SubmitHub – Page 150 – Queen City Sounds and Art

“The Art of Losing” by Summer With Monica is a Wistful Pop Song About Learning to Stop Struggling Against Yourself

Summer With Monica, photo courtesy the artist

Summer With Monica is the solo project of Julien Staartjes, guitarist for the Amsterdam-based band The Vagary. For his song “The Art of Losing” Staartjes was inspired by Elizabeth Bishop’s 1976 poem “One Art.” The jangle-y pop song is reminiscent of a more folk The Soft Boys or Robyn Hitchcock’s solo with its easy pace and poetic phrasing. Maybe a bit of the early music of The Church can be heard echoing there too. Though melancholic in tone at times the sense of the song is one of a kind of hope born of learning to overcome the habits of ego that end up causing us misery even as we think we’re pursuing what’s best for us when at times we should not cling so tightly to notions, dreams and desires that no longer suit us. The chorus of “It’s not so hard, it’s not so hard to let go, to let go” is like a mantra and the closing passage of the song in which Staatjes describes someone who has seemingly hit bottom but who is finally at a place where the ego bound mandates held back his real potential have been washed away in the rain is the fulfillment of an evolving realization that sometimes when you’re struggling the hardest you’re actually fighting your own forward progress. Listen to “The Art of Losing” on Soundcloud and follow Summer With Monica at the links below.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbXK43yzpziI6fwja53-ZsQ
https://www.instagram.com/summerwmonica

Rachel Kerry’s Nuanced Evocation of Complicated Feelings on “High” Help Us All to Better Process the Low Points In Our Love Lives

“High,” the lead single from Rachel Kerry’s new EP Obsessions, is a different kind of song about infatuation. Yes, it describes what seems like the best part of a relationship that is destined for failure with a vibrant melody and gorgeously distorted synths, like the effervescent energy that seems to brim over from you when you’re in that moment. But it also layers that with the reality of knowing something isn’t right but not wanting to believe it only to have to live with that denial later when you’re feeling melancholic and maybe a little foolish for even wanting to believe something real was there. Yet Kerry’s approach to songwriting, able to express this complexity of emotional nuance, is sort of a celebration of being able to feel these things and to be able to get through the low points in your life without a need for indulging in the kind of bitter recriminations that many of us seem to feel the need to serve as a focal point to pull us out of the dark, melodramatic places of the heart. Kerry shows us how we can feel multiple things at once and not have to get stuck in any of it if we’re willing to feel it and maybe even let it go. Listen to “High” on Soundcloud and connect with Rachel Kerry at the links below.

https://www.rachelkerrymusic.com
https://www.facebook.com /rachelkerrymusic
https://www.instagram.com/rachelkerrymusic

GIUDI Exposes Her Own So-Called Imperfections to Help Us All Dispel Judgments Over Physical Appearance in the Video for “NoBody”

Czech pop artist GIUDI collaborated with art director and filmmaker Jakub Ra of New Aliens Agency to realize a vision for her lush and introspective downtempo single “NoBody.” The singer says the song is about how the essence of who we are is not our physical bodies and the chorus of “NoBody is home” points to her concept of how the immortal self transcends the transitory existence we experience in a specific body in a specific time in a specific world. That because of this we shouldn’t get hung up on so-called imperfections, especially when they are fairly minor and, with any luck, a product of age and the way our bodies change over time regardless of age, but rather accept and even embrace them. The song has an entrancingly luminous quality that envelops and soothes the mind and the video though dark yet colorful shows GIUDI being open and vulnerable about what some might see as her own physical imperfections. It’s a move that is not just talk, not just theory, a concrete example and not abstraction. Her hair isn’t made up, she reveals areas of cellulite, patches of dry skin, wrinkles, variations in complexion and other features that in the grand scheme of things don’t matter compared to who we are and how we are. Watch the video for “NoBody” on YouTube and follow GIUDI at the links below.

