Queen City Sounds and Art

Queen City Sounds Podcast S4E20: Caterwaul Festival

Caterwaul is a music festival that showcases of paragons of the weird, loosely defined, in underground music. The organizers of the event have been steeped in left field music going back decades as musicians, bookers, record label employees, running labels and otherwise active participants throughout the ecology of the subculture. Since 2022 Caterwaul has hosted a finely curated and small scale event across two venues so that attendees can realistically catch every act if they so choose. This has meant lineups featuring the likes of Chat Pile, Multicult, Kal Marks, Big Business, Tunic, The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, Moon Pussy, Animal Bite, A Deer A Horse, Big’n, Heet Deth and Cherubs. All of which represent not just representative of a spectrum of the best of underground weird music but also active participants in their local, national and international communities in keeping non-mainstream music not just a vital, viable but rewarding milieu in which to operate. Organizers Conan Neutron (Conan Neutron & the Secret Friends), Rainer Fronz (Learning Curve Records) and Melanie Thomas have all helped to establish and maintain the connections that make the festival possible but going through to its third year in 2024 when the event runs Friday, May 24 through Monday, May 27 at Mortimer’s and Palmer’s in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This year’s festival will include performances by Brainiac, Oxbow, Flooding, Whores., Part Chimp, J. Robbins Band, Couch Slut, Gaswar, Thrones, Ganser, Almanac Man, Quits, CNTS and powertakeOFF. For more information, the full schedule and to buy tickets please visit caterwaul.org.

Listen to our interview with Conan Neutron and Rainer Fronz on Bandcamp.

Michael VQ Evokes Late 90s Experimental Electronic Weirdness on Hip-Hop-Inflected IDM Single “The Remakes”

Even without the outstanding video treatment for the song, “The Remakes” by Michael VQ has a tonal resonance and immediacy of production that holds your attention from the beginning. It’s style is a bit like if Aphex Twin and say JPEGMAFIA or Aesop Rock collaborated on a track that was too weird to be the kind of hip-hop many people think when that expectation is set and too hip-hop for whatever genre tags one might want to apply to the work of Richard D. James. Voices are layered in the track to form rhythm and melody alongside the programming giving the whole affair an organic quality that is intimate while the processed beats lend it the aspect of a dance track for a more forward thinking modern rave event. The music video has vivid images mirrored in quadrants and constant motion and imaginative color palettes like an Edgar Wright film and the procession of figures hits like an experimental horror film minus the fear. The net effect will be reminiscent for those that remember of a time in the late 90s at night on MTV when some of the most forward thinking electronic music of the 90s found a place to be broadcast to people who might otherwise have never heard much less seen visuals for that music for years without being in the places where it came from. The imagery and the music together feels like a well kept secret that won’t be for long. Watch the video for “The Remakes” on YouTube. Look for Michael VQ’s album 4U&URMØN$TER out soon on Tanoshi Crime School Records. Connect with the artist at the links below.

Michael VQ on Instagram

Taxidermy’s Post-hardcore Noise Rock Single “Rot” is a Map of the Uncomfortable Journey to Accepting Life’s Uncertainties

Taxidermy’s “Rot” begins with an intricate guitar figure and spare drums but the melodies quickly drift slightly discordant as the song unfolds. From a place of building doubt in the lyrics and the music conveying a sense of unraveling into a passage of sweeping churning distortion and back into unsettling tension. In the music video we see shifting scenes of people contemplating in natural surroundings and then sitting in the dark lit only by candlelight and the moon. Vocals go from tranquil to hysterical as the song leaps into jagged riffs and splayed rhythms that after some headlong momentum seems to break down, dissolving into lingering, fragmented tones that echo into silence. It’s like the song embodies a moment in life when all of the things you thought you believed in and which formed the foundation of your identity and psyche come into question to their very core and you have to come to terms with what you really believe or accept an uncomfortable but possibly more satisfying acceptance of uncertainty and flux and the impermanence of all things. Fans of Slint and Gilla Band will appreciate Taxidermy’s inspired use of asymmetrical structure and raw noise as a compositional element in the context of songcraft. Watch the music video for “Rot” on YouTube and follow Copenhagen, Denmark’s Taxidermy at the links below. Look for more to come from Taxidermy on Pink Cotton Candy Records.

