Duran Duran – Queen City Sounds and Art

Ways of Seeing, photo courtesy the artist

Ways of Seeing’s “Hasn’t Happened Yet” sounds like something from another era that had to have been produced in the current era. The style is reminiscent of later era Roxy Music with the hazy synth melodies and the kind of New Wave funk Duran Duran indulged toward the middle of the 80s. The song sounds like it was recorded in a cavernous space with the tones trailing off into infinity with James O’Donnell’s soulful vocals offering observations about the ambient anxieties that seem to be a feature of modern life. But rather than being penned in by these fears and emotional urgency out of the blue, O’Donnell tries to place the sources of these anxieties in their proper context and identifying them and thus giving them a form instead of an amorphous mass of overwhelming emotion. And setting it all to a dance beat that grounds those experiences. Thus though the song is about all of those feelings that can plague us suddenly and catch us unawares it is also about a strategy for managing anxiety even if we’re right to be concerned about the ultimate source of many of them. There has been so much cause to reasonably expect the worst in recent years but O’Donnell spells it out in the title of the song and to hold on to that idea when we might be drowning in anxiety. Listen to “Hasn’t Happened Yet” on Spotify and follow Ways of Seeing at the links below.

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Palm Ghosts’ single “Another Way Escapes Me” unfurls redolent of 80s synth pop and post-punk bands like Depeche Mode and Duran Duran with a touch of INXS, perhaps later era Comsat Angels but with modern sensibilities. The bright synth melody sounds like something from an old higher end Casio keyboard and the pulsing bass line accents push the song along like an undercurrent more felt than distinctly heard once the song into its full form following a spare into. Whatever influences one imagines one hears in the songs tonally rich composition about an inner compulsion to be how you are and trusting the best of those instincts and not knowing another way of being yet aware of one’s flaws and limitations and having learned to work with them rather than trying to be someone and something you’re not. Its an exuberant song of self-acceptance at a time in life when you can be cognizant of who you are on a primordial level. Listen to “Another Way Escapes Me” on Soundcloud and follow Palm Ghosts at the links provided.