SubmitHub – Page 6 – Queen City Sounds and Art

The Bodies Obtained Take Us on a Headlong Tour Through Liminal Moods on Zero Chill IDM Post-Punk Single “Utmost”

Detroit’s The Bodies Obtained have long blurred any lines between post-punk and more experimental electronic music and its new album Bouncing Off The Curb (released May 15, 2026) offers some reprieve from the wave of toxic and destructive mundanity that plagues the world right now. The single “Utmost” comes in with a pulsing beat and maximalist layers of flowing sound and texture. It’s like mid-90s Aphex Twin processed through a modern version of techno and Big Beat. But the tonal shimmers that thread through the beat and the slightly echoing vocals lend it a sound like the more recent music from Sextile but more sinister. It’s zero chill IDM and more rewarding a listening experience because of it. The pace is urgent and insistent until the last third of the song where that energy clears up a little but the grit and the hauntedness remains until the rapid sputter out in the end like we’ve been on some kind of tour of liminal spaces and let out after some therapeutic disorientation. Listen to “Utmost” on Spotify.

Skinny Dippers’ Cosmic Folk Song “When You Were It” Evokes a Warmly Reflective Immediacy

Skinny Dippers, photo courtesy the artists

Skinny Dippers stride fully into a paradoxical mood of deep reflection and emotional immediacy on hazy folk single “When You Were It.” The accented beat anchors the motes of melodic tone that illuminate and haunt the song throughout as well as the spare rhythm guitar, whistles and the tenderly wistful vocals as we’re invited into vivid memories but more so the lingering feelings of peak moments of a relationship. The title refers to the chorus “I’ll forget what you said/I’ll forget what you did/But I’ll never forget how it felt/When you were it” and how that succinctly captures one’s ability to not focus on the negatives but the essential resonance of connection. Everyone has down times in any relationship and maybe the developments and events that cause them to come apart but the feelings that drew you together and the strength of those emotions can stay with you long after without make it so that you’re stuck in the past. The song captures those moments with a precision that mere words are inadequate to on their own. The textural synth passages and the gentle flow of the song is reminiscent of Wilco’s most poetic songs that draw you back in immediately. Listen to “When You Were It” on Spotify and follow Skinny Dippers at the links below. The When You Were It EP released May 15, 2026.

Skinny Dipper on Twitter

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Young Allies Debut Single “Fingers Entwined” is an Infectious New Wave Power Pop Song About the Joys and Pitfalls of Human Relationships

Young Allies, photo courtesy the artists

Young Allies has a debut EP coming out in the near future and the lead single “Fingers Entwined” sounds like the kind of 1980s power pop that has given that music a longer shelf life than expected. The music video with its colorful characters and fantastical settings has an aesthetic like something from the 90s before too many modern digital effects became a normal thing so there is a really analog effect of the visuals that match the song’s essential appeal like a fusion of The Cars and Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians with an immediately catchy hook and lyrics that deftly depict the joys and pitfalls of relationships. And like those bands its obvious that Young Allies, the new project from Fritz Michel, are able to write upbeat and hopeful songs about emotionally complex subjects with seeming ease. Watch the video for “Fingers Entwined” on YouTube and follow Young Allies at the links provided.

Young Allies Website

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Brooklyn Doran’s Melancholic and Expansive “Heavy Hurt” is a Song About Mourning Irreconcilable Differences

Brooklyn Doran, photo courtesy the artist

Brooklyn Doran sure did pick a perfect title for “Heavy Hurt.” The song is written about being on a long tour where the parallel of the tour van breaking down and the breakdown of a relation coincided in a way that maybe makes everything feel like it could be closing in. The expansive, distorted melodic sparkle of the song with Doran’s vulnerable vocal delivery and steady, strong rhythms open up feelings that could sink your spirit if they were locked up inside your heart being denied their truth airing out. And throughout the song we get hints of how it seems obvious that the dissolution of the relationship was there all along with two people wanting different things out of their lives in a way that could never be mutually compatible and the song doesn’t try to cast anyone as a villain. It just honors the hurt on both sides and the honest acceptance of that hurt before healing and moving forward can begin. Listen to “Heavy Hurt” on Spotify and follow Brooklyn Doran at the links below.

