Meow Piglet’s icily haunting track “Doors” is about recurring dreams and how each can be a portal to another part of one’s subconscious or to another iteration of experiences from one’s unwaking hours. The human mind is often drawn to memories of dreams as potential answers to questions that occur while awake and for the song the image of doors and falling through them resonates with the familiarity of the dream state and how people and stimuli from that time are often unfamiliar yet seem a normal part of dreaming. The song itself is a series of portals into various realms of music. The beginning has a ring of menace and of dark spaces with a circular, slightly distorted vortex of tone and a minimal, percussion beat like the sound of a train track before shifting to more textural sounds as the focus and then on into gorgeous passages that may remind certain listeners of the blissful noises of 1991, foundational IDM song “Papua New Guinea” by The Future Sound of London. And yet further into the song there is an indie electronica passage where we hear singer Aurora Hentunen’s melodious voice offering a poetic rendering of a concrete description of the aforementioned dream exploration and the cyclical nature of dreams and how their true significance, assuming there is any, can elude us even when we turn to them for answers. Though the song traverses various moods, styles and genres of electronic music it all feels somehow like a unified aesthetic the way our dreams feel like a continuous experience that too shifts throughout their duration. Listen to “Doors,” with contributions from audio-visual artist Luka Batista, on Spotify and follow Helsinki, Finland’s Meow Piglet at the links below. The group’s latest album Deeper released on December 1, 2023.
Alfah Femmes is a band from the metropolitan area of Poland and specifically Gdańsk. It’s particular aesthetic draws on a variety of styles for inspiration, blurring the lines between post-punk, New Wave, art-pop and indie rock and its new single “Trench Coats” is a playfully subversive take on a song about one’s hometown. In the music video we see vocalist Sofia Bartos in black and white dancing against the backdrop of colorful views of the band’s home city with the lyrics seemingly addressed to some guy in a trench coat who seems occupied with looking at his Tissot (a luxury brand of Swiss wristwatch) but who could very well be plotting a bit of skullduggery. The sparkling guitar melody and steady drum beats sound like something that one would expect from one of the artier New Wave bands from California in the 80s like Romeo Void and with a similarly irreverent edge to the songwriting. That Tricity is considered the California of Eastern Europe seems like a more than passing resonance in terms of the tone and musical style. And yet the chiming guitar work and warping synths and Bartos’ melodious vocals are also reminiscent of the jangle-y college rock of the American Southeast of the 80s as well particular when a string part graces the later parts of the song when Bartos’ head and hands become disembodied for a moment like a nod to the Cheshire Cat from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Visually and musically “Trench Coats” seems simple in its charms but contains in both a referential complexity that keeps it a fascinating experience rewarding those who take the song in beyond its obvious charm and solid pop songcraft. Watch the video for “Trench Coats” on YouTube and follow Alfah Femmes, whose name is an obvious nod to Violent Femmes and not so obvious reference to Australian indie rock group Danny Kelly & The Alpha Males, at the links below.
Chicago’s Crawling Vines released its Who Killed William Goose? album on January 5, 2024 and the single “ON A BRANCH” hits a specific emotionally complex resonance. That being an emotional rawness and fragility a and yearning for connection when it feels like things are falling apart. The guitar progression and the way it flares forward in moments and embodies a spare minimalism in others is reminiscent of something New Order would have done later in the 80s or maybe Bernard Sumner’s project with Johnny Marr, Electronic. But also of modern shoegaze/dream pop bands like Beach Fossils but with more fuzz tone. Yet in the vocals and overall tone of the song it has a similar embrace of human vulnerability and acknowledging needing people for whom one’s feelings are complicated. That interpersonal dynamic informs much of the rest of the album giving it a deeper mood than many other artists exploring this particularly spacious and sophistipop end of the shoegaze. Listen to “ON A BRANCH” on Spotify and follow Crawling Vines at the links below.
Fire Motel is the songwriting project of multi-instrumentalist and singer Ilya Litoshik. The latter was born in Belarus but his family moved to upstate New York in 1991 when he was a young child. During a stint in the music program at a college in Schenectady, New York his parents moved to Round Rock, Texas and Litoshik ended up dropping out of school but before then a friend that had moved to Denver told him that the city had an up and coming music scene. Spending some time in Round Rock and finding nothing to keep him there the fledgling songwriter with $400 to his name relocated to the Mile High City around 2008. And though he spent his earliest days in Denver crashing on couches and sleeping in basements, Litoshik also fell in with a group of creatives including an art collective called The WPA Collective where he met Bryon Parker and other musicians who were making the Denver underground vibrant at that time.
