Queen City Sounds and Art

Who: Holy Fuck w/Emerald Siam 
When: Thursday, 9.28, 7 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Toronto’s Holy Fuck uses a combination of conventional and non-musical devices to make music that sounds like a high energy electronic band without using software, loops or samplers. If that’s the band’s aim it’s live show is a ferocious and relentless in its flood of sounds and musical ideas in a very visceral way. In July, the group released a new EP, Bird Brains, recorded live in a studio further establishing the fact that most bands would require a bevy of synths, drum machines and software to achieve similar results. Opening is Denver’s Emerald Siam. Yeah, Denver veterans and legends in the band who made great, atmospheric music in bands like Twice Wilted, The Bedsit Infamy and Light Travels Faster. But Emerald Siam stands on its own and over the past year and a half the group has delved further into dark, moody melodies and creative guitar tone separation that really opens the music in a way many other guitar rock bands seem to ignore these days. The result is a depth of sound that is enveloping and hypnotic like driving on a fog enshrouded road at night.

Who: Kim Boekbinder, Mirror Fears and EVP 
When: Thursday, 9.28, 8 p.m.
Where: Lion’s Lair
Why: Kim Boekbinder is New York by way of Montreal artist/musician whose work challenges preconceived notions in society and of what art can be, should be and what it can impact and who can be involved in its creation. Her 2013 album The Sky is Calling includes a collaboration with astronomer Phil Plait. So you know the live show is going to be far beyond any standard faire. In 2017 she released NOISEWITCH, an album for which every song is said, according to her website, to be “a spell cast on the audience.” Don’t worry, it’s going to be benevolent stuff. Seeing her would be enough to go to this show but if you go you can catch the industrial/punk/Goth stylings of EVP whose songs have incisive and thought-provoking statements on sexism, the nature of human relationships and our inborn ability to derail our own lives. But wait, there’s more: Mirror Fears. Kate Warner started the latter while still performing in an excellent, shoegazey indie rock band called Talk All Night. But as that band started to go inactive and crumble, Warner had more time to devote to her solo project and in time her inventive and riveting beats and fragile yet powerful vocals have come together for a sound that has roots in the underground and alternative rock that was the foundation of Talk All Night as well as the noise, industrial and experimental music world that has embraced Mirror Fears as one of its own. While still relatively unknown in Denver, Mirror Fears has been creating some of the most interesting music coming out of Denver at the moment because Warner has established her own sound that would appeal to fans of industrial music, electronic dance music and noiseniks alike.

Who: Tristen w/Jenny O and In/Planes 
When: Friday, 9.29, 8 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Tristen could be yet another indie singer-songwriter the likes of which we’ve seen come and go for the last decade and a half or so. But there’s an underlying sense of something different in her songwriting. Maybe it’s because she’s someone who had to figure out unconventional ways to record and share her music in the early days of her career. Could be because she’s a keen observer of human behavior and has turned that quality into music making her own life experiences fodder for songwriting as well. Her 2017 album is called Sneaker Waves suggesting Tristen has an offbeat sense of humor as well—never a bad thing. Also on the tour is Jenny O whose background in jazz actually didn’t ruin her creativity. Instead, the chops she learned going that route in college gave her the tools to compose songs with a subtle yet expansive dynamism. Her new album, 2017’s Peace & Information is like a finely textured, downtempo pop record on which Jenny O takes some chances and goes beyond what you might have come to expect from her already respectable back catalog. “Intuition” in particular bears comparison to the likes of Aldous Harding and Kate Bush with its dense yet expansive synth work and wise and insightful words.

Who: Moodie Black, Night of the Living Shred, ROÄC and It’s Just Bugs
When: Friday, 9.29, 8 p.m.
Where: Bar Bar/Carioca Café
Why: Moodie Black is a Los Angeles-based hip-hop group. If you’ve seen the band there’s plenty of live instrumentation but rather than some outright jazz or R&B direction, Moodie Black is more what might be called an “industrial rap” band. It has the confrontational quality you’d expect out of any kind of punk or gangster rap group but with the noisy soundscaping you might even expect from a like-minded shoegaze or post-punk band like A Place to Bury Strangers or Pop. 1280. It’s Just Bugs is like-minded but with soul-oriented beatmaking more like something you’d expect to hear from an Anticon or Rhymesayers artist. Just mix in some harsh noise in the beats here and there. The rest of the show is metal or grindcore done by people who have a deep appreciation for hip-hop and vice versa.

Who: Junius, Black Mare, Mustard Gas & Roses and Ghosts of Glaciers 
When: Friday, 9.29, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Junius from Boston has been developing its cinematic sound, some might say post-metal, since 2003. Post-metal probably gives the impression the band sounds a bit like Isis, Pelican and Jesu. And it does. But there is more overt melody and conventional song structure in the music of Junius. Is 2017 album Eternal Rituals For The Accretion Of Light sounds both tribal and futuristic, like something that would suit a soundtrack for a sequel to John Christopher’s The Tripods series. Ghosts of Glaciers from Denver is an instrumental post-metal band whose focus on songwriting over soundscaping is a great fit for the bill. While not as active for a few years, the band is back to playing regular shows and showing how you can have epic instrumental metal without being doom. Black Mare is the solo project of Sera Timms of Ides of Gemini and Black Math Horseman. On Death Magick Mother, her second record as Black Mare, Timms comments on the misogyny and political turmoil of the current era with a sprawling, majestic, darkly moody guitar work and fluid rhythms that is as brutal as it is entrancing.

