PICTURES touches on a lot of territory with the video for the song “Rockets.” Visually it’s colorful and psychedelic with more than a hint of ironic presentation like something from Adult Swim. But the song itself is unironic, effusive guitar pop. Vocalist Maze Exler asks multiple questions as observations about the human condition from imponderable tragedies to everyday aspirations as the band seems suspended in the depths of space. The expansive and buoyant synth line at the heart of the song sounds like a Mellotron but used to enhance a sense of this song being a bit like a bombastic glam rock version of Psychedelic Furs by way of Preoccupations. Despite the psychological quagmires and the aforementioned tragedies, PICTURES demands simply that we hold on because even if being on one of those rockets that takes off in life can seem disorienting and scary at least not everything is a hundred percent predictable and might take you some place exciting and different which is the vibe of the song and video. Watch “Rockets” on YouTube and connect with PICTURES at the links provided. Look for the band’s new album IT’S OK due out January 28, 2022.
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Peter Compo Reorients Our Notions of Familiar Creative Works on “Blade Runner 32” and his album Films.
Peter Compo’s arrangement of electronic sounds and informal rhythms on “Blade Runner 32” feel more like they were crafted for a sound design piece rather than a traditional song. The melancholic, drawn out drones that warp by and fade in the beginning give a sense of movement and as the soundscape blooms into multiple streams of bright sound and a more enveloping sound palette there is an unmistakable sense of wonder at a new world that seems darkly enigmatic. The title obviously references the 1982 science fiction film adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? While we often think of Rick Deckard as the only Blade Runner, one of the specially trained agents of the police force tasked to track down and “retire” rogue androids, he’s one of a crew as revealed more fully in the 2017 cinematic sequel Blade Runner 2049. Blade Runner 32 suggests music for a day in the life of another member of that Blade Runner corps. Thus the vague sense of menace and the sharp bleeps echoing as points of stimulation in a dystopian landscape and the drones as symbols of centers of activity and the haunting, large, intrusive advertisements that dominate many public spaces, impossible to ignore. In the context of Compo’s 2021 album Films, this song is a the audio equivalent of a cinematic experience with complex elements arranged in a way that creates emotional resonance employing the aesthetics of film rather than music but using sounds to attain that goal. Thus there is also a “Blade Runner 23,” a “The Year of Living Dangerously,” “North By Northwest” and even “Star and Other Wars.” Compo is inviting us to hear his own interpretation of these films and to perhaps to transform our own emotional resonances with familiar works of art. It’s a subtle but subversive approach to culture jam and remix what we think we already know. Listen to “Blade Runner 32” on Spotify where you can follow the links to hear the rest of Films for yourself and connect with Compo on his website linked below.
Ben Guihan Elegantly Channels That Moment When You’re Ready to Move On But Not Ready to Let Go on “Portrait in A”
Ben Guihan is maybe too good at describing the crushing despair of a romance crumbling away on his song “Portrait in A.” A spare guitar line establishes a cadence while touches of pedal steel haunts the edges of the melody. It’s a framing that makes the pain seem not so bad and the poignant imagery full of idiosyncratic details of Guihan’s lyrics both serves to embed the mood and the forming image of someone dissociating from the direct impact of the romance dissolving from the inside out. The line “you say you take your love like you take your other drugs” sums up a good deal of the nature of the partnership depicted and how things have gotten to the point where the love shared has become a disposable amusement that is as toxic as it is sometimes still intoxicating. Guihan sings the lyrics like he’s reading the musings of someone who is in the middle of the terrible realization of things being irreparable and his phrasing is reminiscent of an Al Stewart or Robyn Hitchcock waxing heartbroken but staving off the darkest points of it by writing a song that blunts the pain through channeling it into a creative act that also captures well that moment when you’re ready to move on but you don’t want to let go. Listen to “Portrait in A” on Spotify, check out the rest of his recently released album Mise-en-scène on Bandcamp and connect with Ben Guihan at the links provided.
