SubmitHub – Page 81 – Queen City Sounds and Art

Josephine Odhil’s Hazily Psychedelic Video for “Rye” Gently Drifts Into Your Mind and Guides it to Contemplative and Restful Spaces

Josephine Odhil, photo courtesy the artist

Josephine Odhil, formerly of psychedelic rock band The Mysterons, brings a gentle drift into the melodies and billowing structure of “Rye.” The lyric video by Michael Cullen with is flowing and hazy images in beautifully washed out colors matches the song’s fuzzy edges and daydreamy energy. Odhil’s melodious vocals seem to lean back into a floating reverie as elegant guitar work traces the rhythm, swells of synth bloom and cascade in slow pulses for an effect that’s soothingly hypnotic befitting the song’s impressionistic lyrics. The video and the music together are like a painting in motion and its subtle layers of texture and atmosphere sinks deep into your mind easing it into a more restful and contemplative space. Watch the video for “Rye” on YouTube and follow Odhil at the links below.

Josephine Odhil on Facebook

Josephine Odhil on Instagram

josephine-odhil.com

Mary Lou Newmark’s Soundcape Tone Poem “Horses of Grace” is a Poetic Expression of Horsekind

Mary Lou Newmark dispenses with rules of how a song should begin and conventional structure as “Horses of Grace” begins with a string of couplets of what horses are doing or their status and how that is an example of a form of grace. Then sweeping, moody strings over textured samples and distorted synths, sounds of horses neighing, percussion that sound like something out of a 1980s Art of Noise song. What are we hearing? If you don’t think about it too much this composition offers a dreamlike experience of the essence of a horse as perhaps created a far future AI based on ancient literature, art forms and the fossil record and casting that expression of horsekind in all its glory in this sonic form that could be a style of sound art that would readily be recognized as music crafted on principles very different from notions of music we now possess. Listen to “Horses of Grace” on Spotify where you can listen to the rest of Newmark’s December 2022 album A Stitch in Time, comprised of pieces that Newmark calls “Music for the quantum age” in that the music moves across time sometimes all at once and utilizing a broad palette of sounds including live violin. It sounds like little else out there unless you’re listening to an old Laurie Anderson record.

Coely Celebrates all the Manifestations of Her Blackness on “Fruit of Bantu”

Coely boldly yet with a casual confidence asserts the inherent value and power of her blackness on “Fruit of Bantu.” When James Brown sang “Say It Loud – I’m Black and I’m Proud” in 1968 it was an assertion of a truth in resistance to oppression. Coely here with rich background drones and whirling tones suggestive of dreams or a higher state of consciousness as part of the beat makes a similar statement of dignity because we’re still in a time when blackness is denigrated and devalued in the Western world despite the intellectual and cultural achievements of people of color. And beyond that does one need such recognized metrics to have value as a human being? When N.K. Jemisin published her book How Long ’til Black Future Month?: Stories in 2018 it posed a sharply observed question and offered perspectives on race but Coely simply takes the stance of being in that future and asserting that reality in her rapping and chiding those who would question the status of anyone like her as a person to be respected. Her rapping in the beginning of the song tags off to Shaka Shams who brings in strong words of mutual support and solidarity against racism and sexism. It’s a striking song with a sense of mystery and a deep mood. Listen to “Fruit of Bantu” on YouTube and follow Belgian rapper Coely at the links below.

Coely on TikTok

Coely on Facebook

Coely on Instagram

Elektrokohle’s Cold Punk Single “Vollmond” and its Expressionist Style Video Disorients as it Draws You In

Elektrokohle, photo courtesy the artists

Elektrokohle looks like commandeered a pirate television station in the video for “Vollmond” (in English, “Full Moon”) – all black and white, flickering images like reels projected onto a background. The motorik beats, metallic utility percussion and what could be processed guitar or synth, vocals sounding like they’re coming from a tunnel, a bit of German Expressionist aesthetic and a sense of traveling back and forth in time before crackling white noise spirals into the outro. It truly sounds like a music out of time with obvious sonic references to krautrock and early German industrial and post-punk but with a sound palette of its own that prevents discreet discernment of instrumentation so that the track has to be taken on as a whole that disorients as it draws you in. It’s a sound the band calls “Cold Punk” which encapsulates the diverse roots and influences nicely. Watch the video for “Vollmond” on YouTube and follow Berlin’s Elektrokohle at the links below.

