Hex Cassette at the Hi-Dive December 23, 2021, photo by Tom Murphy
Hex Cassette is an EBM/synth pop/confrontational industrial artist from Denver, Colorado. As the solo project of Zachary Jordan, Hex Cassette has been around since the mid-2010s and his gift for crafting fairly accessible, exuberant dance music with a darkwave flavor has garnered him a bit of a local following among people who not only appreciate his particular style of music but potentially of anyone that would like to see musicians engage with the crowd in a way that is aimed at blurring the line between performer and audience and sharing in a dissolving of a complacent dynamic in live music. His spirited shows involve wicked but benevolent humor including a comical needling of the audience and it wouldn’t be unusual to see Jordan not just roaming the stage but coming off stage with his animated style and bringing that energy into the crowd. His latest release is Pomegranate Death and while the themes of death and mortality and irreverence for stuffy, traditional religion and culture remains a feature from the music of Hex Cassette in general, the album is also one that injects into the mix expressions of hopefulness and seeking to live a vital existence. All set to some of the most vibrant electronic music you’re likely to hear all year.
Hex Cassette celebrates the release of the album on June 10, 2022 at Jester’s Palace with other local darkwave greats Church Fire and eHpH as well as experimental indie rock artist Pink Lady Monster. The show is also the tour kickoff for Hex Cassette who will be headed out on a mini-tour of the west where you will be able to purchase a, yes, cassette copy of Pomegranate Death. Listen to our interview with Jordan on Bandcamp linked below.
Elder Island is a trip-hop influenced trio from the home of that downtempo electronic music that emerged in the 90s in Bristol, UK where Katy Sargent, Luke Thornton and David Havard met at university. Starting life in the early 2010s as an experimental folk act its members had access to seeing the great electronic artists of their early days and inspired by the power of that music and its ability to stir emotions in ways different from the types of instruments you’d use to make even more avant-garde folk. But fusing the styles completely and arranging the music almost like a trip hop jazz lounge group, Elder Island’s debut album The Omnitone Collection was a set of lush, soulful, deeply atmospheric pop with surprisingly spare arrangements that left a great deal of room for experimenting with dynamics that invited the listener to project their imagination on to the open spaces of the music. At that point in the band’s history its three members were multi-instrumentalists who had learned to integrate its broad sonic palette with imaginative arrangements and creative production. The 2021 album Swimming Static was completed on either end of the 2020 (and ongoing) pandemic with work done in between since Elder Island all lived together or nearby. The record reflected the band’s expanding access to analog synthesizers and the ability to freely incorporate those elements into the songwriting resulting in pop songs that have resonance with early analog synth artists like Kraftwerk, Giorgio Moroder and OMD as well as synth pop groups of the 80s and modern practitioners of the art of dramatic tonal and dynamic arrangements like Nation of Language and Perfume Genius.
ADULT. at Larimer Lounge 10/13/18, photo by Tom Murphy
ADULT. is an electronic duo from Detroit that has been evolving its blend of dark techno, noise and post-punk since forming in 1998. Early releases displayed the project’s affinity for early techno and around the time of its 2007 fourth album Why Bother? you could hear the experiments in production and soundscapes with beats that yielded fascinating results on the 2005 album Gimme Trouble turn into almost set pieces in an album with an almost cinematic aesthetic, like dynamic visual design translated directly into sound design and songwriting. Since then ADULT.’s releases have been more overtly political and commenting on aspects of culture and society that have been corrosive to human culture and civilization in an accelerating way that has also more or less made cataclysmic climate disaster in our lifetimes a foregone conclusion. Since signing with Dais, the hip experimental music imprint, ADULT.’s output has seemed even more intentional and focused in its critique starting with 2018’s This Behavior, to the 2020 album Perception is/as/of Deception and now to the 2022 album Becoming Undone. Nicola Kuperus and and Adam Lee Miller both have a background in the visual arts and punk and both come through in striking visuals for the album covers and promotional material as well as the composition of the music and certainly in the band’s confrontational live performances. With the current underground popularity of what is called darkwave ADULT. seems to have enjoyed a bit of a renaissance after spending more than a decade pioneering some of the modern style of the more electronic wing of that loose movement while also showing what the music can do when there is a unity of aesthetic vision brought to bear with strong concepts and creative commentary on important issues of the day and personal impact of things like the commodification of all areas of life, misogyny, environmental destruction, societal complacency in the face of rising fascism in what were once some of the most democratic nations on Earth. Though the music is accessible it is also challenging and the opposite of dissociation in a time of global crises. In this interview we discuss the band’s early days and its development, its visual elements and the ways in which the new record has delved in novel sonic areas for the project in line with what the title would suggest as the world as we know it seems to be coming apart or certain in a state of perilous flux.
