Music – Queen City Sounds and Art

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond September 2026

**The Tear Garden, photo courtesy Randall Frazier**

Xmal Deutschland, photo by Anton Corbijn

Tuesday | 09.01
What: Anja Huwe w/Plague Garden and Weathered Statues
When: 7pm
Where: HQ
Why: Anja Huwe was the singer for the influential German post-punk band Xmal Deutschland. The latter were pioneers of Neue Deutschland Welle (the German New Wave) but with a darkly dramatic and moody music that seemed to be in a similar vein to UK bands Siouxsie and the Banshees and The Pop Group. After a handful of albums the group split in 1990. Following that breakup, Huwe focused on her visual art pursuits with great success until being convinced by her friend Mona Mur to revisit music and in 2024 she released her first solo album Codes via the Sacred Bones imprint and to her credit that album is like an electronic post-punk album that borders on industrial but without the seeming connection to that style of music since the early 90s and with more in common with dance music. Opening the show are two of Denver’s greatest post-punk bands of recent years with the New Wave adjacent Plague Garden and its ferocious energy and Weathered Statues whose minimal, deathrock-inspired version of post-punk has a clear line of inspiration to Huwe’s old band.

Wednesday | 09.02
What: Soft Palms w/babybaby4ever and Smear
When: 7pm
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Soft Palms is Julia Kugel-Montoya (of The Coathangers) and Scott Montoya (of The Growlers). With this new project it draws on the edge of garage punk and the moodiness and cinematic qualities of post-punk to create something new. Gloomy pop with some urgency. Along with the new record In Echo the duo published a book called How To Be Self-Reliant In The Music Business of which both musicians know more than a little. Opening is synth pop superstar babybaby4ever with better synth tone than most people you’ll see this year.

Thursday | 09.03
What: Bellhead w/eHpH and Hypersomnia
When: 7
Where: The Crypt, $12
Why: Bellhead is a post-punk band from Chicago whose style is darker and more caustic than the trendy post-punk with spindly guitar tone. It has more in common with industrial post-punk of the 90s and in some ways is reminiscent in sound of the more rock end of My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult. Its 2025 EP Threats includes remixes from Stabbing Westward, Clubdrugs and Frontal Boundary. EhpH is an electro-industrial duo from Denver whose own politically-charged songs are rooted in classic EBM and not the Future Pop strain, thankfully, with a theatrical live performance fronted by Fernando Altonaga of post-punk band Plague Garden.

Thursday | 09.03
What: Sweet Pill w/Deux Visages and Bike Routes
When: 7
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Sweet Pill is an emo band from Philadelphia whose sound incorporates elements of math rock that fans of Wednesday and Speedy Ortiz may appreciate for the eclectic guitar style that isn’t trapped in genre tropes and seemingly more keyed into strong hooks. Deux Visages were once based in Miami but now out Philadelphia where their sound of fuzzed out shoegaze pop seems a good fit for a music scene that has given us the likes of the headliner for this show but also Her New Knife and They Are Gutting a Body of Water. The trio recently released a new single “Always You” and further established its knack for blending melancholic vocal melodies with sonic edge and grit, vulnerability with bombast and threading discordant sounds with the sublime.

The Playground Ensemble in 2018, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 09.04
What: The Playground Ensemble: Unchambered 4.0
When: 7/7:30-9
Where: Leon Gallery
Why: This is the fourth edition of the Ensemble’s Unchambered event in which for an evening experimental and improvised electronic music created by the group’s composers can be experienced featuring home made instruments, interactive electronics, processed voice and other avant-musical weirdness and innovation.

Have a Nice Life in 2019, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 09.04
What: Have a Nice Life w/Drowse and Allison Lorenzen
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Allison Lorenzen is a Colorado-based ambient art folk artist whose pop songcraft is high but so is her highly emotional and the quality of her stylized performance. Drowse has been releasing some of the most experimental and engrossing post-punk bordering on ambient and field-recording infused pastoral tape music folk since the project’s inception. For this show the project will push those aesthetics further with a unique and boundary pushing performance. Have a Nice Life is one of the great cult post-punk bands from America that almost never plays live and even more rarely tours much less comes to Colorado. The band was last here in 2019 where it performed at the Hi-Dive cementing its reputation for exploding boundaries between emo, post-punk, industrial and ambient music.

Saturday | 09.05
What: The Serfs w/Pink Lady Monster, The Clue, Plastik Mystik and Kill You Club DJs
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Plastik Mystik fuses grunge, Wipers-esque punk and post-punk into a garage rock inflected set of music that has searing social commentary. The Clue is sort of a hardcore band but its sound is weirder and doesn’t really adhere to the aesthetics of that style of music yet its energy is very much in that vein. Pink Lady Monster and its No Wave funk art post-punk and poetry is arguably one of the best bands in Denver and America with live performances that are somehow both theater and a masterclass in musical technique. The Serfs from Cincinnati are a post-punk snobs favorite post-punk band with consistently fascinating records that blur the line between post-apocalyptic, bleak synth infused and arch political commentary the way Wire or Gang of Four would burn fascist impulses with creative lyrics. The Serfs sound like they read a lot of Ursula K. Le Guin’s more political novels, were inspired by the mood of Tarkovksy’s 1970s science fiction epics Solaris and Stalker and the crumbling post-industrial, late capitalist empire of America. There is no best place to start with The Serfs, just select a record and listen to their entire oeuvre.

Sunday | 09.06
What: Black Tapestry w/The Picture Tour, The Futons and Demi God Tezus
When: 7
Where: D3 Arts
Why: Black Tapestry is a synth punk duo from Sedona, Arizona who released their newest full-length Compartmental Illness in November 2025. Think like Youth Code but more rooted in The Yeah Yeah Yeahs than hardcore. The Picture Tour is a dark post-punk band from Denver with a clear command of atmospheric guitar tone and the aesthetics of night driving in the sprawl of American urban decay once banished in the wake of overdevelopment by private equity firms but on the horizon again due to the tech and real estate bubble collapse. The Picture Tour both embraces that nostalgia and seem to have seen into a dark future but romantic future. The Futons are a Denver band somewhere between garage psych and shoegaze. Demi God Tezus is a hip-hop artist in the more underground/alternative lane.

Tuesday | 09.08
What: greek w/Humble the Great
When: 7
Where: Moon Room at Summit Music Hall
Why: Michael Davie performing and releasing music as greek released his genre eclectic EP DANCE BREAK in August 2026. Coming up as a fledgling musician and making beats and writing songs through the use of production software that any teen might access, Davie found his voice as a talented purveyor of a kind of pop R&B benefiting greatly from his soulful and smooth vocal style. The music video for “HOLD ME” reveals a performer comfortable with the physical expression of the music and a playful sense of humor. The new EP builds on previous greek releases like the “THERE FOR YOU” single from 2024 that was in a more indie pop vein. The production on the new EP is more lush and immersive and the signal of a sophisticated talent in modern pop music.