Arkle Eerie Video For “Slowly Alive” Drifts us Uneasily Out of the Dreamstate
Arkle’s video for “Slowly Alive” is like a trailer for an A24 movie about existential, cosmic horror. The plot of the video seems to be about a woman who is taking her time wake up for the day and dreams of mythical landscapes depicted by colorful animation like something from a childhood story book crafted from illustrations and collage. The warping synth lines refracting and moving both forward and processed through light reverse delay at points sets a strong mood of otherworldly reverie. The insistent keyboard line serves as a tonal anchor point through the hazy soundscape as the visuals transition to abstract imagery of black and white kaleidoscopic visuals. The ghostly female vocals are like a tantalizing yet assuring beacon in the fog of this journey to wakeful consciousness guiding us to the track’s conclusion. Musically it’s reminiscent of a spooky and beatless Boards of Canada with Beth Gibbons-esque singing at her most icily ethereal. Watch the video for “Slowly Alive” on YouTube and connect with Arkle at the links below.
Freedom Fry Takes Us Down to Where Nothing is Real on “Ego Trip”
On a slowly pulsing electronic tone accented by spare keyboard notes Freedom Fry makes musically explicit the themes of its new single “Ego Trip.” In Beatles-esque vocals the song traces the easy way one can fall\ into a seductive spiral of becoming self-involved . Though the production on the song sounds like something that could have come out fifty years ago it also recalls the surreal pop quality of MGMT. The contrast really opens the song up so that there can be some sympathy for a person who maybe got so caught up in the conversations one has in professional life and certain social circles and being busy all the time with work and the leisure activities following that work that it becomes a ritualized experience. All the while drifting into a dissociated head space where your only break from your life is indeed being on an “ego trip” where you can take out the time to feel out “the vibe” and then, as the chorus of the song goes, get “lost in my head again.” The song casts no judgments on being in that place but does highlight how easy it can be to see the ingrained habits of your life are things you can rationalize to yourself as fun and being stuck in a perpetual state of stagnation that feels like you are feeding your ego in a healthy way rather than merely sustaining a cycle of soporific behaviors that shield you from exiting your comfort zone. Listen to “Ego Trip” on Soundcloud and connect with Freedom Fry at the links provided.
Lost Walks Mourn Our Self-Catastrophizing Patterns on the Epic “Bright White”
“Bright White” finds Lost Walks departing from the brooding, Gothic Americana of its 2017 debut album Wolf, Woman, Man. There has always been an orchestral aspect to the group’s music but this song in particular from the 2021 album Blood Lantern shows how Lost Walks uses the spacious tranquility that made its earlier material so compelling and inviting to fill with distorted drones and lines of granular melody and heavy, hanging guitar riffs that help the contemplative vocals stand out and uplift the spirit of this track filled with the imagery of menace and the aftermath of violent conflict. The emotional colorings and structure of the song suggest frantic movement to express the mythological dimension of this cyclic ritual of destruction and rebuilding and regretting the senselessness of not learning from repeating these self-catastrophic patterns. Fans of Swans and the more recent work of Wovenhand will greatly appreciate this song in particular and the album in general for the emotional heft and intensity of the songwriting and the way the music is both transcendent and gritty. Listen to “Bright White” on Spotify and connect with Lost Walks at the links provided.
The Irresistible Rhythm of Hotline Syndrome’s “A Faraway Look” Coaxes Us Into Easing Our Inner Tensions
“A Faraway Look” by London Duo Hotline Syndrome (comprised of producers sludg3f8ctory and CEO Dreams) slinks in like a kinder, gentler, mellower A Place to Bury Strangers. The accented linger of the bass line propels the ethereal guitar work and whispery vocals before it switches to a more textural, melodic mode. And toward the end incandescent synth tones anchor the ethereal outro into you mind giving the song a strong hook at the end established in the beginning with its irresistible rhythm. It’s rare to hear so many creative elements realized across a three minute plus song but Hotline Syndromes taps into an ambient melancholy and a contemplative, self-aware of exploration of the moods nagging at the edges of your mind with a song with a concise but not austere soundscape and a song structure that guides you through its arc of musical storytelling without nudging. Listen to “A Faraway Look” on Spotify and give the rest of the Heavy Severe 3 EP as well. Connect with Hotline Syndrome at the links below.
