SubmitHub – Page 81 – Queen City Sounds and Art

Nick Norton’s Electronic Ambient “Slow Night at the Arcade” is a Welcome Journey Into a More Leisurely and Therapeutic Headspace

There’s something almost mystical about Nick Norton’s composition and video work for his single “Slow Night at the Arcade.” We see what at another time might hit someone as one of those old fractal videos from the 90s but also like a psychedelic evolution of the screen from the hold video game Tempest. It starts off like a short trip through violet clouded space to a wormhole bounded by angular walls. But with those walls/alleys turning in a slow spiral as motes of light drift toward us from a distant sun surrounded by luminous gasses emanating from its center. Like a journey through a wormhole to a more tranquil sector of the universe. The steady, calming pulse anchors the streaming haze of melodic synth tone and playful bursts of sound and orchestrated runs of notes and bleeps and blips punctuating the flow of soothing drone. The title suggests the kind of job that really doesn’t exist anymore the way it did in the 80s, 90s and early 2000s when someone might be working shifts at a video game arcade and the ambient sounds of various machines on start screens would generate an ambient hum that collectively feels like a world at rest with maybe a few players at machines changing that flow of mood but in the end creating a meditative backdrop. The sheer relaxed mood that conjures in a world that seems out of joint where nothing much seems chill is remarkable and Norton captures that energy perfectly with this song. The songwriter/composer wrote “Slow Night at the Arcade” and the rest of his new album Music For Sunsets (which released on September 15) alongside his recovery from a severe mental health break at the height of the 2020 pandemic ironically while working hard to help raise funds for other suddenly out of work musicians and getting back into music production and building a home studio. That can be a challenging and lengthy process but if this song and the rest of the unique ambient soundscapes of the new album are witness to and proof of Norton’s discovery of sounds and ideas that can guide the mind to a more restful place. Watch the video for “Slow Night at the Arcade” on YouTube and connect with Norton at the links below.

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Unca John Humorously Sends Up Extremist Delusions on Lively Power Pop Ballad “Your Opinion”

Unca John’s irresistible power pop hooks on “Your Opinion” and warmly welcoming vocals are a fantastic contrast to the subject matter of the song. Imagine Camper Van Beethoven having emerged in the 2020s and that pointed, wry sense of humor but with such a knack for compelling songcraft and you have an idea of what you’re in for when Unca John takes us on a tour through the recent years of American political culture when the most crazed notions and extreme views came out of the fringe into our everyday lives. Unless you’re a bit of a ring wing lunatic yourself given to flights of deranged fancy yourself you will recognize the people Unca John addresses in the song in humorous and succinct yet detailed fashion and even invoking an old ultra conservative ghost that never died off with the John Birch Society and has come to haunt even current dominant conservative circles when extremists call Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, some of the most corporate centrist Democrats of our time, communists and cultural Marxists. Unca John goes much further into that mode of thinking where people feel special because they think they have secret and hidden knowledge that the “deep state” doesn’t want us to know even though their hero and avatar of an entire movement was president for a full four years enriching himself and his family at public expense. Unca John voices our collective frustration with this bizarre wave of destructively delusional thinking that has been boiling for decades but which has seem to have burst in dramatic fashion all over public life. All in the name of people believing their opinion, without merit or uninformed by actual critical thinking, matters enough to be imposed on everyone else. Maybe this sort of no bones about it ridicule will help but even if not, Unca John has delivered a solid slice of pop goodness with some rhetorical grit. Listen to “Your Opinion” on Spotify where you can listen to the rest of his excellent 2023 album Midlife Crisis Vanity Project.

