Brad Hamers and jdaugh bring their respective backgrounds in music, poetry, performance art, visual art and filmmaking to bear for their new project Through Flames. The duo released its debut self-titled LP on Apri 24, 2020 and the single “No Clothes on the Warden” cleverly makes use of the concept of “the emperor has no clothes” to deconstruct the economic and political realities we internalize and take for granted that if we’re able to break our conditioning and see things for how they are the whole thing could crumble in a matter of days or months and maybe we would be forced to simply live in a better world where there’s no techno-plutocratic agenda necessitating a police and surveillance state to smooth the funneling of most public goods to the upper one percent of one percent. In a fascinating use of call and response delivering couplets of observations on society in a way that challenges rote and familiar constructions of thought and language to almost force you to think about what’s being vocalized and in turn examine your ow thinking on the subject of our ascribed roles in the dystopian late capitalist international system that we find ourselves in now and which threatens the existence of us all and the safety of the planet. But rather than torching the edifice of such verbally and musically, Through Flames with this song dismantles the cognitive framework that keeps it in place in your brain in a playful and charming way. The accompanying rhythms, drones and spare melodies make what is a fairly radical set of propositions vis what is now for us the norm much easier to accept and that is what makes for a work of art that might help change things. Listen to “No Clothes on the Warden” on Soundcloud and connect with Through Flames at the links below.
https://throughflames.bandcamp.com
Queen City Sounds and Art 
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