Philip K. Dick – Queen City Sounds and Art

“Painthing” by shedde0d is the Haunted Sound of Hope in the Aftermath of the Current Wave of Climate and Political Disaster

There is a distinct feeling of accidentally tuning into a secret television station before everything went digital when shedde0d’s “Painthing” begins. Hazy white noise with an unmistakable background presence. Then the distorted archaic keyboard melody comes in breaking and going off any standard, recognizable progression in key. More impressionistic like a robot out of an old Asimov or Philip K. Dick story woke up in the ruins of an abandoned amusement park on a remote planet left behind during the expansion of a galactic empire with a vague notion of its original programmed mission but enough self awareness to explore outside of those parameters and in the absence of other beings to provide input, set about to make its own carnival orchestra piece completely unaware of how it’s “supposed” to sound. It’s refreshingly reminiscent, on pure vibes alone, of the mysterious and psychedelic quality of science fiction cinema of the 70s like Zardoz or Logan’s Run where the future wasn’t so readily predictable and we could imagine the collapse of civilization into small, sequestered Utopias that can go sideways while the rest of the world recovers with the remains of our former, quasi-advanced civilizations. This song sounds like what it would feel like to take that as a launching off point of speculation into the kinds of music that might have been made if your point of reference was 1980s post-apocalyptic cinema but set in the sprawling “development” of an expansive galactic civilization where niche interests could survive and be left alone to progress on its own after the priorities once injected into them have moved on. Larry Niven and David Brin picked up where the ideas of the Foundation series left off and this song is like a musical equivalent of imagining a time and place that isn’t too far off and isn’t set in what seems like the likely aftermath of catastrophic climate change and the impending disaster of rising, global authoritarianism and austerity. This song is the sound of the hope of there being survival well into humanity’s future where someone or something picks up the fragments of culture and makes something hauntingly beautiful out of it. Listen to “Painthing” on Bandcamp and follow Portuguese experimental project shedde0d at the links below. The full album The New Kid dropped on December 24, 2023 and is filled with similarly fantastical music creations.

Madlen Keys Brings Us on a Tour Through Phases of Emotional Darkness and Light on “Ubik”

Madlen Keys opens “Ubik” with a Siouxie-esque, murky tranquility before it all elevates into borderline cacophony to reflect the shift of emotions that runs through the song. The brooding opening of the music gives way to layered, discordant passages and back and forth like its charting the central conflict of the song between expressive self-assertion and melancholic introspection. It’s a song of contrasts of noisy and ethereal melodic, minor chord progressions and traditional song structure and tone. Named after a 1969 Philip K. Dick novel, “Ubik” is about mental illness and the confusing narratives it can run through the brain swinging one’s psychology from great activity to stasis and how it can feel and often is beyond the control of the sufferer. But most people deal with bouts of mental illness in periods of great stress and emotional challenge in their lives. “Ubik” feels like running that gauntlet of moods and working through it. Listen to “Ubik” on Spotify and follow Madlen Keys at the links below.

Madlen Keys on Facebook

Madlen Keys on Instagram

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

Peter Compo Reorients Our Notions of Familiar Creative Works on “Blade Runner 32” and his album Films.

Peter Compo’s arrangement of electronic sounds and informal rhythms on “Blade Runner 32” feel more like they were crafted for a sound design piece rather than a traditional song. The melancholic, drawn out drones that warp by and fade in the beginning give a sense of movement and as the soundscape blooms into multiple streams of bright sound and a more enveloping sound palette there is an unmistakable sense of wonder at a new world that seems darkly enigmatic. The title obviously references the 1982 science fiction film adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? While we often think of Rick Deckard as the only Blade Runner, one of the specially trained agents of the police force tasked to track down and “retire” rogue androids, he’s one of a crew as revealed more fully in the 2017 cinematic sequel Blade Runner 2049. Blade Runner 32 suggests music for a day in the life of another member of that Blade Runner corps. Thus the vague sense of menace and the sharp bleeps echoing as points of stimulation in a dystopian landscape and the drones as symbols of centers of activity and the haunting, large, intrusive advertisements that dominate many public spaces, impossible to ignore. In the context of Compo’s 2021 album Films, this song is a the audio equivalent of a cinematic experience with complex elements arranged in a way that creates emotional resonance employing the aesthetics of film rather than music but using sounds to attain that goal. Thus there is also a “Blade Runner 23,” a “The Year of Living Dangerously,” “North By Northwest” and even “Star and Other Wars.” Compo is inviting us to hear his own interpretation of these films and to perhaps to transform our own emotional resonances with familiar works of art. It’s a subtle but subversive approach to culture jam and remix what we think we already know. Listen to “Blade Runner 32” on Spotify where you can follow the links to hear the rest of Films for yourself and connect with Compo on his website linked below.

