Olivero and Alain Pérez complement each other expertly on the song “Juntando Amores” (in English, joining or combining loves). Olivero’s energetic, hybrid salsa, flamenco and jazz style in sync with the horns and Pérez’s raw presence and lyrical vocal delivery combine for a song that covers a wide emotional range beginning with a melancholic, yearning tone that fluidly evolves into a mood more confident and affirmative graced with Olivero’s tastefully intricate guitar solos that never steal the spotlight from the other performers. It’s a song with elegant power and grace that draws you in quickly and brings you along for a ride to an elevated mood. Watch the video for “Juntando Amores” on YouTube and connect with the artists at the links below.
Watching the video for “Heartsines” it seems like a perfect song to accompany a process video for creating a range of visual art and animation. Paintings in collage with live footage and animated stills are in sync with the bright, playful tones of the song and as the rhythm picks up pace the parade of images matches growing layers of sound from the ghostly background synth to arpeggios of bleeps and textural tones in complexity and energetic expression. The mix keeps your brain engaged with the forward bell tones while other forces musical and visual keep a gentle momentum that keeps your attention and the full six minutes twenty-six secongs of the track passes feeling like half the time. Halfway through the song Blake takes time out from the headlong pace and the song fades to near silence before engaging once again with an even fuller sound and sustained frisson. Watch the video for “Heartsines” on YouTube, give a listen to the rest of the album The Rough With the Smooth on Bandcamp and follow Blake at the links provided.
Utilizing an array of sounds that gives the impression of a flurry of images glitching and a disordering of the senses, “древолюция” (Drevolyutsiya, the Russian word for “revolution”) by Dvanov embodies a time of confusion and chaos with an eerie precision. The arrangements are like a hip-hop track but the noises and the urgency of Ivan Beletsky’s vocals are more in line with industrial music aesthetics making what you hear more comparable to Death Grips and Sleaford Mods than something that will hit you immediately like hip-hop. The collage of samples, synths and drum machines is a raw expression of the angst and anxiety of the suburbs that are the subject of a good deal of Dvanov’s material informed by a desperate desire for change that you see even in the most mundane of contexts whether you’re in St. Petersburg or Chicago. Listen to “древолюция” on YouTube and connect with Dvanov at the links provided.
DJ Chillz produced and wrote “Keep Me Safe” after a Kemetic Yoga session and the contrast of a warm, simple guitar figure with acoustic percussion and vocals that seem to shimmer from an otherworldly space or from deep within has an intimate quality like a mantra to keep yourself in the proper frame of mind. Repeating the simple request in a vulnerable way as a sign of trust to another or the universe in both English and Yoruba enhances that multidimensional feel of the song so that its spare elements gather together and create an environment when being at one’s most vulnerable and open feels safe and the reception nurturing. The gentle tone of the track too makes what might sound like something from another world inviting and accessible. Listen to “Keep Me Safe” on Soundcloud and follow DJ Chillz at the links provided.
Paul Cousins set up reel-to-reel tape machines with a fifty-eight inch tape loop running between them to craft the warm yet otherworldly sounds for his composition “Afterimage.” It is a whorling tone that sounds like it’s breaking up as it ripples outward and repeats at unexpected intervals like an extended sample but one which has slight changes with every iteration due to the physical quality of the tape running and underneath are what sound like the mechanism of the tape machine captured on the recording like a built in counting of the passage of time rather than a more traditional beat. The gorgeously repetitive dynamic is reminiscent of the work of ambient band The Kevin Costner Suicide Pact and as gifted at creating music that suggests cinematic aesthetics of collage images and improvisational sound design. Listen to “Afterimage” on Bandcamp and connect further with the London-based composer at the links provided.
The orchestral ambient soundscape of “In Absolute” flows into your ears and immediately conjures a mood and a cinematic experience of sound. It may make you wonder if Howard Shore is a secret member of Sanctuary because the orchestration of elements and the evocative arc resonate with that master composer’s flair for dramatic, impactful atmospherics. The elegant build to a peak of sorrowful emotions, of a brooding realization of tragedy is stunning in its beauty and the way the song carries you along to a conclusion of that wave of feeling followed by a quick resolution that doesn’t feel like it could be an end but ultimately could be nothing else is an impressive feat of songwriting. Listen to “In Absolute” on Soundcloud, look for the project’s double EP Sanctuary Vol. 1 and Sanctuary Vol. 2 out on Safari Riot and connect with the artists at the links below.
