LEAF – Queen City Sounds and Art

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond May 2024

**IDLES perform at Mission Ballroom on May 18, 2024, photo by Tom Ham**

Wednesday | 05.01
What: Slowdive w/Drab Majesty
When: 6
Where: Levitt Pavilion
Why: Slowdive was one of the original shoegaze bands of the late 80s and early 90s and it was more on the more sonically delicate and ambient end of the real of music. So much so that it’s then 1995 final album Pygmalion was not rock so much as avant-garde experiments in melodic atmospheres and abstract pop. It reflected its members immersion in electronic music and left field sounds in the world of dance music. Then the band split for nearly a decade while a few members went on to the more desert rock and Americana-esque Mojave 3. Another continued with Monster Movie and yet another played in Lowgold for a stretch. But 2014 brought the classic lineup of Slowdive back together and that reunion tour revealed a band that was surprisingly forceful in its gossamer webs of tone and melody and emotionally charged in its expansive atmospherics. But was the reunion a fluke? The 2017 self-titled album proved otherwise and was easily on par with its earlier catalog yet a clear demonstration of creative growth. The group’s complete embrace of electronic sounds and vulnerable guitar composition has meant its older music has aged well and its newer material clearly informed with an ear for the present and future. Opener Drab Majesty was one of the newer artists whose own fusion of electronics and melancholic guitar atmospherics seemed to look back at predecessors like Slowdive, Love and Rockets, Red Lorry Yellow Lorry and Cocteau Twins while establishing a sound very much its own imbued with dark moods and futuristic glam imagery.

Wednesday | 05.02
What: Brainstory
When: 7
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Brainstory just released its latest album Sounds Good. Its fusion of jazz, psychedelia and R&B has a sound resonant with some of what Todd Rundgren was doing in the 70s but rougher edged like these guys spent some time playing in garage rock bands that played covers to earn their keep and took that discipline to make music with tangibly lush moods, a touch of that deceptively soft Steely Dan thing including the strong musicianship and while sounding like musicians from another era are clearly informed by the modern lens of that reinterpretation because the production style has a modern sensibility of intentional high contrast sounds and a real depth of sonic field.

Thursday | 05.02
What: Sanguisugabogg and Jesus Piece w/Gag and Peeling Flesh https://www.gothictheatre.com/events/detail/?event_id=526035
When: 6
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: This is the kind of heavy music show that will offer a lot of aggressive sounds but sensitive sensibilities cloaked in brutal sounds and subject matter. Sanguisugabogg is a death metal band from Columbus, Ohio with extreme song titles like “Face Ripped Off” but whose music video is like an inversion of being tough and hard edged. Gag is a hardcore band from Olympia, Washington whose contorted sounds reveal eclectic roots and a surreal, absurd and sometimes dark sense of humor. Jesus Piece is the renowned metalcore act from Philadelphia that set out to be a death metal band but evolved into something its own. Yes, the aggressive vocals and rapidly bludgeoning riffs but with a rhythmic structure that has meant Jesus Piece doesn’t hit as just another death metal or hardcore band as its music has passages where it breathes rather than pummels, and the defiant energy of the music challenges the audience to join in its raw vitality.

Drew Holcomb & The Neighbors, photo courtesy the artists

Friday | 05.03
What: Drew Holcomb & The Neighbors w/Donovan Woods
When: 7
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: For a little over two decades Drew Holcomb has been developing his songwriting in the public eye first as a solo act and since 2005 as Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors. His contemplative and observant lyrics have an intimate quality suggest roots in folk while the pastoral atmospheric features of his sound hearken to more than a passing familiarity with the cosmic end of country. The band’s most recent album is 2023’s Strangers No More the title of which seems to be a calling card for the songwriter whose music connects on a direct human level as an attempt to build an informal community or at least encourage those impulses in particular the song “Find Your People.” Opening the evening is Donovan Woods who is touring ahead of the July 12 release of his new record Things Were Never Good If They’re Not Good Now. The Canadian singer-songwriter’s material is poetically vivid its imagery and lush yet minimal in the way the songs are arranged like cinematic, miniature orchestral pieces the frame Donovan’s delicate yet passionate vocals.

Friday | 05.03
What: Cherubs w/Moon Pussy, Quits and Cherry Spit
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Austin’s Cherubs have been unleashing an unhinged noise rock that sounded like they were falling apart and clashing into each other constantly and there is a certain cathartic appeal to that sound. And from 1991-1994 the group would have been peers of other rock and roll weirdos like The Jesus Lizard and Butthole Surfers whose King Coffeey signed the band to his own Trance Syndicate imprint. Then the band went inactive only to suddenly reappear in 2014 seemingly undiminished in its ability to deliver relentlessly rhythm-driven sonic bursts of ruptured and noisy psychedelia. 2023 saw the remastered reissue of the band’s colossal 1992 debut Icing. Maybe Moon Pussy and Quits aren’t ripping off Cherubs but they are both surely direct descendants of the kind of sound Cherbus helped to pioneer. Moon Pussy this night is also releasing its beautifully disjointed and inspired new album Death is Coming.

Friday | 05.03
What: LEAF: Laraaji visuals by L’Astra Cosmo w/Lisa Bella Donna and visuals by Christopher Robin Short at The Arts HUB sold out
When: 6:30
Where: The Arts HUB
Why: LEAF concludes the live music performance segment of the festival with a performance by ambient and new age legend Laraaji on his birthday no less. The multi-instrumentalist began working on music in the 70s when he bought a zither and then converted it into an electronic instrument and later in the decade began busking in New York. This is where Brian Eno encountered him and the two collaborated on Laraaji’s brilliant 1980 album Ambient 3: Day of Radiance on which the composer used various acoustic instruments and a hammered dulcimer to craft unique soundscapes the likes of which haven’t been heard or seen much since. Since that time Laraaji has delved into various forms of music and performance as well as presenting his Laughter Meditation Workshops. 2023 saw the 4LP reissue of Segue To Infinity, a collection of Laraaji’s early works from his 1978 debut album Celestial Vibration and six longer pieces recorded around that same time.

Mannquin Pussy, photo by Millicent Hailes

Saturday | 05.04
What: Mannequin Pussy w/Soul Glo
When: 8
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Mannequin Pussy has come a long way since beginning in Philadelphia in 201 when Marisa Dabice and Athanasios Paul formed the group as a duo inspired in part by experimental garage punk band Lust-Cats of the Gutters from Denver. One thing that has remained intact is Dabice’s ferocious and confrontational vocal delivery and incisive lyrics. Its most recent album I Got Heaven (2024) finds the group exploring themes of yearning but written in explorative fashion across styles and often threading punk boldness with emotional delicacy for a mixture that is undeniably compelling and refreshingly vital in its creativity and sonic nuance. For this tour Mannequin Pussy brings along Philly hardcore band Soul Glo whose sound of course in true tradition of music from its hometown strays widely from any formula. Its feral vocals often wax snotty but the music has so much momentum and the lyrics imbued with so much fire that you forget what it is you think you’re supposed to be hearing and get swept up in the moment. A perfect pairing.

Saturday | 05.04
What: Alana Mars EP release w/Tireshoe, The Salesmen and Sk8rade
When: 7
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Denver-based pop/rock artist Alana Mars celebrates the release of her latest EP The Prologue at this show. The six songs comprising the EP showcase the singer-songwriter’s gift for introspective and vulnerable lyrics and lushly atmospheric compositions. Live Mars isn’t short on personality, presence and humor. Also on the bill is the supercharged post-punk band The Salesmen and their unabashedly polemical yet creatively fun deconstruction and dismantling of social ills and injustices.

Saturday | 05.04
What: Jade Bird w/Emelise and Kayla Katz
When: 7
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Something must be said in favor of Jade Bird’s moxie in releasing the 2024 EP Burn the Hard Drive. It’s about her split from her fiancée and former guitarist Luke Prosser who has writing credits on 2/3 of the songs. The EP also demonstrates Bird’s growth as an artist and while there are aspects of her more Americana and indie folk sound the most interesting songs including the title track are more electronic and informed by funk and neo soul sounds and psychedelia. They also feel the most cathartic even as the more guitar-driven songs are imbued with the emotional vulnerability that has been the artist’s hallmark from the beginning. It’s a pivotal release for Bird, though, and this might be a good time to catch her as she breaks more out of expectations built around her past work.

Young Rising Sons, photo courtesy the artists

Sunday | 05.05
What: Young Rising Sons w/Diva Bleach
When: 6:30
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Young Rising Sons are an alternative pop band that formed in Brooklyn in 2010. Bassist Julian Dimagiba and drummer Steve Patrick grew up in Red Bank, New Jersey playing music and caught singer Andy Tongren performing an acoustic set at a New York Cit bar and struck by his skills talked with him later about joining their fledgling band. The new group spent a few years with different names while writing songs and settling on the name Young Rising Sons. In 2013 the group signed with Dirty Canvas Music and their 2014 debut single “High” became a bit of a global viral hit leading to the band signing with Interscope that same year. For the following two years the quartet toured opening for the likes of Halsey, Weezer, The 1975 and The Neighbourhood. Although Young Rising Sons delivered three EPs with Interscope as with many other worthy artists that didn’t translate to the commercial performance expected by a major label. In 2017 the band parted ways with Interscope and a year later announced a hiatus that lasted a couple of years. Since reconvening the outfit has been regularly releasing singles and in 2022 it dropped its debut full length Still Point In a Turning World. Tongren’s soulful and passionate vocals and the tight pop songcraft of the band has remained intact. Its body of work including its new single “(Un)Happy Hour” reveals a sensitivity to the complexity and fragility of human life and the importance of accepting the high points and the low to experience to make it through an oftentimes challenging existence with dignity and a sense of fulfillment. Listen to our interview with Andy Tongren here.

Tuesday | 05.07
What: Swans w/Kristoff Hahn
When: 7
Where: The Gothic Theatre
Why: Swans are the influential, experimental rock band formed in New York City in 1982 as one of the standout acts of the no wave scene. Fronted by singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Michael Gira, the group’s ever-evolving lineup and sound has helped pioneer and in many ways define aspects of noise rock, industrial music, post-punk and in later eras of the band post-rock. Its earliest records were brutal affairs of a stark beauty and unsettling intensity. By the last half of the 80s singer and keyboardist Jarboe had joined the band and its music began to increasingly incorporate a musical intricacy, melodic ambiance and emotionally nuanced delicacy that became a regular feature of the songwriting. And for years the constant members of the band were Gira, Jarboe, and longtime guitarist Norman Westberg. Swans might have come to an end on a high note following the tour for the sprawling epic of the masterful 1996 album Soundtracks For the Blind. But in 2010 Swans reconvened and began another great arc of songwriting with songs that had an even more orchestral aesthetic than in the past and a series of albums that have delved into themes of existential terror, mortality, death and the search for meaning later in life in a world seemingly on the brink of unraveling. The latest Swans record, 2023’s The Beggar, finds Gira and his collaborators manifesting some of the songwriter’s most personal statements in songs that experiment even more deeply into modes of expression that disregard conventional notions of song structure and length in favor of experiential truth. Read our interview with Gira here.

Friday | 05.10
What: Water From Your Eyes w/Friko and Red Scare
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Water From Your Eyes is the innovative and deeply imaginative art pop band from Brooklyn, New York. Its music is steeped in hip-hop style production with some free association sampling and live instrumentation mixed together for music that often seems reminiscent of an update of 90s IDM which itself had a leg in similar pools of inspiration. Live the duo is somehow both like an alternative hip-hop project and infused with punk spirit. Chicago’s Friko released its debut full-length Where we’ve been, Where we go from here on February 16, 2024 delivering on the promise of its early singles. Niko Kapetan’s captivating vocals have a rawness and vulnerability that is reminiscent of early Bright Eyes and the music is a thrilling fusion of post-punk angularity, orchestral arrangements and classic power pop with moments of noise rock fury.

Belle and Sebastian in 2015, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 05.10
What: Belle and Sebastian w/The Weather Station
When: 7
Where: Fillmore Auditorium
Why: Belle & Sebastian is the highly influential indie pop band from Glagow, Scotland. Its emotionally rich delicately crafted songs not short on literary quality are some of the foundations of modern indie rock and yet the band has continued to offer fine records including its 2023 record Late Developers for which the band is conducting a rare live tour. As a live band the group has a sprightly charm with shows that can feel a bit like you’ve been invited to someone’s living room to be in on something that is otherwise intimate and private but friendly.

Friday | 05.10
What: Panchiko w/Wisp and Weatherday
When: 7
Where: The Summit Music Hall
Why: Panchiko is a bit of a cult indie rock band that was originally around in the late 90s through 2001 when it split leaving behind few recordings but D>E>A>T>H>M>E>T>A>L its 2000 EP got a bit of a new life in the mid-2010s when a CD was found in an Oxfam charity shop and was very much an enigma. Fast forward to 2020 and the EP gets a deluxe reissue and in 2023 the group released its beautifully bizarre shoegaze/IDM/glitch pop record Failed at Math(s).

Friday | 05.10
What: Guided By Voices w/Undersale
When: 7
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: Guided By Voices has been putting out a steady stream of unique garage rock albums of varying levels of inventiveness and quality since and yet it seems like band leader Bob Pollard has a seemingly endless supply of great riffs and something insightful to say about the human condition. Currently the group is touring in support of its 2024 album Strut of Kings.

Members of Teacup Gorilla from Grapefuit Lab’s Whiskey from Strangers

F-S | 05.10-06.01
What: Grapefruit Lab Presents Whiskey From Strangers
When: See Schedule Below
Where: Buntport Theater
Why: Queer theater group Grapefruit Lab launches its new show Whiskey from Strangers. The production weaves personal narrative and Denver mythology into a live concept album that runs weekends from Friday, May 10 through Saturday June 1. In collaboration with local indie rock band Teacup Gorilla the show will be part theater and part live musical performance. The show is imbued with a nostalgia for “Old Denver” in its mythic dimensions and adding new lore to the story. It is part album release as the live band draws stories from songwriter and musician Miriam Suzanne’s novel Riding SideSaddle for nine songs that explore themes of friendship, loss, identity and memory with the Mile High City as almost another character the way New York City and Los Angeles often are in movies set in those cities. The previous Grapefruit Lab shows have all been brilliant and poignant commentaries on American culture and how we all find ourselves navigating life with that legacy but through a queer lens that resonates beyond the specificity of identity. The final night of the run will include a performance by psychedelic indiepop phenoms The Green Typewriters. For tickets click on the link above and for the schedule of the run of the show see the dates and times below.

Friday, May 10th, 7:30PM
Saturday, May 11th, 7:30PM
Friday, May 17th, 7:30PM
Saturday, May 18th, 7:30PM
Sunday, May 19th, 2:00PM
Friday, May 24th, 7:30PM
Saturday, May 25th, 7:30PM
Sunday, May 26th, 2:00PM
Friday, May 31st, 7:30PM
Saturday, June 1st, 7:30PM

Saturday | 05.11
What: CSS
When: 7
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: CSS is the renowned dance punk band from São Paulo, Brazil. The group made a name for itself in the US with the release of its 2006 album Cansei de Ser Sexy (“[Got] tired of being sexy”) and its first single “Let’s Make Love and Listen to Death From Above.” It’s playful and smooth sound was at times reminiscent of Tom Tom Club and a funkier version of its electroclash contemporaries like Ladytron with whom it toured the same year as the release of the album. In 2013 the group split but reunited in 2019 for what was planned to be a one-off show in their hometown but now currently touring in celebration of the 20 year anniversary of their coming together.

