Queen City Sounds and Art

Queen City Sounds Podcast S4E36: Animal Bite

Animal Bite in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy

Animal Bite is a band from Casper, Wyoming that has folded into its sound a hybrid of thrash, noise rock and hard-edged, industrial post-punk. It’s the kind of music that simultaneously resonates favorably with The Dillinger Escape Plan, The Jesus Lizard and Killing Joke. There’s a psychedelic aspect to the music that pairs well with the disorienting energy and intensity of the music. The group’s existence spans both sides of the 2020 pandemic but its membership has come out of the Casper underground in bands like Juice Falcon and Doggod that didn’t feat neatly into punk or grindcore or metal but featured the hallmarks of eclectic musical roots. Guitarist Brandon Schulte has been a bit of a figure in the current network of American underground music setting up shows for touring acts in Casper who might otherwise not have a place to play in the middle western part of the country as well as hosting left field music locally and otherwise. In 2021 Animal Bite released its first full length album Harsh Chemicals with visual aesthetics that remind one of Future Sounds of London’s Dead Cities or a Death album cover. It’s the kind of impression that prepares you for the gloriously post-apocalyptic music within.

Listen to our interview with Brandon Schulte of Animal Bite on Bandcamp and catch the group live at the final night of the Ghost Canyon Fest on Sunday, August 25, 2024. The fest begins on Friday August 23 at The Skylark Lounge and continues with a matinee show at Mutiny Information Cafe on Saturday, August 24 and the evening showcase at the Hi-Dive that same evening. But tickets to the fest here and connect with Animal Bite at the links below.

Animal Bite on Instagram

Animal Bite on Bandcamp

Queen City Sounds Podcast S4E35: Lake Mary

For over a decade, Chaz Pyrmek has been a prolific artist releasing recordings as Lake Mary and as a member of various ensembles including the free jazz group Fuubutsushi. Prymek has found himself in various environments over the years including his hometown, where he is now once again located, of Salt Lake City, Columbia, Missouri and Denver, Colorado but in each case the environments have impacted the composer and multi-instrumentalist in terms of the physical and cultural landscape. Prymek’s music could broadly be described as ambient improv and abstract Americana created with an intuitive, improvisational approach to the songwriting. Whether edited later or the inspired moments simply captured and released into the world, Prymek’s musical endeavors sound fresh, intimate and welcoming. In recent years Prymek has collaborated with free jazz saxophone legend Patrick Shiroishi in the aforementioned Fuubutsushi as well as on Lake Mary recordings and the 2024 album Eventually The River Rises Here Too, As It Always Has as a trio with Prymek, Shiroishi and Thom Nguyen.

Listen to our interview with Chaz Prymek on Bandcamp and follow the links below to listen to his music and keep appraised of his live performances and other adventures in music. Lake Mary will perform at the Ghost Canyon Fest the afternoon of August 24, 2024 at Mutiny Information Cafe. To buy tickets to the festival visit the website here.

chazprymek.com

Lake Mary on Bandcamp

Chaz Prymek on Instagram

Queen City Sounds Podcast S4E34: Lung

Lung is an experimental rock duo from Cincinnati that formed in 2016. Vocalist/cellist Kate Wakefield and drummer Daisy Caplan had both been involved in bands prior to Lung including Caplan’s stint as the bassist for glam pop band Foxy Shazam but with this musical collaboration both musicians utilize musical chops to craft a raw and commanding style of what might be called art punk that pairs Wakefield’s powerful and trained voice and cello prowess and Caplan’s creative command of rhythm. The result is imaginative and emotionally charged songs that translate well to the band’s deserved reputation as an intense and entertaining live band. One might compare the band’s music to the type of resonance evoked by PJ Harvey’s moments of waxing into the unhinged and inspired and the earnest emotional warmth and raw power of The Gits. All with an undeniable knack for rendering left fields ideas accessible. Lung tours extensively every year it’s been possible and it has garnered a reputation as fine citizens of the underground music scene. Its most recent offering as a record is 2023’s split album with Conan Neutron and the Secret Friends called Adult Prom.

Listen to our interview with Wakefield and Caplan on Bandcamp and follow Lung at the links below. The duo will perform at Ghost Canyon Fest the first night of the festival on August 23 at The Skylark Lounge. But you’ll want to catch as much of the festival as possible if you’re a fan of the different in underground music. The festival continues with a matinee show at Mutiny Information Cafe on Saturday, August 24 with the night show at the Hi-Dive with the concluding night of the fest on Sunday August 25 also at the Hi-Dive. For more information no the festival and to buy tickets click here.