The Vacant Lots Unleash Hypnotic Coldwave Single “Amnesia” Ahead of the Release of its New Album Interiors

The Vacant Lots are set to release a new album Interiors on October 13, 2023 via Fuzz Club but ahead of the release of that fifth record by the Brooklyn-based band we get the single “Amnesia.” The music video is in black and white like with flickering images like a VHS collage someone made splicing together scenes on an old video mixing board. Across the image are drawings in lines of light like Stan Brakhage had a hand in designing the visuals. Musically the streams of distorted synth and background melancholic melodies supporting disaffected vocals akin to what The Church might have sounded like had it gone in for a coldwave sound rather than psychedelic, arty post-punk. The production is lo-fi but unlike many other modern post-punk and darkwave bands that have gone that route the composition of the song has a tonal dimensionality that combines a modern approach to drum machine programming with a self-awareness of how the song will sound in various environments including live where it seems this song would flood the room with its hypnotic frequencies. Watch the video for “Amnesia” on YouTube and follow The Vacant Lots at the links provided.

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18 Fevers Burn Down Elitist Pretensions on Punk Rock Rager “Gate Keeper”

18 Fevers bring ample punk fervor to its single “Gate Keeper” as the song calls out the nuances of gate keeping and those who seem to always put themselves in such positions of power over others. In the song there are lyrics denouncing the white savior complex which seems too relevant in so many places and even in a city like Seoul, South Korea from which the band hails. The song points out how gate keeping tends to keep a music scene or any local creative culture small because of arbitrary standards of who get to be a part of it and what is considered the genuine deal. The line “Whining about punk costumes and Kpop does not make you hardcore” is something most people can relate to who have been in or adjacent to a local or not so local punk or whatever style of music scene anywhere. The song and its raging and liberating sounds are about resistance to forces that try to define what needn’t be defined according to a checklist that was never really a part of where punk started or where it has gone but isn’t that also a critique of what is essentially an elitist and colonist mindset? Whatever the layers of meaning one can get from the song it’s a fiery takedown of the people and mindsets that try to keep things narrow and therefore boring. Listen to “Gate Keeper” on Spotify and follow 18 Fevers at the links below. The group’s latest EP Death Punk Disco released on July 13, 2023.

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The Quiet One Finds Resilience Through Sheer Emotional Openness on Dream Pop Single “Surrender”

Sometimes songs about self-empowerment and working through tragedy with no one to fall back on but yourself can come off as tough and try hard. But “Surrender” by The Quiet One replaces sonic bravado with a sound more melancholic and soft with ethereal, shimmery melodies and fragile guitar work that lends Amber Wilson’s words and hushed vocals an emotional immediacy and accessibility that makes that inner strength seem attainable. Wilson wrote the song following the passing of her mother and the tenderness and self-patience and grace required to weather that kind of pain informs the songwriting. After all resilience and strength need not look and feel like some stoic and rigid approach to your own life. “Surrender” feels like a catharsis through sheer emotional openness and getting through by feeling it all rather than trapping any of it in a dark place in the psyche. Listen to “Surrender” on Spotify and follow the Scottish singer-songwriter at the links below.

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The Delicate Psychedelia of Yard Art’s “Undertow” is an Entrancing Trail of Ghostly Melody Into the Horizon

Yard Art flow into the spidery early melodic guitar work of “Undertow” as though spinning the delicate structure of its psychedelic and shoegaze tapestry from the beginning and throughout. But the sounds expand and swirl like something one imagines one would hear if you were around at the turn of the 90s in Seattle and a new band called Sky Cries Mary, seemingly unaffected by the rising popularity of grunge, handed you one of the demo cassettes of its new direction toward a fusion of folk, psychedelic rock and a nascent other strand of alternative rock. Except that Yard Art is clearly drawing upon on more contemporaneous influences in its luminous sketches and explorations weaving in and out of a standard song structure. Fortunately the band has no problem drawing those musical ideas into hypnotic trails into the horizon and lead you to wonder what else it might have in store. Listen to “Undertow” on Spotify and follow Yard Art on Instagram.

