Brandon Cronenberg – Queen City Sounds and Art

TRAUMA KIT’s Noise Rock Epic “PLATEAU” Captures the Essence of Today’s Dystopian Times

Imagine one of the only weird hardcore bands from your hometown (you know, the one that listened to Crucifucks and Flipper coming up more than the usual suspects) gets bored with hard fast rules and were always into stranger music and the possibilities of sonic extremes in experimental industrial music and noise and makes a band you think would be good on a bill with Chat Pile, Mclusky/The Future of the Left or The Jesus Lizard. Or all three (four if you want to count The Future of the Left separately). TRAUMA KIT is that band from Boise, Idaho, a town that has a lot of secret talent. “PLATEAU” is the first song on the group’s new album TRAIN WRECKS TAKE TIME (which dropped February 23, 2024) is a caustic and seething bit of work that sounds like the story of dead end lives in dead end towns in dead end countries in a dead end civilization. It also sounds like what you do to express the pain of living through those situations and coming into the harrowing disillusion of having the realization of what you’ve inherited as a human in this time crash into you. It also comes across like the next searingly dystopian science fiction film made by Brandon Cronenberg if he teamed up with Harmony Korine for a story idea and really nailed what future looks like for most of us but the story of someone struggling to find some meaning and dignity in the detritus of world history yet not being completely hopeless and finding some glory in the struggle against the level best attempts of late capitalism to crush us into nothing. Musically you’re going to hear the aforementioned but also a bit of late 80s Voivod and maybe more than a little Shellac and a shred of Naked City. No complaints. Listen to “PLATEAU” on Spotify (Apple Music or Bandcamp) and you may recognize some of your own intrusive thoughts in the words and thrilling collisions of sound.

TRAUMA KIT on Apple Music

The Voice of KAA Channels the Frequencies of a Horrific Future in the Industrial Ambient Psychedelia of “Through Thorns to Fear”

Spectral shimmers of faint melody haunt the background of “Сквозь Тернии к Страху” (“Through Thorns to Fear” in English) by Голос КАА (The Voice of KAA). Like ghosts of former human activity in abandoned buildings just out of sight. When the vocals come in its like firmly whispered commentary on the state of things like a narrator for the Russian equivalent of The Twilight Zone. But the hovering buzzing sounds that zip in and out of the soundscape and swells of icy sounds lend it an aspect of a more supernatural science fiction especially when the vocals become distorted and mutated going into a more darkly ethereal passage as if we’re hearing mourning for a better time that will never be again. Musically it’s reminiscent of an especially spooky part of a song by The Legendary Pink Dots had the band been tapped to score Brandon Cronenberg film in its shadowy, industrial, ambient psychedelia. Listen to “Through Thorns to Fear” and follow the now Singapore-based experimental artist with roots in Saint Petersburg The Voice of KAA at the links below.

The Voice of KAA on TikTok

The Voice of KAA on Instagram

The Instrumental Synth Pop of Ambicture’s “Lyudmi” Glows With an Introspective Hopefulness

Icy synths and a minimalist splash of percussion draws us into Ambicture’s single “Lyudmi” before ethereal guitar rings out through the soundscape. Hazy notes intone in the background and like lights in the fog. But the guitars come back in after fading out a moment with some fortifying distortion accompanied by a brief wave of gritty synth tone. There are no lyrics to give the song a narrative context but the moods it evokes are those of fond memories and warm yearning for a reunion with one’s beloved. It’s like a song one would expect to hear in one of the more recent existential, science fiction horror films like something from Brandon Cronenberg film or Anthony Scott Burns. And like some of the music from those movies there is a hopefulness in the introspective moods that has an instant emotional resonance. Listen to “Lyudmi” on Spotify and follow Ambicture on the project’s website.