SubmitHub – Page 123 – Queen City Sounds and Art

The Worst Makes the Sudden Realization of One’s Own Role in Undermining Your Life Seem Survivable on “Monomania”

The Worst’s single “Monomania” from its forthcoming second album Yes Regrets (out June 3 on RascalZ RecordZ) combines determined punk rock grit with power pop tunefulness. Singer Brooke Binion often gets compared to Joan Jett for a good reason because she has that sort of forcefulness but tonally her vocals are more reminiscent to these ears of one of Jett’s former bandmates in the Runaways: Lita Ford. The latter even on her more metal solo albums had/has a huskily melodic power in her voice. For the music video Joshua James Hand shows Binion performing on a dimly yet colorfully lit stage juxtaposed to running through fields of snow into a forest as though running from something and getting lost only to find a mirror that stops her in her tracks confronted by the person responsible for that desperate state of things. The song, as the title suggests, is about how we often pursue something thinking it’s what we want and need having convinced ourselves of the viability of that thing because it worked for us before. Specifically the chorus of “you go chasing feelings/you’ll be sorry every time” speaks directly to the cycle of undermining our lives that everyone can find relatable if you’re the kind of person that has a passionate streak. It can be hard to admit to your shortcomings and mistakes but this song by The Worst makes it somehow seem okay and absolutely necessary even if you stumble. Everyone does. Watch the video for “Monomania” on YouTube, follow The Worst at the links below and look out for Yes Regrets out June 3 with production by Will Holland and includes guest drumming from Nikki Glaspie (Beyoncé, The Nth Power) and features members of Morphine, The Distillers and SeepeopleS.

The Worst on Twitter

The Worst on Facebook

The Worst on Instagram

MIYNT’s Psychedelic Dream Pop Song “Lonely Beach” Makes a Good Case for Choosing Loneliness Over a Bad Relationship

“Lonely Beach” finds MIYNT employing a warping and distorted psychedelic melody across guitar, rhythms and pairs it with vocals sounding like something recorded to VHS and then recaptured and boosted. The effect is a sound that is both intimate and raw yet dreamlike. The lead vocals and where it sits with the instrumentation and the ghostly backing vocals is reminiscent of the more jagged aesthetic of Portishead’s “Half Day Closing” in which lo-fi and the sound of a song breaking down slightly and coming back together is made into a beautifully disorienting aspect of the song. But here things don’t go quite off the rails and MIYNT reigns in the chaos and harnesses that kind of energy to create an unconventional pop song about waiting in life for the right person or situation to come along to engage and inspire your heart and then ends with the line “waiting for somebody that you’ll never be” as though an explanation for why things won’t or didn’t work out but doing so in one of the more kind of blunt ways possible. It’s also a song that seems to express the feeling that being lonely can be preferable to settling for someone that doesn’t suit you because that’s essentially choosing to stay lonely while making room for drama and static for the illusion of companionship. Listen to “Lonely Beach” on Spotify and follow MIYNT on Instagram.

Laura Jane Grace Joins Bloods for a Song About an Enthusiastically Affectionate Love on “I Like You”

Laura Jane Grace and Bloods, photo by Chris Bauer

For “I Like You,” Bloods’ latest single from the forthcoming album Together, Baby!, the group tapped the talents of Laura Jane Grace of Against Me! Fame and an obvious influence on the Australian trio. The song has an upbeat momentum and exuberant melodicism of The Breeders. It’s lyrics could apply to a friendship or a romantic relationship in which the bond is especially strong and in which the feeling is not just love but like and there’s a difference but having both at once reinforces those feelings in a way that feels special. Grace comes in during the second stanza with fortifying vocals and in the last part of the song Grace and Bloods trade lines and come together in the end where the song makes perhaps more explicit the type of relationship described with the lins “Not sleeping alone anymore/Never sleeping alone anymore” and the words “You pull me in I pick you up/Now we can stop pretending” that close out the song hits with more poignancy. The song isn’t much over two minutes but it feels like it describes an important relationship with great economy. Listen to “I Like You” on YouTube, look out for Together, Baby! The group’s debut album out September 23 through Share it Music (proceeds from the album going to Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, Australia) and follow Bloods at the links provided.