Taxidermy on Facebook

Taxidermy on Instagram

Taxidermy on Bandcamp

Jonas Verwijnen Expresses the Distortion of Inner Struggles With the Tranquility of Their Resolution on Ambient Glitch Track “This is Going Down the Wrong Path”

Jonas Verwijnen, photo courtesy the artist

“This is Going Down the Wrong Path” sounds in the beginning like emerging from a dark interior space into a place wide open with crystalline tonal textures that shimmer. From there Jonas Verijnen seems to use echoing tones and resonating, impressionistic bell melodies and hushed splashes of luminous yet percussive that sustain and linger. It sounds like the musical equivalent of an abandoned subway tunnel adjacent to more active lines with the sounds of acceleration nearby. Fluttering noises and rapidly echoing ethereal distortion boil up and dissolve rapidly like the flight of a dragonfly before it goes off in search of its prey. And just as suddenly the song ends leaving you wondering where this established sense of place leads and how the enigmatic atmospheres and lightly melancholic moods might resolve yet it doesn’t feel like an incomplete composition. Rather, it introduces the rest of Verijnen’s EP 1 (out April 5, 2024) which has titles referencing about miscommunication and yearning to be understood as well as neurodivergence and the struggles that spring therefrom. But there is a soothing side to the way the composer expresses psychological discordance in music that embodies inner struggles and coming to terms with them in the moment. It’s a consistently interesting balance throughout the EP’s five songs. Listen to “This is Going Down the Wrong Path” on Spotify where you can hear the rest of the EP.

Meli Levi’s Heartfelt “Echo in a Valley” is a Tender Look Back on Years of Self-Abuse Without the Cruelty of Self-Judgment

Meli Levi’s heartfelt “Echo in a Valley” is especially effective because it has an economy of songwriting and minimal arrangements that allow for wide open emotional spaces that come together for sweeping, orchestral passages. In the video we see Levi performing in front of a garage door with a bassist and a drummer but we also hear a string section that helps to fill up and brighten the song as it progresses toward a triumphant ending. It’s a song about looking back at the path you’ve been on and the patterns that you’ve worn into self-destructive ruts that seemed self-soothing at first but became a weight on your soul in the end. In the song we hear a willingness to embrace truth instead of the lies that sustained what you thought was helping you survive long term especially when everything seems to crash in on you emotionally and it can all feel overwhelming. The shimmering melodies with a touch of jangle and Levi’s expressive and soaring vocals render this song that speaks so poetically to a cycle of bad habits and breaking them instantly relatable without the cruelty of self-judgment. Watch the video for “Echo in a Valley” on YouTube and follow Meli Levi at the links below. Levi’s new EP All Things May Be released May 31, 2024 on vinyl, digital download and streaming.

Meli Levi on Facebook

Meli Levi on Instagram

The Love Eggs Dive Headlong Into Krautrock Pop Weirdness With the Exuberant Momentum of “Memory Man”

The Lovely Eggs deliver a perfect fusion of krautrock and indiepop with “Memory Man.” The music video has all the strangeness and shifting colors and entrancing art one would expect had Broadcast, Ladytron and Stereolab collaborated on a track. Visually it pairs well with the music with a collage of styles that mutually reinforce for a memorable aesthetic that commands your attention. The lead vocal melody sounds like something coming to us from an outer space transmission and the backing vocals like those of a robot repeating the title of the song. Maybe the guitar pedal of the same name is used on the song but its production is more straightforward with the songwriting providing the weirdness—always a solid creative choice. But however the song was recorded and with what instrumentation it has a propulsive energy in which it is easy to get swept up within to the end. Watch the video for “Memory Man” on YouTube and follow The Lovely Eggs at the links provided. The group’s new album Eggsistentialism is due for release on May 17, 2024.

