The melodic shimmer opening Baldemar’s “Vampire Thoughts” lets you know you’re in for a song that is filled with mixed emotions, some nostalgic, some bittersweet, some melancholic, others regretful. The song is about the kinds of thoughts that leech the exuberance out of life while delving into how these thoughts and patterns of mind we might have roots in our experiences and a habit of dwelling on the moments that sink deep into our psyches. Though the song has a lo-fi production aspect it suits the mood of the song perfectly as it sounds like something out of daydreams and flights of self-reflective fancy that help you through dark times and personal doldrums to get where you may need to land in the end once you’ve process the tangle of emotions and the thoughts that reinforce them. It’s a striking piece of music on working through your heart’s turmoil to get back to yourself authentically. Listen to “Vampire Thoughts” on Spotify and follow Baldemar at the links below.
Luna Honey from Philadelphia recently issued its latest work of musical alchemy with the November 22, 2024 release of the album Bound. Since its 2017 inception the group has been impossible to tag with a narrow genre designation not for lack of creative coherence but because it draws on disparate roots of influence and experiments with sound sources and organic and electronic production. But fans of the likes of late-80s and beyond Swans, Dead Can Dance and Live Skull will find a similar resonance in Luna Honey’s facility with channeling personal darkness into beautifully transcendent and cathartic pieces of music. The band’s sound is not limited to notions of post-punk, noise rock, tribal industrial, its albums span a range of tones and moods to serve a creative vision and impulse to make music that goes beyond mere entertainment and diversion from everyday life to get at something deeper. Luna Honey singer/guitarist Maura Pond collaborated long distance with former Swans guitarist Norman Westberg on the 2023 Luna Honey album Aftermath which was a meditation on and expression of loss and grief. Bound despite, or perhaps because of, its title feels like a reckoning, a coming to terms with, a struggling against arbitrary and artificial limitations and definitions that circumscribe and limit our lives. Pond’s expressive, ritualistic and at times operatic vocals and the controlled maelstrom of sounds like standard music forms stretched and twisted against standard tonality and structure make for a memorable listening experience.
Listen to our interview with Maura Pond of Luna Honey on Bandcamp and follow the band at the links below.
TV Guy Productions’ “And Just Like That” sounds like Brian Weinberg was tapping into whatever frequencies in the cosmos the Butthole Surfers were when they wrote “Pepper.” The pounding percussion and the immediate shifting between distorted and more dreamlike vocals and the spoken word and the singing, it has parallels. But there is more overt synth in the TV Guy Productions song and ghostly chimes near mid-song to signal when things get more demented again with Weinberg’s pronouncements of being confused and lost and reveling in it rather than despairing. It lends the song an appealing touch of madness in the face of endless mundane demands Weinberg lists in various parts of the song and who can’t relate to wanting to upend the pressure of all of that? In this song Weinberg reclaims a bit of freedom from everyday life that you can indulge in alongside with him. Listen to “And Just Like That” on Spotify and follow TV Guy Productions on Instagram.
“Relief (Remix by Dionisaf” by Zen Lemon is from the first release of a compilation of remixes from artists on the Ambient Cat imprint. As per the label’s output so far the already immersive original is given a treatment that more or less transforms the song into something new. The original mix of “Relief” is flowing with saturated tones and a more in the foreground composition. This remix draws out the drifting background tones and emphasizes the sense of being at the edge of a body of water with a harmonic fog that courses through the track with the energy of a soothing enigma in that it gets into your ears and like the title of the song suggests works a sonic alchemy that puts the heart at rest and focuses the mind on casting off sources of anxiety without having to exert an ounce of effort. More cohesive tones resonate and fade in a rhythm that comforts without the crutch of language to effect its calming resonance. Listen to “Relief (Remix by Dionisaf)” on Zen Lemon on Spotify.
Myriad’s Veil draws you in instantly with the ethereal tones and grounded beat at the beginning of “Hollow.” The drifting harmonics and sultry bass line paired with a minimal beat lends the song a downtempo mood but the way the duo layers the electronic drones is psychedelic in a way that bypasses what we’ve come to expect out of psychedelic rock the past decade and a half. Myriad’s Veil truly offers you a peek into more transcendent emotional colorings in the music with a depth of composition and masterful use of space that is both minimalist and highly detailed. Yet the song doesn’t weigh down your mind, it isn’t heavy, it conveys an expansive spirit in its introspective moods and its synth melodies while intertwining feel loose and refreshing. Listen to “Hollow” on Spotify and follow Myriad’s Veil on Bandcamp.
