Kim Gordon and her band came on stage with little fanfare but with the expected effortless cool and poise. Everyone in the band contributed to the rich electronic soundscapes that ran throughout the show and everyone played a more standard rock instrument as well with a drummer (Madi Voigt), a bassist (Emily Retsas) and guitar duties with Gordon and Sarah Register. Immediately it felt like we were hearing something born out of the various interests and creative leanings across Gordon’s career as an artist and pushing past immediate expectations of some kind of No Wave noise rock. It was more like a thorough fusion of various styles of hip-hop, industrial aesthetics and stretching notions of what role guitar plays in songwriting. Like real time sampling in moments with rock instruments dropped into a track. The percussion was a combination of programming/sequencing and live drums played with an ear for the various beat styles that have emerged in the past two or three decades: trap, Dilla-isms, drill. The effect was cinematic and emotionally-charged with Gordon’s nearly spoken word vocals accenting the rhythm with her own lines of spare poetry as though she was replicating a production method with own performance.
Kim Gordon, photo by Sam Zalkin
The band played all of the new record, Play Me (2026) seemingly in order as well as a few songs from The Collective (2024) and No Home Record (2019). But it all felt like a vivid yet hazy dream with Gordon singing songs that felt like they were a commentary on the current era and zeitgeist in a way that was creative like stream-of-consciousness poetry or free verse and free association on a theme. The social commentary was pointed and cathartic with the production lending the music a textural and cinematic quality so the experiencing of witnessing it live had a tactile aspect that was riveting and seemingly personal because Gordon’s words framed the ideas of tech oligarch and the dream of a world after the fall of the imperial program that has been burning through the world with an accelerated spirit of consuming destruction an attainable goal. The caustic menace of “Sub Con” and “Square Jaw” got into your head like hope through validating one’s anger and desire for liberation from the various tools of late capitalist repression. Both songs and “Post Empire” were a string of songs that seemed to draw heavily on hip-hop production and sounds of the past decade and a half but with a little different sound palette and informed by Gordon’s insight into the ills of the horrific aspects of current human civilization.
Sarah Register, photo by Sam Zalkin
Hard to imagine Gordon isn’t affected deeply by this music and the words performing them on a tour and yet it has to feel good to get these thoughts and feelings out there and sharing them with people who may not be as focused in their expression when everything can feel overwhelming and you just have to show up to your job or jobs just to survive. But the show did feel like an expression of human solidarity for the collective, ambient anxiety and horror of what feels like the worst timeline of recent years. With the update of “Bye Bye” as “ByeBye25” as a kind of exclamation point on the album it was obvious that Gordon’s new album showcased her masterful wordplay perhaps influenced by the hip-hop artists that have inspired her for decades. Beginning to end the songs sounded like the chaos, fragmentation and collapse of the American experiment but also like a hope for something better to replace the old world order. It made this era feel survivable.
Kim Gordon, photo by Sam ZalkinKim Gordon, photo by Sam Zalkin
Setlist from JamBase.com
PLAY ME GIRL WITH A LOOK NO HANDS BLACK OUT DIRTY TECH NOT TODAY BUSY BEE SQUARE JAW SUBCON POST EMPIRE NAIL BITER BYE BYE Trophies It’s Dark Inside Psychedelic Orgasm Paprika Pony Cookie Butter Encore Cigarette
Thursday | 07.02 What: Modern Leisure, Angel Band and Caspar Milquetoast When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Modern Leisure makes its more high profile return to Denver stages after a bit of a hiatus. The group fronted by Casey Banker who has been a member of some of the better indie rock bands of the past several years including The Don’ts and Be Carefuls and Shady Elders. Banker’s talent for writing a memorable melodic hook with emotionally vibrant songs about heartbreak, heartache and everyday life in urban America with vivid storytelling that renders some of life’s downbeats seem like something you can pull yourself out of often by just really feeling those moments. Opening are two of the more noteworthy bands from Denver. Angel Band writes exquisite pop songs in the vein of vintage early Slumberland and Sarah Records groups with some actual grit and emotional weight. Caspar Milquetoast writes the kind of psychedelic country that sounds like what would happen if some great 90s lo-fi pop band discovered both Townes Van Zandt and the more cosmic end of The Byrds or The Flying Burrito Brothers while free associating experimental musical ideas and cultural references. Who names a song after Cy Twombly? Not many acts.
