On its new single “Breathe,” Helsinki’s Skinjobs injects some more grit into its bright, atmospheric melodies. Fitting for a song that explores the nature of a relationship with complicated dynamics that go beyond the boundaries of the traditional relationship and traditional conceptualizations of what relationships should be. Katja Laaksonen’s vocals are commanding and controlled, directed and pointed in deflating the hypocrisy of conventional sexual mores through highlighting how people often really live while articulating the rawness and undeniability of attraction. It’s a subject often written about in rock music but rarely so candidly and unapologetically. The fiery music bursting about the words and raw noise searing the edges of the song are the perfect manifestation of the lyrics. Listen to “Breathe” on Soundcloud, watch the lyric video on YouTube and follow Skinjobs at the links provided.
The dusky, downtempo synth melody on “5 AM” that is the backdrop to KYENORD’s Linn Östlund’s resigned vocals evokes that feeling when you’ve been up all night thinking too much about a tough decision long considered to end a relationship. The sense impressions are vivid with words about how the lover in question is always cold because their circulation is worse than that of the narrator and that they’re “holding me but it never helps.” The sample of raindrops and the way the tones steam into the fog of night before the dawn can interrupt the introspective and mournful but weary mood that has paradoxically allowed a moment of emotional clarity to become undeniable. The experience depicted seems so specific in the details but perhaps relatable to anyone who has been in a long term relationship that seems to no longer make sense and all of the things that should have been warning signs that it wouldn’t work out drift into your psyche one night making your soul restless deep into the night. “5 AM” is the first track from the new KYENORD EP Mellow Drama and you can listen to the song on Soundcloud and the rest of the EP on Spotify.
A cosmic wind as white noise pitched to have an abstractly tonal quality ushers in the intertwining lines of distorted, textural synth and phasing melody of “Quasar” by Mingo. The oscillating undertones suggest a trip through the depths of space with bright objects giving off even repeating signals that intersect with other signals like an intergalactic symphony. Utilizing a similar structure and dynamic as mid-70s Tangerine Dream, Mingo uses loops and sequencing and adding effects in real time to take the raw material of electronic sounds and using the processing end as a compositional tool. Did he take a mathematical model of an actual quasar and use it to craft an element of the music like the rhythmic, gritty synth part? Maybe not, but it sounds as though Mingo modeled various phenomena in space and orchestrated their character together for this transporting and playful track. Listen to “Quasar” on Soundcloud and follow Mingo, a contributor to NPR music programs Hearts of Space and Star’s End, at the links below.
Will Samson’s album Paralanguage, due out December 6 through Wichita/PIAS, was inspired by his first and only experiment with microdosing psilocybin in the wake of his father’s death in 2012. The songwriter fell into a long spell of despair and psychic unmoorment and having learned about the controversial use of psilocybin as a treatment for persistent psychological trauma he underwent a program of taking in the substance under controlled conditions. The lead single from the album “Ochre Alps” features nearly falsetto vocals and strings that are at once doleful and soothing as if releasing pain through the musical equivalent of sublimation. It sounds like motes of early morning sunlight and waking feeling lighter than you did the night before. Musically it sits at the intersections of folk, modern classical and indie pop. The accompanying music video features two blindfolded figures that are figuring out how to interact with their environment with a new set of parameters with which to do so. It is symbolic, perhaps, of Samson’s own experience with his wife in learning to reconnect with the world on different terms with some of the anguish of his loss evaporated in the light of a new kind of mental clarity. Listen to “Ochre Alps” on Soundcloud, watch the poetic video on YouTube and follow Will Samson at the links provided.
The pacing of State Park Ranger’s “The Will (featuring Cowbaby)” feels like an evolving sketch with details added as the picture and melody develop organically. It sounds almost as though we’re hearing the song being written as it goes, guided by an intuitive process and deep listening between the artists. It’s an impressionistic compositional style that subverts most current trends of songwriting in the realm of folk or indie alternative. There is no verse chorus interchange, rather the song’s progress travels in one direction exploring the Nietzschean concept of “the will” in the words but fleshing it out musically in an abstract form of indie pop like an even more subdued and introspective Neutral Milk Hotel. We hear familiar sounds but employed and set out in a way that dares not to follow the same musical paths we’ve been conditioned to hearing when that palette of sounds is utilized. That alone makes this song a fascinating listen as it does end and concludes but doesn’t resolve in a conventional sense making it similar in a way to some of Nietzsche’s enigmatic epigrams. Listen to the song on Spotify and follow State Park Rangers at the links provided.
