Queen City Sounds and Art

Queen City Sounds Podcast S4E08: The Children…

The Children… is a musical project from New York City comprising core trio Michael Wiener, Jim Coleman and Phil Puleo. In the most recent live shows, John Nowlin and Rock Savage have handled bass and drums respectively, and Kirsten McCord has provided somber phrasing on cello. The group has operated almost like an art rock jazz ensemble, with various other collaborators live and in recording sessions, including legendary avant-garde vocalist and performance artist Shelley Hirsch, former Swans guitarist Norman Westberg and clarinetist Johnny Gasper. Vocalist Michael Wiener is an actor, writer, curator and educator whose career in music, theater, film and beyond is richly diverse, and worth a deep exploration. Jim Coleman many may know from his time in influential industrial noise rock group Cop Shoot Cop, as well as the like-minded supergroup Human Impact. Phil Puleo is a composer and visual artist who also had an extended tenure in Cop Shoot Cop, and a long-running, still continuing stint in Swans. Quite the pedigree, which wouldn’t necessarily guarantee genuinely compelling and interesting music. But despite a name that resists discovery through a search engine online, once you’ve found the group’s music, you will be rewarded with some of the most densely orchestrated, ambitious and cinematic art rock being made in recent years.

The group’s forthcoming album, A Sudden Craving (due out on or around March 8, 2024 via Erototox Decodings), is like an industrial jazz, nightmarish exploration of generational trauma, and the ambient flow of those energies underlying the fractured and convulsed psyche of modern American culture. The imaginative arrangements and sonic intensity of the music are reminiscent of early 70s English art folk like Robert Wyatt and Soft Machine or John Martyn, but in a sort of jazz fusion manifestation more akin to the likes of Can and Japanese psychedelic rock of that same decade. It’s just difficult to know where it’s coming from, and yet there is an emotional immediacy that draws you into the music. It has a cinematic aspect in its storytelling that seems to tap into collective mythology, the way the more daring filmmakers of the 1970s mixed not just styles and themes with art concepts, but with music, in a fusion of aesthetics. One hears echoes of Eno’s 70s post-Roxy Music rock albums, and how alien yet accessible they were, or 80s Tom Waits, and his mutant blues and jazz pop storytelling that aims at more than then current popular styles of music. More contemporaneously, it should appeal to fans of the current spate of harrowing but transcendent Swans records, or those of Los Angeles-based post-punk art phenoms Sprain. It is a music that is out of time and timeless. The band calls its music “gothic blues ambient,” which is a succinct summary of what you’re in for when you listen to the album, and, one would hope, if you are fortunate enough to catch a manifestation of the songs live.

Listen to our interview with Michael Wiener and Jim Coleman on Bandcamp and follow the members of the band at the links below. Also linked is the Erototox Decodings label and the Bandcamp link to the album.

Erototox Decodings website

Thermae on Instagram

Phil Puleo on Instagram

THAT’S FAR ENOUGH (Phil Puleo project) on Bandcamp

Phil Puleo on Bandcamp

Human Impact website

Mary Middlefield’s Live Video for “Heart’s Desire” Reveals the Dream Folk Song’s Dark Yet Joyful Catharsis

Mary Middlefield “Heart’s Desire” single art

Mary Middlefield’s live performance video for “Heart’s Desire” lends a more grounded and human face to its dark story of a young woman and her interactions with an older man who abuses his position of relative authority. The intricate guitar work and orchestral arrangements and Middlefield’s vulnerable vocals for most of the song gives it a quality that one might expect out of a sort of indie folk inflected dream pop song but the lyrics reveal a lot about a warped interpersonal dynamic that doesn’t lead to healthy places. In the video Middlefield looks like she’s re-living some of these harrowing experiences without being explicit in the sordid details. It’s a conventionally beautiful song in its arrangements and lively rhythms and flow of melody. But there’s a surprise for everyone that watches to the end because the lyrics end in a different way than the studio version that’s readily available and Middlefield sings in the end, screaming with her entire being and arching backward with the force of emotion, “You grow old and I’ll watch you die” and repeating the line. But it’s not dark so much as cathartic for everyone who has been in a situation like the kind she outlines in the song and for far too many young women it isn’t uncommon. Watch the video for “Heart’s Desire” on YouTube and follow the Swedish singer-songwriter at the links below.

