SubmitHub – Page 90 – Queen City Sounds and Art

Free Refills Purges the Disappointment of Rejection With the Fractured Swagger of No Wave Post-punk Funk Song “Grounded”

Balancing a pop/slap bass line with a broken angular guitar riff Free Refills’ “Grounded” sounds anything but. It has a frantic spirit with a herky jerky rhythm that seems perfect for a song about someone who is maybe a little rough around the edges herself but who isn’t dealing so philosophically with being rejected by someone she’s into. The stuttering keyboard sound and the No Wave funk rhythmic structure is reminiscent of the borderline collapsing yet charming sound of early The Rapture and the more hectic end of Parquet Courts or Erase Errata with a vocalist who sounds very together but depicting a head space that isn’t yet there is an element of swagger that makes the song a bit of a benevolent diss track. Listen to “Grounded” on Spotify and follow Free Refills at the links provided.

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Hypnogogic Ambient Track “svæpha” by Swedish Experimental Electronic Project oplen Has the Warm Haze of Music From a Dream

“svæpha” by Swedish experimental electronic project oplen combines saturated melodic synth melodies with white noise to create a flowing mood with texture. Like listening to a found cassette in an old studio run by a lost composer of library music. The track is upbeat yet often drifts outside a conventional rhythm structure for an effect that gives it a spontaneous energy with the beautiful non-pristine sound of an analog recording conducted under less than ideal recording conditions with gear not designed to deliver a sanitized sonic imprint. This is what gives the song an emotional resonance like something remembered right after waking from a dream but with the ability to return to that feeling freely. Listen to “svæpha” on Spotify and follow oplen at the links below.

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MP Shaw and Nick Andre Craft an Urgent Atmosphere of Dark Mystery on IDM/Ambient Track “Electric Company”

MP Shaw and Nick Andre teamed up to create the sort of techno track with “Electric Company” that was written for the soundtrack of the short film “Return of the Sleepwalker” but wouldn’t be out of place in a Michael Mann or William Friedkin film. It has an enigmatic duskiness and strong tonal pulses and an urgent rhythm that contains a hint of menace or at least focused purpose. A melodic line will trace a short arpeggio and burst into a short echo as the song pushes forward. One hears the touch of the influence of Giorgio Moroder and late night video game play reaching to finish an important section of a horror or thriller RPG you wish existed and may yet be. Listen to “Electric Company” on Spotify where you can listen to other tracks including Shaw’s excellent and evocative cover of Brian Eno’s “Deep Blue Day.”

Erik Hall’s Interpretation of Simeon ten Hold’s “Canto Ostinato Sections 74-87” Adds Soothing Textures to the Entrancing Minimalism and Energy of the Original

Erik Hall’s interpretation of Simeon ten Holt’s “Canto Ostinato Sections 74-87” has a very live and spontaneous sound. The original Canto Ostinato was written for four pianos from 1976 to 1979 has a certain lively energy that runs through the marathon composition. It is a fine example of Twentieth Century minimalism with the shifting tonal harmonies but without the the slide into dissonance. Hall captures the easy yet irresistible pace and seemingly over the top of the relaxing sounds of a flowing creek to give what might be an ethereal work of richly details sonics playing out in an ever-evolving manner as per the aesthetics of minimalism. Listen to “Canto Ostinato Sections 74-87” on YouTube and follow Erik Hall at the links below. Hall’s full treatment of Canto Ostinato released on February 24, 2023 on Western Vinyl available on multiple formats on Bandcamp linked below as well.

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CoastalDives’ “75” and the album Next Light (DATA104) are Like the Soundtrack to an Enigmatic and Existential Science Fiction Thriller

Pairing a simple arpeggio with a lush background drone on “75,” CoastalDives evoke the feeling of an existential science fiction thriller. The melody seems to accelerate slightly as the song goes along and an undertone of emotional urgency and intensity colors the enigmatic feel of the song creating a sense of anticipation of what might be awaiting us on the other side of the musical journey like the point in the movie when the cumulative knowledge acquired in the first half leads the protagonists to a place or to a meeting that will decide the future going forward. Listen to “75” on Spotify where you can further explore CoastalDives various works including the rest of the Tangerine Dream-esque, 2022 album Next Light (DATA104) mastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri of The Sight Below and follow Coastal Wives at the links provided.

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Lonely Lions of Alabama Lures You Into the Grand Adventure of Its New Album With Cinematic Opening Track “Ocean – Intro”

When you listen to the beginning of “Ocean – Intro” by Lonely Lions of Alabama (a project based in Minsk, Belarus) it’s not like listening to a song per se but a soundtrack to an epic and mysterious adventure. The sound of birds by the seashore lead to wind sweeping in from the coast and a spiraling sound in the distance like a beacon, the pulse of a lighthouse in the night. Then streams of distorting synth and a more atmospheric sheet of tone before the action of the song begins with whorls of bright and then ethereal sounds over a touch of percussion. In moments it recalls Carmine Coppola’s work for the soundtrack to Apocalypse Now in stimulating the imagination and sense of wonder with the promise of something engrossing and transformative ahead. Listen to “Ocean – Intro” on Spotify where you can listen to the rest of the album Синдром отрицания (in English, the suggestive and provocative title Denial Syndrome) and follow Lonely Lions of Alabama at the links below.