Friday | 09.11
What: Unsane w/Season to Risk and Arson Charge
When: 8
Where: HQ
Why: Unsane is one of the foundational noise rock bands beginning with its formation in 1988. Bleeding together metallic post-hardcore aggression with the influence of industrial music, Unsane’s sound didn’t come off like it was too steeped into existing rock subgenre. It was caustic and heady and unrelenting yet heavier than most metal. In 2026 the group’s 1998 album Occupational Hazard was remastered and reissued by Lamb Unlimited as a bracing reminder of Unsane at one of its creative peaks. Season to Risk from Kansas City has established its own legacy as purveyors of arty yet visceral noise rock as one of the best of the modern bands operating in a similar vein as Unsane and having started just a year later as the latter in 1989. Its own 1995 album In a Perfect World got a vinyl reissue in 2026.

Dominique Fils-Aimé, photo by Vladim Vilain

Friday | 09.11
What: Dominique Fils-Aimé
When: 6:30 and 9
Where: Dazzle
Why: Dominique Fils-Aimé is an acclaimed singer from Quebec who released her latest album My World Is The Sun in February 2026. The record is filled with field recordings and other contextual sounds that help set the mood to come. Fils-Aimé’s soulful singing is of course versatile and deeply evocative and resonates like a classic Neo Soul or R&B artist but there is something far more experimental in her songwriting like she is tapping into the kind of cosmic/spiritual jazz psychedelia as Alice Coltrane. You’re not just getting one extended flavor with the record and it is a showcase for a broad range of Fils-Aimé’s songwriting skills and vocal talent with a kind of epic journey through deep inner space.

F-Th| 09.11-09.17
What: Gypsy 83: Director’s Cut
Where: Sie Film Center
When: Varies by date
Why: The dirctor’s cut of cult film Gypsy 83 is screening for its 25th anniversary. The film is about two young goths Gypsy and Clive living in in Sandusky, Ohio who travel to NYC for a festival celebrating Stevie Nicks, an unlikely yet in retrospect fitting idol for goths in the 1980s with her witchy persona, fashion sense of dramatic music. Written and directed by Todd Stephens the film stars Sara Rue as Gypsy Vale and Clive Webb played by Kett Turton with John Doe of X fame as Gypsy’s dad and Marlene Wallace as her mom. Gypsy and Clive learn of an event called Night of a Thousand Stevies and make their way to the Big Apple to participate with revelatory adventures along the way. The soundtrack includes bands like The Cure, Claire Voyant, Velvet Acid Christ (from Denver metro), Switchblade Symphony and Apoptygma Berzerk and visually and thematically fans of the films of Gregg Araki. The late, great Karen Black appears as retired singer, and Gypsy’s mother’s best friend, Bambi LeBleau. For showtimes in Denver during its run at the Sie Film Center visit the link above.

Saturday | 09.12
What: Pond
When: 7
Where: The Gothic Theatre
Why: Australian psychedelic rock band Pond took a turn in a fascinating direction for its latest album Terrestrials (2026). Rather than the mind-altering, sculpted fuzz atmospheric psychedelic rock they set parameters to focus on more solid lines in the rhythms and guitar sound taking inspiration from late 70s and 80s post-punk and Gothic rock. The band didn’t drop its knack for memorable hooks and creative melodic framing but the resulting sound is less throwback than reinvention often sounding more like the art rock end of Magazine which drew some inspiration from the likes of Roxy Music and Brian Eno. And Pond this time out has employed its synths in a fashion that is stripped of modern affectations and overproduction for a record that is possibly the most creatively realized of its career.

Saturday | 09.12
What: Brandon Flowers
When: 7:30 doors, 9 show
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: Brandon Flowers is perhaps rightly known more for his career as the frontman of massively popular post-punk pop band The Killers. But this year he released his latest solo record ccalled Thrasher. And whatever one’s opinion of The Killers might be, without a doubt the songcraft of the band is respectable and on mainstream radio and playlists stands out in ways that can catch you unexpected. Thrasher proves that Flowers’ songwriting gifts translate well to a record of all honky tonk style pop country. With contributions from the likes of Jonathan Rado and Margo Price as well as country veterans like Bruce Bouton and Charlie McCoy there’s no doubt Flowers put in the time to bring some authentic sound to the songs.

Sleater-Kinney, photo by Chris Hornbecker

Monday | 09.14
What: Liz Phair w/Sleater-Kinney and Snail Mail
When: 7
Where: The Fillmore Auditorium
Why: Liz Phair and Sleater-Kinney both helped to influence and shape the sound of a certain subset of underground rock in the 1990s. Phair spent a bit of time enjoying mainstream success with the release of her 1994 album Whipsmart but had already garnered praise as a talented songwriter for the more experimental and lo-fi masterpiece Exile in Guyville (1993). Even through subsequent records, all not nearly as critically well-received as Phair’s first two albums, Phair’s wit and personal insight shined through and as a performer she had undeniable, unvarnished charisma and presence. Sleater-Kinney emerged in 1994 out of Olympia, Washington with its first handful of albums on the great underground label Kill Rock Stars and earning a cult following for its superior songwriting and unique take on punk attitude and spirit with subject matter that seemed to resonate with what Phair was doing as an artist in Chicago while also aiming to perhaps establish themselves as artists encouraging other women to make whatever music they wanted to on whatever terms they wanted while being utterly themselves, which they have obviously succeeded in doing. Snail Mail is one of the great guitar rock songwriters of a younger generation whose shoegaze-adjacent pop with unabashedly, radically vulnerable lyrics.

Wednesday | 09.16
What: Sleep w/Pink Mountaintops
When: 7
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: Sleep without Matt Pike seems like an impossibility because the guitarist’s iconic psychedelic sludge style is one of the most influential sounds in heavy music of the last 35+ years. But when the group announced Pike was no longer part of the band and a new lineup that consists of Dale Crover (of the Melvins who saw the early version of Sleep in the early 90s who were clearly influenced by Melvins’ own artful crushing early doom metal) and Bubba Dupree of hardcore legends Void alongside, of course, founding member Al Cisneros on bass. The trio released a new album Hemispheres that reveals that while not trying to imitate Pike’s guitar tone and sound kept the heaviness and otherworldly quality of Sleep intact. The album released digitally on September 3, 2026 with a vinyl version out late October. Paired with the album is a new Sleep Comic Book including a flexi with a shortened version of “Have Spacesuit Will Travel.”