Saturday | 05.11
What: Dustin Kensrue w/The Brevet and brother bird
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Dustin Kensrue is perhaps better known for being the lead singer and guitarist with influential post-hardcore band Thrice. His solo songwriting is decidedly different in style and mood and really more a solid Americana and country flavor. The Brevet is a rock band in the more gritty end of pop Americana with anthemic choruses and earnest and uplifting melodies. Now brother bird, the project of one Caroline Glaser, may have similar roots as the other two bands on the bill in country, folk and Americana. But her 2024 album another year has an delicacy of feeling and emotional strength at the core of the songwriting that is immediately accessible. The songs hit like songs from direct, actual experiences channeled through a creative interpretive lens without losing the essential truths of the real life stories. Glaser’s arrangements are simultaneously intimate and orchestral and in moments may be reminiscent for some of the early Rilo Kiley records.

Saturday | 05.11
What: Pond w/26FIX
When: 8
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: Pond from Perth, Australia has been developing its sound since forming in 2008 and though it shares membership with Tame Impala, Pond’s music has charted a musically divergent course. Its latest album Stung! (due out June 21, 2024) makes more obvious the influence of R&B and neo soul on its songwriting. Which is a contrasting departure from the more krautrock and electro-soul sounds of the 2021 album 9. But whatever flavor Pond is swimming in at the moment its live shows have a lushly transporting quality like the modern equivalent of a 1970s psychedelic space rock band circa late 70s Hawkwind with the mystical space vagabond trappings discarded in favor of glam rock.

Tuesday | 05.14
What: X Ambassarors w/New West and Rowan Drake
When: 6:30
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: X Ambassadors released its latest album Townies in April 2024 and the record feels like particularly vivid portraits of life in the kind of town that exists all across America where there’s a nearby college and an industrial town that partly caters to the needs of the school while having a social world not dependent on the academic institution while its native residents are often looked down upon by students as yokels. The songs are a warm depiction of life in these towns and the inherent dignity of people whose dreams and aspirations are, frankly, no less worthwhile or hopeful than those of their more well-heeled peers and whose stories have a unique poetic resonance. The songs for the band this time out are a little moodier, more atmospheric and introspective and with lyrics that shine a light on everyday life in all its vibrant and recognizable detail whether the details of which are harrowing, heartwarming or heartbreaking.

Wednesday | 05.15
What: Amenra w/Primitive Man and Slow Crush
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Amenra is a Belgian post-metal band whose deeply atmospheric heavy compositions wed a cinematic aesthetic with a seemingly orchestral approach to its performances and arrangements. The names of its albums are reminiscent of classical suites but the music though steeped in exquisitely performed feats of technical prowess are cathartic and emotionally charged. Primitive Man is the by now legendary doom trio form Denver whose songs are an exorcism of the destructive nihilism of modern human civilization and its negative effects on all our lives as not prosperity but repression and internalized violence trickles down from the power elite. Slow Crush is one of the heaviest shoegaze bands on earth but whose music nevertheless has an ethereal grace that elevates its crushing songs into otherworldly realms of transcendent melodicism.

Friday | 05.17
What: Moon Pussy, Church Fire, The Kronk Men and CNTS
When: 7
Where: Squirm Gallery
Why: CNTS are a band from L.A. whose sound seems to draw from hardcore and noise rock in equal measure with a caustic irreverence and hostility toward faux feel-good sentiments and empty gesture sloganeering. Clear roots in The Jesus Lizard and maybe Unsane. The Kronk Men from Bend, Oregon are somehow a post-hardcore surf rock band with a touch of dark psychedelia. Church Fire is of course the industrial dance trio from Denver who turn a maelstrom of pain, sadness, outrage and righteous anger into incredibly heartfelt music. Moon Pussy obliterates the line between great noise rock band, inspired awkward comedy and electrifying live performance art.

Friday and Saturday | 05.17 and 05.18
What: Medium Build w/Rosie Rush
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Nicholas Carpenter played music for a handful of years in Little Moses while an intern at Disney Publishing. But moved to Alaska after that internship was over and started his current project Medium Build. Maybe getting away from his upbringing and roots and the American South was what Carpenter needed to spark his current prolific arc of songwriting but his lyrics are informed by working class sensibilities and cultural references that tell vivid tales of life’s all too at hand and intense struggles and joys. His new album, Country, released April 5, 2024 and its raw and vulnerable compositions are poignantly introspective like Carpenter took a deep dive into the fractured places in his own psyche in search of a personal reconciliation and finding that healing the bruised and broken places in your mind require more patience and grace than many of us are afforded. He’ll be haring his emotional discoveries across two nights a The Bluebird and throughout the tour.

Saturday | 05.18
What: IDLES w/Ganser
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: IDLES took a decidedly different musical turn with the release of its fifth album Tangk in February 2024. Singer and frontman Joe Talbot has said in interviews and press releases that the songs are about love and an attempt to get people hearing the music to dance and not overthink but to feel genuinely. It probably shocked and maybe even disappointed people who got into the band for its early, angular and ferocious post-punk. But the spirited energy is still there, it’s just swimming in moody atmospheric layers at times and others the aggression that has made earlier music from the band so engaging and exciting is delivered with more sonic creativity. The first half of the album almost sounds like a different band with experimental soundscapes and tonal textures worthy of early Liars. And in the lyrics the vulnerable sentiments are preserved and curiously and refreshingly exposed. How this will translate to the live show will have to be witnessed and certainly IDLES won’t disappoint. Also on the bill is the great darkwave post-punk art rock band Ganser from Chicago.

Red Rum Club, photo courtesy the artists

Saturday | 05.18
What: Red Rum Club w/High Street Joggers Club and Card Catalog
When: 7
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Liverpool’s Red Rum Club released its latest album Western Approaches in February 2024. The album is just under 32 minutes at eleven songs and is a fine example song by song of economical songwriting without sound like the band is skimping on rich melodies and storytelling. The group’s eclectic style straddles power pop and blue eyed soul with a standout brass section and infuses it with an infectious energy.

Sunday | 05.19
What: BleakHeart w/Palehorse/Palerider and George Cessna
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Denver-based, dark shoegaze band BleakHeart celebrates the release of its second album Silver Pulse with a performance this night sharing the stage with friends the likeminded post-rock/tribal shoegaze act Palehorse/Palerider and singer-songwriter George Cessna whose work traverses realms of moody and existential Americana. The new BleakHeart album leans into the group’s more orchestral impulses with vocalists Kiki GaNun and Kelly Schilling interweaving their vocal talents further to create moving choruses, perfectly accenting each other’s voices.

Judah & The Lion, photo courtesy the artists

Sunday | 05.19
What: NEEDTOBREATHE w/Judah & The Lion
When: 6
Where: Red Rocks
Why: NEEDTOBREATHE is the Southern rock/Americana band from Seneca, South Carolina that has been building its audience since its 2001 inception. In 2023 it released its latest album Caves. On the track “Dreams” the group brought in Nashville-based electro folk and pop duo Judah & The Lion to bring in its own delicate and intricate touches to the song. Judah & The Lion released its new album The Process on May 10, 2024 establishing the band as masters of pastoral soundscapes and fusing the aesthetics of electronic pop and more traditional songwriting and musicianship. The album’s songs are simultaneously otherworldly and warm with an emotional immediacy.

Tuesday | 05.21
What: Sculpture Club w/Lesser Care, Baby Baby and Kill You Club DJs
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Sculpture Club is a synthpop-inflected post-punk band from Dallas that is touring ahead of the release of its self-titled album due out June 14 and sharing the stage tonight with the great shoegaze/post-punk trio Lesser Care from El Paso which released its latest record HEEL TURN in March 2024. Also on the bill is avant-pop group Baby Baby from Denver.

Tuesday | 05.21
What: Mount Kimbie w/Chanel Beads
When: 8
Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station
Why: Mount Kimbie has been charting a left field musical path since its 2008 inception. It began by innovating in the UK dubstep scene and has generally traveled in the circles of innovative and avant-garde electronic music and rightfully so. Utilizing field recordings, live instrumentation, programming and samples Mount Kimbie has blurred the boundaries between musique concrète, abstract hip-hop, IDM, ambient, dubstep and indie rock. Its latest record The Sunset Violent in particular pushes those boundaries with songs that are as accessible as they are challenging with a tranquil yet expansive mood that runs throughout the album’s runtime. Opening act Chanel Beads is a producer and expert soundscaper in his own right from New York. His debut album Your Day Will Come dropped on April 19, 2024 and its heavily-percussion and bass driven music is imbued with reflective, melancholic moods reminiscent of Safe in the Hands of Love-period Yves Tumor but more informed by hypnogogic pop and chillwave.

Wednesday | 05.22
What: Guitar Wolf w/Hans Condor
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Tokyo’s Guitar Wolf is the kind of mutant garage punk/noise rock that is easy to understand and difficult to explain. It’s raw exuberance as a live band is incredibly infectious and makes the madness and malestrom of its sound and live performance something to get swept up within. Listen to any of its records and it can be a blunt, fractured, hyperkinetic rock and roll that sounds like it’s deconstructing and imploding while you’re listening to it yet there is a primal charm to what this bands does on recordings and at its shows. It must simply be experienced at least once by anyone even pretending to be into rock music.

Thursday | 05.23
What: Optic Sink w/Voight and Pill Joy
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Optic Sink is a project of Natalie Hoffman of art punk outfit NOTS from Memphis, Tennessee. She spent some time as the bassist of Ex Cult as well. This band is synth driven, minimalist post-punk seemingly inspired in part by early synth bands like The Normal and Fad Gadget. But on the band’s 2023 album Glass Blocks it also covered Liliput’s “A Silver Key Can Open An Iron Lock, Somewhere” for an effect not unlike Young Marble Giants with synths or extra stripped down Suburban Lawns or Roxy Music. Opening is shoegaze-post-punk duo Voight from Denver whose music is informed by and includes synth composition and aesthetics. But all undergirded by an emotional intensity that warps its purely musical aspects into interesting sonic shapes.

Thursday | 05.23
What: Waxahatchee w/Good Morning
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Waxahatchee is touring in support of its new record Tigers Blood. The previous record Saint Cloud felt like a shift in a new direction in singer Katie Crutchfield’s songwriting and this new record feels even more like Crutchfield has stripped the elements to the essentials. Part of that sound suits well the desire the songwriter has expressed in rediscovering the appealing essence of an already existing relationship, relationships and life situations. A re-orienting, a grounding and coming back from a vital place with which to imbue the performances and sentiments with fresh conviction. It’s not a radically different sound from the commanding indie folk and Americana flavor that has established Waxahatchee as a band to watch but after four years and the prolonged period of the early pandemic it sounds like Crutchfield reconnected with something in heart mind and heart that might have fallen out of sync as it did with everyone the past handful of years.

Friday | 05.24
What: Trauma Ray w/Downward, World’s Worst and Cherished
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Trauma Ray is the shoegaze doom band from Fort Worth, Texas whose sound and energy comes off like the people in the band came out of the that city’s local punk scene. Presumably Downward is the emo-inflected post-rock band from Tulsa, Oklahoma. World’s Worst from Salt Lake City blurs that emo and shoegaze line perfectly with delicate melodies and raw emotions as manifested most accessibly on its 2023 self-titled album. Cherish is of course the dream pop turned shoegaze band from Denver whose roots come from various places including the local hardcore scene. When the band started out it was called Lowfaith and had more of a death rock sound but over time its music evolved into emotionally charged shoegaze with a real ear for vulnerable moods and intricate yet evocative melodies.

Wicca Phase Springs Eternal, photo from Bandcamp

Saturday | 05.25
What: Wicca Phase Springs Eternal w/Midwife
When: 7
Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station
Why: Wicca Phase Springs Eternal released its self-titled album in 2023 and showcased how one can tap into darkwave moodiness and hip-hop production methods to create something uniquely compelling that doesn’t seem too beholden to the aforementioned styles of music. Opening is Midwife whose heartbreaking, ambient indie folk which she self-styles as “heaven metal” and whose songwriting engages deeply with its radical vulnerability with all pretense of performative toughness that is very much baked into the American psyche dispensed with. The result is instantly relatable music that shows how it’s possible to experience personal loss and feel that so deeply and still find a way to survive without the baggage of needing to “getting over” it.

Saturday | 05.25
What: Allison Lorenzen w/Oldest Sea and Calamity
When: 7
Where: Squirm Gallery
Why: All solo sets from cosmic indie folk artists from Colorado and elsewhere. Allison Lorenzen fuses ambient compositional elements with experimental folk forms for warmly ethereal songs. Lorenzen is undertaking a short tour through the American southwest with Oldest Sea, an artist from New Jersey whose music some might call “funeral doom” because it is heavy, it has grittiness and exudes a densely atmospheric sound that fans of Lingua Ignota and SubRosa might fully appreciate. Calamity for this show will be a solo set from Kate Hannington so the core of her economic songwriting will shine on its own separate from the context of the full band and its more full-fledged shoegaze-adjacent style.

Sunday | 05.26
What: Mind’s Eye w/Friko
When: 7
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Mind’s Eye is a psychedelic, indie garage rock band from Los Angeles whose 2023 album Long Nights and Wasted Affairs that sounds like a blend of early 2010’s post-punk and current shoegaze-y indie rock. Opening the show is Friko from Chicago’s who have been on tour with Water From Your Eyes and whose debut full-length Where we’ve been, Where we go from here dropped in February. The songwriting has the emotional rawness and vulnerability that fans of Bright Eyes and Microphones will appreciate for its orchestral arrangements and noisy power pop sensibilities.

Monday | 05.27
What: Facet, Church Fire and Probes
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Facet is an angular noise-rock/post-hardcore band from Oakland whose 2023 self-titled album is filled with urgent, caustic, cathartic sounds and sentiments. Think the modern equivalent of a Gravity Records band and if you enjoy that flavor of thrillingly abrasive music and/or Unwound Facet is for you. Church Fire will match the intensity and energy but with beginning to end industrial dance pop. On its Bandcamp page Probes from Denver says it’s “Bleak as fuck.” And it’s doomy sludge rock is heavy and stark like if guys who maybe got started in stoner rock bands discovered Shellac and Unsane.

Monday | 05.27
What: Melt Banana w/babybaby_explores and Tomato Flower
When: 6:30
Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station
Why: Melt Banana is the legendary noise rock/grindcore/electro pop duo from Tokyo whose 32 year career has revealed a knack for making sounds that get under your skin and electrify in the live setting. Witnessing a Melt Banana show is like being grabbed in the embrace of hyperkinetic energy and riding out a barrage of sounds that shift constantly with rapidly evolving rhythms in a train of jump cuts. Absolutely one of a kind and kind of an odd show to have happen at Meow Wolf rather than one of the dive bars the group usually plays in Denver. Melt Banana will soon release its new album 3 + 5.

