SubmitHub – Page 52 – Queen City Sounds and Art

The Video for talker’s “Easygoing” is Like an Elevated Horror Short About Being Fine With Having Zero Chill in Love

The video for talker’s new single “Easygoing” may disturb you or be eerily relatable (either in the moment or at some point in your life). There’s blood, obsession, scenes of anxious attachment taken to the extreme and yet there’s no denying it’s compelling like an Ari Aster short on a lower budget suiting the subject. And the song with its upbeat and earnest melodies serves as a great contrast to frank lyrics about real feelings in the moment and some of where they come from. When talker sings “I wish I could be easygoing/But that’s not me at least I know it/I’ll wear you out til you get holes in your sleeves/I wish I could be easygoing” it is clearly melodramatic but honest with a touch of self-awareness. When we see talker chase the object of her affections after she accidentally (was it accidental, though?) injures herself in an outburst of emotional excess and unself-aware expression of love looking like a maddened and driven stalker who immediately reminds one of the scene in Wild at Heart when Diane Ladd’s character smears on her lipstick in a desperate pantomime that in her mind probably feels like some measure of normal. In this video the chase scene seems ridiculous as well yet somehow funny though some may disagree. Whatever one’s interpretation, “Easygoing” is a well-crafted, indie pop song with poignancy and like the bombastic music video its unique charms linger with you.

“Jomon (Preservation Rework feat. Armand Hammer)” by Hatis Noit Synthesizes Shamanic Vocals and Spiritual Hip-Hop Poetry

Renowned producer Preservation (MF Doom, RZA, Mos Def) felt a connection with experimental composer and vocalist Hatis Noit’s audio and visual aesthetic and heard a resonance between her work and that of NYC hip-hop duo Armand Hammer. The result was a rework of the single “Jomon” originally found on Hatis Noit’s 2022 album Aura. This new version of the song takes out of regular time and place to a realm where shamanic vocal soundscaping and rhythms and streetwise poetry can intermingle and inform one another in a brilliantly syncretic musical fusion. Preservation certainly heard the way the simple percussion of the song suited Armand Hammer’s spoken word style and elevated poetic meter and how Hatis Noit’s hypnotic and transporting mantra-esque delivery threaded through and around Armand Hammer’s vocals could give each other an emotional resonance and context that probably no one else was thinking of combining. It’s a powerful piece of music that links the primal, instinctual places from which the creativity of everyone involved in the project stems. Listen to this rework of “Jomon” on YouTube and follow Hatis Noit at the links provided.

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Ariane Gabriel Reconnects With Her Sensual Impulses on Sultry Synth Pop Single “i wanna have sex”

Ariane Gabriel, photo courtesy the artist

The title of Ariane Gabriel’s song “i wanna have sex” seems simple and straightforward and in a way it is a song about erotic desire. It’s ethereal synths and Gabriel’s confident yet vulnerable vocals carry with them a feeling of rediscovery and wanting to enjoy the titular experience in all its pleasurable possibilities including the feelings surrounding it. But in the tenor of the song one picks up on the undertones and backstory of the song and a prolonged period of self-denial and accepting sex as a normal and desirable human experience. Gabriel had been abused and it zapped her sex drive for a long period of time when even the thought of sex was traumatizing. Trauma can linger with you for a year or a lifetime and everyone processes it in their own way and on their own schedule but in Gabriel’s vibrantly soft toned synth pop song one hears the sound of someone who still remembers how things were yet doesn’t want to let that limit her joy of life. Rather, fully embracing it with a refreshing frankness. Listen to “i wanna have sex” on Spotify and follow French pop artist Ariane Gabriel at the links below.

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Ariane Gabriel on YouTube

Neil Foster Graces Us With a Bit of Unstructured Time With the Immersive Ambient Track “Kite Dreams”

Neil Foster, as he often does, offers a composition that is so minimal and rich in sonic detail that it eases into your conscious with gentle textures and tranquil melodies that stretch out into endless vistas of sound. “Kite Dreams” includes field recordings of birdsong in the Irish woodland likely in or near Killyleagh where the track was composed and recorded. Shimmering, abstract bell tone echo, a slow roiling drone weaves together with string arrangements embody the dynamic grace of kites in the sky on a sunny yet partly cloudy day. Assembled together the song evokes a pastoral image of having the free time to spend flying kites, a perhaps quaint pastime we often chalk up to the careless days of childhood, and taking in the sounds, sights and sheer physical presence of nature without needing to mind the intrusion of the demands of regular life. The song embodies the concept of unstructured time even though it is of finite duration and built on the elegant mathematics of song and these days we need more of this kind of experience even if we can sometimes only get from indulging a song. Listen to “Kite Dreams” on Spotify and follow Neil Foster at the links below.

