Welcome to the third instalment of Honey on the Knife Radio. Once again, we look at 11 songs, some new and some not as new, but all of them good.
Listen to Episode 3 here:
If you’d prefer to read about the songs, keep reading below
Cindygod – “Rhys”
“Rhys” is the opening cut on Cindygod’s second EP, which is set to arrive on August 14, 2020. Reverberous vocals echo over a skeletal post-punk backdrop, creating a dark and uneasy atmosphere, like being in an abandoned factory at night and unsure whether the voices you hear are in your imagination or around a corner you cannot see.
Ela Minus – “megapunk”
The second single released by Ela Minus in 2020 is a propulsive and rebellious tech house anthem that would fill dancefloors in a non-pandemic timeline. Instead, it joins the masses in the street as they lash back at the unjust powers that have held so many down for so long.
Quinton Barnes – “NONBINARY”
“NONBINARY” is a celebration of free and uninhibited self-expression. The latest album by Quinton Barnes refuses to claim one side of the pop and experimental music dichotomy. It is accessible and adventurous, with Barnes warping modern pop and R&B with the clank and clamour of industrial and glitchy textures.
Animal Ghosts – “Bond”
It wouldn’t be a proper episode of HotK radio if it didn’t include some shoegaze. On “Bond”, Cliff Barnes’ breathy vocals melt softly across a canvas of swooning guitars that balloon into a chorus of blown out riffs that are gnarled yet gentle and dream-like.
Dreamcrusher – “A Long Kiss Goodnight“
From the Another Country mixtape comes “A Long Kiss Goodnight”, which is a rework of a track by Dog Breath. The guttural hardcore punk of the original is transformed into a piercingly ominous composition that is equal parts melodic and abrasive.
DEE BEE RICH – “PAY”
“PAY” comes from Berlin-based DEE BEE RICH’s EP, released July 30, 2020. It’s an energetic piece of lofi post-punk, which I’ve heard others describe as “Devo-core”. It’s great, so I guess that means I should start listening to more Devo.
Ganser – “Bags for Life“
According to the Bandcamp page for Ganser’s latest album, Just Look at That Sky, “Bags for Life” conceptualizes “how online discourse might tackle a front-row seat for the end of the world.” Sometimes spending more time online seems to amplify the feeling that the end is becoming closer, but I would like hope that the human race can find some solidarity to slow the evils that pull the end nearer so that we don’t all get an armageddon notification from Facebook.
On a less existential note, this Ganser album rips. The drums are full of punch and flourish, the bass-lines stand out in their slithering coolness, and the biggest source of power comes from the dynamic performances of Nadia Garofalo and Alicia Gaines. This is a band firing on all cylinders to create an enthralling art-punk statement.
KeyDaIntro – “SummerBabyBlues” ft. Ensilence
KeyDaIntro’s Fleeting Thoughts EP has been my latest musical obsession. Delicately rich keys and guitar melodies fall over top of slow knocking head-nodding drum grooves, creating the bedding for KeyDaIntro to lay her effortlessly smooth and alluring vocals on top of. If you like this track with Ensilence, make sure to check out Summertints, their latest track together.
qualchan. – “summertooth”
Portland-based qualchan. describes the music he makes as “Now Age”. In an interview with Sunbleach, he explains
“The “now age” is a reflection of the fear and dread I feel living through the Anthropocene. Species are dying out at an accelerated rate, massive swaths of the rainforest are cut down every day for livestock grazing which are then led to a cruel and inhumane end on the slaughter room floor. The Great Barrier Reef is almost dead, not to mention trash island. Anyway, as far as sound goes, I’ve been a fan of new age ever since a family friend gave me the Kitaro’s Silk Road soundtrack record when I was eleven, and have become obsessed with it over the last ten years. I wanted to move in those zones but represent living in Cascadia while also refracting my feelings of hopelessness of watching the earth burn around me.”
https://sunbleach.net/2018/09/17/artist-interview-qualchan/
“Summertooth” comes from his April 2020 release, The Book of Sleep. It’s an album best enjoyed as a full experience, rather than mining for a choice cut, with disembodied sampled vocals and soft textures creating a phantasmagoria of not quite soothing sounds with an uncomfortable undercurrent.
