Beatles – Queen City Sounds and Art

Amelia Coburn, photo courtesy the artist

Amelia Coburn taps into a sensibility of Vaudeville with her single “See Saw.” A simple, repeated guitar/ukulele figure repeats as she spins a darkly folkloric tale of life in a traveling carnival with some nods to Mikhail Bulgakov’s 1967 masterpiece The Master and Margarita, novel not published not even in Bulgakov’s home country of the Soviet Union until well after his death in 1940 censored for its supernatural elements and religious themes and for its satire of Soviet society and culture. Coburn’s sing-song-y vocals and Eastern European folk pop sound draws on a similar otherworldliness in crafting the mysterious imagery of the song which informs Michael Sreenan’s music video with its puppet theater stage props and dolls all in black and white. At the end of the video we see Coburn resisting being put into a travel case and something in the visuals and the old-timey sound of the song recalls the dark mysticism that seems to permeate a great deal of German Expressionist cinema. The clarity of the melody reminded Coburn of he production on “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite” by the Beatles who took inspiration from the traveling circuses in establishing the mood, the tenor of their own composition. Watch the video for “See Saw” on YouTube and follow Amelia Coburn at the links below.

Amelia Coburn on Facebook

Amelia Coburn on Bandcamp

Amelia Coburn on Instagram

On a slowly pulsing electronic tone accented by spare keyboard notes Freedom Fry makes musically explicit the themes of its new single “Ego Trip.” In Beatles-esque vocals the song traces the easy way one can fall\ into a seductive spiral of becoming self-involved . Though the production on the song sounds like something that could have come out fifty years ago it also recalls the surreal pop quality of MGMT. The contrast really opens the song up so that there can be some sympathy for a person who maybe got so caught up in the conversations one has in professional life and certain social circles and being busy all the time with work and the leisure activities following that work that it becomes a ritualized experience. All the while drifting into a dissociated head space where your only break from your life is indeed being on an “ego trip” where you can take out the time to feel out “the vibe” and then, as the chorus of the song goes, get “lost in my head again.” The song casts no judgments on being in that place but does highlight how easy it can be to see the ingrained habits of your life are things you can rationalize to yourself as fun and being stuck in a perpetual state of stagnation that feels like you are feeding your ego in a healthy way rather than merely sustaining a cycle of soporific behaviors that shield you from exiting your comfort zone. Listen to “Ego Trip” on Soundcloud and connect with Freedom Fry at the links provided.