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Laura Carbone Coaxes Us to Accept the Positive Things in Life That Could Be on the Orchestral Dream Pop Song “The Good”

Laura Carbone, photo by Helen Sobiralsky

A spectral keyboard sound hangs in the background of Laura Carbone’s “The Good” like a gentle reminder of one’s better instincts. The processional pace of the song serves its message well and when the guitar strums linger catching the strings individually at times before heading into the moment of the song it contributes greatly to the orchestral sound Carbone brings to bear with her uplifting vocals. The song is about how many of us have been so conditioned to not expect anything out of life without deserving it in some transactional sense whether that be religious beliefs or living under capitalism that we distrust anything good and positive. The chorus of “You run away from all the good” speaks directly to this but so does Carbone’s lyrics about dreams and how we’ve learned to not listen to our better instincts that guide us toward what we really want out of life in its myriad dimensions. Rather, when something good does come our way we will often distrust that it’s real and convince ourselves best to run away rather than get fooled into a bad situation even when there really isn’t one. Carbone with this song coaxes us out of this mindset with a gentle and compassionate touch without judgment but part of that involves coming to terms with puzzling behaviors and ideas we’ve internalized even when they don’t serve us well. Watch the lyric video for “The Good” on YouTube and follow Laura Carbone at the links provided. Her album The Cycle is due out in April 2024.

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Freddi Rituali’s Vibrantly Elegant Post-punk Single “Per ridere di te” Recalls Vintage 80s European Coldwave

Freddi Rituali, photo courtesy the artists

Freddi Rituali’s economic use of clean tonal lines, spacious arrangements and a brisk pace on “Per ridere di te” (“To Laugh at You” in English) is reminiscent of some long lost 80s coldwave band. Think a more minimalist Martin Dupont. The expressive vocals provide a great deal of the passionate energy in the song along with the processed guitar with that type of distortion and melodramatic flourish of the aforementioned era. The synths at times pulse with vivid clarity and at others supply a melancholic undertone buoyed by the almost motorik percussion while spidery guitar leads accent the vocal lines in elegant filigrees. It’s a song that could have come out in 1987 and been a hit or today and fit right in with current darkwave but with much more creative songwriting and guitar work than most. Listen to “Per ridere di te” on YouTube and follow Italian post-punk band Freddi Rituali on Spotify.

Shadow Sides Brings and Uplifting Energy to Coming to Terms With Childhood Trauma on the Shoegaze Tinged “no going home”

Shadow Sides’ new single from its forthcoming album Dissolve the Frame “no going home” is stylistically divergent from the brooding darkwave of “heroine with meaning.” The sparkling guitar work is more reminiscent of the expansive, ethereal sounds of 80s post-punk band The Chameleons. Chords hang and dissolve over an understated, driving bass line and drums, the riffs shimmer and burn with an urgency in moments reflecting the lyrics that hint at an adulthood coming to terms with childhood traumas. Lines like “Buried in youth” after “Uncovering half truths” points to the kind of information that sometimes hits you out of the blue and rattles your psyche for a moment because you’ve had to dissociate at those earlier points in your life to emotionally survive and the memories had stayed hidden and all but forgotten. Though the song is upbeat it is an expression of the kind of energy you have to muster to not be sunk with finally coming to deal with dark moments of your personal history that inspire thoughts like “Nothing stays the same, there’s no going home” because it’s abundantly clear why that isn’t even a desirable option. Without softening the impact of experiences like the song outlines that many people can find relatable it kindly expresses the sentiments indirectly, resonating with the emotional truth over relating graphic details, and pairs it with the kind of uplifting melancholia that The Chameleons and bands it influenced like Kitchens of Distinction and Slowdive manifested so well in their own foundational work to the kind of song Shadow Sides offers here. Listen to “no going home” on Spotify and follow Shadow Sides at the links below.

