Tag: SubmitHub

Annie Tisshaw Challenges the Destructive Side of Our Culture on the Soaringly Transcendent “We Can Go High”

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Annie Tisshaw “We Can Go High” cover (cropped)

In “We Can Go High” Annie Tisshaw weaves her own words on how we often feel disempowered to say what must be said but we can choose to speak up with parts of Nina Donovan’s poem “Nasty Woman” made famous at the Women’s March in 2017 including the line “I’m a nasty woman, I’m not as nasty as racism, or fraud, or homophobia, sexual assault, transphobia, white supremacy, white privilege, ignorance, or misogyny.” An echoing tonal wind flows in and flutters throughout the song as Tisshaw’s vocals travel through different sound environments while maintaining a consistency of message and conviction challenging patriarchal systems of value in various contexts. Her own line “We know one plus one but do they teach us to love” speaks much to the devaluing of emotional intelligence in a patriarchal culture to the detriment of all. The pulses of white noise later in the song are like an ascending breeze carrying the vocals and the uplifting message aloft, one that has only increased in relevance over the past few years rather than faded with time. Listen to “We Can Go High” on Spotify.

ZLEEP’s Pastoral “Endless Blues” is a Melancholic Ode to the Pain of a Love That Should Never Be

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ZLEEP, photo courtesy the artists

The impressionistic, pastoral “Endless Blues” by ZLEEP, crafted from a spare, piano tones, a gentle guitar figure and harmonized male and female vocals, is a resonant and poignant portrait of a broken yet conflicted heart. Though seemingly minimalistic, the song conveys an emotional complexity that is beyond even the sum of its parts. In the song we come to understand the narrator deeply misses the object of their love because that person made them happy with a deep romantic attraction even though that loved one also had the ability to make them sad like no one else. There is a sense of being lost to that song particularly the line about dreaming in “endless blue” of being lost in love, lost in the romance of it all and lost without it. That said there is a feeling of resignation that runs through “Endless Blues” from the beginning to the end as difficult as it is to accept and that is the loss of that love is in the end for the best despite the heartache and despite the feelings of strong connection because on some level you know that holding so tightly onto a relationship that brings such pain is foolish and self-destructive. The tape hiss as white noise in the background gives the song the quality of an old record, the kind maybe you take out to listen to remind you of an earlier part of your life and which haunts you when you do. Listen to “Endless Blues” on Soundcloud.

RAHM’s Touching “To Live Without Her” is a Powerful Commentary on Modern Social Isolation as We Get Older

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RAHM “To Live Without Her” cover (cropped)

RAHM gives us a real character sketch and story with “To Live Without Her.” It’s the story of an old man living in a rural area near a city in a house full of memories years after his wife has passed. With a elegant swells of atmosphere from keys and synth around a piano figure, we hear how the old man seems to have his own kind of living death without the woman who gave his life some meaning and structure, days going by, going through the motions for “twenty-one” years and sleeping through holidays and complaining about winter, looking forward to summer but with nothing much else going on and no one with whom to share his life and perhaps nudge him out of his routine. We can all fall into such habits in our lives and “live” but not truly live and come to rest in a kind of inauthentic state of personal dullness when we could choose to do something with our time other than count down the days until we die, whether we acknowledge that or not. The song casts no judgment but looks on such an existence with curiosity, compassion and recognition of how our relationships, our occupations and our friends shape us and guide us in ways that we don’t think much about, especially in the culturally and socially atomized present in which we’re increasingly isolated and encouraged toward a corrosive rugged individualism. RAHM’s song mourns that reality by casting this reality in the utterly relatable song about an old man already there as a way of seeing that possibility in ourselves as we get older. Listen to “To Live Without Her” on Soundcloud where you can also follow RAHM.

soundcloud.com/rahm-music

JustTizze’s Soulful and Soul-baring “City Lights” is an Uplifting Journey From the Depths of Despair to Living One’s Best Life

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JustTizze “City Lights” cover (cropped)

“City Lights” by JustTizze sounds like picking yourself up from being beaten down by life but finding that final strand that lets you bask in in enough of compassion for self to sit up and consider what you need to feel like you can go on. The soulful, soaring vocals and the shift from torch song beginnings to triumphant rock and pop in the last half of the song parallels the sense of going from a flicker of life and hope to finding the will and motivation to discover the rungs of the ladder back to at least trying to live your full life again. The production style here and arc of song is reminiscent of solo George Michael from the late 80s and early 90s but it also perfectly suits the subject matter of the song. Listen to “City Lights” on Spotify and follow JustTizze at the links provided.