Elektrokohle on Bandcamp

Cheree’s “Churn Down” is a Rejection of and Resistance to Manufactured Consent

The chirp of birds and “I wish I could escape from this gilded cage” at the beginning of “Churn Down” by Oakland-based Cheree is the calm before the sharp bursts of sound and pounding, metallic rhythms and desperate and righteous vocals. Also processed white noise like leaking from a steam tunnel. Altogether it’s the kind of sustained outburst of catharsis that is what’s been appealing about artists like HIDE, Moon Pussy and HIRS: Uncompromising and willing to follow a path of using sound to express a certain break with mainstream normalcy and questionable social values that are entirely too common and accepted. This song and the rest of the new Cheree album Factory (which released on March 24, 2023 on digital, cassette and vinyl via Cherub Dream Records) is a rejection of and resistance to manufactured consent. Industrial noise rock for discerning ears. Listen to “Churn Down” on Spotify and follow Cheree at the links below.

Cheree on TikTok

Cheree on Instagram

Cheree on Bandcamp

YUNGMORPHEUS’ Lush and Dusky “Playin’ the Same Game” is a Depiction of a Day in the Life of a Hustler in the Rap Game

YUNGMORPHEUS creates a distinctive mood on “Playin’ the Same Game” setting the scene with a narrative of a world of striving in the black market economy. The beat is like an after hours jazz vibe with what sounds like some choice Hammond B3 work in the background and detailed cymbal sounds. The vocals are almost hushed in relating tales of being a hustler who is producing joints for other artists and juggling other income streams and living the life of someone making music from an authentic place, trying to be an artist with integrity while seeing plenty of wannabes come and go with their image in place and people trying to undermine each other in the way that happens too often in a social scene where some people think they’re not succeeding unless they’re climbing successfully over someone else and at times denigrating and underplaying their skills and achievements. But in YUNGMORPHEUS’ voice he’s seen this all before and he’s maintaining and sustaining through the low times and those that may seem like things are going well when the entire time the carpet can be yanked from underneath you. Listen to “Playin’ the Same Game” on Spotify and follow YUNGMORPHEUS at the links provided.

YUNGMORPHEUS on Bandcamp

La Purp Demonstrates Futuristic Swag on the Futuristic Rap Single “Alien”

The sound of a bell being struck introduces La Purp’s wonderfully braggadocious “Alien.” Not unlike Missy Elliott’s use of percussion in her 2001 hit “Get Ur Freak On,” it’s a signal for a passage into a futuristic musical space. La Purp uses low end pulses and a finely syncopated trap beat with subtle drones in her sound design as a backdrop to her self-portrait as someone who is perhaps high but not just on a substance of choice but on life and in life. When she raps “Up in space ships I am blasted” and elaborates on either side on the ways and provides the boastful evidence with a cool confidence worthy of a Kari Faux in its colorful facility of flow and language. Listen to “Alien” on YouTube and follow the rapper at the links below.

La Purp on Facebook

La Purp on Twitter

La Purp on Instagram

Trust the Mask Celebrates a Night of Revelry and Passion on Synth Pop Song “Will You Come”

Trust the Mask, photo by Emmanuela Gasparella

Trust the Mask dispenses the at this point in pop music unnecessary intro and gets right into the thick of its brightly otherworldly synth pop on “Will You Come.” There is an immediate momentum and irresistible melody that carries you along for a ride in a song about a hazy morning after remembrance of a night of dancing and drunken, hazy partying that lead to an invite back to a spur of the moment lover’s home and no clear memories of the night events except for “a glass of wine” and “your lips so close to min” and an intention to leave early but being asked to stay and some discussion of not being a person that cheats, legs full of marks from all the revelry, missed calls, a missed alarm and a missing car. But there are no hints of regret in the song and its saturated tones and energetic pace has some resonance with a more synth-infused ABBA song by way of chillwave and the vocals akin to something you’d expect to hear in a Cocorosie song. But the song that really captivates your attention for the duration ends at the just the right, short run time. The sheer economy of songwriting is impressive and effective in its rapid and sustained dopamine hit of pop hooks and celebratory mood. Listen to “Will You Come” on Spotify and follow the Italian duo at the links below.