Sleepwalker Manifests an Invigorating Sense of Possibilities and Nostalgia on “The Last Farewell”
The interchange and intersection of luminous guitar haze, bright synth drone and the sound of piano charting alternate courses from the main wash of melody in the new Sleepwalker single “The Last Farewell” feels like the end of something, certainly, though more a moving onward to greater horizons and expansion of the mind, it is a sound of walking toward possibilities with a hint of nostalgia for what you might be leaving behind. The motes of tone sweeping past you as you are drifting forward through the song’s breezy pace is analogous to what it might be like to pass through a wormhole or through a whiteout blizzard in Siberia with the sun lighting up the landscape but hidden from view. The sound of the song conveys a strong sense of momentum and movement in the emotional and spiritual sense as symbolized by movement in the physical realm. Listen to “The Last Farewell” on YouTube and connect with the Russian transcendent black metal/cosmic drone band Sleepwalker on Bandcamp through the Ksenza Records page and on Spotify.
$YNDRM Articulates Our Collective Discontent With the Era of Mediated Social Experience on “Shadow Life”
At the start of $YNDRM’s “Shadow Life” we’re drawn in by a mysterious, darkly lush tone and the sound of ethereal xylophone to a story about the mediated nature of a large portion of public life. In a melancholic, reflective emotional quality, $YNDRM sings about the dynamic of how the way we are encouraged by social media and public interactions of all kinds to present a manufactured and finely manicured persona and for what? Fake social capital that gets us nothing of substance? Are out lives destined to be fodder for an algorithm that will never see to our substantive needs as living creatures who crave nourishing lives and experiences and not to be a consumer of the surface level data used to market to us the facade of our desires as massaged by the agenda of the most massive of corporate entities? $YNDRM bemoans this state of counterfeit identities “in a world where nothing seems to matter and points out how that is unsustainable and that this reality is showing signs of fragmenting as is much of culture and the political and economic system despite the seeming all powerful nature of it all. The song is reminiscent of the artier rock end of Peter Gabriel, a more pop Legendary Pink Dots and early solo rock Brian Eno. Listen to “Shadow Life” on Soundcloud and follow $YNDRM at the links provided.
Simone Elisa Keeps Her Vision of a Better Future Alive Against the Odds in “All In My Head”
Simone Elisa is awash in hazy synths and low end drones as she ponders the precarious and uncertain place she is in life on her single “All In My Head.” The hopeful tones reflect the energy of those dreams of a better future than the challenging present everyone has and Elisa employs that sound to give the song an uplifting quality even though her words really get to the crux of living in a time when many of us have been worn down with few if any glimmers of hope for creating a life we want rather than the drab one offered to us by the reality of trying to make it while major political parties work toward crushing everyone under that isn’t already in the oligarchic class through policies or inaction that bolster a state of things when it has become increasingly difficult to survive and much less thrive. The song recalls great synth pop of the last 40 years and turns out a lot of that music is about self-preservation and endurance while times are tough. Elisa sings of seeing signs but not believing them anymore and just hanging on to the fact of her still being alive as the faintest of signs that one’s hopes as symbolized by dreams with you don’t feel you can connect to drive you through the worst of days. She sings of wanting to go back to bed and asks if it’s all in her head and that state of being torn between wanting hope and knowing it’s foolish. Yet it is simply human to keep hoping for something better against the odds and this song speaks to that spark that often seems to be around even during the darkest of times and the most broken of timelines as delusional as it can seem. Listen to “All In Head” on Soundcloud and follow Simone Elisa on Soundcloud.
Queen City Sounds and Art 
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