Mary Middlefield on TikTok

Mary Middlefield on Instagram

Mary Middlefield on Bandcamp

Beans Maintains a Zenlike Calm in the Hyperkinetic Urgency and Relentless Word Flow of “ZWAARD 1”

Beans is back with his bravura display of verbal mastery in “ZWAARD 1,” the opening salvo for his forthcoming album ZWAARD (out March 15, 2024 via his own imprint Tyger Rawwk Rcrds). This time out the rapper worked with Finnish producer Sasu Ripatti aka Vladislav Delay. The song is the first of fourteen tracks with the same title followed by the corresponding track number. Beans seems to be exploring the current state of hip-hop and his own struggles and coming to terms with his own mortality while still being caught up in pushing his art forward. The rapid-fire flow of poetry while hyperkinetic percussion and splashes of melodic keyboards looped set a nervy urgency pulls us along in the wake of Beans’ headlong pace as he makes observations about how things are and despite how the song has that irresistible forward momentum the rapper sounds like he’s taking it easy and provides a model for keeping an even keel even when you are operating in a world and an environment that seems in a hurry. He maintains an artful grace in the face of an accelerated culture. Listen to “ZWAARD 1” on YouTube and follow the former member of legendary hip-hop crew Antipop Consortium Beans at the links below.

Sivan Levy’s Ambient Pop Song “My Far Away Femme” is a Windswept Epic of Heartbreak and Reckoning With the Truth

The softly percussive atmospheric sounds at the beginning of “My Far Away Femme” by Sivan Levy is so hushed and ethereal it’s ghostly in its presence but seems to transform into vivid piano tones that ripple like droplets in a pool of water as the tipping off point for the singer’s vocals. At around the halfway point there is a string chord progression that turns as though processed through a phaser conveying a sense of desolation so complete so efficiently it’s gently heartbreaking. Washes of white noise in the distance like a ferocious coastal wind give the song a deeply haunted quality that truly enhances the lyrics that might be despairing words to a loved one or to oneself about how it’s easy to fall in love with the ideal of someone at a distance when that image isn’t reality and those feelings built on a foundation of nothing. “Your fantasy does not exist,” Levy sings to sum up the actual reality of the situation and sometimes the truth hurts even when surrounded with gossamer flows of sound and a soft delivery as Levy offers here. The song is a sort of art dream pop with an ear for layers of ambient soundscapes that feel like one is stripping away layers of wishful thinking. Listen to “My Far Away Femme” on Spotify and follow Sivan Levy at the links below. Levy’s latest EP side:w released on February 4, 2024.

Sivan Levy on Facebook

Sivan Levy on TikTok

Gabbarein Weave a Primeval Greeting to the Sun in the Video For the Ritualistic Folk of “Ra Rising Sun”

Gabbarein is a project of Cecile Hafstad, a Norwegian vocalist and sound healer, and American composer-producer Christopher Bono. The duo recorded its self-titled debut album due out April 5, 2024 on a fjord within the Arctic Circle in northern Norway. Whether or not that adds an ineffable mystique or energy to the sounds captured for the songs the lead single “Ra Rising Sun” with the video produced and directed by Ragnarok Film (filmed near Trondheim, Norway at various sites including Trollkirka aka Troll Church) it looks and sounds like something from the Eddas. Hafstad sings and chants in a language that she’s “channeling” meaning they’re all sounds that made sense with the music and with the moods and meanings going into the music. We see a woman singing in a cave near a waterfall and a mother and child playing in a forest and enjoying the morning sun and the soft moss and other greenery. The aforementioned woman is presumably Hafstad with Bono playing what look like traditional drums and striking archaic looking instruments that one imagines are supposed to create the thrumming drone that runs through much of the song and the rest the organic percussion and kalimba that convey a sense of delicacy and mystery. In the video it looks like a trio of figures are performing a mystery ritual in the aforementioned forest in black robes and one figure wearing antlers, later all in white at dusk on the beach. Altogether between the visuals and the meditative music one gets a sense of getting a peak into ancestral memory of culture as it emerged from a time of the creation of myths. Watch the video for “Ra Rising Sun” on YouTube and connect with Gabbarein at the links provided.

