Queen City Sounds and Art

Swim Deep Transmutes Helsinki Lambda Club’s Indie Pop Single “Good News Is Bad News” Into Existential Slowcore Gold With New Remix

Helsinki Lambda Club, photo courtesy the artists

Swim Deep did us all a favor taking the upbeat, Strokes-esque song “Good News Is Bad News” hit song by Japanese pop band Helsinki Lambda Club and finding all the moody, downbeat, introspective possibilities to put forward in the remix. Instead of the admittedly thoughtful indie pop of the 2020 original this one shimmers in slowcore style with long echoing guitar and vocals sounding lost in a fog of reflective moments lingering long in a state of existential uncertainty caught somewhere between romantic feelings, yearning and doubt. It is Galaxie 500-esque in its establishment of gossamer sonic textures and pastoral moods and a fully-realized re-imagining of a song into something new. Listen to Swim Deep’s remix of Helsinki Lambda Club’s “Good News Is Bad News” on Spotify and follow Helsinki Lambda Club at the links provided.

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The New Division’s Synth Pop Single “Lust For Lies” Pairs Ennui With Lively Bright Rhythms to Break With a Cycle of Bad Habits

The New Division, photo courtesy the artist

The New Division’s synth pop single “Lust For Lies” and the rippling neon color outlines in the music video will trigger memories of another era for many listeners/viewers. The rhythm has the immediacy of Jan Hammer’s “Miami Vice Theme” with the blend of rock instruments and rich synths of that song and the sweeping grandeur, energy and melodic layering of Simple Minds’ “New Gold Dream (81/82/83/84)” as it was used to contrast with the decadence of the scenes in the opening sequence of the 2008 film The Informers. And the song itself resonates with some of the themes of that film and how we can get stuck in a cycle of habits that feel like empty rituals that we may not truly enjoy anymore but find ourselves drawn back into out of an ingrained instinct of joys once had. It is an effective pairing of ennui and lushly entrancing soundscapes that suggest that awareness is key to breaking out of a rut. Watch the video for “Lust For Lies” on YouTube and follow The New Division at the links provided.

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Matt McLean’s Lo-Fi Psychedelic Power Pop New Wave Single “Some Real Havoc” is a Testament to the Realization That What and Who You Are Is Good Enough

Matt McLean’s “Some Real Havoc” begins as a wistful, nostalgic, folk-inflected pop song with some gently sparking synth to complete a dreamlike whimsy. But before mid-song the tone of the song switches gradually into a caustically exuberant takedown of celebrity culture and chasing cultural clout and dreams presented to you as the answer like moving to a hip city to make your creative aspirations come to fruition. McLean seems to speak to the realization that part of being satisfied as a creative person or a human being in general is making the world around you into something inspiring and appreciating what you have on hand instead of the very common attitude that if only you could have what someone else has then you’d have it made while leaving behind what made you and your experiences unique and worthwhile on their own. In the story of the song McLean uses nostalgia for what he’s experienced and lived through to fuel an organic aspirational spirit. Musically and thematically fans of Flaming Lips and Dead Milkmen will appreciate the style and attitude here. Listen to “Some Real Havoc” on Spotify and follow Matt McLean on Instagram.

Queen City Sounds Podcast S4E22: Becky Otárola of bellhoss

bellhoss, photo courtesy the artists and taken at JCPenney

Bellhoss is an indie rock band from Denver, Colorado that began in 2017 as the solo act of Becky Otárola that grew to a full band within a couple of years. The songwriter came up in Southern California immersed in folk and bluegrass and underground music of the 90s and 2000s. Otárola moved to Denver in the first half of the 2010s and in the early days of the project she played open mics at Syntax Physic Opera and as perhaps a natural progression from there fell in with the local indie scene and as the band developed so did the songwriting and by the time of the release of the 2019 EP Geraniums bellhoss its sound had taken on aspects of slowcore with delicately rendered melodies and a warmth of expression reminiscent of Waxahatchee and Jay Som. With the release of the 2024 EP A Rose, a Thorn, bellhoss revealed a knack for blending vulnerable and thoughtfully observant songwriting with luminous dream pop and a bit of musical edge. 2024 also sees Otárola organizing the inaugural SarahFest, an all ages music festival designed to give a platform to female and female-fronted bands along Colorado’s Front Range taking place at The Mercury Cafe on Saturday, June 15.