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Bad Flamingo’s Americana Noir Song “Fast” is a Tale of Life on the Edge and Outrunning Boring and Tamed Normiedom

Bad Flamingo, photo courtesy the artists

It’s really remarkable at this point how Bad Flamingo can take similar instrumentation with guitar, some percussion, banjo, maybe some mandolin, bass, synth and nearly whispered vocals and arrange it in endlessly different ways with a seemingly deep well of material that is the personal mythology of someone who is living on the edges of society as a rebel storyteller who is caught up in melodramatic tales with the gritty feel and sense of underlying menace in a kind of urban Americana noir. “Fast” finds the band offering evocative couplets with the construct like the lyric “I’m a fist waiting for a fight” and “I’m a wolf waiting for the night.” We hear about money hidden in a mattress that is rapidly running out and yet our narrator and their companion seem to run just ahead of the negative consequences of a life lived outside the bounds of straight society. This time out the music gets some rush of low end atmosphere to heighten the sense of danger and that just renders the song yet another great entry in the duo’s consistently growing body of work that remains distinctive yet not completely classifiable which seems to suit the vibe of what the band is about.

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Bad Flamingo on YouTube

Blondfire Dives Headlong Into Love Once Again on Immersive Synth Pop Single “Foolish”

Blondfire takes a dive off the deep end into love once again on “Foolish.” The title of the song might sum up the spirit of the songwriting and the impetus behind it but it also speaks to a a self-awareness and a trust in one’s own instincts rather than the second guessing that can keep you from doing something or being involved with something or someone that might be good for you even if just for a little while. When you know you might be acting foolishly it gives you a certain thrill unless it goes tragically sideways. And sometimes even then. But Blondfire goes all in with the commitment in the lyrics and in her willingness to cast aside the fears and insecurities that can cause you to stumble. Musically the rich and glimmering synth melodies and Blondfire’s own commanding vocals have echoes of Nik Kershaw’s “Wouldn’t It Be Good.” But rather than it seeming derivative it resonates with the romanticism of that song and taps into feelings of nostalgia without needing to look back on some fondly remembered time, rather, the rush of inexplicably warm feelings that can propel you forward into a good mood perhaps reconnecting with your ability to completely giving yourself up to moments of sustained passion and affection. Listen to “Foolish” on Soundcloud and follow Blondfire at the links below.

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Dax Bares the Destructive Consequences of Emotional Abuse on “Narcissist”

The video for Dax’s new single “Narcissist” is like a surreal horror movie short but one with a much more personal touch. It shows Dax being controlled in a web of strings that pull on various parts of himself, trapping him within a tapestry of interconnected points of influence. When he trades vocal centerstage with Phix we see a situation more like the Bluebeard myth but with the same effect. In each case the vocalist recounts the experience of trying to relate to a narcissist and the destructive outcome. How the narcissist will come in attractive and charming and once you’re invited into their world it’s little or not so little emotional snares reinforced by a shifting mosaic of lies and gaslighting couched in terms of a special connection but all along it’s abuse. When Dax sings “The key to your heart/Opens up a place I’m not safe in…Waking up to all your faces/Trapped inside this cage” he captures the dynamic well and his tone and that of Phix is one of vulnerability and hurt and though each sings about those feelings it never waxes aggressive the way it might if the song was about some misguided spirit of revenge. Once again Dax in his songs that mix hip-hop and other musical styles (in this case, indie pop) offers a parallel perspective than the usual pop music tropes. Watch the video for “Narcissist” on YouTube and follow Dax at the links below.

