SubmitHub – Page 209 – Queen City Sounds and Art

“Bora Bora” is ImButcher’s Summer Action Adventure Blockbuster Soundtrack Made for the Dance Floor

ImButcher2_sm_crop — ImButcher, photo courtesy the artist

ImButcher perfectly balances the minimal, textured percussion track, the ethereal keyboard work, the nearly whispered vocal samples and a broad spectrum of tonal range and rhythms in the synth parts for his new track “Bora Bora,” In its depth of field you can hear the plane ride and the sun on the beaches, the waves and the sense of being carried along to an exotic locale where an unexpected adventure awaits. It’s like the music for the prologue of a summer action adventure blockbuster but meant for the dance floor. If only the Michael Mann movie of the series he directed in the 80s, Miami Vice, ended up being a movie like this song presages it would have fared better with critics and audiences alike. Listen to “Bora Bora” on Soundcloud and follow the Canadian artist at the links provided.

imbutcher.com
soundcloud.com/imbutcher
open.spotify.com/artist/7ISudeOdyC7sXu8prYHtIP
youtube.com/c/ImButcher
facebook.com/ImButcherMusic
instagram.com/imbutchermusic

“Ampulex compressa” is Dj Scape Ripper’s Techno Industrial Soundtrack to a Menacing Future

DjScaleRipper2_crop — Dj Scale Ripper, “Ampulex Trails” cover

“Ampulex compressa” sounds like what it would be like to be stationed on an orbital platform tasked with scanning the upper atmosphere with long range sensors for hostile cyborgs looking to get off world to wreak havoc in the colonies where their activities are far less circumscribed. The mechanical percussion sounds, the afterburn white noise of vehicle launch and the urgent industrial pacing speak to a moment of hot pursuit of. The distant tone is like getting a read on the objective while also being reminiscent of Meat Beat Manifesto’s “Paradise Now.” Perhaps a nod to Jack Dangers maybe more obliquely to the oscillations of Phaedra-period Tangerine Dream. The song conveys a sense of the otherworldly and menacing conveying an air of technology having grown beyond our capacity to manipulate it in the fundamentals ways we do now. Listen to Dj Scaleripper’s “Ampulex compressa” on Spotify and follow the artist at the links below.

soundcloud.com/djscaleripper
youtube.com/user/darkmindproject
twitter.com/DarkMindProject
facebook.com/DjScaleRipper

Bug’s “Walking With the Music” Oscillates Like the Musical Equivalent of a Dreamachine

Bug1_crop — Bug, image courtesy the artist

The rhythm and texture of Bug’s “Walking With the Muse” is in your face while the cycling harmonic atmospherics run in the background. The effect is a bit like running a film projector with the reels in front of you but with the visual magic happening far ahead of you. The physicality of the film is in your foreground, the sound of the reels running and of the film scrolling through hypnotically giving the illusion of movement. It gives the track a dimensional quality that entirely unconventional even given the realm of IDM with which its aesthetic might be most closely idenitified. It draws on your imagination to contextualize yourself in its atmospheres and rhythms without putting you off or demanding too much of your conscious mind. It’s like a sonic representation of a dream machine, oscillating and calming the mind and perhaps opening it to channels of normally untapped inspiration and creativity. Listen to “Walking With the Muse” on Soundcloud and follow Bug at the links below.

soundcloud.com/musicforbugs
bugly.bandcamp.com
instagram.com/typicalbug

“What Are We Doing” is EGOISM’s Song About the Beauty and Romance of Embracing Operating Without the Pressure of Having to Have a Plan

EGOISM1_sm — EGOISM, photo courtesy the artists

EGOISM’s new single “What Are We Doing” strikes a confident and expansive tone even given the hint of doubt in the title. Like Depreciation Guild its melodies are bright and colorful but its tonal dynamics indulge some My Bloody Valentine-esque tonal bends that warp the sound field enough to let you know that you’re listening to a song that despite its celebratory, summer jam-esque sound and dynamic, is in the end a reflection of human imperfection as not just normal but perhaps even a feature, not a bug, of human life itself and something to be embraced rather than wished away. The chorus of the song from which the title is taken celebrates the fact that you can get through life not knowing what you’re doing in that fake life expert way expected of us and from each other too often when if we let go of such nothings we can be more psychologically healthy people. Listen to “What Are We Doing” on Soundcloud and follow EGOISM at the links provided.