Who: Severed Heads, Pankow, Echo Beds and Blackcell
When: Friday, 9.29, 8:30 p.m.
Where: The Black Box
Why: Severed Heads is an industrial and electronic dance band from Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1979 as Mr. and Mrs. No Smoking Sign by Richard Fielding and Andrew Wright, the project brought on now sole remaining early member of the band Tom Ellard that same year. Initially using tape loops, synths and other sorts of non-standard noisemakers, Severed Heads must have been a bit of a head scratcher for many when it adopted that name before the turn of the decade. However, around the world, Severed Heads was making the kind of experimental, even avant-garde, music that resonated with music that was already being created by the likes of Nurse With Wound, Smegma, Cabaret Voltaire, Throbbing Gristle and, soon enough, Einsturzende Neubauten, Coil, Test Dept. and Skinny Puppy. By the mid-1980s, Severed Heads had evolved its sound becoming almost an electronic dance pop band and later enjoyed a bit of commercial success with the 1988 single “The Greater Reward.” But Severed Heads always had its roots in the weird and there was no mistaking the group for a mainstream band even as some of its material garnered that level of popularity. Ellard announced the end of Severed Heads in 2008 but in subsequent years the band toured with Gary Numan and have done one-offs here and there. But in 2016 new material appeared and now is a rare chance to see the legendary band at all much less in an intimate venue.

But wait, there’s more. Pankow is a band that formed in East Germany in 1981 when rock and roll was very much frowned on in the DDR and the communist world generally. Pankow even wrote songs critical of the repressive East German regime and their music wasn’t widely released for years. Their sound might be compared to the likes of industrial/EBM band Nitzer Ebb except more pop though no less energetic and confrontational.

Denver’s Echo Beds and Blackcell are opening the night. Echo Beds has mastered the integration of analog industrial sounds produced by voice, striking an oil drum and guitar/bass and electronic elements in percussion, sampling, synths and sound processing. Depending on the show you catch it could be the more tribal-esque side of the band or the more ambient experiments it has engaged in over the last year and a half. Those unfamiliar should think more along the lines of the aforementioned Einsturzende Neubauten and Test Department. Blackcell is one of the longest-running bands in Denver in general having begun in the early 90s. The duo has developed various musica ideas across its entire career but of late its use of synths and circuit bent devices has propelled its music beyond the industrial and more noise-oriented music of its early days. Not sound design so much as a reimagining of what that music can be utilizing new methods and technologies and basically not getting stuck in a stylistic rut that no longer seems relevant. Blackcell remains ahead of the curve.

Who: New Ben Franklins & The Ghost of Joseph Buck 
When: Friday, 9.29, 9 p.m.
Where: The Squire Lounge
Why: New Ben Franklins are probably considered by many to be a kind of alt-country band and maybe it is. In the way that the Beat Farmers, Green on Red or even Mojave 3 are so. Singer David DeVoe spent some years making dark, atmospheric music as a member of Denver-based post-punk/Goth band Fiction 8. But his musical interests have always been diverse and the appeal of the spare songwriting style of country proved strong. NBF is a kind of synthesis of DeVoe’s interests and could never be limited to merely alt-country or post-punk but, rather, a fascinating blending of it all with DeVoe’s signature songwriting style that is never just one flavor, never just one texture and never boring.

Who: Future Islands w/Jenny Besetzt 
When: Friday, 9.29, 8 p.m.
Where: Fillmore Auditorium
Why: Future Islands was one of the most high profile bands of the Wham City collective in Baltimore. The trio toured DIY spaces around the country in its early days including Denver’s own Rhinoceropolis where the band played a couple of times before finding increasing popularity for its wonderfully unusual, soulful pop songs. The band got a big break into the mainstream with its appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman on March 3, 2014 and singer Sam Herring’s dancing and other stage antics becoming a sensation on the Internet. In 2017 Future Islands released its latest album, The Far Field, on 4AD.

Who: Japanese Breakfast w/Mannequin Pussy and The Spirit of The Beehive
When: Saturday, 9.30, 8 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Michelle Zauner of Japanese Breakfast has a knack for perceiving small but significant nuances in the dynamics of human relationships and issues of race and gender. Her albums, 2016’s Psychopomp and 2017’s Soft Sounds From Another Planet reflect Zauner’s insights with humor and stark and poetic sincerity. The downtempo pop and hazy atmospherics of a Japanese Breakfast song draw you in and convey the themes of the song directly to the heart and Zauner is a powerfully vulnerable and unpretentious performer. It’s an especially effective blend of style, presentation and honesty. Mannequin Pussy isn’t a contrast so much as a great compliment to Zauner’s music as a punk band that didn’t get hung up on the usual sounds, tools, methods or looks of being punk. Its songs are witty takedowns of sexism, ignorance and harmful and outmoded cultural narratives in general. Sonically, the band is reminiscent of Babes In Toyland’s ferocious intensity, Versus’ experimental guitar pop and more modern punk bands also not straightjacketed by tradition like Tacocat. The group’s 2016 album Romantic was a true statement about American culture at the dawn of Trump’s America.