Bloods on Facebook

Bloods on Twitter

Bloods on Instagram

Cam Maclean’s “Visions” is a Nostalgic and Mysterious Pop Noir

Cam Maclean’s enigmatic, dusky pop single “Visions” on the surface level sounds like a modern equivalent of yacht rock song but with the chill vibes and perpetually on vacation energy cut out completely. It’s more like the kind of song that would be perfect for a noir drama directed by Sofia Coppola but written by Ed Brubaker. There is an existential undercurrent to the song that comes from a place of deep introspection and when Maclean sings of how “there is no darkness that can purify his soul” it just makes sense from the perspective of darkness as a metaphor for the unknown and that in too many realms of life it’s not there on the edge of town or in neglected corners of downtown areas in a compelling way. And the song sounds like a melancholic reflection on how things have changed and how it changes people and the places they live and how what was special about so many cities is being bleached out by corporate developers and the like buying up so many “undervalued” property and draining the personality out of every place many people might like to live and make their own in a social ecosystem that isn’t comprised of moneyed monoculture and the businesses and public works that seem to cater to that. Who can say if Maclean had this perhaps heavy handed socio-political, analytic projection but this moody song, a touch of accordion adding a nice glimmer of nostalgia, certainly captures a time in life when you’re assessing what it’s all about and where you are in life and how you took for granted simple and familiar comforts as it’s fading away. Listen to “Visions” on YouTube and connect with Maclean at the links provided.

Cam Maclean on Facebook

Cam Maclean on Twitter

Cam Maclean on Bandcamp

Cam Maclean on Instagram

“Brighter Than The Sun” by Swedish Shoegazers Boy With Apple is Awash in Transporting, Effervescent Tones

Boy With Apple, photo by Felicia Lekenstem

In the beginning of Boy With Apple’s “Brighter Than The Sun” it sounds as though you’re about to be dropped into a late 90s Britpop song but in a move similar to what we heard on “Sugar” by Beach Fossils, Boy With Apple takes a sharp left turn not so much into lush post-punk but transportingly ethereal dream pop. The percussion accents and grounds the music with its steady yet expressive drive while the vocals sound like they’re coming from somewhere deep in a luminous cave. Keyboards hold a glistening melody as guitars surge and swirl like billowing clouds of effervescent tone. It sounds a little lo-fi but that adds to the mystery of the song like footage of a lost shoegaze band of the early 90s shot on sixteen millimeter two track audio capture. There’s a rough charm to it even though the song has a softness that makes it immediately accessible. Listen to “Brighter Than The Sun” on Spotify and follow Boy With Apple at the links provided.

Boy With Apple on Facebook

Boy With Apple on Instagram

Bonelang Distills the Essence of the Disillusionment With the Dehumanizing Grind of Modern Life on “Dog Cannibal”

Bonelang set the existential song “Dog Cannibal” to a fairly uplifting beat with an orchestral composition with a slightly urgent pace. But the vocals which include Kweku Collins trade couplets revealing slices of life that tie it to concrete experiences and those pondering the nature of what it all signifies beyond what we’ve come to think of as the good life like a sip of cold Coca Cola, and spending hours under the sky in the summer evening with “flashes of ‘Neighborhood #1’ by Arcade Fire” and learning about one another. But the question of was this life everything you hoped for even though maybe it was the one you worked hard to get. The rapid fire rapping in the last third or so of the song drives home that side of the song and the choruses of “maybe you can help me lick my wounds” and “dog eat dog eat dog” and references to a mouth like a guillotine sound like a call for help and the realization that maybe some situation you idealized revealed its not dark side so much as the hard reality of what it takes, the compromises and too often ruthless habits, to even merely get by in one’s chosen realized American Dream. Fans of cLOUDDEAD and maybe even Hymie’s Basement will appreciate the creative and precise wordplay and the eclectic soundscapes that weave together modern production and stylistic flourishes with classic pop song craft. Listen to “Dog Cannibal” (which is a clever way of saying “dog eat dog,” of course) on Spotify and follow Bonelang at the links below.

Bonelang on Facebook

Bonelang on Twitter

Bonelang on YouTube

Bonelang on Instagram

bonelang.com

Lillian Blue Makin Kicks the Bad Habit of Cigarettes and the Linger Feelings for a Relationship Gone South on “Nicotine”

Lillian Blue Makin, photo courtesy the artist

Listening to Lillian Blue Makin’s song “Nicotine” and you can readily visualize the path she takes while smoking and trying to wean herself from a relationship that’s over even if the feelings aren’t there yet. And parallel to that the line about not smoking another cigarette when the pack is done brilliantly ties the experiences together in your mind and how quitting cigarettes or even giving them up for even awhile can be so challenging because it’s become a habit of life the way some relationships can be and you get to the point where you’re not sure why you’re holding on to either habit. The song is just over three minutes but it feels so short and says so much and when Makin sings how she hopes “this feeling goes away in time” it feels like that better instinct in your head coming forth to nudge you in a direction better for your physical and psychological health. The image of the lingering feelings burning out over time like a pack of cigarettes is also as fine a symbol as you’re likely to hear in a song any time soon. The textural guitar and spare percussion and keyboard accents with a subtle flourish of harmonica bring to the song a pastoral quality to the song especially in the end where it feels like things are going to resolve in a positive way even if the low key pain of missing someone you’re not getting back together with again still lingers. Listen to “Nicotine” on Spotify and follow Makin at the links below.

