SubmitHub – Page 103 – Queen City Sounds and Art

“Too Long” by Graphinity is a Melancholic Hip-Hop Song About Leaning Into Feeling the Hurt of Heartbreak

Graphinity eases into “Too Long” with some lo-fi moody guitar work that loops throughout the song and helps to maintain a melancholic spirit befitting the vivid tale of heartbreak. The song is one of a modern relationship with references to electronic communication and social media accounts like Tumblr through which we get a glimpse, at best, into the lives of others when we can’t be around them. The level of details feels very real here even if there’s any consolidation of experiences informing the songwriting like how our narrator bonds with the object of his affection over things like being an older sibling and being a flawed person who accepts those flaws in others only to find that the level of understanding and devotion he’s brought to the situation isn’t returned. He feels like he’s given so much of himself but in the end maybe he’s chosen to connect with someone who isn’t interested after all and that the emotional investment they shared didn’t seem to mean as much and he feels hurt and lost in the end. We hear some anger and resentment in the song but mostly it’s just the hurt and the raw vulnerability in being so confessional about where things sit and beyond the bitterness a willingness to accept that hurt as a genuine feeling and one that is better to feel in full rather than bury it in a secret place in the psyche. Listen to “Too Long” on Spotify and follow Graphinity at the links provided.

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Purple Decades’ “Geometry” is the Sound of the Tranquility of Unstructured Time

Purple Decades, photo courtesy the artist

In a series of repeating hazy swells that never seems repetitive, Purple Decades’ “Geometry” sounds like what it would be like to be able to lay back onto thermal drifts into a warm sunset. As you float leisurely over waters reflecting the waning sun in purples and vibrant orange off the waves of the tide coming into shore your mind eases out of the mundane concerns that dominate your life and you enter into a mode of pure feeling and acceptance of a tranquility that can’t exist if you’re always at the beck and call of the immersive demands of economy as we generally live in modern life. And for several moments you can remember that living doesn’t mean surrendering and subjecting every moment to and thought and feeling to how it can be monetized and that it is possible to let that mentality go and imagine and even make a world where you can not just indulge but encourage unstructured time for everyone at their own pace and have a society where not everything is aimed at commerce and an unending rat race. Listen to “Geometry” on Bandcamp and follow Purple Decades at the links below.

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YUNGMORPHEUS Chooses Integrity and Living According to One’s Moral Compass on “Distant Place”

“Distant Place” finds YUNGMORPHEUS dabbling into the similar realms of intuitive musical spaces that Flying Lotus dipped into in terms of the seemingly casual flow of jazz samples and tightly syncopated drums with impressionistic vocals that seem to tell the story of a guy who had to get out of realms of work and life situations that required compromising one’s integrity. It sounds like the kind of music you’d want to hear if you got off a New York subway late in the evening but not ready to go home and stumbled into a residency of a hip-hop crew that’s doing something rooted in classic style and experimentation and inspired by the likes of A Tribe Called Quest and Cannibal Ox. Listen to “Distant Place” on Spotify and follow YUNGMORPHEUS at the links below. The project’s new EP Burnished Sums dropped on November 18, 2022.

Alicia Clara Leaves Behind the Extended Neglect of Her Dreams and Her Joy on “I Let My Plant Die”

Alicia Clara evokes a sense of memory on “I Let My Plant Die” that is more revelatory rather than tinged by the romanticizing lens of typical nostalgia. The soft yet effervescent synth tones paired with gently strummed guitar and the intimate sound of Clara’s vocals cast as though simultaneously writing a diary entry and conveying a personal secret convey a sense of daydreams as a path out of the limitations of the life to which one has grown accustomed. Alix Bortoli’s treatment of the song looks like a camcorder record of summertime adventures that are part of memory and an anticipated future reality. At least if one can break free of the stasis of winter. Is it a parable for the pandemic especially with the titular line “I let my plant die waiting fr spring/But March never really came”? Perhaps not but the song comes off like a pop song version of hypnotic suggestion to tease one into the habits and patterns that lead out of being bogged down by a headspace that keeps you trapped in the same circles that stifle the natural forward momentum of life and ways of living that have become rote even when they don’t fully serve living fully. The metaphor of letting one’s plant die as neglecting your dreams and your joy could have been a bit on the nose but here it seems poetic. Watch the video for “I Let My Plant Die” on YouTube and follow Alicia Clara at the links below. Here new EP Velveteen released on October 28, 2022 (Hot Tramp Records).

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BATTS Embraces the Art of Patience in Making it Through Life’s Melancholic Downturns on “Linger”

BATTS has often incorporated elements of space exploration in her earlier music. But for “Linger” featuring contributions from Deep Sea Diver there is a tender and rooted quality to the songwriting that is suited to its themes of a relationship on the rocks complicated by depression and the ways one can pull oneself out of that dark pit of the psyche and have any hope of repairing the bond through reconnecting with the things that made things work. Only to find out even those things aren’t having the effects they once did. But BATTS seems to sense that often being patient through these particularly low points and not acting on the impulses of a diminished capacity for vibrant emotional response can be the only way to get through. The lonely keyboard work in the beginning slowly blooms into a rush of sounds and feeling when joined by piano and the pulse of electronic bass and Deep Sea Diver’s backing vocals. This swell of sonics is like a hint of better times ahead that seem impossible in the moment and the song works on that level while honoring the feelings of being on the bottom end of things. Listen to “Linger” on Spotify and connect with BATTS at the links provided.