Who: Diorama of the Cosmos
When: Saturday, 9.30, 7-10 p.m.
Where: Fiske Planetarium (Boulder)
Why: Katy Zimmerman and Genevieve Waller are Denver-based artists that challenge prevailing modes of thinking by experimenting with the forms and conceptions of existing phenomena. This time out, the solar system and space and our way of thinking about how things have to be. The statement from their event page: “Part craft project and part teaching tool, the handmade model of the solar system fashioned out of cardboard, string, and Styrofoam is an iconic children’s activity. In an installation created expressly for the Fiske Planetarium, Katy Zimmerman and Genevieve Waller pay homage to this kid tradition with a speculative representation of the solar system. Assembling together fictional suns, moons, planets, and stars into imaginary patterns and orbits, Waller and Zimmerman present a departure from the faithful diagram. They posit that the place where science and fantasy meet is rich with possibilities and will enable us to envision new worlds, rules, and dimensions of thought.”

Who: One-Eyed Doll w/Doll Skin, Sharone & The Wind and Rotten Reputation
When: Saturday, 9.30, 7 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: One-Eyed Doll is a Goth punk/metal duo from Austin that has been playing the kind of music that would have been in a Goth version of Jawbreaker. Meaning it almost seems like a self-aware studio project that makes the music to present a concept with strong imagery, like informal branding with an underlying sense of humor. Rotten Reputation is a punk band that on the surface level might seem fairly straightforward but its mascot, Nancy, is a headless, armless, legless mannequin that also serves as kind of a merch booth. And its songs challenge sexism and the almost populist fascism exemplified by the Trump administration. Sharone & The Wind has come a long way from when singer Sharone Borik performed under her own name as a kind of singer-songwriter act. Over the summer of 2016 Borik assembled the first incarnation of the rock band to flesh out her songs and the result was something like a hard rock band but driven by Borik’s piano work and powerful voice. A new line up came together in 2017 that fully frees Borik up to front the band with music that has progressed further in a dark, hard rock direction.

Who: The Black Madonna and Gerd Janson
When: Saturday, 9.30, 9 p.m.
Where: Club Vinyl
Why: The Black Madonna has become one of the premier electronic dance artists in the underground but at this point she’s only underground only in that she’s not yet known to a mainstream audience. Her set at Sonar 2017 was lauded for her signature fluid transitions using a very unconventional playlist and samples. Marea Stamper (aka The Black Madonna) has spent time cultivating her skills and knowledge at all levels of the electronic dance world from promotions, management, running a label to production and more and it lends her actual music an unspoken authenticity and grit.

Who: Goldie w/Fury, Grym and Goreteks
When: Saturday, 9.30, 8 p.m.
Where: Cervantes’ Other Side
Why: Goldie got his big break to the world through his graffiti art but in the 90s he became a producer of electronic music and an innovator of jungle and breakbeat. On his debut solo album, 1995’s Timeless, Goldie showed how breakbeat rhythms could easily drive a soulful pop song in “Inner City Life” and give it an experimental edge that popular electronic music generally didn’t have before. Goldie has remained an innovator and an influential music producer. And you may have seen him in The World Is Not Enough and EastEnders if you knew to look for him.

Who: Seun Kuti & Egypt 80 w/Atomga
When: Saturday, 9.30, 8 p.m.
Where: Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom
Why: Seun Kuti is Afrobeat founder Fela Kuti’s youngest son and he is leading one of Fela’s classic bands. Opening is Atomga, one of the most legit, Fela-inspired, Afrobeat bands in Denver. So it’ll be a great night of Afrobeat with legendary musicians and a great local band carrying on that tradition of the blend of funk, jazz and traditional African music that got Fela in trouble with the Nigerian government throughout his career.

Who: Rock For Tolerance – SPLC Benefit w/Surrender Signal, Electric Thinking Machine, Gestapo Pussy
When: Saturday, 9.30, 9 p.m.
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Gestapo Pussy Ranch is a snotty punk rock band which includes former KTCL and KBPI disc jockey John “Whipping Boy” Wilbur. So it’ll be a lot of irreverent humor (the name should spell that one outh, though) and a lively rock show benefitting Southern Poverty Law Center. The $5 cover goes directly to the SPLC

Who: Dark Descent Records 8th Anniversary show: Spectral Voice (album release) w/Ritual Necromancy, Ascended Dead, Grave Ritual and Blood Incantation
When: Saturday, 9.30, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive – Sold Out
Why: Death metal/doom band Spectral Voice is releasing its latest album, Eroded Corridors of Unbeing at this show. One of the most brutal yet haunting bands out of that genre today, Spectral Voice has slowly been carving its own legacy of dark, heavy music across the globe for the last few years. Also on the bill is the quasi-legendary, like-minded, band Blood Incantation. It’s not the kind of metal show for everyone but for those that appreciate uncompromising sounds and aesthetics, it’s hard to beat.

Who: The Slants w/Princess Dewclaw and Surf Mom
When: Sunday, 10.01, 9 p.m.
Where: Lion’s Lair
Why: The Slants is an all-Asian American dance punk band from Portland, Oregon that recently testified before the Supreme Court of the United States on the right to trademark the use of the band name. And won. Their sound is sort of a retro synth pop thing but more rock like The Epoxies. Princess Dewclaw from Denver sounds like a pop punk band that has a riot grrrl sensibility including the subject matter and synths. Its 2017 album Walk of Shame reflects an outsider perspective on the punk and art scene with poetic abstractions of fear, insecurity and rage into creative constructs and pop culture references. But it doesn’t blunt the message because its delivered with such passion. Surf Mom is a duo that is quickly growing beyond the surf part of its name and now has more in common with The Jesus and Mary Chain with its abrasive, face burning, spiky guitar tones than the garage surf stuff of the past decade. That is except that there is no detached emotionalism in Molly McGrath’s vocals—her voice and messaging is direct, pointed and incisive.

