Holland Andrews’ clear, radiant voice comes in and soars over the blasts of white noise, murky synths and industrial beat of the new Like A Villain single “Daughters” from the new album What Makes Vulnerability Good. Andrews has been at making stirring and unsettling yet gripping soundscapes for several years at this point but this song is especially confrontational, it hits you with searing lines like “they listen, they see her but they don’t believe her, they’ve broken my daughter” uttered with nearly blinding outrage more than suggesting violence of some kind inflicted on a woman and the aftermath of denial of the events. Comparisons are often made between Andrews’ work and that of Diamanda Galas’ groundbreaking, heartrending exorcisms of industrial beats, soaring vocals and raw and challenging subject matter and Holly Herndon’s experiments in vocal processing and similarly psyche unmasking material. But for this song one might even reference Lingua Ignota’s new album Caligula and its uncompromising and moving critique of misogyny in modern culture and its pervasive effects on everyone’s lives. While a harrowing listen this song feels like it shakes off some of the rage and personal darkness it also embodies or at least gives it a coherent form that is impossible to ignore. Listen to “Daughters” on Soundcloud and follow Like A Villain at the links below.
What:Curse w/Echo Beds, Church Fire and Gruesome Relics When: Thursday, 10.03, 9 p.m. Where: Rhinoceropolis Why: Baltimore’s Curse has been touring the US for the past eight years playing its alchemical mix of doom, darkwave analog synth pop, electro-acoustic industrial beats and hardcore. Its commanding and spirited performances and DIY ethos has earned the band a fanbase in the American underground where its gritty, emotionally charged and dream-like music needn’t appeal to a narrow spectrum of musical tastes. Also on the bill are like-minded Denver locals. Echo Beds and Church Fire both bridge the worlds of hardcore, industrial and darkwave with both groups incorporating live drums and physical sound generation with an electronic music aesthetic.
What:Bleached w/Dude York and Pout House When: Thursday, 10.03, 7 p.m. Where: Globe Hall Why: Seattle’s Dude York recently released its new album Falling out on Hardly Art. The band’s been writing fun, thoughtful music since its inception but on the new record the songwriting seems somehow fuller and the tone nostalgic like the members of the band have reached a point in their life that everyone gets to where you can embrace the music of your youth that maybe in your late teens or twenties you rejected a bit because you outgrew it. Except that you can appreciate it on your terms as someone who has some life experience and has more insight as to why you you can either still love that music or aspects of it or appreciate how it made you feel even if that music doesn’t have that level of impact on you now. The problem with a lot of rock music is that it gets emotionally stuck in a rut of stunted adolescence. Falling sounds like a band that acknowledges the importance on a deeply personal level of not letting your heart fully harden to weather the blows of life with a shield of knowing jadedness when some sensitivity and openness would be a better way to navigate the world with curiosity and humanity intact. Bleached not so long ago went through its own transformation after some years of exploring what it wanted to sound like, even as the songwriting was always strong, to get into a groove of gritty, atmospheric pop that grew out of the Clavin sisters’ past in noise punk band Mika Miko and the garage surf sound of the early 2010s.
What:Half Moon Run w/Tim Baker (former Hey Rosetta!) When: Friday, 10.04, 8 p.m. Where: Bluebird Theater Why: Tim Baker the charismatic singer for Hey Rosetta! released his debut solo album Forever Overhead. When the band went on indefinite hiatus in October 2017 Baker went on tour as a solo artist playing the unconventional types of venues he had probably when he was coming with the songs that were the backbone of the early era of his Hey Rosetta!. The songs are the warm, introspective but yearning, anthemic pieces that garnered the band a wide audience from early on. The album seems to sketch a journey of personal rediscovery and reconnecting with the everyday experiences and epiphanies that make for vivid lyrics that resonate with feelings we’ve all had.