Suicide Cages, photo by Tom Murphy
Friday | 07.03 What:Suicide Cages, Church Fire, Seam Ripper and f-ether When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Suicide Cages is the rare heavy band in its post-hardcore/noise rock mode that is intense and forceful in its performance style with incredibly precise musicianship and nearly unhinged in the outpouring of feelings while sensitive and giving expression to the rage, pain and sadness that comes from navigating the offenses against humanity that come from navigating late capitalism. Church Fire will pretty much debut it’s four-piece configuration and new light show with this performance, it’s first in months, which is a bit of a record for a band that has regularly performed live every year for more than a decade so if you’ve been seeing them it’s going to be noticeably different but likely still the gloriously energetic and emotionally charged catharsis of industrial dance pop. Seam Ripper from Greeley appear to have found the sweet spot between doom, Gothic rock and post-hardcore without feeling the need to fit in strictly in a genre. f-ether has often been one of the best electronic dance producers with a gift for inventive beat-making and tonally rich melodies. Skyler Heck aka f-ether has been delivering hard hitting yet fluid industrial hip-hop.
Myles Smith, photo by Jennifer McCord
Saturday | 07.04 What:Ed Sheeran w/Myles Smith amd Aaron Rowe When: 5:30 Where: Empower Field at Mile High Why: Ed Sheeran is one of the most commercially successful pop artists of his generation and needs no introduction. But Sheerhan is someone who started writing songs in his very early teens and worked as a guitar tech in his late teens before being accepted at Academdy of Contemporary Music and then dropping out to focus on his budding career in music as a songwriter and musician but also as support for other artists. But by the time he was 19 he was garnering mainstream attention for his own work and he signed to a major label after self-releasing a few EPs. Since 2011 Sheerhan has become one of the most famous songwriters in the world for his particular style of folk pop with obvious influence from hip-hop in the production. He has also used his success to uplift other artists whether as a collaborator or with opening slots on his tours. One artist who was inspired by Sheeran is opener Myles Smith who grew up in a British Jamaican family near London. Smith himself has cultivated a wide fan base for his uplifting, expansive and soulful folk pop. With three EPs released between 2024 and 2025 Smith has grown as a songwriter and his 2026 debut full-length My Mess, My Heart, My Life is an especially vulnerable set of songs that are open about personal and interpersonal struggle, love and what makes life worth living. There’s a song called “Sertraline” which is another name for Zoloft signaling how open Miles is about real issues that one is willing to take necessary steps to help oneself get through some of life’s super downbeats.
Replica City, photo by Tom Murphy
Thursday | 07.09 What: Replica City album release, Total Cult, Glueman and Cleats When: 7:30 Where: The Skylark Lounge Bobcat Room Why: Replica City is releasing its new full-length album A Better You. The ten songs confirm that the trio has put together a narrative of the state of American society today with heartfelt songs about self-accountability, authoritarian paranoia and corruption and the multitude of ways our economic system and culture aim to keep us all distracted and powerless. Like a Millennial cognate of Zen Arcade but whose version of angular yet melodic post-hardcore is reminiscent of the likes of Drive Like Jehu, Hot Snakes and Pretty Girls Make Graves. Opening are post-garage punk group Total Cult from Colorado Springs, garage grunge stars Glueman and noisy post-hardcore band Cleats.
BleakHeart, photo by Cameron Baczkowski
Friday | 07.10 What: BleakHeart, Spiritual Poison, Mournful Ruin and El Welk When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Denver-based doomy shoegaze group BleakHeart is celebrating the release of its latest album A Stone Thrown to Silence with this stacked lineup. The four-piece has undergone a bit of reinvention since the 2024 release of Silver Pulse with greater experiments in the use of space and now with just one vocalist in Kiki Ganun, The lead singles and song titles suggest the record leans into themes of impermanence and searching for hope or at least the will to move forward when there seems to be little to nothing to offer solace in a world that seems to be headed to annihilation. The album seems to most completely reflect the name of the band but in its dark drones and most crushing guitar work one hears resilience and a strength of personality that everyone has but often forgets until the time comes to draw on inner resources one didn’t know one had. Spiritual Poison is the “ambient” band of Ethan McCarthy of Primitive Man fame but don’t show up to the set expecting something like Brian Eno or Laraaji. Nothing as soothing as that but an cathartically unsettling flow of textural atmospheres and deep, layered tone. Mournful Ruin is a death/sludge quartet from Denver with more than a touch of Sabbath and black metal in its sound. El Welk is the great, dark garage Americana band fronted by George Cessna with Kim Baxter on drums.
The Church, photo by Hugh Stewart
Saturday | 07.11 What:The Church – The Singles: 1980-2025 When: 7 Where: The Summit Music Hall Why: The Church is the legendary Australian post-punk and psychedelic rock band from Sydney who got off the ground in 1980 and has had a distinguished career of producing some of the most emotionally engaging and poetic rock music of the past few decades. They have classic material most people who have been aware of rock and pop music since the 80s but the group’s entire catalog of studio material is worth a listen and the band has managed to reinvent itself regularly without losing its gift for creative storytelling and heartfelt and insightful lyrics delivered with passion and grace. Truly one of the greats of modern music and they will play some of the finest material from throughout its career for this performance.