Who: Dead Rider w/Wheelchair Sports Camp and Quits
When: Sunday, 10.01, 7 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Todd Rittman was once the guitarist in experimental noise rock band U.S. Maple before those weirdos broke up in 2007. Which is the same year the great electronic punk band Sleaford Mods started. Coincidence? Definitely but since 2009 Rittman has been a member of Dead Rider, a band much more electronic than U.S. Maple and sharing some of the same aesthetic and socially critical sensibilities of the aforementioned band from Nottingham, England. That Denver’s own bizarro noise rock Quits, which includes former members of Hot White, CP-208, Witch Doctor and Sparkles, seems only fitting. What is perhaps more unusual is Wheelchair Sports Camp on the bill but beatmaker/vocalist/lyricist supreme Kaelyn Heffernan has always incorporated unusual samples in her hip-hop as well as playing with players capable of taking jazz into previously unknown territory.

Who: Ambersmoke, Admiral, Brother Saturn
When: Sunday, 10.01, 7 p.m.
Where: 7th Circle Music Collective
Why: Ambersmoke is an L.A. based shoegaze/sound collage band touring in support of its latest album, Lay My Bones Beneath the Valley Oak. Many bands claim My Bloody Valentine as an influence but Ambersmoke actually seems to have taken the hazy, lo-fi soundscaping aspect of MBV seriously and done interesting things with similar methods and sounds with guitar, of course, but also synths and sampled impromptu noisemakers. Denver’s Brother Saturn is more an ambient project but using highly processed guitars and voices. The project’s 2017 album Apollo, Can You Hear Me? Is almost like a post-Tim Hecker, melancholic sequel to Brian Eno’s 1983 album Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks. Except that has a quality that suggests the soothing of a pain buried inside the psyche—a slow moving spell of healing.

Who: Wolves in the Throne Room w/Pillorian
When: Monday, 10.02, 7
Where: The Black Sheep
Why: Wolves in the Throne Room may have been dismissed as “hipster metal” by some people as it gained popularity among fans who normally wouldn’t be into metal. WITTR had and has all the classic black metal elements from the feral voices, stark, death metal guitar played with a ferocious intensity. And its whole aim was to express the forces of nature and the ambient energy of the Pacific Northwest. This resulted in music that while definitely black metal, like some of the band’s cousins in Europe and other parts of North America, it had an atmospheric sound that suggested more than a dark spirit reclaimed from conquering cultures. There is no corpse paint on stage or references to Satan in the music of WITTR, as though they took the pagan aspect of its philosophical underpinnings seriously. At the height of its popularity in 2011 the band announced it would be curtailing its touring. But five years later the group was touring in a limited capacity once again. On the 2017 album Thrice Woven, Wolves in the Throne Room returns to playing black metal after 2014’s Celestite, the brilliant, synthesizer companion album to 2011’s Celestial Lineage.

Who: Lords of Acid w/Combichrist, En Esch, Night Club, ITSOKTOCRY and Christian Death
When: Tuesday, 10.03, 7 p.m.
Where: The Gothic Theatre
Why: Lords of Acid definitely splits the line among industrial music fans. The project has unabashedly embraced industrial music, EBM, club dance music and an outrageously trashy aesthetic or cartoonish sexuality. But no matter what you think of the specific subject matter of the songs the fact is that the live band is a lot of fun. Band leader Praga Khan has been known to push his bandmates off stage into the crowd and then not exempting himself from such playful indignities. Night Club is a darkwave band co-founded by former Warlock Pinchers and Foreskin 500 guitarist, and longtime Metalocalypse collaborator (among other noteworthy film and animation projects), Mark Brooks. Christian Death is obviously the incarnation of the band with Valor Kand on guitar and lest fans of the band forget, Kand was the main guitarist on the band’s great second album, 1984’s Catastrophe Ballet. And live the band performs songs from across its entire career. If you go and don’t expect something impossible and quaintly fanciful like Rozz Williams, who is dead, and Rikk Agnew you might actually enjoy the show.

Who: Drab Majesty w/DJs Boyhollow and Slave 1
When: Wednesday, 10.04, 9 p.m.
Where: Milk Bar
Why: Drab Majesty’s music is like a fully synthesized combination of David Bowie circa Ziggy Stardust, Red Lorry Yellow Lorry and super hip science fiction movie soundtrack. Fans of Roxy Music will love this. So will fans of Cocteau Twins and vintage Clan of Xymox. Deb Demure is also a great songwriter whose 2015 album, Careless, was the go-to album for fans of dark post-punk for an entire year. 2017’s The Demonstration helped to expand Drab Majesty’s audience well outside the Goth and post-punk subculture not by compromising Demure’s artistic vision but because it turns out it wasn’t just people identifying as Goths could find something to appreciate about the deep and stirring atmospheres of the music and its futuristic vision.

Who: King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard and Other Worlds
When: Wednesday, 10.04, 8 p.m.
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard sounds like it has to be a stoner rock band. And that’s partially true as the Australian psychedelic rock band doesn’t hold its nose up and creative use of hard rock and metal tropes in crafting its mind altering songs. Known for an exuberant live show, King Gizzard actually seemed to live up to its absurdist, cartoonish name in the best sense. He group is currently touring in support of its 2017 album Sketches of Brunswick East.