Gabbarein on Instagram

Micro/macro’s “Reassembling the Self” is an Extended Mantra of Emotional Healing Set to an Ambient IDM Beat

Composer Tommy Simpson is releasing the song “Reassembling the Self” as a single under his experimental electronic moniker of Macro/micro. The track was originally written as part of the score to a forthcoming science fiction short film called R.A.E.R. BETA 0027 about, according to the film’s tagline, “a woman struggling to overcome a traumatic loss” who “seeks out help from a tech developer with a device that promises to accelerate the emotional healing process.” The beat-driven track works separate from that context as a song with a melancholic tonal echo of a melody that resonates in the near distance while a gentle industrial beat traces what feels like a process suggested by the title. Knowing some of the plot of the film only helps to hear in the song the kind of grace, patience and care one needs to exercise when you feel like you’ve come apart a little or more than a little and you want to get yourself on a better footing and often that takes some meticulous and steady effort without rushing yourself like you’re a mass manufactured product. Maybe some guided work can feel like you’re re-engineering your psyche some and that can help the process of coming back into yourself go more quickly. It’s a short song but it hits like a nuanced and extended emotional mantra that helps you to wrangle up some of the rough edges and put them back into place. Not a meditation so much as a set of sounds that keeps you on a track to center yourself as you ease yourself into a better place. Listen to “Reassembling the Self” on Spotify where you can hear the rest of Simpson’s deeply evocative score to the film and follow Micro/macro at the links below.

macromicromusic.com

Macro/micro on Instagram

Macro/micro on Bandcamp

Macro/micro on YouTube

Louise Lemón Bids a Farewell to a Relationship Past Its Due By Date on the Passionate Dream Pop Single “Tears as Fuel”

The Queen of Death Gospel, Louise Lemón, is set to release her third album Lifetime of Tears on February 23, 2024 via Icons Creating Evil Art. The current single “Tears as Fuel” is emblematic of a record that began in the aftermath of a breakup and parting ways with a chapter in the songwriter’s life. The video for the song filmed in Barcelona (directed by Johan Lundsten) shows Lemón walking the beach and overlooking the city while the wind tumbles through her hair, later walking through the city’s night scenes as the lush piano work and brushed, finely cadenced percussion accompany her words about feeling like all she had in a relationship at a certain point was tears and the pain especially after the realization that she had nothing with the person she had loved. When you’re in that state sometimes you just want to hold on to something that meant something to you and the emotions you invested into the relationship so you revel in that emotional pain at least for a while. The flaring guitar in the last part of the song alongside the psychedelic organ melody and Lemón’s soaring and passionate vocals leaves you with the impression that this melancholic yet triumphant dream pop song is an expression of the acknowledgment that there’s nothing left of the relationship and it’s time to give up any lingering hope or attachment to it and move on even if your feelings can still be affected by your memories of the pain and when things didn’t seem off. Watch the video for “Tears as Fuel” on YouTube and follow Louise Lemón at the links below.

louiselemonmuisic.com

Louise Lemón on Facebook

Louise Lemón on Instagram

Mayzie Scorches Ego-Driven Male Misbehavior on the Caustically Noisy Post-punk Song “Boys Will be Boys”