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Josaleigh Pollett Examines Seeing and Being Truly Seen By Others on Shoegaze Infused Pop Single “The Witness”

Josaleigh Pollett grounds her single “The Witness” in a spare guitar line and her warmly intimate vocals but all of it is awash in streaming drones and hazy atmospheres that seem to be in a headlong rush over a steady beat. The layered sound suits a song that seems to navigate social dynamics in the modern era of overstimulation, casual digital overexposure and endless demands on our time and our very psyches. The song’s lyrics express the desire for being present and being seen and truly seeing others when we can break free of distractions and actually connect without the leech on our energy and attention trying to fit expectations of mediated existence and the psychology that feeds it. The song’s sounds spiral upward and outward without losing an emotional core and an intuitive essence of self that anchors where the song lands with the realization that too many things are artificial and a template we may impose on ourselves that doesn’t really suit us even if it may be functional in some ways in our lives. Its a modern take on embracing one’s true self and authentic experiences. To sonically augment this mood the songwriting and soundscaping blurs the line between experimental indie pop and shoegaze. Fans of Japanese Breakfast and the more psychedelic end of Cat Power will appreciate the single and the forthcoming album If I Let It Quiet out 7/24/2026 on vinyl, digital download and streaming via Audio Antihero. Listen to “The Witness” on Bandcamp and follow Josaleigh Pollett at the links below. Josaleigh Pollett is on tour starting July 28.

Josaleigh Pollett Linktr.ee

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Jupe Jupe’s Post-Punk New Wave Single “A Game of Wait and See” is a Song About the Downside of the Attention Economy

For the new single “A Game of Wait and See,” Seattle’s Jupe Jupe give us a video where it looks like the band has infiltrated an office building after hours to film in the backrooms (reference intended) where the industrial infrastructure of the building is maintained out of sight. At the beginning of the video the four members of the band check their phones before getting to it. Which is fitting for the subject matter of the song which seems to be a commentary on the attention economy seemingly mandatory for anyone trying to make more of their art or even of their own lives than simply sharing it with their immediate circle of friends. But for bands in the current era it’s not like anyone is trying to promote what you do unless you’ve already made it big outside of simply playing small venues or house shows. Which is fine enough in reality but there is a pressure to be on the grind to get attention for your efforts and how that can warp how you present yourself and think about what you’re doing in a way that prioritizes platforms and methods regardless of whether it actually resonates with people beyond a surface level.

The song itself is a moody and introspective with pulsing synth rhythms, spidery guitar, expressive saxophone and vocals that provide the emotional hook that questions the dynamic many of us in the modern world find ourselves drawn into as a matter of engaging with each other when we’re not connected by proximity. It addresses the whole issue of waiting to see if anyone has in fact engaged with your “content” and yearning for that low level affirmation and wondering if you’ve been buried by the algorithm or deemed not worthy of the moment it takes to acknowledge what you’re putting out there. And yet the song reminiscent of the more New Wave end of Giorgio Moroder and the pop side of The Sound feels like the hold of social media as pervasive as it is can also be elusive and unsatisfying and possibly something that loses its grip on one’s psyche. One can hope. Watch the video for “A Game of Wait and See” on YouTube and follow Jupe Jupe at the links provided.

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Jupe Jupe on Twitter

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Dustin O’Halloran’s Modern Classical Song “Fragile N.1” Conveys a Deep Sense of Gentleness and Warmth

Dustin O’Halloran, photo courtesy the artist

The expanded edition of the reissue of Dustin O’Halloran’s 2011 album Lumière will be released June 12, 2026 via Splinter Records. With that fifteenth anniversary expanded presentation there are three previously unheard tracks of that era including “Fragile N.1.” The latter features O’Halloran’s gift for compositions that combine organic sounds in a modern classical mode with electronic tones and production methods. The song is both quietly majestic and filled with a sense of wonder with a touch of melancholic tone. But the whole run time one feels a sense of hopefulness, the kind expressed in the title, and one worth preserving and taking into one’s psyche. The minimal piano, textural string sounds and warm synth melody combine to great cinematic effect, fitting for a piece whose ideas were explored while O’Halloran was working on the score to Sofia Coppola’s 2006 film Marie Antoinette. It may seem counter-intuitive to say the song has a palpable gentleness but that is the salient quality of song throughout. Listen to “Fragile N.1” on YouTube and follow Dustin O’Halloran at the links below.

