Laurie Anderson – Queen City Sounds and Art

Mary Lou Newmark’s Soundcape Tone Poem “Horses of Grace” is a Poetic Expression of Horsekind

Mary Lou Newmark dispenses with rules of how a song should begin and conventional structure as “Horses of Grace” begins with a string of couplets of what horses are doing or their status and how that is an example of a form of grace. Then sweeping, moody strings over textured samples and distorted synths, sounds of horses neighing, percussion that sound like something out of a 1980s Art of Noise song. What are we hearing? If you don’t think about it too much this composition offers a dreamlike experience of the essence of a horse as perhaps created a far future AI based on ancient literature, art forms and the fossil record and casting that expression of horsekind in all its glory in this sonic form that could be a style of sound art that would readily be recognized as music crafted on principles very different from notions of music we now possess. Listen to “Horses of Grace” on Spotify where you can listen to the rest of Newmark’s December 2022 album A Stitch in Time, comprised of pieces that Newmark calls “Music for the quantum age” in that the music moves across time sometimes all at once and utilizing a broad palette of sounds including live violin. It sounds like little else out there unless you’re listening to an old Laurie Anderson record.

Pacing’s “Aliens” is a Chill Dream Pop Song of Acceptance of Leaving the Earth With Mysterious and Benevolent Aliens

Strummed acoustic guitar sets the mood and meter of Pacing’s unusual slowcore pop song “Aliens.” Drums accent the lines and in the background we hear the sound of plucked strings that might be a keyboard or processed violin or harp, spare piano, flutters of electric guitar and at one point the noise of a car on a highway coinciding with the line “the car you drive.” It’s a spooky yet oddly comforting song and in the last sixth of the song two of the choruses are layered and it almost sounds like chaos yet it oddly syncs up with the vocals not quite harmonizing but close enough to seem like it. But the lyrics sound like the words of someone dissociating after an abduction by aliens with words about being in “the big space machine that they fly in the sky with the birds” and “I can see my house from here.” At one point in the song Katie McTigue drops in a quirky single word in observation in“cool” after the bit about being able to see her house, breaking the fourth wall of the song narrative, not unlike Laurie Anderson dropping in a “Hi mom” in “O, Superman.” The abrupt ending of the song could be ominous but the tenor of the song is one of acceptance of this unique and novel situation and with the way the world is now who wouldn’t want to be abducted by what seem to be benevolent aliens? Listen to “Aliens” on Spotify and follow Pacing at the links below.

Magali, A Cult Takes Us On an Android’s Pilgrimage to Reconnect With Family Memories on “Auntie Christ”

Magali, A Cult pushes us into an alternate dimension in the future in the song “Auntie Christ.” The frenetic beats and dynamics is like a breakcore mashup of Laurie Anderson, the Butthole Surfers and Atari Teenage Riot. The narrative is from the perspective of a woman who goes on an odd trip with a friend to a place she doesn’t know but where the friend has family memories of traveling to that place. But they meet a man who doesn’t seem to know what’s going on. All of this is told in a nearly deadpan voice with a twinge of the whimsical not unlike the aforementioned Anderson in her United States Live performance recordings while a propulsive and fragmented beat carries on at a frenzied yet precise clip of tones and percussive sounds. When the voice of the friend enters the song it’s a cartoonishly robotic tenor and barely decipherable except you can sometimes hear the wonderful play on words that is the title of the song “Auntie Christ.” It makes one wonder if the friend is actually an android or if the narrator might be? Does it all take place in a strange simulation? Whatever the actual intention the imagery created in the narrative is strangely vivid and dreamlike and now brings to mind the title of that Philip K. Dick novel about androids dreaming of electric sheep except do androids dream of past family associations and go on a pilgrimage to reconnect with those memories the way K did in Blade Runner: 2049 except in this somewhat less bleak fashion? The song offers no pat answers but does provide a wonderfully strange story that has the haunted and otherworldly quality one finds in the more unusual works of Shirley Jackson. Listen to “Auntie Christ” on Spotify and follow Magali, A Cult at the links below.

Magali, A Cult on Instagram

Monikaze’s Live Video of “Laws of Distraction” With St. Christopher Chamber Orchestra is an Declaration of Vitality of Creativity in the Face of Humanity’s Bleak Future

Composer Monikaze aka Monika Zenkeviciute and the St. Christopher Chamber Orchestra (both from Lithuania) look like they’ve filmed their live performance of “Laws of Distraction” from a post-human civilization era factory. The oddly elegant and beautiful industrial location isn’t grimy like you’d expect of an old factory, but it does look like it wasn’t designed for a musical performance or any other kind of creative performance yet it gives this nearly hour long performance an undeniable grit and unconventional visual style that contrasts well with the music that might be described as experimental chamber pop with the aforementioned Orchestra on board to fill out Monikaze’s spacious and ethereal compositions with an expansive sonic palette and a textured physicality that might not be otherwise possible. Equal parts re-interpretation and synthesis of musical ideas and impulses the video concert is over before you really notice it’s been going on for as long as it does. Monikaze brings a great deal of energy and enthusiasm to her vocal performance while St. Christopher Chamber Orchestra match that energy with a collective share of their own. Fans of Björk and Laurie Anderson will appreciate the fusion of musical styles and elements into a greater artistic statement than the component parts as well as the ambitious artistic vision behind this collaborative showcasing of the talents of everyone involved. It’s like seeing signs of life in the most unlikely of locales and that’s something we could all use of a bit of right now. Watch the video on YouTube and connect with Monikaze at the links below.

Monikaze on Facebook

Monkikaze on Instagram

Hanna Ojala’s “Call for My Soul” is a Healing Ritual of Personal Mysticism

HannaOjala_MainPic1_Crop — Hanna Ojala, photo courtesy the artist

Every time Finnish sound artist Hanna Ojala’s releases a single you’re in for a unique experience and one that doesn’t often draw immediate comparisons with other songwriters. With “Call for My Soul” you can’t help but imagine sepia toned landscapes and a structuralist film aesthetic like Wim Wenders and Laurie Anderson collaborating on a film about a great journey to a place where you face your darkest fears and embrace your greatest dreams. Her vocals, like spoken word free verse poetry, uses repetition to emphasize the emotional experience of memory and a yearning to reconnect with one’s core and one’s sense of identity and self-value. The poem moves over a layered ambient drone and impressionistic piano as though the song was informed by a visual sense of storytelling and the vocals and music echo slightly like deeply subconscious connections lapping at the shores of your waking mind and nourishing an awareness of what might soothe a sometimes faint sometimes powerful sense of unease at being out of balance with who you are. Probably everyone has this sense of existing in a way and in a social context that does not nurture who we are but pushes us toward what seems most “useful” or efficient as if our existence is only justified by its utility to an economic system, an ideology or some other dominant belief system imposed on everyone. Ojala’s song suggests that you can harbor within you an independent sense of self-value from the cruelty and disconnectedness of the world and in doing so recognize and encourage the same in others. Listen to “Call for My Soul” on YouTube and connect with Hanna Ojala at the links below.

soundcloud.com/h_mo
youtube.com/channel/UCOciWsXO_7cDSrveFlwSmkA