PINKNOISE, photo by Jacqueline Day
Tuesday | 07.14 What: PINKNOISE w/Edith When: 7 Where: Globe Hall Why: PINKNOISE aka Kacey Foxx released their sophomore EP FLESH AND BONE on April 17, 2026. The seven song offering is the singer/songwriter’s follow up to the 2025 EP HUMAN=KIND. Foxx makes a kind of music that perhaps fits in with industrial metalcore/screamo but the vulnerability doesn’t feel performative or like misplaced aggrievement. The songs invite the listener in for a shared experience where one can explore painful experiences, insecurities and resistance to a toxic culture of cruelty that seems to permeate channels of social and political power. Regardless of any specific styles that may have influenced Foxx as a developing artist, their ability to fuse emotional power with the ability to express truths of inner turmoil has a catharsis resonant with some of the better music of Nine Inch Nails.
The Head and the Heart, photo by Alex Currie
Wednesday and Thursday | 07.15 and 07.16 What: The Head and the Heart with The Colorado Symphony Orchestra w/Evan Honer 7/15 and w/Wilderado 7/16 When: 6:30 both nights Where: Red Rocks Amphitheater Why: Seattle’s The Head and the Heart emerged in 2009 around the time of a national upswing of indie folk in various corners of the country. Its members met through open mic nights at Conor Byrne pub in the Ballard neighborhood in northwestern Seattle and when the group put together a recording in 2010 they home made covers with denim to house the CDRs it was an organic hit locally with stores like Easy Street in West Seattle and Sonic Boom in the aforementioned Ballard not being able to keep up with demand. That fall the band signed to Sub Pop who remastered and reissued the self-titled debut on vinyl, CD and digital. The album went on to Platinum-selling status. The Head and the Heart has since gone on to much wider acclaim and fame playing large venues on national and even international tours but its core virtues as a band can be heard in that first record for which it is now touring behind a 15-year anniversary of the self-titled album. The band’s vocal harmonies feel intimate and powerful with the three vocalists complementing each other with an intuitive connection with each other accented with the prominent percussion and orchestral arrangements on guitar, bass and mandolin. On this two-night run of performances the group will be joined by The Colorado Symphony Orchestra itself acclaimed for syncing well with indie rock and other bands whose songs easily adapt to a larger and more expansive sound palette.
The Body in 2023, photo by Tom Murphy
Friday | 07.17 What: The Body and Big|Brave w/Spiritual Poison and Fainting Dreams When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: The Body has for years been a reliable source of some of the heaviest, most crushing, dynamic experimental metal around. Freely mixing sludge, doom, noise rock, screamo and power electronics, the duo of Chip King and Lee Buford seem to collaborate with many of the more forward thinking heavy bands of the past three decades as well as offering up several albums of only their own material. Going to a show from The Body is like signing up for a flood of sounds and outpouring of emotion in a joyous yet bare bones display of maximalist guitar, drums, electronics and vocals creating more noise than a duo has any seeming right to doing. The music may seem monolithic to the uninitiated and fans alike but listen to their records and there is a great deal of nuance and concepts that the band has masterfully executed all along with influences ranging from the most extreme metal to mainstream pop and synth pop. Currently The Body is touring with Canadian experimental metal trio Big|Brave who have done a fascinating collaborative avant-folk album with The Body called Leaving None but Small Birds (2021). But the band recently released in grief or in hope, a record that pairs melody with processed noise, textural harmonics and drone for an effect that is both intimate and enigmatic in a deep exploration of living as a human in the current era when everything seems to be falling apart socio-politically and the climate crisis and widespread extinction event hovers on the nearby timeline but clinging on to faint possibilities.
Big|Brave, photo by Stacy LeeValley Fever, photo courtesy Johnny Lundock
Saturday | 07.18 What:Valley Fever, Rowboat and A Strange Happening When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Valley Fever from Tucson, Arizona is making a stop in Denver with its fiery blues rock. Think like a progression out of the boogie rock/classic rock throwback of a decade ago. If you go you can catch Johnny Lundock formerly of Futurebirds and Denver notables Houses, Rowboat and Blue Million Miles lend his considerable gifts behind the drum kit. Opening are Lundock’s old band Rowboat and its shoegaze adjacent, noisy indie rock with songwriting rooted in folk and literary lyrics that display Sam McNitt’s gift for sharp social commentary and emotional vulnerability. Also on the bill is A Strange Happening who somehow inject Americana indie rock with a cinematic conceptualization behind the songwriting that sets the trio apart from many of its peers.
