Queen City Sounds and Art

Christopher Tignor’s “Off-Centered Hearts” is a Sublime and Stirring Performance of the Possibilities of Processed Violin and Electronics

Composer Christopher Tignor has made a name for himself as an electro-acoustic violinist who as a live performer has fused the aesthetics and live performance style of acoustic instruments with computerized processing and use of pedals. His 2023 album The Art of Surrender showcases the broad spectrum of his experiments in minimalism and the subtleties of musicianship and expression available once you open up the possibilities of modifying tone in real time and pairing it with unconventional rhythms and song structure. The single “Off-Centered Hearts” has the soaring melodies one might expect but Tignor angles the long themes of the song to come together in elegant dramatic convergences with the mood of the song augmented and anchored by electronic low end and steady, finely syncopated percussion. When the violin glides seemingly along in a space of cosmic background drones near mid-song it’s a passage of sublime contemplation that segues into a short moment of atonality and directly into lightly plucked and processed violin tones and reminds one of the creative potential of an instrument most of us think we have heard taken to its sonic limits already. Listen to “Off-Centered Hearts” on YouTube and follow Tignor at the links below.

Christopher Tignor on Facebook

Christopher Tignor on Twitter

Christopher Tignor on Instagram

Bestial Mouths’ “Road of Thousand Tears” is an Orchestral Post-punk Song of Farewell to What Will Never Be Again

Bestial Mouths, photo courtesy the artist

The latest Bestial Mouths album R.O.T.T. (inmyskin) came out on August 11, 2023 via Negative Gain on digital and vinyl and, produced and mixed by Rhys Fulber of Front Line Assembly fame, it sounds like a new chapter for Lynette Cerezo’s songwriting. This is perhaps dramatically highlighted by the track that closes the album, “Road of Thousand Tears.” It mourns the losses of the world and of personal losses and trying to get back some of what you didn’t know you lost along the way as you make your way through the often rocky and challenging path of life. The song swims in expansive, ethereal synth melody and its processional pace is marked by electronic beats that splay in a crumbling distortion while maintaining a hypnotic cadence. In the music video Cerezo seems to be hanging out in the ruins of an old industrial town in the American West, all dry scrub and desert landscapes and the remains of buildings and railroads and of the skeletons of a once great world power. It’s like a post-apocalyptic Cormac McCarthy novel come to life and yet there’s a yearning in the mood of the song a hope for being able to reclaim what remains and make something of it whether that’s your life, your culture and/or your community, the seeds of that hope reside in the song and its slowly expansive dynamic and what initially sounds like a work of deep melancholy becomes more like the saying a goodbye to a difficult chapter of existence and working toward what must come next but not before mourning what will never be again. The song and the album has features of the darkwave and post-punk sounds of previous Bestial Mouths releases but also a way of songwriting that feels markedly different and new. Watch the video for “Road of Thousand Tears” on YouTube and follow Bestial Mouths at the links provided.

Bestial Mouths on Facebook

Bestial Mouths on Instagram

Queen City Sounds Podcast S3E30: Allison Young and Alley Cat Karaoke

Allison Young is re-launching Alley Cat Karaoke at The Skylark Lounge on Wednesday, October 18, 2023. The ongoing night runs from 9pm to 1am on Wednesdays at the Skylark and Young has all the appropriate gear for the event and a generous song library from which participants might choose for their time on stage. Young grew up in small town Perryville, Missouri where she got started singing in choir and making art as a kid and youth before going to college and connecting with underground culture and art more widely in and around Saint Louis. She studied theater before dropping out of college working various jobs and making trips around the country to see where she might like to make her life long term. As fate would have it on a month-long excursion the last stop on the way home was in Denver and it felt like a good fit for Young for its then unpretentious local art and music community and affordability. In 2000 she relocated to the Mile High City and early on got to know a number of like-minded people in her neighborhood who were into creative endeavors in music and art. By around the middle of the decade Young had the opportunity to take over the karaoke night at the now defunct bar Bender’s Tavern and within a couple of years or so she got a hold of her own gear for doing such nights and over the course of her time doing Alley Cat Karaoke she learned a good deal about running sound and curating the nights to make it a positive experience for everyone involved.

For several years Young ran Alley Cat Karaoke at Hamburger Mary’s on Seventeenth Avenue for both locations until the pandemic ended it in March 2020 like it did many in person events and dining and activities for over a year. It was then that Young took a break from that endeavor and focused more on her vintage retail business (Alleycat Kitsch) which she’d been running and growing in parallel with the karaoke night and working other jobs and in moments presenting her visual art and performing in bands. Young’s approach to the karaoke night is supportive and community-oriented and it’s definitely not American Idol.

Listen to our interview with Allison Young on Bandcamp and follow her goings on and event announcements on Instagram linked below.