Saturday | 09.19
What: Atmosphere & Friends: Colorado – w/3OH!3, Everlast, Slick Rick, Z-Trip, Ra the Rugged Man and DJ Lala
When: 5
Where: Red Rocks Amphitheater
Why: Everlast is one of the featured artists on this now seemingly annual run with hip-hop stars Atmoshere headlining. Most may know him from his time as the frontman for hip-hop group House of Pain but by the late 90s he had established a solo career in which he fused rock and hip-hop in a way that didn’t seem cringe mainly because his lyrics were thoughtful and the songwriting not in some trope-y lane. In 2026 Everlast released his new album Embers to Ashes with some tender yet gritty vocal delivery and sparkling, late night atmospheric tones and well crafted moods. If you’re going to this extravaganza get there in time to catch his brand of blues American and its existential themes.

Monday | 09.21
What: The Tear Garden w/DJ Cosmos Mudwulf and Nathaniel Jamiel
When: 8
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: The Tear Garden have long been a missing link in the experimental psychedelic world of the 1980s and creative production of EBM with the 1992 album, its second, The Last Man To Fly a classic in the Goth scene possible due to its membership being Edward Ka-Spel of the Legendary Pink Dots and cEvin Key of Skinny Puppy. The band has famously never played a live show until this past week and the first leg of its North American tour. The group is now expanded to several live members including Randall Frazier who is also a member of LPD and Orbit Service. In 2025 the group released its first album in 8 years with Astral Elevator. Expect the enigmatic and cosmic, psychedelic poetry and enveloping atmospheres with richly tones melodies and rhythms. It’ll be basically a once in a lifetime chance to see them unless you go to other cities.

Monday | 09.21
What: Chanel Beads w/Horse Vision and Anastasia Coope
When: 7
Where: Marquis Theater
Why: Chanel Beads released the second self-titled album in 2026 as a send up of music industry expectations but on its own merit is a fine fusion of delicate indie pop and highly electronic dream pop so that it is simultaneously Iand intimate, a rarity in music. Think something like Just Mustard but even more ethereal. Overall it sounds like a bit of a throwback to late 2000s underground indie rock but without borrowing too heavily from the sounds and ideas, just the mood that maybe all hope isn’t stripped out of the world while also giving us songs that address current streams of anxiety.

Monday | 09.21
What: Aldous Harding w/Sam Burton
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Once again Aldous Harding offers an inventive and emotionally vibrant yet idiosyncratic experimental pop with 2026’s Train on the Island. It sounds like Harding was diving further into integrating keyboards into layers of vocals and dissonant drones to give the record the sound of something that isn’t fully smoothed over yet not lacking in any production. It’s just real and has an immediacy to the sensitive listener with Harding’s typically enigmatic but resonant lyrics. Harding’s life performance style is similarly unorthodox and she seems well familiar with performance art and the avant-garde while incorporating that strangeness into ambitious pop songs.

American Football, photo by Alexa Viscius

Tuesday | 09.22
What: American Football w/Circling Girl
When: 7
Where: Boulder Theater
Why: American Football came out of the 90s as one of the most influential of the then crop of emo math rock bands before splitting in 2000. Singer and bassist Mike Kinsella had already left his mark on music with the legendary early emo band Cap’n Jazz and later with Joan of Arc. But American Football’s sound bordered at times on slowcore but with more unconventional and precise rhythms to give the sometimes pastoral, post-rock-esque instrumental side of the music a more solid if informal framing. The music has an impressionistic quality that allows for its often weighty material to have a more emotionally gentle initial impact. The group’s 1999 debut album is a classic of its realm of music and when American Football returned in 2014 it has put out a few albums of a quietly incandescent beauty including the newly released LP4 (all the albums being essentially self-titled) which expands on the sound palette and ambition of soundscaping without losing the intimate quality of the band’s earlier releases. The show opens with a set from Denver dream pop group Circling Girl. American Football also opens for Bleachers at Red Rocks the following night 9.23.26.

To Be Continued…

A Brief Guide to Ghost Canyon Fest 2026

Denver’s premier left field music festival spanning weirdo heavy music to ambient, noise rock to post-hardcore and avant-pop among others runs Thursday August 26, 2026 through Sunday August 30, 2026 in various venues. Below is a brief description of the artists with links. For more information and to buy tickets please visit: ghostcanyonfest.com.

Th 08.27 at HQ doors 7pm
Wax Trax Music Panel: DIY In the Age of Slop: A Discussion Sponsored by Smashed Plastic: Local music heads discuss the perilous future in the age of tech bro oligarch vampires. 7pm

Ryan Wong & Sunswept: A fusion of improvisational impulses weave together guitar and cosmic flute soundscapes. 8:45pm

Kathryn Mohr: Psycho-cinematic pastoral ambient grunge folk. 9:30pm

Holy Sons: Dark psychedelic industrial folk drone. 10:30pm

Six Organs of Admittance, photo from Bandcamp

F 08.28 Free In Store at Wax Trax Broadway Bazaar 4pm
Prairiewolf: Library music jazz kosmiche in the extended IDM spectrum. 4:15pm

Six Organs of Admittance: Tripped out extradimensional ritual folk noise. 5pm

F 08.28 Hi-Dive 7pm doors
Supreme Joy: Psychedelic No Wave post-punk. 410,757, 864, 530 Dead Carps can’t be wong. 7pm

Dust Congress: Self-styled “pioneers of the depressive realism genre” but really deconstructed baroque pop. 7:45pm

Silkworm: Influential, scrappy, angular, emo-adjacent noise rock. 9:15pm

The Gotobeds: Like a 90s K Records band fueled by a punk interpretation of C86. 8:30pm

Steve Von Till: Apocalyptic drone psych Americana from one of the founders of Neurosis. 10:30pm

claire rousay, photo by Katherine Squier

S 08.29 Bug Theate doors 12:30pm doors
Nora Mal: Pastoral shoegaze from Salt Lake City joined by Chaz Prymek of Lake Mary and Mike Fuchs of Passive Tourist. 1pm

Shane Parish Plays Autechre Guitar: Improvisational guitar wizard interprets the electronic music and tonal detail of Autechre for acoustic instrumentation. 1:45pm

Daniel Higgs: Poet, mystic, visual artist and legendary singer/lyricist for Lungfish. Keen crafter of transcendent ambient psychedelia. 2:45pm

claire rousay: Masterful musique concrète ambient collage pop. 3:45pm

S 08.29 Hi-Dive 6pm doors
Watch Yourself Die: Borderline terrifying confrontational performance art post-punk prog. 7pm

Blacks’ Myths: Free-associating free jazz and drone collage commentary on cultural historical moments. 7:45pm

ABANDONS: The sound of civilization collapsing and evolving into more exciting forms. 8:30pm

Water Damage: Organic motorik Neu!-esque drone rock featuring noteworthy members of Austin’s experimental scene including Thor Harris. 9:15pm

Moor Mother: Avant-garde free jazz noise and the poetry of cultural heritage. 10pm

