Beyond the Black Rainbow (2010 film) – Queen City Sounds and Art

The Fog Enshrouded Melodic Drones of CoastalDives’ “Bloodline Through The Mirage” is Like a Conscious Sleepwalk Through a Long Dark Night of the Soul

Distorted, fast rippling pulses of tone rising and falling issue forth at the beginning of CoastalDives’ “Bloodline Through The Mirage” like something from the more industrial end of The Legendary Pink Dots. But streams of clear melody cut through that sonic fog after a minute or so like a lifeline of clarity through the haze to a zone of soporific drones that warp at the edges. Those guidance melodies arc into different shapes around you cleansing the grit of the earlier part of the song and replacing it with haunted fogs and spectral beacons to lead you further into the mysterious space that CoastalDives has crafted. In the last quarter of the song there’s a sense of being on the edges of that roiling cloud of melancholic haze that feels like it’s moving further away while you wake from what has felt like a mysterious dream all along into wakeful clarity and silence like Elena at the end of Beyond the Black Rainbow when she leaves the Arboria Institute free from years of experimentation,, the extended nightmare over. What did it all mean? Who can say but it is a listening experience that leaves your brain feeling better. Listen to “Bloodline Through The Mirage” on Spotify and follow CoastalDives at the links below. The song is the first single from the album Lineage due out in early 2024, mastered by composer Rafael Anton Irisarri of The Sight Below.

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The Lingering Luminosity of the Melodies of loverghost’s “there was a hole here” is an Audio-Visual Haunting You’ll Want to Revisit

The new single by loverghost “there was a hole here” is as much an abstract downtempo ambient song as existential and enigmatic, science fiction horror short. Maybe best experienced watching it in the dark and taking in its hauntingly beautiful and unusual imagery. The tones are in that saturated lo-fi production style that sounds like it was done on cassette and transferred to digital. Maybe even recorded to VHS like the visuals very well could be and then manipulated into otherworldly dimensions utilizing sources that already have great potential to convey both a tactile and human immediacy of physical space and pure emotional expression. Amid visions of animals in the dark, glitched out faces, silhouettes on a luminous backdrop and slow streaks of melody and incandescent electronic piano we hear a voice seemingly lost in reverie drift in and out of the track and as spectral as the video is you almost want to be in that blissed out emotional space disconnected from the demands of everyday life. Visually it’s reminiscent of the aesthetics of Skinamarink and perhaps even The Outwaters or Beyond the Black Rainbow but altogether it resonates with what acts like Yoga and Peaking Lights at the outer edges of its experimental soundscaping, think the more blurry boundaries of The Stargazer Lilies. But this all sounds purely electronic in its composition and its arrangements seemingly as informed by visual editing processing and techniques as those more musical. Watch the video for “there was a hole here” on YouTube.

“Prototype” is millhope’s Downtempo Synthwave Song About Working Toward a Brighter Future

The sound of a future depicted in the more existential science fiction movies of recent years with an ambient sense of dystopian menace and hope (think Ex Machina and Beyond the Black Rainbow and the like) is present in millhope’s single “Prototype.” With vocal contributions from Jenny Thiele to inject its vibrant synthwave style with a human touch the song pulses along with extended keyboard melodies swimming over and under the sprinkling of introspective and delicate guitar work and a skeletal yet vivid percussion giving the song and its layers of ethereal tones an unconventional solidity. The title suggests a lot like building something one hopes will be a breakthrough whether that’s a technology, an invention, a lifestyle leading to better things. The song has that kind of breezy optimism that contrasts nicely with its darker musical elements. Listen to “Prototype” on Spotify and follow millhope at the links below.