Bessie Smith “St Louis Blues (feat. Louis Armstrong)”
“St Louis Blues” is a song that was originally composed in 1912 by W.C. Handy. William Christopher Handy was a composer and musician who referred to himself as the “Father of the Blues”. He was one of the first to publish blues music, and played an important role in advancing the blues to a new level of popularity
In the early twentieth century, radio and the gramophone had not yet become consumer technology. Music was primarily circulating either through live performances or the sheet music trade. If you could sell the sheet music of a song you wrote, whoever bought it could listen to the song by playing the music theirself.
Several of W.C. Handy’s songs would become “standards”, covered in performances by many different musicians. One of most popular interpretations of “St. Louis Blues” is sung by Bessie Smith and features Louis Armstrong playing the cornet alongside her.
Bessie Smith began her recording career in 1923, at a time when record companies were looking to capitalize on marketing music to Black people, whom they had not previously directed their products towards. The company would establish a “race records” series, comprised of recordings by various Black musicians in genres such as jazz, blues, and gospel.
Smith became a very popular performer as she travelled extensively for performances as part of the Vaudeville circuit. She was the highest paid Black entertainer of her era and became known as the “Empress of the Blues”. Here is what NPR’s Maureen Mahon had to say about the legacy of Bessie Smith:
“Nearly a century after Smith started her career as a recording artist, we can take for granted the presence of female singers who are at home laying claim to their needs — rom antic and otherwise — and taking their voices to their limits without apology. The roots of these forthright articulations of womanhood were first sounded in the music of the classic blues women, and all of us — the singers and those of us who take pleasure in listening to them — owe a debt to Bessie Smith, the Empress of the Blues, the woman who, with a gorgeous, powerful voice, boldly sang the blues.”
https://www.npr.org/2019/08/05/747738120/how-bessie-smith-influenced-a-century-of-popular-music
W.C. Handy and Bessie Smith both have had incredible influence on the shape and sound of popular music’s evolution. It is important to recognize the innovation and impact of Black figures in music history, whose contributions are too often swept under the rug, unacknowledged, and appropriated in the music industry. Check out these articles to read more about their legacies.
WC Handy’s Memphis Blues: The Song of 1912
How Bessie Smith Influenced A Century Of Popular Music
Leanne Betasamosake Simpson – “Solidification”
We end off this edition of HotK Radio with “Solidification” by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, from her upcoming Noopiming Sessions release. Leanne is a Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg scholar, writer, and musician, and this new EP was inspired by her upcoming novel Noopiming: A Cure for White Ladies. It was created in collaboration with Ansley Simpson, James Bunton and Sammy Chien, and all of the lyrics come from the novel itself.
The book arrives September 1, 2020, and I will share with you this description from House of Anansi Press:
“Noopiming is Anishinaabemowin for “in the bush,” and the title is a response to English Canadian settler and author Susanna Moodie’s 1852 memoir Roughing It in the Bush. To read Simpson’s work is an act of decolonization, degentrification, and willful resistance to the perpetuation and dissemination of centuries-old colonial myth-making. It is a lived experience. It is a breaking open of the self to a world alive with people, animals, ancestors, and spirits, who are all busy with the daily labours of healing — healing not only themselves, but their individual pieces of the network, of the web that connects them all together. Enter and be changed.”
https://houseofanansi.com/products/noopiming
If that description doesn’t make you add the book to your reading list, then perhaps the haunting spoken word and sparse drone of “Solidification” will.
The Noopiming Sessions EP arrives August 13, 2020, and all proceeds will be donated to Toronto Overdose Prevention Society and the Encampment Support Network (ESN) Toronto.
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If you are a musician and you would like to submit your music to be featured in a future edition of Honey On The Knife Radio, send an email to contact@honeyontheknife.com