SubmitHub – Page 102 – Queen City Sounds and Art

Good Grim’s Video for “Idiot” is a Surreal Yet Poignant Exploration of Love, Tragedy and Acceptance

Don’t mind that the video for “Idiot” looks like something that could have been a segment on Wonder Showzen with the woman in a romance with a giant white rabbit with blue eyes that seems to become perilously ill early into the relationship. This surreal visual is a perfect and poignant companion to a song seemingly about heartache, tragedy, loss and redemption. Its lush melodies and processional pace comes off like music from a dream where the sometimes nightmarish realities of real life turn out okay for real and where happy endings don’t have to be the stuff of fairy tales and movies. It is deeply hopeful and soothing even though the music video depicts the challenging realities that will visit us all at some point in our lives but which we can handle while feeling all of those painful emotions and not be sundered by them. Good Grim’s 2022 album Enchantment seems rich on songs that take heavy experiences and sets them to music that soften the blow without watering down the emotions. Watch the video for “Idiot” on YouTube and connect with Good Grim at the links provided.

Good Grim on Facebook

Good Grim on Instagram

Good Grim on Apple Music

Rival Consoles Gives Us a Taste of Leisurely Travel on an Alien World With Cinematic Synth Song “Running”

Rival Consoles seem to channel a retro science fiction film aesthetic with “Running” from its new album Now Is (which released on October 14, 2022 via Erased Tapes). The steady, accented beat and the rapid, angular echoes of tone and bright melodic cast convey a sense of motion with distorted white noise streaking like wind. One imagines large empty spaces on a distant planet long lightly colonized with small urban areas connected by conveyances that leave one with the leisure time to take in and be impacted by the environment. Composer Ryan Lee West imbues the track with a textural component in the rhythm as more ethereal drones bubble up and drift off so that one does feel like one is inside a kind of machine that effects travel and captures the complexity of the device and its interaction with the surrounding environment in the arrangements for a holistic listening experience that grounds the music even as it captures what it might be like to spend unstructured time in a peaceful alien world. Now Is is now available digitally and on vinyl and CD. Listen to “Running” on YouTube and follow Rival Consoles at the links below.

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Mardi Lumsden Sings About the Benefits of Reconnecting With the Exuberance of Youth Even When You’ve Settled Into the Habits of Adulthood on “nineteen”

Mardi Lumsden, photo by Jade Ferguson @ Visual Poets Society

The melodic afterglow that flows throughout Mardi Lumsden’s synth pop ballad “nineteen.” It’s the perfect musical framing device that honors both the naivete and romance of being in one’s late teens when a very justified and knowing sense of doubt and nuance turns the black and white of teen feelings and thinking into a more full-fledged emotional spectrum takes hold. Lumsden paints that picture of being nineteen and feeling like you understand everything about love and you are willing to do anything for it or your idea of what that might be because your youthful exuberance is undiluted by life experience. But toward the latter half of the song the lyrics shift to a more adult perspective where you think you’re more sophisticated and have some more perspective under your belt but have somehow lost that everyday exuberance for life, that native excitement over simple things or rather to have that come to you without effort and have it uplift your actions and outlook. There’s something to be learned from this contrast in not romanticizing youth or ossifying into a sense of self defined by your adopted role in society or in the workplace. Lumsden reminds us that staying connected with the ability to be excited is not folly and that appreciating the benefits of learned wisdom isn’t selling out. Listen to “nineteen” on YouTube and follow Mardi Lumsden at the links provided.