Kowloon Walled City: Colossal and crushing post-hardcore noise rock. 11pm

Su 08.30 Wax Trax Broadway Bazaar free in-store, show 1:15pm
Burn Barrel: Kansas City-based crushing post-hardcore noise rock including members of Canyons. 1:30pm

Circling Over: Melancholic, transcendent, shoegaze-adjacent post-metal. 2:15pm

Arson Charge: Thrashcore scorchings of the baked in abuse of human culture. 3pm

Su 08.30 The Skylark Lounge 4pm doors
Blööd Ôath: Demented and thrillingly abrasive metallic post-punk like a collision of Oblivians and The Cramps. 5pm

Infinite Ohm: Hypnotic drones and other mind-altering sounds courtesy Justin Lemons (and the name of his studio, label and this project). 5:45pm

Violenteer: Brooding, menacing and caustic industrialized noise rock for fans of Unsane and Shellac. 6:30pm

Great Falls: Relentless and unhinged mathcore. 7:15pm

Dead Rider: Left field noise rock and experimental electronic strangeness with connection to avant-guitar rock band U.S. Maple. 8pm

Midwife: Cathartically heartbreaking ambient folk heavenmetal. 9pm

Queen City Sounds Podcast S6E15: Sarah Christiansen

Sarah Christiansen, photo courtesy the artist

Sarah Christiansen has been a fixture of Denver’s experimental music and improvisational scene since 2022. Her solo project Sunswept which finds her playing flute and synthesizer with live production and processing is a high point of any show with a unique style of ambient. The duo she’s in Snowswept with Derrick Bozich (aka Snowflyer) combines her skills for soundscaping and Bozich’s gift for spontaneous synth composition and left field electronic dance music. Her trio Field Theory is like a New Music ambient jazz combo that expands notions of what that music can look and sound like. Christiansen also organizes a monthly event called Emergent Forms that brings together musicians in the local improvisational music world and puts them into combinations to explore the possibilities of the art form. She is also a volunteer with Creative Music Works having been an early booster of the group’s activities and shows.

Originally from Saint Louis, Missouri, Christiansen moved to Colorado in 2016 and wasn’t initially involved in the music scene. But she caught some shows of local artists notably R A R E B Y R D $, the experimental hip-hop group that incorporates jazz, Latin music, ambient and neo soul. In 2022 Christiansen witnessed the early Avant Garden events hosted at Mutiny Information Cafe and run by noteworthy experimental musicians Meca’Ayo Cole, Victoria Lundy and Jennifer Bobola eventually working with Bobola in the short-lived band Fireball Rose. In December 2024, Texas-based label Aural Canyon released the debut and only Sunswept album Germinations. You can regularly see the musician/composer live at DIY spots and an occasional club show in Denver and the Colorado Front Range and her latest endeavor outside her regular efforts is a collaborative duo with singer-songwriter Ryan Wong (Supreme Joy etc.) for the first night of Ghost Canyon Fest 2026.

Listen to our interview with Sarah Christiansen on Bandcamp and follow her exploits at the links below and see Sunswept and Ryan Wong in a collaborative performance for the opening night of Ghost Canyon Fest on Thursday, August 26, 2026.

Sunswept on Instagram

Sarah Christiansen Linktr.ee

Queen City Sounds Podcast S6E14: Kathryn Mohr

Kathryn Mohr is a songwriter, composer and visual artist based in Oakland, California. She is a relative late-comer to making music first experimenting with drawing and painting. She acquired her first guitar at age 20. Sigur Ros was the band that got her into more experimental music in her teens and the first concert she witnessed at an Outside Lands festival appearance. Mohr became aware that a guitar could be used like a synthesizer when used unconventionally as she had heard in Sigur Ros and later in Grouper. In 2018/2019 Mohr started recording on her phone but in 2020 she felt the strong urge to make an album resulting in As If. That tape opened up opportunities for her in various ways including having label backing. Around the same time the songwriter got her first synth to help realize her sonic imagination. She didn’t play her first live show until 2022 playing a local Zen center before playing the DIY venues in Oakland. That same year Mohr got connected with Madeline Johnston aka Midwife through their mutual label The Flenser. Johnston engineered the then new album Holly. The record shared a similar gentle spirit and emotional depth and delicacy that one hears from a Midwife album and like a particularly sophisticated ambient folk tape one might find randomly at a consignment shelf at a DIY space and the music sticking with you.

For Mohr’s third album, 2025’s Waiting Room, she undertook an artist residency in a small town in Iceland where she wrote and recorded the music free from the distractions of a highly mediated modern world coaxing out authentic emotions and thoughts expressed in music that is at once highly personal and otherworldly, perhaps innerworldly, in tone and mood. It’s like a lo-fi folk album but blending the aesthetics of ambient music into the songwriting for an expression style uniquely Mohr’s own. A little over a year later Mohr issued her latest album Carve. Once again the artist took herself to an environment relatively lacking in regular contact with any kind of social media, advertising, popular culture or anything like that living for awhile in a single wide in the Mojave Desert. The album has a distinctly cinematic quality and capturing the alien tranquility of such an environment but this time some of the guitar songs are grittier at times reminiscent of early PJ Harvey but more informed by her own style of psychedelic, noisy folk bordering on a left field garage rock. The album references Wallace Stenger’s classic 1971 novel of the American West, Angle of Repose and a node to the influence of literature on Mohr’s music. The album’s contrasts are some of the widest of Mohr’s output and it is at turns and often at once pastoral and contemplative, menacing and caustic, delicately gentle and tense. The layers of field recordings, synth, processed vocals in parts of the record convey a deep sense of place, psychological and physical as there is a tactile aspect to Mohr’s songwriting in every song so the album comes across as something felt and experienced and not merely heard. Written over a period of five years and recorded in a few weeks it nonetheless feels of a piece like an expertly edited film. It is Mohr’s most creatively realized work.

Listen to our interview with Kathryn Mohr on Bandcamp and follow her music and performances at the links below. You can see Mohr perform the first night of Ghost Canyon Fest 2026 on Thursday, August 27.