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Dionisaf’s “Tantric Cat” is an Epic Ambient Journey Through Meditative Inner Space to the Tranquil Outer Reaches

“Tantric Cat” is the epic 30:03 track that opens the new Dionisaf album Healing Music (released January 12, 2024). It begins with the sound of purring before the tones of an enveloping cosmic soundscape drift into the distance. What sounds like a campfire or rain falling into a lake layers through the spectral haze. After three minutes voices echo through like ancient radio transmissions captured and rendered audible by an alien technology or organism or a blend of the two. The streaming, luminescent tones increase in speed like tail of a comet and we hear the sound of those streaking lights a harmonic, evolcing drone embodies the brightest end of that movement. Perhaps the music is an interpretation of the title and the said cat rather than that of the Schrödinger variety is taking a journey through time and space via a discipline enabling a type of astral projection and able to translate this experience as a sound that conjures visual images while the cat is warmed by a fire that grounds the ethereal and heavenly flow of noises inducing a sense of deep calm and connection with a larger universe and spaces and energies we will likely never know directly except through such creative expressions. More voices leak through the shimmering vistas of drone over a third of the way through the piece sounding ever so much like the chatter of astronauts adrift in space from decades past and rather than being haunting it curiously has a quality of comfort through familiarity in the abstraction of the ambient soundstream. In the last third of the composition the dense drone clears away as though we’ve entered a primordial cavern with textural sounds, rattles and the sound of rain replacing the drones of earlier, it’s a cleansing sound, tranquil in its fashion rooted in tactile experiences yet with the beacon of pulses of melodic tones discernible in the far distance. As the song comes to a close the chatter of humans returns as the rain diminishes and a sense of being gentle set down in regular reality sets in while all sounds fade to silence. It feels like a real journey and that it can’t possible have been around a half hour in total. Listen to “Tantric Cat” on Spotify and follow Dionisaf at the links provided.

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Yify Zhang’s Sweepingly Orchestral Synthpop Single “This Is The Year” Encourages All of Us to Live Our Dreams Sooner Than Later

Yify Zhang offers a different vision of a song of self-affirmation with “This Is The Year.” In the beginning she acknowledges how in times past she put her energy and effort into someone else’s concept for who she is and what she should strive for, in effect trying to live out a prescribed role and striving for aspirations handed to her rather than her own. With hushed, introspective vocals Zhang course upward as the song’s orchestral melodies saturate from a dreamlike spaciousness to something more concrete and full like the intentionality in realizing a new vision for self that Zhang articulates in the song’s lyrics of leaving behind her previous was of being and learning to trust herself and follow her passion and guiding the course of her life by plugging directly into that living her authentic dreams for herself. Most of us have spent a lot of our lives fortifying the fortunes of others and often not that of even the people we care about and who enrich our lives directly without questioning it and in Zhang’s song she breaks a bit of this cycle for herself and a reminder to others they can do so as well. The song’s cinematic scope simply reinforces the sense of that possibility in sweeping synth pop flourishes. Listen to “This Is The Year” on Spotify and follow Yify Zhang at the links below.

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Elea Calvet’s Cabaret Chamber Pop Single “Sinuous Ways” is Like a Poetic Examination of a Complicated Relationship With Oneself

Elea Calvet’s title to the song “Sinuous Ways” suggests in its very language the way life can be like walking a tightrope in navigating tensions and precarious situations. Also the imagery of the lyrics highlights the interconnections of the various aspects of our lives and how it’s held together like the connective tissues of living. The music cast in strings, piano and Calvet’s near whispered vocals like a jazz singer who maybe took in a little influence from Edith Piaf’s cadence and Jarvis Cocker’s phrasing conveys a mood like a late night cabaret act performing in a darkened club in Paris or Berlin. The words can at times seem to describe obliquely a complicated relationship but one that is more like coming to terms with that relationship with oneself and grappling with one’s own existential angst. Listen to “Sinuous Ways” on Spotify and follow Elea Calvet at the links provided.