Mardi Lumsden on Facebook

Mardi Lumsden on Instagram

In the Haze and Melancholic Intensity of “what kind of mania” suffer fools Creates a Rare Lo-Fi Sense of Mystique

Listening to “what kind of mania” by suffer fools is a bit like catching an enigmatic music video on a mysterious TV station before everything went digital and you’re getting an elusive wave of music that keeps bringing you back even though maybe the reception is snowy and there is some distortion in the reception. In a more modern era it’s like a moody post-punk song but which eschews high fidelity and makes you work for it just a little with few concessions to commercial music considerations beyond the ear worm of a melody and an undeniably powerful mood evoking melancholic feelings of disappointment, conflicted romantic feelings and obsession. The way Times New Viking did its own unique take on punk and lo-fi rock, suffer fools tones down expected notions of sonic fidelity and embraces what some might perceive as production shortcomings. Singer Debbie Debased establishes a concept here that has the hallmarks of the artist’s purported background as a former child star who knows the perils of having one’s life too exposed and on display and the importance of an ever more elusive quality of mystique. In a hyperconnected world where it’s relatively easy to dissect someone’s life and their art and miss the point of what makes creative work compelling by overly focusing on personality and visual aesthetic this song invites the listener in to world of deeply personal heartache as a shared experience through music. Listen to “what kind of mania” on YouTube and follow suffer fools at the links provided.

Debbie Debased on Facebook

suffer fools on Instagram

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suffer fools on Bandcamp

https://open.spotify.com/artist/5hUryrSWX96Pcy5rtw4LbJ

Morhaf Al Alchkar Crafts a Sense of Wonder and Yearning on Arabic Folk Rock Song “Malo Methal”

“Malo Methal” pair’s Morhaf Al Achkar’s percussive oud work with his lively vocals and a touch of flute helping to carry a melody over the top. One hears in Al Achkar’s voice a sense of curiosity, wonder and yearning. The orchestration of the song interweaves the instrumentation while allowing various aspects to shine in moments as rhythms complement each other in a dynamic that feels continuously expansive. The flute accents Al Achkar’s vocals as both counter melody and harmony and in the extended lines mid song there is a sweet spot of emotional resonance that sends the song into quietly transcendent spaces before reeling back into the grounding of oud to the front at song’s end. It’s an example of the beautifully thought-provoking and nuanced compositions to be found on Al Achkar’s album Mabsoota which released on November 4, 2022. Maybe it’s the fact that the musician is a survivor of stage IV lung cancer as of 2016 that gives the music a subtle vitality and intensity in its clear joy and playfulness but the work also speaks for itself in the imagination of its arrangements. Listen to “Malo Methal” on Spotify and follow Al Achkar at the links below.

Morhaf Al Achkar on TikTok

Morhaf Al Achkar on Instagram

Sun Kin Invites Us Into the Mysterious and Wondrous World of the Beaked Whale on Ambient Track “nursery talk”

In the background of Sun Kin’s “nursery talk” you can hear breaths over the dimly luminous tones like distant sunlight beneath the sea. The track comes from Sun Kin’s 2022 release painting whales, part 2, the second in the “Painting Whales” series, and one inspired in part by Ziphindae, the family of beaked whales of which we know very little and who are among the deepest diving of mamals with the Cuvier’s species going down to nearly two miles aka parts of the ocean the human race knows little about. The photo from this installment of the series appears to be one of the whales breaching the waters of the antarctic, a traveler of spaces humans tend to avoid. Sun Kin composer Kabir Kumar expresses the wonder and mystery of these creatures in the music that takes on the form of flowing drones, impressionistic guitar tones and a beatless, informal, intuitive structure that evades the human tendency for seeking organization that has clear lines and separations of self from nature and environment imposing a psychological and cultural meaning that would be alien to a whale. In conveying an approximation of a break from standard pop music forms and even conventions of ambient music, Kumar invites us to try on a way of listening and feeling that may seem otherworldly but which is adopted with ease. Listen to “nursery talk” on Bandcamp and follow Sun Kin at the links provided.

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Sun Kin on Instagram

Rain Carnation Transforms Heartache and Betrayal Into Triumph in the Gloriously Melancholic Haze of “Liar”

Rain Carnation’s “Liar” is saturated with tone and emotion befitting the subject matter. Airy backgrounds and sweeps of distorted synth drones splash and splay into fadeout over the vocals as pulsing electronic bass recalls at once some late 80s synth pop and the chillwave of the late 2000s and early 2010s and the way that music often took painful heartache and soothed it with gorgeously expansive music that seemed to dilute that pain in the streams of outward melody and taking the time to fall back into the comfortable places of your mind to recover with the words speaking your emotional truth brewing and emerging with a forcefulness that former dissociation can no longer repress. Fans of Neon Indian’s Era Extraña (2011) will appreciate the vibes presented in this song. Listen to “Liar” on Soundcloud and connect with Rain Carnation at the links below.