emergentapproach.com

Reptaliens Releases the Video for “Like A Dog” From Forthcoming Album Multiverse

Reptaliens from Portland, Oregon return with the video for “Like a Dog” (made with Tristan Scott-Behrends) from the group’s forthcoming album Multiverse. Though returning to using guitar and drums following the duo’s excellent 2020 minimal synth/post-punk EP Wrestling, Reptaliens haven’t lost their knack for solid, extended melodies and culture jamming with left field ideas about the nature of society, the universe and our place in it freely referencing Philip K. Dick novels and the work of transhumanist philosopher FM-2030 after whom the band named its 2017 album. With “Like A Dog” Reptaliens use popular culture as a vehicle for time travel and create an a kind of alternative history of the 1990s from the over hyped and bizarre late night/overly sexualized daytime commercials, Chris Cunningham’s phantasmagoric music videos for Aphex Twin, the manufactured grit and grime of many alternative rock videos and perhaps the truly eccentric music video programs as seen on the Canada’s version of MTV with Much Music. The nods to Nirvana’s Unplugged performance on the aforementioned MTV, the dramatic daytime talk show parody and air of general boredom with fake excitement that was often in the air once the then most recent wave of youth culture had crested by mid-decade all point to what seems like the absurdity of nostalgia for a time that was too often characterized by glossing over mediocrity with the patina of significance through surreal marketing and performative enthusiasm. The almost hypnotic melody maintained by Reptaliens in the tuneful psychedelic pop song is almost a parallel to the air of the time depicted in the video and yet it also strangely draws you in like some of the recreations of 90s media tropes that accompany the music. Watch the video below when it premiers on November 15.

Multiverse is out on Captured Tracks on January 21 and the first pressing comes with rolling papers since the band works on a weed farm in Oregon when not engaged in musicianly endeavors. The tour in support of the record launches in SLC on 1/24 (other dates listed below including the show in Denver on Tuesday, January 25, 2022).

Thurs. Dec 9, 2021 – Eugene, OR – Sessions Music Hall
Mon. Jan 24, 2022 – Salt Lake City, UT – Kilby Court
Tues. Jan 25, 2022 – Denver, CO – Larimer Lounge
Thurs. Jan 27, 2022 – Minneapolis, MN – 7th Street Entry
Fri. Jan 28, 2022 – Chicago, IL – Beat Kitchen
Sat. Jan 29, 2022 – Pontiac, MI – Pike Room
Sun. Jan 30, 2022 – Cleveland, OH – Mahall’s
Tues. Feb 1, 2022 – Pittsburgh, PA – Thunderbird
Thurs. Feb 3, 2022 – Boston, MA – Brighton Music Hall
Fri. Feb 4, 2022 – New York, NY – Baby’s All Right
Sat. Feb 5, 2022 – Philadelphia, PA – The Foundry
Sun. Feb 6, 2022 – Washington DC – Songbyrd
Tues. Feb 8, 2022 – Asheville, NC – Grey Eagle
Wed. Feb 9, 2022 – Carrboro, NC – Cat’s Cradle
Thurs. Feb 10, 2022 – Atlanta, GA – Aisle 5
Fri. Feb 11, 2022 – Nashville, TN – TBD
Sun. Feb 13, 2022 – Dallas, TX – DaDa
Mon. Feb 14, 2022 – Austin, TX – Empire
Tues. Feb 16, 2022 – Phoenix, AZ – Rebel Lounge