Saturday | 07.18 What:Pink Hawks, Last Reel Hero and The Opalites When: 8 Where: The Skylark Lounge Bobcat Room Why: A full show of Afrobeat with Pink Hawks and the more rocking end of ska with Last Reel Hero’s punk spirit driving the songwriting as well as the rocksteady stylings of The Opalites. Don’t go expecting it to be a super mellow affair as Pink Hawks tend to being an intensity to the performance and a righteously politicized sensibility and Last Reel Hero includes former Fanatics frontman Geoff Anderson.
Dildox, photo from Bandcamp
Saturday | 07.18 What: Dildox w/Hex Cassette, Watch Yourself Die and Insipidus When: 8/8:30 Where: The Crypt Why: Dildox is an electro-industrial post-punk duo from Los Angeles whose lyrics explore themes of trauma from living and surviving in the era of late capitalism and the inherent alienation therefrom society and ourselves. The band also delves into concepts of modern primitivism and the contrasts and contradictions of disconnecting ourselves from how humans have developed as animals through the process of civilization and reconnecting with our deep humanity. Definitely for fans of ADULT. and Youth Code. Opening are the “Satanic” shenanigans and brilliant darkwave beatmaking and performance art of Hex Cassette’s confrontational show. Watch Yourself Die takes that confrontational performance style to a different place with angular yet psychedelic noise rock and Ray Diess’ inspired breaking the fourth wall throughout the set. Insipidus is a great, progressive death metal band whose membership can be seen performing an entirely different (maybe not entirely) style of music in Pink Lady Monster.
Johnny Dynamite, photo from Bandcamp
Sunday | 07.19 What:Johnny Dynamite w/Tassles and Porcelain Horses When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Johnny Dynamite has been fusing decades and musical styles for several years and his most recent, self-titled, album from 2026 sounds like he’s absorbed chillwave nostalgia and mastery of atmospherics, 80s sophistipop and synthpop and channeled it into his own kind of melancholic post-punk with some clever turns of phrase and sly cultural references. Opening the show are Denver’s Tassles who started out as sort of a bedroom shoegaze project for singer Nick Tassinari but with the addition of bassist Molly McGrath and drummer Zach Johnson the music took on greater dimensions even though the songwriting preserved the core appeal of Tassinari’s introspective lyrics and unique guitar style. The current band has an unexpected power and gravity paired with transcendent melodies. Porcelain Horses is a darkwave/post-punk band that includes former Princess Dewclaw vocalist Amanda Gostomski.
Trace Amount, photo from Bandcamp
Tuesday | 07.21 What: Trace Amount w/Lunacy and Modern Devotion When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Trace Amount is an industrial noise and abstract metal project from Brooklyn, NY. Its 2025 album FLAGRANT is a thrillingly caustic and savage set of sounds that fans of Author & Punisher will appreciate. Lunacy is a like-minded artist but his industrial sounds are more in the realm of ambient and blown out shoegaze whose own new album The Crisis of Existence has a title apt for the current time and whose songs are like a bleak projection of the prospects for our immediate future. Modern Devotion is Adam Rojo of post-punk band Voight exercising his gift for crafting masterful ambient industrial techno.
Corrosion of Conformity, photo by Danin Drahos
Tuesday | 07.21 What:Corrosion of Conformity w/Whores and Crobot When: 6:30 Where: The Federal Theatre Why: Probably the band’s most ardent fans knew that Corrosion of Conformity still had one of its best albums waiting to be released and so the group delivered Good God/Baad Man on April 3, 2026. It is a blunt yet heavy and rife with some of the group’s heaviest psychedelic grooves. COC of course started off as a hardcore band but by the end of the 80s it had shifted into more sludgy metal but always out of step with trendy sounds and with lyrics that more than hint at social commentary hearkening back to its punk roots. Whores is a sludgy noise rock band from Atlanta whose own experiments in volume and psychedelic heaviness has left a mark in recent years with its seething fusion of industrial metal era Ministry and Unsane.
Kim Gordon, photo by Danielle Neu
Thursday | 07.23 What: Kim Gordon w/Sasami When: 7 Where: Ogden Theatre Why: Kim Gordon is of course a legend whose work in fine art, fashion, film and of course music is well-known. But in case someone reading this doesn’t know who she is, Gordon first came to the attention of a wide number of people was as the bassist/guitarist, singer and songwriter for influential alternative rock band Sonic Youth. Her calm presence, cool and raw emotional power and nuance and thought-provoking lyrics have influenced generations of musicians. And for that alone, Gordon would be an important figure. But her cultivation of younger and not-as-established artists along the way and has exerted a positive energy into the music and art worlds that might not have been there without her presence and advocacy. After Sonic Youth split Gordon continued to make genre bending and establishing work with Body/Head and under her own name pushing boundaries as she often did with Sonic Youth and other projects and her latest record Play Me proves that Gordon has been immersing herself in new musical ideas and incorporating some of those newer production methods and aesthetics into her own songwriting and soundcrafting imagination to produce one of the most fascinating records of 2026 with a set of songs deep in mood and inventive in beatmaking and might be considered industrial by some, trip hop by others but all Gordon’s own inimitable style. This is a rare chance to witness that music live in Denver.
