SubmitHub – Queen City Sounds and Art

Bad Flamingo Expands Into Sultry, Synth-Infused Dream Pop on “Velvet”

Bad Flamingo, photo courtesy the artists

Bad Flamingo continues its streak of musical evolution and surprise with its latest single “Velvet.” Not only is there an enigmatic, noir video with grainy visuals like something captured in the 90s on Super-8 or DV but for this song the duo introduces more full use of synth/keyboards to create mood, texture and an emotional resonance that is both reflective, romantic and sultry. The cascading keyboard figure and the spare percussion subtle bass work coupled with vocals that go far wider than the band has typically gone in the past from vibrant lows to soaring highs like Martha Davis from The Motels. It’s more like a dark dream pop New Wave song than some of the more gritty blues pop of a good stretch of the band’s earlier songs yet it preserves the band’s gift for making love sound like a deliciously forbidden but pure and beautiful thing all at once. Watch the video for “Velvet” on YouTube and follow Bad Flamingo at the links below.

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Bad Flamingo on Facebook

Bad Flamingo on Instagram

New Wolves’ Cinematic Folk Single “We Are Crowds” is an Assertion of the Importance of Our Analog, Individual Identities in the Flood of the Techno-Oligarch Agenda

The spare acoustic guitar figure and percussion that introduces New Wolves’ “We Are Crowds” is a fascinating contrast with the falsetto vocals that almost sound more processed than they already are. Like intimate folk and a futuristic ghostly figure working together with some minimal synth flourishes entering the soundscape later in the song. In that way it feels like a cinematic composition almost more than a song with the way the elements sync together and interact. The song is a creative take on the natural desire of the individual to maintain a coherent identity and to stand out in a world where technocratic aspects of society seem to work to undermine the significance of individual lives and perspectives and unique personalities and impose an interchangeability of people into essential insignificance. But the refrain of the song “I want to live” isn’t merely about survival but really living and to embrace what that means for each of us and not as a statistic in an algorithm in which only the oligarchy has actual agency. It’s not an aggressive song, in fact it is gentle in its energies, but it is a song about resistance to the process of making the bulk of us anonymous and, to employ an older parlance, cogs in a world machine. After all, all collectives are comprised of individuals who should value their own existence and unique contribution to the whole. Listen to “We Are Crowds” on Spotify and follow New Wolves at the links provided.

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eeMKay Glitches Reality on Psychedelic Lo-Fi Glitch Trap Single “BIGGER PICTURE”

“BIGGER PICTURE” sounds like listening to collaborators coming together contributing layers of production and vocals in real time. Trap beats, distorted synths, scratchy swells, rapping processed in dub style delay with a short echo. It’s like being surrounded by maximalist lo-fi music with rapid builds of rhythm that release into open space and loop back into the flow of the song. There is no immediate musical reference point that could be made which is the appeal of the song because while it has familiar elements they are used in a way that comes off psychedelic and hypnotic and unlike much of what one hears in hip-hop outside of artists operating in the realm of experimental glitch but with more inventive and left field beats. Listen to “BIGGER PICTURE” on Instagram and follow eeMKay at the links provided.

“BIGGER PICTURE” on Instagram

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MAARA HERZ Bursts Through the Haze of Late Capitalism’s Attention Economy to Reassert Authentic Identity on Glitch IDM Song “IS IT POSSIBLE?”

“IS IT POSSIBLE?” with its unorthodox production and vocal processing sounds like MAARA HERZ is slipping in and out of time going forwards and back glitching out of normal space. It begins with a low, swelling drone but almost immediately it sounds like sounds were punched in and manipulated to sound like they’re going in reverse but work as a disorienting element in real time. The vocals too sound manipulated so that the words sound even more strained than the lyrics suggest. The song seems to be about struggling to hold on and function in the “regular” world and not get lost in the endless wash of demands on your time and your psyche in late capitalism. The song’s chopped and edited together sound like a signal sputtering and reassembling itself into some kind of coherence in spite of interference of its original transmission is a perfect embodiment of the song’s message and an eerily accurate cognate of how it can feel deeply trying to get through life with your psyche intact these days. Listen to “IS IT POSSIBLE?” on Spotify. The new MAARA HERTZ album 2201 released March 13, 2026.

Saint Kitten’s Moody Yet Liberating “Stay” is a Song About Casting Off the Comforts of Familiarity and Misplaced Nostalgia and Pursing the Fulfillment of Your Dreams

Saint Kitten’s “Stay” begins with a murky and creeping with a spare and resonant bass line accenting her vocal lines that seem to be about taking an assessment about a place and a life one is leaving for new opportunities and and the life you want rather than the one you have settled a bit into even when as it doesn’t serve your dreams. The song addresses the way comfort in familiarity can have a seductive effect on your mind coaxing you into a world and life you already know. The past can be a mixed influence as something that shapes us and perhaps puts a limit on our potential if we let it. The lens of nostalgia can cause us to view situations and experiences more romantically than is warranted. The song itself picks up pace and the fogginess of reverie clears and the words become simpler and repeat as though pushing through the tendrils of one’s old life to something perhaps uncertain but with more potential to fulfill dreams buried or smudged over by habit, routine and self-imposed sense of tradition. At turns minimalist and moody and orchestral the song doesn’t bear immediate comparisons to other artists but fans of late 90s Einstürzende Neubauten and Jenny Hval may appreciate the tones and moods of the song. Listen to “Stay” on YouTube and follow Saint Kitten at the links below.