Reverb And The Verse has been going in Denver since 1999 when Shane Etter and Jahi Simbai (aka Providence) met through friends who figured they might gel as a duo. Between Etter’s technical wizardry with synthesizers and production and Simbai’s deft and thought-provoking wordplay Reverb And The Verse became a staple in the local underground music scene. But their wide-ranging musical interests and eclectic aesthetics always seemed to make them perhaps too experimental or not otherwise right for the hip-hope scene and too hip-hop for other scenes. And yet Etter and Simbai have produced an impressive body of work across ten albums including their 2022 and final album BLACKWALL. From jump it’s a decidedly different and engrossing album that hits like a secret and great industrial or darkwave record but with a hip-hop production aesthetic (of course much of industrial production was inspired by hip-hop sampling techniques and sequencing) and Simbai’s commanding vocals and incisive social analysis. One would hope that in an era when Vince Stapes, Earl Sweatshirt, Danny Brown, Tyler the Creator, Death Grips, Moodie Black, Dälek and clipping. thrive that Reverb And The Verse would have been embraced by a wider audience but time will tell. BLACKWALL is arguably the duo’s finest moment across a catalog of consistently impressive and imaginative work with something to say with poetic finesse. All of it can be found on the Reverb And The Verse Bandcamp page.
We had the opportunity to sit down with Etter and Simbai to discuss their backgrounds in music, engineering (not the musical kind) and the ideas and experiences that shaped their extraordinary music. Listen below on Bandcamp and look out for a vinyl release later in 2022 and, with any luck, live performances of these songs and news of what the artists will do next.
Ov Stars is a duo comprised of Alice Genese and Shaune Pony Heath. Genese some may know for her tenure as the bassist in Psychic TV from 2003-2020. She had also been involved in the underground music scene around Hoboken, NJ as a member of Gut Bank and Sexpod whose own output is perhaps long neglected but worth exploring on their own. Heath was born and raised in South Africa and moved to the USA at 23 to pursue a creative life not as readily available in his home country. Genese had already started releasing music as a solo artist with her 2014 debut album Sticks and Bones and through her brother she was introduced to Heath and the two gelled personally and creatively. Their debut EP as Ov Stars, Tuesdays, is a warm and energetic blend of cosmic country circa Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris, psychedelia and pop. Fans of Low and Marianne Faithful will find a good deal to appreciate in the finely crafted melodies and evocative atmospheres across the record’s five tracks. The duo is starting to perform live shows so check in with Ov Stars on Instagram @ovstarsband for live dates and notification of when the vinyl edition of the EP is released in later 2022. Tuesdays is, however, available now digitally on Bandcamp.
Psychic TV at Summit Music Hall 12/11/15, photo by Tom Murphy. Genesis Breyer P-Orridge on left, Alice Genese on right
Listen to our interview with Ov Stars on Bandcamp and if you happen to be in Brooklyn on or around June 30, 2022 you can see Ov Stars performing as part of the We Are But One – Breyer P-Orridge exhibit at Pioneer Works in Brooklyn.