Monday and Tuesday | 05.27 and 05.28
What: Maggie Rogers w/The Japanese House
When: 6:30 (both nights)
Where: Red Rocks
Why: Maggie Rogers apparently transcribed hundreds of hours of interviews for Lizzy Goodman that the latter put into her 2017 epochal book about 2000s New York rock music Meet Me in the Bathroom when she started at NYU thinking about a career in music journalism. But she she caught the songwriting bug and worked her way through an early band and experiments in style when in 2016 she wrote her breakout single “Alaska” Since then the singer-songwriter-producer has established herself as one of the more well known pop artists in the indie realm who is now touring in support of her 2024 album Don’t Forget Me. Opening the show is an artist who has been on the rise as well the past handful of years. Amber Mary Bain is a year younger than Maggie Rogers but has garnered a bit of critical acclaim and built an increasingly wider audience beyond her home country of the UK. Her own brand of indie pop weaves together electronic aesthetics and production so that even her more folk-inflected material has an otherworldly yet warm aspect that lends her songs a unique sense of intimacy.

Tuesday | 05.28
What: Wednesday w/Draag
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Wednesday is a a band from Asheville, North Carolina whose sound seems to effortlessly shift from noisy shoegaze to alt-country with a curiously coherent ease across an album and sometimes within the same song. Its 2023 album Rat Saw God made that range clear and touring in support of the album the group performed that music with a joyful exuberance that turned the heartbreaking songs into catharsis. Opening the show is Los Angeles-based experimental shoegaze group Draag. Its sound brings together beat-making expertise with ambient soundscaping and abstract dream pop melodies. Its hazy layers of hypnotic sound make a listen to its 2024 album Actually, the quiet is nice like walking into a luminous fog that stimulates your mind and senses in unexpected ways. In moments its reminiscent of Loveless in its tonal drift and creative use of iterative repetition and live it promises an engulfing and transporting effect.

Thursday | 05.30
What: Ladytron w/boyhollow
When: 7
Where: Reelworks
Why: Ladytron is an electronic pop band from Liverpool, England that started in 1999 in a more minimalistic mode that got the group lumped in with the then nascent electroclash movement but its own sound wasn’t too in line with the aesthetics of other artists associated with that style. And almost immediately Ladytron moved on to other production styles, methods and sounds so that by the time of the mid-2000s some people were calling them a shoegaze band but there is nothing guitar-driven in the band’s music though its rich tones and saturated melodies seemed to have a resonance with the way many shoegaze bands reflected the influence of electronic sounds on their own musical expression. In much of the Ladytron sound one hears the influence of the likes of Giorgio Moroder and ABBA. After what seemed like a lengthy hiatus in studio output Ladytron in the last handful of years has released new albums including 2023’s Time’s Arrow. Boyhollow is Michael Trundle the legendary DJ who currently helms the long-running now monthly DJ night Lipgloss at Ophelia’s.

Slim Cessna’s Auto Club, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 05.31
What: Slim Cessna’s Auto Club album release w/Little Fyodor & Babushka Band, Mr. Pacman and MC’d by John Rumley
When: 7
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Slim Cessna’s Auto Club is a Denver institution of the Mile High City’s branch of Gothic Americana. But in recent years the group’s albums have showcased the exuberant joy of its live performances as well as the literary underpinnings of the band’s songwriting which has been an often underrated aspect of its music from the beginning. This show occasion’s the release of its latest album Kinnery of Lupercalia; Buell Legion which has some of the most attentive production to the placement of sound in the mix of its albums to date. Opening the show are art punk legends Little Fyodor & Babushka Band and weirdo new wave synth punk giants Mr. Pacman. John Rumley has also been a fixture in Denver music including stints in bands like Urban Leash and The Buckingham Squares. An entire show of bands that have helped make Denver a place where unique music has been emerging for decades.

Friday | 05.31
What: Whores w/Native Daughters and Suicide Cages
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Fresh off its performance at the Caterwaul festival in Minneapolis, Atlanta-based noise rock juggernauts are making a stop in Denver. The group recently released its caustic and driving new album WAR. and its tales of inner turmoil and struggles with self-loathing and transcendence from personal darkness. Local support comes from doomy instrumental post-rock band Native Daughters and brutally noisy post-hardcore quartet Suicide Cages.

Friday | 05.31
What: Alexander Stewart w/Emmy Meli
When: 7
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: Alexander Stewart is a pop artist originally from Toronto but now based out of Los Angeles who has enjoyed a bit of viral success with over a billion streams of his music to date. His emotive vocal style suits well his heart-on-sleeve lyrics and fusion of auto-tune inflected hip-hop, reggaeton and indie pop. Opening artist Emmy Meli recently released her Hello Stranger EP but made waves with early single “I Am Woman” which she initially posted to TikTok in 2021 where it became a sensation for her soulful and commanding vocals and the song became the theme song to Megan Markle’s podcast Archetypes. Meli is clearly steeped in the tradition of soul and R&B in a fashion that has garnered her some comparisons to Amy Winehouse. Her EP demonstrates that such accolades are very much deserved.

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond April 2024

**Sheer Mag performs at Hi-Dive on Monday, April 22, 2024, photo by Cecil Shang Whaley**

Tuesday | 04.02
What: Ministry w/Gary Numan and Front Line Assembly
When: 6
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Ministry has been enjoying a new chapter of its existence as a band and supposedly as a live act it has revamped, rediscovered and re-embraced a wide arc of its musical output. As pioneers of EBM and industrial metal Ministry has influenced generations of other artists with its imaginative soundscapes and joyfully scathing social critique. Perhaps influential to Ministry is synth people and rock artist Gary Numan who has had top 40 hits in the early 80s with the landmark synthpop hit “Cars” but whose creative vision of human relationships with each other and with technology while incorporating new methods of making music during the long course of his career has exerted an influence on a wide variety of artists. All synth pop bands today are part of his legacy as well as darkwave and synthwave. And live he’s still a compelling artist with an undeniable mystique. Opening are foundational EBM band Front Line Assembly whose Bill Leeb was an early member of Skinny Puppy with a long and impactful legacy in music all his own.

Friday | 04.05
What: Glue Man w/Total Cult and Tuff Bluff
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Glue Man is a punk band that is part of the “new wave of shitty heavy metal.” It must be assumed the latter is a bit of a joke the people in the band put on their Bandcamp page. Really they sound like guys who listened to a lot of JFA and Crucifucks and that’s no bad thing. Tuff Bluff is a power punk trio fronted by Sara Fischer who has been in more cool local punk bands than most people and whose songwriting is a vital fusion of garage rock and classic punk. Total Cult is the latest band from former Nicotine Fits members guitarist Nick Santa Maria and bassist Bryan Webb who have contributed to various noteworthy projects out of Colorado Springs over the years and when Nick was living in Denver for a bit he was also a member of Poison Rites. So Total Cult is not a cookie cutter punk band even if its songwriting components draw from familiar sounds and moods.

Five Iron Frenzy, photo courtesy Leanor Ortega-Till

Friday and Saturday | 04.05 and 04.06
What: Five Iron Frenzy with MXPX and The Ataris (04.05) and with The Swashbuckling Doctors, The Freeze Ups (Op Ivy cover band), DJ Tara 2 Tone and DJ Monkey Man (04.06)
When: 6:30 (04.05) and 6 (04.06)
Where: The Ogden Theatre (04.05) and Washington’s (04.06)
Why: Five Iron Frenzy is the rock and ska band that started in the mid-90s in Denver. The band has probably been dismissed as a “Christian ska” band by people who never actually listened to the music because there is a thoughtfulness, joy and personal insight into the songwriting that transcends genre and presumed belief systems. Five Iron Frenzy is a band that can poke fun at itself and address serious issues with humor without making a joke out of any of it. Rather it’s shows and music are a celebration of shared humanity and the preciousness and all too often precarious nature of life. On Friday night the band shares the stage with ska punk greats MXPX and pop punk stars The Ataris. On Saturday night in Fort Collins the group will perform extensively from its first three albums, a rarity in its live repertoire.

Dust City Opera, photo courtesy the artists

Saturday | 04.06 THIS SHOW HAS BEEN RESCHEDULED TO SEPT 7, 2024
What: Dust City Opera w/Avourneen
When: 7
Where: Swallow Hill
Why: Dust City Opera is a rock band from Albuquerque, New Mexico whose sound interweaves orchestral Americana, dark psychedelia and art pop into cinematic and literary songs filled with evocative tales of “sadness, madness and mayhem.” But within the group’s rich body of work there is a surreal sense of humor and humanity that reveals an empathy for the human condition and the characters and situations depicted in which listeners can identify aspects of their own experiences navigating our often physically and emotionally perilous world. Since it’s 2018 foundation, pick any of Dust City Opera’s albums from its 2019 debut album Heaven to 2022’s horror and science fiction themed Alien Summer record to the 2024 EP Cold Hands (released March 8 via Rexius Records) and you’ll hear imaginatively eclectic arrangements and vivid narratives from a band that seems fully realized even as it’s still relatively early in its career. There is a theatrical sensibility to the music that translates to the band’s live performances that fans of the likes of DeVotchKa and Beirut will appreciate.

The Crystal Method from the band’s Facebook

Friday | 04.12
What: The Crystal Method and Rabbit in the Moon
When: 7
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: Two giants of early American 90s electronic on one bill. The Crystal Method made waves with its 1997 debut album Vegas and its futuristic big beat sound that seemed like the soundtrack for a modern version of cyberpunk. Following the 2017 retirement from music of founding member Ken Jordan, The Crystal Method has become the solo project of Scott Kirkland. The 2022 album The Trip Out feels like a sequel to Vegas with similar sensibilities but even more of a hip-hop element in its sound. Rabbit in the Moon predates The Crystal Method by a year when it was founded in 1992 and quickly became part of the burgeoning American rave scene. Free associating house, trance, breakbeats and other musical styles into an entrancing whole, RITM has been an enduring fixture of American underground electronic music.

Friday | 04.12
What: Jux County play the Pretenders
When: 7
Where: Club 404
Why: Legendary “cowpunk” band Jux County will perform a rare show not of its own music but that of proto-alternative band The Pretenders and in addition to the obvious hits like “Brass in Pocket” and “My City Was Gone,” Jux will probably pull out some deep cuts for the show.

Saturday | 04.13
What: SPELLS, Church Fire, Dead Pioneers and Chap
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Garage punk band SPELLS is celebrating the release of its new album Past Our Prime. The title of the album is a bit on the nose because the members of the band are for the most part in their 40s but that’s how the band, risking a too self-aware outmoded expression, rolls. It’s a reliably insightful set of songs about life and aging and staying engaged with the act of living rather than simply existing even if culture and society suggest maybe you should spend your spare time in the evening watching re-runs of the modern equivalent of Matlock and maybe going on vacation to the same spots once or twice a year. Dead Pioneers puts some fiery lyrics into its own punk and Chap is a bit more on the twee emo end of punk in a way you might actually want to hear because that band too seems to have some cogent commentary on human existence. The band that will not be like the others beyond sheer feisty spirit is industrial dance trio Church Fire whose ferocious and heartfelt songs are corrosive to an ossified culture.

Sunday | 04.14
What: Andrés Cepeda
When: 6:30
Where: Paramount Theatre
Why: Andrés Cepeda is one of the most well known musical artists out of his home country of Columbia. A musician since an early age, Cepeda studied music in college and became the lead singer in Latin pop-rock group Poligamia throughout the 90s before pursuing a solo career by the end of that decade. Cepeda’s musical range and depth has garnered him both critical accolades and commercial success in Colombia with his 2001 album El Carpintero going quadruple platinum. He is a four-time winner of the Latin Grammys and his 2023 album Décimo Cuarto attained Gold certification. His emotionally rich and nuanced vocals and musicianship has made the artist a popular figure at home in a similar status as Shakira and Carlos Vives and he has been a judge on La Voz, the Colombian edition of The Voice for twelve seasons. In April 2024, Cepeda will embark on a North American tour of 19 dates including Carnegie Hall in NYC. Calling the string of dates the Tengo Ganas tour, Cepeda and his band will focus more on the pop, rock and electronic side of his songwriting than the more traditional and Balada style with which his name is often immediately associated.

Sunday | 04.14
What: Dancing Plague, Plague Garden and Alucienma
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Portland, Oregon-based coldwave project Dancing Plague released its latest album Elogium on March 22, 2024. The record is a further refinement of its synth-driven post-punk reminiscent of both Red Lorry Yellow Lorry and D.A.F.. Also on the bill is Denver’s Plague Garden whose style of post-punk fuses melodic death rock, New Wave synth melodies and emotionally refined and bold vocals.

Monday | 04.15
What: Julien-K w/Priest and Plague Garden
When: 7
Where: HQ
Why: Julien-K is a more EBM-inflected side project of industrial rock band Orgy. Priest is an enigmatic industrial band from Sweden given to stage theatrics like a group out of a cyberpunk novel of the 90s with a sound that seems to be a melodramatic brand of EBM. Plague Garden concludes its three date mini-tour of Denver this night and on measure promises to be the high point of the evening for more discerning ears.

Wednesday | 04.17
What: Meatbodies w/The Crooked Rugs
When: 7
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Chad Ubovich has been a bit of a figure in the southern Californian garage and psychedelic rock scene having been a bass player for Mikal Cronin’s band and a touring member of Ty Segall’s live group. He’s also been a contributing member of Fuzz. But since 2014 he has forged his own musical identity with his project Meatbodies. The latter expanded beyond Ubovich’s musical foundations to make a kind of noisy and dreamlike music most fully realized on the 2024 album Flora Ocean Tiger Bloom where the band’s eclectic songwriting pulls you in withentrancing melodies and hypnotic motorik beats and fuzzy-hazy soundscapes that somehow taps into the cosmic psych prog realm of King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard and Suicide, perhaps Wooden Shijps in a more playful mood.

The Carbon Diablo Ensemble, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 04.19
What: LEAF: Julia Edith Rigby, The Carbon Diablo Ensemble, Mickey Lenny & Nihil Coil and Diggers
When: 6:30
Where: Center For Musical Arts
Why: The Lafayette Electronic Arts Festival proper kicks off this night with an evening of audio-visual artists. Julia Edith Rigby incorporates viola, voice, video, field recordings and sculpture into her performances. The Carbon Diablo Ensemble is an improvisational experimental music collective comprised of Carbon Dioxide Orchestra and Diablo Montalban that will do a live remix of music for the 1902 film A Trip to the Moon directed by Georges Méliès including interactive visual elements, synths, Theremin and dry ice on a copper heart sculpture for a uniquely visceral and sonically engulfing performance. Mickey Lenny and Nihil Coil will combine avant-garde live composition with processed wind instruments and synths and combine that in interactive fashion with retrofuturist imagery. Diggers as manifested for this show will be Eric Barry Drasin and Sean Withers who will recontextualize media imagery and sounds to blur the line between interior and exterior awareness as an exploration of the mediated relationships in which we often find ourselves as a path to comprehend and deconstruct that dynamic.

Friday | 04.19
What: Traindodge w/Self Evident and Almanac Man
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Traindodge is a noise rock/post-hardcore band from Oklahoma City that has been offering up a unique style of its own more akin to the likes of Season To Risk and Shiner. In 2023 the group released its latest album The Alley Parade which synthesizes a power pop knack for melodic hooks and pummeling and caustic riffs. Denver-based Almanac Man is also on the bill and is on the verge of releasing its new record of contorted and propulsive, math-y noise rock in Terrain (due out May 14, 2024 on The Ghost is Clear). Think a DC post-hardcore band that came up in the midwest on a steady diet of Amphetamine Reptile and Touch and Go bands.