Over the next several years Litoshik became involved in various projects including Adam Adam with Parker and Corey English. But perhaps the most enduring and popular of Litoshik’s bands until recently was Turvy Organ which ran through much of the 2010s and perhaps prophetically released its final single “Cold Water” on March 13, 2020 as the pandemic lockdowns ended live music and in many cases bands during the course of the subsequent year and a half. In the core of that band’s songwriting you can hear the strains of what Litoshik would do with his next project Fire Motel. Fans of Modest Mouse, Deathcab For Cutie and The National might have found something to really dig into with the excellent Turvy Organ. Early Fire Motel felt more stripped down than that but of course with sophisticated songs and Litoshik’s earnest and unpretentious performance style. However, in the years leading up to the pandemic and certainly after venues started opening again something had changed drastically in Denver in ways that have made it challenging for bands and anyone related to the music industry to develop and thrive. Litoshik felt this deeply and painfully so thinking about places where he might be able to flourish more fully so he moved to New York City in the spring of 2023 to connect with the creative energy of that city where there is always something going on and where a creative community has found a place to grow and be supported by what NYC has to offer in terms of opportunities and cultural infrastructure for decades.
Prior to his move, Litoshik had been working on his next set of songs for release and finally completed the recording and production of The World an Opera for release on October 1, 2023. Litoshik wrote the album, recorded it in his New York residence, mixed the songs and did the other production with mastering by Carmine Francis. Contributing vocals on the album is Alli Walz. You can hear echos of Litoshik’s various influences in the music but the new record combines the more analog musicianship with a kind of sound design and electronic production element for a sound that is deeply evocative and firmly establishes the songwriter as an artist who knows how to articulate a sense of wonder and poetically express the source of our modern anxieties while offering insightful portraits of life that anyone that has been living in the USA in recent years would recognize.
“Get It Right” by Astoria, Queens, NYC synthpop artist Ghostcake has an uplifting charm that captivates from the beginning. Its ethereal bell tones, pulsing, warm bass and drifting melodies is like the memory you’d want to have of going to an unlikely combination of 1980s arcade and theme park minus any of the dark side of any of that. The beats are like something you’re more likely to hear on a hip-hop track with the steady cadence that supports well some choice bars but the music is more in the vein of a fantastical anime sequence where the lead character has time to follow her bliss in a wonderland of delights. The main lyric that we hear echoing slightly here and there is “I swear I’ll get it right” which introduces a deeply human element in this otherwise otherworldly and surreal pop song but lends it an irresistible hopefulness. Listen to “Get It Right” on Spotify and follow Ghostcake at the links below.
The guitar figure that runs throughout CR&M’s “Mondegreen” might for some be reminiscent of Acid Mothers Temple’s 1997 psychedelic rock classic “Pink Lady Lemonade.” But around it is a rapidly repeating textural tone like a fluttering, cybernetic dragonfly. When the vocals come in like a disembodied presence in a dream it’s calming if barely discernible. At two and a half minutes in the tones cascade down over the forward progression of the original riff and the two vocalists ripple off one another in a dreamy shimmer that accentuates the mood of the song of transcending mundane existence and indulge a full blossoming of the imagination as a key to emotional and psychological liberation. Through composing the song so it taps into the aesthetics of genuinely psychedelic rock and the hypnotic loops of IDM it truly sounds like something different as it dares to incorporate sound elements that are outside the bounds of standard, pristine music production. Listen to “Mondegreen” on Spotify.