Mainland Break Evokes Nostalgic Moods to Look to the Future on Jangle Pop Single “Portland”

Mainland Break, photo courtesy the artists

Mainland Break evoke deep feelings of nostalgia to ground you in the emotional present on “Portland.” The music video was shot on 8mm in Tijuana, Mexico and looks like an old family vacation film but one where a friend is playing a tiny guitar in numerous locations that look like they have to be from another era. The sparkling guitar melody with its dynamic jangle and steady yet breezy rhythms with warm vocals lingering on the vowels in the verses really conveys a sense of both looking back and assessing while moving toward what’s to come with a freshness of mind and enthusiasm for the here and now. Fans of later period Real Estate and Wild Nothing will find much to appreciate with this single as well as the group’s recently released full-length One Way Ticket to Midnight which dropped on digital, CD and vinyl on July 21, 2023.

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Mainland Break on Bandcamp

Pain in the Yeahs Deliver Synth-Driven Post-punk Song “Message of Mercy” With a Liberating Sense of Conviction

The pounding drums and distorted synths have a very stark and moody aspect at the beginning of “Message of Mercy” by Pain in the Yeahs. It’s industrial feel is reminiscent of when Nine Inch Nails covered Joy Division. The spectral synth melody fits in with a song that is both bleakly melancholic and defiantly expansive. The sound is futuristic like the kind of music that would have emerged in Oceania after the fall of the regime that propped up the image figurehead of Big Brother—all strong rhythmic lines and uncompromising and widely emotional expression but one tempered by decades of having had to be more buttoned up than is natural meaning there is a quality to the music that seems to have come up from a time of pent up incubation of a creative project with lots of development and close attention to how the beats and production would make the music come across as emphatically intentional. Listen to “Message of Mercy” on Spotify and follow Pain in the Yeahs at the links below. The sophomore album from the Virginia-based project Deep Sigh Sci-Fi released on July 21, 2023.

Pain in the Yeahs on Bandcamp

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Towne & Stevens’ Pastoral and Orchestral “Please Hold the Line” Captures the Unease and Exhilaration of Anticipating a Difficult Conversation

Towne & Stevens, photo courtesy the artists

Towne & Stevens is a band including Rogers Stevens and Nathan Towne of Blind Melon. Their 2023 self-titled debut is a collection of songs informed by introspective songs warm with pastoral overtones. The video for the single “Please Hold the Line” looks like something from an existential indie film starring Bill Murray but with Stevens singing into the rear view mirror looking both resigned and uneasy which fits a song seemingly about the thoughts that pass through your head when you’re on your way to meet with someone with whom you’re going to have to have a deep and potentially intense but necessary conversation because many difficult meetings with people can’t and shouldn’t be avoided but met with integrity, sensitivity and nuance. This song captures the feeling of going there not knowing how it’s going to go down. The orchestral horns and lingering guitar leads paired with minimal piano and percussion with expressive and wide-ranging vocals all come together to give the song a sense of easing the inevitable while embodying the complexity of emotions at the core of the song. Watch the video for “Please Hold the Line” on YouTube and follow Towne & Stevens at the links below.

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Cold Venus Revisited’s Darkly Mysterious Video for Its Post-punk Song “Keep Breathing” is a Love Song for the Melancholic

Cold Venus Revisited, photo courtesy the artists

The video treatment for Cold Venus Revisited’s “Keep Breathing” is a resonant complement to its shivering drones and processional rhythm. Shot in black and white with an enigmatic figure standing next to a river, images of flocks of birds flying and close-up of an eye with a ripple on water superimposed over the top. In moments its reminiscent of an incredibly gloomy Mazzy Star song with even more introspective vocals and the group says it’s a “love song for very sad people.” There’s a stark beauty to the song that is framed by a moody bass line and finely and firmly accented drums that gives it a mysterious power and sense of doomed romance that sticks with you. Watch the video for “Keep Breathing” from the Prague-based post-punk band Cold Venus Revisited and follow the group at the links provided.

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