SubmitHub – Page 68 – Queen City Sounds and Art

Abadongo Abaganda’s “Okukomawe” Brings a Sustained Burst of Passionate Fiddle Music From Kampala, Uganda Circa 1948

“Okukomawe” or “The Return Of The King Mutesa” is a song by Abadongo Abaganda recorded in 1948 in Kampala, Uganda. It is part of an LP that released on September 15, 2023 called The Secret Museum of Mankind: Atlast of Instruments – Fiddles Vol. 1 available now on digital and vinyl as well as a special limited edition with a lithograph through Jalopy Records. The song has a sound that seems like it had to have been accomplished through electronic means today but the rapid solo on the endingidi (tube fiddle) was done with analog instruments played with an energy and mastery of the fiddle that allows for a resonance that goes beyond everyday experience with a hearty vocal delivery in the local language of the time of the recording that too transcends time and specific cultural context. The white noise from imperfections of transference to now just adds to the authenticity and charm of the music as something a modern producer might introduce digitally whereas here it’s unclear when or where this track might be from and yet it keeps you listening in to its passionate performance for the nearly three minute duration. Listen to “Okukomawe” on YouTube and for more information on the album and to order please visit the links below.

The Secret Museum of Mankind: Atlast of Instruments – Fiddles Vol. 1 on Bandcamp

jalopyrecords.org

Alex McArtor Looks Back in Love and Nuanced Regret on Moody and Upbeat “Oxygen Thief”

Alex McArtor returns with a new single called “Oxygen Thief.” The guitar sound sits in the background like droplets of water on the ocean and the bass sound and percussion setting a steady pace as McArtor relates a story of love and conflicted feelings about its dissolution. Clearly the song is written from the perspective of having moved on but looking back with some yearning for what that bond brought into their shared life and the sense of romance and sweet feelings and how in some ways it felt like a relationship defined by a kind of unspoken dependence and McArtor sings about how she felt addicted to the love of her beloved like oxygen and that she was the oxygen thief. It’s a clever and revealing twist in the song that lends some weight and depth to a song that has such an upbeat mood underneath the touch of melancholic mood and ethereal atmospheres and a creative flourish that McArtor has brought to her body of work thus far. Watch the lyric video for “Oxygen Thief” on YouTube and follow McArtor at the links provided.

Alex McArtor on Facebook

Alex McArtor on TikTok

Alex McArtor on Intagram

alexmcartormusic.com

The Seshen Help Us to Gentle Embrace Impermanence and Uncertainty in a Time of Turmoil With Dreamy Are Pop Single “Lost at Night”

Bay Area art rock/post-punk luminaries The Seshen is releasing its new album Nowhere on October 6, 2023. The album traces the group’s development and struggles as people and as a band with the marriage and divorce of Lalin St. Juste and Aki Ehara as part of the backdrop and emotional resonance of the songwriting. The single “Lost at Night” evokes a deep sense of personal disconnect and wistfulness for a time and place when things felt “normal” or at least like one was on some kind of footing even if that could feel tenuous at times. But everyone in the past few years has probably had their foundations shaken a little personally and in life in general. This song and its hazy production and echoing melodies with spectral tones and warping, bending guitar sounds in the mist of synths with St. Juste’s soulful vocals and the propulsive percussion anchoring the song and keeping those disconsolate moods from carrying us off to places even more removed from our center. It’s a song that feels gentle and compassionate in its ability to transport us from a place of utterly mystified reverie to one of acceptance of the inherent impermanence of almost all things in our lives and to find hope in how things can resolve when we make the effort or have the privilege of indulging patience in allowing events and hearts to reach their eventual places when they are beyond our ability to influence them. Listen to “Lost at Night” on Spotify and follow The Seshen on Instagram.

Dick Dudley Exults in the Frustration Tensions of Dietary Restrictions on the Gnarled and Exultant Post-punk Song “Salt”

A thick bass line opens Dick Dudley’s “Salt” before the song opens up into a frantic and noisy clash of guitar and nearly shouted lyrics. It all sustains a borderline chaotic mood to the end with moments of suspended introspection as the song hangs and falls back into the swing of the this airing of frustrations and grievances that come from the reality of living with kidney disease and needing to avoid salt while staying hydrated. But the habits of living lead to an embarrassing situation like inviting friends over for dinner and saying one might cook but there’s no salt in the food and explaining why it doesn’t have the same flavorfulness it might have with a bit of salt. Although the song is about bemoaning the reality of one’s life circumstances it also has the spirit of embracing the limitations the way one might with the limitations you impose on creative work to encourage new manifestations of how the elements work out. But even then it’s nice to indulge the forbidden elements to exult in the full range of options open to our existence. “Salt” navigates those tensions with a joyful release of nervous energy. Listen to “Salt” on Spotify and follow Dick Dudley on Instagram.