Who: Zealot, Teacup Gorilla and The Far Stairs
When: Wednesday, 10.04, 9 p.m.
Where: 3 Kings Tavern
Why: It’s Weird Wednesday at 3 Kings, which happens the first Wednesday of the month. Booked and hosted by Claudia Woodman, the series showcases some of Denver’s most unusual bands whether or not that is obvious by looking at or listening to the artists in question. Zealot is the latest band from Luke Hunter James-Erickson who is most well known for his pop bands The Don’ts And Be Carefuls and For Keeps. But he’s always had a leg in experimental music and noise with Wind Does and now Zealot. Teacup Gorilla is the kind of band that could only happen when people were never told they shouldn’t do a strange glam rock band and one of Denver’s most original and interesting bands because they’re following no one else’s trend and not aiming to have anyone follow theirs. The Far Stairs is the current band of Hindershot keyboard player Jesse Livingston. Can’t say I’ve seen the band have it on good authority it’s quite unusual and partly so for how Livingston is able to make something so unusual accessible.

Now that Fall is basically here, Denver will have more great shows than at any other time of the year. To that end, we’ll be including more shows on this list than would otherwise be advisable in a “Best Shows” type list.

Who: Throwing Snow (UK, Houndstooth/Local Action), RUMTUM, Marcelo Moxy, b2b, Rameau Control 
When: Thursday, 9.21, 9 p.m.
Where: The Black Box
Why: Dirty//Clean brings some of the most interesting electronic dance oriented acts together for its events. Tonight it’s Bristol, UK’s Throwing Snow whose 2017 album Embers is filled with the kind of bright soundscaping and bass drones that have made recent offerings from likes of Weval, Demdike Stare and Clark so compelling. It’s the kind of stuff that stirs our imagination. RUMTUM’s combination of organic sounds and electronics may be the odd one out on this bill except his own form of crafting beats and atmosphere is right in line with the sort of post-IDM, deep house sort of music on hand for this show.

Who: Tyto Alba video release w/Happy Abandon, Florea and Yesol 
When: Thursday, 9.21, 9 p.m.
Where: Syntax Physic Opera
Why: Tyto Alba somehow found a way to be both a great indie rock and dream pop band all at once. Its emotional flavorings are tuneful and cathartic while projecting a melancholic yet comforting aural signature that transcends mere genre. Tonight the band releases its video for “The Hunger,” created with L.A.-based filmmaker Colin Anders of Slice Cinematics. Also on the bill is Chapel Hill, North Carolina’s cinematic indie pop band Happy Abandon whose simple yet detailed and lush compositions challenge the listener to confront their personal demons with compassion rather than judgement. Their new album Facepaint has to be counted among the most rewarding listens of any album of 2017 as its rich sonic tapestries are a poignant representation of self-honesty and self-examination.

Who: Vagabon w/Nnamdi Ogbonnaya and Nina De Freitas
When: Thursday, 9.21, 8 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Laetitia Tamko’s Vagabon on her 2017 album Infinite Worlds proved that you can absolutely write a record largely by yourself, play most of the instruments on that record and sound like you had to recruit ace players in your music community to create an album with such a vast and forceful expression of engagement with the world. Tamko’s combination of driving rock and brightly ethereal tones contribute to making her music accessibly eclectic and refreshingly original. It is reminiscent to a limited extent to the music of Rainer Maria and that raw, unabashed expression of intense emotions with an edgy vulnerability.

Who: Natural Violence EP release w/Ssleeperhold, Prison Glue and Quits 
When: Thursday, 9.21, 9 p.m.
Where: The Meadowlark
Why: Michael Stein is perhaps best known for his stints in garage rock band School Knights, indie pop group American Culture and experimental post-punk band Homebody. Natural Violence goes further in the exploration of electronic pop gone weird. Sort of a minimal synth project that one might compare to Fad Gadget or Sparks. But maybe even more stripped down. The group’s debut EP called SP might even make some people think of a lo-fi John Maus. But really it’s just Stein’s rich imagination finding ways of making something he hasn’t heard a million times and that’s often where the best music comes from. Also on playing is Prison Glue, the noise/performance art project of former Hot White guitarist Kevin Wesley. It’s always a different show with Wesley so expect something completely unlike anything he’s done with Prison Glue before. Quits is the latest noise rock project from former/current members of noise rock/weirdo bands like Hot White, Sparkles and Anger Throne. You’ll have to go to figure out who. Out of town guest for this show is Ssleerperhold, the minimal synth-ish solo project of BOAN’s Jose Costa.

Who: Secret Chiefs 3 w/Echo Beds 
When: Friday, 9.22, 8 p.m.
Where: Downtown Artery
Why: Trey Spruance was once in art rock band Mr. Bungle with Mike Patton. Secret Chiefs 3 is more like a bizarro, psychedelic prog band whose own music reflects a playful interpretation of esoteric knowledge and musical ritual. But Secret Chiefs 3 is known to do an offbeat if somewhat faithful cover or few like John Carpenter’s theme to Halloween. Opening is Denver-based industrial punk band Echo Beds who have been branching out from its signature post-apocalyptic tribal onslaught of sound and emotions to challenging yet hypnotic soundscapes. Either way, you’ll get to see something powerful and unforgettable.

