SubmitHub – Page 12 – Queen City Sounds and Art

The Double Headed Seagull Captures the Joy of Newly Sentient Communication on Ambient IDM Single “Play Artful”

The Double Headed Seagull, photo courtesy the artist

The title track to The Double Headed Seagulls’ new EP Play Artful (released August 28, 2025) composer Dave Wirth’s keen ear for melding melody with rhythm and texture in a continuous flow that eases and stimulates the mind at once. It sounds like music boxes attained intelligence and learned to communicate with each other via electrical wires in on the process of communication in a collective, harmonious process in which every entity involved contributes to a dynamic sound that reflects a joyful spirit sustained for the track’s two minute and thirty-seven seconds run time. Tones pulse slowly, a background wave of low end comes to the foreground in pleasing pulses and the simple but jaunty percussive sounds buoy the energy of all the other elements for a net effect of a gentle momentum that feels like a completion of some kind of journey at the end and arriving at your destination at ease. Listen to “Play Artful” on Spotify and follow The Double Headed Seagull at the links below.

Dave Wirth on IMDB

Editrix Embodies the Tantalizing Tension and Apprehensions of Romantic and Physical Desire on Art Punk Single “Flesh Debt”

Editrix builds slow tension with “Flesh Debt.” Suitable for a song about romantic desire and where that intersects with its physical expression. But also how one can often feel apprehension of letting those desires overwhelm your better instincts in order to fully indulge those feelings and acting upon them. Of course the consequences of it all. The angular rhythms, guitar harmonics and almost sing-song-y vocals and the push and pull of the song dynamics and its shift in maintaining higher guitar tones over the finely-arranged low end keeps you in the song until it turns into almost a thrash song toward the end for a few passages but transitioning quickly into a math-rock/jazz-inflected bit of sonic intensity that is reminiscent of FACS at its most chaotic yet covertly controlled. Listen to “Flesh Debt” on YouTube and follow Massachusetts-based post-punk band Editrix at the links provided. The group released its latest album
The Big E July 25, 2025 via Joyful Noise.

Editrix on Apple Music

Editrix on Twitter

Editrix on Instagram

Editrix on Bandcamp

Scatterbrain’s Hip-Hop Punk Debut “Switch” is a Poignant Look at the Joys and Compromises of Choosing to Live a Creative Life Versus Going Into the Straight World

Scatterbrain, photo courtesy the artists

Scatterbrain is a project that includes rapper Grip, Mallbangs and the rhythm section of Grouplove and its debut release is “Switch” recorded live at Big Trouble. The charismatic performance speaks for itself as does the unexpected chemistry of styles present with Grip’s vocals having a hip-hop cadence but more punk style. The lyrics delve into the choices and compromises one makes in life that have various consequences. Initially the lyrics are about people going into straight jobs and being successful in conventional terms of having mortgages, children and stable and ample incomes and how our narrator has “drunken nights/Hotel rooms and red eye flights.” A whimsical and sardonic “Hooray” punctuates lines and then we got to the lyrics where it’s admitted that maybe this life of an artist has its undeniable rewards that someone who is more beholden to a more scripted life will never fully know. But also there’s something to be said about not being behind on bills and the ramification of being so can have on your everyday life. The song juxtaposes and plays with these contrasts of lifestyle in succinct and poignant manner that ends on a hopeful note for the creative life, “I still got miles and miles to go/Can’t stay this low forever.” Because everyone has miles and miles to go and even if they think they have things under control and streamlined and you think you know what to expect, including with people who struggle more with everyday mundane concerns, life doesn’t always work out to stay that course. The song is a tacit nod to how everyone’s life has its ups and downs. Watch the video for “Switch” on YouTube and follow Scatterbrain on Instagram.

THISFAR’s Tense Yet Soothing Downtempo Single “Leave Me and Go” Speaks to the Ambient Resignation and Anxieties of Living in a War Torn Nation

Ukrainian band THISFAR accompanies its low key, downtempo single “Leave Me and Go” with a music video that looks like someone shooting footage while driving by a sun-drenched morning countryside with a windmill in the distance. The quiet vocals are above a whisper but sung in confidence like one would if you felt like you had to be covert in your actions and speech. The kind of tentative energy that can overtake one’s everyday habits when you’re living through an active war, as in Ukraine, or perilous times in your life. The pulsing drone that begins the song over a simple beat as slightly sparkling harmonics ease into the soundscape establishing a dream-like mood reflecting on tough times. Though the references are obvious it’s the kind of song that would work for a post-apocalyptic film set in a more realistic scenario, the kind Ukraine and plenty of other war torn places in the world have been facing and continue to do so. The song has a gentle touch but an emotional intensity that keeps you hooked in throughout. Watch the video for “Leave Me And Go,” the title for which hits hard in the song, on YouTube and follow THISFAR on Spotify.

Reiyo The Giant’s Hyper Pop Song “The Show Must Go On” is Otherworldly Downtempo for Fans of Glitchcore

Reiyo The Giant, photo courtesy the artist

Reiyo The Giant demonstrates a facility with delicate yet soulful vocal power on “The Show Must Go On.” The song begins like a post-Crystal Castles hyper pop song that flows into being carried hefty, big beat rhythms. But the arrangement of the song deftly drops off all low end so that the unconventional melody commands with its drift through nearly silence like the moon rapidly progressing through the sky. But the irresistible rhythm returns to accent the end of the song as it slows down into a paradoxically rapid chillout into silence. It’s the kind of song that at 3 minutes one second feels too short yet takes the listener through a full emotional arc of exuberance and post-performance tranquility. Listen to “The Show Must Go On’ on YouTube and follow Reiyo The Giant at the links below.

