Queen City Sounds Podcast – Page 10 – Queen City Sounds and Art

Queen City Sounds Podcast S3E46: SORROWS

SORROWS is a dark pop duo based in Denver, Colorado comprised of singer Glynnis Braan and drummer Lawrence Snell. The project came together over the course of a few years when Braan and Snell were performing and experiencing music in similar circles, Braan catching alternative rock band Meet the Giant (in which Snell still performs) one night and hearing the group do a Massive Attack cover and wanting to meet them and Snell witnessing Lady of Sorrows, Braan’s former solo project, and feeling like he could contribute to Braan’s already captivating performances. The two formed DA’ANS, an electronic dance pop group, that performed briefly with its final show being two days before the COVID lockdowns. And over the course of the extended period when shows weren’t happening Snell and Braan came to work together on music as both had ideas for production and songwriting that complemented each other well.

Snell is from a small city between Coventry and Leicester in the middle of England and experienced the flourishing of acid house and trip-hop firsthand and played in various alternative rock bands throughout the 90s and early 2000s. Braan was born in Denver and came of age when downtempo and trip hop gained a foothold of popularity in the USA as well. So that mutual love of a certain kind of deeply atmospheric, emotionally rich and soulful, sonically immersive music has been a driving force in the songwriting of SORROWS. Snell moved to the US in 2003 with his wife who has a medical job the prospects for which seemed best in Denver and he soon came to appreciate life in the city and came to be involved in the vibrant indie rock scene in the 2000s as a member of the great shoegaze Americana band Colder Than Fargo and then in the long-incubating Meet the Giant that spent nearly a decade developing its music and songwriting before debuting in the late 2010s. Braan attended Denver School of the Arts and went through the art and music programs but didn’t join a band until years later when she met and came to work with Avery Fantom in Angel War which was a unique fusion of conscious hip-hop, operatic vocals and darkwave until he relocated out of state.

SORROWS debuted both its self-titled album and live band performances in 2022 and it was immediately obvious the level of creative development and focus Braan and Snell put into their new band paid off. Braan’s commanding and expressive vocals and Snell’s ability to accent rhythms and bring an attention to percussion tonality were are a strong foundation to the imaginative soundscapes and entrancing melodies that is the hallmark of the project’s sound. Fans of darkwave and downtempo will appreciate SORROWS’ creative evolution out of those sounds but even more how it’s something markedly different.

Listen to our interview with SORROWS on Bandcamp and follow the duo at the links below. Its next live show is on Saturday, December 9, 2023 at Glob in Denver, Colorado.

SORROWS on Apple Music

SORROWS on Pandora

Queen City Sounds Podcast S3E45: Mike Marchant

Mike Marchant is a singer-songwriter from Denver who left an indelible mark on the indie rock scene of the late 2000s and 2010s. His first band that garnered real attention was Widowers whose imaginative and darkly heartfelt songs had what might be described as a haunting accessibility. The group’s shows were passionate performances in which the considerable gifts of its membership contributed to something greater around Marchant’s simple yet sophisticated songwriting and thoughtful lyrics. It was a band that was birthed in the Denver DIY scene but found popularity in the then Denver indie rock scene before splitting around 2010. Marchant never had an ambition for the band commercially and aimed mainly to put out the band’s sole record in 2008. Widowers didn’t break up so much as drifted apart. These days keyboardist Mark Shusterman plays in Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats. In the band were talented weirdos who played experimental music and very much with ears open for the new sounds of that time. Guitarist Davey Hart moved to Chicago and has been active in various bands. Guitarist Zack Brown and bassist Mark Weaver who were also in Constellations with Shusterman drifted out of music as did the late Cory Brown. But Marchant was still writing music and performed some solo shows and then joined indie rock band Houses for a period as kind of a sideman with Andy Hamilton take more the lead in that project. At some point Marchant was asked to perform a show with some of his own music but then assembled a band with some of Denver’s finest musicians including Cole Rudy (now in Dragondeer), Grant Israel (formerly of technical death metal legends Elucidarius), Fernando “Fez” Guzman (now of Kiltro, formerly of Fissure Mystic and Fingers of the Sun among others), Crawford Phileo (formerly of Vitamins and Manos and briefly in Widowers), Maria Kohler (Kitty Crimes, Mercuria and the Gem Stars) and other musicians as the occasion presented itself. He dubbed it Mike Marchant’s Outer Space Party Unit in tongue in cheek fashion.