Allison Young on Instagram

Alleycat Kitsch on Instagram

Freedom Fry Tells Us to Live Our Best Lives In This Moment Because We Can if We Just Say “YOLO”

When Freedom Fry takes us into “YOLO” it feels like we’re going on a flight with the duo somewhere. That ascending non-musical tone just has that vibe like you’re about to step onto a fast moving airplane to adventure. And the tropical percussion accents and retro synth pop melodies mixed with what might be described as summery melancholic pop. The title suggests a foolhardy sentiment of gusto but the lyrics tilt that spirit in a positive and self-affirming direction by pointing out how there is only living and the alternative and that mistakes and fear of them are unnecessarily stumbling blocks that you can get past with ease as long as you keep your focus on living the kind of life you want excepting perhaps if that means dire consequences for others but most of us don’t have to tangle with such potential quandaries and adhere to arbitrary social bounds implanted by us in our own minds to prevent us from living life as fully as we can in the moment. Listen to “YOLO” on Spotify and follow Freedom Fry at the links provided.

Freedom Fry on TikTok

Freedom Fry on Facebook

Freedom Fry on Twitter

Freedom Fry on YouTube

Freedom Fry on Instagram

Queen City Sounds Podcast S3E29: GUJI

GUJI’s singers, photo courtesy the artists

GUJI (咕叽) is a quartet from Shanghai comprised of three Chinese nationals Klaire (synths), Alex (bass), Stacy (drum machine) and American ex-pat Round Eye guitarist and vocalist Chacy. The group released its self-titled debut EP on August 25, 2023 via Godless American Records and is currently available on digital and in a limited edition cassette. The group’s sound may be described as charmingly lo-fi New Wave with a clear lineage to the likes of Devo and The B-52s. Keen listeners may hear the earnest and unvarnished sound of 80s indiepop in that C86 vein or like something from Flying Nun. It comes across as a mysterious musical artifact from a not clearly discernible era and that gives it all a timeless aspect that requires no specific style references to appreciate.

The EP came about during the 2020-2022 severe lockdown measures imposed on Chinese citizens in cities like Shanghai with China’s “0-Covid policy.” Klaire and Chachy shared a living space and the citizens of Shanghai were subject to daily PCR tests and groceries and other goods delivered through limited openings into everyone’s homes. With not much to do the duo wrote and recorded with equipment on hand with smart phones and even made a video for the song “Build A Friend For Me” with footage samples including bits of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s 1973 psychotronic classic The Holy Mountain. It’s a real feat of creativity in limited circumstances and resources and the kind of thing you wish you’d see more often. The EP was produced by Chachy and mixed by famed Chinese studio engineer Li Wei Yu as well as Casey Anderson. The songs are playful and upbeat and at times have some choice words critiquing the oppressive situations and policies of the home country but all in the tradition of bands like Devo, They Might Be Giants and The B-52’s making observations and statements with creativity and without aggression.

Listen to our interview with Klaire and Chachy on Bandcamp and to listen to the EP and perhaps order a tape, please visit the Godless America Records Bandcamp embedded below.

Queen City Sounds Podcast S3E28: Tony Cuchetti

Tony Cuchetti is a singer-songwriter based out of Minnesota who grew up playing in a family band that played malls, fairs, conventions and Vegas in the late 60s onward. For the last ten years of the band Cuchetti toured ten or eleven months of the year and garnered his chops as a performer and refined his ear for rhythm and melody. He recently released his latest album Freer Street named after the street where his grandfather lived in Detroit, Michigan. The cover bears a sepia-toned photograph of Cuchetti’s grandfather and the album filled with warm, country and folk songs is informed by the kind of storytelling tradition the songwriter learned from his family as having to have a form that would instantly engage listeners with an emotional immediacy and accessibility. The songs have an economy of composition but also have an orchestral approach to bringing together a rich array of elements that give the record a full sound but one that never seems cluttered. The album is now available on streaming and digital as well as limited run burnt orange vinyl.

Listen to our interview with Tony Cuchetti on Bandcamp and follow him at the links below. There’s a better than average chance you might be able to catch him live as Cuchetti has an active touring schedule worthy of his family legacy.

tonycuchetti.com

Tony Cuchetti on Facebook

Tony Cuchetti on Instagram

Tony Cuch etti on YouTube

Tony Cuchetti on Apple Music

Vases Helps Us to Live With the Managed Expectations When Facing the Symptoms of Modern Life on Dream Pop Single “The Softest Sigh”