Who: 7th Circle 5-Year Anniversary Show #1: Chaff, American Psychonaut, Proto Whats?, Astral Planes, The Real Lying Rohr, Joshua + The Devil, CFX-Project, Unit-Y and Krbs (Ludlow)
When: Friday, 9.22, 4 p.m.
Where: 7th Circle Music Collective
Why: To celebrate its five years as 7th Circle Music Collective, the venue is having three days of shows featuring the bands that have made it a vibrant subscene in the larger Denver music scene. What makes 7th Circle perhaps more significant than many other venues for fostering and developing a scene is the fact that it’s a community of bands and volunteers and younger musicians can invite their friends to the show without worries of age restriction. The lineup will be eclectic and if you go you can probably expect to see one or two bands you’ve never heard of that you’ll like.

Who: Grave Moss, Sherman’s March, Demoncassttecult, Giardia
When: Friday, 9.22, 7 p.m.
Where: Flux Capacitor
Why: Grave Moss updates death rock for the current era. Vocalist Amanda Gostomski is able to project a cathartic level of transmogrified turmoil and pain that way you’d want with this music rather than yet another Andrew Eldritch clone. Demoncassettecult is sort of an industrial noise/drone solo project from Gold Trash’s Vahco Before Horses. There aren’t many shows like this in Colorado Springs but the Flux and its central location is a great place to catch some experimental music from Denver.

Who: Body Meat w/Killd By, GrassHopper and Plague Survivor 
When: Friday, 9.22, 8 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Body Meat is sort of a combination of lo-fi math rock band with jazz underpinnings and intricate rhythms. Killd By is a reflection of the restless imagination and energy of Colin Ward who employs live electronics and beats to disorient the senses and take you to places in your brain that you may not know had existed.

Who: The Blackouts, Like a Rocket (Boise), Hot Apostles and Last Rhino
When: Friday, 9.22, 8 p.m.
Where: 3 Kings Tavern
Why: Normally cover bands are kind of bland and wack but The Blackouts make its punk covers seem like originals because the members of the band play like they own it. Hot Apostles plays melodic hard rock that may be rooted in classic rock of the 70s and 80s but there is an exuberance to its performances that sets it apart from other bands mining similar territory. That and vocalist Eryn Swissdorf is a force of nature.

Who: Option 4 w/Bones and Colin/Dungeon 
When: Friday, 9.22, 8 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Brennen Bryarly is one of the most important promoters of electronic dance music in Denver and beyond. And his hard work to that effect came out of his own endeavors as a maker of such music with his project Option4. This is a rare opportunity to catch Bryarly in his element and hopefully hear about the next edition of his superbly well-curated festival Cloak and Dagger.

Who: Faces of US – 5th Annual Our Neighbors, Ourselves fundraiser to support Project Worthmore, juried art gallery featuring dozens of artists, live music by Tom Hagerman Ensemble, Bluebook, DJ sets by Jonny DeStefano and Christy Thacker. VR experience by DenVR 
When: Friday, 9.22, 6 p.m.
Where: McNichols Building
Why: This is a show happening at the McNichols Building to the west of Civic Center Park. It’s kind of an odd layout for a show but it works. This is a fundraiser for area refugees through Project Worthmore. As indicated above, the live music will be provided by Tom Hagerman Ensemble and Bluebook. Hagerman is perhaps best known as a member of gypsy punk/folk band DeVotchka. Bluebook is the experimental solo project of Julie Davis who uses cello, loops and beats to weave wise and wryly humorous stories. Davis has been known to play with Nathaniel Rateliff but many in Denver’s underground music scene have long since appreciated her richly imaginative work not only in Bluebook but Bela Karoli and Seven Hats.

Who: Dead Cross w/Secret Chiefs 3 
When: Saturday, 9.23, 8 p.m.
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: Dead Cross is a hardcore/thrash supergroup whose members include Justin Pearson and Mike Crain from Retox, Dave Lombardo of Slayer and Suicidal Tendencies and Mike Patton whose improbably eclectic and storied career includes singing with Faith No More, Mr. Bungle and Fantomas. Doesn’t mean the band is any good but in this case the musicians push past the usual genre boundaries because they’re all weirdos going way back. See above for Secret Chiefs 3.

Who: The Mansfields Hollywood Babylon listening party w/Dead Wave, DJ sets by The Mansfields
When: Saturday, 9.23, 8 p.m.
Where: Modbo
Why: The Mansfields are one of the most enduring bands from Colorado Springs. Sort of like a glam rock take on Generation X, the band’s melodic punk has been gracing stages along the front range since the 90s. The group is finally releasing its new album, Hollywood Babylon, with a listening party at art gallery Modbo. If you go, Modbo is down the alley and it’s a small-ish building. So it’ll be an intimate way to experience this band’s bombastic music in an intimate setting.

Who: Sleeping Lessons, RMMTS and Slynger
When: Saturday, 9.23, 9 p.m.
Where: Lion’s Lair
Why: Roommates is a Denver band that blurs the lines between the music that helped inspired it. Whether that be 90s and early 2000s math rock, punk, shoegaze and hip-hop production. Its 2017 debut full length album Victoria represents the apex of two years and more of reinvention and synthesis of the ideas of current and past bandmates. The band’s combination of elegance and raw power is pretty much impossible to pigeonhole but if you’re a fan of stuff like Milemarker, Rainer Maria and Sunny Day Real Estate you’ll find much to like here.

