SubmitHub – Page 46 – Queen City Sounds and Art

Twin Court’s Thoughtful and Introspective “Wolf in the Breast” is a Lushly Melancholic Fusion of Non-Western Folk and Classic American Indie Rock

Twin Court’s use of what often sounds like improvised, and certainly unconventional, percussion and a bell that borders on discordant lends “Wolf in the Breast” a unique musical texture and a quality of something rough hewn like something from a non-Western folk tradition. But the songwriting with its soft vocals and delicately resonant guitar melodies are reminiscent of Yo La Tengo if that band had hailed from a more rural setting rather than Hoboken, New Jersey. There is a melancholic haze to the song that heightens aspect of thoughtful introspection. The lyrics are at times enigmatic and others seemingly an impressionistic meditation on how everyone has sides of themselves hidden away until the right experiences draw them out and how sides of our own personalities can sit firmly in our own blind spots until they’re brought into conscious focus in a way that makes them seem like they should have been obvious to us all along. Listen to “Wolf in the Breast” (not to be confused with the Cocteau Twins song of the same name) on YouTube and follow Twin Court at the links below.

Twin Court on Instagram

Easy Sleeper’s Raucous and Melancholic Jangle Pop Single “Pleasure Thrills” is a Song About Pacing Yourself Instead of Burning Out

Easy Sleeper evokes a a deep sense of melancholic nostalgia and regret on “Pleasure Thrills.” Jangle-y guitar chords ring out with great spirit and then hang and linger accented by a subtle but strong bass line and framed by especially expressive percussion. The vocals weave a story and commentary about how in life there’s a lot of pressure to participate in pretense and competition under the misunderstanding that the choices offered to us are the only ones available and how maybe choosing a different path and way of being might be for the best. Lines like “Two conclusions pick the third one” suggest there’s always a different way of thinking. And the lines asking why you can’t just slow down or shut down instead of chasing after some dubious social reward sound like a call for not making decisions in haste and constantly living life like there’s a finish line. “You’ve only heard of meltdown,” that lyric concisely captures how a lot of people go through life catastrophizing when they crack periodically under their own self-imposed pressure, and who hasn’t at some point in their lives, when that could be bypassed by pacing oneself and forgoing imagined potential glory. The title may have another meaning completely but it fits how a life lived in bipolar fashion can seem exciting and fun but at what cost? Musically the song is reminiscent of 2000s indie pop and the kind of underground power pop that informed it with intricate melodies and raw yet tender moods. Listen to “Pleasure Thrills” on Spotify and follow Easy Sleeper at the links below. Look for the band’s next record due out in the fall.

Easy Sleeper on TikTok

Easy Sleeper on Instagram

Sebastian Müller’s Remix of E. Terre’s Ambient Song “Butterflies In A Field” is Like a Beautifully Negative Image of the Ethereal Sparkle of the Original

Brighton, UK-based artist Sebastian Müller took E. Terre’s song “Butterflies In A Field” from the latter’s 2023 debut EP A Constant Collage and truly changed its character and energy in the remix. The bright and effervescent quality of the original in Müller’s re-work is preserved as an undercurrent and the textural elements emphasized. The effect is something that sounds like a musical extrapolation on the frequences of water flowing briskly in an underground cave. The luminescent sounds more like something experienced in a dark environment rather than above ground in the sunlight. Or on a cloudy day with the shimmery dynamic of the original processed so the lower frequencies are emphasized lending the remix a paradoxically darker yet still resonant aspect that is like the musical equivalent of a negative image of E. Terre’s shining and sparkly original. Listen to “Butterflies In A Field – Sebastian Müller Remix” on Spotify.

Joh Chase’s Charming Folk Pop Single “When I Got This Place” is a Song About Being Content With Where You Are in Your Head and on the Planet

Joh Chase drives down the surprisingly un-glamorous streets of daytime Los Angeles in the video for “When I Got This Place” and it serves as a perfect companion to the song’s lyrics. The spare and lively guitar work and Chase’s intimate and immediately engaging vocals deliver a song that seems to be about what it’s like to move to a place that’s supposed to mean so much more to so many people and a place many people go to make their dreams come true only to find that it’s often a lot different than some romanticized vision from film and television. But Chase’s song isn’t about disillusionment, it’s about coming to appreciate where you are geographically and in life. And to manage expectations and accept things as they are. Perhaps even to appreciate the uniqueness of where you find yourself and its unique charms. Chase’s song is an uplifting and finely crafted pop song filled with a gentle spirit and sense of acceptance that isn’t common enough in music at the moment. Watch the video for “When I Got This Place” on YouTube and follow Joh Chase at the links below. Chase’s album SOLO dropped on April 26, 2024 via Kill Rock Stars.

Joh Chase on Facebook

Joh Chase on Instagram

McDead’s “90” is a Cinematic, Psychedelic Big Beat Dub Dance Banger

You never quite know what you’ll get when you listen to a McDead song. Kev Edinborough’s influences and inspirations are diverse and seemingly hitting him in a serendipitous an intuitive fashion from track to track. “90” sounds like it crawled out of some hip post-Bristol trip-hop heyday and aftermath of the Hacienda closing in Manchester underground. It has a solidly moody, fuzzy bass line that pulls us in immediately to be swept up in psychedelic shimmer, breakbeats and an echoing keyboard melody that surrounds and drops in and out of the track while heavily processed soulful vocals haunt a deep inner place of the song. The subtle stereo effects in the production is masterful in placing the sound in and the way the tones decay in the delay and seem to swim around and linger briefly or hang and resonate into the ether. The song is impressive for how it has multiple hooks that make it memorable listen that stays with you. It belongs in a Jim Jarmusch film. Listen to “90” on Spotify and follow McDead at the links below.

