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Akts’ Kawaii Hyperpop Hit “Spirit Machin” Is Refreshingly Hype Yet Chill

Listening to “Spirit Machine” by Akts one might imagine a top 40 dance pop performance show that exists in an alternate universe of kawaii anime. The playful rhythms are a truly realized fusion of glitch pop, IDM and hyperpop. Even though the lyrics are all but impossible to suss out they convey meaning and when the song chills out toward the three minute mark like a frolic in a park that somehow manifests mid-song or taking a break out to get a drink in a pop-up cafe that will disappear in mid-moment with the logic of a stream of conscious video game where the utility of a material object only lasts as long as it’s necessary. There is a fresh energy to the song that as alien as it is in some respects it’s the kind of alien experience in music you want to have because it’s hype without being overwhelming. Listen to “Spirit Machine” on Spotify and connect with Akts at the links below.

Akts on TikTok

Akts on Instagram

Schnoz Slyly Uses the Metaphor of Being a Creature From Space for Social Persecution of Being the Other on “Aliens”

“Aliens” by Miami-based hip-hop artist schnoz sounds playfully mysterious like the alternative soundtrack to the video game Metroid. But when his vocals kick in with a story about being a “bonafide alien” he brings a bit of swagger to a story that could be a surreal take on what it must feel like to be a classic alien coming to earth via means not familiar to us humans and how even if you aren’t coming with nefarious intentions, human beings will act with terror and suspicion about your nature and motives. But isn’t that really also a metaphor for how we too often treat each other when we encounter someone that doesn’t look like our in group (racially, ethnically, socially, religiously, culturally etc.) and how many people will act like they don’t even know how to relate to that person and treat them accordingly. Schnoz identifies what it feels like to not want to start trouble but having it delivered to you merely because you are sufficiently different. Fans of Aesop Rock may appreciate schnoz’s cadence and use of creative beats drawing on mood more than mere rhythm. Listen to “Aliens” on YouTube and follow schnoz’s further exploits on Spotify.

Bondo’s Slowcore Post-Rock Song “New Brain” is a Contemplative Exploration of a Yearning for a Psychological Reset

Bondo’s contemplative yet uneasy “New Brain” brings us in with a lonely, spare, borderline atonal guitar line with drums like something born out a creative cauldron in which its players dropped Slint, Codeine, Unwound and Sonic Youth to produce a something melancholic and yearning. Toward the last fourth of the song the once tranquil musical elements come together in a clashing passage of heightened emotional intensity before easing back into impressionistic guitar work and rhythms. The minimal vocals are like neo-Beat poetry, the guitar progressions are like a call and response answer to self in an informal structure like a free jazz piece aiming to take on the quality of water with the tones resonating like droplets creating lingering waves creating interference patterns with one another that somehow resolve into evocative intersections. Its an apt dynamic for a song seemingly about wanting to have a new brain and reset one’s life, one’s habits and one’s possible future trajectory and having to come to terms with that not being a realistic outcome even if it would make everything easier. Listen to “New Brain” on Spotify and follow Bondo on Instagram.

Lynx the Indigo Child Wades Through Modern Life’s Everyday Struggles in the Mantra-Like “Without”

Lynx the Indigo Child, photo courtesy the artist

Lynx the Indigo Child speaks for a lot of us somewhere or throughout “Without” in listing a dazzling array of misgivings, frustrations and everyday horror and despair. His expert pacing of lyrics is like an impressionistic journey through American society and culture of the past several years but really the past few decades. But the list of grievances also includes his own shortcomings in the stream of things like medical bills, social media, the fiscal cliff, misogynist media grifters like Andrew Tate, those who would aim to be our masters or gurus like his own anger building and his own outlook that can trip up getting to where you want to be in life. Yet in this flow of grievances Lynx admits vulnerabilities and very direct human needs like how he can’t do without love or respect or “this foolish doubt” that make it easier to stave off the stream of static that can bring you down. The beat in the background of his rap is like something out of what Dilla did for A Tribe Called Quest or Champion Sound—dreamlike and hypnotic in its repetition like a soulful mantra of intent as context. Paired with a song that seems to be about enduring and holding onto hope against the odds it’s a perfect companion to the lyrics. Listen to “Without” on Spotify and connect with Lynx the Indigo Child at the links below.