Lila Swain entrusted Animal Feelings to lend more than a touch of cinematic soundscaping to her 2023 single “Calling.” The original is a spare yet soulfully evocative electronic pop song. For this remix the textures are accented and augmented so there is a quality like something from a futuristic music box in this version. The sounds of alien birds warble and Swain’s vocals echo ever so slightly and bleed into one another like a sound in the conscious world entering a dream state without interrupting it whereas the echos in the original seem distinct and spaced out slightly more. All of the atmosphere elements stream out to the edges and beyond the horizon and the song is transformed into something one might expect more from a rare and obscure but treasured downtempo compilation from the late 90s. Except the sensibilities here are all modern with how Animal Feelings interpreted Swain’s original composition’s emotional impact, deconstructed some of the elements and reassembled them to lend the song an impressive depth of dynamic atmospheres to amplify all the song’s emotional resonances. Listen to the Animal Feelings remix of Lila Swain’s “Calling” on Spotify and follow the Australian singer and songwriter Swain at the links below.
Kissing Party is the self-styled “slop pop” band from Denver that formed during the heyday of the wave of indie rock that came to prominence in the mid-to-late 2000s. The band’s sound early on and even to the current moment might be considered in the realm of twee pop except the group has had two guitarists for years but whose interplay has meant lush and delicate melodies that compliment the gentle exuberance of the songwriting and passionate live shows. What is “Slop Pop”? According to the band’s bio it’s “a perfectly blended chaos of dream pop, shoegaze & beach goth. But fans of Belle & Sebastian, Sarah Records and C86 bands and Denver indiepop from the 90s will find Kissing Party’s earnest sentiments, refreshingly and completely lacking in irony, and exquisitely crafted melodies much to their liking.
Several releases over nearly two decades has proven Kissing Party adept at creating deceptively simple songs about love and life that offer genuine insight without coming off corny or insincere. Sure there is some humor on stage and you might catch a show that’s loose around the edges but the charm is in the humanity of the music and its presentation while taking care to give listeners accessible songs of substance. The latest album Graceless released on November 17 via the band’s own label BbyV Records and available for digital download and streaming. It is a particularly focused and emotionally wide-ranging record from the band yet still retains a freshness of spirit that has been a hallmark of its previous recorded output and sustained song to song with a sense that the whole album is an emotional journey rather than a collection of resonant pop songs. It feels like a creative next step for a group that has been consistent in quality throughout its career thus far. For those interested the band’s generous back catalog is still available and in a handful of cases on a physical format, each worth a listen and all of which has aged well because Kissing Party seems to tap into timeless themes and aesthetics.
Listen to our interview with band founder, primary songwriter, guitarist and vocalist Gregg Dolan on Bandcamp and follow Kissing Party at the links below along with a few music videos for the new album.
HolyKimJo recorded the music for “Photosynthesis In Your Love” on an old tape recorder to give it that unique touch of the analog experience which is closes to life and emotions as we experience them directly. The format preserves and communicates a constant flow of atmospheric sounds around the vocal melody like a keen awareness of environment and the rhythms of the world around you would convey to you if you stop to pay attention. The song itself is about the invisible forces we take for granted that sustain life and one’s well being that one can take for granted until the moment we focus on our own awareness whether that’s photosynthesis or the love of and for another and so many things that make our lives feel significant while we live it. The song is on a slowcore vein with minimal guitar work and breathy vocals akin to The Microphones circa The Glow, Pt. 2 or even an old Flying Saucer Attack song. But it isn’t derivative, it feels like its own universe of sounds, a collage of field recordings, guitar, processed vocals and drones that feel like a unified sensory experience which the beautifully enigmatic music video embodies perfectly with its sense of wonder at the great expanse of existence. Watch the video for “Photosynthesis In Your Love” on YouTube and follow Seoul, South Korea’s HolyKimJo at the links below. The album Her Name, Like a Fading Polaroid released November 29, 2023 and is now available on streaming and as a digital download on Bandcamp.