Applesauce Tears lure us into “Faded and Braided” with a processional and melodic introduction before the tones sparkle some and it sounds like something out of late 1960s existential drama. It’s expansive and enigmatic, alluring in its intertwining of orchestral arrangements and classical sensibilities. If not for some of the attention to modern production techniques and mixing one might be excused for thinking it’s a long lost, psychedelicized art rock instrumental and when the vocals come in after the three minute mark like Black Mountain indulging more of its gift for soundscaping outside the realm of heavy music. It has the dusky and transporting mood one expects out of a Sofia Coppola film soundtrack imbued with a sense of wonder and romance with shades of mystery. Listen to “Faded and Braided” on Spotify and follow Applesauce Tears at its website.
Sunday | 12.01 What:Machete Mouth, Joseph Lamar, S.T3V When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: An evening of the best local, left-field/experimental R&B. Go and witness the soulful downtempo ambient style of Machete Mouth, the IDM psychedelic soul performance art leanings of Joseph Lamar and indie rock/shoegaze/abstract folk sounds of S.T3V.
Anthony Raneri, photo by Acacia Evans
Wednesday | 12.04 What: Anthony Raneri w/Brother Bird When: 7 Where: The Marquis Theater Why: Anthony Raneri is perhaps better known for being the singer and songwriter in punk/emo band Bayside. But his solo work is more countrified yet atmospheric and his latest record Everyday Royalty is an introspective reckoning with how one’s life suddenly feels like your mistakes or at least the areas you’ve been neglecting more than you realize catch up to you emotionally, psychologically and even physically. Whereas Raneri’s brash and cathartic songwriting has its own psychological cleansing on stage, Brother Bird’s songs are more delicate and in the realm of folk but her production is around the edges gives the songwriter’s music a cinematic yet intimate quality that unfolds across a song like her own kind of confessional and self-examination that too feels relatable on a very human level of navigating life with an imperfect set of tools and capacities to do so.
Lightning Bolt, photo by Nick Sayers
Thursday | 12.05 What: Machine Girl w/Lightning Bolt and Kill Alters When: 7 Where: Summit Music Hall Why: For over a decade Machine Girl has been developing its own brand of breakcore/digital hardcore/glitch industrial sound. Famously the duo performed a show at a house in Denver and caved in the floor because of the intensity of the dancing. And the group does go hard but its electronic soundscapes are very in the vein of drum and bass and jungle with the relentless beats and tranquil/chill passages. Lightning Bolt is the legendary noise rock band that got started in Providence, Rhode Island in 1994. Along with other local music weirdos like artist and former member of Mindflayer and Forcefield Matt Brinkman Brian Chippendale and Brian Gibson of Lightning Bolt formed the iconic and influential DIY space Fort Thunder. In its 30 years together Lightning Bolt has been known for preferring to perform at unconventional spaces if appropriate and available and if not, turning a more conventional venue into something of a performance art event with its frenetic and borderline chaotic live shows that often feel like the noise rock equivalent of free jazz or conceptual as much as musical use of noise incorporating the energy of everyone that shows up.
Greet Death, photo from Bandcamp
Friday | 12.06 What: Greet Death w/Cherished and Prize Horse When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Greet Death made its reputation as a band that fused heaviness with ethereal shoegaze tonality. But since then its music has drifted in even more melodic and melancholic. More slowcore in its arrangements and thus hazily psychedelic but not bereft of a sonic freakout when the moment calls for it. Opening the show is Denver’s post-punk-turned-shoegaze band Cherished whose lyrics give a glimpse into a side of America all of us probably recognize but with a perspective that’s very real and non-judgmental. Prize Horse from Minneapolis has a sound that sits at the crux of shoegaze, post-rock and the more interesting 90s emo.
A Place For Owls, photo from Bandcamp
Friday | 12.06 What:A Place For Owls, Corsicana and INNS When: 7:30 Where: The Skylark Lounge Why: A Place For Owls is refreshingly a raw and heart on sleeve emo band of the current wave variety meaning its influences span beyond the influx of math rock and vulnerability and occasional forays into atonality. APFO’s guitar work is elegant and inviting and its whole vibe is one inviting listeners to share in these previously private moments that might help to illuminate one’s own feelings about complicated situations. Corsicana is the dream pop band from Denver.