Bad Flamingo’s Post-Apocalyptic Noir Americana “Oh My My” is a Timeless Love Song for a Cormac McCarthy-esque Future

Bad Flamingo, photo courtesy the artists

Bad Flamingo always seems to make changes to its sound and style with every single and “Oh My My” is like an early Americana and country song in its spareness of composition. Also kudos on having a great new photo with a signature style with every single. Other bands take note. The song has the kind of production you couldn’t have done quite the same a hundred years ago and yet the way the song is arranged and performed it’s elements could have come together before the advent of electric instruments and modern production methods. It’s yet another chapter in what seems to be the story arc of two rebels on the run from a stultified mainstream society. But this time there’s a sense that the duo are running from a world in the late stage of an empire and not depending the dubious comforts of what passes for civilization. The opening line “It’s desert on all three sides” sets the stage for a song filled with nice touches of tactile detail like “I stood up on the table, threw one back and peeled the label” and “I dance with the devil under the neon.” Musically it recalls Neil Young’s “Ohio” and “The Chain” by Fleetwood Mac at the same time and that sense of camaraderie in a time of troubles. The percussion provides as much texture as rhythm, hushed vocals convey the intimate energy of the lyrics and experiences shared by partners and the guitar and banjo combination give a sense of timelessness by evoking the past and the future at once. Listen to “Oh My My” on Spotify and follow Bad Flamingo at the links below.

Bad Flamingo on Facebook

Bad Flamingo on Instagram

Bad Flamingo on YouTube

badflamingomusic.com

Peter Martin’s Dream Pop Song “Musical Chairs” is a Wry and Subtle Dig at Incompetent and Corrupt Political Leaders

Peter Martin, photo courtesy the artists

A warm drone leads us into Peter Martin’s “Musical Chairs.” Vocals that float like an incandescent presence in the musical fog drift in and the song unfolds more brightly at the halfway point. Hovering tones haunt the background and a spare guitar figure contributes to an increasing luminosity of tone along with a gorgeous, slow synth burst toward the end before strings ease us out of the song. Overall it has an effect like someone waking up in the early morning, before sunrise with vague memories of a dream. Which is perfect considering the backdrop of the song written by the band in a single day was the resignation of Tory politician Liz Truss who was Prime Minister of the UK from September 6, 2022 until October 25 of the same year, her term in office an exercise in ineffective incompetence and a passing dream of a nation still mired in the supply side economic foolishness that plagues much of the Western world. Truss was just a blip on the Conservative Party continuum and this song and its tranquil vibes is like an amused noting of business as usual but perhaps more absurd than usual. The title of the song is both subtle and on the nose which is an achievement in itself. Given that part of the inspiration for the song was a reading of the writing of the great Mancunian poet John Cooker Clarke and his inspired witticisms the song seems like a fully realized work of dream pop and social commentary. Listen to “Musical Chairs” Spotify where you can find other songs by the band.

Rocker C’s Lo-Fi Synth Pop Track “Time” is a Song About Indulging One’s Desires as a Path to the Vitality of Life

Rocker C adopts a layer of scuzzy production on “Time” with a heavily distorted synth line that sits in the foreground like in the early part of the song like an ambient reminder of a gritty reality all around us. But alongside and underneath is a moody, Giorgio Moroder-esque melodic line that accompanies the vocals that gives the song both a lo-fi edge and the quality of an obscure song you’d hear on an AM station in the 1980s that sticks with you for years but which remains an enigma in your brain until you rediscover it on a playlist that unearths forgotten greats of synth pop from outside the USA and the UK. On the surface level the song seems to be about how little time we have in life and we can waste it doing things we don’t enjoy or which don’t fill us with joy and vitality. Rocker C seems to suggest maybe waiting for those moments of passion can be frustrating but the fulfillment of which is what gives life a significance outside the drab and mundane experiences that seem to be part and parcel of everyday existence. Listen to “Time” on Spotify where you can find more music by the Swedish songwriter.