Letting Up Despite Great Faults, photo courtesy the artists
Letting Up Despite Great Faults released its latest album titled IV on March 4, 2022 and marked its first full album in nearly eight years. But for a band that got off to what might be described as a slow start in 2004 in Los Angeles followed by the 2006 release of its first EP Movement (which was reissued on cassette in 2021) the group, lead by singer/guitarist/songwriter Mike Lee, fairly quickly progressed from an early synth pop/proto bedroom pop project to a more shoegaze band by the time of its self-titled 2009 debut and following its move to Austin, Texas at the beginning of 2012 the band has fused the more soundscapey side of its songwriting with the entrancing pop hooks that have always been its hallmark. The new record and its lead single “She Spins” hits your ears right away as one of the great works of guitar pop of the past two decades. Its unconventional melodic lines subvert expected musical tropes of the genre and the intricate guitar interplay recalls the best sides of the Paisley Underground and C86 but with lush production that makes it an easy record to get lost in with a single listen. We had a chance to speak with Lee about his early days as a musician, his development as an artist within the context of Letting Up Despite Great Faults (a name that’s a nod to the Blonde Redhead song “Loved Despite Great Faults”) and the aesthetics of IV from the songwriting to the cover art which Lee, as a graphic artist himself, helped to create.
Listen to our interview with Mike Lee on Bandcamp linked below and catch Letting Up Despite Great Faults performing with Blushing, Old Soul Dies Young and Moodlighting at Lost Lake on Wednesday, April 20, 2022, doors 7, show 8, $12.
Mondo Cozmo aka Joshua Ostrander once fronted the alternative/indie rock bands Laguardia and Eastern Conference Champions before recording under his own name in 2016. The project’s records beginning with 2017’s Plastic Soul through New Medicine from 2020 have had a lively and eclectic quality that synthesizes Ostrander’s folk influences with those more experimental and electronic for a sound that feels both familiar and fresh. His 2022 album This Is For The Barbarians propels Ostrander’s creative instincts in interesting new directions for an album that is often evocatively intimate, delicately thoughtful, brash and rebellious and contemplative all at once. It is a deep record with thought-provoking and insightful commentary on the state of the country and the world as well as the impact of navigating a time of great conflict and disorder bordering on chaos. One hears in the music the influence of Bob Dylan, Radiohead and Bruce Springsteen. Ostrander consulted with the latter on some of the songwriting for the new record and in our interview with the open and engaging musician Ostrander talks about what he and the boss discussed.
Listen to the podcast interview on Bandcamp linked below, catch Mondo Cozmo on tour now with The Airborne Toxic Event. Follow Ostrander on his website www.mondocozmo.com.
The Brian Jonestown Massacre has followed the colorful and heartfelt creative vision of Anton Newcombe since its 1990 inception in San Francisco. Its aesthetic informed by 60s psychedelic rock and experimental electronic music has evolved greatly in always fascinating directions through challenging personal times and tense periods within the band while garnering a strong cult following on the strength of its prolific output. Before psychedelic rock became a trendy style of music again in the past decade and a half, the Jonestown Massacre was influencing that directly or indirectly through bands it inspired or through Newcombe’s idiosyncratic mentoring. Too many people took the 2004 documentary Dig! at face value when it was a snapshot of a time in American underground music when alternative music was becoming relegated to the underground again while the possibilities of overcoming the forces of the music-industry-with-music-as-commodity seemed possible. Fast forward twenty years and Newcombe’s idealism and wide-ranging curiosity and creative vision seems vindicated by bands not only able to more directly reach an audience but one more organic and global. One June 24, 2022 the group will release its new album Fire Doesn’t Grow On Trees, the product of much experimentation in terms of songwriting, production and testing reactions to the music through YouTube and other social media outlets and one of Newcombe’s strongest set of songs in recent years. We had a chance to speak with the songwriter about 2022 tourmates Mercury Rev, the band’s artwork for the tour posters unique to every date, his following the instinct to create regularly as a way of self-inspiration and staying in the habit of creating at as high a level as possible and the flow of the wordplay of his poetic and playful song titles among many other subjects.