Blucifer Fest, photo courtesy Gillian Pasley
Th-Su | 07.23-07.26 What:Blucifer Fest: Blucifer’s First Rodeo When: Varies Where: Denver DIY Spaces, Baker District, Baker House Shows Why: This is the newest music festival in Denver and one that was initiated and run by musicians in DIY fashion with an eye for an inclusive booking and an awareness of the types of small venues, DIY spaces and house shows that have made the music scene in the Mile High City vibrant the past few years and going back decades. The first night of the festival will take place in various DIY spaces in Denver, the second and third nights will be at small venues and spots in and near the Baker neighborhood in the center of the city and the final day will be at houses in the Baker district as well. The festival will feature a wide spectrum of the music in Denver’s underground/indie scene. You could literally wander to any venue during the run of the event and catch something worthwhile that you’ve never heard of before or catch up with some of your local favorites. Below is a short list of my picks by day. For more information and full schedule please visit bluciferfest.com
Thursday July 23 2026 7PM The Picture Tour at Ante Up! Monkey Man at D3 Arts Sun Swept at Squirm Dead Boyfriend at 7th Circle Music Collective
7:15PM head slug at D3 Arts 2
8PM Gartener at Ante Up!
8:15PM Soneffs at D3 Arts 2
9PM “Horse Girl” at Squirm
10PM Watch Yourself Die at D3 Arts Sonic Chick at Squirm
11PM Voight at Squirm
11:15PM GUNK! At D3 Arts 2
Friday July 24 2026 6PM White Rose Motor Oil at Wax Trax Broadway Bazaar Chella & The Charm at Hi-Dive Nina de Freitas at Bar404 Joshua Trinidad at HQ The Milk Blossoms at Skylark
7PM Modern Leisure at Adrift Tiki Bar Silver West at Chaos Bloom Jaguar Stevens at Li’l Devils Pleasure Prince at Wax Trax Broadway Bazaar Pink Hawks at HQ
8PM Chroma Lips at Li’l Devils Look at Fiona at Skylark Bluebook at Hi-Dive The Tammy Shine at The Saint Mary The Savage Blush at HQ
9PM Wheelchair Sports Camp at Hi-Dive Munly J Munly at The Saint Mary Circling Over at Import Mechanics Summer Bedhead at Adrift Tiki Bar Autumnal at Bar 404
10PM Circling Girl at Bar 404 Patrick Dethlefs at Chaos Bloom Dressy Bessy at Hi-Dive Suicide Cages at Import Mechanics Hex Cassette at The Saint Mary
11PM Pink Lady Monster at Skylark Los Mocochetes at HQ babybaby4ever at The Saint Mary SPELLS at Hi-Dive blankslate at Bar 404
12AM Cheap Perfume at Skylark Sell Farm at The Saint Mary Ritmo Cascabel at HQ Bud Bronson & The Good Timers at Hi-Dive
1AM DJ Kay Bay at The L
Saturday July 25 2026 6PM Wave Decay at Adrift Tiki Bar Fresh Fruit! At Hi-Dive Moonlight Bloom at HQ Bun Bun at Wax Trax Broadway Bazaar [SALT] at Bar 404
7PM Deth Rali at Wax Trax Broadway Bazaar Mr. Shrimp at Li’l Devils Shady Oaks at HQ In Plain Air at Hi-Dive
8PM Blood Oath at Hi-Dive Datamen at Li’l Devils Insipidus at Ritual Tattoo Gallery Dollpile at The L Cobranoid at Import Mechanics
9PM Cherry Spit at Hi-Dive Your Friend Nirantha at Chaos Bloom Tassles at The L Sour Magic at Adrift Tiki Bar sunstoney at Skylark
10PM Blackberry Crush at The L Divingbell at The Saint Mary Plastic Mystic at Bar 404 Bitchflower at HQ Abrams at Import Mechanics Mainland Break at Irish Rover
11PM Julian Street Nightmare at Hi-Dive Travel Kit at Adrift Tiki Bar Tiny Tomboy at HQ Night Fishing at Import Mechanics Claruin at The Saint Mary moonpool at The L
12AM MF Ruckus at Bar 404 Team Nonexistent at Hi-Dive Vegan Gore at The Saint Mary Horse Bitch at HQ Shadow Work at The Skylark
1AM Neoma at HQ
Sunday July 26 2026
Baker House Shows Big Dopes, Church Fire, Don Chicharron, Geno Beach, Mouth Cathedral, SeFa-LoCo, Totem Pocket – Venues to be announced to wristband holders
After Fest Shows at TrashHawk Tavern Gion Davis & The Designated Strangers 9:30 Caspar Milquetoast 10:30 Clementine Was Right 11:30
Twin Shadow performs at the UMS 7:25PM at Showcase Stage, Saturday 7/25/26
F-Su | 07.24-07.26 What: Underground Music Showcase When: Varies Where: RINO District Why: Underground Music Showcase reconstituted this year but now taking place in the RINO neighborhood. It will still feature some of the premiere Denver underground bands as well as out of town headliners across small venues and two outdoor stages this year along Larimer Street. A short list of the highlights of this year’s fest according to me below. Venues italicised.