Then in 2012 Marchant was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and getting treatment for and living with it turned his life upside down for some years as overcoming it (which has has) became central to his life as did finally getting clean from drugs with the help of EMDR therapy. While recovering Marchant relocated to Santa Fe, New Mexico to be away from the temptations of the big city and its music scene and got into a job helping in art sales. But being in Santa Fe put in him the right circles to meet film maker and scoring composer Luke Carr and the two struck up a creative partnership beginning in 2015 with a project they called Lightning Cult. It was an altogether more experimental project than most of which Marchant was until then known though Marchant had an appreciation for plenty of weird and avant-garde music coming up as a fledgling musician. It was an entirely recording project with limited if any live performances. But up to this time Lightning Cult has released two full-length albums and two EPs. In 2020 Marchant debuted his solo project Steady Circuits which focused more on electronic composition and sound design and graced with Marchant’s signature introspective and melodic vocals, yielding two full length albums and an EP thus far. Marchant hasn’t performed Steady Circuits live as yet but we may see either or both projects on stages in the coming year or two.

Listen to our interview with Marchant on Bandcamp and follow his work and that of Bernlore Studios at the links below.

cloudcommandsound.com

bernlore.com

Lighting Cult on Instagram

Queen City Sounds Podcast S3E44: J. Wilms

J. Wilms is releasing his third album as s singer-songwriter The Fighter on digital download, stream and 12” LP vinyl through Cart/Horse Records. Jeremy Williams came of age in the Atlanta, Georgia area and got a BA in Music from Georgia State University before going on to get a Master of Music at CUNY Queens College in NYC. His diverse career as a musician led him to jamming with Ornette Coleman at his loft, a brief stint in Chico Hamilton’s band on guitar, played bass on Broadway for a production of the musical Fela! which turned into the opportunity to play with Fela Kuti’s son Femi Kuti at venues around the world including The Shrine in Lagos, Nigeria. He has recorded with Bebel Gilberto, Beyoncé, TV on the Radio, arranged strings on Run the Jewels’ 2020 album RTJ4 and after moving back to Atlanta still works as a sideman in both his hometown and NYC, writing scores for film and other forms of media and as an educator. In addition to his singer-songwriter output Wilms is the leader of progressive metal band NOMOTO. With the new record Wilms gives us a set of songs about self-rediscovery and connecting with his roots without being limited by them. It’s a journey of an album with production that renders every song up close and personal, intimate, and thus vulnerable. It’s a open and deeply personal work with music that’s reminiscent of older rock groups like The Band and more modern indiepop of the 90s vintage and imbued with a freshness of spirit that makes for a set of songs that is immediately accessible and relatable to anyone that has ever had shake off the dust of life and reinvent oneself yet again while trying not to lose oneself.

Listen to our interview with Jeremy Wilms aka J. Wilms on Bandcamp and follow Wilms at the links below.

jeremywilms.com

J. Wilms on Instagram

J. Wilms on Facebook

Queen City Sounds Podcast S3E43: Malcolm Bruce on Heavenly Cream

Heavenly Cream: An Acoustic Tribute to Cream is a unique new set of recordings of the songs of the influential blues rock supergroup of the 1960s, the first of its kind, comprised of guitarist Eric Clapton, drummer Ginger Baker and bassist Jack Bruce all of whom contributed lead vocals to the project. The music that was released across four remarkable albums from the year of the trio’s foundation in 1966 to its split in 1969 combined the blues with psychedelia and jazz for a kind of early art rock. Beginning with the influential 1967 album Disraeli Gears the group had contributions in lyrics from Pete Brown. Cream had an active and impactful four years and its members, all gifted players prior to coming together for the band, went on to noteworthy subsequent, storied careers in music. The tribute album is a loving and vital re-imagining of a wide swath of Cream’s classic material with performances from the likes of the late Ginger Baker, Joe Bonamassa, Bernie Marsden, Pee Wee Ellis, Nathan James, Deborah Bonham, Paul Rogers and Jack Bruce’s son Malcolm Bruce, a gifted multi-instrumentalist in his own right. The record is now available as a limited edition, 180 gram double vinyl and on CD and digital via Quarto Valley Records.

Listen to our interview with Malcolm Bruce regarding the tribute album and the legacy of Cream on Bandcamp and to give a listen to the album and order physical copies please visit the Quarto Valley Records website.