Who: Strange Powers and Demoncassettecult and Amanda G 
When: Saturday, 9.23, 6-9 p.m.
Where: Hooked On Colfax
Why: Josh Powers is a prolific artist whose work traverses a broad range of electronic and beat-driven music. He was once a member of alternative hip-hop group Strange Us with then future Men In Burka bandmate Kamran Khan. In MIB Powers, Khan and Mario Zoots (primarily known as a visual artist and for having been a co-founder of early witch house band Modern Witch) created a fascinating synthesis of hip-hop, Middle Eastern rhythms and low-end heavy techno. Strange Powers is Josh’s long-running solo project in which he is able to explore whatever ideas strike him as interesting whether that’s his left field take on pop, experimental dance music or noise. Amanda G is the solo project of Amanda Gostomski of Princess Dewclaw, Grave Moss and Gold Trash. For Demoncassettecult see above on 9/22.

Who: 7th Circle 5-Year Anniversary Show #2: Spit Black and Dreamcast split release, Hapless, Full Bore, Screwtape, Wake the Bat and MOB 
When: Saturday, 9.23, 6:30 p.m.
Where: 7th Circle Music Collective
Why: The second night of 7th Circle Music Collective’s 5-year anniversary celebration. Plenty of worthy bands including the Rage Against the Machine-esque Wake the Bat and Screwtape, easily one of Denver’s best punk bands. Nay, best bands, punk or otherwise. The group’s ferocious energy is infectious. It’s tempting to say Screwtape is hardcore but its sound palette is a bit broader even as its presentation is possessed of the aggression and directness that makes hardcore so compelling.

Who: Quantum Creep, Modern Leisure and Vatican Vamps
When: Saturday, 9.23, 8 p.m.
Where: BarFly/Alamo Drafthouse Lakewood
Why: Modern Leisure is the latest band from Casey Banker who some may know from his stints in The Don’ts and Be Carefuls and Shady Elders. With Modern Leisure it’s all his songwriting and creative vision, the result being some of his strongest songs to date. It’s indie pop but Banker’s wordsmithing has always been thoughtful and insightful. Had great Colorado indie rock bands like Lil’ Slugger, Fingers of the Sun and Supply Boy been commercially successful calling Quantum Creep a supergroup wouldn’t seem silly. But rather than try to be like any of their past bands, Quantum Creep is more like a noisy post-punk band like The Fall but without the perverse sense of obtuseness that makes Mark E. Smith’s band sometimes challenging for many people. The group’s 2016 album Friends With Death is a timeless collection of noise pop that could have come out in 1986, 1996 or today.

Who: Cloudless Rain, Winter Twig and Winter 
When: Sunday, 9.24, 7 p.m.
Where: Mutiny Information Café
Why: It’s a Textures event. Which is the monthly ambient showcase that happens the final Sunday of every month at Mutiny Information Café. Cloudless Rain is Chris Mandel’s longform abstract electronic compositions. He often live broadcasts from his studio but this is a not common chance to see it live where the transporting tones will be richer and the low end more robust. Winter Twig is one of Don White’s latest projects. White has sure played in some weirdo rock bands over the years including Action Friend, New Ancient Astronauts and, recently, Ice Troll. But his exploration of electronic soundscapes with The Kappa Cell and Boy Howdy have been widely different and worthwhile.

Who: 7th Circle 5-Year Anniversary Show #3: Bourgeois Girl, Meeting House, Sliver, Zero-Form, Almataha, Jack’s Smirking Revenge, Flower Crown Me a Queen, Waifu, Tonguebite, PoRf, Henn
When: Sunday, 9.24, 1 p.m.
Where: 7th Circle Music Collective
Why: The final night of 7th Circle Music Collective’s celebration of its five years as a DIY venue. You probably can’t go wrong with showing up at any time. Sliver is a great modern grunge band that probably takes more influence from Bad Brains than Black Sabbath. Jack’s Smirking Revenge was, maybe still is, a fun folk punk act that takes aim at the silliness of the conservative and imperialist end of American culture.

Who: Adam Ant: The Anthems Tour w/Glam Skanks
When: Tuesday, 9.26, 8 p.m.
Where: Paramount Theatre
Why: Adam Ant’s music career emerged during that great period of music when punk and glam rock overlapped and influenced each other. His style, part punk, part glam, part a reinterpretation of various Native American styles, struck a chord with audiences in the UK and the US and his hits including “Antmusic,” “Desperate But Not Serious,” and “Goody Two Shoes” ensured his status as an early star of MTV. In 2017 Adam Ant is still a vital performer who has continued to refine and reinvent his music. Because he could never be tied to any particular movement and his music having aged well, Adam Ant is no simple nostalgia artist one-or-two-hit wonder.

Who: MF Ruckus comic/video premiere and tour kick-off w/Muscle Beach, Traid-Ins and Granny Tweed
When: Wednesday, 9.27, 7 p.m.
Where: Streets of London
Why: Hard rock band MF Ruckus is premiering its comic and video for The Front Lines of Good Times as part of its tour kickoff show. It’s a twelve part comic book and singles series that takes place in a dystopian future wherein the band as the principal characters find a way to keep being a band and do what they do best in the face of monumental odds against them. So yeah, except for the setting, essential just like real life. The band worked closely with comic artist Josh Finley and so far it’s the colorful, entertaining and humorous read you’d expect from a band like MF Ruckus who defy an easy rock and roll pigeonhole. Also on the bill is Muscle Beach, a group that might technically be a hardcore band but its intricate guitar work and rhythms puts it outside the usual bands of that aesthetic. Think more like Dillinger Escape Plan or Cave-In and Coalesce than the Youth Attack sound. And would you look at that, Josh Finley’s band Granny Tweed is playing too. That act is a mutant hybrid of styles in the same way that, maybe, NRBQ or the Beat Farmers might be but not really like either of those at all.