The Non-Renewed, photo courtesy the artists

Friday | 04.19
What: The Non-Renewed album release party w/mlady and May Be Fern
When: 7
Where: Town Hall Collaborative
Why: Denver-based, queer indie rock duo The Non-Renewed is celebrating the release of its self-titled debut album at this show. Meghan Mallon and Mellik Gorton were singers and songwriters in their own right before coming together as creative partners during the early days of the pandemic. The album was recorded by Judybelle Camangyan over two weeks when the producer/engineer also known as JB flew in from Los Angeles to help their college friend Mallon realize the 8 song record. The music is like a look back on a period that many Americans seem to have moved on from even if the early pandemic left an indelible mark on the lives and psyches of people worldwide with reverberations still felt deep inside us and after effects that seem mysterious until they’re traced back to the lingering impacts of the ways the early pandemic affected how we relate to one another, how we have lived and how we have had to learn to live differently. The album’s gentle rhythms and warm melodies make its themes of grief, heartbreak, loss of all kinds and resilience in the face of multiple stressors hitting all at once seem like experiences we can parse and handle with grace and dignity.

The Playground Ensemble in 2019, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 04.20
What: LEAF Day 2: jesterN, Playground Ensemble, Kevin Sweet, Paulus van Horne & FMSHAGGI at Center for Musical Arts
When: 6:30
Where: Center for Musical Arts
Why: jesterN repurposes found or “decontextualized” analog devices to explore the “connections between light and sound through installations and performances. So expect unique projection type visuals with equally unorthodox sound sources in synergistic fashion. The Playground Ensemble is one of Denver’s premier avant-garde so expect something unpredictable, creative and not short on elements of performance art. Kevin Sweet’s performance will incorporate generative sound and audio-reactive visuals. Paulus van Horne and FMSHAGGI will offer a performance exploring the concept called by visual and sound artist Brandon LaBelle calls “the lexicon of the mouth” utilizing drone, granular synthesis and computer voices and in this case coupled with the visual art sensibilities of the paired artists.

Saturday | 04.20
What: LOG. album release show w/Bolonium
When: 7
Where: The Mercury Cafe
Why: It might be misleading to say LOG. has been a musical institution for over two decades but the enigmatic band’s eclectic and experimental sounds and theatrical live shows have been part of the local scene since at least the 90s. Fans of the likes of Primus, Hamster Theater and Sleepytime Gorilla Museum will appreciate the weirdness and raw energy of LOG. Additionally the group has released its latest album Dumptruck Sayonara and is celebrating the release with this show sharing the bill with like-minded weirdos Bolonium. The record is brimming with undeniable pop hooks and angular post-punk rhythms that somehow hit as fluid and funky. Live you just don’t know what you’re in for because the band isn’t above injecting elements of industrial percussion and free jazz. And there’s not much like the band around which is recommendation enough.

Munly & The Lupercalians in 2013, photo by Tom Murphy

Sunday | 04.21
What: Munly & The Lupercalians w/Josephine Foster
When: 6
Where: Hi-DIve
Why: Munly & The Lupercalians is the experimental, Gothic Americana band of Jay Munly who is more often known these days as a member of Slim Cessna’s Auto Club. For this project the music is a little darker if drawing upon similar sound sources and its presentation is more like a pagan mystery cult. The songwriting builds upon where Munly has come from out of an underground folk scene and the Vaudeville Americana of Munly & Lee Lewis Harlots. Josephine Foster draws upon rustic music making methods and her albums sound spare and minimal with guitar and vocals but Foster’s songwriting weaves into her sounds aspects of environmental noises and textures one might expect from a live performance spent collecting field recordings.

Monday | 04.22
What: Sheer Mag w/Cleaner, Flora De La Luna and DJs Glimmer of Nope
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: When Sheer Mag emerged around 2014 it soon made a name for itself as a scrappy and commanding live act whose music completely knocked down barriers between punk spirit and raw power, power pop and classic hard rock. Singer Tina Halladay struck a uniquely commanding figure whose powerhouse voice and husky tunefulness brings to the music an immediate and accessible appeal. The group’s latest record Playing Favorites (2024) is a glorious fusion of garage punk and a youth having been subjected to classic rock like Thin Lizzy, Boston and Molly Hatchet and resenting it before finding in that music a valid foundation for songcraft and musicianship. And like many a Philly band, Sheer Mag has taken whatever its roots might be and made something utterly its own with one of the best live rock shows going.

Tuesday | 04.23
What: Bruce Hornsby and yMusic present BrhyM
When: 7
Where: Paramount Theatre
Why: yMusic is a chamber sextet from New York City that has released a handful of albums of original material but it has also toured with other artists and worked on collaborative music projects with the likes of Ben Folds. Bruce Hornsby is a respected, Grammy winning artist with decades of hits and musical accomplishment in his eclectic career including his 1980s run with Bruce Hornsby and The Range. But Hornsby has been a touring member of Grateful Dead, he’s written bluegrass music and jazz and now a collaborative art pop album with yMusic collectively known as BrhyM with the March 1, 2024 release of the album Deep Sea Vents. It’s a unique and ambitious set of songs that draw upon an architecture of classical music and musical ideas from a broad range of American music to craft strange and creative songs that seem like a story cycle you’d more expect to manifest as a cinematic work. Think something along the lines of Carla Bley working with They Might Be Giants and you have something of the vibe. This is a rare chance to see this set of musicians perform the music live on its current and who can say possibly only tour.

Thursday | 04.25
What: She Past Away w/Ultra Sunn and Hex Cassette
When: 7
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: She Past Away is the great Turkish post-punk/darkwave band whose haunting vocals, electronic beats, icy synths and ethereal guitars are immediately reminiscent of The Cure and peers in modern post-punk, Molchat Doma. With lyrics in Turkish the duo has nevertheless garnered a cult following well outside of Turkey with music that resonates with a certain anxiety and weariness with a world that seems so precarious these days. Opening the show is Denver’s great, dark industrial dance phenomenon Hex Cassette whose theatrical menace is matched only by the raw exuberance and liberated spirit with which he performs and invites the audience to share in the joy of release. Also touring with She Past Away is the Belgian darkwave duo ULTRA SUNN who just released a new record called US. The group’s knack for percussive, electronic bass lines and haunted synth melodies are a perfect companion for its lyrics about personal struggles, disillusionment, integrity, resilience and love all manifest in dramatic and vivid form throughout the record’s nine songs. Fans of Nitzer Ebb and Covenant will definitely find a lot to appreciate with what ULTRA SUNN has to offer.

Friday | 04.26
What: LEAF: Mary Elias Letera, Moss Pig, Mr. Knobs
When: 9
Where: The End
Why: This second weekend of the live performances as part of the Lafayette Electronic Arts Festival includes sets from Mary Elias Letera, an intermedia artist, performer and software developer who utilizes light, sound and dance as part of her integrated creative works such as her 2023 piece “Eclipse.” Moss Pig is an all-hardware electronic live act comprised of SoLRkaT aka Coldfuture and Neptune Luau. Think of the music as a progression of the minimalist techno of the 2000s into more experimental territory evolving with each composition. Mr Knobs is an electro-acoustic trio that seems to produce a fusion of progressive pop, world music and New Age sensibilities.

Saturday | 04.27
What: Weep Wave, The Crooked Rugs, In Plain Air
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Seattle’s Weep Wave recently released its latest album Speck. The band’s music might be described as a complete synthesis of angular post-punk and psychedelic Krautrock style that fans of JOHN and Meatbodies will appreciate. Fort Collins psych band The Crooked Rugs opened for the latter recently and proved themselves prime purveyors of an arty, poetic and hypnotic atmospheric rock of its own.

Sunday | 04.28
What: Cindy Lee w/Freak Heat Waves and Pink Lady Monster
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Cindy Lee is the long-running project of Patrick Flegel, former singer and guitarist in cult experimental guitar band Women. Cindy Lee’s output has been decidedly more conceptual in approach to songwriting, sound palette and performance. Its latest album, the sprawling Diamond Jubilee, is purportedly the swan song for the band or at least this run of shows is billed as a farewell tour. The triple LP is a parallel universe psychedelic folk garage lo fi journey through life in the modern era and all its struggles, romance, idealism, disappointment, resilient dreaming and yearning for a fulfilling life not dominated by marketing to others and to ourselves as per the standard mode of existence under late capitalism. The album is available for download for free or for donation through a geocities link in the bio of the YouTube video for the entire album (see below). Freak Heat Waves is a band that has completely integrated post-punk melancholy and disregard for convention with downtempo techno for a sound that feels like pop music from a future that already arrived but we never got to experience except through art. Pink Lady Monster is Denver’s premiere No Wave jazz dream pop noise rock quintet.

A.M. Pleasure Assassins at FoCoMx 2023, photo courtesy the artists

Sunday | 04.28
What: A.M. Pleasure Assassins album release show w/Weep Wave
When: 7
Where: Surfside 7
Why: For over a decade A.M. Pleasure Assassins have helped keep Fort Collins weird with its ever evolving sound that has explored a variety of sounds and folded it into its eclectic aesthetic. Clearly the impact of 90s indie pop, lo-fi tape collage pop, post-punk, dub and psychedelia. For this show the group is releasing its latest offering, Cloudy, Black, Red and All Over which while offering a highly accessible sound still overflows with the group’s experimental sensibilities. And if you go and couldn’t make it to the Denver show to see Seattle psychedelic post-punk band Weep Wave, it’s on this bill as well.

Sunday | 04.28
What: The Pharcyde w/Souls of Mischief, Stay Tuned and Mike Wird
When: 7
Where: Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom
Why: The Pharcyde were an acclaimed hip-hop crew throughout the 90s with an ear for the more left field sounds and jazz sensibilities in their beats and production. Their 1995 album Labcabincalifornia may not have been a hit with critics but the group’s main collaborator for the record was J Dilla so the album definitely had a feel, mood and texture that is unconventional and looking forward to more innovative hip-hop of later years and resonant with peers like A Tribe Called Quest and Digable Planets. The single “Runnin’” became an enduring hit for the band. Though The Pharcyde hasn’t released new music in some 20 years there has been a touch of newer material hinting at a new full length the latter has yet to be released though you may hear some of that at this show which includes another legendary act of underground hip-hop in Souls of Mischief as well as Denver luminaries Stay Tuned.

Monday | 04.29
What: The Electric Nature (Athens, GA) w/Nightshark and Debaser
When: 7
Where: Squirm Gallery
Why: The Electric Nature is an experimental improv band from Athens, Georgia whose soundscapes combine elements of psychedelic drone, industrial noise, power electronics, field recordings and dark ambient. So it’s only fitting that Denver’s Nightshark will bring its own progressive, improv No Wave jazz and noise wildness for the evening alongside one-man percussion, guitar and electronics free form performance project Debaser comprised of Josh Taylor who some may know for his stints in Friends Forever and Foot Village as well as being one of the main people behind legendary DIY space Monkey Mania and his tenure with Los Angeles DIY venue staple The Smell.

Queen City Sounds Podcast S2E48: Rue Bainbridge

Rue Bainbridge at Lafayette Electronic Arts Festival, April 21, 2023, photo by Tom Murphy

Rue Bainbridge is the duo of Gryphon Rue and Benton C. Bainbridge who fuse an expanded practice of cinematic and sonic art. Using a hacked game console and other electronic devices to generate imagery and synth and musical saw to shape unique tones and frequencies in a way that generates what the project calls “electric calligraphy.” In the live setting the duo use a mesh screen upon which to project the minimalist yet intricate visuals improvising together with the sounds/music in a dynamic interplay unlike much of anything else in the realm of experimental music and visual art. The visuals and the sounds invite those present to engage in a mutual act of imagination and interpretation and in the live setting Rue and Bainbridge play off the reactions and responses of the audience in a way that makes each performance unique as each takes place in a different environment geographically and emotionally/psychologically.

Though initially getting off the ground in New York City and crafting performances in unconventional spaces and those more so, Rue Bainbridge have presented their shows on five continents in art museums, outdoor venues, for broadcast and a wide range of spaces inspiring the creative expansion of the project. In 2022 and 2023 Rue Bainbridge performed at the Lafayette Electronic Arts Festival and for the 2022 event they employed a large wall as part of an impromptu canvas for the visuals and in 2023 it was indoors at the Center For Musical Arts. The wide ranging visual expression with stylized geometric shapes and luminous sketches in sync with composed and improvised drones, field recordings and other samples and textural and harmonic tones felt like being witness to and immersed in a nonverbal yet deeply emotionally communicative act of a shared experience alive for those moments like a collective performance art piece. It had an effect that struck one as intimate and cosmic at once and one that you knew was ephemeral and more poignant because of it.

After the show I got to speak with the duo in one of the other performance spaces in the venue and we discussed a bit of their background and approach to their craft and performance and the heady ideas that have informed what they try to do with their art.

For more information on the project and their shows please visit Gryphon Rue’s website and follow Rue Bainbridge on Instagram.

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond April 2023

Buck Gooter performs at Glob on Friday April 14, 2023, photo by Shin Kurosawa

Saturday | 04.01
What: Wild Powwers w/Calamity, DANA, Body and DJ Marika
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Wild Powwers from Seattle basically picked up where neo-grunge style spelunkers left off and turned it into a vibrant and lively riff heavy variant that bears some comparison to Sleater-Kinney for its spirited vocals and creative rhythmic layers. But heavier and its moments of unhinged catharsis, at least listening to its recorded output lives up to the name of the band. Calamity is the project name for the works of Kate Hannington whose own songwriting is in line with the kind of pointed emotional delivery of the headliner but with a touch more introspective atmospheric element that live hits a little harder than seems obvious from the evocative singles available via Bandcamp. DANA is an experimental, psychedelic garage rock band from Columbus, Ohio whose quirky and ebullient songs sound something like the offspring of Tyvek and Suburban Lawns. Body is also an eccentric pop band but one whose songcraft bringing together borderline campy krautrock synth with indiepop is surprisingly moving and refreshingly unlike insipid indie rock trends of the past decade. No surprise considering talented weirdos like Roni Beer, Ned Garthe and Stuart Confer are in the band.

Sunday | 04.02
What: KEEP w/Cherished, Flower Language and Glacierface
When: 7
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective
Why: KEEP from Virginia recently released its most recent album Happy In Here expanding on its reputation for crafting gritty, engulfing shoegaze in the vein of acts like Airiel and A Shoreline Dream. Elegant melodic arrangements and a deep sense of space work toward establishing a sound that is both otherworldly and immediate. Cherished is a Denver shoegaze band that emerged from an earlier, more post-punk sound but leaned into its instincts for emotionally rich atmospherics and heartfelt moods. Flower Language seems to have taken a route out of metal and hardcore to reach its own urgent and searing brand of atmospheric rock. Glacierface finds Jackson Lacroix who many may know more for his immense talent as a drummer playing guitar and using electronic processing to this four piece lo-fi dream pop/shoegaze four piece.