Friday | 01.05 What:The Salesmen w/Billy Conquer, Tuff Bluff and Candy Chic When: 8pm doors/8:30pm show Where: Hi-Dive Why: The Salesmen might be considered post-punk because its music has that angular aspect and seems informed by political edge in the more interesting end of punk but its eclectic style doesn’t fit a narrow genre tag. Its 2023 EP WAR IN COLORADO! sounds like they grew up listening to Red Hot Chili Peppers, pop punk and 90s art rock in the vein of Mr. Bungle and took what chops they learned that mutant route and made something decidedly different. Billy Conquer from Gunnison, Colorado unabashedly claims its garage rock roots but its 2020 EP Garage Hits has a flavor that sounds more like the guys grew up having their brains poisoned by classic rock and jam band overload (it happens whether through parents or peers) but then discovered T-Rex and Big Star and rather than follow the typical garage punk route of the 2010s actually honed their chops both technical and songwriting-wise to make something that dips into the classics a bit but so well developed you don’t mind. Tuff Bluff is the latest punk band to include Sara Fischer who some may remember for her time in old school Denver groups like Pin Downs, The Speedholes, New Idols, The Manxx, Bluebelle and others. So of course the songwriting is well crafted and both gritty and melodic Candy Chic has been around longer than one might assume since its cachet has caught on a bit more over the past year. Its music doesn’t seem beholden to surf rock, indiepop or post-punk though general fans of that kind of music will find something to appreciate about the band’s deft navigation of a sound that may remind some of early Slumberland bands or even Sarah Records acts with a gentle touch and a knack for tender and ethereal melodies and richly emotional vocals.
Daniel Donato, photo by Jason Stoltzfus
Friday and Saturday | 01.05 and 01.06 What: Daniel Donato’s Cosmic Country & Trouble No More (A Celebration of Allman Brothers Band) When: 7pm doors/8pm show both nights Where:Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom (01.05) and Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom (01.06) Why: Daniel Donato released his latest album Reflector on November 10, 2023 and its richly diverse sounds and styles are entrancing and lively. It’s the kind of country one would expect from an artist rooted in modern Nashville in that he seems to have absorbed the sounds where country intersects with psychedelia, indie rock and the jam band universe and produced an orchestral yet accessible sound of his own. Donato’s songwriting isn’t same-y and through the album and his body of work he offers uplifting and thoughtful tales of human existence with great imagination and energy.
Equine in 2019, photo by Tom Murphy
Sunday | 01.07 What: Equine, Church Car (NYC) and Adam Baumeister When: 7 pm Where: St. Pauli Tavern Why: Equine is Kevin Richards’ long-running, solo, free jazz-inflected, avant-garde guitar drone project with several albums in his body of work to date. Richards was once the genius guitarist of post-hardcore band Motheater and a member of noise band Epileptinomicon and Equine reflects that background some in that he brought truly unorthodox jazz chords to post-hardcore guitar style and a structure, albeit one more intuitive, to noise. Church Car is the latest project of Ian Douglas Moore who was known in Denver more for his time in punk adjacent and Americana bands. Adam Baumeister? Who knows what you’ll get because his wide-ranging creativity has meant he was a member of Bad Weather California, art-punk weirdos Navy Girls, his own experimental guitar and cosmic country grunge pop band Littles Paia and Lil’ Adam as well as numerous other musical endeavors over the years including his running of lathe cut imprint Meep Records.
Nocturnal Prose, photo from Bandcamp
Sunday | 01.07 What: Nocturnal Prose w/Hex Casse, Empty4400 and Luna’s When: 7pm Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective Why: Nocturnal Prose is a noisy post-punk/shoegaze band from San Antonio, Texas. Hex Cassette is the one man cult and industrial dance extravaganza who always seems to find a way to joke darkly with the audience while getting them to dance by bringing the performance into the crowd. Empty4400 is a true fusion of noisy shoegaze and emo. Luna’s is a hardcore band from Denver.
Plaid, photo from Bandcamp
Thursday | 01.11 What:Plaid w/Rameau Control When: 8 Where: Meow Wolf Why: Plaid is the influential and foundational IDM duo from the UK. From its early days when Andy Turner and Ed Handley were part of The Black Dog Plaid has been pioneering forward thinking electronic musical ideas, forms and methods of composition including crafting their own electronic instruments in software form not to mention its creative use of hardware. Plaid’s diverse body of work has pushed the boundaries of modern electronic music and its latest album 2022’s Feorm Falorx is one of its most accessible records with bright melodies and finely sequenced beats like dance music for the soundtrack to a deceptively utopian thriller set in an off world holiday resort.