Friday | 12.06 What:Maria Bamford When: 6:30 Where: The Paramount Theatre Why: Maria Bamford is one of the great, living stand-up comedians whose surreal yet sharply observed humor has shed a light on American folly and the darkly absurd side of capitalism and wellness culture. Part of Bamford’s appeal is how open and vulnerable she is regarding her own struggles with mental health and trying to fit in with a warped and demented culture and presents it with her inimitable style.
Saturday | 12.07 What:King Cardinal When: 10 am Where: Swallow Hill Why: It is a free show but it’ll be one of Denver’s better Americana/roots rock bands, King Cardinal. 2024, though, saw the release of he band’s most recent album Land Lines which waxes well into the realm of cosmic country at times but otherwise is full of the band’s well crafted story songs and uplifting presentation.
Weird Al Qaida, photo by Tom Murphy
Saturday | 12.07 What:Weird Al Qaida w/Pythian Whispers When: 9:30 Where: Mutiny Information Cafe Why: Experimental psychedelic noise band Weird Al Qaida makes a rare appearance in the basement of the new location of Mutiny Information Cafe. Expect multi-media performance elements, pitch shifted vocals and a fusion of psychedelic folk, art rock and outsider pop. Opening is psychedelic ambient and noise project Pythian Whispers which includes Tom Murphy who is writing this.
Church Fire, photo by Tom Murphy
Saturday | 12.07 What: Nova Fest: Church Fire, Night Fishing, The Photo Atlas, Post/War and Gifter 8 at Hi-Dive When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Nova Fest returns with a stacked lineup including industrial dance revolutionaries Church Fire, psych doom band Night Fishing, the resurrected dance punk band The Photo Atlas back from Denver’s 2000s indie rock heyday and the shoegaze-y Post/War.
Franz Ferdinand, photo by Fiona Torres
Thursday | 12.12 What: Franz Ferdinand w/almost monday and Losers Club When: 6 Where: The Ogden Theatre Why: The new Franz Ferdinand album The Human Fear doesn’t come out until January 10, 2025 but for this show there’s a better than half a chance you’ll get to see some of that material live. The Scottish post-punk band first made major waves with its 2004 self-titled album and breakout single “Take Me Out.” The then post-punk revival was well under way and the group got lumped in with “dance punk” perhaps not unjustifiably and its subsequent albums proved the band had more in their repertoire than a trendy style. Its funky power pop has had underpinnings of influence from literature and dub and has evolved in ways that have refreshingly not been so obvious. For example the 2015 album as FFS when the band merged with glam and art rock legends Sparks for a unique album for which they toured doing sets of their own and together as the supergroup. There’s something vital in what the band has had to offer from the beginning and its live shows have been proof positive.
Xeno & Oaklander in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy
Thursday | 12.12 What:Xeno & Oaklander w/Spiritual Poison and Terravault Network When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Modern cold wave legends Xeno & Oaklander return to Denver for a show at Hi-Dive in support of its latest album Via Negativa (in the doorway light). The duo has innovated in its use of analog and digital synthesis to craft evocative soundscapes as conceptual pop songs since its 2004 inception and the new record is reminiscent of what might happen if Chris & Cosey and Giorgio Moroder collaborated on an album of gorgeously icy synthpop.
Logan Farmer, photo by Jared Meyer
Thursday | 12.12 What: David Eugene Edwards w/Logan Farmer When: 8: 30 Where: Ophelia’s Electric Soapbox Why: David Eugene Edwards established his dark folk and post-punk bonafides as a member of influential Gothic Americana band 16 Horsepower and further with Wovenhand. His 2023 solo album Hyacinth is imbued with the kind of gravitas and grandeur one has come to expect from the songwriter and its lush arrangements don’t feel stripped down even if not expressed with the same level of sturm and drang as his other projects. The emotional intensity and vibrant poetic sensibility and insight is very much running through the songs. Opening the show is Fort Collins-based songwriter Logan Farmer whose luminously atmospheric variety of folk songcraft is transporting and soothing. His most recent album 2022’s A Mold For The Bell includes contributions from avant-garde harpist Mary Lattimore and saxophonist Joseph Shabason. It’s an album of great subtlety, nuance of expression and great depth of mood that rewards patient listening.