Monday | 04.03
What: Filth is Eternal w/XSAVAGEX, Victim of Fire and Suicide Cages
When: 7
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective
Why: Filth is Eternal is a hardcore band from Seattle that seems to find no contradiction in aesthetic to incorporate vocal processing and more angular guitar dynamics more often heard in post-punk in creating its seething and pointed sound. XSAVAGEX is also a hardcore band based out of the Emerald City but one that, as the name suggests, is more in the driven vein of amped up straight edge style. Victim of Fire from Denver is more D-beat flavor of hardcore with highly political lyrics that are aimed squarely at vested power and authoritarian impulses. Suicide Cages sounds like a former grindcore band that wanted to aim in a more decidedly metallic direction without waxing into metalcore while retaining the absolutely scorching and feral sound of its roots.

Tuesday | 04.04
What: Enumclaw w/Nitefire and Compass & Cavern
When: 7
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Enumclaw is still touring in support of its excellent debut full length Save the Baby and breaking expectations for what a band playing this kind of emo-inflected post-punk has to look or sound like and doing so with great spirit and off-the-cuff attitude.

Black Belt Eagle Scout, photo by Nate Lemuel of Darklisted Photography

Tuesday | 04.04
What: Black Belt Eagle Scout w/Claire Glass and Adobo
When: 7
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Katherine Paul’s latest Black Belt Eagle Scout album The Land, The Water, The Sky expands on her already entrancing and emotionally expansive ambient rock music that sounds like it’s connected directly to something beyond mundane reality. And on the new album Paul dives deep into connecting with the energy and spirit of her ancestors and the land that connects her to a cultural lineage that rapacious development and rapacious capitalism seeks to erase and transform into a commodity when its significance is much greater than limited and short term considerations of profit. Paul brings a sensitivity and poetry to tapping into what makes the continuum of native cultures and yes civilization relevant not just for those who share that blood lineage but for anyone that would attempt to share that space and how it connects with the world entirely. Closing the album with the powerful track “Don’t Give Up,” it’s clear Paul has chosen the opposite of the despair and apathy we’re encouraged to adopt in the face of vested power.

Tuesday | 04.04
What: Unknown Mortal Orchestra w/Amulets
When: 7
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: Unknown Mortal Orchestra can be depended upon to provide some left field sounds that not only disrupt past expectations but also those for trends in indie rock that it helped to spark with the wildly original psychedelia of its early records. It’s new album V (2023) the sounds are even more lo-fi and in going that direction the songwriting has also become even more exposed and raw embracing a delicacy inherent to not embracing the varnish of overproduction to easily fit in with some arbitrary playlist algorithm. It may not be what a conventional record label would want from the band but that’s why UMO continues to provide us with music that challenges as much as it charms.

Tuesday | 04.04
What: Aly & AJ w/Miya Folick
When: 7
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: Indie folk/pop artist Miya Folick is on the verge of release her new album Roach (due out May 26, 2023) and advance singles for the album showcase her gift for subtle shadings of mood in her introspective melodies. That and a penchant for experimentation in her composition weaving free jazz flourishes and ambient beatmaking like she has been listening to some Kate Bush and Laurel Halo or even Julia Holter and making her own style of a new variety of hypnogogic pop that has no disdain for more mainstream pop songwriters like Jessie Ware and Lana Del Rey. Aly & AJ are a pop duo of sisters Alyson and Amanda Joy Michalka from Torrance, California who have across their nearly 20 year career carved out a reputation for thoughtful and tender songs that make great use of their exquisite ability to harmonize and complement each other as vocalists. Aly & AJ quit performing for around half a decade in the late 2000s and early 2010s but since 2015 have been back to active touring and now in support of the recently released With Love From.

Thursday | 04.06 – Postponed from 04.04
What: Satan’s God w/Disturbing Taxidermy, Polly Urethane and Wolf Larva
When: 9
Where: Glob
Why: Since at least the mid-90s, Jeremy Bequette has been making bass and vocals driven noise experiments with a fairly prolific level of output and this is a rare show he’ll be playing in Denver or anywhere and go expecting perhaps some multimedia performance art style antics. Bonus, you get to see Polly Urethane performing “Elizabeth Citadel” Pt. 1 and given her penchant for switching up the sound and format of her performance for most shows it could be anything but will probably incorporate elements of classic music and noise mashup and confrontational delivery in her usual creative fashion.

Friday | 04.07
What: The Murder Capital w/Pet Fox and The Sickly Hecks
When: 8
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Irish post-punk band The Murder Capital has garnered critical accolades over the past few years for its darkly introspective songs informed by a working class perspective. Which of course has drawn immediate comparisons to peers like IDLES, Shame and fellow Dubliners D.C. Fontaines. Its new album Gigi’s Recovery (2023) features the band’s usual level of fine sonic detail and fusion of electronic composition and rock songcraft with lyrics that are bold in their vulnerable observations and sensibilities.

Friday | 04.07
What: Candy Apple w/Destiny Bond, Zero Function, Crime Lab and Supreme Joy
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Candy Apple and Destiny Bond are two of the more interesting hardcore bands out of Denver now. Both have a more experimental edge than a lot of what has passed for hardcore in the past decade and a half with noisier musical elements and more fluid dynamics while both driven by a spirited performance style that is joyful catharsis rather than a modern tough guy stance.

Friday – Sunday | 04.07, 04.08 and 04.09
What: The Mochines w/Cyclo Sonic (04.07), also with The Old Men (04.08) and The Pitch Invasion (04.09)
When: 7 (04.07), 5 (04.08) and 3 (04.09)
Where: Surfside 7 (04.07), Larimer Lounge (04.08) and Globe Hall (04.09)
Why: The Mochines is a garage punk band from Cape Town, South Africa fronted by Ross Kersten formerly of Denver punk legends La Donnas with Tom Cook (Magnolias) on drums, Curt Florczak on guitar and backing voca and Bill Graves on bass and vocals as well (the latter two from B Movie Rats). At least that was the line-up cited on the group’s Bandcamp account from 2019. Whatever the current lineup Kersten will be singing and playing guitar and the band is playing a string of shows in Colorado this weekend and all dates shared with Cyclo Sonic, a musically similarly-minded outfit with its own share of Denver punk greats in Matt Bischoff (Fluid, Frantix, The Buckingham Squares), Arnie and AJ Beckman (Choosey Mothers and also The Buckingham Squares) and Jif Jipers (Rok Tots). Whatever show you catch it’ll be a nice reminder of what punk has been and can still be with much better than average songwriting and musicianship.

Saturday | 04.08
What: Messiahvore w/Cobranoid, Lost Relics and Moon Pussy
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Messiahvore is the current band to feature Bart McCrorey of The Crash Pad Studio fame on vocals and guitar with Jenn McCrorey on bass, former The Bronze member Bailey Cecil and Kevin Disney on guitar and backing vocals. It’s straight ahead sludge/stoner rock but a better version of what we got to see in the 2000s. Cobranoid is in a similar mold but with some punk attitude. Lost Relics are more in the vein of heavy noise rock like Unsane. Moon Pussy is the odd band out and its ferocious noise rock is both surreal and experimental and while more in line with what Lost Relics is doing much more in the realm of an Amphetamine Reptile or Touch and Go band.

Kaelan Mikla in 2019, photo by Tom Murphy

Thursday | 04.13
What: VV w/Kaelan Mikla
When: 7
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: Ville Valo is perhaps best known for being the lead vocalist for gothic rock band HIM. But with 2023 release of his debut album as VV, Neon Noir, he’s continuing with an even more pop version of that goth aesthetic for which he’s made a name for himself. So he’s probably the big draw for this show but Icelandic band Kaelan Mikla opening the show is the real reason to make it down for their lushly orchestral darkwave post-punk and genuine air of the mysterious. Its most recent album Undir Köldum Norðurljósum (2021) is an otherworldly journey into a realm of never ending winter.

Thursday | 04.13
What: 100 Gecs w/Machine Girl at Mission Ballroom
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Hyperpop legends 100 Gecs recently released their second full length 10,000 Gecs and thankfully tend to confound more conventional minds because there’s the usual layered genre busting material but also genuinely catchy pop that border on ska, at least with “Frog On The Floor.” Still surreal and creative in threading together stylistic aesthetics at will, this might be a good time to catch the band as it’s expanding its own horizons. Opening is industrial dance project Machine Girl that isn’t short on hyping the audience with its own high energy antics.

White Rose Motor Oil, photo courtesy the artists

Thursday | 04.13
What: Casey James Prestwood, White Rose Motor Oil and Chella and The Charm
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge Bobcat Club
Why: The Americana show of the week with Casey James Prestwood and his own interpretation of fairly traditional country songwriting tinged with some of the punk sensibility with his background as a member of Hot Rod Circuit, Chella and the Charm’s sly and philosophical songwriting and fairly earnest yet atmospheric and nuanced moods and White Rose Motor Oil, the rockabilly band with its own punk edge who are releasing their new album The Gift of Poison.

Friday | 04.14
What: Buck Gooter w/Polly Urethane, Nightshark and Pythian Whispers
When: 9
Where: Glob
Why: Buck Gooter is the legendary “industrial blues” band from Harrisonburg, Virginia originally comprised of guitarist and vocalist Terry Turtle and lead vocalist/electronics musician (though both worked on the electronics side) Billy Brett. Beginning with its earliest releases in 2006 the duo started garnering an underground fanbase including the likes of Henry Rollins for its politically charged, electrifyingly intense songs that blurred the lines between industrial music, dark psychedelia and rock and roll. Turtle tragically passed away in 2019 but Brett was tasked with the legacy of the band and has since released two albums with Turtle contributing posthumously with 2021’s Head In A Bird Cage and the new record Ghost Brain which was produced, recorded and mixed by Oliver Ackermann of A Place to Bury Strangers fame at his Death By Audio studio. Buck Gooter is performing as a duo for this tour and after this Denver date they will be doing shows with Kilynn Lunsford formerly of experimental post-punk legends Taiwan Housing Project but in support of her outstanding 2022 solo album Custodians Of Human Succession. Openers for this show are Polly Urethane who literally does a different set for every local performance and it’s always creative, conceptual and memorable, noise rock and free jazz legends Nightshark and psychedelic ambient trio Pythian Whispers of which this author is a member.

Saturday | April 15
What: Andy Monley, Roger Green and Joe Sampson
When: 7
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Three of Denver’s greatest songwriters on one bill and Andy Monley and Roger Green are both releasing an album. The latter two were once in The Czars together and Monley was a founding member of country punk legends Jux County and his solo material, while quite different, benefits from the sophistication of his songcraft. Roger Green is a professor whose work on psychedelia is widely respected and whose own style dips into the avant-garde and jazz.

Saturday | 04.15
What: Screaming Females w/Generación Suicida and Smirk
When: 7:30
Where: Marquis Theater
Why: Merely calling Screaming Females a punk band does it a bit of a disservice because its musical style is more wide-ranging and often conceptual in the songwriting if imbued with that spirit. But singer and guitarist Marissa Patermoster’s creative guitar riffs and vocal melodies have a tenderness and force all at once. The group’s new album is Desire Pathway. Generación Suicida is a punk outfit from Los Angeles that sings in Spanish and its songs have a spookiness and atmosphere to them that might put them more in the post-punk column. Smirk is the solo project of Nick Vicario who makes some bleak and minimalistic punk that is more in the realm of some kind of lo-fi, arty post-punk with some real grit and mystique.

Many Blessings in 2017, photo by Tom Murphy

Sunday | 04.16
What: Dead Congregation w/Predatory Light, Black Curse and Many Blessings
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Greek death metal band Dead Congregation makes a stop in Denver for this stacked line-up of regional extreme metal. Dead Congregation was inspired in part by Swedish death metal and maybe the more Gothenburg contingent with its drawing upon progressive rock and grindcore. Predatory Light is a black metal band from Santa Fe, New Mexico whose own melodic black metal has a similar musical DNA as Dead Congregation. Black Curse includes members of Blood Incantation, Spectral Voice, Primitive Man and Khemmis and definitely more in the vein of feral trve black metal. The x-factor is Ethan McCarthy performing as his noise project Many Blessings where he does a distorted ambient music with heavy frequency modulation.

Monday | 04.17
What: Nikki Lane w/Leroy from the North
When: 7
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: Nikki Lane released her fourth album Denim & Diamonds in 2022 and is currently touring in support of the record. Produced by Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age fame, the album represents a new chapter of the artist’s songwriting. She’s always had that voice with a touch of edge and force, resonant in commanding emotional nuance. But the earlier offerings were definitely within the realm of more traditional country. Her witty and insightful storytelling this time around finds a vehicle in an eclectic set of songs that showcase her range as an artist as a musician and as a vocalist. As a live performer Lane seems to have something extra about her stage presence that comes across as authentic, unvarnished and direct.

Tuesday | 04.18
What: Lizzy McAlpine w/Olivia Barton
When: 7
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: After the release of her 2022 album Five Seconds Flat, Lizzy McAlpine has garnered a bit of buzz for her intimate songwriting style and delivery. The album is a catalog of heartbreak and looming anxieties expressed in hushed yet warm tones and delicate strains of music like a miniature orchestra as the soundtrack to vignettes from her life. Coinciding with the release of the album McAlpine also released a short film named after the album that contains two of the tracks from the record but which features the themes of heartbreak as a small death in cinematic form. Watch below on YouTube.

Rue/Bainbridge, photo by Wolfgang Daniel

Friday | 04.21
What: LEAF night 1: Rue/Bainbridge
When: 7 pm start time
Where: Center For Musical Arts (200 E. Baseline Road, Lafyette, CO 80206)
Why: The first night of Lafayette Electronic Arts Festival, a festival dedicated to experimental and avant-garde electronic music with an emphasis on mixed media performances. The festival runs 4.21, 4.22 and 4.30. For more information on the festival and schedule please visit https://leafcolorado.org/. For this initial musical portion of the festival, per the LEAF press release:

“Rue Bainbridge, the bi-coastal duo of Gryphon Rue and Benton C Bainbridge, exists in the intersection of expanded cinema and sonic art. Generating electric calligraphy with a hacked game console, the light patterns become a score, with visual rhythmicity suggesting electro-acoustic events. Perception shifts as light and sound momentarily synchronize, tracing a zone of concentrated intricacy.
Rue Bainbridge is the first recipient of the Nam June Paik and Shigeko Kubota Video Art prize (2019). The project has been supported with residencies at spaces in transition: an Italianate palazzo that housed destitute millionaires, an abandoned 18th century hotel favored by rock stars, and an officer’s house on a former military island. Rue Bainbridge have been presented by Roulette Intermedium, Pace Gallery, Hauser & Wirth, The Hepworth Wakefield, Slate Projects / Foreign Domestic, Center for Visual Music, Public Works at Governor’s Island, Andrew Freedman Home, and Shigeko Kubota Video Art Foundation. Projects are realized as immersive audiovisual performances, yielding single-channel artworks with decentralized provenance. Rue Bainbridge is supported by Andrew Freedman Home Artist-In-Residence program in The Bronx, NYC.”