Vases has experimented with style and production on every single and “The Softest Sigh” demonstrates Ty Baron’s command of lush and clear melodies with strong rhythmic lines layered together. The sparkling guitar riff is at times reminiscent of New Order’s “Age of Consent” but the song swings into deeply introspective passages that take the certainty and direct energy of that aspect of the song and transitions it into ethereal, introspective passages in the choruses. It seems to embody the subjects of the song that seem to be able the uncertainty that pervades most of human existence and so many relationships in this moment that Baron attributes to “symptoms of modern life” and when he sings that line it rings incredibly true. Rarely has existential angst and frustration sounded so gorgeously hopeful if melancholic. The summation at the end of the song “I tried to be the perfect me, I guess I’ll be alright” is a poignant statement of how many of us are expected to meet some arbitrary standard that we may never attain but settle for being satisfied with giving it an effort even if it’s not quite enough and is it worth giving your all for everything the way you’ve been told your whole life if you’re an American? Not really. And Baron expresses in this song in his way how managing your expectations and preserving your sanity is often the best that can realistically be expected of anyone. Listen to “The Softest Sigh” on Spotify and follow Vases on Instagram.

Osopho Creates a Deep Sense of Mystery and Tranquility in the Synthetic Birds and Forests of a Far Future on “Winged”

Prepare for a journey into a world of synthetic birds in an alien landscape featuring noises of mysterious sources on Osopho’s environmental composition “Winged.” Luminous arpeggios, scritchy noise glitches, electronic titters and trills as those birds sound off into the perpetual not-day-not-night of a shadowy forest. Ghostly tonal percussion and chromatic, ethereal winds flow and all the while there is a soothing quality to the entire piece that sets your mind at ease and in acceptance of the enigmatic sounds and an uncertain environment like a place in a far future where you might explore or wander in such a space with no threat to your well-being with an awareness of that new reality and a deep sense of calm one might experience. It is the direct opposite of the world we live in now and though clearly a creative work and artificial it shines a light on the possibilities of a time and place where there is no need for all experiences and relationships to be transactional in some capacity and where there are places and situations where it is enough to merely experience a sense of wonder and appreciation of something that doesn’t exist in a commercial context. Listen to “Winged” on Spotify.

Slutavverkning’s Bluntly Aggressive Noise Rock Blast “Grisar” is a Stark Statement of Human Solidarity at Our Basest Level

Slutavverkning, photo courtesy the artists

Slutavverkning bring a blunt menace and aggression tempered by an elegant artfulness to the songs from its new album Levande Charader. Perhaps most exemplary of the harrowing and mind-altering listening journey you’ll undertake can be experienced in the music video by Richard Lukacs for the song “Grisar,” which is Swedish for “Pigs.” We see various sorts of pigs looking like they’re the subjects of a menacing horror movie even when nothing explicitly horrific happens during the course of the video. The guitar riff is cutting and clipped like something you might hear off a Shellac album that compliments perfectly the distorted, shouting vocals. But underneath is a haunted drone and toward the end of the song is a maddened free jazz saxophone section that heightens the sense of urgency and disgust that runs through the song. But that disgust isn’t the predictable, judgmental sort one might expect from some sort of nihilistic, misanthropic noise rock band that many of us know and love. No, the lyrics delivered in savage chunks in Swedish are about how there are many pigs around us including ourselves and the ways in which we can be encouraged to abuse each other and declare others an undesirable but in the end we’re all animals who are equal on a ground level no matter how many airs we might choose to put on in a pantomime of some elevated existential status. The song is so stark it really does suit the subject matter and fans of This Heat and modern noise rock/post-punk bands like Meat Wave and Sex Swing will appreciate Slutavverkning’s wild energy and uncompromising intensity. Watch the surreal and colorful video for “Grisar” on YouTube. Levande Charader is now available on digital and vinyl.

Slutavverkning on Bandcamp

Slutavverkning on Instagram

Slutavverkning on Apple Music

Teenage Halloween’s Triumphant and Vulnerable Pop Punk and Emo Singles “Supertrans/Takeaway” Are Irresistible Anthems of Personal Transcendence

Teenage Halloween, photo by Okie Dokie Studio

The music video for Teenage Halloween’s combined singles “Supertrans/Takeaway” directed by Jordan Serrano shows vocalist Luk Henderiks living out the the frustrations and reconciliations in the songs themselves that seem to be perfect companions in expressing the struggles many people go through in life whether its the social pressure of gender conformity or generational trauma or genetic health issues making living itself complicated. But the exuberance of the songs in that triumphant yet self-aware and vulnerable modern pop punk and emo style with Henderik’s impassioned and commanding vocals makes these songs irresistible anthems of resistance and personal dignity that ring true whatever your struggles and challenges might be because we’ve all got them and Teenage Halloween is definitely tapped into a collective zeitgeist of this moment. Watch the video for “Supertrans/Takeaway” on YouTube and follow the group from Asbury Park, New Jersey at the links below. Its new album Till You Return drops October 20, 2023 on digital and vinyl via Don Giovanni Records. And catch Teenage Halloween on tour October through December in support of the new record. Dates on the Bandcamp page.