Cindy Gravity – Queen City Sounds and Art

Cindy Gravity, photo courtesy the artists

Cindy Gravity’s “48h Daydream” has a playfully surreal and eclectic aesthetic lends its psychedelic pop a decidedly different flavor from a lot of what passes for psych in the past several years. The spare guitar riff is somehow like an indie folk take on a salsa style, the bass line is subtle but also seems to provide the framework of the song as the minimal percussion is almost more textural than rhythmic and the keyboard work sounds like it came out of something Bernie Worrell might do for one of those New Wave bands with which he worked. The lyrics and the laid back vocal style are not the typical throught process for a song where someone will sing about love they have, wish they had, projected fantasy or the other usual pop and rock song tropes. There are elements of all of that but also a tacit admission of whimsy and self-awareness especially in the line “Everything lines up so well/in the little world I made up for her/She’s snooping around in my head/I may let her and just go to bed.” Maybe the song didn’t intend to shed a light on how daydreams can reinforce wishful thinking and behaviors related to such like texting someone you’re into and not hearing back within, yes, 48 hours, and thinking you did what you could to bring them into your life but there’s always consoling yourself with a daydream as an act of acceptance. The tone of the song is benevolent and self-indulgent rather than suggestive of anything nefarious and who doesn’t enjoy giving in to some harmless daydreaming know it’s just that? Listen to “48h Daydream” on YouTube and follow Berlin’s Cindy Gravity on Instagram.

Cindy Gravity free associates cultural references in the video for the “Rocket Men” single. From the VHS glitch and simulation of camcorder effects and old video editing effects. From the nod to music video for Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues” to a tin foil headband to eccentric early 80s music videos like if Harry Nilsson and Thomas Dolby made a parody of the format through a creative use of the limitations of available technology the video is like a collage of unusual and laid back irony. The song itself is an interesting blend of downtempo pop and what might be described as 80s New Wave kitsch with keyboards rimmed with distorted synth lines and vocals that shift from contemplative to borderline intense as though insisting someone produce the rocket men who promised us a different kind of future than the dystopian present in which we’ve passed critical years in science fiction. Certainly 1984 was long ago, 2001 nearly twenty years in the past and we sure didn’t get advanced replicants like Roy Blatty and Pris Stratton in 2016. Cindy Gravity almost sounds disappointed we didn’t get any of this except for that whole Big Brother deal. Watch the video for “Rocket Men” on YouTube and connect with Cindy Gravity at the links below.