Friday July 24 2026 Bierstadt Lagerhause RAREBYRD$ 8PM
CAMPGROUND Yugs 10PM
Finn’s Manor Travel Kit 9PM
Improper City Izcalli 9PM
Matchbox Battle Pussy 8PM
Ratio Beerworks Macheté Mouth 9PM Animals in Exile 10PM Cleaner 12AM
Two Moons DNA Picaso 10PM
Saturday July 25 2026 Showcase Stage Twin Shadow 7:25PM
Underground Stage Rubedo 3:50PM Snooper 6:10PM
CAMPGROUND Legs. The Band
Finn’s Manor Bad Boy Bug 4PM Nina de Freitas 8PM
Larimer Lounge NIIS 7PM
Matchbox May Be Fern 9PM Erin Stereo 10PM
Ratio Beerworks Pleasure Prince 6PM Colfax Speed Queen 8PM The Photo Atlas 11PM
Two Moons Venus Cruz & Super Distant Boyfriend 5PM Covenhoven 7PM Bluebook 9PM Ritmo Cascabel 12AM
Ratio Beerworks Lost Relics 4PM Rugburn 6PM The Death Chat 8PM Plastic Mystic 9PM
Black Moth Super Rainbow, photo courtesy the artist circa 2018
Friday | 07.24 What:Black Moth Super Rainbow w/Giant Day When: 7 Where: Gothic Theatre Why: Black Moth Super Rainbow has done an wide national tour in several years but with the release of its 2025 album Soft New Magic Dream, its first in seven years, the group delivers a more clear-toned set of songs with themes of being lost in coping with the multiple layers of late capitalism’s caustic effect on civilization and individual human life. The distractions, the dissociating behaviors and desperation for something more imaginative, fulfilling and vital in times when the most celebrated social and cultural rewards are a dullened, diminished, infuriating version of what one would hope it could be and how it’s all a big farce and rip-off compared to what’s possible if we had the collective will to create and sustain even an okay world. The album is an escape from that and a critique of the same and a declaration of a need to aim for something much more inspirational than what is widespread in the American and even international zeitgeist. But that aside it’ll be a strange show with beautiful and rich psychedelic sounds like something from another era and a better imagining of existence.
Allison Russel, photo by Marc Baptiste
Tuesday | 07.28 What: Sarah McLachlan w/Allison Russell When: 6 Where: Red Rocks Amphitheater Why: Sarah McLachlan is an award winning, celebrated songwriter with a long career and the founder of touring festival Lilith Fair that from 1997-1999 brought some of the most prominent female artists in music of that time around the country in a well curated and successful series of events at large venues. But McLachlan’s own songwriting has been imbued with a striking honesty and deeply atmospheric production that takes nothing from the intimate quality of McLachlan’s performances. For this tour she brings with her another prominent Canadian artist, Allison Russell. The latter had distinguished herself as a member of acts like Birds of Chicago and Our Native Daughters. But her solo albums beginning with 2021’s Outside Child revealed Russell’s versatility as a songwriter and singer with her signature soulful melodious vocals that fit whatever specific style she chooses to delve into. Her latest record is In the Hour of Chaos out July 10, 2026. The album showcases Russell’s mastery of pop folk songcraft but also incorporates more experimental production and unconventional song structure without sacrificing the immediacy of the music. It’s a diverse record that finds a way to describe the current era and its perils and the importance of love and recognizing hope and goodness when they are presented to you.
MaryAnne Muglia, photo courtesy the artist
Friday | 07.31 What: MaryAnne Muglia w/Lonely Choir and Kat Goblin When: 8 Where: The Skylark Lounge Bobcat Room Why: MaryAnne Muglia is an Arizona-based composer, arranger, pianist, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist. For this tour she’s traveling with her husband and their children in an RV as an way for family and music to coexist rather than needing to choose between the two for something like a tour. Muglia released her latest EP Try Hard – Pt. 1 on March 18, 2026. Her bright and focused vocals are placed within fairly dreamlike retro pop music like something one imagines from a 2000s underground indie pop world before everyone discovered Laurel Canyon and retro synths and made imaginative music drawing on memories of summer nights and having the time and psychological space to stretch into pondering existential questions and the nature of one’s feelings for a beloved other and really both feel it all and thing it through with poetry and finding the right tones and paces to express it in song. That may not be the intention and certainly not the creative process of Muglia’s EP but its orchestral songwriting conveys so much and evokes another time much less compressed and desperate as things feel today and listening to music with that resonance is a gift. This show gives you the opportunity to experience it live.