Brian Jonestown Massacre performs at Ogden Theater on 04.12.22 with Mercury Rev. Listen to our interview with Newcombe on Bandcamp linked below. Full tour itinerary (including past dates) beneath the interview link and for more information please visit thebrianjonestownmassacre.com.
27th March 2022 Philadelphia, PA USA Union Transfer 28th March 2022 Brooklyn, NY USA Brooklyn Steel 29th March 2022 Jersey City, NJ USA White Eagle Hall March 30th 2022 Baltimore, MD USA Rams Head Live March 31st 2022 Providence, RI USA Columbus Theatre April 1st 2022 Boston, MA USA Roadrunner April 2nd 2022 Montreal, QC Canada Le National April 4th 2022 Toronto, ON Canada Queen Elizabeth Theatre April 5th 2022 Detroit, MI USA Majestic Theatre April 6th 2022 Indianapolis, IN USA The Vogue April 7th 2022 Cleveland OH USA Agora Theatre April 8th 2022 Chicago, IL USA The Vic Theatre April 9th 2022 Milwaukee, WI USA Turner Hall Ballroom April 10th 2022 Minneapolis, MN USA First Avenue April 12th 2022 Denver, CO USA Ogden Theatre April 13th 2022 Salt Lake City, UT USA Metro Music Hall April 15th 2022 Vancouver, BC Canada Vogue Theatre April 16th 2022 Tacoma, WA USA McMenamins Elks Temple Hotel – The Spanish Ballroom April 17th 2022 Seattle, WA USA Showbox April 18th 2022 Portland, OR USA Roseland Theatre April 20th 2022 San Francisco, CA USA The Fillmore April 21st 2022 San Francisco, CA USA The Fillmore April 22nd 2022 Los Angeles, CA USA The Wiltern April 23rd 2022 San Diego, CA USA The Observatory North Park April 24th 2022 Santa Ana, CA USA The Observatory OC April 25th 2022 Tucson, AZ USA The Rialto Theatre April 27th 2022 San Antonio TX USA Paper Tiger April 28th 2022 Austin, TX USA Stubb’s Waller Creek Amphitheater April 29th 2022 Dallas, TX USA Granada Theater April 30th 2022 Houston, TX USA The Heights Theater May 2nd 2022 Lawrence, KS USA The Bottleneck May 3rd 2022 Saint Louis, MO USA Delmar Hall May 5th 2022 Nashville, TN USA Brooklyn Bowl May 6th 2022 Birmingham, AL USA Saturn May 7th 2022 Atlanta, GA USA Terminal West May 9th 2022 Asheville, NC USA The Orange Peel May 10th 2022 Carrboro, NC USA Cat’s Cradle May 11th 2022 Washington, DC USA Black Cat
SUMAC formed in 2014 when Kurt Ballou of Converge connected guitarist Aaron Turner (Isis, Old Man Gloom, Mammifer, House of Low Culture) who had written the initial elements of songs with Baptists drummer Nick Yacyshyn to help realize Turner’s vision of crafting the heaviest music of his career then thus far. Brian Cook of Russian Circles and formerly of These Arms Are Snakes and Botch rounded out the classic and current line-up in time for the group’s debut album. The resulting four albums since (The Deal from 2015, What One Becomes in 2016, Love in Shadow out 2018 and May You Be Held released in 2020) are indeed some of the heaviest records of recent years. But as with Turner’s other projects it’s never just heavy for the sake of that quality, it’s intricate and imaginative, emotionally charged soundscapes in which the contributions of all the players seems to be highlighted. Certainly with the most recent album it’s not relentlessly crushing dynamics but a flood of textures seemingly elevated in a suspended and sustained whirlpool of sound that rushes through you and then out like experiencing a state of being. Calling it post-metal or sludge metal is one way of giving people an idea of what they’re in for but the music itself has more in common with artists like Neurosis and SunnO))) than with some other bands lumped under those genre designations. Perhaps it is conceived of as a mind-altering experience to perform and thus witness when you’re in the room with it live. The fact that SUMAC has collaborative albums with noise legend Keiji Haino who is highly selective with whom he does work speaks much to how SUMAC isn’t merely a metal or heavy band.