Queen City Sounds Podcast S3E42: Brian M. Clark

Brian M. Clark is a writer, avocational musician and a curator of music and culture whose record label Discriminate Audio has released a handful of records from his own projects and cult artists over the past couple of decades including career-spanning compilations of and tribute albums to outsider rock and roll legend Ralph Gean and legendary punk and avant-garde pop artist Little Fyodor. Clark grew up in the Bay Area of California and as a youth played in bands and went to shows at 924 Gilman Street and went to school in the University of Oregon in Eugene and studied journalism and art before dropping and and going to school back in the Bay Area and completing a degree in art and Spanish. Around 2003 Clark ended up moving to Denver because of a book project he was undertaking and happened to find a posting for a place to live at a DIY space called Monkey Mania, the renowned venue that was at the time located in the middle and northern end of downtown Denver. Living there for a year before feeling the need for a different living situation, Clark came into contact with the wide array of the underground Denver music world and would go on to more musical projects of his own. In 2011 Clark released an album under his own name Songs From The Empty Places Where People Killed Themselves that is part punk, part noise rock, part noise and a bleakly humorous examination of situations and themes. And in 2023 under the name Unborn Ghost, Clark release the project’s debut album Airs of Contempt and Derision on LP, CD and cassette as well as digital download. The album includes contributions from Ralph Gean, Little Fyodor and others. Per Clark’s unorthodox musical proclivities the album is an eclectic blend of post-punk, psychedelic noise rock and experimental electronic soundscapes that capture some of the current American zeitgeist.

Listen to our interview with Brian M. Clark on Bandcamp and connect with Clark at the links below.

discriminateaudio.com

brianmclark.com

Queen City Sounds Podcast S3E41: Comateens

Comateens were a pioneering synth-punk band in NYC when it formed in 1978 when guitarist Ramona Jan and drummer Nicholas “Nic North” Dembling brought together the latter’s more straight ahead rock and pop musicianship and the former’s self-taught, experimental instincts. The group didn’t fit in so much with the other punk bands of the day because it was so different and it traveled in a bit different social circles so its sound wasn’t truly impacted by other groups. Jan was working at the Mediasound studio as an audio engineer as one of a very few women engineers in the world. The job would lead her to a lifetime career in audio engineering and production and working with the likes of Brian Eno, Talking Heads, Ramones (“Ramona” was written about her) and countless others. Jan left rhe band in 1980 and it continued through the mid-80s leaving behind three full-length albums. 2023 sees the release of a limited 12-inch (90 copies on orange vinyl and 200 on black on Left For Dead Records) of early single “Danger Zone” and the unreleased track “Elizabeth’s Lover” both of which feature the early lineup. The music in retrospect sounds like a more forward thinking example of early New Wave with synth used in a way in the songwriting that wasn’t as common until the 1980s placing Comateens ahead of its time. In this interview Jan and Dembling discuss the origins of the band and how it was a happy accident of not knowing or being told the proper way to make the band work as well as some of Jan’s time working with Eno.

Listen to our interview with Ramona Jan and Nicholas “Nic North” Dembling on Bandcamp and connect with Comateens at the links below where you can also find where to order the vinyl and/or digital download.

leftfordeadrecords.com

Left For Dead Records on Instagram

Left For Dead Records on Facebook

comat e ens.com

Comateens on Wikipedia

Queen City Sounds Podcast S3E40: Danny Stewart of Pete’s 9mm Rec hords

Danny Stewart runs Pete’s 9mm Rec hords and in 2022 and 2023 he has issued the first two volumes of Colorado Springs Underground 1983-1994. Stewart grew up Southern California and came of age around the time of the heyday of Los Angeles punk and experienced some of those shows and that culture firsthand in the early 80s. By his late teens, Stewart’s mom moved to Colorado Springs in time for his senior year of high school but there he found his people albeit in smaller numbers and became involved in the underground music world in the city and at times with voyages north into Denver and beyond. While still in Los Angeles, Stewart was involved in a garage rock/punk band in that Sonics vein called Incest Cattle. In the Springs he played in various bands including Night Gallery and Idle Hands before relocating back to California for several years and returning to Colorado in recent years. He currently plays in Glass Parade and cover band #1 Crush.

At some point Stewart realized he had access to several recordings from bands in the period covered by the compilations and the ability to master them for vinyl and set about assembling a collection of songs documenting a time in a place that would largely be otherwise forgotten. The songs on both volumes of the compilation thus far reveal that the Springs didn’t just have quality punk bands but a broad spectrum of rock and experimental music with a metal song or two included. Which is a feature of the eclectic and rich music scene in the city to this day. The compilations are available as digital downloads on Bandcamp, linked below, where you can also purchase the limited vinyl editions as well.