“Kim Gordon” is bit of a different style of song from Lisbon, Portugal’s Too Many Suns’ new album Reverie (released May 24, 2024 on the band’s own Reverie Records). Whereas a good deal of the rest of the album is in the realm of psychedelic pop, “Kim Gordon” is brash and noisy and seems to be inspired by one of those songs Kim Gordon herself would write about the life of a person struggling with personal demons and an oppressive culture that inspires what some might see as an extreme reaction to internal and external pressures but given Gordon’s delivery and emotional nuance reveals those responses as simply normal human reactions to heightened anxiety in the face of dysfunctional forces. The band ties the noisy riffs and emotional outbursts as vocals to a groove but in the end just lets the self-deconstructing song be what it tranquilly settles into. Listen to “Kim Gordon” on Spotify and follow Too Many Suns at the links provided.
A tonal wind in the distance brings us in to Belief’s single “Ulu” before a steady minimal beat indicates the next phase of the song. Although that wind persists like an emotional context for the song, a lightly distorted synth melody flares falls in the mix, subtle winding drones whisper in the middle distance, a simple, light electronic bass line joins the shuffling rhythm that takes over as the melancholic wind fades to be replaced by a hazy keyboard figure. But the motifs return before the outro and the mood is reminiscent of late 2000s minimal and dub techno, with roots in 90s dance-oriented IDM, in its evocation of a soothingly chill atmosphere of deep contemplation. The project is comprised of Stella Mozgawa (perhaps best known as the drummer for Warpaint whose considerable skills and perceptive ear has contributed to records by Kurt Vile, Kim Gordon, Cate Le Bon, Courtney Barnett and others) and Bryan Hollon aka Boom Bip (who is in the electronic group Neon Neon, in which Mozgawa once toured) and if this track is any indication it taps into their collective knack for generating textures and soundscapes with rhythms to anchor the emotional imagery in your brain with a gentle touch. Listen to “Ulu” on YouTube and follow Belief at the links below.
This best of list was intended for publication in 2020 and parts of the entries with comments were published in my year end best list for the print edition of Birdy magazine in Denver for the December 2019 issue. The full best of list is presented here with those short reviews included with the appropriate album and the rest included without comment and several album covers shared as well. The album of the year was All Your Sisters’ Trust Ruins (listed first) because it encapsulated the mood of the year and the band put on one of the best shows of 2019 and the record felt like a leap forward in style and execution for the band. Soon I’ll publish the full best of 2020 list too in a similar format with the commentary for those items that made it into the print edition of Birdy for December 2020.
All Your Sisters | Trust Ruins | The Flenser A brutal, maximalist summation of the turmoil, conflict, sense of chaos and confusion, rage and frustration and overwhelming flood of negative input from world and societal events of the previous few years. In articulating those feelings and experiences and more alone as powerfully as it does, this album by All Your Sisters transcends genre by providing an example of how industrial and darkwave music can burst beyond established conventions with the sharp-edged and precise percussion framing and channeling the fiery energy at the core of the songwriting.
Adia Victoria | Silences | Atlantic
Adrianna Krikl | Celestial | Self-released
Aldous Harding | Designer | 4AD
Alex Cameron | Miami Memory | Secretly Canadian
Altas | All I Ever Wanted Was | Self-released A lush deepening of the band’s sweeping, cinematic aesthetic.
Anamanaguchi | [USA] | Polyvinyl
Andre Cactus | Dune Juice | Multidim Records
Andy Stott | It Should Be Us | Modern Love
Angel Olsen | All Mirrors | Jagjaguwar Poignantly dreamlike examination of identity in an age of universal scrutiny.
Bestial Mouths | INSHROUDSS | Rune & Ruin
Bellhoss | Geraniums | Self-released Buoyant, lo-fi slowcore love songs for inner awkward nerd.
Bethlehem Steel | s/t | Exploding in Sound The utter exorcism of oppression through bursts of melodic/atonal poetry.
Big Dopes | Crimes Against Gratitude | Self-released Captivating indie pop earworm vingettes of American malaise and hope.
Big Thief | U.F.O.F. / Two Hands | 4AD
Bison Bone | Take Up the Trouble | Self-released
Black Belt Eagle Scout | At The Party With My Brown Friends | Saddle Creek
black midi | Schlagenheim | Rough Trade Records A primer for the new avant-guitar rock revolution.
