SubmitHub – Page 88 – Queen City Sounds and Art

Glassmanet’s Micro Album Video For “Glassplanet” is a Blissfully Psychedelic Odyssey Through Our World’s Ecological Horrors and Wonders

With the video for “Glassplanet,” Norwegian dream pop artist Glassmanet showcases her intertwined gifts for creative soundscaping and video art. It’s a short film and journey through entrancing streams of melody crafted from luminescent droplets of guitar floating through flares of distorted tone that give the ethereal whole some definition while letting go into free flowing anti-structures as styles and visuals evolve quickly but gently into the next phase of ideas with the artist frequently seen frolicking about and performing in gossamer outfits in colorized, negative image footage and animation collage. It’s mostly a summery and otherworldly experience but the “Waves Cannot Be Crushed” portion introduces a twinge of menace like if Bricks Are Heavy period L7 followed its most psychedelic instincts. It’s a full ten minutes eleven seconds but “micro albums” don’t often come this fully realized and engrossing. And wait until after the credits for some of the most blissed out sections of the album as the synth tones go full on Boards of Canada-esque but with some anchoring grit that makes the come down from this delightfully unusual trip into cosmic musicality land easy. Watch the video for “Glassplanet” on YouTube and follow Glassmanet at the links below.

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Glassmanet on Instagram

Glassmanet on Bandcamp

May Try Tomorrow’s Industrial Rap Track “All Cats Are Beautiful” is a Playfully Scathing Takedown of Authoritarian Forces

May Try Tomorrow boiled down a lot of anti-establishment spirit into its song “All Cats Are Beautiful” with special ire directed at cops and the fash. After all what was it Rage Against the Machine said about some those that work forces? It’s an industrial rap track that utilizes a creative mashup of internet meme culture, graffiti, footage of humans getting up to nonsense and random images of animals, food and other products. And despite all the fury and scathing rhetoric dismantling the more corrosive element of society the artists take out a few seconds for a smoke break before finishing the song letting us know they’re humans and we all need to take some time out for ourselves and for joy with a healthy sense of humor even while we resist the relentless flood of authoritarian capitalist control in all areas of our lives as we can because rebellion is always called for and fun and any system that tries to dominate all your time is illegitimate. Fans of Ho99o9 and Realicide will appreciate this glitched out mini-masterpiece. Watch the video for “All Cats Are Beautiful,” a subversive song title if ever there was one, on YouTube and follow May Try Tomorrow at the links provided.

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Sjfleish’s Lively Ambient Track “Oceans” Teems With the Life and Grandeur of the World’s Oceans Themselves

Sjfleish is an environmental engineer working on coastline, streams, wetlands and pond restoration and that knowledge and appreciation of the natural world surely informed her song “Oceans.” Though just over a minute long ambient track incorporates a rich array of sounds from a harp-like melody, to processed, ethereal vocals, bursty swirls of sound and distorted whorls. Accompanied by a music video that brings in a broad range of underwater and coastline footage including a volcano and luminous invertebrates the short song teems with an expansive spirit that feels like a short journey into a mysterious and wondrous world. In its short run time the piece captures a lively sliver of the grandeur of the very bodies of water that are the title of the song. Watch the video for “Oceans” on YouTube and follow Sjfleish at the links below.

Sjfleish on TikTok

Sjfleish on Facebook

Sjfleish on Bandcamp

Sjfleish on Instagram

Aggressive Soccer Moms’ Weirdo Post-punk Song “Darling” is a Moody and Surreal Declaration of Self-Respect