Lillian Blue Makin on TikTok

Lillian Blue Makin on Instagram

Belgian Hip-Hop Duo blackwave. Encourages Us to Slow Our Roll To Sustain the Good Life on “good day”

Belgian hip-hop duo blackwave. gives us a downtempo map charting a path and a course toward self-care from being too heavily on one’s life’s grind with its song “good day.” The two vocals work so well in sync in the beat it keeps up momentum in a song about very serious personal issues and with the horns and percussion accenting the rhythm it comes off like an experimental hybrid of jazz and pop underneath the rapping. The song is about getting stuck and stagnating because you’ve spent so much time and energy hitting it hard for your job and maybe your creative projects or other personal goals you ignore that side of your emotional life that turns into melancholy then depression and anxiety when you don’t remember that you can’t sustain a headlong pace forever. The line “I’m just feeling like a bootleg version of myself” really speaks to that mode that’s easy to slip into when you think you’re doing what you want when you’re really doing what you feel you have to past a certain point because there’s only so much of you to give and that amount can change day to day and where ignoring those limitations can burn you out so that no you can’t keep on seeming like you’re living your best life. The song in the end is a reminder to honor your humanity and your limitations so that you can live in a way that not only doesn’t burn you out but those around you. Watch the video for “good day” on YouTube and connect with blackwave. at the links provided.

blackwave. on Facebook

blackwave. on Twitter

blackwave. on Instagram

blackwave. on Songkick

Child Seat Show That Even in the Retrofuturist Dystopia of the World We Know You Have to Take Some Time Out For Fun on “Fever Dream”

If the Tracey Ullman Show were rebooted in 2022 its intro music and video might sound and look a lot like what Child Seat has going with its single “Fever Dream.” The summery melody, uplifting vocals and expansive dynamics sound like a futuristic mutant form of 80s synth pop, one that came in the wake of MGMT and Matt & Kim. Madeleine Matthews and Josiah Mazzaschi in their reflective silver frocks that look like repurposed car windshield sun reflector pads performing in a windswept desert location at points, in others in shiny garb and in yet other scenes frolicking around a pool in an abandoned oasis give the impression of not just surviving but thriving in a time where civilization has collapsed and they’re having to make their own fun and send it out into the world as a signal that it’s not all dystopian hellscape. I mean who could think someone with a bad blonde wig and a blow up sax wailing on that solo isn’t a sign that maybe it’s okay to have some good times? Which is of course a humorous science fiction take on the world we’re living in now. Watch the video for “Fever Dream” on YouTube and follow Child Seat on Instagram.

Ethan Woods Weaves the Tale of a Lamb Contemplating Life Beyond the Herd on “Chirin’s Bell”

The sound of contemplative reflection at twilight runs through Ethan Woods’ “Chirin’s Bell.” Tonally its reminiscent of Nick Drake and the impressionistic compositional quality of the music lends itself similarly well to establishing a mood and dreamlike imagery. Hushed drones, processed lap steel and simple acoustic guitar melody with spare percussion to give the track some texture help to make vivid what sounds like the story of a sheep taking stock of its life as a metaphor for the roles we internalize as a matter of life circumstances and the weight we put on ourselves borne out of how that living circumscribes our dreams and aspirations until we learn to dream differently. But also reconciling one’s upbringing and background with establishing your own identity and accepting where you come from rather than reject it outright. People that don’t go through this process often end up going back to their roots in a perhaps misguided attempt to rediscover what they feel they lost. But this song doesn’t seem to be coming from the perspective of life post-self-liberation, but of considering the essence of one’s life to which one was born but considering what else might be possible for yourself. Lines like “I itemize the time you take with your indecision,” “I wonder to myself did I fuck up with my big plan” and “beyond the wooden fence can remain good friends” point to those strains of thought that take you out of mundane existence for a moment. The dramatic arc of the song is subtle but reaches a peak with all the musical elements swelling with the rise in intensity of the vocals wondering again about fucking up but then outros to returning to reminiscing being a part of the herd while considering leaving it. Listen to “Chirin’s Bell” on YouTube, look for Ethan Woods’ second solo album Burnout due out April 29, 2022 through Whatever’s Clever and follow the artist at the links below.

Ethan Woods on Apple Music