Trust the Mask on Instagram

Trust the Mask on Facebook

Trust the Mask on YouTube

Cheap Wedding’s Blazing Shoegaze Single “Skyscraper” is a Song About a Passionate But Doomed Romance

The image of blazing towers as structures built up to be impressive and housing important goods and information is central the Cheap Weddings’ “Skyscrapers.” The song seems to be about a love affair, a relationship, that isn’t good for either person. There are lines that seem to be about a fear of losing oneself in each other and how each person despite the attraction threaten each other’s very foundations rendering each other fragile and vulnerable but instead of that being a wonderful development that is conducive to true closeness and intimacy it’s corrosive and leads to moments of insecurity and pain. Without explicitly saying so the song suggests that some attractions are better left with some distance intact and go no further. The discordant synth, and angular rhythms of the song with the ethereally melodic vocals perfectly expresses this dynamic in that there is something beautiful in that tragedy and perhaps an irony in what might be two people who are too much alike for things to really work out the way they might have hoped. With contributions from Earl Harvin (touring member of Tindersticks), Ori Alboher of ORI and TJ Allen (who has done production work for Portishead and Bat For Lashes) one might expect something more downtempo or in the vein of trip-hop but this song is a short burst of noisy shoegaze glory. Listen to “Skyscrapers” on Spotify and follow Cheap Wedding at the links provided.

Cheap Wedding on TikTok

Cheap Wedding on Facebook

Cheap Wedding on YouTube

Cheap Wedding on Instagram

Shadow Creek in the Music and the Video for the Song “Suburbs” Manifests the Surreal Unease of the Soporific Sameness of the Hinterlands

The video and the song “Suburbs” by Shadow Creek are perfect companions in capturing the surreal blandness of suburbs. Yet how hypnotic and meditative so many of them can be because the builders for many are the same company nationwide and the designs of houses so similar for blocks and blocks in large spaces. In the song there’s a lyrics about watching the sky because it offers the most variety while itself composed of familiar elements just like the seasons mentioned in the song as well. The music is a steady electronic beat with a warping inconsistent flow and haunting vocals. One gets the sense of shifting in and out of reality and a sense of being trapped in a soporific existence of repetitive, almost ritualistic existence. The line “Life goes by in the suburbs” certainly describes American suburbs from the mid-to-late 70s when a certain variety started to spring up seemingly everywhere and even through to today despite how fractured the economy has become and how city living has been transformed by a particularly insidious form of gentrification that has had a suburbanization effect in the city with suburbs existing as they always have like bedroom communities with their own universe of infrastructure for living and growing up with little real culture germinating in any of them. Shadow Creek hails from in and around Houston, one of the most geographically expansive cities in America and thus its own suburbs must simply sprawl in a way that seems like a supernatural dystopian movie. But anyone that lives in a city with robust suburbs and has grown up in them recognizes the feel Shadow Creek has created with the song that’s as much music as it is sound design to experience. You feel like you can get lost in the song like one of the labyrinthine subdivisions designed more for efficiency of land use than utility and that’s the point, while it is vaguely soothing there is an undertone of unease that gives the song an appealing edge in acknowledging that there’s nothing inherently wrong with the suburbs but there is something unsatisfying to them and be their very nature incomplete in serving the the full cultural and social needs of everyone. Fans of Indian Jewelry/Studded Left and GOWNS will find something resonant here. Watch the video for “Suburbs” on YouTube and follow Shadow Creek on Spotify.