Limbwrecker in 2023, photo by Tom Murphy
Saturday | 12.14 What: Limbwrecker (final show) w/Sugar Skulls & Marigolds, Rico Predicate and Corpsewhale When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Denver-based grind/powerviolence band Limbwrecker is taking the stage one final time for a set of furiously noisy and cathartic, metallic post-hardcore and confrontational antics. They will be joined by fellow perpetrators of sonic violence with crafters of epic, instrumental, post-metal journeys Sugar Skulls & Marigolds, death grind thrashers Rico Predicate and industrial noise artist Corpsewhale.
Pink Lady Monster, photo by Tom Murphy
Sunday | 12.15 What: Church Car, Pink Lady Monster, The Trappings, Hippies Wearing Muzzles When: 7:30 Where: The Skylark Lounge Bobcat Room Why: Church Car might be the new manifestation of avant-garage soul artist Big Daddy Mugglestone but don’t bother trying to run the new name through a search engine. There are plenty of other reasons to go to this show like to see the spectacular No Wave free jazz dream psychedelia group Pink Lady Monster and blend of allure and menace. Hippies Wearing Muzzles is the solo analog synth composition project of Lee Evans who some may know from his long tenure as the bassist in indie pop group Kissing Party. The Trappings is a lo-fi experimental pop project of Adam Baumeister, the man behind the lathe cut imprint Meep Records and his own music is worth a deep dive in its own right for the sprawling and exploratory nuggets of imaginative music making therein.
Emma Ruth Rundle, photo from Bandcamp
Monday | 12.16 What: Emma Ruth Rundle w/Stonefront Church When: 7 Where: The Bluebird Theater Why: Emma Ruth Rundle has made a name for herself as a writer of richly emotional and introspective, darkly atmospheric songs that blur and break the edges of strict genre. In her more recent albums Rundle’s gift for weaving soundscape-y, even ambient folk expressions of how the inner life finds resonance with the mythical in a synergistic and transformative way. Her most recent album, 2022’s EG2: Dowsing Voice, seemed to draw upon deserty sounds and textures to delve into themes of ancient trauma and self-rediscovery.
Lanx Borealist in 2015, photo by Tom Murphy
Thursday | 12.19 What:Weirdo Music: Rooster Jake, Lanx Borealis, Brotherhood of Machines When: 7 Where: Fort Greene Why: This showcase of local experimental music will feature the left field hip-hop of Rooster Jake, the synth-driven and organic soundscapes of Lanx Borealis and Brotherhood of Machines’ deep house/abstract electronic dance oriented compositions.
Vatican Vamps, photo courtesy the artists
Saturday | 12.21 What: New Verbs w/Cactusheads and Vatican Vamps https://globehall.com/event/new-verbs-w-cactusheads-vatican-vamps/globe-hall/denver-colorado/ When: 7 Where: Globe Hall Why: New Verbs are an indie rock band from Denver/Boulder who if you dissect their sound a bit you’ll hear hints of the influence of The Fall, Deerhunter and 2010’s psych rock. Maybe Cactusheads are literally operating out of a garage in preparing to take the stage, like many bands, its musical roots seem to have at least evolved beyond the ragged amateurishness of well-intentioned miscreants into writing solid melodic hooks to go along with the grit. Vatican Vamps are a post-punk band from Denver that released its self-titled debut full length in March 2024 showcasing its dusky, atmospheric and earnestly weighty post-punk.
Replica City, photo by Tom Murphy
Saturday | 12.21 What: Broken Record, Curious Things, Replica City and The Gentlys When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Broken Record blurs the line between melodic post-hardcore and shoegaze with delicate emotional colorings. Curious Things is a trio of former members of The Gamits, The Dead Girls and Lawsuit Models whose songs are an appealing blend of power pop and emo. Replica City delivers a noisy, angular post-punk post-hardcore style with vocal performances both vulnerable and confrontational. The Gently’s is the latest band to include Dameon Merkl, the charismatic frontman of dark Americana legends Bad Luck City and Lost Walks.