soundcloud.com/egoismband
open.spotify.com/artist/6bTkIQfvR8nlRCHLAvbfOD
egoismband.bandcamp.com
facebook.com/egoismband
instagram.com/egoismband

Outside The Academy’s Raucus “M.Y.O. Fiction” is a Much-Needed Pinprick to This Era’s Political Pomposity

OTA_Upside-DownLayeredCosmic_sm — OTA, photo courtesy the artist

“You’re a fuckwit” is not a line you hear in many songs. But in Outside The Academy’s “M.Y.O. Fiction” the band lays out some serious sarcasm wrapped up in its wiry and urgent noise punk. In doing so the group bares an understandable frustration with a political milieu where everyone imagines themselves an expert no matter what they know or their relative level of knowledge and forget remember one’s humanity when dealing with “the other.” It doesn’t sound like some simpering centrist call for “civility” in an era when a mythical notion of such went out the window given the corruption rife in the economic and the political system most places even in the face of environmental breakdown threatening all life as we’ve ever consciously known it. The internecine strife when actual fascists seem to operate openly and protected by the police. The insistence of purity in some realms of one’s life but not others and holding everyone to a standard you couldn’t adhere to if the tables were turned with a different set of criteria thereof. And to top it all off that the drudgery of the political as we know it now needing to dominate and permeate all art and creative expression or it has to be seen as some low rent version of “counter revolutionary.” We are there and Outside TheAcademy’s “M.Y.O. Fiction” (presumably “Mind Your Own Fiction” but interpretations will vary) is a send up of all of it. You can tell from the lyrics that all of that matters but to survive these times intact we’re going to have to not dissect everyone and everything all the time in the process. In a crisis it’s too easy to forget that your knowledge of everything is as limited as your universal expertise so best to maintain a little existential humility. Listen on Soundcloud and follow Outside The Academy at the links below.

soundcloud.com/outsidetheacademy
open.spotify.com/artist/0yJaXRFo7sYuUK69i5Z4d7
outsidetheacademy.bandcamp.com
twitter.com/O_T_A
facebook.com/OutsideTheAcademy

Pencey Sloe’s “All OK” is a Song About Living Life Without Unnecessary Filters

PenceySloe1_sm — Pencey Sloe, photo courtesy the artists

Benjamin Berzerker’s video for Pencey Sloe’s “All OK” reflects the enigmatic quality of the band’s twin melodies, one bright and ethereal, the other textured and gritty. The image of the red cloth around the man’s head like a rose-colored shroud is more original than merely saying someone is living with their head in the clouds but that the filter can be removed if you really want it to and that if you walk out of your usual contexts and take on the world on its own terms it will, indeed, be OK. The soaring dynamic of the song recurving in on itself as the percussion moves forward in a steady procession while warm yet ghostly vocals all but whisper the narrative of stasis and liberation from your internal oppressor set this song and band apart from the crowd of neo-shoegazers of the past decade and a half. Watch the Berzerker video below and follow Pencey Sloe on Bandcamp where the group will release its debut album Don’t Believe, Watch Out on September 27.

penceysloe.bandcamp.com/album/don-t-believe-watch-out

Glass Spells’ Darkwave Disco Song “Don’t Save Me” is a Plea For Authenticity in an Era of Mediated Personality

GlassSpells1_sm — Glass Spells, photo courtesy the artists

On “Don’t Save Me” Glass Spells uses the sound of an upbeat melody and urgent rhythm, in the classic mode of post-punk, to make a disheartening point about humanity while giving you something for the message go down better. The lyric “I took the darkness of your lies, the unknown pleasures of your past” speaks much when followed by “Don’t save me now, don’t tell me how” to the way so much, not just online but in our everyday lives, is mediated so that many people think they can just change in and out of identities and personalities like their personal history never happened and as though regular human attachments including the reality of your life as a mortal human is contingent as long as it suits a narrative however questionable. The song is like a plea for something authentic in a person and in experiences in an era where presentation seems to have more cachet than the genuine article. Fans of Violet Tremors, early Ladytron and The Vanishing will appreciate the way this trio crafts synth-driven post-punk in a way that transcends the conventions and embraces the way you can make a disco and electroclash beat moody and urgent. Listen to “Don’t Save Me” on Soundcloud and follow Glass Spells at the links provided.

soundcloud.com/glassspells
open.spotify.com/artist/6a4xrf2tjp1zo2osASzWOQ
youtube.com/channel/UCjAnoxEiHwLVg9q6dP6qvtA
facebook.com/GlassSpells