Peter Arvidson’s “Stand Your Ground” sounds like a mixture of 80s popular music weaving together jangle/college rock, synth pop and anthemic New Wave. Some unusual mix of The Smithereens, Let’s Active and A Flock of Seagulls. Its electronics bring together chiptune elements with more vintage synths melodies to give it a retro-modern vibe so that it would be difficult to identify its musical era except for the fact that pretty much no one was mixing all those styles in songwriting until recent years. And yet, the song doesn’t feel kitschy, its message about self-empowerment and staying focused on our goals in the face of challenges sincere. One imagines this song in a current independent cinema comedy story about heroic nerds in an unironic fashion the way the music of Survivor was employed in a 1980s Sylvester Stallone vehicle. Listen to “Stand Your Ground” on Spotify and follow Peter Arvidson at the links below.
“Body Origami” by the duo paintbrush sounds like the theme music for a spa in some alternate universe where one’s health is treated holistically with an integrated physical and emotional approach. Perfect for a song from an EP called Wellness Package. When you walk in, soft lighting and calming, hazy melodies and lush beats float through the air conveying a sense of non-invasive intimacy. The main music-making instrument for the song is the Synplant which is a soft synth that is designed to allow your musical ideas evolve in natural directions suggested by your composition. The song is a frank but tender and delicate love song that uses the metaphor of origami for the art of consensual love in the physical and emotional sense. In an era where comedian Robert Klein joked there is no double entendre, just entendre, there is a classiness in paintbrush’s charming take on the subject matter. You can to “Body Origami” on Soundcloud and follow paintbrush at any of the links below where you will find a route to check out more of Wellness Package.
Aino & Miihkali borrowed the lyrics to its latest single “Tähtitarha” from the Finnish poet Eino Leino who lived from 1878 and 1926 and who is considered one of the modern pioneers of that nation’s poetry. Leino’s style reflected the influence of folk music and of the Kalevala, the national epic of Finland and Karelia compiled in the Nineteenth Century. Which is significant for Aino & Miikhali as the two have roots in North Karelia, a region of northern Europe that encompasses parts of Finland, Russia and Sweden. The title of the song and poem means translates roughly to “star garden” and the songwriting began when Aino started with a piece written on a West African stringed instrument called the kamalén n’goni while she was living in Ghana. The song was fleshed out with kantele, a Finnish instrument in the zither family, loop, vocal harmonies and Miihkali’s elegant guitar finger picking.
Aino Ruotanen has already established herself as a lead practitioner of progressive folk with the group Unirukki and Miihkali honed his performance and compositional skills at Berklee College of Music but there is a freshness and spontaneity to this song that is immediately striking. The intricacy of the interplay of stringed instruments and vocals has a jaunty playfulness that catches the ear with an organic blend of jazz, northern European folk and African rhythms. Its rich tapestry of melodies and textures transcends a simple and specific folk context as its structure utilizing compound time is hypnotic and invites your mind into the realm of the unconscious where various traditions of folk music and folklore intermingle and resonate with an expanded sense of human connection. The song is in Finnish but its cross-cultural appeal and message is strongly conveyed in its composition. Listen to “Tähtitarha” on Spotify and follow the project on its website (linked below) where you can also further explore the debut, self-titled full length album.