Listen to our interview with Danny Stewart on Bandcamp in which we talk about his youth in punk and in Colorado Springs as well as how the compilations came together.

Pete’s 9mm Rec hords on Bandcamp

Queen City Sounds Podcast S3E38: Benjamin Jayne

Benjamin Jayne, photo by Benjamin Wright

Benjamin Jayne is the musical project of Benjamin Wright based in Brattleboro, Vermont. On the 2019 debut album HI-LO the songwriting might be characterized as an introspective, gentle folk rock. For the follow-up 2021’s Theater introduced more electronic elements to craft the moody and thought provoking songs and included extensive contributions from Wright’s sister Amanda Wright in vocals, piano and bells as well as one of her own compositions. Since the start of Benjamin Jayne, Wright has enlisted the services of Drew Skinner for mixing and production including on the new album Broken (released October 13, 2023). The music for Broken is darker and heavier befitting the subjects of trying to reconciling who people are in comparison to who they remember themselves to be and the cognitive dissonance and distance we can experience as we try to come to terms with it all and how we want to live and be going forward.

Listen to our interview with Benjamin Wright on Bandcamp and follow Benjamin Jayne at the links below.

benjaminjayne.com

Benjamin Jayne on TikTok

Benjamin Jayne on Instagram

Queen City Sounds Podcast S3E37: Sadie Dupuis of Speedy Ortiz

Speedy Ortiz started as a solo project for guitarist/singer Sadie Dupuis but expanded to a full band in 2011 that has gone on to release three EPs and four full-length albums including 2023’s Rabbit Rabbit. From the beginning Dupuis, also a visual artist, has done a most of the artwork for the band including its album covers and thus one gets a unique and personal aesthetic and perspective from the band’s music that has thankfully made its music challenging to pigeonhole outside of the umbrella term of indie rock. But there is also something immediately accessible about the pop songcraft and poetically and often cleverly observed lyrics that has set the project apart from artists more content with following an established style popular at any given moment. In October 2023 Rolling Stone magazine released a list of “The 250 Greatest Guitarists of All Time” where Dupuis charted at 176. And a quick listen to any of the band’s records reveals that Dupuis while an imaginative artist in her songwriting is also technically gifted musician who channels that talent into songs that come from the heart. Rabbit Rabbit is an album that explores various themes including survival mechanisms, those behaviors many of us undertake to get us through challenging times in our lives some of which we may not be consciously aware of adopting and which can affect us for much of the rest of our lives. And becoming aware of these patterns gives us some ability to guide our lives in ways we really want so that we can live instead of settling for mere survival. Its a complex and emotionally rich album that is also not short on humor and cultural Easter eggs for the perceptive listener that enrich the full meaning of the songs.

Listen to our interview with Sadie Dupuis on Bandcamp and follow Speedy Ortiz on its website linked below including its current US tour with a stop at Glob Hall in Denver on Thursday, November 16, 2023 with Space Moth and Mr. Atomic, doors 7pm, show 8pm.

speedyortiz.com

Queen City Sounds Podcast S3E36: Mike Baggetta of mssv

Mike Baggetta is the guitarist of mssv, a trio formed in 2019 that includes bassist Mike Watt (Minutemen, The Stooges et. al. ) and drummer Jim Keltner (Harry Nilsson, The Traveling Wilburys, Randy Newman, Bob Dylan, Richard Thompson, Neil Young, Phoebe Bridgers, Elvis Costello and numerous other collaborations). The latter has mostly been a songwriting and recording contributor to the project and veteran drummer Stephen Hodges (Tom Waits, Jonathan Richman, Wanda Jackson etc.) has been the percussionist for most of the band’s tours and now a contributor to the writing and recording music now as well. With the musical pedigree of the band with master musicians the music could be something mostly niche and for academics and the like but there’s a freshness to even the more tranquil passages of music that benefits from the spontaneous aspect of the songwriting and some real punk spirit in the performances. It’s a little like listening to a band that was equally rooted in jazz, angular post-punk and ferocious psychedelic art rock. The band’s new album Human Reaction is now available on 12” vinyl and digital download.

Listen to our interview with Mike Baggetta on Bandcamp and follow mssv at the links below.

mainsteamstopvalve.com