Queen City Sounds Podcast S4E33: Ex Everything

Ex Everything is a band based out of Oakland that released its debut album Slow Change Will Pull Us Apart in 2023 The group launched in 2018 with guitarist Jon Howell (Kowloon Walled City) and Ben Thorne (Low Red Land, Tartuffi) who were seeking a vehicle for musical ideas and interests that didn’t fully fit in with their then extant and current outfits. As Ex Everything was putting together its more full-fledged lineup the pandemic hit necessitating incubating song ideas that in the long arc of how the pandemic stretched most if not all musical project timelines meant the quartet was able to hone its concepts and sounds for a record that is equal parts angular post-hardcore and caustic noise rock that fit in well with the Neurot Recordings imprint that ended up releasing the album. The record’s lyrics are scathing examination of destructive human behavior but expressed in a way that has built into the words that suggests the possibility of moving through the worst aspects of modern human civilization. This has meant that the music though intense and heavy is in the end cathartic and a decidedly not nihilistic assessment of the prospects for our collective species.

Listen to our interview with Jon Howell on Bandcamp and follow Ex Everything at the links below. The band performs on the first night of Ghost Canyon Fest on August 23, 2024 at The Skylark Lounge. Tickets for the festival can be purchased here for the second annual event showcasing left field rock and experimental music.

Ex Everything on Instagram

Ex Everything on Neurot Recordings

Carlos Antonio’s Deep Moods and Vibrant Falsetto on Slowcore Single “Gabriel” Are an Affecting Evocation of a Love Obscured

Carlos Antonio, photo courtesy the artist

“Gabriel” is the title track to Carlos Antonio’s forthcoming debut EP. It’s the story of the songwriter’s relationship with a closeted, Hollywood actor and the their desire for their relationship to be a known quantity and for it to be accepted in a society that continues to reveal itself to generally be, to varying degrees, hostile to such relationships to the point that it can still affect someone’s career and life prospects. The music is lushly orchestrated with delicate and intentional guitar textures providing the more tactile rhythm as background string and electronics melodies help Antonio’s emotionally vibrant and breathy vocals to stand in front in passages of compelling vulnerability that express the intensity of feeling and the frustration of having to keep a cherished relationship more or less hidden because of social pressures even in 2024. Fans of Jeff Buckley and Iron & Wine will appreciate Antonio’s depth of mood, emotional nuance and command of tone. Listen to “Gabriel” on Soundcloud and follow Carlos Antonio at the links provided.

Carlos Antonio on Instagram

Letting Up Despite Great Faults Leans Into Fulfillment Over Comfort on Indiepop Shoegaze Single “Powder”

Letting Up Despite Great Faults, photo courtesy the artists

Letting Up Despite Great Faults delivers its follow up to 2022’s entrancing album IV with Reveries with mixing by Melina Duterte (Jay Som) and mastering by Simon Scott (Slowdive). Lead single “Powder” dips a little into the band’s early days with some playful synth sounds like something one might more hear coming from a reprogrammed Famicom and fans of the long defunct The Depreciation Guild will appreciate the vulnerable sounds and delicacy of orchestration in the song’s melodies and rhythms. Guitar notes linger, electronic motes hit with a percussive quality over the rush of spare percussion. The vocals intone like fragments from a diary placed expertly together to comment on the unease of being in a liminal space in one’s life where you think about how people tell you to give up on anything fun and creative in order to “grow up.” But what about what’s in your heart to do and who would want you to give up what brings more than a fleeting shred of joy into your life? The line “You only love the things pinned to the ground” perfectly expresses how some people relate to those they would aim and profess to love—by controlling them and make them into a static entity. A museum piece of life. The song is about resisting that but also the hint of thinking of succumbing to that spirit diminishing but comfortable status yet in the end leaning heavily toward uncertainty in some areas of life over giving it all up for someone that doesn’t truly value your deep happiness. It’s a lot to pack into two minutes twenty seconds with a rare level of emotional and psychological nuance but Mike Lee and the band have a knack for saying meaningful things with great economy in songs that have great forward and outward momentum. Listen to “Powder” Spotify and follow Austin, TX-based Letting Up Despite Great Faults at the links below. Reveries will become available for streaming, download and on vinyl October 11, 2024.

lettingupdespitegreatfaults.com

Letting Up Despite Great Faults on Twitter

Letting Up Despite Great Faults on Facebook

Letting Up Despite Great Faults on Instagram

Letting Up Despite Great Faults on YouTube

Letting Up Despite Great Faults on Apple Music

Ohr Comforts and Reassures in the Warmly Expansive Psychedelia of Electro Pop Single “Afterglow”