Bud Bronson & The Good Timers in 2018, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 04.21
What: Bud Bronson & The Good Timers album release w/Don Chicharron and The Knew
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Bud Bronson & The Good Timers are playing their last show for the near term in celebration of the release of their expansive and heartfelt new record BBGTIII out on Snappy Little Numbers. Connoisseurs of power pop are already fans of the Denver-based band and this new record seems even more ambitious in terms of songwriting and lyrics than its already impressive earlier output and the live band is a force of good will and passionate performance. Joining them for this occasion is Latin psychedelic rock band Don Chicharron who could headline a night on their own and the return of The Knew, one of the most underrated rock bands out of Denver with its own brand of power pop-inflected rock and roll.

Xeno & Oaklander in 2019, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 04.22
What: Xeno & Oaklander w/Martial Canterel and DJ Eli
When: 8
Where: HQ
Why: Brooklyn-based Xeno & Oaklander has had a long career of producing some of the more forward thinking modern techno dance music in the darkwave vein by way of early electroclash. Its albums have had a consistent through line that suggests a European synth pop influence and a fall like chill in its overall melodic tones. It’s hard, angular rhythms somehow flow and have a tactile quality that anchors the music keeping its ethereal drift grounded in a way that feels like a secret great band in an underground club of the non-dystopian of the cyberpunk-esque near future.

The Carbo Diablo Ensemble, photo courtesy the artists

Saturday | 04.22
What: LEAF night 2: Ryan Wurst & Aaron Alexander and The Carbon Diablo Ensemble
When: 7 pm (Ryan Wurst & Aaron Alexander) and 8 pm. The Carbon Diablo Ensemble
Where: Center For Musical Arts (200 E. Baseline Road, Lafyette, CO 80206)
Why: For more information on the Lafayette Electronic Arts Festival and schedule please visit https://leafcolorado.org/.Per the LEAF press release for each performance:

“Ryan Wurst and Aaron Alexander perform an improvisational mix of generative ambience and camera-based visuals processed and mixed in real-time. Hailing from Pueblo, CO where both teach media-based music and art at the University of Colorado, the duo explore slow-moving sonic motifs that surge and swell through live visual pan/tilt/zoom explorations of intimate environments constructed in tiny terrariums.”

“The Carbon Dioxide Ensemble and Diablo Montalban join forces as the Carbon Diablo Ensemble to present a multimedia deconstruction, reconstruction, and live score for the 1910 silent film Frankenstein.

The Carbon Dioxide Ensemble performs improvisational musique concrète with interactive visuals. Members include Thomas Lundy on Copper Heart articulated with dry ice, Victoria Lundy on Theremin and Live Electronics, and Mark Mosher on Live Sampling, Visuals, and Mix.

Performance artist Diablo Montalban, the Master of Audio Disaster, mixes live art through sound collage, drawing inspiration from music, pop culture, and noise. Diablo works spontaneously, creating pieces that are unique for the moment.

In Diablo’s live pop-up performances, he combines multiple sound sources with natural atmospherics — combining, overlapping, reversing, whatever — to create something original, never to be performed the same way again . . . Diablo is obviously influenced by Wayne Coyne’s parking lot experiments. While Wayne’s celebrity is able to attract hundreds, Diablo is often left to his own devices with a handful of quizzical looks for his troubles.”

Goth Babe (and Sadie), photo courtesy the artist

Sunday and Tuesday | 04.23 and 04.25
What: Goth Babe w/Yoke Lore (04.23) and Cautious Clay (04.25)
When: 7 (04.23) and
Where: Mission Ballroom (04.23) and Red Rocks (04.25)
Why: Goth Babe has been imbuing his recent EPs with some essence of a place and each has a distinct aesthetic and personality including his most recent, Iceland, released in November 2022. Goth Babe aka Griffin Washburn is originally from Tennessee but found a way to live a somewhat nomadic life with his dog Sadie. Which sounds a lot like that influencer hipster “van life artist” lifestyle except that Washburn has carved out a name for himself as a songwriter of note whose evocative pop songs are transporting and poetic recorded either in his studio on a boat or on his RV. With his newer music Washburn has made a soundtrack for wider spaces and forward thinking, expansive experiences with deep and lush atmospherics making it an apt soundtrack for venues the size of which he’s playing these days.

Tuesday | 04.25
What: True Widow w/Shadows Tranquil and Shiny Around the Edges
When: 7
Where: Meow Wolf
Why: True Widow were early adopters of blurring the line between post-punk, doom metal and shoegaze and still one of the best though the Dallas-based trio hasn’t released an album since 2016’s Avvolgere. Live it’s heavy, atmospheric sonic sculptures hit like a dark and transformative dream. Sharing the stage is Denver’s own Shadows Tranquil whose own mixed aesthetic of ethereal yet heavy, metallic shoegaze is emotionally rich in its musical resonance as well.

Thursday | 04.27
What: Crocodiles w/Cleaner and Easy Ease
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Crocodiles from San Diego has evolved its sound since its inception in the late 2000s and dipping into various ends of its core sound somewhere between classic pop, noisy post-punk, garage rock and shoegaze. Its new album Upside Down In Heaven sounds like a lo-fi pop fusion of the likes of The Jesus and Mary Chain and The Soft Moon. Like a bubblegum pop band of the 60s that woke up in the 2000s and dove deep into the music of Jay Reatard and No Age. Fortunately like-minded openers like the psych garage band Cleaner and the more dark indie pop Easy Ease will keep the evening from being all the same flavor.

Julian St. Nightmare, photo by Tom Murphy

Thursday | 04.27
What: Julian St. Nightmare w/Antibroth and Dream of Industry
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Julian St. Nightmare is one of the top tier post-punk bands from Denver with its sound steeped in darkwave, surf pop and garage rock. Antibroth is also a post-punk band but one who seem to be driven by a concept that elevates its angular guitar rock to something more arty yet playful and delivered with a sometimes unhinged intensity. Dream of Industry is also in the darkwave vein but more in the lo-fi shoegaze mode.

Thursday | 04.27
What: Donovan Woods and Henry Jamison
When: 7
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: Canadian folk pop artist Donovan Woods is currently traveling with Henry Jamison on what they’re calling The Husbandry Tour. Apparently its an attempt by both songwriters who admire each other’s work to become friends and hopefully not ruin the association with such close proximity and daily familiarity. Woods’ critically acclaimed body of work is born out of his gift for expressive and gently poetic songwriting and performance that one might compare favorably with that of Iron & Wine and Bon Iver and that subtlety and power of composition.

The HIRS Collective, photo from Bandcamp

Friday | 04.28
What: The HIRS Collective w/Endless Nameless, Ukko’s Hammer, Squerm and BetterSelfs
When: 7
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective
Why: The HIRS Collective is a Philadelphia-based hardcore band whose hard hitting songs are an assertion of dignity and self-empowerment with songs like “We’re Still Here,” the title track of the group’s new album of the same name. That record with contributions from Shirley Manson of Garbage, The Body, Gouge Away, My Chemical Romance, Soul Glo, Escuela Grind, Screaming Females, Fucked Up, The Locust, Thursday and Touché Amoré is an invigorating blast of amped punk bordering on grindcore that aims at the dissolution of negative structures and celebrating, per its bio on the Get Better Records site, “the survival of trans, queer, poc, black, women and any and all other folks who have to constantly face violence, marginalization and oppression.” And stacking this bill are Denver bands who embody this ethos in spirit and membership.

Lesser Care in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 04.29
What: Lesser Care w/No Gossip in Braille and Bloodsports
When: 7
Where: D3 Arts
Why: Lesser Care might be the greatest purveyors of the synthesis of post-punk and shoegaze in the underground at the moment. Hailing from El Paso, Texas, the trio delivers a disarmingly powerful and emotionally rich music that is as transporting as it is grounding. No Gossip in Braille is an ethereal post-punk band with elegant layers of guitar suffused with a full spectrum of tonality in its expressive interplay. Bloodsports is a noisy post-punk band that sounds like instead of imitating modern darkwave it went in for finding inspiration among older alternative rock bands with imaginative guitar sounds like Sonic Youth.

Lillevan and Morton Subotnick, photo courtesy the artists

Sunday | 04.30
What: Morton Subotnik and Lillevan
When: 7 pm start time
Where: The Arts Hub (420 Courtney Way, Lafayette, CO 80026)
Why: or more information on the Lafayette Electronic Arts Festival and schedule please visit https://leafcolorado.org/. Per the LEAF press release for the final night of the festival:

“On Sunday, April 30, the Lafayette Electronic Arts Festival is honored to present pioneering experimental electronic music composer Morton Subotnick, and Berlin-based visual artist Lillevan, performing live in immersive quadraphonic sound. Having worked together for the last twelve years, the technique and process of Subotnick and Lillevan has culminated in the work, “As I Live and Breathe”. Subotnick has stated that he feels this work will be “the ultimate fulfillment of his public performance; one of the last, if not the last, of his public performance works”, as he turns 90 years old this year. The work is centered around Subotnick’s breath, which becomes ever more musically and visually ornamented by Lillevan, only to end with a single, exhaled breath. The work is meant as a musical metaphor for the composer’s life in music.

“In the early 60s, Subotnick taught at Mills College and with Ramon Sender, co-founded the San Francisco Tape Music Center. During this period he collaborated with Anna Halprin in two works (the 3 legged stool and Parades and Changes) and was music director of the Actors Workshop. It was also during this period that Subotnick worked with Don Buchla on what may have been the first analog synthesizer (now at the Library of Congress).

“Between 1961 and 1980, Morton Subotnick’s principal work as a composer was devoted to the development of electronic music as a studio art. The first four years of that period were spent with Don Buchla designing and building an appropriate instrument with which to make music specifically for recorded formats, to be heard in one’s home. In 1969 Subotnick helped carved out a new path of music education and created the now famous California Institute of the Arts.

“Lillevan is an animation, video and media artist who is perhaps best known as a founding member of the visual/music group Rechenzentrum / Data Center (1997-2008). He has worked and performed with an array of acclaimed artists from other genres: music – both club culture and classical, dance, theatre and opera, and has enjoyed challenging projects in performance and installation, and academic settings. His performances, DVD releases, collaborations and solo works have been acclaimed by critics and audiences alike, taking visual music, animation, bricolage and film manipulation to new levels. Lillevan performs and lectures all over the world, previous festivals and events include Europe, Asia, North & South America; Ars Electronica, Transmediale, Mutek, Dis-Patch etc.”

The New Pornographers, photo by Ebru Yildiz

Sunday | 04.30
What: The New Pornographers w/Wild Pink https://www.gothictheatre.com/events/detail/?event_id=464311
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: The New Pornographers is the well-known supergroup from Canada whose membership includes Neko Case, AC Newman, John Collins, Todd Fancey, Kathryn Calder and Joe Seiders with contributions from touring member Nora O’Connor who also plays with Neko Case when she’s touring her solo deal. Twenty-six years into its existence The New Pornographers has established itself as one of the most respected pioneers of modern indie rock but perhaps because its members have their own projects separate from the collective the band’s songwriting has always had a broad range of variety that resists settling into too much of a routine. And yet its new album Continue as a Guest finds The New Pornographers exploring broader vistas of sounds and songwriting ideas and its songs sound like a soundtrack for a literary thriller with urgent energies and lush atmospherics boosted emotionally by the classic New Pornographers harmonies among some of the finest voices in modern music. Live the band has an orchestral yet fresh sound that comes off more unvarnished that one might expect lending it an unexpectedly spontaneous edge.

Sunday | 04.30
What: Xiu Xiu w/Voight https://tickets.holdmyticket.com/tickets/405810
When: 7
Where: HQ
Why: Xiu Xiu at this point can do whatever it wants and explore any creative musical idea and concept and craft it into compelling and deeply imaginative and sonically inventive music. Check in at any point in the band’s career and you’re never quite sure what you’re in for except that it’ll be fascinating and emotionally charged listening. Its new album Ignore Grief might be its most challenging and sonically experimental record to date fully bridging any gaps that existed between its industrial tribal sounds, noise and an avant-garde horror movie soundtrack. Voight won’t be as weird but its own industrial-techno post-punk also has a thrillingly unsettling emotional quality that hits with an unexpected and deep resonance.

To Be Continued…

Best Shows in Denver 03/14/19 – 03/20/19

AdiaVictoria_2019_ShervinLainez — **Adia Victoria performs at Larimer Lounge on 3/15**

Thursday | March 14

thedrood_nov4_2015_tommurphy — The Drood circa 2015, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: The Drood, Church Fire, blackcell, Mudwulf and dizypixl
When: Thursday, 03.14, 8 p.m.
Where: Ophelia’s Electric Soapbox
Why: The Drood could be described as a horror ambient band with a penchant for subverting the dark music paradigm with wry humor and deeply imaginative reworking of tropes into new shapes. It’s what gives the band a kind of timeless and otherworldly quality even as it uses familiar sounds and moods to weave its unusual narratives. Church Fire similarly uses the vocabulary of dance and industrial music to enter mythic psychological spaces to comment on culture and political issues without boring us with didactic and topical platitudes. Blackcell is the longest running industrial/EBM band in Denver but one that has evolved so much since its early days as essentially and industrial noise act into one of the great the abstract/ambient dance/darkwave bands today. Mudwulf will bring an unpredictable collection of underground electronic music to DJ and Dizypixl, known for her work with Skinny Puppy, will provide brain-stirring visuals.

Who: Ian Svenonius’ Escape-ism with his “FoundSoundDreamDrama”
When: Thursday, 03.14, 9 p.m.
Where: Lane Meyer Products
Why: Even though The Lost Record, the debut from Escape-ism, the latest project from Ian Svenonius, the frontman of The Nation of Ulysses, The Make-Up, Weird War and other noteworthy musical entities over the years. Musically it sounds like lo-fi electroclash (or an even more lo-fi take on that musical movement). But that jibes with what is obviously a concept with music videos that look like its borrowing the aesthetics of an un-cool era, particularly the Super-8 vibe of the video for “Nothing Personal,” to pull listeners, and presumably those attending the show, out of everyday consciousness. Across his career as a musician, Svenonius and his partners have attempted to make music to engage both body and mind whereas much of modern culture and entertainment seems aimed at atomizing us as people from each other but also within ourselves. That the show is booked at something outside the usual purview of a bar or conventional venue should be telling as well regarding the aims of the performance.

Friday | March 15

josh_ott_image4 — Josh Ott, photo courtesy the artist

Who: Adia Victoria wNina and the Hold Tight and Brother Sister Hex
When: Friday, 03.15, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Adia Victoria’s 2016 album Beyond the Bloodhounds introduced the world to the songwriter’s brooding, expressive, bluesy songwriting. Her 2019 album Silences finds Victoria expanding her sound, now operating in a realm somewhere between Rubblebucket’s soulful pop and Nick Cave’s smoldering intensity.

What: LEAF Night 1: Performances
When: Friday, 03.15, 7 p.m.
Where: Colorado Music Festival & Center for Musical Arts
Why: This year’s edition of the Lafayette Electronic Arts Festival kicks off with a bevy of visionary avant-garde electronic music. This year’s programme of performances will inclue: Derek Holzer – Vector Synthesis AV Performance, Janet Feder and Joshua Ott – Prepared Guitar & Electronic Image, L’Astra Cosmo – AudioVisual Vector Synthesis, Sean Winters & Angie Eng – Piano and Electronic Image. In the cozy yet spacious performance space that is the Colorado Music Festival & Center for Musical Arts, these performances showcase some of the new ways in which creative people are integrating technology in both the musical and visual realm with concepts driving their application. Curated by David Fodel, LEAF strives to bring unique experiences that connect cutting edge artists with audiences/participants open to experiencing something you’re not likely to at a conventional music venue of any kind or all that much in academia either. Heady stuff.