Margot Polo’s “Let’s Get Out” is a Celebration of the Mythical Endless Summer of Our Youths

MargotPolo1_sm — Margot Polo, photo courtesy the artist

“Let’s Get Out” on the surface level is a summer love chillwave anthem. The ascending, bright melodies and expansive vocals and the kind of rhythm that sounds like you’re gearing yourself up to be motivated to make it a great summer or at this late stage in the season one last hurrah before the weather begins its descent into colder temperatures. It’s a celebration of long nights indulging hedonistic fun. But David Provenzano, whose solo project Margot Polo happens to be, gives us details about the experiences he relates outside the choruses that give the song some concretizing vividness including some inside jokes for those in the know as with the line “Have you ever felt like you’ve come undone, like you want to go west on Highway 1” to indicate that you want to do something reckless since Highyway 1 runs north and south. References to the moon on the ocean and being shown the constellations on someone’s phone and other refinements makes the song a kind of fantasy about getting away from the humdrum of the everyday which is perfectly safe in the daydream world of a song and Margot Polo (points for an inspired project name) invites us to take that mythical road trip in our minds for a few moments to transport us to a place where summer never ends and it’s a time when some, if not most of us, can remember a time when we were free to do as we will for what seemed like forever. Listen to “Let’s Get Out” on Soundcloud and follow Margot Polo at the links below. Look for Margot Polo’s debut, 5-song EP out in the fall.

soundcloud.com/margotpolomusic
open.spotify.com/artist/3jtBwwaY0omFKTca8WmY7i
margotpolo.bandcamp.com/releases
twitter.com/margotpolomusic
facebook.com/margotpolomusic

Sir Woman Evokes the Great Roller Disco Anthems of Yesteryear on Her Funk-Inflected Pop Song “Making Love”

SirWoman1_sm — Sir Woman, photo courtesy the artist

Kelsey Wilson of Wild Child and Glorietta uses a sort of funk sound palette to craft a 70s A.M. radio R&B-inflected pop on “Making Love,” her second single with new project Sir Woman. The insistent electronic tambourine, warbling, Worrell-esque synth and fluid, soft-edged bass line sounds like the kind of disco song you wish you would have heard at skating rinks in their heyday in the 1970s. Wilson deftly navigates that aesthetic with lyrics that reflect a modern sensibility on the nature of gender and relationships. The swagger expressed in the song is framed in a way that inverts the misogynistic viewpoint of a lot of music of the era it’s invoking while casting no judgments as there is something about that vibe and that way of songwriting that has resonance for the present. Listen to “Making Love” on Soundcloud and follow Sir Woman on Spotify. Look for the debut Sir Woman album Party City out soon.

open.spotify.com/artist/3H03S3ZtyYLdzsk6EYndUL

“Fit To Heal The Devil” is Mariami’s Stirring Clarion Call to Heal From Abuse in the Music Industry and Beyond

Mariami5_crop_sm — Mariami, photo courtesy the artist

Mariami reveals her own experience of managerial abuse in the music industry in her song “Fit To Heal The Devil.” With drifts of moody atmosphere and bright, melodic vocals Mariami outlines how so much of that abuse is internalized as she felt she had to bury her pain and sense of having to hide what was going on under the idea that maybe that was what everyone had to tolerate in order to have a real career in music. Fortunately Mariami found pretending that everything was okay intolerable enough to part ways with her manager but the poignancy of the tone of her vocals evokes the time before she had the impetus to seek better for herself. Sure, the song is specifically about the music industry, which was revealing itself to have more than a few pockets of shady behavior before the #MeToo movement got off the ground for example when it was revealed that a well-known PR company representative turned out to be an abusive creep, but it could be relatable to anyone who has been suffering abuse and exploitation in any context. The power and clarity of Mariami’s voice in the song shining through the haze and downtempo beat of the song, even as they compliment and highlight the message, is stirring stuff. As the title of the song suggests it’s not a moment to sink into despair but a starting place of reconciliation, holding the violators to account and to heal from the effects of abuse. Listen to “Fit To Heal The Devil” on Soundcloud and follow Mariami at the links below.

mariamisound.com
soundcloud.com/officialmariami
open.spotify.com/artist/6EmYrvwNj5HqzWVQfMMkQP
youtube.com/channel/UCZv5lUOei3NB3duVyONQO0Q
facebook.com/MariamiOfficial
instagram.com/officialmariami