Listen to our interview with Otárola on Bandcamp and follow bellhoss at the links below. Also linked is the ticket link for SarahFest.

SarahFest featuring Bellhoss, The Milk Blossoms, Luna Nuñez, Dream of Time, Gartener, Summer Bedhead, Tammy Shine, Nina De Freitas and Demigod (DJ set) at Mercury Cafe, June 15, 2024, all ages $20
6PM.

bellhoss.com

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Queen City Sounds Podcast S4E21: Gene Hoglan of Death to All

Death to All, photo courtesy the artists

Death was one of the foundational bands in the metal subgenre sharing its own moniker. Along with Possessed and Necrophagia, all of which started in 1983, Death created an extreme form of guitar-driven music that combined speed with a heaviness and aggression that served well its often horrific subject matter. Its debut full-length Scream Bloody Gore (1987) set a high bar for the genre with convoluted guitar work courtesy the band’s de facto leader and sole consistent member until his 2001 untimely passing Chuck Schuldiner. Its horror cinema themes and intensity wasn’t for every metal fan of the time but the influence of the record on what would come in its wake in extreme metal and the genre of death metal itself is undeniable. Subsequent albums built upon the technical aspects of the music and its lyrics moved on from horror themes and by the time of 1990’s Spiritual Healing the lyrics engaged in social commentary and horrors of the real world and its own breed of monstrous human behavior. Across its subsequent albums the songwriting blossomed in technical complexity and focus in lyrical themes in expressing poetic personal perspectives. Tragically Schuldiner passed in 2001 of a brain tumor but the legacy of Death lives on in its obvious and deep influence on modern heavy metal. Drummer Gene Hoglan was a contributor to the albums Individual Thought Patterns (1993) and Symbolic (1995) and one of the driving forces behind Death To All, a project paying tribute to the creative achievements of the band and its primary songwriter, Chuck Schuldiner.

Death To All performs tonight June 9, 2024 for its second night of its Denver residency at The Oriental Theater where it will perform the 1998 album The Sound of Perseverance in its entirety along with cuts from Individual Thought Patterns (1993) and Symbolic (1995). Cryptopsy will open the show at 6:30.

Death To All on Reversed Records

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Eve Essex’s “The Fabulous Truth” is a Brooding, Post-Punk/Art Rock Deconstruction of Ego

The distorted drone that runs through Eve Essex’s “The Fabulous Truth,” the title track to her forthcoming full-length (which releases on June 20, 2024 via Soap Library on digital, cassette and LP) conveys a sense of introspection and a taking an assessment of how things have been and one’s place in it all. The languid guitar provided by Jenghis Manning-Petit burns in Essex’s lush and hazy washes of atmosphere and together with the accents of electronic percussion creates a sound like something one would hope to hear in a soundtrack for a film made from one of Moebius great science fiction epics. The music video for the song certainly has an aesthetic like one had the legendary artist used 90s computer game design tools to create a look like an artificial universe in 16 bit where people go to deconstruct the illusions of ego which seems to be the theme of Essex’s lyrics in the context of a world in which we all all operate and so much of navigating the world is presentation and the construction of identity to present when a real one that should be regularly evolving exists. The brooding drones and dramatic, soulful vocals are a little like if Light Asylum made a desert rock album and came out with something weirder and cooler. Watch the video for “The Fabulous Truth” on YouTube and follow Eve Essex at the Links below.