What:Ride w/The Spirit of the Beehive and One Flew West When: Friday, 10.04, 7:30 p.m. Where: Boulder Theater Why: Ride was one of the earliest of the UK shoegaze bands. Its sound was aswirl with elements of a colossal neo-psychedelia but rocked with a momentous drive. Currently the group is touring in support of its 2019 album This is Not a Safe Place.
nervesandgel circa 2013 (Johnny Wohlfahrt aka nervesandgel with Allison Young), photo by Tom Murphy
What:Pythian Whispers album release w/RAREBYRD$, SOMNILOQUIST and nervesandgel When: Saturday, 10.05, 8 p.m. Where: Rhinoceropolis Why: SOMNILOQUIST is an ambient/drone artist from Albuquerque whose 2019 album Perpetual Fall is a collection of vivid sonic sketches of a scene, a sensation, a mood captured by the song titles including the humorously titled “How Long Are You Going to Leave Those Jack-o-Lanterns on Your Porch?” Majestic, enigmatic, impressionistic, introspective but always conveying the emotional experiences behind them eloquently. Nervesandgel hasn’t performed a show in over six years but the Denver-based experimental electronic artist has a vast back catalog that explores depths of experimenting with the form of ambient music and psychedelia beyond the tropes implied by the latter designation. He, Johnny Wohlfahrt, has releases on various imprints including a record out on indie pop label Best Friends Records but most of his work is self-released including the darkly moving Cometcrash and the more than three hour long epic 333. He may make ambient music but his performances are always richly emotional. R A R E B Y R D $ took the root of underground hip-hop and imbued it with personal mythology and a willingness to push the weird end of electronic beat-making to craft some of the most entrancing and evocative, sometimes inspirationally brash, sometimes cathartically heartbreaking happening in the world right now. Pythian Whispers is a Denver-based ambient band that Queen City Sounds and Art editor and writer Tom Murphy started as a solo project in 2009 but which became a band in 2011 when David Britton joined followed by various other long term and short term collaborators including renowned photographer/film-maker Charles DeGraaf, Titwrench MC Piper Rose, former Dangerous Nonsense bassist and current Umbras Animas member Harmony Fredere, Brad Schumacher of Night Grinder, Melissa Bell formerly of Rasputina and Howling Hex, Victoria Lundy of The Inactivists, Darren Kulback formerly of Hot White now Quits and The Lifers, former Action Friend drummer Paul Alexander, Misun Oh formerly of French Chemists, Tripp Wallin of The Lifers, comic artist Sara Century, photographer Joel Dallenbach and likely more. The band’s new album Lullabies For the Way of St. James is its first full length album since 2012’s The Dark Edge of Hippie Life. The band will have enamel band logo pins for sale for $12 that come with a download or a bundle with a forthcoming cassette with extra tracks for maybe $20.
What:Franksgiving: Church Fire, Little Fyodor, Ralph Gean and Gort Vs. Goom When: Saturday, 10.05, 9 p.m. Where: Lion’s Lair Why: Franklin Bell is a local character and weird music afficionado who DJs many events featuring gloriously odd music. This is his yearly benefit for the Crohn’s Foundation of America. It features some of Denver’s best including tribal industrial dance phenoms Church Fire, punker than your average fashion victim punk band Little Fyodor & Babushka Band, Denver’s OG rock and roll hero Ralph Gean and irreverent bass thrash post-punkers Gort Vs. Goom.
What:Nakatani Gong Orchestra When: Saturday, 10.05, 7-10 p.m. Where: The Savoy at Curtis Park
What:Sam Fender w/Noel Wells When: Sunday, 10.06, 7 p.m. Where: Globe Hall Why: You may not know who Sam Fender is now but the singer/songwriter from the UK has had his musical star on the ascent for several years now and his new album Hypersonic Missiles hit the number one sport on the UK Albums Chart last month. His earnest songwriting and candid portraits of working class life, the struggles, the aspirations, the frustrations and the triumphs, elevate his upbeat and anthemic songwriting to something more ambitious and meaningful than much of what is passing for pop and rock music in the mainstream these days.