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Piper Connolly’s “beautiful life” is a Song About Accepting the Good Things Coming Into Your Life Rather Than Run From Them

Piper Connolly, photo courtesy the artist

The quasi-fantastical opening scene of the music video for Piper Connolly’s infectiously upbeat single “beautiful life” (directed by Kev Creature) fits the whimsical tone of the song. Connolly answers a pink rotary phone on the side of a desert highway before getting in the convertible that pulls up with her bandmates. The song ramps up to a celebratory bit about an unexpected love that brings to her other unexpected joys including possibly getting into a band she had previously thought was overrated. The spirited “hey” at the beginning of every chorus is practically designed for audience participation and the song itself is basically about accepting something good into your life when it presents itself to you without having to complicate it with internal barriers that don’t serve where you are now. It’s a reminder to embrace possible happiness rather than push it aside. Watch the video for “beautiful life” on YouTube and follow Piper Connolly at the links provided.

Piper Connolly on Facebook

Piper Connolly on Instagram

Dren’s Pastoral Cosmic Art Folk Single “Fading” Features Soulful Vocals From Sophia James

Dren’s new single “Fading” features soulful vocals from Sophia James. The music video of a flower developing and blooming pairs well with a song that has in the background an evolving harmonic drone and bass pulse with the vocals in the foreground almost traced by a repeating guitar figure like scaffolding for James to dance elegantly about with her voice in modes both intimate and soaring. Hearing the emotional character of the song its reminiscent of an unlike collaboration between Tindersticks and Cocteau Twins with Jeff Buckley arranging. It has an enigmatic quality like taking a journey into a mystical internal space with imagery that combines organic structure with mythical symbolism of human beings brushing with diving inspiration and gleaning bits of eternal wisdom from an experience that communicates in methods that don’t have a direct analog to human language but which we can comprehend and express through art and music meanings that approximate knowledge just out of reach standard vocabularies of transmitting information. In that way the song is like a dream that feels like something we’ve experienced but is best experienced as something felt rather than something fully understood with linear logic. If genre tags need be used to convey how this song might appeal sure it’s sort of dream pop folk and art rock in a modern classical mode yet a piece of music that resonates with the listener on its own accessible terms. Watch the video for “Fading” on YouTube and follow Dren McDonald at the links below. The new Dren McDonald album Vox Pterous releases July 31, 2026 via Appearing Records.

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Dren McDonald on Bandcamp

Head Full of Stars Elegantly Express a Sense of Loss and of Being Lost on Elegant Shoegaze Single “Burning Hearts”

Head Full of Stars, photo courtesy the artists

“Burning Hearts” starts out quietly and gently fitting its subject matter of loss and being haunted by the presence and memories of the people who are no longer with us but whose influence on us lingers. The song by Head Full of Stars is flowing with strong melodies that flow and soar and stir the emotions as the song takes off into the far reaches of the psyche while remaining grounded in an emotional immediacy. One might think of the song as psychedelic rock or shoegaze but of the variety more akin to Low and that band’s focus on songcraft as a vehicle for embodying emotion and exploring the essence of what we feel rather than getting a little trippy and rocking out. There is an economy to the songwriting here that honors what it truly feels like to lose people and also feel a little lost yourself in the wake of that loss as you try to make sense of a world without the physical existence of those closest to you. Listen to “Burning Hearts” on YouTube and follow Head Full of Stars which includes former Sky Cries Mary member William Bernhard at the links below.

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Head Full of Stars on Bandcamp

atmos bloom’s Tender Dream Pop Single “Everything” is a Warmly Rendered Soundtrack to Hopeful Reflection

The uplifting, delicate energy of “Everything” accompanied by the music video with layers of cityscapes with the band atmos bloom superimposed over it, or vice versa, feels like a soundtrack to hopeful reflection. The guitar leads seem to dance over a buoyant rhythm even in the more melancholic and meditative moments. Tilda Gratton’s vocals seem to switch with complete facility between vulnerable and warm and yearning and urgent all with a delicacy of feeling that is accented and anchored by a minimal but comfortingly ever present bass line locked in with percussion that expertly guides the moods of the song with its pacing. The melodic shift in the last third of the song with a little more grit in an otherwise fairly ethereal song for just a few moments truly sets this song apart from a standard modern dream pop song. Watch the video for “Everything” on YouTube and follow London’s atmos bloom at the links provided.

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AUTORHYTHM’s Retrofuturist Krautrock Pop Single “Symmetry” is Imbued With an Intense Sense of Hope

AUTORHYTHM in bed making music. New album Self Help Manual out 2026.

Joakim Forsgren as AUTORHYTHM appears to have tapped simultaneously into the explorative end of 1970s electronic Krautrock and late 70s power-pop on “Symmetry.” Tones zip by, resonate, fade out, zip in and flare and trace a sonic landscape anchored by a minimal electronic percussion rhythm that resonates in the brain with both “Autobahn” and “My Sharona” and that’s a combination that shouldn’t work but it does. It feels playful and like the soundtrack to a Rudy Rucker novel in that it sounds both retro and futuristic like its channeling the energy of a utopian future as imagined in the 1970s that actually manifested in the present rather than the dystopian, oligarch dominated global order we’re experiencing now. In that fashion it’s an intensely hopeful work. Listen to “Symmetry” on Spotify and follow AUTORHYTHM at the links provided. The project’s sophomore album Self Help Manual released May 29, 2026.