Kathryn Mohr on Instagram

Queen City Sounds Podcast S6E13: Ghost Canyon Fest

Ghost Canyon Fest organizers Brian Dooley, Sean Dove, Jeremy Brashaw, photo by Tom Murphy

Ghost Canyon Fest presents its fourth edition in 2026 from Thursday, August 26, 2026 through Sunday, August 30, 2026. The festival has from the beginning has showcased some of the most fascinating bands and artists operating in the broad realm of left field rock and experimental music. Noise rock, art punk, ambient, avant-folk, post-metal, art pop, psychedelic folk and more. It has been an extremely well curated festival and on a scale that intentionally makes it easy to catch all of the acts for festival goers if they have the fortitude to make it to all the performances as it isn’t multi-venue at the same time and the final night doesn’t run too late for work the next day. As usual the festival is a mix of acclaimed national acts and some of the most creatively daring bands from Colorado in the realms of music that is at the core of the festival’s curation. This year you can see Holy Sons, Kathryn Mohr
Ryan Wong & Sunswept, a Wax Trax Music Panel called DIY In the Age of Slop: A Discussion, Six Organs of Admittance, Prairiewolf, Steve Von Till, Silkworm, The Gotobeds, Dust Congress, Supreme Joy, claire rousay, Daniel Higgs, Shane Parish Plays Autechre Guitar, Nora Mal, Kowloon Walled City, Moor Mother, Water Damage, ABANDONS, Blacks’ Myths, Watch Yourself Die, Arson Charge, Circling Over, Burn Barrel, Midwife, Dead Rider, Great Falls, Violenteer, Infinite Ohm and Blööd Ôath. The festival takes place at HQ, Wax Trax Broadway Bazaar, Hi-Dive, The Bug Theatre and The Skylark Lounge. For more information and the full schedule please visit ghostcanyonfest.com.

Listen to our interview with Ghost Canyon Fest organizers Sean Dove, Brian Dooley and Jeremy Brashaw on Bandcamp.

Queen City Sounds Podcast S6E12: Paul Riola

Paul Riola and friends, photo courtesy Paul Riola

Paul Riola is a saxophonist and composer who has long been a fixture of the Denver improvisational music and ambient scene. His prolific collaborations have graced various stages throughout the city and beyond and his command of cinematic soundscaping is honed from years of working within the realm of experimental music for over 30 years. He grew up in the Denver Metro area before moving to Portland, Oregon in the early 90s for around a decade where he came into contact with Nels Cline and recorded with him as well as Jeff Parker of Tortoise. If you’ve been to a sufficient number of improvisational music shows in the Denver underground in the past 20 years and more it seems unlikely that you haven’t had a chance to witness Riola’s skill in blending in with various other instruments and specific styles to create something that while improvisational always sounds composed to strike a deep mood. His latest project is Shadow and Light, an immersive collaboration that involves music, installation art and video collage. Taking place at the Fox Theater in Aurora, Colorado on August 20, 2026 the event brings together Riola with guitarist Colin Bricker, guitarist Emmanuel Alexander, drummer Sam Kok, visual collage artist and videography Elicia James, set designer Brandon Case, Olivia Kirkpatrick for live VJ performance and video sampling along with Wesley Schwarz also with live VJ and video sampling and lighting. The unique concert experience will blur the line between various disciplines of visual art, overlapping aesthetics and methods of sound and composition to evoke an emotional resonance with all involved.

Listen to our interview with Paul Riola on Bandcamp and follow Riola at the links below. For tickets to Shadow and Light please visit the Aurora Fox Theater website.

Paul Riola on Instagram

Paul Riola on Bandcamp

Queen City Sounds Podcast S6E11: Observation Room

Observation Room, photo courtesy the artists

Observation Room is a synth pop duo from New York City comprised of Marina F and Chloe Olson. From its 2025 self-titled EP the project seemed to have a knack for vivid and clear electronic production and a keen ear for layered rhythms and percussive synth tone. There is a kinetic presence to the music that became even more honed and fully-realized on the forthcoming full-length Superstructure. Inevitable comparisons might be made with the likes of Book of Love for the crisp melodic sound and expert use of space on all levels of the songwriting and production like a creative embodiment of the concept of the title as an architectural term and Marxist political concept in which the ideas at the foundation of the work manifest in its essence and expression. It works as an incredibly well-executed synth pop dance record but not one devoid of rich subject content as a commentary on the broad and ambient corrosive quality of the economic and political system dominating the world today. But in the record there are stories about looking to a future in which we all survive this time rather than be purely mired and limited by it. Fans of Tangerine Dream, Human League and Talk Talk will appreciate the attention to sonic detail and songcraft. The highly stylized album cover is reminiscent of a not-so-obvious influence on the band, Roxy Music and its own enigmatic yet striking record artwork. The album’s variety in mood and pacing also lends it a cinematic quality with linked narratives that are as personal as they are political. Superstructure will be available on vinyl, digital download and streaming via á La Carte Records on September 11, 2026.

Listen to our interview with Observation Room on Bandcamp and follow the band at the links below. Observation Room is going on a short tour with dates listed below as well.

Observation Room on Bandcamp

Observation Room on Instagram

Observation Room on á La Carte Records

Observation Room Tour Dates

Aug 14 at The Living Gallery in Brooklyn, NY

Aug 19 at Eli’s Mile High Club in Oakland, CA

Aug 21 at The Sïx in Portland, OR

Aug 22 at Le Voyeur in Olympia, WA

Kim Gordon at the Ogden Theatre 7/23/26

Kim Gordon and her band came on stage with little fanfare but with the expected effortless cool and poise. Everyone in the band contributed to the rich electronic soundscapes that ran throughout the show and everyone played a more standard rock instrument as well with a drummer (Madi Voigt), a bassist (Emily Retsas) and guitar duties with Gordon and Sarah Register. Immediately it felt like we were hearing something born out of the various interests and creative leanings across Gordon’s career as an artist and pushing past immediate expectations of some kind of No Wave noise rock. It was more like a thorough fusion of various styles of hip-hop, industrial aesthetics and stretching notions of what role guitar plays in songwriting. Like real time sampling in moments with rock instruments dropped into a track. The percussion was a combination of programming/sequencing and live drums played with an ear for the various beat styles that have emerged in the past two or three decades: trap, Dilla-isms, drill. The effect was cinematic and emotionally-charged with Gordon’s nearly spoken word vocals accenting the rhythm with her own lines of spare poetry as though she was replicating a production method with own performance.

The band played all of the new record, Play Me (2026) seemingly in order as well as a few songs from The Collective (2024) and No Home Record (2019). But it all felt like a vivid yet hazy dream with Gordon singing songs that felt like they were a commentary on the current era and zeitgeist in a way that was creative like stream-of-consciousness poetry or free verse and free association on a theme. The social commentary was pointed and cathartic with the production lending the music a textural and cinematic quality so the experiencing of witnessing it live had a tactile aspect that was riveting and seemingly personal because Gordon’s words framed the ideas of tech oligarch and the dream of a world after the fall of the imperial program that has been burning through the world with an accelerated spirit of consuming destruction an attainable goal. The caustic menace of “Sub Con” and “Square Jaw” got into your head like hope through validating one’s anger and desire for liberation from the various tools of late capitalist repression. Both songs and “Post Empire” were a string of songs that seemed to draw heavily on hip-hop production and sounds of the past decade and a half but with a little different sound palette and informed by Gordon’s insight into the ills of the horrific aspects of current human civilization.