What: Meet the Giant, Dead Orchids and Altas facebook.com/events/326517057982697
When: Friday, 03.15, 8 p.m.
Where: BarFly
Why: A free show and a bill that includes some of the best bands in Denver. Meet the Giant is an emotionally charged dream pop/rock band who are playing music with atmosphere and delicacy and nuance but delivered like its three members spent a youth in punk. Dead Orchids is a beautifully gloomy, bluesy, experimental rock project. Altas may be collectively the funniest band in Denver but the electrifying grandeur of its visceral instrumental rock lacks not for serious explorations of inner space.

Saturday | March 16

Janet FEDER-2219 — Janet Feder, photo courtesy the artist

What: LEAF Night 2: artistTalks
When: Saturday, 03.16, 7 p.m.
Where: Colorado Music Festival & Center for Musical Arts
Why: This second night of the Lafayette Electronic Arts Festival includes the presentations/artistTalks, rather than performance, component of the event with a programme as follows: Derek Holzer – A Media Archaeology Of Vector Graphics, Jason and Deborah Benagozzi – What IS Signal Culture? The Signal IN the Culture, libi rose striegl – Digging In: A hands-on Guide to Media Archaeology, Janet Feder – Trip Sitting: A guided journey along the timeline of psychedelia.

What: Lipgloss pressents: Alice Glass DJ set w/Boyhollow
When: Saturday, 03.16, 9 p.m.
Where: Ophelia’s Electric Soapbox
Why: Alice Glass’s musical output since her departure from Crystal Castles in 2014 has been a showcase for a gift for poignant expressions of agonizing emotional turmoil and strength in the face of being torn up from the inside out.

What: Johnlukeirl fka DJ Clap, Techno Allah, Kid Mask, DJ JFK, Timelord SFX, Blank Human and Wayzout
When: Saturday, 03.16, 8 p.m.
Where: Thought//Forms Gallery
Why: A night of music where ambient, experimental dance and noise meet. A bit more on the bright tones and compositions bordering on an updated version of chillwave on the beats with Johnlukeirl and downtempo ambient noise and glitchcore with Kid Mask along with analog-synth driven ambient with Blank Human so definitely not all of a piece.

Sunday | March 17

Motherhood_Emulsion_Lab_KyleCunjak — Motherhood, photo by Emulsion Lab/Kyle Cunjak

What: Sliver, Motherhood (CAN), Weep Wave (Seattle) and Thatcher
When: Sunday, 03.17, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Lion’s Lair
Why: This’ll be an eclectic bill with Sliver’s post-grunge bursts of arresting emotional intensity, Weep Wave’s lo-fi psychedelia akin to the likes of Caustic Resin and some of the weirder bands on the Siltbreeze imprint, Motherhood’s math-y art punk rendering of high concept pop songs (see our interview with the band here) and Thatcher’s Velocity Girl-esque shimmery melodies.

Monday | March 18

JPEGMAFIA_courtesy_artist — JPEGMAFIA, photo courtesy the artist

What: Vince Staples w/JPEGMAFIA and Trill Sammy
When: Monday, 03.18, 7 p.m.
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: Vince Staples and JPEGMAFIA are two of the most incisive critics of modern culture and the music industry. With a massive knowledge of music far beyond hip-hop both artists have some of the most sonically interesting beats going.

What: Endless, Nameless, Balms, Wander, YUFI64, Old Soul Dies Young
When: Monday, 03.18, 8 p.m.
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective
Why: Denver-based, introspective math rock band Endless, Nameless celebrates its return from its most recent tour this night. Also on the bill is Balms from San Francisco whose fuzz-tinged shoegaze sounds like the melodic analog of waves crashing against jagged rocks. Fans of Ceremony’s most recent music or True Widow will find much to like about Balms. Its debut full-length Mirrors was released in February 2019. Wander is a post-rock band from the Bay Area (San Leandro) whose own dynamic buildups are reminiscent of the subtle yet irresistible flow of ocean tides and coastal breezes.

What: Blood Incantation, Of Feather and Bone, Black Curse, Prison Glue and Many Blessings
When: Monday, 03.18, 7 p.m.
Where: Syntax Physic Opera
Why: Blood Incantation is a band that sounds like its members are having fun with the sonically absurd possibilities inherent to an over-the-top-yet-technically-challenging genre like death metal. The result is one of the most unusual and powerful live bands you’re likely to see in the realm of metal or anything else. But the band and everyone else on this bill is coming together for a fundraiser for James Trejo of Cadaver Dog and various other projects who was assaulted on tour resulting in a broken orbital floor in his face. Some people’s children.

Tuesday | March 19

TheBlackQueenJen Whitaker 1 — The Black Queen, photo by Jen Whitaker

What: The Black Queen w/Uniform and SRSQ
When: Tuesday, 03.19, 7 p.m.
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: The Black Queen is a darkwave band from Los Angeles comprised of former members/associates of The Dillinger Escape Plan and Nine Inch Nails (including Joshua Eustis who also writes and performs music as Telefon Tel Aviv). Its sound combines ethereal dream pop guitar sounds with the sort of soulfulness found in a lot of 80s synth pop. But with a more modern take as though vocalist Greg Puciato wasn’t just familiar with Talk Talk and Heaven 17 but Perfume Genius and Big Black Delta. In 2018 the group released its second album Infinite Games the day it played the prestigious Cold Waves festival (the Los Angeles edition). But this bill isn’t short on noteworthy artists out of the new industrial and darkwave era. Uniform’s confrontational and political minimal synth and industrial assault is along for this show as well as SRSQ (pronounced seer-skew), the now project from Kennedy Ashlyn, the vocalist and keyboard player of Them Are Us Too. The new music is ethereal with emotionally arresting vocals as one might expect but also with more a downtempo, yet majestic, after-hours dance club vibe. The SRSQ album, Unreality, came out on Dais Records in 2018.

What: Mike Krol w/Vertical Scratchers and Slugger
When: Tuesday, 03.19, 7 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Mike Krol did it right. Emerged during the wave of the recent garage rock/psychedelic rock revival of the 2010s where his fuzz-drenched, wiry melodies fit in with the biggest movement in underground rock in years. Then came out the other end of the wave with his knack for snappy, wiry melodies and charmingly lo-fi production intact. Sure maybe you can hear the touches of Jay Reatard and the Oblivians in the music but Krol’s own spiky highlights and tonal gyrations are his own and his 2019 album out on Merge Records, Power Chords, showcases all of that as well as the songwriter’s keen psychological insight and gift for poetic turns of phrase.
What: Remain and Sustain, Meth., Motherhood, Its Just Bugs and Non Systemaddict
When: Tuesday, 03.19, 7 p.m.
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective
Why: Seventh Circle gets plenty of experimental music through the door but this night is one that’ll be fairly mixed. Meth. is a Chicago-based noisecore band that mixes some genuine soundscaping into its set. Its Just Bugs is a confrontational hip-hop band from Colorado that often uses industrial beats and noise. Motherhood is a trio from Fredericton, New Brunswick that combines high concept songwriting with playfully intricate art rock. Remain and Sustain is a sort of deathgrind/hardcore band from Denver. To name a few.

Wednesday | March 20

BetterOblivionCommunityCenter_NikFreitas — Better Oblivion Community Center, photo by Nik Freitas

What: Metric & Zoé w/July Talk
When: Wednesday, 03.20, 6:30 p.m.
Where: The Fillmore Auditorium
Why: Metric’s latest album, 2018’s Art of Doubt, crafts a complex narrative commentary on the factious times in which we live. Rather than something so heavy-handed and topical., the lyrics explore the psychological and existential gyrations that seem to have been reflected on the backdrop of a time of great peril, tension, hope and a desire for relief knowing that tough decisions can no longer be put off as we sit on the brink of climate disaster and extinction. That, in fact, an overwhelming sense of doubt blooms from everyone’s psyche inspiring extremes of feeling and the expression thereof. Across the album the band channels those feelings and rides out the eddies of the flow of feeling and the maddening peaks of heightened emotion. In the live setting Metric manifests its colorful and passionate songwriting in a cathartic and captivating manner so this might be a tour to catch.

What: Better Oblivion Community Center w/Lala Lala and Christian Lee Hutson
When: Wednesday, 03.20, 7 p.m.
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why:Better Oblivion Community Center is the latest band from Phoebe Bridgers and Conor Oberst. So yes, literate, thoughtful, refreshingly rough around the edges and emotionally vibrant and warm.

David Foedel on LEAF 2018: Pattern Language

The latest edition of LEAF (or Lafayette Electronic Arts Festival) happens this weekend on Friday, April 27 and Saturday, April 28 in Lafayette, CO. LEAF is a showcase for the synthesis of technology and art and each iteration of the festival has featured some of the most innovative creative people in the field. The Spring 2018 event will include performances from ART391A2, John Gunther/John Drumheller, Trace Reddell, Jason and Debora Bernagozzi and Phillip Sterns with demonstration from Branger_Briz. On Friday night, after the performances, DJ Crix Madine will generate repetitive beats and abstract patterns in conjunction with live video from one of Denver experimental music’s go-to video artists, orchidz3ro. What makes the festival so worthwhile is that it humanizes the art and the technology and makes it accessible in an intimate setting.

Things kick off on Friday at 7 p.m. with the music/performative shows at the Colorado Music Festival Center For Musical Arts building at 200 East Baseline.. On Saturday the festivities continue 9:30 Saturday morning at The Collective Gallery at 201 North Public Road with the “Data Safari” demonstration showcasing the pervasiveness of data flowing through the air and the manner in which it does so from our devices and public and private broadcasting devices. Saturday evening beginning at 5 p.m. there will be a short film festival at Grimes Hall room of the 200 East Baseline location mentioned prior. For more information, please visit the LEAF website.

crix_madine — Crix Madine, photo courtesy LEAF

We recently ran some questions by festival curator David Fodel about the current edition of LEAF.

Queen City Sounds And Art: Why did the theme/concept of Pattern Language suggest itself to you for this edition of LEAF?

David Fodel: There is a well-known book called A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander that describes and catalogs various successful patterns in architecture, urban planning, and generally community building, which has also been quite influential in the software development world too. I find this idea of hybridity and cross-pollination, of “synthesis” rather than specialization to be an important quality in art, music, design and engineering and wanted to give the festival a theme that was far-reaching, while at the same time could simply relate to repetitive beats or sequencer music, which I also love.

You have a number of artists who combine their art with computer programming and heavy technical skills. That’s not unique to this iteration of LEAF but why do you think your attention was drawn to artists who combine those skill sets at this time?

Well really all artists have specialized technical skills, and the most interesting art for me is when people explore emerging technologies, and get playful with it, seeing what happens when they combine things in ways that should not be done, not necessarily on purpose even, but because they may just not know any better. Discoveries happen sometimes, and sometimes it’s terrible, but it’s that iterative process, what’s called ‘design thinking’ that can lead to interesting new forms and refinements. A lot of the work in this year’s LEAF has deep roots in historical artistic and musical experiments and explorations, but have been refined to push those forms forward. Some of the artists have been doing this type of work for decades, and some of them are super fresh to the whole notion of making art with technology.

phillip_stearns — Phillip Stearns, photo courtesy LEAF

The Data Safari part of the festival seems especially relevant and interesting for people’s everyday lives in a way they may not be aware of. Can you tell us about how you came to be aware of Branger_Briz and that sort of, for lack of a better word, performance or demonstration? Why do you think that sort of thing is important for people to know about and what kind of awareness and change do you think having that knowledge might engender?

I have known Nick Briz for a number of years now, and have presented his work in the past here in Denver at a show called “The Emperor’s New Aesthetic.” It straddles art, activism and design and as you mentioned, it is especially relevant now due to the data breaches at Facebook. Branger_Briz is a design collective based in Chicago and Nick has deep roots in that whole kinda Midwest Glitch scene along with Jon Satrom and John Cates. They all teach at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago which has a long history of embracing new media art forms well in advance of other institutions. I got to know those guys when I was at a Live Cinema Summit in Chicago back in 2008 or 2009. They embrace the notion of technology as a potential disruptive force for change, and potential source of authoritarian control, depending on how we guide it and the social structures that enable its dissemination.

The Data Safari is yet again one of those playful ways of using technology to draw attention to bigger issues like privacy and who controls our data. The underlying artwork, called “ProbeKit” is on display at The Collective, a new gallery in Lafayette as part of the first LEAF visual art exhibition called “Machine Language.” Branger_Briz is joined by a handful of other artists that each explore the notion of the “machine” in art and I would really encourage you to check that out. The show runs through May 5th.

It’s often been said that art leads culture and society. Do you feel that to be the case?

I think it’s more accurate to say that art is part of a complex of entangled forces and expressions that manifest emergent forms, systems and behaviors.

It seems as though all the artists you have for every edition of LEAF has brought a creative use of technology to make creative work that synthesizes science and art. Why do you think showcasing that kind of art is important beyond it just being interesting to you personally?

Science is a powerful methodology and technology is a powerful tool. It’s important that we don’t leave those things in the hands of people with no sense of humor or love of nature and humanity.

Trace Reddell is a science fiction author/creator. The idea behind much of science fiction is that it’s commentary on today even when it’s projecting into the future. What do you think Trace’s contribution as a commenter on current culture and civilization is especially interesting?

Well Trace has a very unique angle on science fiction and sci-fi cinema. His work really explores how sound and language form this hybrid kind of matrix that can structurally change our brains. His work for LEAF is a performance lecture format where he will be mixing and mashing up cinema, spoken word, psychedelic music and literature to not only communicate a message, but to induce consciousness changes directly.

Best Shows in Denver 4/26/18 – 5/2/18

Parquet-Courts-by-Ebru-Yildiz-8-LORES — **Parquet Courts** performs Sunday, April 29, 2018 at The Gothic Theatre. Photo by Ebru Yildiz.

Thursday | April 26, 2018

Tune-Yards_Mar27_2010_TomMurphy — tUnE-yArDs circa March 2010, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: tUnE-yArDs w/My Brightest Diamond
When: Thursday, 04.26, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Boulder Theater
Why: When tUnE-yArDs toured in the wake of the release of the 2009 album Bird-Brains, Merrill Garbus’ soulful singing amid what seemed like a raw combination of loops, percussion and Nate Brenner’s liquid bass lines seemed like something right out of that period’s vibrant bedroom recorder world and so idiosyncratic yet accessible that the duo connected with people that wanted to see something different that didn’t fit in immediately with something we’ve all seen hundreds of times already. The band’s unconventional pop songs seemingly drawing from several musical traditions ended up garnering a wide audience after the release of the 2011 album Whokill. In 2018 the band issued I Can Feel You Creep Into My Private Life, an album on which Garbus, according to an interview with Vox, challenges her own white privilege and other privileges as an artist that has been directly inspired by music made people who didn’t enjoy a similarly privileged existence. Whatever one thinks of such gestures and self-examination and confession, as usual, the tUnE-yArDs record is still refreshingly out of step with a whole swath of popular music except rather than the lo-fi aesthetic of old, the new album has a larger, fuller sound. And Garbus’ words aren’t eyeroll-worthy examples of self-hate and self-flagellation—they’re pointed and self-critical but not cruel.