Reiyo The Giant on Instagram

Cartamira’s Downtempo Synth Pop Single “Look at Me” Captures the Yearning Hopefulness of Unrequited Love

Cartamira’s “Look at Me” is a downtempo pop song about unrequited love and yearning. In evoking these feelings it captures the emotional intensity of that headspace and how you can feel like you’re perpetually in an unresolved dream and sitting between hopeful and resigned melancholy. Musically the song utilizes light dance beats and luminous and lush melodic, lingering chords to frame vocals processed to be slightly out of phase with everyday reality. It enhances the sense of floating between fascination and a blind hope for connection and recognition that may or may not manifest. Watch the video for “Look at Me” on YouTube and follow the Italian experimental pop project Cartamira at the links provided.

Cartamira on Apple Music

Cartamira on Facebook

Cartamira on Instagram

Cartamira on Bandcamp

lylyn’s IDM Single “4m Hiero” Flows From Digital to Analog Sounds and Back in its Sparkling Evocation of Joy

“4m Hiero” sounds like something constantly unfolding in chapters. On this track lynlyn seems to cernter each section around a tone that expands and blossoms carried by finely accented rhythms. The song slowly accelerates and then pulls back to passages with an aspect of reflection, floating without the rhythm propelling the atmospherics forward, allowed to drift in space. In the video companion we see the visual representation of this with images more rounded before the rhythm reasserts itself in the end into a more angular, digital representation although like a fractal that freely dissolves and takes on coherence to match the beat. By the song’s end it all fades to a restful abstraction. The song is part of lylyn’s new IDM-adjacent album Ixona due out September 5, 2025 on digital, CD and LP. Watch the video for “4m Hiero” on YouTube and follow lynlyn at the links below.

lynlyn on Instagram

lynlyn on Bandcamp

S.C.A.B.’s Warmly Melancholic “4th of July” is a Song About Lingering and Unresolved Affection

S.C.A.B. seems to be in a mode of writing songs about complex and nuanced moments in relationships. Its single “4th of July” has melancholic yet warm, splayed, expanding guitar work with each riff trailing off before repeating like a persistent lingering memory of someone that unravels into an unresolved moment in the end. It’s a perfect dynamic for capturing the essence of a relationship that feels so intense and close in moments but in which each person withdraws even as they yearn for each other because the connection seems so special. The song’s conclusion actually leaves you wondering how the story ends. Listen to “4th of July” on YouTube and follow S.C.A.B. at the links provided.

S.C.A.B. on Twitter

S.C.A.B. on Facebook

S.C.A.B. on Instagram

S.C.A.B. on Bandcamp

Mary Middlefield Indulges in the Joys of a Casual Romance on “Summer Affair”

Mary Middlefield, photo courtesy the artist

Mary Middlefield looks like she’s frolicking at some kind of adult summer camp in the video for “Summer Affair” including a rope swing and a hedgerow pathway. The song and its luminous melody and lively energy is a full embrace of following wherever one’s impulses take one emotionally and spending time indulging hedonistic pursuits of all kinds with someone of choice and take those moments for what they are and not imbuing them with more significance than appropriate. Sometimes you end up in a short term relationship with someone for fun and then it stops being as fun and then as the song suggests maybe you’ve had a second thought about that person with whom you had some light fun and an enjoyable dalliance. Will it lead to more? Does it have to? Middlefield seems content to not have to have those questions answered after all not all relationships need to lead to a serious or forever situation and better off as something casual. Watch the video for “Summer Affair” on YouTube and follow Mary Middlefield at the links below.

Mary Middlefield on TikTok

Mary Middlefield on Instagram

Tim Car’s Low Key Chillwave Single “Pleasure Drives” is a Song About the Joys of Traveling Without Having to Have a Set Destination

Tim Carr’s hazy backdrop, minimalist percussion and introspective vocals on “Pleasure Drives” sounds like an even more lo-fi chillwave celebration of the charms of being able to get in a car and head to no destination in particular. This is not the emotional disconnect and alienation depicted in Gary Numan’s “Cars,” this is more the relaxing and escapist possibilities of driving without an agenda but taking in some of your favorite tunes while your mind wanders in the realm of putting behind you the immediate context of the sources of any anxiety and taking some time to forget about it all while your focus is on the road ahead. It’s definitely a phenomenon not just of decades past but of the present if you’re in a place where you can go some distance and have the option of turning back easily if you’ve sufficiently unraveled what’s unsettling your mind. Driving for pleasure is not as cheap as it once was and most cities don’t have a lot at the edges that don’t seem completely taken over by private equity firm development but you can still take those rides on your terms. It’s a lower key work for the songwriter whose tonally rich synth pop is transporting, but this song accomplishes much the same with a different sound palette that feels like its marking the miles between you and more familiar environs with a relaxed but direct pacing. Listen to “Pleasure Drives” on YouTube and connect with Tim Car at the links below.