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Amie Hayes’ Darkly Folkloric Slowcore Single “Wicked Woman” Lingers Long in the Mind

Amie Hayes, photo by William Creek Creations

The spacious and finely textured guitar loop that runs through Amie Hayes’ single “Wicked Woman” sets a mood as dark, stark and brooding as the subject matter of the song. Hayes’ vocals sound slightly doubled to give the words a deep resonance even as they’re delicate and introspective in tone. But there’s an undeniable edge to the song the whole way through as Hayes sings the tale of someone who can’t handle the narrator’s intensity of feeling and personal strength and likes to see her bowed and subservient even if that’s not her nature and lacking that keeping her at a distance so that none of that thorny humanity and grimy emotions rub off and complicate matters. The narrative thus hits like a modern bit of folklore. Musically it’s like a dark, slowcore piece reminiscent of maybe some of Chelsea Wolfe’s more dusky folk compositions and its labyrinthine melodies gets under your skin a little in a way that invites repeated listens. Listen to “Wicked Woman” on Spotify.

Boy of Sleep Convey the Subtle Elegance and Magic of Summer Arboreal Green Transitioning to Autumnal Gold on “Retonsel”

A gentle oscillating shimmer of drone runs in the background of Boy of Sleep’s “Retonsel.” It has an effect like a touch of light against dark while a synth melody rolls through in a resonant, sequenced loop. It feels like a modern classical piece composed for an art installation featuring early fall foliage transitioning from green to golden. Partway through a second melody eases in between the background and foreground loop which in its crisp, and clear if slightly echoing resonance seems more in focus while the middle musical figure is rimmed with a haze like a fog drifting through the aforementioned imagery. There’s something uplifting and calming about all three sets of sounds working together that also captures a certain magic of the impossible moments to witness as summer transitions to fall in a forest and rather than seem melancholic or nostalgic conveys a mood of acceptance. Listen to “Retonsel” on YouTube and follow Boy of Sleep at the links below.

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“Stars in the Riptide” by Micah Pick and Analise Hausmann Charts the Life Cycle of a Wave From Formation to Crashing Into Shore in Ambient Drones

If you close your eyes and listen to Micah Pick’s and Analise Hausmann’s ambient piece “Stars in the Riptide” you can picture the heavens reflected off the waters as they rush into a rocky inlet, shimmering and endless fragments of glinting light. The song begins with a distant sound like a slow swelling wind, the waveform building in the ocean headed to shore then splashes and rushes as the tide rises. White noises as the crest of the waves ripple through the scintillating melody into a slow cascading frisson of tones that peaks and fades. In the extended version of the song we get to savor that heady anticipation early in the song as it evolves with seeming subtlety into a flood of activity but we hear the simulated sounds of sea birds on the edges of the soundscape much more distinctly and the resonating tones toward the end and apex of the song stretch out like an elongated vortex that breaks and dissolves abruptly into infinity. Listen to both versions of “Stars in the Riptide” on Spotify and follow Micah Pick on Bandcamp.

Dead Boyfriend’s Grounding Yet Transporting Dream Folk Single “heaven to you” Soothes the Spirit

Dead Boyfriend, photo courtesy the artist

The acoustic guitar strums keep “heaven to you” by Dead Boyfriend centered like a looped mantra giving its fluid melodies a kind of outline and structure. Violin hovers at the edges of the song like a hummingbird. The spectral keyboard tones flow about in cool colors adding melancholic and introspective hues to a spare soundscape. All while the vocals seem to convey impressionistic images of sense memories attached to feelings shared with the smallest of circles. Listening to the song feels like getting a glimpse into a secret, deeply personal world with vulnerabilities laid bare in safety. Something about its combination of textural rhythms and ethereal tones works itself into your mind with a spirit of therapeutic calm that lingers with you long after the song’s conclusion. Listen to “heaven to you” on Spotify where you can listen to the rest of the it’s just bad news EP and follow Dead Boyfriend at the links below.

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