What:Dave Bixby w/Midwife and Scott Seskind — canceled When: Sunday, 10.06, 7 p.m. Where: Rhinoceropolis Why: In 1969 Dave Bixby released his debut Ode to Quetzalcoatl, inspired by a spiritual revelation after wrecking his mind with drugs and transcending that experience. His second album, Second Coming, commissioned by a cult called The Movement, was released in 1970 and he subsequently disappeared from the world of music until 2011. This is a rare chance to catch this legend of psychedelic folk. [This show was canceled due to Dave’s gear being stolen. Possible reschedule at some point]
What:Emotional Oranges w/Chiiild When: Monday, 10.07, 7:30 p.m. Where: Fox Theatre Why: Chiiild is the kind of R&B we need now that is identifiable as such but which has absorbed modern music and while maintaining an appreciation for the eccentric sound and musical ideas from yesteryear with no prejudice toward where it belongs in conventional notion of genre. The group’s songs sound like they were written without notions of musical tradition weighing it down, only the pressure of writing meaningful and transporting music the way its obvious influences weren’t aiming to borrow so heavily from an earlier era either.
Kevin Parker of Tame Impala, photo by Matt Sav
What:Tame Impala w/Altin Gün When: Monday, 10.07, 7 p.m. Where: Mission Ballroom Why: Tame Impala could have done fine for itself basically soundtracking modern yacht rock for young people and had a commercially successful music career. But Kevin Parker’s songwriting reveals some more imaginative combinations of sounds and moods layered into the music so that even if sometimes a song will remind those in the know of a later era Supertramp track with more luxuriant synth work it’s an example of Parker’s penchant for weaving together modern sensibilities and pop songcraft from previous or current times with equal aplomb.
What:Stereolab w/Wand When: Monday, 10.07, 7 p.m. Where: Ogden Theatre Why: Stereolab took French pop, Krautrock, avant-garde synth music, dub and psychedelia and infused it with the radical left politics to make some of the most compelling yet accessible music of the 1990s and 2000s. Reunited after a decade apart “The Groop” will not fail to dazzle.
Blood Orange, photo by Nick Harwood
What:Tyler, The Creator w/Blood Orange and Goldlink When: Monday, 10.07, 6 p.m. Where: Red Rocks Why: Tyler the Creator made a name for himself crafting experimental hip-hop as a member of Odd Future and under his own creative moniker. But in recent years, particularly with his 2019 album Igor, he’s been writing works that explore themes of identity and a deep examination of what drives our desires. While nothing new per se, for this record Tyler has dispensed with the aggressive character that was a manifestation of his anxieties and insecurities writ larger than life in favor of a compelling vulnerability with production that complements that unmasked sensitivity perfectly. Also on the tour is Blood Orange whose own experimental beat-crafting and creative approaches to cultural narratives reached a peak thus far with 2018’s Negro Swan with its lush jazz and downtempo sound and lyrics that took an honest yet nuanced look into the way society and conventional mores impact racial, gender and sexual identity. Heavy stuff for a show at Red Rocks and yet both artists make these subjects accessible and fun without downplaying their seriousness.
What:Claudio Simonetti’s Goblin performs Deep Red for movie screening When: Monday, 10.07, 7 p.m. Where: Oriental Theater Why: Claudio Simonetti is a founding member of Italian progressive rock band Goblin and for this show he and his band will perform a live soundtrack to the 1975 Dario Argento splatter horror thrill Deep Red.
What:Jakob Ogawa w/Niña When: Wednesday, 10.09, 7 p.m. Where: Larimer Lounge Why: Swedish singer-songwriter Jakob Ogawa’s songwriting seems steeped in jazz-inflected pop but there’s something unusual about the angle with which he approaches the music. Almost like it incorporates elements of childhood music and fairy tales into the mix. For instance the music video for his single “April” features a sasquatch type figure who wakes up one morning and has some adventures including trying out surfing and night driving. Some fishing, visiting the graves of pets. Hanging out in a hammock. It’s subtle but it really does tell you Ogawa’s gift for chill synth pop and his own idiosyncratic vocals is coming from a place of individual imagination that immediately sets him apart from the rest of the modern crop of indie pop artists.