Hard to imagine Gordon isn’t affected deeply by this music and the words performing them on a tour and yet it has to feel good to get these thoughts and feelings out there and sharing them with people who may not be as focused in their expression when everything can feel overwhelming and you just have to show up to your job or jobs just to survive. But the show did feel like an expression of human solidarity for the collective, ambient anxiety and horror of what feels like the worst timeline of recent years. With the update of “Bye Bye” as “ByeBye25” as a kind of exclamation point on the album it was obvious that Gordon’s new album showcased her masterful wordplay perhaps influenced by the hip-hop artists that have inspired her for decades. Beginning to end the songs sounded like the chaos, fragmentation and collapse of the American experiment but also like a hope for something better to replace the old world order. It made this era feel survivable.

Setlist from JamBase.com

PLAY ME
GIRL WITH A LOOK
NO HANDS
BLACK OUT
DIRTY TECH
NOT TODAY
BUSY BEE
SQUARE JAW
SUBCON
POST EMPIRE
NAIL BITER
BYE BYE
Trophies
It’s Dark Inside
Psychedelic Orgasm
Paprika Pony
Cookie Butter
Encore
Cigarette

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond August 2026

Pearl & The Oysters, image from Bandcamp

Saturday | 08.01
What: Pearl & The Oysters w/Green Typewriters and Pleasure Prince
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Pearl & The Oysters is based out of Los Angeles these days via the Gainesville, Florida scene but has its origins when the duo of Juliette Pearl Davis and Joachim Polack met in high school in Paris. Polack earned a master’s degree in muscology with a focus on Brazilian popular music. And you hear that flavor in this band’s output which sounds like a retrofuturist pop band with some jazz informing its compositions and Tropicália flavor but really its own thing with some obvious heavy influence by classic 60s and 70s pop and psychedelia. But its production is lush and from record to record it would be impossible to pigeonhole an exact style including its most recent record Monkey Mind (2026). So it’s only appropriate the art pop psychedelic prog weirdos Green Typewriters and virtuosos of soulful synth pop Pleasure Prince are sharing the bill and thus no downside.

Saturday | 08.01
What: babybaby4ever, Sonic Chick, Mon Cher and PEPPERSACK
When: 7:30
Where: Squirm Gallery
Why: babybaby4ever will bring her tonally immersive indie synth pop to places well beyond Denver following this tour kick-off show and win over audiences far and wide. For the occasion you’ll get to see lo-fi synth-infused dream pop project Mon Cher, darkwave dance duo PEPPERSACK and the lo-fi, Half-Japanese-esque emo band Sonic Chick—fans of K Records bands of the 90s will definitely find much to like about the latter and its new record All Star Hits.

Let the Dead Eat the Dead, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 08.01
What: Let the Dead Eat the Dead, Part Weapon and The Picture Tour
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge Bobcat Club
Why: Let the Dead Eat the Dead is the new project that rose up from the remnants of Bad Luck City. Similar dark Americana and poetry with wit, intensity and an unpretentious earnestness that one would come to expect from the musicians involved including ex-members of Random Victim, Red Cloud, Slim Cessna’s Auto Club and Snake Rattle Rattle Snake. Part Weapon will being its fusion of noisy post-punk and industrial sounds and The Picture Tour will fill the room with deeply atmospheric, melancholic moods and late night drive intensity circa early Nicolas Winding Refn cinema.

Monday | 08.03
What: TV Star w/Angel Band, Pink Lady Monster and Pulse
When: 7
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective
Why: TV Star from Seattle recently released its new album Music For Heads which can have multiple meanings but for fans of the kind of crossover of shoegaze, C86 pop and pastoral Americana its exactly in your wheelhouse. Delicate and intricate guitar melodies and layered textural sounds with winsome vocals make the band’s new record and its Unrest-esque sound a repeat listen. Opening of course are purveyors of perfect indie pop Angel Band and Pink Lady Monster, the neo-No Wave art pop geniuses from Denver.

Monday | 08.03
What: Cat Power: Anniversary of The Greatest Tour
When: 6:30
Where: Chautauqua Auditorium
Why: Cat Power released her album The Greatest in 2006 to great acclaim. Recorded in Memphis, TN, the album included contributions from the late, great Mabon “Teenie” Hodges renowned for his contributions as guitarist and songwriter on several of Al Green’s hits as well as other notable artists in the realm of soul and R&B. And other greats of soul music including bassist Leroy Hodges. The record contains some of Chan Marshall’s most intimate songs in a career of intimate songwriting and there is a warmth and affection in much of the searching and heartbreak and at times resolution found across the album’s twelve tracks. This is a rare opportunity to catch these songs live in a venue as uniquely beautiful and rustic as the Chautauqua Auditorium.

Friday | 08.07
What: Tomahawk w/Melvins
When: 6:30
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: Tomahawk is the experimental metal band comprised of Mike Patton (Mr. Bungle, Faith No More etc), Duane Denison (The Jesus Lizard et. al.), John Stanier (Helmet) and Trevor Dunn (Mr. Bungle, Secret Chiefs among others). Considering the people in the band how metal is it and really more experimental, art rock noise rock with Patton’s versatile and powerful vocals. Opening is Melvins who reliably put on a powerful performance of heavy music of great nuance and imagination and with every tour they try to do something different and other than touring with Tomahawk in this format it would be worth showing up to find out what Melvins have in store.

Saturday | 08.08
What: The Jayhawks
When: 7
Where: Chautauqua Auditorium
Why: The Jayhawks are unarguably one of the most influential Americana bands of the past four decades plus since forming in Minneapolis in 1984. They were early pioneers of what came to be called alternative country. Its 1992 album Hollywood Town Hall is a landmark record for the style and refreshingly out of step with the trendy sounds to emerge from early alternative rock. The group went on hiatus in 2005 while its members pursued other creative endeavors. Briefly reuniting again from 2009-2012 The Jayhawks have once again been an active band since 2014 with a new album Sanctuary Park due out August 28, 2026 with the eclectic yet coherent sound that has marked the best of The Jayhawks’ later work integrating some deeper atmospheric melodies and uplifting rhythms into the songwriting. Of all the venues along the front range Chautauqua was basically built for experiencing this kind of music.

Tuesday | 08.11
What: Sugar w/J. Robbins
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: After the collapse of punk legends Hüsker Dü, guitarist and singer Bob Mould released two acclaimed solo albums and came to recruit David Barbe (formerly of the great Athens, GA post-punk band Bar-B-Que Killers) and Malcolm Travis (who had been in early Boston New Wave band Human Sexual Response) to work with in the near future. The band they would dub Sugar became in its own right one of the more popular and influential of the early 90s alternativ rock bands. With a song pace that wasn’t as headlong as Mould’s previous band was known and more developed melodies the group’s debut album Copper Blue (1992) was instantly at hit with college and the nascent alternative rock radio. Mould had learned a lot from Nirvana who he influenced in terms of pop songcraft with spirited performances and he was finally able to somewhat capitalize on the sound his songwriting and guitar style had directly impacted. Sugar only released two albums and an EP before splitting in 1995 but all of those releases contain some of the finest music Mould has worked on to date. When the grop announced it was back together and playing live shows again it was arguably simultaneously one of the least expected and most anticipated reunions of recent years. And if you’ve seen Mould’s band recently you know it’s not going to be subpar.