Gotopo’s Video for “Malembe” is a Glimpse Into the Syncretic Sacred Dance Music of the Future

In the video for her new single “Malembe,” Colombian artist Gotopo invites us to imagine a future in which pre-European contact religions and cultures of the Americas and ancient African cultures have produced a syncretic culture. The song’s polyrhythms and the production that expertly blends organic sounds with processed sounds and effected vocals take you out of your usual cultural context for a few minutes and brings you into a world you’d actually want to visit where the dance music is more adventurous in its palette of sounds and emotional colorings. The video shows what looks like a series of scenes that blur the line between a mystic ritual and an intimate dance club. By offering this complete vision of an alternative future, Gotopo has given us a science fiction story not unlike those of N. K. Jemisin that dare to suggest something far different and in many ways more believable than most of what we’ve come to expect from the art form. Watch the video for “Malembe” on YouTube and connect with Gotopo at the links below.

https://www.facebook.com/GotopoOfficial
https://www.instagram.com /gotopo_official
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl75a6a5IBdVIs5gMJnKWew

Johnny Labelle Dreams of Looking Back on the Current Crisis From 20,000 Years In the Future on “Beginning of the End”

Johnny Labelle, Virus Positions compilation cover

An air of yesteryear floats through Johnny Labelle’s song “Beginning of the End.” Labelle’s croon is reminiscent of Scott Walker with the song’s vibe recalling that of some old Lee Hazlewood songs. The way both of those artists seem to come to us from a long time ago and probably seemed so then. A certain timelessness and the channeling of the hyper reality of a lucid dream. But the seemingly programmed drums place the song in the present even as the string synths and distorted melody cast your mind into a nostalgic and even romantic frame of mind for a world that may never come back and was it so great to begin with? Glittering chimes, Mellotron-esque tones and ethereal drones serve as the backdrop of Labelle talking about having a dream in which he wakes up in 20,000 years and in that framing Labelle explores that head space with a contemplative grandeur. Listen to “Beginning of the End” on Spotify and connect with the Greek songwriter at the links provided.

https://www.facebook.com/johnnylabellemusic
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnWVSu0iGkVPCxhZLjk0pQA
https://johnnylabelle.bandcamp.com
https://www.instagram.com/johnnylabl

Junodream Takes Us on a Trip “To The Moon” in the Song’s New Music Video

Junodream originally released the song “To The Moon” in 2018 and it found some measure of popularity at the time. But recently the group released an animated video that seems perfectly suited to its introspective yet expansive quality. It depicts a person contemplating their role and place in a large universe and floating from their planet of origin into deep space, touching a moon or a star and being transformed into component energies that are free to roam the universe unfettered by the limitations of their birth body yet able to re-constitute that body when the situation fits. The same figure is also shown to be able to hold the universe in their hand. Very zen, very meta but perfect for a song with beautifully ethereal vocals, gentle, flowing textural percussion and an impressionistic melody that suggests a rooting in psychedelic rock and 90s indie pop. Its use of lo-fi sounds with modern production methods gives it the kind of organic and intimate quality that enhances its ability to transport your mind beyond the mundane present tense. Watch the video for “To The Moon” on YouTube and connect with Junodream at the links below.

https://www.junodreamband.com
https://soundcloud.com/junodream
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_FO8kVGfdbShn9QOPo3P7w
https://www.facebook.com /Junodreamband
https://www.instagram.com/junodreamband

“Aftermath” by Psybos is an Audio Image of the Sense of Mystery and Wonder of the Future Exploration of the Ruins of Our World Today

The windswept drones of “Aftermath” by Psybos sounds like what a world recovering in the wake of some kind of global disaster, human made or otherwise, might sound like. A third of the way through the song a wordless human vocal rings out as the melodic arpeggio cycles through the organic momentum and wends its way through a more distinct and more background quality like a visual element coming into the forefront and then back like someone following a former mountainside train track and its meandering path. Toward the last third of the song the melody increase in intensity before giving way to spacious vistas of white noise and distant ambient drones with bird sounds closing out the track. Images of the classic science fiction conceit of the post-apocalyptic world doesn’t quite suit the song. More like what might happen a hundred years following the collapse and people exploring the sprawling urban decay with a sense of wonder and potential menace. Listen to “Aftermath” on Spotify, follow Psybos at the links below and look out for the album Year 0 due out later in 2020.