Who: Wand w/Darto and Serpentfoot 
When: Wednesday, 9.27, 7 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Wand is an L.A.-based band that caused a bit of a stir among fans of psychedelic rock in 2015 when it released the stunning twin albums Golem and 1000 Days. If the band had roots in garage rock on any earlier releases, you couldn’t really tell on the 2015 records because they sounded like far beyond post-stoner rock psych while maintaining the kind of massive and driving sound you’d expect from a band that came more out of the music world pioneered and inhabited by the likes of Sleep and Monster Magnet. 2017’s Plum retains the heaviness but feels more like the band has taken the time to breathe in the songs instead of seeming to push things into the red for much of an album. The songs switch up the dynamics in fascinatingly disorienting ways while maintaining a groove. Something which not nearly enough so-called psych bands do. The Butthole Surfers and shoegazers like Medicine, yes. But it’s rare and thus refreshing on Plum. The lyrics still delve into unusual subjects and the surreal storytelling that has always set Wand apart from other psychedelic rock bands.

Darto, from Seattle, is also in the psych vein but with more of an emphasis on Synths. It’s 2017 album Human Giving reveals that you can have synth as a primary component of your songwriting and use it to make the same kind of hypnotic drones and melodies that disorient and transport through methods employed by bands like The Velvet Underground whose use of dissonance and non-standard tempos gave its music an otherworldly quality that has become timeless. It’s premature to say the same of Darto but its new record sure didn’t seem like the band is trying to ride someone else’s sonic coattails.

Who: Torche w/Pueblo Escobar and Throttlebomb 
When: Wednesday, 9.27, 7 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Maybe Torche is technically a “sludge rock” band but with that much energy maybe the sludgy side of that equation isn’t as emphasized. The band includes current and former members of respected doom act Floor. Torche seems more fluid and less forbidding, no knock on Floor. Also playing this show are local sludge metal style bands. Denver’s Throttlebomb has more roots in punk with members of Frontside Five and The Blackouts and former members of Low Gravity, Tard and Under the Drone. None of those names mean much if you don’t know much about Denver punk at all or before 2013. But all were noteworthy and that experience of playing music in non-glamorous dive bars and warehouses for years gives you a certain grit and credibility no matter what kind of music you’re playing even if music critics don’t give your band any sunshine. Pueblo Escobar, in addition to being one of the best band names of recent years that really only could have come from Colorado where the city of Pueblo has connotations that lack context and nuance elsewhere, is a kind of a local supergroup including members of Kingdom of Magic, Black Acid Devil, White Dynamite and Sparkles. See above for spending years playing unglamorous shows. It’s a sludge rock/noise punk band and always worthy of your time.

Who: Hundred Waters w/Lafawndah
When: Wednesday, 9.27, 7 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Electronic pop group Hundred Waters has its roots in a childhood friendship between Trayer Tryon and Zach Tetreault who had various musical projects together dating back to at least high school. While attending University of Florida in Gainesville the two musicians met Nicole Miglis and the trio lived together through the later part of college while working, going to school and writing the music that would comprise the early material of Hundred Waters. The group’s self-titled debut LP (and the Thistle EP prior) came out on OWSLA, the label started by Sonny “Skrillex” Moore. Hundred Waters would be impossible to stamp as just an electronic pop band because its beats, electronic and acoustic, tend toward the unconventional incorporating Bossa Nova rhythms and the kind of informal rhythms that are a part of much folk music. Its soundscaping also drifts experimental with melodies and textures that suggests a more than passing familiarity with IDM and deconstructing the standard pop idiom of verse chorus verse chorus outro. Perhaps that’s why the band, with its way of using repetition as might a more overtly electronic artist might, fit in with a more experimental electronic aesthetic. But whatever the reason, Hundred Waters recently released the Communicating LP, an album of melancholic yet vibrant downtempo made soulful by Miglis’ breathy vocals and the sense that the band recorded in a wide open space to capture the natural reverb. Even if that isn’t true, the record conveys that sense more so than any of its previous releases.

Who: Alien Boy (Portland), Perfume V (Portland), Wrinkle and Gecko
When: Wednesday, 9.27, 7 p.m.
Where: 7th Circle Music Collective
Why: Kudos to Alien Boy for naming themselves after a Wipers song. And honestly, the Portland, Oregon-based band has adopted that desperate yet haunted vibe that has given every Wipers record a timeless quality that many punk records don’t much possesses. That and the thoughtful, incisive lyrics that speak to a deep rooted melancholy that comes from realization that the world probably isn’t going to be as good as it could be if we all tried a little harder. Oh, Alien Boy also clearly has a sense of humor and irony in the sincerity of its sentiments. Wrinkle is a sort of lo-fi/emo band from Denver whose noisy pop songs sound that is the essence of a feeling of trying to find something meaningful in a time when you’re told all the endless horizons Americans are raised to expect but you know it’s a lie and most of your friends are in dead end service industry jobs and while you rightfully think there has to be something better in life for everyone you’re not entirely certain there is. So you take bits from Brainiac, Pixies, Pavement and other bands that articulated that feeling so well in their respective ways and in their specific cultural contexts.