Clarion Void, photo from Bandcamp
Friday | 01.12 What:Poison Tribe w/Upon a Fields Whisper, Clarion Void and Empire Demolition When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Poison Tribe is a crusty hardcore band from Denver whose body of work thus far seems like a caustic critique of state violence and the horror of the dystopia that is too obvious from any remotely realistic assessment of world events and American national and local politics. Upon a Fields Whisper is an atmospheric doom/blackened crust band from Colorado Springs comprised of noteworthy musicians from that city’s always surprisingly great local music scene including Brian Ostrow of numerous other bands including 908 and formerly of Blighter. Also Bryan Webb who has also been a mainstay of Colorado Springs music in various bands perhaps most well known for some for his tenure in garage punk legends Nicotine Fits and The Conjugal Visits. Clarion Void also from Colorado Springs seems to traffic in the kind of existential blackened doom that means it is deft at both introspective melodies and blisteringly intense riffing that it often lets hang in the air like a harbinger of disaster. Empire Demolition is sort of a powerviolence/deathgrind band from Denver who are set to release their new album Defenestration on January 12, 2024 in time for this show.
Bluebook in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy
Saturday | 01.13 What:Bluebook w/The Still Tide and Uhl When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Bluebook is the long-running musical project of Julie Davis that has undergone various incarnations as a vehicle for her jazz-inflected, experimental downtempo chamber pop. But the current iteration of the band is a bit of an all-star lineup including former Monofog and Snake Rattle Rattle Snake singer Hayley Helmericks on drums, Anna Morsett of The Still Tide on guitar and Jess Parsons (The Still Tide, Patrick Dethlefs, Alex Cameron) on keyboards, all of whom also contribute vocals to the project. The result of this amalgam of talent is a group that conveys an emotional depth like a brooding, dark folk art rock pop group. Not much else like it. The Still Tide proves that Anna Morsett isn’t just a gifted songwriter but one of the best lead guitarists in a band in Denver with a knack for using alternate tunings and expertly placed capos to create a unique sound palette alongside what bandmate Jake Miller is doing on his own guitar. Uhl is the art pop project of Isabella Uhl whose vocals focused compositions have garnered critical attention from national publications like Under the Radar and whose music might be compared to ambitious songwriters in a more dream pop vein like Kate Bush or perhaps more directly like Jenny Hval and Fever Ray.
Rowboat, photo by Tom Murphy
Saturday | 01.13 What: Rowboat, Zealot and A Strange Happening When: 9 Where: The Roxy on Broadway Why: If you were to put the names of a dozen of the best indie rock bands in Denver in a hat and draw them out you couldn’t do better than this. Rowboat is a trio fronted by Sam McNitt who starts with a folk foundation on acoustic guitar in his songwriting process and builds them into emotionally charged and poetically insightful songs well orchestrated in the live setting on electric guitar and bass and synth from Scott Frank and drums by Brian Lepien. It is powerful and consistently underrated stuff in recent years in Denver from former members of Blue Million Miles and Fucking Orange. Zealot is a band that is comprised of brilliant songwriters and musicians in their own right but lead by Luke Hunter James-Erickson who perhaps is inspired greatly by the literary indie rock of The Mountain Goats but whose own creative muse has lead him down various fruitful paths and interests over the past couple of decades in Denver. But on board are former Fingers of the Sun and current Salads and Sunbeams songwriter, bassist and singer Suzi Allegra, former Facade and Violent Summer guitarist and singer Kitty Vincent and Michael King who is one of the great bass players in Denver indie rock but plays drums in this band. On the recording of the group’s latest single are Jacob Adamson and Elisha Coy from A Strange Happening whose own concept pop indie rock is a brilliant fusion of radio play storytelling style and indiepop in the classic 90s vein.
Pink Hawks, photo from Bandcamp
Saturday | 01.13 What:Pink Hawks release of Elote w/Don Chicharrón, 2MX2 and Fuya Fuya When: 7 Where: The Oriental Theater Why: Pink Hawks came out of Yuzo Nieto’s fascination with experimental music, jazz and the possibilities in fusing those impulses with Afrobeat and other forms of African and Latin popular music. This show is a celebration of the release of the vinyl edition of the group’s new record Elote. So it’s only fitting that Latin psychedelic rock band Don Chicharrón is on hand on the bill as well as excellent Spanish language hip-hop duo 2MX2.