Eve Essex on Twitter

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“Pop Star Salvation” is don’t get lemon’s Somber Synth Pop Critique of the Expected Clout Chasing in the Arts

don’t get lemon, photo courtesy the artists

“Pop Star Salvation” is the concluding track of don’t get lemon’s new album Have Some Shame and ends the lushly melancholic album on a particularly thoughtful and somber note. As the title to the album suggests many of the songs within explore themes of aspiration and self-awareness, of romanticized melodramatic ego assertion and the limitations that sort of fake it until you make it spirit places on one’s actual achievements. The band this time around masterfully layers saturated synth, processional arrangements and soulful vocals on a foundation of elegantly textural bass rhythms. This song and its knowing observations on the illusion of the rewards of chasing clout as part of the whole game of being in a band or in any other creative endeavor is one of the weightier of synth pop songs in recent years and at the same time has emotional resonances reminiscent of the defiantly resigned tones of Protomartyr circa Under Cover of Official Right (2014). Listen to “Pop Star Salvation” on Spotify and follow don’t get lemon at the links below. Have Some Shame released on April 24, 2024 via á La Carte Records for streaming, digital download and limited edition vinyl.

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Charls Ava Rejects the Dubious Adulation of Aspirational Projection in Psychedelic Darkwave Single “Idol”

Charls Ava’s “Idol” is a song about a dynamic that many people experience in which someone becomes infatuated with you so long as the illusion of projected perfection lasts. When your flaws and your humanity seem to contradict that person’s idea of who they want you to be instead of a real person. Ava intones that she doesn’t want to be anyone’s idol because it’s a lot of unasked for pressure and too much to try to live up to even if you find that initial attention flattering. But it’s an interpersonal dynamic bound to leave the object of that idolization discarded, abandoned, in the end and it’s better to not accept such fickle adulation as a foundation for one’s self-esteem or emotional support. The song swirls Ava’s voice with saturated low end synth drones, guitar jangle in a Middle Eastern darkwave mode, splashes of psychedelic tones and splayed, minimalistic drum beats but her vocals expressive, intense and versatile is where the song shines most and at times her voice is reminiscent of that of Karen O. Listen to “Idol” on Spotify and follow Charls Ava at the links provided.

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ALIAS’ Avant-Synth-Pop Single “COCKTAILS AND DREAMS” Lures Us Out of Our Own Emotional Status Quo Into a Burst of Joyful Ecstasy

ALIAS brings to bear rich and saturated tones in “COCKTAILS AND DREAMS” with warm low end to help the low key vocals stand out before the song kicks into high gear in the last third of the song. The music video looks a bit like if Chris Cunningham and Terry Gilliam collaborated on a short film set in a 1980s bureaucratic office. The soft lighting a parallel to some of the tonal haze in the song’s soundscape. When the monochrome computer monitor scrolls “EMBRACE_CHAOS” repeatedly to the pulse of the accelerating pace and spectral yet uplifting, sustained synth melody it certainly feels like something of the status quo in the setting of the song has been disrupted. And the song itself is one of breaking from one’s everyday habits in favor of something that stirs the heart as embodied by initially dispassionate vocals to those shouted with a spirited gusto. Is it a synthpop song? More a conceptual avant-pop composition? It can be enjoyed on multiple levels and its easy for the song’s shimmery melodies and sensual rhythms to get stuck in your head. Watch the video for “COCKTAILS AND DREAMS” on YouTube and follow ALIAS at the links below.

ALIAS on Facebook

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Mary Ocher Entreats the World to Awaken to its Human Solidarity on Operatic Art Synthpop Single “Syhmpathize”

Mary Ocher’s single “Sympathize (featuring Your Government)” is well represented in the music video that shows the artist floating in a turquoise ocean on a rubber raft looking like a character from the end of The Lord of the Rings who has returned from the Undying Lands in white robes and rams horns. Nearby a cluster of refugees from the ravaged world frolic on an island of junk with a “For Sale” sign while industrialists in a red ship demonstrate their designs on what’s left of normal people. All while Ocher sings “Sympathize with us!” in entreatment to the basic humanity of those who might just snuff out what there is left of a world not completely unconquered by rapacious economic interests. Musically Ocher’s operatic vocals and beautiful pulses of synth melody and circular rhythms are reminiscent of something Lene Lovich or Nina Hagen might have written for one of Jim Jarmusch’s or Wim Wenders’ more eccentric and engrossing globe hopping films. Watch the video for “Sympathize” on YouTube and follow Mary Ocher at the links below. Her new album Your Guide to Revolution releases on June 14 in the EU and in the rest of the world on July 19 via Underground Institute.