Georgia Weber and The Sleeved Hearts, photo courtesy the artists
The translucent imagery of Georgia Weber and The Sleeved Hearts in Sonny Ratcliff’s video for the band’s new single “Parachute” is the perfect visual analogue to the song and its themes. Going from ethereal introspection to strong rhythms and a more determined pace “Parachute” is a song about learning to build your own means of keeping from going into your own life’s freefall. It’s about being transparent with yourself and honest, observing the layers of distance you make for yourself and your own truth and then being willing to reach within for the capacity to not just float with the currents but to weather them and steer your own path. Weber talks about visualizing this path and making a conscious choice to make the life you want rather than the one that most readily and easily presents itself. The intricate melodies and classical sensibility accomplished with bandmates Kenji Herbert on guitar and Nathan Ellman Bell on drums finds Weber striking a tricky balance of delicate yet directed and compassionate rather than self-coddling. Watch the video on YouTube and follow Georgia Weber and The Sleeved Hearts at the links provided. Also look out for the group’s debut full length Keeping It Real due out October 4, 2019.
Pink Turns Blue circa 2016, photo by Daniela Vorndran
What:Pink Turns Blue w/Radio Scarlet and DJ Katastrophy When: Thursday, 09.26, 8 p.m. Where: Herman’s Hideaway Why: Pink Turns Blue formed in Berlin in 1985. Its dark, moody atmospherics and driving bass lines meant its sound very much resonated with the post-punk of the day as it included synths in the mix and guitar chords that rang out and gave the songwriting an introspective quality. Fans of Chameleons and The Sound will probably much to like about Pink Turns Blue’s melancholic urgency and Mic Jogwer’s desperate yet resigned vocals. The group toured with Laibach in 1987 band recorded subsequent albums in Ljubljana, Slovenia smuggling in studio equipment from the West to do so. When the group moved to London in 1991 it lost some of its momentum and split in 1995. But since 2003 Pink Turns Blue has been active once again ahead of the revival and rebirth of darkwave that has been going on for the past decade. Also on the bill is Radio Scarlet, a Denver-based death rock band.
What:Animal / object, Arc Sol and Joohsup When: Thursday, 09.26, 9 p.m. Where: Rhinoceropolis Why: Animal / object is Denver’s premier avant-garde improvisational band utilizing unconventional instrumentation. Arc Sol is proof you can be influenced by progressive rock, psychdelia and Silver Jews and refreshingly sound like none of that while bearing their mark. Joohsup is a left field hip-hop noise duo.
Friday | September 27
Bellhoss, photo by Tom Murphy
What:Cellista’s Transfigurations w/Sean Renner When: Friday, 09.27, 8 p.m. Where: Mercury Café Why: Mulimedia artist Cellista recently released an album called Transfigurations with a companion book, A Listener’s Guide to Cellista’s Transfigurations, that gives the ambitious work some context. The album explores those moments in life and in one’s personal and maybe creative development when you are struck and forced to consider the moment and evolve taking in that transformational input. With the processed samples of authoritarian voices speaking to that effect is both chilling and a reminder of those times when we could have stepped in to take a different path but haven’t yet. The album seems arranged as piece of politically-charged, avant-garde literature with an elegantly composed soundtrack that deconstructs and re-synthesizes classical music, pop, hip-hop and sound design. For the live performances of Transfigurations Cellista will incorporate dance, film, music and literature for an experience like little else going on this week or any other in Denver.
What:Babymetal w/Avatar When: Friday, 09.27, 7 p.m. Where: Ogden Theatre Why: Babymetal is a Japanese “kawaii metal” band whose relentless death metal is overlaid with J-pop-esque vocals and melodies. And the stage shows just like something out of a big time production of a Japanese pop band on one of the massive Saturday marathon variety shows, choreographed dance moves and matching outfits. Gimmicky, to be sure, but weird enough to be enjoyable.
What:Dodie w/Adam Melchor When: Friday, 09.27, 7 p.m. Where: Gothic Theatre Why: Dodie Clark is an English singer-songwriter whose spare melodies and breathy vocals give the space for her sharply observant and poetic lyrics to develop and create vivid images in your mind of a situation and feeling, a real slice of the experience of that moment. Her 2019 album Human expands the sonic palette some while also imbuing Clark’s voice with more clarity and impact.
What:Adrian Belew w/Saul Zonana When: Friday, 09.27, 7 p.m. Where: Boulder Theater Why: Adrian Belew is the brilliant and inventive guitarist whose solo albums are worth exploring for this imaginative songwriting. But some may remember him for his time playing in King Crimson, as a live member of Talking Heads, in Tin Machine with David Bowie or even on William Shatner’s 2004 album Has Been.