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soundcloud.com/justtizze
twitter.com/JustTizze
instagram.com/justtizze

JIGI’s Melancholic Yet Hopeful “Welcome” is an Anthem to the Yearning in Your Heart for the Presence of Loved Ones

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JIGI, photo courtesy the artist

JIGI’s single “Welcome” from the 2020 album I’M OK sounds like it could be a love song but was written for the singer’s cousin who he misses dearly and who moved to Mexico to do art. The broadly dynamic song has some interesting breaks that have a cinematic quality like switching scenes in jump cut style but coming back to the main story line quickly. Processed piano and vocals get the song started on a melancholic tone until the chorus starts with “You’re always welcome, I miss you, come back home” and the kick drums resound to accent the vocal line. Guitar and the full drum kit start up and lend the track a full, lush sound while also elevating the tone from melancholic to hopeful. Maybe aforementioned cousin left because circumstances at home were not nurturing of hisdreams of working on creative pursuits but JIGI sounds like he both wants what’s best for his cousin and wishing they could be living closer together and hang out regularly like close friends do. Listen to “Welcome” on YouTube and follow JIGI at the links below.

soundcloud.com/user-41891380
facebook.com/getjigi
instagram.com/jigi_music

Deepest Bison’s “Rider” Is a Psychedelic Folk Journey Outside Conventional Time and Space

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Deepest Bison “Rider” cover (cropped)

The fact that there is a lo-fi aspect to the recording of “Rider” by Deepest Bison gives one a sense of this maybe having been recorded at any time in the past fifty years. Its mix of texture and waves of melody from acoustic guitar and electric guitar convey a kind of timelessness like you’re not sure if this song or artist is coming out of a particular era or which set of inspirations informed the songwriting. Maybe one would point to the Brian Jonestown Massacre, Foxygen, Whitney or even The Moody Blues and The Zombies but there is none of the Laurel Canyon sound and there is no obvious attempt at conventional nods to modern availability of higher fidelity recording on a computer. Could have been recorded by an old handheld cassette recorder placed hanging from the ceiling of the room but capturing the essential details and sounds. The title of the song is telling in that the song feels like songwriter Kyle Imes, a solo artist, is conveying a sense of riding this wave of inspiration and emotion to craft an experience that stands outside obvious connections to contemporary music. Listen to “Rider” on Bandcamp and follow Imes’ further exploits as Deepest Bison there as well.

deepestbison.bandcamp.com

“Regret” by In/Animate is Like Industrial Dance Pop for a Survival Research Laboratories Event

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In/Animate The Dream cover (cropped)

This In/Animate from it’s 2019 The Dream EP is called “Regret” but it sounds like the kind of music that you would hope would be used in some future Olympic games type of event when the A.I.’s go off world to establish their own civilization away from crazy humans. Maybe take replicate the minds of people involved in Survival Research Laboratories as mentors to creative, competitive mayhem that artificial intelligences would find interesting and amusing and just unpredictable enough to inject some innovation into their culture. Musically it’s like a playful fusion of industrial and techno with none of the harsh noises. Imagine Author & Punisher making instrumental dance pop and you have some idea of the sound of this track. It is both playful and majestic, uplifting and challenging. Listen to “Regret” on Spotify, follow In/Animate at the links below and look for a full length from the project in 2020.

inanimatemusic.me
soundcloud.com/in_animate_music
facebook.com/TheInAnimate
instagram.com/in_animate_music

Adée’s Lushly Atmospheric R&B Single “YOU YOU YOU” Takes You Through the Paces of Romantic Impatience