Turner has long been a champion of forward thinking underground music since the 90s with his label Hydra Head Records which issued releases from the likes of Boris, Big Business, Cave In, Daughters, Dälek, Jesu, Kayo Dot, Oxbow, Khanate, Harvey Milk, Xasthur and The VSS. Its roster is a kind of who’s who of heavier experimental music of its heyday. Through the label and touring Turner has had a vehicle for exploring his creative interests in music and visual art which brings an added dimension to SUMAC’s releases as well and the ethos with which the band operates. On its current tour the group will be joined by purveyors of death doom Blood Spore and Los Angeles-based avant-garde saxophonist Patrick Shiroishi.
We recently had a chance to talk with Turner about his roots in music, his early and ongoing experiences with DIY music and culture, working with Keiji Haino and the aims of his record labels Hydra Head and SIGE among other subjects that hopefully hold surprises for the patient listener. Find links to SUMAC, Hydra Head, SIEGE, Thrill Jockey and information for the Denver show (including buying tickets) this Sunday, March 13, 2022 below the Bandcamp link to listen to the interview.
Dale Bozzio is one of the New Wave style icons of the 1980s as the lead singer of Missing Persons. Her unique singing style and compelling stage presence coupled with her daring fashion sense for an aesthetic that was a bit futuristic the way David Bowie was in the mid-70s made Bozzio a fascinating figure in popular music. Hits like “Destination Unknown,” “Words,” “Mental Hopscotch,” “Walking in L.A.” and “Windows” took the fairly experimental art rock band into the mainstream. Its members had all been a part of Frank Zappa’s band in the late 70s and brought those technical chops and conceptual creativity to the more pop-oriented Missing Persons and having hits has cemented the band as a fixture of 80s pop, as their body of work deserves, but its craft and experimentation can often be missed in the larger cultural context. Nonetheless, Spring Session M, the group’s 1982 full-length debut, has aged well from its original era but the 1984 follow-up Rhyme & Reason, dismissed as an “art” album at the time of its release, is now starting to get some appreciation for its more forward-thinking material. But by 1986 due to interpersonal dynamics the band split with some brief reunions in 2001 and 2009 before Dale Bozzio relaunched the project as an ongoing concern in 2011 with strong live shows.
In December 2021 Dale Bozzio released her rather candid and poignant memoir Life Is So Strange: Missing Persons, Frank Zappa, Prince & Beyond. In the book Bozzio reveals to us aspects of her early life and the unorthodox ways in which she met Zappa climbing through a bathroom window at a music venue he was playing in Massachusetts as well as the ups and downs of life and her career and the extraordinary people with whom Bozzio worked and some of whom in with which she had a love affair including Prince. It’s a quick read and informed by Bozzio’s humor, warmth, personal insight with the unmistakable sensibility of someone who was and is creatively ambitious and wanted to do something with that spark that she cultivated from a young age. You can order the book directly from Bozzio on her Facebook page (linked below) which comes with a pink seven inch vinyl of “Destination Unknown” b/w “Mental Hopscotch” as remixed by Kevin Haskins of Bauhaus/Love and Rockets fame.
We had chance to speak with Bozzio by phone about some of the stories she details in the book and aspects of her life that perhaps aren’t included so hopefully you enjoy listening to the conversation and get a sample of what a sharp and, well, cool and thoughtful a person Bozzio really is. Listen to the interview on Bandcamp below. Also, catch Missing Persons on tour with that Lost 80s Live! tour running through summer 2022.
Queen City Sounds and Art 
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