What:Bellhoss tour kickoff w/Short Shorts, Mainland Break and Claire Heywood When: Friday, 09.27, 8 p.m. Where: Lost Lake Why: Bellhoss is taking off for a tour of the American West and launching that with this show including some of Denver’s most interesting indie rock bands in Short Shorts and Mainland Break. Bellhoss’ Becky Hostetler nails the anxiety and hope of modern life on her tender and earnest pop songs.
Saturday | September 28
Dodie, photo by Kyle Jones
What:John Densmore When: Saturday, 09.28, 2 p.m. Where: Boulder Book Store Why: Doors drummer John Densmore will be signing copies of his 2010 book Doors Unhinged.
Mike Watt and The Missing Men circa 2011, photo by Tom Murphy
What:Mike Watt & The Missingmen w/Slim Cessna When: Saturday, 09.28, 9 p.m. Where: Lion’s Lair Why: Mike Watt is indeed the bassist singer who was a part of Minutemen and fIREHOSE and who has been playing bass in the Stooges of late. This trio includes Tom Watson who was a member of jangle-y post-punk band Slovenly and Raul Morales who also plays with Watt in Mike Watt and the Secondmen. This project combines Watson’s textured, melodic guitar style with Watt’s angular, jazz-inflected, wiry and urgent rhythms. Watt being one of the most animated and talented bass players in all of punk and rock and a sharp social critic is always worth checking out. He’s still jamming econo and the band’s tours and booking are still well within the realm of DIY in the old school and modern sense.
What:Sway Wild w/Megan Rose Ellsworth When: Saturday, 09.28, 7 p.m. Where: The Walnut Room Why: What saves Sway Wild from being the kind of “Indie” radio darling band that is the stuff of too many would-be tastemaker playlists crafted by those with fairly conventional and safe taste in music is not just Mandy Fer’s warm vocals and her and Dave McGraw’s dynamic songwriting. It’s that making up its charming melodies and playful performances is imaginative and creative instrumentation that displays their technical prowess as players channeled into zesty, tightly crafted pop songs. Currently the trio, which includes Thom Lord, is on tour in support of its self-titled, full-length debut.
Sunday | September 29
Rowboat, photo by Tom Murphy
What: Shibui Denver #6: Total Trash and Rowboat When: Sunday, 09.29, 7 p.m. Where: Mutiny Information Café Why: This latest edition of Shibui Denver showcases Total Trash and Rowboat. The former is a psychedelic noise pop group whose members have played with the likes of Fingers of the Sun, Fissure Mystic, Quantum Creep, Lil Slugger, The Pseudo Dates and other bands that mean little if you’ve not been paying attention to the Denver underground of the past ten years. But it also means some of the more creative musical talents in the realm of local rock music have come together to make something different from what they’ve done before. Rowboat combines literary yet deeply emotional and heartfelt lyrics with haunting atmospheres and melodies in songs that plumb the depths of human existence and the things that give meaning to our lives.
What:Periphery w/Veil of Maya and Covet When: Tuesday, 10.01, 6 p.m. Where: Summit Music Hall Why: Progressive metal band Periphery sounds more like a post-hardcore band than simply metal. And probably because the attack of its songs is fairly angular and driving in a way that sounds more like it comes out of a similar place of primal energy. Although there’s plenty of precision and technical prowess on display in its songs with many songs in drop C on the six-string, the group’s songs often sound like they’re about to fly off the rails. Sometimes bands with those types of sounds and dynamics take themselves way too seriously but Periphery’s 2019 album is called Periphery IV: Hail Stan. There is a song called “Chvrch Bvrner” and references to the supernatural and animals. So someone in the band, probably everyone involved, has a healthy sense of humor and an ability to see its music in a way that evolves organically than the sort of pure logic level that is often assumed with the genre.
What:Plague Vendor w/No Parents and The Ghoulies When: Tuesday, 10.01, 8 p.m. Where: Summit Music Hall Why: Plague Vendor came off as a fairly straightforward melodic punk band early on. But at this point, and particularly on its new album By Night, the band from Whittier, California has evolved its sound into something more akin to glammy post-punk without sacrificing its fiery energy.