Dustin O’Halloran on Twitter

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Spices Peculiar and Sunswept Carry Us on a Soothing and Transcendental Journey Across Time on Ambient Jazz Improv Track “7/9/25”

Spices Peculiar, photo courtesy the artist

“7/9/25” is a collaborative composition between Spices Peculiar and Sunswept. The processed flute flows and perfectly swirl with the layers of synth, field recordings and textural samples to produce a singular aesthetic that evolves across the track’s twenty-five minutes. Shaken bells haunt the background, white noise wind, electronic bird sounds in the night, it feels like music designed to represent different parts of a single day, perhaps as the title suggests, a cool night in summer. Sounds echo and seem to tumble gently in the near distance and a low drone serves as a backdrop toward mid-song as the synth drifts into an eerie quality and shimmering noises resonate from an unknown source like a new type of bird resounding in the moonlit landscape. Breezes stir the surroundings and toward the fourteen minute mark we become aware of the flute back in the mix as a recognizable quantity like a signal of a more diurnal sound palette coming into aural frame and what feels like a string of shells and sparkling synth threads streak by and fade replaced by another stream of each. Clearly the product of careful production and sensitive improv the whole piece is experienced as an organic journey across time expressed in under half an hour but more fully than many days feel when you’re at the grind of a regular job and this song is much more soothing and worthy of one’s attention as an extended song that wouldn’t be out of place on a program like Hearts of Space but focused on pastoral sounds. The track is part of the Spices Pecular Ambulant that released May 1, 2026. Listen to “7/9/25” on Bandcamp and follow Spices Peculiar at the links provided.

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Twin Court Fuses Javanese Gamelan Aesthetic and Pastoral Folk Post-Rock for New Single “Wildfires”

The new Twin Court EP Ithakarta was released on May 15, 2026 and for this outing the group melds its pastoral folk post-rock style with Javanese gamelan sounds and sensibilities. For the track “Wildfires” we hear the Suling (Javanese flute) flowing through and helping in establishing a unique flavor of musical melancholy with visceral, textural elements that ground what might be perceived as ethereal and drifting into direct sensory experience. The various percussive bell tones work as a chorus of sounds through Suling twirls and winds joining the rhythm in its urgency as the song concludes suggesting a need for action and to be in the moment focused on events at hand as interconnected with the forces that shape them. Listen to “Wildfires” on Spotify and follow Twin Court on Instagram.

Alden Hellmuth Leans Into Hard Bop Free Jazz Entropy on “Face the Wall”

Alden Hellmuth, photo courtesy the artist

NYC-based saxophonist Alden Hellmuth is set to release her new album Tether on June 26, 2026 via Nils Frahm’s LEITER imprint. The song “Face the Wall” includes percussion from Justin Brown who some may know from playing with Thundercat. The song has a syncopated rhythm that sometimes also feels like it could go off the edge in any moment. Hellmuth accents the percussion line at first and then plays over while the bass maintains a tonal presence before it seems to come apart in time for Hellmuth to come back in with more insistent saxophone tracing a scale with extended technique. All the instruments indulge in passages that in another piece of music might be a solo but here they all contribute to a sense of heading into musical entropy yet reeling it in for something coherent if building toward a conclusion that maximizes the intensity of pace. The net effect is punk energy channeled into what often sounds like hard bob free jazz expert technical chops allowed to roam freer than musicians with such skillsets often do. Listen to “Face the Wall” on YouTube and follow Alden Hellmuth at the links below.

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Alden Hellmuth on Bandcamp