Suzy Callahan imbues “Maybe” with more mystery and complex emotions and offbeat observations than entire albums by many artists. Is there a key change in the song? Yes, but the hypnotic, spare guitar riff is the perfect accompaniment to her melodiously expressive voice and her simple story of the aspirations people have when they cut away ;pretentious and unrealistic expectations and a conditioned needs rooted in the myths of romance and a life in which one needs to be super excited about everything all the time. The story comes across like a series of observations and contemplation on such while people watching. When Callahan sings “ The chances are zero that the next person by will be my hero but they might me later for a beer, though” the clever word play is a standout in the song but it also poignantly describes how you can avoid disappointment in life. And if you get more out of life count that as a great thing but if you get what you need recognize that as a positive and not a loss. Fans of Edith Frost will definitely find much to love in Callahan’s catalog of music. Watch the video for “Maybe” on YouTube, listen to the rest of the album Focused Mind on Spotify or Bandcamp and connect with Suzy Callahan at the links below.
moodring packs a lot of surprises into its song “Poison.” In the beginning it sounds like a modern version of a slackery, lo-fi indie rock song. But Charli Smith reflects on the ways in which one has conflicted feelings about the person you love. The gentle, ethereal guitar work and minimalist percussion and lingering, melodic drones coupled with Smith’s laid back delivery give the impression of someone walking leisurely through a gallery of memories, many of them painful, while trying to maintain a sense of cool, of composure, while laying out a litany of heartbreaking thoughts like a goodbye letter to a relationship that has worn to nothing. Yet sometimes even those awful relationships are hard to let go when it’s one of the only things in your life giving it steady meaning. Smith’s lyrics speak directly to those complex feelings even when you know it’s over. When she sings “You’re breaking me down, you’re drying me out” it sounds like that final realization that you have to move on if you’re to make it through even as melodramatic as that may seem to you in that moment. Brandon Brewer’s production casts it in the musical equivalent of washed out lo-fi colors but that in some ways makes the song hit harder like you’re hearing your own words through an AM radio like a ghost of your old self reminding you of where you’ve been and don’t want to go again but may follow those bad habits and instincts without having your own words as a reminder to do better for yourself. It’s like a diary entry or a letter to the offending party you never send but have to write out for yourself to see as a form of self-therapy. Listen to “Poison” on YouTube and connect with moodring at the links below.
“On My Way Up” resonates with a dreamlike tone as though its melody is coming through a light fog. It comes from a place of melancholic contemplation but one striving for the things she sees as possible in the future. It’s not the sort of song informed by a grind-y bravado. Tishmal acknowledges the uncertainty and relative lack of control in which she’s existing with patience and acceptance waiting for events and opportunities unfold as they often do. The line “I’m drifting through now, I’m on my way up, I’ll never come down” speaks directly to this state of being as is “I’m on my way to make better days.” These are words that come from a place of making your own sense of hope when there seem to be none knowing no situations are permanent. It is interestingly enough a song of faith and hope but one without a naive outlook. It hearkens back sonically to the peak of chillwave but the vocal range and nuance of emotional expression is striking and soothing in a powerful way. Rachel Brockbank took on the name Tishmal from the Luiseño word for “hummingbird” (a nickname she was given as a young girl) which is fitting for the subtle grace, energy and vulnerable power found in her songwriting and singing on this debut solo project for the artist in collaboration with producers Christian Medice and Daniel Pashman. Listen to “On My Way Up” on Soundcloud and connect with Tishmal at the links provided.
The title track to Easy Jane’s second album 2021’s Play has a complexity of emotional impact that might not be obvious from its gorgeously lush layers of sound and expansive dynamic. The mood is melancholic and pitched in tones that suggest resignation to the reality of one’s association with another and the need to let go. In an album that delves into the dark side of relationships and the ways in which we awaken to our involvement in them especially when it would behoove us to dissolve them or exit the situation as best we can. In “Play” the guitar traces an outward spiral of an atmospheric riff in the verses that is both bracing and sounds like the closing chapter of something with no sequel. The track is reminiscent of what Crime & the City Solution got up to circa Paradise Discotheque (1990) with its poetic lyrics and cinematic sound. Listen to “Play” on YouTube, check out the rest of Play on Bandcamp and connect with Easy Jane at the links provided below.
Queen City Sounds and Art 
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