Duchamp-Killer’s Video For Psychedelic IDM Track “Be Strong now and ever” is Like an Analog Video Dream Sequence

For the full effect of Duchamp-Killer’s “Be strong now and ever” definitely watch the psychedelic music video that embodies the glitches and high contrast sounds in visual form. A shuffling beat flows under other more industrial rhythms, swells of distorted synth, warping melodic keyboard sounds, burbling tones, bass drones and processed vocal samples. It has the aesthetic of that fusion of underground cinema shot on VHS and 2000s computer video games and art with an endless flow of visual collages paired with music perfectly aligned with its almost free form presentation of creative impulses. At times it comes across like what a live feed from a cybernetic jack from a hacker in a cyberpunk novel would look and sound like if that hacker found a creative outlet of running a form of a silent rave. Fans of 90s IDM especially Download (the long running project of cEvin Key of Skinny Puppy and others) will appreciate the level of sonic detail and the otherworldly retrofuturist vibe here. Watch the video for “Be strong now and ever” on YouTube and follow Duchamp-Killer at the links provided.

duchamp-killer.weebly.com

Duchamp-Killer on TikTok

Freedom Fry’s Electro Funk Pop Single “Midnight Serenade” is a Celebration of Memorable Chance Romantic Encounters After Dark

Freedom Fry hit some nostalgic notes with its new single “Midnight Serenade.” In the beginning the wordless vocal phrase, repeated later as a kind of chorus, and mood of the song is reminiscent of Suzanne Vega’s 1987 hit song “Tom’s Diner.” This resonance feeds into how the song has the sound of a time of day more than suggested by the title. And the lyrics of thoughts looking back on a chance potentia romantic encounter with a stranger that in retrospect feels like it could have come from a dream. Then to subsequently entertaining fantasies of what could have been and might still be after our narrator sobers up and can’t stop thinking about “our midnight serenade.” The funk guitar riff and sweeping synth melodies soaring over and under the vocals and weaving throughout the song all accented by a nicely subtle rhythm lingers long after the song is over too, the mark of we well crafted pop song as is usual for the duo. Listen to “Midnight Serenade” on Spotify and follow Freedom Fry at the links below.

Freedom Fry on Facebook

Freedom Fry on Instagram

OTOTOMY Hurls Free Associating Rhythmic Glitches, Digitally Mutated Vocals and Caustic Textures Together for the Psychedelic Noise Piece “Chairs”

The curiously titled “Chairs” by Finnish noise project OTOTOMY is a collision of power electronics, nightmarish vocal processing, jagged, lo-fi industrial beats and high-pitched distortion. Its disorienting roars have an odd organic logic like if you had to be a computer sorting through the recycling bin of an editing bay and attempt to make sense of the world by threading together the disconnected digital detritus of weeks of frantic work. In that roiling haze of sounds we hear fractured percussion and frayed waves of white noise constantly cresting like a video signal perpetually glitching out and repeating in a harrowing stutter before sputtering into nothingness. And that’s how the piece ends: abruptly and without any hint of a finished theme thus completing the proposed aesthetic above of the way we casually disregard of edits of our digital works splicing them off from more desirable content. With what we have left the mind imposes informal meaning and order and thus that is part of the appeal of the track as it invites interpretation with its furious soundscaping and relentless, rhythmic textures. Like if Butthole Surfers had emerged in the 2000s and didn’t bother with even the attempt at conventional song structure as a baseline before heading off into pure weirdo territory. Listen to “Chairs” on Spotify and follow OTOTOMY at the links below. The project’s new album FAILURE released March 16, 2024.

OTOTOMY on Instagram

OTOTOMY on Bandcamp

OTOTOMY on YouTube

TV FACE Presents a Stark and Brutal Portrait of Disablism in the Video for Seething Post-punk Single “Black Bag”

Six months after the release of its debut full length Tide of Men, Lancaster, UK’s TV FACE released the video for its song “Black Bag,” directed and edited by guitarist and vocalist Steve McWade The black and white footage seemingly shot in the basement of an old asylum is as grim as the subject matter of the song. Very few bands would write a song about disablism and the neglect, disregard and institutional brutality visited upon those deemed disabled either in body or psychology (and of course the interlinked nexus of the two). The song has the band’s signature sharp edges and angular rhythms with spirited vocals and a knack for crafting a sound that in its surging and frantic paces embodies a righteous frustration and outrage that has not nearly enough outlets for catharsis. Except that TV FACE always seems to have its attention on often neglected aspects of society and humanizes the situations with a vivid and energetic presentation and creativity. Watch the video for “Black Bag” on YouTube and follow TV FACE at the links provided. Tide of Men is out now on limited edition 180g yellow vinyl, CD and of course digital download and streaming.

TV FACE on Twitter

TV FACE on Facebook

TV FACE on Instagram

Montanus’ Cosmic Psychedelic Folk Single “Take Me Forest” is a Song About Shedding Ego in Favor of Connecting With the Mysterious Glory of Nature

There is a sense of something mysterious and glorious from the beginning of Montanus’ “Take Me Forest.” The song builds from acoustic guitar progressions that veer off into evocatively unpredictable directions into a climax of distorted guitar before settling down into a more tranquil outro. The arc of music parallels the lyrics that express a kind of surrender to benevolent forces larger than oneself and to subsume the ego to something more significant and meaningful than the limited perspective of ego assertion. The synth backdrop adds a subtle layer of the cosmic that the warping psychedelia of the electric guitars bring seem to build off of as they soar with big splashes of percussion that in moments feel like the ego expressing itself before dissolving into the great beyond. In structure and emotional impact its reminiscent of one of those hits by The Call but rooted more in psychedelic folk yet imbued with an anthemic spirit. Listen to “Take Me Forest” on Spotify and follow Montanus on Instagram.