Lonely Lions of Alabama on Facebook

Lonely Lions of Alabama on YouTube

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Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys Capture the Maddening and Mechanistic Ritual of Life With a Dysfunctional Psychology on “Burning Building”

On the single “Burning Building” Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys tell the tale of a person who is living with a dysfunctional situation but yearning to escape. Across the song we learn that our narrator rationalizes to him or herself the normalcy of living inside the closing walls of an unsustainable mode of existence as evidenced by the lines “I’m watching the world from a burning building” and “It’s the only home I know.” When the precariousness of life is always threatening to you and you learn to survive and are always in survival mode it can do a number on your head and your ability to function outside of that context without trying to recreate it even when you don’t need to. The angular and even mechanical dynamics of the song are reminiscent of a Lene Lovich song gone industrial and it suits perfectly the ritualistic and maddening manner of knowing things aren’t right but not seeming to be able to do something to remove oneself from a way of life that will, yes, crash and burn and maybe take you with it. But that nugget of an impulse to change is there and it’s kind of the hook of the song. Listen to “Burning Building” on Spotify and follow Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys at the links below.

Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys on Bandcamp

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Grocer’s “Downtown Side” is an Incisive Deconstuction of the Everyday Impact of Late Stage Capitalism

Grocer sound a little like a modern version of Steinbeck by way of Pixies on its single “Downtown Side” from its newly released EP Scatter Plot. The playful melody has a discordant quality and unraveling edges that reflect a quiet desperation that boils under the surface of much of American society and everywhere else in the world where people are coming to the realization that grinding to get by is really no longer the delusion that it can lead to getting ahead which was a fiction twenty-five years ago and a completely fraudulent prop to late capitalism. What Grocer expresses so well to address this reality of modern life is the massive self neglect into which we’ve talked ourselves: “I could be bleeding from my head on the side of the curb/Am I dreaming that I’m even waiting for a desert?” That image and so many of the other poetic and clever metaphors that are in ever stanza of the song’s lyrics zero in on an inability to keep fooling oneself when reality the reality of life is punching you in the face every day whether you want to acknowledge it or not. The whistles and off the cuff percussion at one point in the song is almost like a mockery of engaging in that pantomime of healthy productivity. A slide whistle would have really been over the top but Grocer kept it to a lean and efficient gesture because “I guess it’s not that funny anymore/Maybe I lost that light, and it’s a heavy way forward.” Indeed. But this burst of self-awareness placed so well in a song that erases a boundary between pop, post-punk and psychedelia hits in exactly the right way without overstating the direness of a situation we could overcome if we had the collective will to do so or understating the challenge of reaching an easily attainable better world if society wasn’t so hypnotized by the illusion of mythologized and culturalized success. Listen to “Downtown Side” on YouTube and follow Grocer at the links below.

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Pink Sky Eases Off a Spiral of Melancholia With a Gentle Mantra on “False Aralia”

Animator Julie Seaward brings to Pink Sky’s single “False Aralia” a real embodiment of the deep sense of isolation and loss one hears in the song. And as with the ethereal, dreamlike music and almost childlike hopefulness in the lyrics we see a a young woman who spends time walking alone in the rain and staring into clouds, yearning and hoping for the kind of reconciliation that can feel out of reach when you feel like you’ve lost someone because of some actual or perceived transgression and your mood spins off into a spiral of desolation that feels melodramatic later but because of the strength of the bond you felt seems so significant can feel so overwhelming. But there isn’t anger here, just echoes of melancholia. In the chous of “I am here don’t feed the fear I am here don’t feed the fear” we hear the reassurance needed to avert the hypnotic narrative into personal darkness. Watch the video for “False Aralia” on YouTube and follow Michigan-based dream pop duo Pink Sky at the links below. Its new album Total Devotion released February 17, 2023.

pinkskymusic.com

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Elly Kace Dissolves the Layers of Ego on Experimental Jazz Pop Single “Disappear”

Elly Kace’s versatile voice is at the center of “Disappear.” The rhythmic deployment of guitar and bass early in the song, returning like a theme later on, frame Kace’s widely emotive vocals processed to enhance a sense of a centered focus and of introspective expansiveness. Vocals lines are layered upon one another in a gently cascading flow of melody like leaves falling from a tree and swirling slowly around, facets of emotion that express a tapestry of expressive complexity in a manner that feels organic even if planned and executed with an impressive display of skill in production and performance. And for a song that seems to be about the acceptance of the impermanence of life and the folly of clingy attachment it manifests the shedding layers of ego in the way the song goes from a clarity and jazz-like informal structure to a haze of elements dissolving into a tonal brightness. If it’s a pop song it’s more like something avant-garde electronic composer Laurel Halo or ambient folk auteur Julia Holter might do. Watch the video for “Disappear” on YouTube and follow Kace at the links provided.