Rain Carnation on Instagram

The Night Agent’s Synth Pop Single “When You Dream” Celebrates the Sweet Anticipation of Romantic Reunion

The Night Agent, photo by Nikola Stankovic

The Night Agent began life when playwright and writer Jacob Hirdwall started releasing music under that moniker in 2020 involving singer and actor Christopher Wollter and guitarist Janne Schaffer (ABBA, Bob Marley, Ted Gärdestad). But in 2022 the trio has assembled with the intention of performing live music. The single “When You Dream” is teeming with bright synth melodies and widely expressive vocals reminiscent in moments of those of Interpol singer Paul Banks. The song is a melancholic yearning for a loved one who is by circumstance far away in distance and time. But the tone is one of mutual reassurance of the inevitable reunion. “When you dream, dream of me,” is the refrain but in a way that is filled with the anticipation of finally connecting again. It’s synth pop sound has resonance with something out of the 80s and with some tasty guitar solo work that enhances the sense of dramatic romance that runs throughout the track. Listen to “When You Dream” on Spotify where you can check out the rest of the debut The Night Agent album Stars Above Us which released on November 18, 2022.

Totem Pocket Exudes the Vibrant Energy of Turning Private Joyful Catharsis Into Expansively Colorful Music With “Keep It In Your Mind”

Totem Pocket, photo courtesy the artists

“Keep It In Your Mind,” the final track on Totem Pocket’s self-titled album that dropped on September 30, 2022 is a maximalist rock summary of what you’re in for in listening to the band and seeing it live. One hears vocals slightly behind the mix like something you’d hear on a Dinosaur Jr record. But there is an orchestration of tones and a swirling and energetic flow of guitar and percussion that in spite of being fairly spirited comes off as introspective. Like it was born of capturing private moments of joy and discovery and the catharsis that comes from being able to give voice to the kinds of feelings one has alone in creating the music. The touchstones are there with the tone bending toward the end of the song like the trailing ends of Loveless and the psychedelic freakout jam when Built To Spill launches into a confessional sprawl of yearning and reaching for connection with something bigger. Somewhere in the architecture of the music one can detect how maybe the members of the band had discovered playing rock music in some style popular among their collective peers but then got so bored with the conformity of that comfort and the fake rewards of adolescent popularity and decided to tumble headlong into more cosmic sonic territory as a palette for expressing genuine feeling. Listen to “Keep It In Your Mind” Bandcamp and follow Denver-based Totem Pocket at the links below.

Totem Pocket on Instagram

12 Ruinas Weave a Deep Sense of Menace and Ambient Horror in the Video for the Dark, Industrial Hip-Hop Song “Como Fue”

Miami-based Cuban rap group 12 Ruinas offer an ominous music video to accompany the sinister-sounds of the song “Como Fue” (“As Was” in English). We see a figure who has driven to a wooded area with a satchel who seems to be looking to find a place to hide or otherwise dispose of the contents. He comes upon a chilling scene of a man who has been bound and gagged. The whole video looks like it was filmed in the early 80s with sepia tones like something a serial killer or the murderer for a gang is using to catalog his misdeeds. And indeed at the end of the video the man with the satchel appears to be finishing off the man who has been left in forest. What was his crime? Perhaps if this writer’s knowledge of Spanish was greater that would be obvious but the dark, industrial synth drone that lurks in the background of the song is undeniably creepy in a way that enhances the rapping that sounds like it’s telling the lurid tale of gangland crime and the dark underbelly of local culture with visuals that are more compelling than most true crime or horror cinema of recent years. Together it creates a deep mood that fans of the recent horror film The Black Phone might appreciate for its grimy tones and unsettling atmosphere. Watch the video for “Como Fue” on YouTube and follow 12 Ruinas at the links below.

12 Ruinas on Instagram