Cheap Perfume circa 2016, photo by Tom Murphy
Wednesday | 01.17 What:Cheap Perfume, Dead Pioneers and Elegant Everyone When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Three of the most overtly political bands from Colorado on one bill? And all with lyrics that are smart, poetic and poignant? Each of these acts are also entertaining, energetic and those lyrics don’t feel like a lecture at all but a rallying cry for something important and a sharp, pointed and clever critique of some of the worst impulses of our collective culture and society. That’s what punk can, has been, and should probably be more often.
Deth Rali, photo from Bandcamp
Thursday | 01.18 What:In Plain Air w/Corsicana, Deth Rali and Tarantula Bill When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Psych prog trio In Plain Air is launching its long weekend tour through Kansas at this show with support from dream pop band Corsicana, Deth Rali and it’s unorthodox blend of thrash and psychedelic prog and Tarantula Bill who, based purely on song streaming, seem to ably enough perform music clearly inspired by early 2010s psychedelic indie rock.
Wave Decay circa 2023, photo by Tom Murphy
Friday | 01.19 What:Wave Decay w/Pale Sun and Galleries When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: This will be a show of the heavier end of shoegaze and psychedelia. Wave Decay’s sound is rooted in the angular disorient and sonic discipline of krautrock but with dense atmospherics reminiscent of music done by Jeff suthers of Pale Sun whose own mastery of soundscaping and emotionally charged songwriting all at once is more or less unmatched in Denver. Galleries came out of the 2010s based in the classic rock resurgence and psych garage and its current musical offerings are in that vein but the band appears to have followed an instinct for expansive melodies and the kind of psychedelia one might more expect from the more rock and roll end of Deerhunter.
Moore Kismet, photo courtesy the artist
Friday | 01.19 What: Wreckno w/Moore Kismet, Thelem and Eyezic When: 8 Where: Ogden Theatre Why: Wreckno is now based in Indianapolis but started out in small town Michigan and garnered a cult following as a queer rapper, producer and DJ in the bass music/EDM world with a presentation that is as colorful as it is inventive in genre bending and collaborating with a wide range of artists in his wheelhouse and beyond. But if you’re going definitely get there early enough to catch Moore Kismet whose 2022 debut album Universe, released when he was 17, revealed a gift for layering rhythms and atmospheres in a way reminiscent of the production of Flying Lotus and beats fusing ideas out EDM, trap and the more experimental hip-hop auteurs of the 90s and 2000s and progressing it into his own style. Fans of the aforementioned and the more electronic dance end of Jockstrap will get a lot of Moore Kismet’s creative experiments in the electronic music art form.
Quits, photo by Tom Murphy
Saturday | 01.20 What:Broken Record, Quits, despAIR Jordan and DJ Listen Up Nerds When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why:Nothing Moves Me proved that Denver’s Broken Record had polished its already noteworthy songwriting into a shining body of work that has the emotional nuance and conviction of a great emo band but with power pop knack for hard hitting melodies like Dinosaur Jr had that band come up through 90s underground rock rather that influenced a lot of it. Quits is a juggernaut noise rock band who will be hitting the road to the West Coast in the first week and a half of February in support of its 2023 album Feeling It out on Sleeping Giant Glossolalia. DespAIR Jordan somehow came out of the punk scene and writes glittery and uplifting, shoegaze-adjacent pop rock that sounds more like The Dismemberment Plan than Sunny Day Real Estate but without truly sounding like either.
Squirrel Flower, photo by Alexa Viscius
Tuesday | 01.23 What:Squirrel Flower w/Goon and Lu Lagoon When: 7 Where: Larimer Lounge Why: Ella O’Connor Williams was involved in the Boston DIY scene in her teens before moving to Iowa to attend Grinnell College where she wrote her first EP Early Winter Songs From Middle America as Squirrel Flower and releasing it herself in 2015. Eight years, two further EPs and four albums later Williams released 2023’s Tomorrow’s Fire. The songwriter already had more than a touch of that Low-esque talent for melodious vocals and emotional delicacy of expression baked into the music but also some of that scrappy energy that propels her folk-inflected songs into an elevated realm of sonic power. The new record simply opens up where Williams is able to go with her experiments with sounds and styles in unexpected directions and at times is reminiscent of the eclectic and explosive music of Wednesday. Except of course that Williams has her own perceptive observations about the challenges of modern, working class life told in musical shadings introspective and brash yet always sensitive and vulnerable in the way that only truly powerful music can be.