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Adée, photo courtesy the artist

A sound like the clacking of a train track is part of the beginning of Adée’s “YOU YOU YOU” like the song ahead was born of thoughts looking out the window on the way home from work. The sultry, R&B style production gives an interesting context and backdrop to a song that seems to be one of the singer addressing someone she loves but about whom she has complex emotions because the relationship is one that is a bit in limbo. “I will be patient, I will keep waiting for you” she sings as the bass accents her lines and pushes along a constellation of drones like tonal fog that enshrouds the track. Adée begins the song talking about how her love is probably with some of her friends right now but one gets the sense that it’s idle, jealous thought because she also sings about checking her texts about a thousand times – the usual frustrations. But she also sings about being lost in her love’s voice and also wondering what kind of person she has become and if she’s scared of being alone or if the love is real. The songwriting and arrangements cast these fairly pedestrian concerns in their proper melodramatic shape because everyone has been in a place where they can’t wait to see the one they love and going through the psychological gyrations and paces sorting through what they really feel and realizing that the insecurities are misplaced. Listen to “YOU YOU YOU” on Spotify, follow the Swedish artist at the links provided and look for Adée’s album Forward in 2020.

adeeofficial.com
soundcloud.com/ad-e
twitter.com/AdeeSweden
facebook.com/adeeofficial
instagram.com/adeeofficial

LUC Takes Us Through a Darkly Dreamlike Tunnel of Fear and Transcendence on “Lost In Love”

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LUC Glow cover (cropped)

LUC’s single “Lost In Love” has a darkly sensual quality that permeates its pace, the layered synth melody, the sensitively sequenced low end, Joe Corcoran’s production generally, and Kari Kimmel’s languorously dynamic vocals. One can imagine the kind of love that Kimmel sings about being like one of those tunnels you can walk through at haunted houses and the like where your path is fixed but the tunnel itself turns and disorients your sense of gravity through stimulating your vision in the right way. The kind of love you’re not sure is good for you but it has you in its grip almost against your will and it in some ways warps your own sense of self. At the same time the song conveys a sense of how you sometimes have to just feel whatever it is you’re feeling to get through it and allow yourself to be changed by the experience even if on the surface it threatens to overwhelm you. The reverse progression at the end of the song signals an end to that dark, intense passage as though waking from a dream. And the song itself with its close atmospheres and ethereally distorted drones feels like a dream in which you are examining how you interact with the world and the people in it with whom you have the strongest emotional bands and in the moment it feels scary but at the end, with any luck, you wake having resolved an ineffable something. Listen to “Lost In Love” on Spotify and follow LUC at the links provided.

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twitter.com/We_Are_LUC
instagram.com/weareluc

The Gooooose remix of “Landscape” by Roca. is Like a Techno Soundtrack to the Urban Exploration of a Site of Alien Civilization

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Roca., photo courtesy the artists

This Gooooose remix of “Landscape” by Roca. defies any conventional genre designation. At times it sounds like an inverted dub production dynamic. The plodding rhythm sounds like someone listened to a lot of minimal techno and decided those beats were entirely too boring and figured out a way to not only slow it down but to also give it a liquid quality rather than one that is like a distinct drum machine sound. The vocals exist in a realm of cybernetic abstraction like a guide to the lost part of an ancient city built by robots. The drones begin as a tone struck and then processed to warp downward, accompanied by stuttering, shuffling textures like a blast of steam being let out. It would be disorienting if it didn’t suggest a definite space, a dark landscape deep inside a planetoid city abandoned by its creators, occupied by a new set of inhabitants for centuries before being abandoned again and now being plumbed by cosmic urban explorers and used by artists to create massive, haunted installation art as reconstituted artificial intelligences arranged using their intelligence and capacity as the materials for a new kind of creative work. This song is really unlike much else you’ll hear until Roca. releases its next song. Listen to “Landscape – Gooooose Remix” on Soundcloud and follow Roca. at the links below.

rocabandinfo.wixsite.com/rocaband
soundcloud.com/rocaband