Mayzie sounds like she’s awash in static and boiling frustration on “Boys Will Be Boys.” The menacing and dark sparkle of the guitar work is reminiscent of both Fields of the Nephilim and Babes in Toyland at once. The attitude and vocal tone is oddly reminiscent of Romeo Void’s “Never Say Never” as the vocalist describes the essence of the ways certain male musicians, even now, even after decades of the accomplishments of female artists creatively and professionally, center themselves at the expense of others in ways and with a consistency that deserves a reckoning. Mincing now words, Mayzie delivers a bit of that here. The song’s thrilling and darkly noisy post-punk flavor serves the subject matter well by conveying perfectly the disdain and invective Mayzie pours into the song with a caustic atmospheric quality that isn’t short on splintery texture. Listen to “Boys Will Be Boys” on Spotify and follow Mayzie on Instagram.

Savanna Leigh’s Bittersweet “like i used to” is a Romantic Look Back at Life Before the Onset of Adulthood

Savanna Leigh expresses in vivid detail sentiments in “like i used to” that many of us have thought once we’ve aged sufficiently far into adulthood to have some perspective on life. With some shimmery, slightly gritty guitar rhythm guitar as accompaniment to build the mood of romantic nostalgia, Leigh’s voice is brimming with bittersweet reverie at reflecting on who she felt she has lost and the seemingly long ago memories of what it was like to be a girl and a teenager when you can look back and remember how free you were, how untrammeled by the experience of life and the compromises required of you as you enter the adult world, the unstructured time and lack of responsibility and relative lack of concern for the consequences of your actions because you feel like there can’t be too many when you’re following your youthful urges for adventure and exploration of your world, testing boundaries and breaking them. And it’s easy to romanticize one’s youth when you don’t have that level of freedom in your adult life and you don’t get up every day with the thrill of living coursing through your being and you can sing a line like “I guess I don’t love me like I used to” without too much irony as Leigh does in this song. But there’s a lot to not love about being a kid or a teen and your freedoms are different and your actual limitations less even if things are more complicated. But wouldn’t we all want to be able to live as an adult with a similar degree of carefree spirit and engagement at the relative newness of experiences and knowledge? Maybe in some future civilization that will all be possible for humans for their entire lives. But there is something somehow comforting and motivating about looking back as Leigh has in this song to make your current life as vital as the one you miss and to be the kind of person you want to be in spite of how uninspiring adulting can be. Watch the video for “like i used to” on YouTube and follow Savanna Leigh at the links below.

savannaleigh.com

Savanna Leigh on Facebook

Savanna Leigh on TikTok

Savanna Leigh on Instagram

Benni Strikes a Powerfully Vulnerable Note of Deep Remorse on “September 20”

Benni stares off into the distance and walks along a beach in the late afternoon and evening in shifting images throughout the video for “September 20” (directed by Charline Albert). A spare and expansive piano line accompanies Benni’s regretful vocals creating a vulnerable setting for the song. Benni stretches out into a range of feelings in her performance as she outlines how she’s sorry for having hurt someone close to her in a way that seems unforgivable yet she seems to feel compelled to be open about the ways in which she has caused emotional harm and in the video we see some of these words written on sheets that Benni gathers up like the scraps of the relationship and tries to reassemble them on the sand and lays upon them when they are laid out, thus living in those words, owning her actions and the need to be truthful about her misdeeds in a way that feels powerfully sincere especially as the music ascends in a sweeping climax before dissolving to the end with an image of Benni burning her words at dusk. Sometimes you just have to say you’re sorry not expecting it’s going to fix anything or for a storybook reconciliation.The song centers Benni’s heartfelt vocals and it’s almost easy to miss the orchestral vistas of the rest of the music but it all measures up to a vivid and compelling apology for not being a better person with the implicit expression of a desire to do better. Watch the video for “September 20” on YouTube and follow Benni at the links below. Look for her debut EP in 2024.

Benni on Instagram

Benni on Facebook