Lynx the Indigo Child on TikTok

Lynx the Indigo Child on Instagram

American Watercolor Movement Launches Into Its Epic Science Fiction Concept Album The Odyssey of Captain Vivian Ribbons With Propulsive Lead Single “Onward the Night”

American Watercolor Movement, photo courtesy the artists

American Watercolor Movement is a New Jersey band that has taken forays into concepts for previous albums going back to its earliest releases in the late 90s. And its latest album The Odyssey of Captain Vivian Ribbons (which released on February 17, 2023) is the story of a future earth struggling to survive as it sends Captain Vivian Ribbons out into the cosmos to find a habitable planet necessitating transcending the usual mortal human limits of space and time and thus standard physical existence. It sounds like a story out of some universe Hayao Miyazaki might have concocted in the 80s and the the music is a glorious mix of soundtrack pieces, art rock, synth pop, post-punk and various other styles serving the the place in the grand narrative. The single “Onward the Night” is about the Captain leaving earth on the aforementioned mission of hope against hope and the irresistible, driving bass line is motorik in the precision of its rhythms allowing for the rest of the music to anchor off of it. The song stands alone separate from the concept as just an exciting, epic song whose textural detail and great momentum traced in psychedelic tones bring you along for a ride like a song that might have been in that 1980s Transformers movie minus the cheese. The music video is equal parts 1980s anime, Dash Shaw and something one might expect out of a The Flaming Lips production and thoroughly enjoyable beginning to end. Watch the video on YouTube and follow American Watercolor Movement at the links below.

American Watercolor Movement on Instagram

Laveda’s “Clean” is a Heartbreaking Lament of Feeling Adrift From the Things You’ve Lost

The setting for the Laveda single “Clean” is a beach town in the off season and how those places can seem both incredibly lonely but also free of distraction and a good place to gain clarity and space for your psyche. The song itself is full of open spaces and nearly whispered vocals wandering amid gently strummed guitar and the hint of a background drone. The scene begins at dusk and the female lead, presumably Laveda singer Ali Genevich, journeys through the dark of night and the incoming tide, having a drink on a blanket and unwinding with running and dancing in the sand while offering poetic images of what it’s like to be well into adulthood and coming to terms with how things have changed in life and a desire to return to your roots to make some sense of your present but knowing that you just can’t because it’s largely gone and memories of how it wasn’t always so great and even if your current mindset isn’t some portrait of someone’s ideal or your own that you would rather not go back to a time in life when you didn’t know better, as appealing as it can seem in moments of vulnerability and melancholic reverie. It’s a heartbreaking song in a gentle way that poignantly captures what it feels like to be deeply ambivalent, adrift and needing to trust in where the seemingly aimless flow of your life will take you. Watch the video for “Clean” on YouTube and connect with Laveda at the links below. The group’s new album A Place You Grew Up in drops on April 14, 2023.

Laveda on TikTok

Laveda on Facebook

Laveda on Instagram

Sasha Scott Invites Us to Experience the Shifting and Flowing Dynamism of a Complex System on “Swarm”

Sasha Scott “Swarm,” image by Julia Soboleva

The cycling, distorted, sparkling tone that fades in and out that draws us in to Sasha Scott’s “Swarm” has a structure not unlike that of a swarm of insects. Composed of individual resonances that become vivid and coherent then diffused in its ever evolving dynamic, Scott seems to chart what on some level has to be a complex mathematical construct that doesn’t operate according to any distinct logic but its own organic arrangements. Into that cloud of distorted tones Scott extrapolates a physicality that she orchestrates in ascending volumes and into a slow wave that slow ripples in a create use of stereo processing so that we feel like we’re within the swarm as well and finding a strange comfort in its enveloping energy. Listen to “Swarm” on Spotify and follow Sasha Scott at the links provided.