Tuesday | 08.11
What: Shonen Knife – Osaka Ramones Set & Shonen Knife Favorites Set w/Bricheros and Flight Kamikaze
When: 7/7:30
Where: HQ
Why: Shonen Knife is the Osaka, Japan punk band that has been running since 1981. An influence on people like Nirvana the group was invited into the international alternative music scene in an opening slot for Sonic Youth in Shonen Knife’s hometown in 1987 and then later for their first North American gig in Los Angeles shortly after. And in 1991 Shonen Knife was asked to open for Nirvana for the European leg of their tour before Nevermind signaled the commercial ascendance of alterntive rock. But all along Shonen Knife has perfected the art of blending punk spirit and power pop with infectiously catchy melodies and songs with themes of simple joys in life. In 2026 the trio re-recorded and released its 1992 classic Let’s Knife as Let’s Knife Re-Cut. For this tour the group will perform a set of its favorite Ramones songs as well as selections from its own prolific catalog of great punkified pop.

Wednesday | 08.12
What: Widowspeak and Dead Gowns
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Since 2010 Widowspeak has created music that weaves together countrified slowcore and intimate dream pop like they came up inspired equally by Luna and Mazzy Star. The group early on was a four-piece but is now the core duo of guitarist/vocalist Molly Hamilton and guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Robert Earl Thomas. The 2026 album Roses is about love in its various forms and often about the subtle kinds taken for granted and not pored over and examined and recognized as such.

Friday | August 14
What: Josaleigh Polett w/A Place For Owls, mlady and Vanna Blue
When: 6pm
Where: D3 Arts
Why: Josaleigh Pollett is a singer-songwriter based out of Salt Lake City that has been developing an eclectic and inventive body of work since 2012 that could loosely be called indie pop. But from record to record, Pollett has experimented with production, songwriting and a blend of organic and electronic elements. The 2026 album If I Let It Quiet is a lushly produced, deeply evocative listen that guides the listener on an existential journey through modern anxieties and uncertainties with a gentle touch and expansive rhythms, cloaked in soothing atmospheric textures. Now available on vinyl via Audio Antihero. A Place For Owls might be described as a slowcore emo band and based in Denver. The band has previously collaborated with Pollett who also contributed to the band’s forthcoming album All Thieves Vol. 1 due out September 25, 2026.

Saturday | 08.15
What: Parlour Magic w/Church Fire and Cruel Mourning
When: 7
Where: HQ
Why: Parlour Magic is a synthpop project from New York City that recently released its latest, and third, album The Embassy. The music is in the vein of 1980s sophistipop with hints of R&B in the vocal delivery and layers of moody melody and cinematic production that captures a sense of isolation and yearning. Opening is industrial synthpop powerhouse now quartet Church Fire whose vibe will be much more confrontational yet inviting like they challenging the audience to join in raging against oppressive forces of the world. Denver’s Cruel Mourning recently released its new album Modern Tension that sounds like it is informed by 2010s synthwave with the pulsing rhythms but also the more synthpop end of darkwave.

Saturday | 08.15
What: Primitive Ring, Cherry Spit and Blööd Ôath
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Primitive Ring is a heavy psych band from Los Angeles that includes Charles Moothart who some may known for playing in various other bands including with Ty Segall, Moonhearts, Fuzz and Mikal Cronin. The group released its debut, self-titled full-length on May 15, 2026 and it sounds like a fine evolution beyond stoner rock and garage psych fusion but retaining the tonal richness and knack for a solid hook. Opening are two Denver bands that burst genres. Blööd Ôath is like an intentionally primitive noise rock post-punk thrash band with genuine grooves and a weirdness worthy of the Cramps. Cherry Spit is a ferocious amalgam of post-punk, post-hardcore and arty noise rock and defies easy comparisons.

Saturday | 08.15
What: WILLIS w/zzzahara and The Flooks
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: WILLIS based out of Nashville, TN that recently released its latest EP Locals 5. Stylistically it’s reminiscent of surf-inflected indie psych from around a decade ago which means it’s probably going to have a nice summertime mood and nostalgic appeal to a lot of people evoking memories of the before times when things likely felt less complicated and at least seemingly less fraught with pressing and constant peril and chaos. We all need a break from that reality sometimes. One of the opening acts, zzzahara, put out their album Distant Lands in June 2026 and its layered, bedroom pop style truly sounds like a dream-journey of self-discovery and healing. Inspired by a dream in which the songwriter spoke to their departed brother the record is steeped in embracing authentic feelings that we often keep buried as we hurtle through our lives. It is an album about reconnecting and perhaps growing from that process. It could be described as dream pop, shoegaze, psych and all the other atmospheric guitar genre tags you want but it also sounds like it’s informed by the possibilities of production and in some ways is like a pop cognate of They Are Gutting a Body of Water.

Paul Riola and band, photo courtesy the artist

Thursday | 08.20
What: Shadow and Light
When: 7/7:30
Where: The Fox Theater (Aurora)
Why: Paul Riola is a saxophonist and composer who has long been a fixture of the Denver improvisational music and ambient scene. His prolific collaborations have graced various stages throughout the city and beyond and his command of cinematic soundscaping is honed from years of working within the realm of experimental music for over 30 years. He grew up in the Denver Metro area before moving to Portland, Oregon in the early 90s for around a decade where he came into contact with Nels Cline and recorded with him as well as Jeff Parker of Tortoise. If you’ve been to a sufficient number of improvisational music shows in the Denver underground in the past 20 years and more it seems unlikely that you haven’t had a chance to witness Riola’s skill in blending in with various other instruments and specific styles to create something that while improvisational always sounds composed to strike a deep mood. His latest project is Shadow and Light, an immersive collaboration that involves music, installation art and video collage. Taking place at the Fox Theater in Aurora, Colorado on August 20, 2026 the event brings together Riola with guitarist Colin Bricker, guitarist Emmanuel Alexander, drummer Sam Kok, visual collage artist and videography Elicia James, set designer Brandon Case, Olivia Kirkpatrick for live VJ performance and video sampling along with Wesley Schwarz also with live VJ and video sampling and lighting. The unique concert experience will blur the line between various disciplines of visual art, overlapping aesthetics and methods of sound and composition to evoke an emotional resonance with all involved.