Who: Glasss Presents: Eraserhead Fuckers w/prettyinpink w/roaddawg, VC Hearts and Shamwow
When: Thursday, 04.26, 10 p.m.
Where: Mutiny Information Café
Why: If you’ve been wondering where the weirdo hip-hop has been hiding (it hasn’t been hiding), this would be a great show to check out some of the weirdest. Eraserhead Fuckers is a noise-hip-hop project that somehow lives up to the name with his confrontational performance style and brutal beats. Prettyinpink and roaddawg are doing a collaborative set and their vibe is something in the vein of Earl Sweatshirt or Vince Staples—moody, synth heavy and a little on the gritty side with the words.

Who: Glasss Presents the Speakeasy Series Season 2: Princess Dewclaw, Church Fire, Surf Mom
When: Thursday, 04.26, 7 p.m.
Where: Hooked On Colfax
Why: The Speakeasy Series edition for this week includes Princess Dewclaw, a band that combines melodic synth compositions with punk rock stridency and a clever dismantling of patriarchal tropes. Church Fire is a duo steeped in noise, electronic dance music, fiery performances and lyrics that feel like a direct line to a celebratory outage and melancholic anthems of healing through honoring the hurting. Surf Mom should probably change its name because it’s beyond surf at this point. Except for the fact that it’s a great band name. The two-piece uses a thorny pop format to comment on social issues and personal struggles in a way that comes off as punk but isn’t stuck with the musical baggage of the same.

Friday | April 27, 2018

Who: Vulfpeck, Kamasi Washington and Knower
When: Friday, 04.27, 6 p.m.
Where: Red Rocks
Why: Despite the fact that Vulfpeck is essentially trying to channel a 1970s and 1980s live concert television broadcast program format in presenting its music, and drawing upon that era for musical inspiration as well, even its session-musician-worthy chops don’t diminish its ear for lively and emotionally engaging funk. A bit like Average White Band but no horns, better low end and more unconventional chord progressions. Sharing the bill is one of modern jazz’s bright stars, Kamasi Washington. Perhaps known to many people as a musician and arranger on albums by Pulitzer Prize winning hip-hop artist Kendrick Lamar (including To Pimp a Butterfly and DAMN.), Flying Lotus, Thundercat and Run the Jewels, Washington’s own output is impressive in its own right. His 2015 album The Epic had a classic sensibility without sounding like a throwback. Rather, Washington’s emotionally expressive and musically adept compositions articulate a yearning quality, a sense of resignation to reality and the blue feeling that accompanies all such realizations, a harboring of hope and dreams of a better future glimpsed winking in the distance. It was simply a musically ambitious and expansive jazz album but one that had the accessibility of a should-have-been collaboration between Sonny Rollins, Stan Getz and Lalo Schifrin. In 2018, Washington will release his new album, Heaven and Earth.

What: LEAF (Lafayette Electronic Arts Festival)
When: Friday, 04.27 and Saturday 4.28
Where: Center for Musical Arts
Why: This multi-media festival is all ages and free and runs through the weekend with performances, art demonstrations and film. For more information, you can read our interview with festival curator Dave Fodel here.

Who: Ghost Tapes, The Milk Blossoms, Kdubbs
When: Friday, 04.27, 8 p.m.
Where: Syntax Physic Opera
Why: Ghost Tapes has been honing its dusky downtempo jazz/hip-hop/soul sound for a few years around town at house shows, DIY spaces, dive bars and smaller clubs. But even early on the band had a surprising level of sophistication in its musicianship and performance. Its 2017 self-titled album demonstrated hints of Baduizm period Erykah Badu in the poetic wordplay imbued with a thoughtfulness and wisdom that music like that doesn’t get nearly enough credit with possessing. Fitting that Ghost Tapes is sharing the stage with The Milk Blossoms, a band that incorporates elements of hip-hop, indie pop, folk and R&B into its overall sound while also seeming so idiosyncratic to the point of almost being outsider music if not for the band’s command of classic songcraft. The Milk Blossoms’ tender yet emotionally rich and affecting songs make the band pretty much impossible to forget.

Who: Neil Haverstick
When: Friday, 04.27, 7 p.m.
Where: The Tuft Theater at Swallow Hill
Why: Colorado’s dean of microtonal guitar, Neil Haverstick, is playing a rare show at Swallow Hill. Haverstick is adept at so many musical styles it’s difficult to say what his focus will be this time out but no matter if it’s avant-garde, classical, blues, jazz or whatever seems to interest Haverstick the most at the moment, it’ll be a worthwhile show to attend.

Who: Commander Cody w/Howlin’ Goatz
When: Friday, 04.27, 7:30 p.m.
Where: The Caribou Room, Nederland
Why: Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen formed in 1967 in Ann Arbor, Michigan and in its early incarnations operating at a time when Ann Arbor and Detroit were experiencing a kind of golden age of music. Between Motown, Alice Cooper, MC5, Stooges and other notables of the time, that part of the country was the place of origin and home to some of the most important music of the era. It would be an exaggeration to say that Commander Cody and his country rock band was as long term impactful as the aforementioned. But it did yield a couple of novelty hits in its career that are well-remembered by anyone that heard them. “Hot Rod Lincoln” from the band’s 1971 debut album Lost in the Ozone was in the US Top 10 and its 1981 hit “2 Triple Cheese (Side Order of Fries)” from the 1980 album Lose It Tonight had a music video that reached anyone that saw Turkey Television on the Nickelodeon network in the early 80s. There’s a good chance Commander Cody will play both even without His Lost Planet Airmen among a choice selection of his extensive and prolific back catalog.

Saturday | April 28, 2018

AnimalObject_Dec6_2017_TomMurphy — Animal / object circa December 2017, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: FoCoMX pick: Animal / object (Kurt Bauer and Karen Sheridan)
When: Saturday, 04.28, 6:30 p.m.
Where: The Dome
Why: FoCoMX is an annual music festival held in Fort Collins that mostly showcases Colorado-based acts along the front range from a broad spectrum of musical styles. Perhaps not booked at enough local music festivals is Animal / object. The latter is Denver’s premiere spontaneous composition band. Lead by Kurt Bauer formerly of 1980s post-punk band Susan and God, the group has included sculptor/painter Steven Gordon (who will not be performing this particular show), winds player Paul Mimlitsch, novelist Gordon Pryor, experimental electronic musician/graphic designer David Britton, prolific outsider musician Chris Culhane of Lords of Howling and Violent Femmes frontman/guitarist Gordon Gano. For this show, Bauer will perform with Karen Sheridan, formerly of Denver death rock/punk band Your Funeral and atmospheric noise/industrial project Corpses As Bedmates. Always a different show, always interesting and rewarding.

Who: Of Feather and Bone w/Suffering Hour, Wayfarer and Many Blessings
When: Saturday, 04.28, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Of Feather and Bone’s new album Beastial Hymns of Perversion should solidify the band’s reputation as one of the most interesting and innovative grindcore bands going today. Yes, the sonic brutality is there, the relentless pace and the animalistic vocals. But there is a hauntedness, a spookiness to much of the group’s music. Like the darkness is coming from a personal place. Yes, the disgust with human civilization is abstracted a bit through fantastical song titles and the flood of sounds but its visceral and real. Of Feather and Bone celebrates the release of the album with fellow purveyors of extreme, heavy sounds Suffering Hour and Wayfarer. Many Blessings isn’t a grind band per se even though Ethan McCarthy is in one of the heaviest bands in the world in Primitive Man. Many Blessings is an atmospheric noise project with its sound generation based in tools similar to those McCarthy employs with his more well-known projects. But it’s just as heavy as anything else on the bill.

Who: Of Montreal w/Locate S, 1
When: Saturday, 04.28, 8 p.m.
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Of Montreal is an older band but it’s basically like the psychedelic pop equivalent of Ty Segall in some ways in terms of its prolific and diverse output. And that that prolific stream of work is actually worth exploring. For the 2018 album White is Relic/Irrealis Mood, band leader Kevin Barnes dispensed with the old band format approach to recording and composing so that the record sounds like something that might have been crafted in a virtual environment with Barnes having access to some futuristic, immersive form the the internet in which he can take in/experience knowledge in a way that is more and deeper than mere 3D. Musically it sounds like an indie pop Howard Jones album with touches of glam rock. Most Of Montreal shows are wonderfully colorful and weird and a real experience and with the material for the new album, Barnes and company probably have something spectacular and unexpected for the live show.

Who: Blockhead w/MIDIcinal, Big J. Beats, Lost Glory
When: Saturday, 04.28, 8 p.m.
Where: Cervantes’ Other Side
Why: Tony Simon aka Blockhead is a DJ and record producer whose name is often associated with production he’s done for Aesop Rock. His music separate from production work he does for other artists tends toward an imaginative downtempo approach like a radio station for an ultra hip radio station in a hidden part of a city in a weird multiple user video game. Any of his albums will do, whether it’s 2007’s Uncle Tony’s Coloring Book or 2017’s Funeral Balloons, for a trip into a brighter, more chill, yet not soporific, universe.

Who: Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever w/Turvy Organ and Serpentfoot
When: Saturday, 04.28, 8 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever from Melbourne, Australia was a band that you could either like or find meh based on your feeling toward modern indie rock. Its post-surf post-punk jangle rock, at least through the 2017 album The French Press, was reminiscent of The War On Drugs in that you could hear the influence of 80s power pop and maybe even Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty. And there seemed to be so much more emotional depth to the songwriting than some you’d get out of some kind of half-baked party rock band. In that way Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever has much more in common with Beach Slang than so many of the neo-pop-punk bands. And hey, sometimes the most interesting period in a band’s life is when it’s still trying to figure out its own voice. On its forthcoming Hope Downs the group strikes a New Romantics tone on the Talking Straight single and in moments has a vibe akin to that of Soft Boys or even solo Robyn Hitchcock.

Sunday | April 29, 2018

KeldariStation_Oct30_2015_TomMurphy — Keldari Station circa 2015, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Textures: Hymen, Keldari Station and Shawn Mlekush
When: Sunday, 04.29, 7 p.m.
Where: Mutiny Information Café
Why: Shawn Mlekush will perform a set of ambient improv for this show. But he’s known around certain Denver circles as a non-conventional composer of electronic music and his not very active band Jackson Induced Mutant Laboratory fit in with the noise scene even if it was more in the realm of avant-garde electronic music. Keldari Station is an unlikely yet vital combination of dub, glam rock, synth pop and post-punk.

Who: Parquet Courts w/The Teeth of the Hydra
When: Sunday, 04.29, 7 p.m.
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: It would be facile to say Parquet Courts is like a new version of Pavement. Because the bands aren’t much alike except for a fearless and creatively musical use of atonality in guitar and vocals, a nearly reckless employment of imprecision in crafting interlocking guitar melodies and a nearly unpredictable high energy and tripping, hanging moments. Like machines on the brink of collapse trying desperately to cross a bridge on the verge of the same. In both cases the result has been some of the most interesting and eclectic rock music of their time. On May 18, 2018 Parquet Courts will release Wide Awake! So chances are you’ll get to see some of the new album live before it’s out.

Monday | April 30, 2018

Who: IAMX
When: Monday, 04.30, 7 p.m.
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: When Chris Corner went solo following the dissolution of his well-known trip-hop band Sneaker Pimps in 2004, he was able to not only push his music in a more experimental direction but he was able to fully incorporate the sonic and visual aesthetic of his art into a unified multi-media and theatrical presentation not limited by any preconception of musical genre in which he’d need to fit his music. The resulting musical output has been eclectic but consistent with Corner’s desire to create a theatrical and immersive musical experience. The latest IAMX album is 2018’s Alive In New Light, coming on the heels of the September 2017 album Unfall.

Who: God Save the Queens: Queer Punk Night at Hi-Dive hosted by Noveli and DJ Junkyard
When: Monday, 04.30, 9 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: The title of the event says it all. So you’ll probably hear a little Bikini Kill, Pansy Division, Green Day, Crass, Los Crudos, Big Boys and a whole lot more great queer punk on a sound system that is more robust than the one you have at home.

Who: Morbid Angel w/Dreaming Dead and Hate Storm Annihilation
When: Monday, 04.30, 7 p.m.
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: Morbid Angel was one of the foundational bands of death metal. Based in Tampa, Florida and putting to tape most of its iconic recordings, including its influential 1989 debut full-length Altars of Madness, at Morrisound Recording? Founded the same year, 1983, as Death from Orlando, Possessed from San Francisco and Necrophagia from Wellsville, Ohio? Seems like some dark cosmic energy that Death metal’s early big hitters emerged so close together. Trey Azagthoth’s brutal yet psychedelic guitar sound has been the constant of the band from the beginning but this time around later-era singer Steve Tucker has returned and provided vocals on the 2017 album Kingdoms Disdained. Live there actually is a spooky quality to the music and both Tucker and former singer David Vincent provided a sepulchral vocal style that could be silly but never Cookie Monster enough to not find somewhat discomforting and perfectly suited to the music.

Tuesday | May 1, 2018

OkoTygra_Nov27_2017_TomMurphy — Oko Tygra circa 2017, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Gus Dapperton w/Oko Tygra
When: Tuesday, 05.01, 7 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Gus Dapperton isn’t breaking and new ground with his pop songs. Post-surf rock jangle guitar? Jazz-lite rhythms? Bright, melodic synth flourishes? De rigueur with modern indie rock. But something about how he pulls it all together with his band has a simple charm that sets it apart as does Gus Dapperton’s off the cuff yet confident stage banter. Opening the show is Denver dream pop/post-punk band Oko Tygra. Joshua Novak’s command of mood and the warmth of his vocal delivery gives music that can sometimes be beautifully icy a human core that elevates the mood. Also, in the last two or three years the band has pared back and simplified its sonic signature making for more spacious and emotionally stirring songs.

Wednesday | May 2, 2018

Who: Dessa w/Monakr
When: Wednesday, 05.02, 7 p.m.
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Though not a founder of influential hip-hop collective Doomtree Dessa has been an integral part of that crew for years. She is after all CEO of Doomtree these days. But as a solo artist she is able to demonstrate her gift for producing beats and a deft and creative use of words shifting between singing, rapping and spoken word. There is a confidence and fluidity to her delivery that bring to her evocative storytelling a vivid quality as though she’s conceived of her albums as a films she’s directing and in which she’s acting. Her new album, 2018’s Chime, her first in five years, has spare titles but inside each track her words are incisive and impactful and the beats cinematic.

Who: Open to the Hound, The Lacuna Brotherhood and Room 204
When: Wednesday, 04.30, 7 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Open to the Hound sounds like the band all got together and went off to a cabin in the mountains to write their songs and had plenty of time to be away from the haze of civilization and touched by starlight and moss. Sometimes the results are trippy, fuzzy grunge rock, other times, introspective and minimal freak folk/indie pop campfire compositions. They even have some ambient-rock-downtempo songs that some musically unsophisticated people might call “shoegaze.” The trio lists The Microphones as an influence and the part-rock-song-part-sound-collage aesthetic of some of the band’s music bears this out in a way that is refreshingly not so obvious.