Aggressive Soccer Moms, photo courtesy the artists

Swedish post-punk group Aggressive Soccer Moms inject some surreal creativity into the genre with its single “Darling” from its new album QUINT (released March 9, 2023). Fans of Sex Swing and Sleaford Mods will appreciate the arch vocal delivery in poetic couplets and the full embrace of lo-fi electronics and stark minimalism employed to great dramatic effect. The use of percussion and horn-like blasts on what could be a processed saxophone is like the kind of mutant disco and free jazz the Pop Group brought to its classic 1979 debut album Y. Who can say what the lyrics mean in a concrete sense but lines like “You call me an idiot, you don’t get to call me darling, you call me a loser, you don’t get to call me darling, you call me a liar, you don’t get to call me darling” suggest an association gone sour in which or narrator, as it were, calls out the hypocrisy and emotional betrayal in no uncertain terms and while the vocals aren’t angry in the visceral sense the words speak to coming from a place where one discovers one’s inherent dignity, done with shabby treatment tolerated under the cloak of misguided affection. At times the song and others on the album are reminiscent of The Happy Mondays gone bleak and moody. Aggressive Soccer Moms are clearly Swedish and if bands like Refused and Viagra Boys at a minimum are any indication this variety of irreverent art punk is very much a thing there but fans of UK weirdo post-punk especially from Sheffield and Manchester will appreciate what Aggressive Soccer Moms are doing now and seemingly have been for the past half decade and more. Listen to “Darling” on Spotify and follow Aggressive Soccer Moms at the links provided.

Aggressive Soccer Moms on Facebook

Aggressive Soccer Moms on Instagram

“Like This Forever” by La Vie Sauvage and Pet Snake is Industrial Mood Music for Retro-Futurist Film of a Thomas Disch Novel Yet to Be

La Vie Sauvage and Pet Snake, photo courtesy the artists

“Like This Forever” sounds like La Vie Sauvage and Pet Snake are sending musical transmissions from an underground bunker in a dystopian future as envisioned in the 1990s. There is something retro about its deconstructed industrial aesthetics. Like a synthesis of glitchcore and whatever it was Curve was doing in the mid-90s. Tones bliss out in chaotic fashion in sharp bursts that linger and the vocals haunt the track like a ghost in the machines responsible for processing the sounds. It’s the kind of song that Gregg Araki should include in a dystopian, retro-futurist cyberpunk inspired film he would make based on a reworking of a Thomas M. Disch novel like what would happen if the lead character of Camp Concentration escaped with his abilities intact and created a rebellious underground poised to overthrow a technocratic global oligarchy. It’s a wonderfully dark mood piece that fans of Machine Girl and Nine Inch Nails as well as the aforementioned might fully appreciate. Listen to “Like This Forever” on Spotify and follow Dutch producer and composer La Vie Sauvage at the links below.

La Vie Sauvage on TikTok

La Vie Sauvage on Instagram

laviesauvagemusic.com

I Want Poetry’s “People at Parties” is a Dream Pop Enticement to Break With Merely Yearning for Genuine Experiences in Our Socializing

I Want Poetry, photo by Elisabeth Mochner

“People at Parties” by German electropop duo I Want Poetry creates an incredibly melancholic mood from the very beginning. Lonely piano echoes ever so slowly along with the processed percussion and when the hazy swells of synth drift into the song and strings sashay into what feels like a slow dance through a deep passage of existential contemplation it gives a strong emotional resonance with the song’s lyrics. Tine von Bergen’s voice sounds like its coming to us from a dream as she offers a view of the way one’s social scene can feel very disconnected and performative and lacking in genuine connection. When she sings “we’re dancing in circles” and captures the ritualistic behaviors that enter into the realm of the dissociative except we all really want to have a real moment and to live in the moment rather than the second rate version that we often engage in when we go along to get along and lose ourselves a little. This song speaks to that yearning to break that cycle so deeply that even with its processional pace and ethereal tones it gently encourages following those instincts for pursuing more genuine experiences. Listen to “People at Parties” on Spotify and follow I Want Poetry at the links below.

