some might consider a comfortable life though you may be struggling with scrambling to barely get by and dealing with situations to make that happen that push you to the edge and to the breaking point day after day. It wears you out on a deep level. But Ok Cowgirl has turned some of that existential exhaustion into catharsis with the fuzzy guitar pop of this song and making it into a song that can indulge some moments of humor in its evocation of life’s, mundane daily challenges that can grind you down over time. Watch the video for “Larry David” on YouTube and follow Ok Cowgirl at the links below. The band’s new album Couldn’t Save Us From My Gut released on August 16, 2024 and available to stream.

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Art d’Ecco Returns With the Vital, Indie Glam Rock Single “I Feel Alive”

Art d’Ecco’s uplifting latest pop offering “I Feel Alive” is as much a declaration of self-liberation as it is a brash celebration of one’s passions. The bold horns, Art’s charged vocals and the scenes from the music video of good times had with dancing and drink feel very of the now but the aesthetics are reminiscent of a combination of late 80s Wang Chung and The Power Station covering T. Rex’s “Get It On.” Art d’Ecco takes that energy and sleazy guitar sound and puts great momentum behind it all for an effect that comes off as genuinely exciting and unapologetically bombastic. After all why downplay when you’re feeling like you’re in the right place, doing the right thing at the right moment in alignment with your heart’s desires? It is truly glam rock for the indie rock set. Watch the video for “I Feel Alive” directed by Michael Makaroff on YouTube and follow Art d’Ecco at the links below.

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Queen City Sounds Podcast S4E37: Nina Nastasia

Nina Nastasia, photo courtesy the artist

Nina Nastasia is the critically acclaimed songwriter currently based in Seattle who grew up in Hollywood but moved to New York before making a name for herself as a gifted musical artist who worked throughout much of her career recording with Steve Albini. Due to years of abuse by her then partner, Nastasia left music in 2010 before returning to writing and releasing songs Her return to releasing music was the 2022 album Riderless Horse, an album or tender sounds and textures but whose subjects are a rich tapestry of the evocation of love, despair, loss, and finding moments of joy and humor in the great sprawl of life especially when you’ve been suppressing your creative gifts and now finding your vehicle of expression once again free of former limitations. The album charts the aftermath of the death of Nastasia’s former partner in 2020 and her own rediscovery of being able to write music with integrity after around a decade of finding herself unable to do so. It’s a record of rare beauty and deep personal insight that while bearing the hallmarks of going through periods of personal darkness ends up being an uplifting record and a declaration of self-empowerment. While writing and recording that record, Nastasia was simultaneously crafting the songs that would comprise the 2023 self-titled debut album by Jolie Laide, a duo with Nastasia and Jeff MacLeod. Both records have a noir quality in the nuance of emotional expression and entrancing moods that have a cinematic quality that one might compare favorably to Lana Del Rey and Cat Power.

Listen to our interview with Nina Nastasia on Bandcamp and follow Nastasia at the links below. She performs on the final night of Ghost Canyon Fest on Sunday, August 25, 2024 at the Hi-Dive. For more information and to purchase tickets visit the fest’s website here.

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