Vijunns’ song “Overlay,” named after the Photoshop blending tool, explores the theme of urban decay. With the accompanying music video with performance artist playing the role of an enigmatic figure walking through and moving about various settings in Bombay Beach on the Salton Sea, the layers of sound – flowing and swirling winds of white noise, granular, melodic tones, pulsing arpeggios, meditative beats – work enhance each other while existing independent of each other. The effect gives a different emotional context when taken as a whole and the use of the imagery of urban decay draws on a sense of a memory of a place that persists in the mind that in your emotions overlays the current conditions of the landscape. Walking through them those layers of meaning for you mingle and you come to appreciate the world as it is now in a new way as it has a new context for people that don’t remember it as you once did and so it exists in experience purely in its current form. The track, too, is reminiscent of early Tycho or early 2000s Boards of Canada with their own drawing upon sonic and emotional artifacts of an earlier era to craft a musical experience for today that anchors the listening experience across time if you can tap into its references and if not just provides a soothing and deeply immersive and lush bit of ear candy. Watch the video for “Overlay” on YouTube and connect with Vijunns at the links below.
Queen City Sounds and Art 
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