“Afterglow,” the title track from Ohr’s forthcoming album (due out 8/30/24 via Headstate Records) uses vintage electronic sounds and modern production to create something that musically resonates with 90s British, electronically infused, exuberant psychedelia like Primal Scream in the latter half of the decade. But also Currents-period Tame Impala. There’s something celebratory at the core of “Afterglow” and its insistent beat that given its lyrics speaking to not feeling limitations so much but the heat of the momentum of where you’re going and what you’re growing into without completely losing sight of where you’ve been. The warm tones of the song swirl and sparkle throughout and team into the fade in the end. There’s something about the song that gets into your head and ends with feelings of comfort and reassurance which helps it to linger long in the mind. Watch the visualizer video for “Afterglow” on YouTube and follow Ohr at the links below.

Ohr on X

Ohr on Instgram

Ohr on Bandcamp

Paul Babe’s Slinky and Entrancing Psychedelic Pop Single “Cliff Diver” has a Video With an All Star Cast

Seth Evans of Paul Babe, photo courtesy the artist

Paul Babe’s video for “Cliff Diver” is shot in a backyard and has cameos from the likes of Nathaniel Rateliff and The Night Sweats guitarist Luke Mossman, drummer Carl Sorensen, Rhodes player/vocalist Joseph Lamar, percussionist/singer Jess Parsons, bassist Kramer Kelling and Julia LiBassi on synth and vocals. Of course on lead vocals and guitar is songwriter and band leader Seth Evans. Though Paul Babe is based in Brooklyn, New York, the line up is a handful of Denver (former or current) music luminaries as Evans once fronted the pop band Rossonian while based out of the Mile High City. The song is like a psychedelic funk song in a more mellow and soothing mode with rich vocal harmonies and multiple voices bringing a diverse sound to a song that has an immediate appeal because it’s an entrancing journey that benefits from musical chops that are all channeled into a song about recognizing one’s vulnerabilities and lingering ills and getting to a place of wellness individually and collectively. There is a lightness to the song that uplifts but anchored by coming from a place of earnest emotional expression. What is most obvious from the video that perhaps listening to the song alone is how each musician contributes greatly to the song’s interlacing layers of rhythm and tone to create the kind of song that stays with you not just because it has tasty hooks but because there’s a sense of something bigger to what the song represents beyond being a well-crafted psychedelic pop funk song. Watch the video for “Cliff Diver” on YouTube and follow Paul Babe at the links below.

paulbabe.com

Paul Babe on Facebook

Paul Babe on Instagram

Oscar Mic’s Post-Punk Hip-Hop Single “Sun Star” is a Song About Entropy and Romance

The low end pulsing buzz that runs through Oscar Mic’s “Sun Star” is like the constant and menacing influence hinted at the in the song. The lyrics describe an impulse to destruction that seems to run through societies and manifests in individual and collective behaviors like an in practice incarnation of the second law of thermodynamics in which entropy increases until it reaches a maximum state. Vocalist Seamus Hayes seems to describe these primitive urges of human beings in terms of their cognates in cosmic and mythological forces and how interpersonal dynamics can hit your direct experiences with the weight of things much bigger in the world. The backbeat percussion and bass drone from Taan Parker and Rex Erex respectively give Hayes’ playful delivery the context for his more melodic voicings and those more in the realm of rap MC need for the song to hit with both a sweetness and menace. If Beck had been able to collaborate with The Beastie Boys it might have sounded like this. Watch the psychedelic music video directed by Dovile Meilute on YouTube and connect with East London’s Oscar Mic at the links provided. Look out for the trio’s debut album out in 2025.

oscarmicmusic.com

Oscar Mic on Facebook

Oscar Mic on Instagram

Photay’s Ambient Techno Single “Derecho” Pulses With a Hypnotic Inner Light

“Derecho” with its subtle use of white noise as background texture with a foreground of hazy synths and percussive sounds in non-standard rhythms finds Photay in music time traveling mode well served by the music video. We see arrows in motion in arcs and in a spiral with luminous ripples to demonstrate the percussion all in luminous colors against darker backdrops both black and deep, vibrant blue. The visuals pair the aesthetic of a 1990s VHS video art piece and the library music-esque tone of the song itself. It creates a fairly playful mood that immerses the listener in textures and organic rhythms like an update of early 2010s minimal techno and deep house. While the song is not dance music it inspires a similar emotional response. The song is from Photay’s new album Windswept out on streaming, download and vinyl September 20, 2024 via Mexican Summer. The record was inspired in part by the sound of wind and the flow of the music has that kind of familiarity and spontaneity that makes it a refreshing listen even with the beneficially weird places it goes.