What:An Evening With Paula Cole When: Tuesday, 10.01, 7 p.m. Where: Buffalo Rose Why: Paula Cole made her popular music bonafides as an act on Peter Gabriel’s Secret World Live tour from 1993-1994. Her musical background includes having studied jazz singing at Berklee College of Music and in her dusky, soulful vocals you hear that training put to good use. In 1996 her second album This Fire yielded the hit single “Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?” and like anything popular it got played ad infinitum making it easy to dismiss Cole like any other pop act put forth by the music industry as it tried to find hitmakers in the collapse of the alternative music explosion of the early 90s. But Cole, turns out, has always been a strikingly powerful performer and her performances for the final Lilith Fair tour in 1998 undoubtedly won her fans who had written her off previously. Currently Cole is performing a string of intimate shows in support of her 2019 record Revolution.
What:Ghosts of Glaciers album release w/In the Company of Serpents and Echo Beds When: Tuesday, 10.01, 8 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: Denver-based progressive metal/post-rock trio Ghosts of Glaciers returns with its new album The Greatest Burden released through Translation Loss Records. More than even previous releases, the group conceives of this arc of songs in cosmological time from the primordial oceans that spawned life (the opening track titled “Primordial Waters” through the inevitability of the decay and collapse of the eons long cycle of life and the fall into the chaos that will once again spawn new worlds and universes. The music charts that path with slow, dynamic arcs that dive into furious, churning progressions and sublime, swimming melodies. To celebrate the release of this new record the band will share the stage with local doom juggernauts In the Company of Serpents who have some of the most compelling and powerful art in the local scene and industrial post-punk legends Echo Beds.
What:The Waterboys When: Tuesday, 10.01, 7 p.m. Where: Gothic Theatre Why: The Waterboys came out of Edinburgh, Scotland with a blend of Celtic folk and post-punk and made inroads into the world of 80s “college rock.” While not as dark and overtly political as an arguably like-minded band like New Model Army, The Waterboys extolled the virtues of a universal mysticism based in nature and how that connects everyone. Fans of The Hothouse Flowers and The Alarm will definitely find much to like about The Waterboys who are now touring in support of their 2019 album Where the Action Is.
What:Prissy Whip, Moon Pussy, New Standards Men When: Tuesday, 10.01, 8 p.m. Where: Rhinoceropolis Why: Prissy Whip is an eruptive industrial noise rock band with the emphasis on noise and breakneck dynamics. Who to compare them to other than maybe Melt Banana? New Standards Men is the kind of weirdo experimental metal band you get when the people in the band are into way more music than what you might think listening to what they’re doing. Probably into Naked City as much as the Locust and Neurosis. Moon Pussy combines gnarly song dynamics with a thorny tunefulness that is impossible to ignore making it one of the most interesting bands out of Denver right now.
What:Weird Wednesday: After the Carnival, Cop Circles, Enji w/Cabal Art When: Wednesday, 10.02, 9 p.m. Where: Lost Lake Why: No Wave disco artist Cop Circles will bring plenty of the weird this time around for this edition of the monthly showcase of unusual and outside music curated by Claudia Woodman.
What:Wheelchair Sports Camp w/Dry Ice and Rocket Dust When: Wednesday, 10.02, 7 p.m. Where: Lost Lake Why: Wheelchair Sports Camp is a brilliant combination of jazz chops in the live end of the music and experimental beatmaking and playful, conscious wordplay on the production and MC end. And a powerful and compelling live band to boot. This is the group’s launch show for its upcoming tour.
Loving, photo by Harold Hejazi
What:Loving When: Wednesday, 10.02, 7 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: Victoria, British Columbia’s Loving turns the sort of introspective, light psychedelic pop sound on a different angle because its music really does sound like the band is going to take you on a trip to some otherworld realm of elegance where time and space are interactive concepts driven by your imagination so better brush up on your creative skills before sitting down to one of the band’s trippy folk records.
Queen City Sounds and Art 
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