Sasha Scott on Instagram

sashascott.com

Business Cashmere’s “Like A Ghost” is Like the End of a Long Dream of Emotional and Social Isolation

Business Cashmere’s “Like a Ghost” (as in living like one) has an ethereal, slow roiling sound that brings to mind a pace like an icicle melting in sunlight. Its descending guitar line and background bass drone and a vocal that sounds like someone emerging from an extended slumber makes it difficult to pigeonhole for a genre. The lyrics paint a portrait of social disconnect and personal alienation but running through with a yearning for connection, for emotional intimacy against the habit and comfort of social isolation in which you risk nothing of yourself and can tell yourself how independent you are until your memory of what life can be when it’s not just being cloaked in a hermetic psychological zone. It’s a song about becoming vulnerable against your will and with great reluctance but as an impetus from a corner of your psyche that recognizes that the limitations you’ve imposed on yourself to prevent the kind of heartbreak and disappointment that happens during the course of a normal human existence. It’s a dreamy song for waking from a dream that served its purpose but like all dreams has to come to an end whether you will it or not. Watch the psychedelic and hypnotic video for “Like A Ghost” directed by George Till and Christine Makowski on YouTube and connect with the Denver-based Business Cashmere at the links below.

Business Cashmere on Facebook

Business Cashmere on Instagram

Business Cashmere on Apple Music

The Quiet Project’s Video For “Three Thousand” is the Perfect Fusion of Stop Motion Aesthetics and Musical Minimalism

The video for the Antarctica-based The Quiet Project’s “Three Thousand” pairs well with the intricate and rapid piano arpeggios and almost pointillist percussion. Like what appears to be a video made with stop motion style using PhotoShop to craft a short animated film with hundreds or even thousands of stills had a parallel with the composition of the song. Tiny bits of sound and progressions arranged and synced with the imagery until the end when a single flower in sunlight after the rapid succession of images across the sunny part of the day seems to encompass the complete wonder of nature and its multifarious expressions to which we were treated on the rest of the track. Watch the video for “Three Thousand,” which may be the number of stills involved in the crafting of the visual element, on YouTube and connect with The Quiet Project at the links below.

The Quiet Project on Instagram

Charlie Havenick’s “Sprinkler Song” is an Ethereal Slowcore Pop Song Striking for Its Profound Sensitivity and Psychological Insight

Charlie Havernick, photo courtesy the artist

Charlie Havenick’s “Sprinkler Song” employs a spare rhythm guitar riff through the first half of the song like an introspective mantra as slide guitar swells gently in the background as the backdrop to what sounds like part short story and diary entry. Havenick’s gentle vocals and lyrics establish a deep sense of place physically and in the mind. The given details of “a dog that barks when only I ride by” and “The sun stays out til I’m cloaked in the night” are subtly poetic in getting to the climax of the song when the guitar becomes distorted and all the sounds soar dramatically for a few moments before settling back into the more vulnerable and contemplative mood. It is at that point where Havenick reveals its a song that may be about conflicted and ambivalent feelings about loving someone with a self-awareness of her own that is mindful of how there are parts of your psychology that can be transformed for the worse when someone isn’t careful with your heart in the pursuit of a selfish emotional agenda. “I don’t want to hurt you. The kid with the wind in her sails” in the last two lines of the song is so sweet and tender and revealing that it’s easy to forget that Havenick’s song defies easy genre categorization and that it outros with ethereal piano work and you’re struck with the profound level of sensitivity and personal insight the songwriter brings to bear throughout what you’ve been hearing. Listen to “Sprinkler Song” on Spotify and follow Charlie Havenick on her website.