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Anna Walsh Dares to Choose a Better Life For Herself on “Plan B”

Anna Walsh genre bends a bit in her single “Plan B” but that blend of Americana, pop and warmly rendered indie rock serves the song well. The lyrics tell a story many people know well or have been on either end of that interpersonal dynamic, or certainly witnessed it, and the life events that spiral out from there. Many songs are written from the perspective of the narrator as the main character. But Walsh approaches the narrative from the direction of someone who others have tried to turn into a side character like the guy who tells the narrator she was his plan B, the kind of male who acts like he understands others not as an act of empathy but of manipulation to get a weird, low vibration thrill of delusional power and influence in his social circles. But the narrator of the song even though she’s 20 has enough of a sense of self to not go through with a pregnancy or get spooked by some pharmacist because she wants different things for her life and makes for directions to better figure out what life holds for her. The guitar work and the vocal choruses become more elaborate, energetic and upwardly mobile in spirit toward the end of the song with an exhilarating sense that there’s much more to life than to be than the narrow and diminished dreams someone with no imagination and certainly not your best interests in mind has vaguely planned for you. The line “Ruminating on his fantasies/Could never have changed/What was/In front of me” rings so true in the context of the song and expresses the decisive shift in consciousness clearly because most people deserve better than they typically get or have been taught to expect for themselves. Listen to “Plan B” on Spotify and follow Anna Walsh on Instagram.

Grocer’s “Packrat” is an Anthem For the Neurotic, Controlling, Dissociative Behaviors We Adopt to Cope With the Downward Spiral of Modern Life

On its new single “Packrat,” Philadelphia’s Grocer sounds like it has perhaps been revisiting some neglected 90s rock with it’s gigantic, melodic hooks and buoyant vocals. But like a lot of the music of that era, it’s simply emotionally raw and honest except Grocer has delivered one of the most accurate portraits of anxiety and psychological paralysis of recent times. Its snippets about the dissociative behaviors one often exhibits when your brain gets stuck on some detail rather than moving on as some odd act of delusional micro control over something rather than let it all potentially unravel along with your sense of self. The title of the song points out to one of those controlling tendencies that also give the illusion of control and maintaining. Many of us have been in those moments here and there in the past couple of decades as more and more is demanded in everyday life with increasingly little given in return for our moments, energy and dedication. The line “I’ll survive off anything/Before I live in the moment” is a painfully amusing summary of life in late capitalism and being in survival mode so often that you have to ignore that thriving isn’t often on the table nearly enough for much of anyone that isn’t already rich and even for those people that pressure on everyone else trickles up in ways the world only started to try to address with the early pandemic. But the song itself sounds like a cathartic and playful send up of those gnarled and desperate feelings channeled off into bursts of cognitive dissonance and dysfunction readily recognizable by anyone honest about the state of things. Listen to “Packrat” on Spotify and follow Grocer at the links below. Expect the group’s new album Bless Me out April 19, 2024 on digital, vinyl and CD.

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TRAUMA KIT’s Noise Rock Epic “PLATEAU” Captures the Essence of Today’s Dystopian Times

Imagine one of the only weird hardcore bands from your hometown (you know, the one that listened to Crucifucks and Flipper coming up more than the usual suspects) gets bored with hard fast rules and were always into stranger music and the possibilities of sonic extremes in experimental industrial music and noise and makes a band you think would be good on a bill with Chat Pile, Mclusky/The Future of the Left or The Jesus Lizard. Or all three (four if you want to count The Future of the Left separately). TRAUMA KIT is that band from Boise, Idaho, a town that has a lot of secret talent. “PLATEAU” is the first song on the group’s new album TRAIN WRECKS TAKE TIME (which dropped February 23, 2024) is a caustic and seething bit of work that sounds like the story of dead end lives in dead end towns in dead end countries in a dead end civilization. It also sounds like what you do to express the pain of living through those situations and coming into the harrowing disillusion of having the realization of what you’ve inherited as a human in this time crash into you. It also comes across like the next searingly dystopian science fiction film made by Brandon Cronenberg if he teamed up with Harmony Korine for a story idea and really nailed what future looks like for most of us but the story of someone struggling to find some meaning and dignity in the detritus of world history yet not being completely hopeless and finding some glory in the struggle against the level best attempts of late capitalism to crush us into nothing. Musically you’re going to hear the aforementioned but also a bit of late 80s Voivod and maybe more than a little Shellac and a shred of Naked City. No complaints. Listen to “PLATEAU” on Spotify (Apple Music or Bandcamp) and you may recognize some of your own intrusive thoughts in the words and thrilling collisions of sound.

TRAUMA KIT on Apple Music