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Elegy’s Jangle Pop Single “Mississippi” is a Song For Anyone That Has Ever Felt Penned in by All Too Familiar Places

As Elegy’s “Mississippi” begins one is reminded of classic 1980s power pop with the guitar jangle and vocals that are strong on emotion and texture if slightly rough around the edges in a way that is often more compelling than something more in the pocket of mainstream pop. The title of the song suggests it might be about a place but really the song is about a memory that a place may bring strongly to mind. This one about a time long ago about a time when someone you once trusted betrayed it by working to get you to question yourself and your own self-worth and the spirited resistance to that kind of behavior. It’s a song in which a certain place brings back these memories and ties it to a sense of needing to break free of old habits, patterns and associations in order to live with joy and integrity. Fans of records produced by Mitch Easter will appreciate the feel and songwriting style and how it transcends the specificity of time and place and speaks to relatable experiences for anyone who has felt like the place they’re from is too small and provincial whether in the titular Mississippi or New York. Listen to “Mississippi” on YouTube and follow Elegy at the links below.

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Unwed Sailor’s Exuberant and Bright “Windy City Dreams” Points to New Sonic Directions for the 2023 Album Mute the Charm

“Windy City Dreams” is the lead track from Unwed Sailor’s forthcoming album Mute the Charm (2023, Spartan Records) and it points to the stylistically divergent direction of the new record. Its brisk pace and layers of spiraling guitar melody over pulsing bass lines and finely syncopated percussion is brightened by subtle synth tones that drift in and out like the sunlight on a bright but partly cloudy and yes windy day. As the song progresses the instrumentation coalesces into blooms that strike nearly discordant shapes like a brief flurry before landing back into an exuberant forward path. It’s the kind of song that feels like Unwed Sailor is forging a new creative path beyond the captivating post-rock and organic ambient style that many fans of the band may know. Listen to “Windy City Dreams” on YouTube and follow the Seattle-based band Unwed Sailor at the links below.

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Atomic Blonde Casts Off the Dynamics of a Toxic Relationship on “You Became God”

Atomic Blonde, photo courtesy the artist

Atomic Blonde’s confessional and insightful “You Became God” contrasts the singer’s vulnerable and ethereal yet present vocals with piano work and electronic melodies produced so as to sound like music from a time of life long ago. The lyrics go into how one can become lost in a relationship particularly on in which one is encouraged in perhaps one’s own inclinations to put the other person on a pedestal. The opening line “Obsessed with how unhealthy this is” hints at an awareness of how the relationship was dysfunctional from the beginning. But that can seem romantic when you figure you can work through these things. But throughout the song there is a narrative of an awakening to manipulation and how a narcissist can seem charming at first and make you feel like you’re valued until what you have to offer is deemed not enough and in the end there is nothing there but the mind games and emotional trauma as manipulation and neglect. The final lines, repeated, “Oooo, you sang the song of angels/And I, I fell for the devil” speak directly to this dynamic that leaves many people emotionally scarred for years but that recognition cast in those emotional and mythical terms erodes the appeal of such bonds hopefully going forward and beyond the kind of relationship that inspired the song. Listen to “You Became God” on Spotify and follow Atomic Blonde at the links below.

Atomic Blonde on TikTok

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Day Spa Navigate the Dark Waters of Personal History and Conflicted Feelings of an Entrenched Relationship on the Downtempo “Sea”

Day Spa begin “Sea” with a bit of production manipulation of sounds to give a sense of recursive motion in reverse delay. It sets a mood like the rest of the song is going to enter into phrases of deep reflection. When the vocals begin there is a touch of spare organic percussion, like taking a bit of tongue click and wood block strikes and slicing them into the track so that they are like dots upon which the melodic drift of the song can hang. Spare piano sits back though lending tonal contrast as Julius Gibson and Esther Rose deliver a song about internal struggles that impact a relationship including knowing when is the best time to let go despite habits, conflicted feelings and confusion and not wanting to go it alone. But in the soulful vocals and deep dive into sorting out the details that can weigh on your mind and cloud one’s judgment Day Spa use the darkly mysterious atmospherics of the song to help bring emotional clarity with an emotional honesty mindful of the hurt feelings and sensitive spots. In navigating these twists and turns of the heart, Day Spa arrive at the necessary conclusion with what feels like being true to oneself rather than a decision made out of expediency and cruel haste. Listen to “Sea” on Spotify and follow Day Spa at the links below.

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Wizard Death’s “intro” is Like a Light-Filled Journey to a Realm of Pure Relaxation

Wizard Death doesn’t demand much of your time with “intro.” The track lasting just one minute fifty employs samples of bird sound to establish a wide sense of space while finely syncopated electronic percussion provide the pacing and forward texture as bell tones seem to luminesce in sequence to suggest motion in melody that floats with a sense of expansive and uplifting moods with a gentle momentum. Like being carried in a mystical conveyance of pure energy that takes you from everyday life to realms of relaxation and nourishment. Listen to “intro” on YouTube and follow Los Angeles-based composer Wizard Death at the links provided.