Hanna Ojala sounds like she’s singing to us from an alternate reality on “A Smoky Memory Of You.” The phasing synth drone is like the rippling of a field that allows communications between dimensions, a quantum transmitter of sound and ideas, the vocals dopplering through space and time. Perhaps Ojala in this song is like the first person to use a new form of transportation to visit remote spots in the multiverse and has had to jury rig a way to send messages back but because of the heretofore impossible gap between locations she’s been stranded and missing her beloved with a poignant ache and the transmission we’re getting is meant for that person and the desolated tones of her voice not intended for our ears as the message isn’t all love and yearning. The synth drones are reminiscent of late 70s Tangerine Dream circa the Sorcerer soundtrack when the band was at its enigmatic and melancholic peak. Watch the video for “A Smoky Memory Of You” below.
Sleepy Gonzales uses a simple, melancholic piano melody, strings and intermittent sounds, like sound effects in a movie to set a sense of place, as the backdrop to “Steady,” a song seemingly about modern malaise. The song unfolds like a series seemingly mundane yet poetic and thoughtful diary entries rich in detail and an almost eerie catalog of one’s disassociation from one’s own life with the music reinforcing a sense of resignation to a lesser life. Is it supposed to be funny in a maudlin way? Certainly lines speaking of one being “serotonin in human form” and collecting all the money one bets against oneself, the barista knowing your name but spelling it wrong and a billion candles “one for every time you let me down” and how “disappointment comes as easily as another breath” are dramatic enough to seem absurd and thus humorous. But that humor also comes from a place of deep pain the kind that seems impossible to fully soothe except maybe through writing a song and laying those thoughts out before you like you might in a journal so that it’s not those thoughts that become the truth but, rather, a sketch of the patterns of your thinking so that you can wallow further or to at least know you’re not like that all the time. Both have their uses and this song vividly captures that time, however long it lasts, a night, a few years, long stretches of one’s lifetime, when your sadness seems like it will never end yet you somehow keep going because this mood isn’t so abrupt and disruptive to your life would be a reason to despair and you know you’ll survive it, SOMEHOW. Fans of Rilo Kiley and Jenny Lewis will appreciate the wit and dry humor that runs throughout the song. Listen to “Steady” on Spotify and follow the Vancouver, British Columbia-based band at the links below.
In the video for “Me My Ghost,” as in the song itself, Mieko Shimizu haunts the koto loop and luminous and subtle synth line attempting to communicate with the ghosts outside her window. The image glitches and warps slightly with Mieko’s face floating in the dark in triple form at times, in silver party mask at others, in others, the face blown out in black and white. In her words, Mieko is trying to soothe the fears and trying to comprehend the anxieties of those aforementioned ghosts reminiscent of a kinder, gentler version of the plot to the 2001 ghost movie classic Kairo. The delicate, spare melody and textured rhythms weave together with Mieko’s all but whispered vocals in an organically ritualistic and inviting fashion that might actually calm disturbed spirits but also reconcile the unsettled parts of Shimizu’s own consciousness. The single is part of Mieko’s forthcoming 2020 album I Bloom and if “Me My Ghost” is any indication, the record will take us on a dark but necessary journey toward personal illumination and transcendence.
Astronaut 9 recently released the album Everything Like It’s the Last Time, a fusion of post-rock and spoken word poetry. The track “Sarah and Ludo CW: Sexual Assault, Suicide, Self-Harm, Eating Disorders” is an emotionally bracing and raw portrait of a friend that challenges you, whose insight, sensitivity and strength could not spare her the psychic ravages of a life hostile to her very existence. The content warning given previously is because the piece dives deep into the reality of that friend’s life and death and how nothing will ever fully fill the hole in your life left by that friend’s absence. As the song progresses it becomes a celebration of that friend and their impact on you and others because the only way to honor such people is to honor that impact and what it is about them that made them dear and special to you. The music goes from spare and almost stark to full and luminous. Listen to the track on Soundcloud.
