Last Updated on April 16, 2024, 2:17 PM | Published: April 16, 2024
For a long time, Oklahoma City’s music scene was viewed primarily as a breeding ground for “red dirt” country or as a mostly unhinged underground community of miscreant metalheads, Freak City punks, and psychedelic wacko-poppers angling to be the next Flaming Lips.
My, how times have changed.
Though all of those scenes still hold strong in OKC (with each of them hitting some recent high points in output and community,) the city’s music offerings have spread out to become far more diverse and – in many cases – far more chill.
So as we hurtle headfirst into the hot and humid seasons, let’s chill out with these diverse, deeply creative recent single drops that are all about subtlety, atmosphere, and intimacy.
Olivia Komahcheet – ‘TOKO’ (from the ‘Frybread Face and Me’ soundtrack)
Anyone who has been paying attention to Oklahoma music for a while knows by now the sheer creativity and command of Olivia Komahcheet and her ability to infuse genuine experimentation and exciting instrumentation into her own brand of compellingly melodic pop.
But on this instrumental cut from the soundtrack to Native-centered family drama “Frybread Face and Me,” Komahcheet strips nearly everything away, leaving only the unfettered intimacy of acoustic strings and open space.
It’s such a sparse, wide-open little piece of music, but the result is moving in a way that’s probably only possible by hearing human hands scraping up and down guitar strings, the organic buzz of steel strings on wood, or the occasional half-muted harmonic ringing out beneath a chord.
“TOKO” is four simple, wordless minutes but says as much as most lyrical ballads. Maybe more.
“TOKO (Frybread Face and Me Soundtrack)” is streaming everywhere now.
Follow Olivia Komahcheet on Instagram at @komahcheeto.
Challo – ‘Cursed’
Challo is Jose Hernandez (or is Jose Hernandez Challo?) and if you know that name, then you probably also know just how soulful and effective his past life as an acoustic singer/songwriter was.
Since emerging as Challo, however, Hernandez has shifted into perhaps the city’s prime purveyor of sensual, electro-infused R&B. And “Cursed” may be the best example yet.
Over an airy, synth-padded slow jam, Hernandez spins the classic lovelorn torment of a million soul songs into a statement on familial pain and maybe even generational trauma. The song’s lamented missing love is the love that should be running through generations. “Cursed” seems to asks how, then, is someone supposed to love, or to feel loved, or to even feel human without ever feeling that warmth before.
It all comes through in Hernandez’s always evocative vocal, switching between and melding together an effortlessly soulful croon and a pained falsetto, even dropping everything away in the second chorus and laying his voice bare where any lesser songwriter would be going ever bigger.
A fantastic track added to a recent string of fantastic singles.
“Cursed” is streaming everywhere now.
Follow Challo on Instagram at @challomusic.
David Joachims – ‘Casting Long Shadows’
The state’s ambient music scene is heating up lately like never before, with more and more producers shuffling off the constraints of traditional structural and melodic expectations and playing instead in the realms of pure atmosphere and feel.
Joachims’ “Casting Long Shadows” is a beautifully minimal, short-form entry into that world.
Coming in at less than three minutes, “Casting Long Shadows” feels like a brief glimpse of a swelling sonic landscape, never overstaying its welcome and never for a moment insisting upon itself.
The focal-point chords pulsate and breathe deliberately, meditatively, allowing the tonal sketches of fleeting piano notes and background ambience to move in and out of earshot environmentally.
It’s a perfectly minimalist three-minute escape.
“Casting Long Shadows” is streaming everywhere now.
Follow David Joachims on Instagram at @davidjoachims and make sure to check out and follow Joachims’ Circle Lotus Media, one of the finest resources and showcases for local music from all across the state.
Sun Deep – ‘Suroor’
An unexpected drop from the singular Sundeep Sharma, who last year took a considered step back from producing, both as a solo figure and as half of mind-activating hip-hop mold-breakers Finite Galaxy.
In the time away, Sharma has been exploring quieter textures and more thoughtful, intrinsic spaces, captured gorgeously on surprise release “Suroor.”
Everything in the track feels underwater, stitched together with a drowned, drenched piano riff providing cohesion inside a spacious track only sparsely populated with a hyper-minimal backbeat and the occasional floating synth pad or processed vocal clip.
But at the center of this little pocket universe, of course, is Sharma’s voice, laying out bars, as ever, in Hindi. He’s calm and subdued throughout, never rising or intensifying, always keeping the mood intimate and earnest.
Whether or not you speak the language, it’s easy to tell that this is a track focused on the quietest, simplest, and most life-affirming pleasures. This song might even be one of them.
“Suroor” is streaming everywhere now.
Follow Sun Deep on Instagram at @sundeep_music.
Watch for this column every week to find out about all things music in the Oklahoma City metro from one of Oklahoma City’s top music commentators, Brett Fieldcamp. Sponsored by True Sky Credit Union.
Brett Fieldcamp has been covering arts, entertainment, news, housing, and culture in Oklahoma for nearly 15 years, writing for several local and state publications. He’s also a musician and songwriter and holds a certification as Specialist of Spirits from The Society of Wine Educators.
