BY TOM MURPHY M. SAGE – PARADISE CRICK Matthew Sage wrote and recorded this album from 2017-2021 while based out of Chicago. But its exquisitely textured ambient soundscapes sound like detailed and vivid emotional images of Sage’s upbringing in Fort Collins, CO. With an ear for subtlety in transitions, rhythms and tone, he has a gift for finding the exact combination of sounds to express the energy of a path through the woods in the bright sun of a late winter morning, the babbling of a nearby brook and the myriad insects and fish, of the brisk wind in middle spring, of meandering roads and trails, and the movements of grass and trees. Sage seems to have a mystical, Zen awareness of the environment as a whole experience across time and an attention to the minutiae of composition and sensory stimuli in these pieces. The result feels like organic arrangements manifested through a masterful fusion of electronic sounds and those more physical, laid out to great effect. RYAN WONG – THE NEW COUNTRY SOUNDS OF RYAN WONG Ryan Wong is best known for his contributions to psychedelic rock, garage rock and postpunk in groups like Supreme Joy, Cool Ghouls and Easy Ease. So this album of lightly shimmery country seemed to have come out of left field. Wong embraces a vocal style here that can veer slightly off center now and then, but that just lends the often more straight-ahead style of homespun immediacy. There’s an underlying sense of humor that is both self-aware and self-effacing, and a song like “Yo Yo” sounds like something Lou Reed might have written had he tried his hand at country before going on to form The Velvet Underground. “Cold Beer” is like a parody of country story songs of yesteryear with spoken word sections, but like the rest of the album, it showcases Wong’s command of the style and his gift for songwriting outside his usual wheelhouse. FOR MORE, VISIT QUEENCITYSOUNDSANDART.WORDPRESS.COM 25
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