The Lovely Eggs on Instagram

Onsetter Savages the Corrosive Baked in Greed of the Culture of Late Capitalism in the Noisy Death Grind of “Dolos”

“Dolos,” the first single from Onsetter’s self-titled EP, establishes some parameters for the righteous invective that courses through the rest of the songs. The desperate and caustic, grindcore-style-esque vocals carve out a tale of a class of people who seem to feel fine trampling on the backs of others to sustain a privileged lifestyle and mindset that thrives on a false sense of superiority built on the perception of those beneath them on the social/economic scale deserve their deprivation and suffering. The angular savagery of the guitar, bass and drums accent every line and amplify the sense of beyond weary and back again to outrage feeling of the entire song with the rest of the songs on the EP offering similarly harrowing portraits of living in a society that neglects the needs of the vast majority of humans in favor of maximizing profits and privilege for the one percent of the one percent of the one percent. Fans of Neurosis, Isis, Amenra and the noisier, more hardcore-influenced end of sludge metal will appreciate what Boise’s Onsetter is giving.

Onsetter Links

Onsetter on Facebook

Onsetter on Instagram

Ritual Fade’s “Paraïba” is a Processional Downtempo Journey Through Dusky Landscapes

The saturated and distorted synth line that runs through Ritual Fade’s “Paraïba” with its low end emphasized flows like a curving river. Its passages accented by syncopated electric bass drum and rattling trap-like percussion to give it some delicate texture. The processional pace and hushed vocals lend the song a mysterious quality as the lyrics off hints of meaning as the title of the song perhaps references a state in northeastern Brazil with a tragic history of colonization, violent repression, exploitation and neglect but also fierce resistance. The song with its ripples of tone peppered through the song and granular ambient features is adjacent in style to more experimental darkwave bands and its emotional tenor and dusky atmospheres is reminiscent of the song “Tatters” by post-punk band Plague Garden and its own processional and languid dynamic. Listen to “Paraïba” on Spotify and follow Ritual Fade, the solo project of Filipino American artist and producer Pauline Laciste, on Instagram. The album Vibrations of Chance dropped on March 11, 2024.

BODEGA Pokes Fun at Hyper Consumerist Culture on Playful New Wave Post-Punk Single “Cultural Consumer III”

BODEGA, photo courtesy the artists

BODEGA channel a bit of early 2000s New York post-punk revival sound in “Cultural Consumer III” with the minimal guitar work in a power pop style and a nervy urgency in the pace of the song. The music video looks like something that was filmed on VHS and shared on a cable access show in the 90s with wonderfully low budget production values of the band riding in a car through the night looking like a roller coaster cart. But it’s BODEGA so of course there’s more than the surface level in the lyrics and the meta-commentary about how many people, often ourselves, consume culture like it’s throwaway while participating in consumer culture because there are few authentic choices in late capitalism. The songwriting is reminiscent of the plasticity of early 80s New Wave which often also had pointed things to say about that era of alienation of the “greed is good” decade but the hooks are genuine and the song makes the ride through the harrowing modern times seem at least survivable though the cheesy explosion at the end of the song is a bit cheeky in the best way. It’s part of a loose trilogy on the band’s new album Our Brand Could Be YR Life (Michael Azerrad and the Minutemen should be proud) which is filled with the usual surreal and self-aware lyrics and avant-pop leanings and out now on limited edition LP, CD, digital download and streaming. Watch the video for “Cultural Consumer III” on YouTube and follow Brooklyn’s BODEGA at the links below.

BODEGA on TikTok

BODEGA on Instagram

Twin Court’s Thoughtful and Introspective “Wolf in the Breast” is a Lushly Melancholic Fusion of Non-Western Folk and Classic American Indie Rock

Twin Court’s use of what often sounds like improvised, and certainly unconventional, percussion and a bell that borders on discordant lends “Wolf in the Breast” a unique musical texture and a quality of something rough hewn like something from a non-Western folk tradition. But the songwriting with its soft vocals and delicately resonant guitar melodies are reminiscent of Yo La Tengo if that band had hailed from a more rural setting rather than Hoboken, New Jersey. There is a melancholic haze to the song that heightens aspect of thoughtful introspection. The lyrics are at times enigmatic and others seemingly an impressionistic meditation on how everyone has sides of themselves hidden away until the right experiences draw them out and how sides of our own personalities can sit firmly in our own blind spots until they’re brought into conscious focus in a way that makes them seem like they should have been obvious to us all along. Listen to “Wolf in the Breast” (not to be confused with the Cocteau Twins song of the same name) on YouTube and follow Twin Court at the links below.

Twin Court on Instagram