Nabihah Iqbal, photo from Bandcamp
Wednesday and Thursday | 01.24 and 01.25 What: Nabihah Iqbal w/STAR Inc. and DJ Ladybug When: 6pm doors/7pm show on 01.24 and 7pm doors 8pm show on 01.25 Where:Washington’s (01.24) and Lost Lake (01.25) Why: Nabihah Iqbal was a human rights lawyer before crafting the music for which she would later be known though has likely dabbled in music across a lifetime. An early contributor to the work of the late experimental pop artist and producer Sophie, Iqbal released her debut album under her own name in 2017 with Weighing of the Heart. In 2023 she unveiled Dreamer via the respected avant-electronic imprint Ninja Tune with its intricate layers of hazy, luminescent atmospheres and flows of introspective vocals. The music casts light on the aspirations, challenges of joys of navigating the world and its sweeping dynamics intermingle the musically tactile with the ethereal for an effect that is transporting yet grounded. Iqbal’s navigation of these aesthetics and creative impulses is masterful and often attempted by more conventional shoegaze bands but not always to the same degree of effectiveness.
Friday | 01.26 What:King Cardinal w/Cous and Hunter James and The Titanic When: 7 Where: Globe Hall Why: Brennan Mackey of King Cardinal says on the band’s web bio that he moved to Denver on a whim after working a finance job he didn’t love and perhaps dreading what the rest of his life might look like he decided to throw that caution to the wind. Fortunately for us, Mackey is a gifted songwriter and musician and the 2017 debut album from King Cardinal, Great Lakes, is a choice example of when an Americana band can infuse its more homespun charm with mood and imagination. Dynamic flows of tones and textures in expressive rivulets around Mackey’s own fine singing. The group is now releasing its new album Landlines. Haven’t heard any of the new material but based on the attention to songwriting details and delicacy of delivery it’s likely to be another set of songs of pastoral beauty and sentiments that have made the group’s previous offerings eminently listenable.
Owosso in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy
Friday | 01.26 What: Rowboat, Blacktop Musical and Owosso When: 8 doors/9 show Where: 715 Club Why: Rowboat is making a rare live showing inside of the same month with this show and bringing some highly literate and passionate folk-rooted, shoegaze adjacent rock to this small room. Also on the bill is the Owosso whose members came up in the punk and early modern indie rock milieu and whose music has that scrappy angular energy blended with melodic songwriting acumen that made the many of the DC post-punk bands so perennially appealing.
Buck Meek, photo by Shervin Lainez
Saturday | 01.27 What: Buck Meek w/Dylan Meek When: 7 Where: Globe Hall Why: Buck Meek is perhaps best known as the guitarist and backing vocalist of indie rock phenoms Big Thief. But for the past half a decade and more he’s carved out an musical identity to explore separate from the band and his third album Haunted Mountain was issued by 4AD in 2023. The cosmic, ambient folk/alt-country is at turns poetically fantastical, tenderly personal and organic in its arrangements. Each song seems to emerge, unfold and grow into charming, poignantly knowing vignettes of life. If you’re a fan it would be advised to catch him on this tour to see how the band pulls this off live.
Digable Planets, photo from Bandcamp
Tuesday | 01.30 What:Digable Planets Reachin’ 30th Anniversary Tour w/Kassa Overall When: 8 Where: Ogden Theatre Why: Digable Planets began as a solo project of Ishmael “Butter Fly” Butler in the late 80s but the demos blossomed when Butler met and began collaborating with Mariana “Ladybug Mecca” Vieira and Craig “Doodlebug” Irving after he started interning at Sleeping Bag Records in NYC and in 1989 the current and classic lineup of Digable Planets was born. Like some of its contemporaries the trio was immersed in the aesthetics and creative impulses of jazz fused with highly literate lyrics and brought that sensibility firmly into hip-hop in a way that translated as particularly experimental and to this day surprisingly forward thinking. During its first iteration from the 80s through 1995 the group only released two albums, 1993’s Reachin’ (A New Refutation of Time and Space) and 1995’s futuristic Blowout Comb. The group has reunited twice from 2005-2011 and 2015 to the present and although it hasn’t released an album’s worth of new music its live show maintains a certain mystique and late night jazz vibe that is still deeply compelling.
Queen City Sounds and Art 
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