I Want Poetry on Facebook

I Want Poetry on YouTube

I Want Poetry on Instagram

GoGo Penguin Orchestrates Tone, Rhythm and Mood to Convey Achieving Clarity and Closure on “Glimmerings”

GoGo Penguin’s “Glimmerings” begins as the name suggests with a faint, sub-ambient stirring of sounds that blooms into a finely accented bass line arpeggio and percussion shuffle over a slowly unfolding, background synth wash. When the piano comes in to provide a structured melody with a sense of urgency it’s like all the elements combine to heighten a sense of emotional cleansing through rigorous and intricate expressions of pure feeling. The complimentary tonal motion and collective mood conveys a strong sense of coming to a realization after mulling over disparate thoughts and feelings for a sense of uplift and clarity. Listen to “Glimmerings” on YouTube and follow the UK trio at the links provided.

GoGo Penguin on Facebook

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Sik Sik Sicks’ “Lie In It” is a Lively Pop-punk Call Out of Toxic Poseur Behavior

Sik Sik Sicks, photo courtesy the artists

Sik Sik Sicks begin “Lie In It” like a radio broadcast for the BBC announcing the track. But then the charged up beat goes directly into what sounds like the pop-punk equivalent of a diss track with specific references to the kind of person in your life who is a clinger on that contributes nothing to your life but gloms on to other people’s styles and lives and heads off criticism with a victim pose. But when you’re faking it trying to milk sympathy as a passive-aggressive power play for street cred. There are some choice digs in the song like “I will never run your race and yes you’re still the runner-up” and the chorus of “You’ve made your bed, you lie in it and that’s my final fuck you.” We’ve seen this dynamic in many social circles and the song speaks to how it takes entirely too long for anyone to call out shitty misbehavior by line after line doing so. Listen to “Lie In It” on YouTube and follow Sik Sik Sicks at the links below.

Sik Sik Sicks on TikTok

Sik Sik Sicks on Instagram

Biljana Heights’ Video for Soulful Dream Pop Song “Stranger” is a Mood Piece for Reconnecting With Your Authentic Self

Biljana Heights, photo by Sophie Caroline Gohr

In Biljana Heights’ video for “Stranger” we see her juxtaposed between dreamlike scenes in a cornfield and those in what looks like a luxury apartment in isolation. In both places she discovered an ashen orb that seems to be a catalyst for change by mere contact. The song is about being a stranger to oneself and rediscovering your identity, your authentic self and figuring out what it is in your life that you adopt to fit in to expectation, the personae and emotional habits one adopts that facilitate a socially pleasing façade and getting lost while paradoxically fitting in but at what cost? The song and its lush and subtle production and Heights’ soulful, sultry vocals are reminiscent of Lana Del Rey’s moodier compositions and with cinematic quality of the video and music together should appeal to fans of the work of Alex Garland and the music videos of Perfume Genius. Watch the video for “Stranger” on YouTube and follow Biljana Heights at the links provided.

Biljana Heights on Facebook

Biljana Heights on Instagram

Winter Hell’s Bedroom Dream Pop Song “High Time” is the Ideal Soundtrack For Creative Self-Indulgence on a Snow Day

Sioux Falls, South Dakota seems like an unlikely place to find left field music but with the independent record store Total Drag bringing in up and coming bands on the underground and indie circuit and the existence of noise rock/post-punk band Off Contact (formerly Lot Lizard) among others it’s difficult to say what you might find. And thus Winter Hell whose Lindy Wise is the singer in Off Contact. Winter Hell is a different sound entirely and its single “High Time” has a bedroom pop chillwave vibe that weaves together elegant and gentle melodies with Wise’s introspective vocals floating in a teaming flow of distorted synth and lo-fi electronic percussion. It has the quality of cassette you might find at a thrift store and not know where it’s from or when except that its sounds have an undeniable charm in how it subtly invites you into a journey into stay at home during a blizzard and get lost in musical daydream energy that would’t work with a higher fidelity production. Listen to “High Time” on Spotify and follow Winter Hell at the links provided.