Courtney Barnett, photo by Lyndsey Byrnes

Friday | 08.21
What: Courtney Barnett w/Zoh Amba
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Courtney Barnett is one of those most acclaimed songwriters of the past decade and a half with a rich and vibrant body of work including her fourth full length album Creature of Habit which dropped March 27, 2026. Written after Barnett relocated from her Melbourne, Australia to Los Angeles the record includes contributions from expert drummer and producer Stella Mozgawa who was part of Barnett’s previous two releases but also some vocals from Waxahatchee, bass from Flea and some synth from Floating Points. But the record is all Barnett’s signature clever and personally insightful lyrics and seemingly a record contemplating major changes in one’s life circumstances and reflecting on choices and embracing the change one has pursued in the end. The record feels a touch more introspective than prior albums but highlights Barnett’s ability to speak with sensitivity and poetic delicacy to the parts of our brains that are given to anxiety and insecurity and soothe that energy with emotional honesty.

Saturday | 08.22
What: Dillstradamus Tour: Dillon Francis and Flosstradamus
When: 8
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Dillon Francis became one of the bigger names in 2010s EDM through not just his skill as a producer but also via his skillful use of social media and engaging with a fanbase in a way that has been entertaining for years. He has helped to popularize moombahton, the blend of house and reggaeton through high energy performances that has been part of keeping EDM a going concern in the live concert setting. For this tour Francis teams up with Flossatradamus, one of the pioneers of trap whose own career predates Francis’ by a few years. They 2010s massive heyday of EDM has died down some but Francis and Flosstradamus have been proving that the artform can still be valid and exciting in the large room format.

Saturday | 08.22
What: Only Echoes album release w/Creek, Seed of the Sorcerer, Womb of the Witch and Lovesick for Mina
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Only Echoes is a heavy post-rock/instrumental metal band from Denver. For this show the quartet is releasing its latest, third, album of contemplative, existential journeys Born Adrift on CD, blue marble vinyl, cassette, digital download and streaming. Live the frequencies will get into your body and carry you along on the epic adventure of the music.

Wednesday | 08.26
What: Her New Knife, Blackberry Crush and The Red Scare
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Her New Knife blurs any boundaries between noise rock, shoegaze and electronic music in a way that is resonant with fellow Philadelphia band They Are Gutting a Body of Water and UK duo Jockstrap. Its 2024 album chrome is lullaby is haunted and gritty and in moments is reminiscent of Dry Cleaning. Blackberry Crush is a one of the best Denver-based shoegaze outfits who learned soundscaping beyond some bands that appear to have evolved one or two steps from garage psyche. The Red Scare from Fort Collins are like-minded in the milieu of noisy, post-punk-infused shoegaze.

Friday | 08.28
What: Tune-Yards
When: 7
Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station Perplexiplex
Why: Tune-Yards is the Oakland-based duo that has exerted a not often obvious influence on the indue underground for production and songwriting technique by making the most of loops early on and evolved on later releases. Like a mix of R&B, live beat-making, psychedelic folk and non-Western pop. The project’s most recent EP Tell The Future With Your Body hits like an indie Grace Jones record in some ways with Merrill Garbus’s powerful vocals the usual soul standout.

Th-Su | 08.27-08.30
What: Ghost Canyon Fest
When: Varies
Where: HQ, Hi-Dive, The Bug Theater, The Skylark Lounge,
Why: Denver’s premiere experimental music fest returns with its fourth edition including some of the most riveting and innovative artists operating in the world today with four nights and three daytime showcases at multiple venues. See the schedule below. Our guide to the festival with brief descriptions of the artists coming soon.

Th 08.27 at HQ doors 7pm
Holy Sons
Kathryn Mohr
Ryan Wong & Sunswept
Wax Trax Music Panel: DIY In the Age of Slop: A Discussion Sponsored by Smashed Plastic

F 08.28 Free In Store at Wax Trax Broadway Bazaar 4pm
Six Organs of Admittance
Prairiewolf

F 08.28 Hi-Dive 7pm doors
Steve Von Till
Silkworm
The Gotobeds
Dust Congress
Supreme Joy

S 08.29 Bug Theate doors 12:30pm doors
claire rousay
Daniel Higgs
Shane Parish Plays Autechre Guitar
Nora Mal

S 08.29 Hi-Dive 6:30pm doors
Kowloon Walled City
Moor Mother
Water Damage
ABANDONS
Blacks’ Myths
Watch Yourself Die

Su 08.30 Wax Trax Broadway Bazaar free in-store, show 1:30pm
Arson Charge
Circling Over
Burn Barrel

Su 08.30 The Skylark Lounge 4pm
Midwife
Dead Rider
Great Falls
Violenteer
Infinite Ohm
Blööd Ôath

Queen City Sounds Podcast S6E9: Sam Zalkin

Sam Zalkin is a photographer and musician from Denver. If you’re not from Denver, you might not know who he is but if you’ve been paying attention to the underground scene in the Mile High City you may have run across his photographic work documenting bands playing places like Squirm Gallery, Seventh Circle Music Collective, D3, Hi-Dive, The Marquis Theater and elsewhere. He was born in Houston, Texas but moved to Denver around age five when his father moved to town for a job at Children’s Hospital. In seventh grade Zalkin was encouraged by his school counselor to apply to go to Denver School of the Arts where he would attend through high school graduation in 2026. He was a film student who got into photography when he got access to a camera in his early-to-mid-teens and early in his tenure at DSA he met a friend who introduced him to K Records and Kill Rock Stars bands which lead him to a different world of music than what his parents were into. Zalkin wrote a piece about David Lynch for school and his teacher Amy McGrath told him her daughter was friends with someone opening for Midwife at the Bluebird Theater in 2024 and that lead Zalkin to an internship and then employment at Wax Trax records and being around the likes of the members of Pink Lady Monster, Cherry Spit and going to Squirm gallery for the first time and encountering Ryan Wong and his musical projects. Rapidly Sam became a fixture in the local scene shooting shows and bringing a uniquely creative vision to the visual presentation of the bands in post-processing and honing his photography skills. His work has graced the artwork for east coast-based experimental rock band Neptune’s album Play Some Music (2026) and he has done short documentaries on Denver musician and long-time Wax Trax employee Doug Mioducki (title Common American Crow, Mioducki has been in bands Felt Pilotes, Koala, North Americans, Sparkles, CP-208, Quits etc) as well as Squirm Gallery (titled Something Real). Now Zalkin is off to attend school at Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore where he will likely further pursue his work in film and photography but he will always be a key contributor to documenting the Denver scene the past couple of years plus.

Listen to our interview with Sam Zalkin on Bandcamp and see his band Apple Blossom at D3 Arts at 3:45 on Saturday, July 25, 2026 as part of the Blucifer Fest Satellite event.