The insistent cybernetic beat and distorted synth washes of Paragon Cause’s “Someone Else” provides a fascinating contrast with the song’s tuneful vocals. Its menace is both sonic and thematic. Like a reminder to oneself to trust one’s own instincts and perceptions rather than listening to “someone else” that might not have your best interests at heart or in matters that are better dealt with personally. The emotional urgency of the track and its enigmatic subject matter makes it seem like a good song for the soundtrack to a more fully realized film version of Æon Flux as its sound spans a 90s cyberpunk vibe and something more of the now looking forward, sounding like an edgily brooding downtempo track. Listen to “Someone Else” on Spotify and follow Paragon Cause at the links provided.
When Julia Easterlin’s vocals float over the intricate guitar line of “Morning Smog” by Age of Reason we get a sense that the narrative of the song is coming from someone who has stayed up all night to observe the parts of the day between sunset and sunrise bringing forth insights about human existence as the sun burns away not the fog so much as the smog as the musings, perhaps jotted down, perhaps committed to memory, are happening during a walk through Midtown Manhattan. Distorted keyboard sounds drifting in are like clouds temporarily blocking the moonlight, the shimmery guitar with its own raw distortion is like the choke of morning traffic even before the sun properly takes to the sky. The lyrics seem to take in the proportion of human existence referencing things like “small men, tall towers” and how in that environment it’s easy to feel forgotten and lost in the late hours like Griffin Dunne’s character in After Hours. The song, conceive of and written by songwriter Steve Hudock, perfectly captures the surreal tranquility of a big city at night compared to the hustle and bustle of the daylight hours and how those who live mostly by night for work and by nature relate to the jarring pace of the city during standard business hours. Listen to “Morning Smog” on Bandcamp.
WRENN’s single “Psychosexual” will get all kinds of comparisons to 90s artists that came out of alternative rock and modern artists who have drawn on that realm of music for inspiration. But WRENN’s clear, melodic vocals alongside bouncy rhythms and guitars both fuzzy and swirly will remind connoisseurs of 90s alternative rock of the likes of Hammerbox and Medicine. Not as weird or as experimental as the latter and not rooted in jangle-y 80s college rock as the former, WRENN fortunately, isn’t really following the musical path of either, it’s just the same willingness to blend diverse musical interests into the songwriting rather than try to fit in within a specific, already established musical niche. The lyrics speak to the vagaries of modern relationships and how so many of our mediated experiences and ways of interacting with the world might be complicating our lives in historic ways and warping our sense of what’s authentic even though we need authentic experiences with authentic people for life to feel like it has any essential meaning. Listen to “Psychosexual” on Soundcloud and follow WRENN at the links below.
“Southern Hospitality” depicts the thoughts and the sounds of cruising through Memphis as told by Coldway. The Tennessee city known for being a little on the gritty side but one that has produced some of the country’s most hungry and vital musical artists. Coldway displays a demanding swagger that challenges the city’s rep for both inspiring a determination born of a challenging social environment and the kind of Southern hospitality that is supposed to be a virtue and can often manifest in unusual ways. Coldway demands that warmth and regard on its face as if to say, “If this isn’t a joke then how about some of that generosity and kindness you pride yourselves on.” While driving through town musing on these concepts a beat reminiscent of 70s R&B like Delfonics, Curtis Mayfield or mellower Gamble and Huff track runs through. The metaphor of “southern hospitality” works as both code for sexual favors and being made to feel welcome in a town that may not be your own unfolds with a steady stream of clever wordplay and a story commenting on everyday desires and observations with the drive symbolizing not just a slice of life but the southern urban black experience not romanticized but expressed with an easy going swagger. Listen to “Southern Hospitality” on Spotify and follow Coldway at the links below.
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