Black Mountain | Destroyer | Jagjaguwar
Blanck Mass | Animated Violence Mild | Sacred Bones
Blood Incantation | Hidden History of the Human Race | Dark Descent
Boy Scouts | Free Company | ANTI-
Briffaut | A Maritime Odyssey: Heaven is Only a Boat Race Away | GROUPHUG
Calexico and Iron and Wine | Years to Burn | Subpop
Cat Tyson Hughes | Gentle Encounters With Things | Self-released Ambient, aural snapshots of memory fragments from the hypnogogic state.
Cau5er | The Tower | Self-released
Ceremony | In the Spirit World Now | Relapse Records
Chastity Belt | Chastity Belt | Hardly Art
Cheap Perfume | Burn It Down | Snappy Little Numbers
Chella and the Charm | Good Gal | Self-released
Chelsea Wolfe | Birth of Violence | Sargent House
Chimney Choir | (light shadow) | Self-released
Chromatics | Closer to Grey | Italians Do It Better
clipping. | There Existed an Addiction to Blood | Sub Pop
Consumer | In Computers | The Flenser
Control Top | Covert Contracts | Get Better Records
Cop Circles | Vacation for Hurt | Self-released Subversive, Laurie Anderson-esque, New Age, No Wave send-up of corporate seminar jingles.
Cosey Fanni Tutti | Tutti | Conspiracy International Heavy and hypnotic industrial rave autobiography through sound.
Curse | Metamorphism | Fake Crab Records Eight, powerful, darkwave, prophetic warnings of our potential future.
Danny Brown | uknowhatimsayin¿ | Warp Records Relentlessly inventive beats and tragicomedic, self-immolating swagger, sci-fi autobiography.
Davi Valois | Bátraquio | Space Cow Music
Deafkids | Metaprogramação | Neurot Recordings Immersive, ambient-industrial death grind.
Doo Crowder | One For the Losers (& Other Pilgrims) | Self-released The greatest art pop record since the death of Harry Nilsson.
Dog Basketball | s/t | Self-released
Drab Majesty | Modern Mirror | Dais Records Moodily heartbreaking deep dive into the essence of love, memory and beauty.
Drowse | Light Mirror/Second Self | The Flenser
Dude York | Falling | Hardly Art
Earl Sweatshirt | FEET OF CLAY | Tan Cressida
Elizabeth Colour Wheel | Nocebo | The Flenser Majestic, urban-tribal, noise-sludge dream psych.
Empath | Active Listening: Night On Earth | Get Better Records
Entrancer | Downgrade | Multidim Records
Ex Hex | It’s Real | Merge Records Cosmic New Wave power pop gems beginning to end.
Facs | Lifelike | Trouble In Mind
FEELS / Shannon Lay | Post Earth / August | Wichita / Sub Pop
FM Cubgod | Handsome? | Self-released
Foxes in Fiction | Trillium Killer | Orchid Tapes
Frankie Cosmos | Close It Quietly | Sub Pop
French Kettle Station | Over X Millennia | Self-released Retro-furturist, New Age pop shade jams on contemporary wack culture.
Future Sound of London | Yage | Fsol Digital
Gila Teen | Doesn’t | Self-released
Glissline | Digital Bipolarism | Multidim Records
Gold Trash | Quiet Violence | Glasss Records Collage glitch industrial hip-hop daggers into misogynist culture.
Goon | Natural Evil | Convulse Records
Guerilla Toss | What Would The Odd Do? | DFA Mind-altering, subtropical, disco punk dance pop.
Half Shadow | Dream Weather Its Electric Song | Illusion Florist
Haunted Horses | Dead Meat | SIXWIX
Have a Nice Life | Sea of Worry | The Flenser
HEALTH | Slaves of Fear Vol. 4 | Loma Vista Recordings
HIDE | Hell is Here | Dais Records
Holly Herndon | Proto | 4AD
HTRK | Venus In Leo | Ghostly International Love songs from downtempo dance clubs in the future urban decay.
Jamila Woods | Legacy! Legacy! | Jagjaguwar
Jenny Hval | The Practice of Love | Sacred Bones
Kal Marks | Let the Shit House Burn Down | Exploding in Sound
Kid Mask | dead sore(s) | Self-released Dispatches from the industrial glitch techno hard rave revolution.
Kim Gordon | No Home Record | Matador Records Scathing jazz cool poetry set to hip-hop-inflected noise.
Kristin Hersh | Possible Dust Clouds | Fire Records
Kyle Emerson | Only Coming Down | Swoon City Music
Larians | Looming Boy EP | Self-released Loneliness and isolation distilled as shimmering IDM nuggets.
Legendary Pink Dots | Angel in the Detail | Metropolis Records A brilliant synthesis of classical sonic architecture, emotionally charged ambient and deep social critique.
Queen City Sounds and Art 
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