https://soundcloud.com/psybos
https://psybos.bandcamp.com

Biiig Stretch’s Instrumental Hip-Hop Song “Her Garden” Paints a Picture of Idyllic Intimacy and Gentle Affection

Biiig Stretch, photo courtesy the artist

Biiig Stretch wrote “Her Garden” inspired in part by days when he and his fiance didn’t have to work and could spend time relaxing in her garden. The instrumental hip-hop track has an idyllic quality that wouldn’t be out of place in a montage sequence in a quirky indie romance. The hazy string line, the sampled percussion noises put together like a collage of a beat that sounds like it was assembled from available parts rather than something programmed digitally. Altogether the elements give the song a beautiful blend of organic textures and produced composition that conveys a sense of intimacy and gentle affection. Listen to “Her Garden” on Soundcloud, connect with Biiig Stretch at the links below and look out for the project’s latest album Butterfly Princess which was released in May 2020.

https://soundcloud.com/biiigstretch
https://twitter.com/BiiigStretch
https://www.instagram.com/biiigstretch

S. Touze Holds Up a Mirror of Hard Truths to the American Dream on “USA”

S.Touze infuses his song “USA” with a touch of Bernie Worrell-esque keyboard work and production reminiscent of 90s hip-hop. But there’s a more contemplative tone to the song even as it clearly, with rapid cadences, peels back the layers of privilege and lack of self-awareness that seems to permeate the perspectives of people who take their higher relative political and economic status in the world for granted. At times it comes across as a mirror image and cousin of 2Pac’s 1996 hit “California Love.” And yet didn’t Tupac hint at the negative side of the American empire as well even in his most celebratory songs? When S. Touze raps “Walk around with a golden spoon when you’re born in the USA, go to school and make your dreams come true if you come to the USA” he exposes the American dream for a fraud both for people who come to the country seeking opportunity and for people from the USA who have yet to realize they’re never going to achieve that dream so long as the whole thing is rigged if you’re not the right color and not of the proper economic class. But S. Touze focuses on the immigrant experience and the tragic allure of America for many at any time but especially in the last few years when it seems you can be detained and separated from your children and allowed to die because you have no legal status. S. Touze casts this situation more poetically in the song but never tries to sugarcoat it while having written a composition that holds your attention regardless of your own feelings on the issue. Listen to “USA” on Soundcloud and connect with S. Touze at the links provided.

https://www.youtube.com/user/esaietouze
https://twitter.com/sdiiddy
https://www.facebook.com/esaietouzebey
https://www.instagram.com/s.touze

ST3PH Deftly Uses the Metaphor of Interdimensional Travel and Parallel Existence for Personal Transformation on “Spaced Out”

ST3PH employs the metaphor of traveling between dimensions and becoming aware of alternate universes and existences for liberation through personal transformation on the single “Spaced Out.” With coolly luminous keyboard sounds in the beat as well as accelerating synth flourishes and percussion accents it sounds like a synthesis of dub, trap and darkwave. While it wouldn’t quite fit to compare the song to something by Danny Brown, it shares that genre bending quality in which Goth-y dance music and hip-hop compliment each other so well as to create a different flavor and mood for both in one song. The story could be just another struggle and striving song but given a different kind of musical context it takes on another dimension giving the song a greater thematic depth than expected. Listen to “Spaced Out” on Soundcloud, follow ST3PH at the links provided and look out for the TRIME Vol. II EP due later in 2020.

https://soundcloud.com/st3phofficial
https://twitter.com/st3phofficial
https://www.facebook.com /st3phofficial
https://www.instagram.com/st3phofficial