Gilded Creatures Ride a Wave of Wistful Hopefulness Out of Personal Gloom on Dream Pop Song “I Can Get Morose”

Gilded Creatures, photo courtesy the artists

Supposedly Gilded Creatures are “the worst country band to have ever existed.” But that failure of genre adherence has given us the gorgeously melancholic “I Can Get Morose.” If one were to get deep into the weeds of style diagnostics of the song one hears threads of stuff like early Big Head Todd and the Monsters and following that musical DNA further back some R.E.M. (the vocals are very reminiscent of Michael Stipe). Maybe there is a good solid chunk of being subjected to a playlist of the peak popularity tracks by Counting Crows by one’s parents or nascent youthful nostalgia. But the guitar work is ethereal and glittery and the rhythms expansive as though washing the personal darkness and gloomy moods that can weigh one down at the best of times and certainly when the weather is waxing cold. Is this indie rock or dream pop or soft shoegaze? Does it matter when the spirit of the song gets in your head with an undeniable melodic hook or five and words of emotional solidarity in capturing the vibe a headspace of being sunk in defeated thoughts and seeking a break from it however you can in order to move beyond it? Not really. Listen to “I Can Get Morose” on Spotify and follow Gilded Creatures at the links below.

Gilded Creatures on Facebook

Gilded Creatures on Instagram

IN LIFE’s Psychedelic Post-Punk Song “Deliverance” is an Anthem Against Succumbing to the Ambient Anxiety of Life in Our Modern Dystopia

Oakland’s IN LIFE wrote its new album Strawberry Blonde (released on September 8, 2023) trading ideas and music files back and forth during the peak isolation period of the COVID-19 pandemic as many musicians did. But there’s a coherence in the emotional resonance of its songs as they deal with the various ways life got precarious for all of us and the small things we took for granted and the ways we thought we could operate, particularly anyone in industries that require human contact either directly or indirectly as in the case of the music industry or music scenes or any of the performing arts, or the service industry entirely. The pandemic has highlighted in shocking detail the interconnectedness of human civilization and the drastic limitations of our current methods of organizing. In the music video for the song “Deliverance” we see the band operating as it once did with footage of the band live at venues like The Caravan and the legendary DIY space 924 Gilman spliced in with footage of the city and Nick Noro offering lines from the song clad in various band t-shirts including those for Sepultura and Drab Majesty. Musically the song walks an alluring tightrope between post-punk, psychedelic rock and shoegaze with fragile melodies on guitar and keyboards with percussion keeping a steady and hypnotic pace matched by Noro’s introspective cadence. The song both celebrates the beauty of the life that is so precarious while mourning the various ways we maybe got comfortable with operating though perhaps it nods to the complacency born of privilege or a survivor’s pragmatic dissociation in an unsustainable late capitalism Dystopia. “Deliverance” captures that mood of holding on to the ability to craft creative work to alleviate the ambient anxiety of today and not to be swallowed up by it entirely. Watch the video for “Deliverance” on YouTube and follow IN LIFE at the links provided.

IN LIFE on Bandcamp

IN LIFE on Instagram

SLW cc Watt Work Out Getting Clear of Suspect Associates on the Psychedelic Jazz Folk Song “Help Me”

Samuel Locke Ward from Iowa and Mike Watt from Pedro (maybe you know him for his stints in Minutemen, The Stooges, fIREHOSE and other notable bands) delivered another fine collaborative record as SLC cc Watt in Purple Pie Plow out now via Kill Rock Stars on vinyl and digital. The lead single “Help Me” is like a psychedelic folk indiepop campfire glam rock song. It’s the kind of song with a rhythm and pace that would invite some group participating clapping along to the beat. It’s reminiscent of the kind of bands you’d see at DIY spaces around a decade and a half ago but with a sound more borne of recent years. Like an even more charmingly slackery The Flaming Lips. The song seems to be able taking action you think is going to improve your life but you get caught up in doing so with a bunch of people who turn out to be disreputable jerks and you realize maybe you have a bit of that in you but that in coming to the realization of your associations comes the awareness that you have much more to offer as a human than where you might be now and it’ll just take that extra step to get away to a better place. For the album Ward and Watt worked with drummer Dean Clean and tapped friends Joe Jack Talcum of Dead Milkmen fame and Bob Bucko Jr., an Iowa avant-garde music luminary who is a member of free jazz and electro duo Sex Funeral and noise rock jazz Krautrock combo New Standards Men. It’s a sprawling odyssey of poetry and storytelling set to earnest, jazz flavored psychedelic folk and delicately rendered pop rock. Listen to “Help Me” on YouTube and follow the links below to connect with the project, hear more tracks and to order the record.

SLW cc Watt on Bandcamp

SLW cc Watt on killrockstars.com