Lost Relics, photo by Tom Murphy
Saturday | 12.28 What:Cheap Perfume, Arson Charge, Lost Relics and Brass Tags When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: At the top of the bill is political/feminist punk band Cheap Perfume with its heartfelt and often refreshingly wickedly and pointedly humorous lyrics still incredibly relevant in light of the seeming slide of world society in the past few years steeply in the wrong direction. Arson Charge is a punk band including members of other acts from Denver including SPELLS singer Ben Roy. Brass Tags is a post-hardcore band in the vein of melodic practitioners of noisy punk like Jawbox. Lost Relics split the difference between sludge metal akin to Melvins and heavy noise rock reminiscent of Unsane.
Slim Cessna’s Auto Club in 2023, photo by Tom Murphy
Monday and Tuesday | 12.30 and 12.31 What: Slim Cessna’s Auto Club w/Rattlesnake Milk and DJ Ryan Wong When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Denver pioneers of Gothic Americana Slim Cessna’s Auto Club play their two night run at the Hi-Dive. If you’ve seen the group in the past several years it’s become obvious the Gothic part is perhaps less accurate than comparing the live show and music to a kind of Western Vaudeville with music inspired by literature and theater infused with local cultural flavor and a flair for the dramatic and inventive, lively songwriting that is as life affirming as it draws upon any traditional sounds and style. Rattlesnake Milk from Texas is straight up cowboy western plains style country music.
Chris Greene Quartet released its eleventh album Conversance on October 19, 2024 on LP, CD, digital download and streaming via respected indie rock label Pravda Records marking it as the first jazz album issued by the imprint. Greene and his band based out of Chicago is a saxophonist whose talents have contributed to recordings by Windy City luminaries such as Steve Dawson and Nora O’Connor and he has performed with the likes of Common and Andrew Bird. Greene’s post-bop style incorporates ideas from funk and hip-hop but the methods and sounds are in that jazz ensemble vein in which each member of the band contributes in synergistic ways toward dynamic and energetic arrangements that establish an immediate and flowing mood. The new album reveals not just the Quartet’s musical creativity and prowess but also its knowledge of the history and legacy of the artforms that inform its aesthetic and craft.
Listen to our interview with Chris Greene on Bandcamp and follow the band leader and his band at the links provided.
Kerry Jones of Death Doula, photo courtesy the artist
Death Doula is a band based on Portland, Oregon that released its debut Love Spells on October 11, 2024. Its music might be described as shoegaze but its tones are a little darker waxing into the territory of moodier post-punk and its textures more complex and prominent. The band’s guitar work is a little noisier and at times more angular than the typical shoegaze band and its lyrics more rooted in a kind of poetic lyricism rather than standard pop songcraft. Vocalist Kerry Jones’ vocals are versatile yet elemental in expression with words seemingly informed by a perspective that looks beyond the surface level of everyday experiences. Death Doula’s sound bridges the ethereal and the heavier end of atmospheric music and infuses it with an expansive emotional intensity that lends the music an unexpected power. The albums was recorded with Adam Lee at Jackpot Studios in Portland and its noisy and uplifting maelstrom of creative ideas and colorful soundscapes defies easy categorization but fans of brooding yet noisy post-punk, Helium and the more mystically-minded shoegaze and space rock bands like Space Team Electra and Sky Cries Mary will find great kinship across the record’s nine tracks.
Listen to our interview with Kerry Jones on Bandcamp and follow Death Doula at the links below.
Belgian composer Alice Hebborn’s debut album Saisons is due out December 6 via Western Vinyl. The single “Saisons – Mouvement 6” is an immersive example of Hebborn’s gift for fusing tone, texture and rhythm as though sculpting it all out of an act of pure imagination trying to manifest a concept where the experience of each isn’t separated out as it might be in a more conventional musical mode. In that way Hebborn’s seemingly intuitive performance of the music is reminiscent of the work of Philip Glass and how his own best work seems to wed classical notions of tone and a more organic structure with rhythms drifting where the atmospheric emotional resonance guides it. In the case of this piece the piano, the electronics, the percussive sounds flow like a river and a journey along that river at once with dense sonics and atmospheres until the end where a calm spaciousness takes the place of layers of motion as though the energy of the earlier part of the song is finding its evening out of excitement into quiescence. Listen to “Saisons – Mouvement 6” on YouTube and follow Alice Hebborn at the links below.
Queen City Sounds and Art 
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