Legendary Pink Dots – Queen City Sounds and Art

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond September 2026

**The Tear Garden, photo courtesy Randall Frazier**

Xmal Deutschland, photo by Anton Corbijn

Tuesday | 09.01
What: Anja Huwe w/Plague Garden and Weathered Statues
When: 7pm
Where: HQ
Why: Anja Huwe was the singer for the influential German post-punk band Xmal Deutschland. The latter were pioneers of Neue Deutschland Welle (the German New Wave) but with a darkly dramatic and moody music that seemed to be in a similar vein to UK bands Siouxsie and the Banshees and The Pop Group. After a handful of albums the group split in 1990. Following that breakup, Huwe focused on her visual art pursuits with great success until being convinced by her friend Mona Mur to revisit music and in 2024 she released her first solo album Codes via the Sacred Bones imprint and to her credit that album is like an electronic post-punk album that borders on industrial but without the seeming connection to that style of music since the early 90s and with more in common with dance music. Opening the show are two of Denver’s greatest post-punk bands of recent years with the New Wave adjacent Plague Garden and its ferocious energy and Weathered Statues whose minimal, deathrock-inspired version of post-punk has a clear line of inspiration to Huwe’s old band.

Wednesday | 09.02
What: Soft Palms w/babybaby4ever and Smear
When: 7pm
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Soft Palms is Julia Kugel-Montoya (of The Coathangers) and Scott Montoya (of The Growlers). With this new project it draws on the edge of garage punk and the moodiness and cinematic qualities of post-punk to create something new. Gloomy pop with some urgency. Along with the new record In Echo the duo published a book called How To Be Self-Reliant In The Music Business of which both musicians know more than a little. Opening is synth pop superstar babybaby4ever with better synth tone than most people you’ll see this year.

Thursday | 09.03
What: Bellhead w/eHpH and Hypersomnia
When: 7
Where: The Crypt, $12
Why: Bellhead is a post-punk band from Chicago whose style is darker and more caustic than the trendy post-punk with spindly guitar tone. It has more in common with industrial post-punk of the 90s and in some ways is reminiscent in sound of the more rock end of My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult. Its 2025 EP Threats includes remixes from Stabbing Westward, Clubdrugs and Frontal Boundary. EhpH is an electro-industrial duo from Denver whose own politically-charged songs are rooted in classic EBM and not the Future Pop strain, thankfully, with a theatrical live performance fronted by Fernando Altonaga of post-punk band Plague Garden.

Thursday | 09.03
What: Sweet Pill w/Deux Visages and Bike Routes
When: 7
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Sweet Pill is an emo band from Philadelphia whose sound incorporates elements of math rock that fans of Wednesday and Speedy Ortiz may appreciate for the eclectic guitar style that isn’t trapped in genre tropes and seemingly more keyed into strong hooks. Deux Visages were once based in Miami but now out Philadelphia where their sound of fuzzed out shoegaze pop seems a good fit for a music scene that has given us the likes of the headliner for this show but also Her New Knife and They Are Gutting a Body of Water. The trio recently released a new single “Always You” and further established its knack for blending melancholic vocal melodies with sonic edge and grit, vulnerability with bombast and threading discordant sounds with the sublime.

The Playground Ensemble in 2018, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 09.04
What: The Playground Ensemble: Unchambered 4.0
When: 7/7:30-9
Where: Leon Gallery
Why: This is the fourth edition of the Ensemble’s Unchambered event in which for an evening experimental and improvised electronic music created by the group’s composers can be experienced featuring home made instruments, interactive electronics, processed voice and other avant-musical weirdness and innovation.

Have a Nice Life in 2019, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 09.04
What: Have a Nice Life w/Drowse and Allison Lorenzen
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Allison Lorenzen is a Colorado-based ambient art folk artist whose pop songcraft is high but so is her highly emotional and the quality of her stylized performance. Drowse has been releasing some of the most experimental and engrossing post-punk bordering on ambient and field-recording infused pastoral tape music folk since the project’s inception. For this show the project will push those aesthetics further with a unique and boundary pushing performance. Have a Nice Life is one of the great cult post-punk bands from America that almost never plays live and even more rarely tours much less comes to Colorado. The band was last here in 2019 where it performed at the Hi-Dive cementing its reputation for exploding boundaries between emo, post-punk, industrial and ambient music.

Saturday | 09.05
What: The Serfs w/Pink Lady Monster, The Clue, Plastik Mystik and Kill You Club DJs
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Plastik Mystik fuses grunge, Wipers-esque punk and post-punk into a garage rock inflected set of music that has searing social commentary. The Clue is sort of a hardcore band but its sound is weirder and doesn’t really adhere to the aesthetics of that style of music yet its energy is very much in that vein. Pink Lady Monster and its No Wave funk art post-punk and poetry is arguably one of the best bands in Denver and America with live performances that are somehow both theater and a masterclass in musical technique. The Serfs from Cincinnati are a post-punk snobs favorite post-punk band with consistently fascinating records that blur the line between post-apocalyptic, bleak synth infused and arch political commentary the way Wire or Gang of Four would burn fascist impulses with creative lyrics. The Serfs sound like they read a lot of Ursula K. Le Guin’s more political novels, were inspired by the mood of Tarkovksy’s 1970s science fiction epics Solaris and Stalker and the crumbling post-industrial, late capitalist empire of America. There is no best place to start with The Serfs, just select a record and listen to their entire oeuvre.

Sunday | 09.06
What: Black Tapestry w/The Picture Tour, The Futons and Demi God Tezus
When: 7
Where: D3 Arts
Why: Black Tapestry is a synth punk duo from Sedona, Arizona who released their newest full-length Compartmental Illness in November 2025. Think like Youth Code but more rooted in The Yeah Yeah Yeahs than hardcore. The Picture Tour is a dark post-punk band from Denver with a clear command of atmospheric guitar tone and the aesthetics of night driving in the sprawl of American urban decay once banished in the wake of overdevelopment by private equity firms but on the horizon again due to the tech and real estate bubble collapse. The Picture Tour both embraces that nostalgia and seem to have seen into a dark future but romantic future. The Futons are a Denver band somewhere between garage psych and shoegaze. Demi God Tezus is a hip-hop artist in the more underground/alternative lane.

Tuesday | 09.08
What: greek w/Humble the Great
When: 7
Where: Moon Room at Summit Music Hall
Why: Michael Davie performing and releasing music as greek released his genre eclectic EP DANCE BREAK in August 2026. Coming up as a fledgling musician and making beats and writing songs through the use of production software that any teen might access, Davie found his voice as a talented purveyor of a kind of pop R&B benefiting greatly from his soulful and smooth vocal style. The music video for “HOLD ME” reveals a performer comfortable with the physical expression of the music and a playful sense of humor. The new EP builds on previous greek releases like the “THERE FOR YOU” single from 2024 that was in a more indie pop vein. The production on the new EP is more lush and immersive and the signal of a sophisticated talent in modern pop music.

Friday | 09.11
What: Unsane w/Season to Risk and Arson Charge
When: 8
Where: HQ
Why: Unsane is one of the foundational noise rock bands beginning with its formation in 1988. Bleeding together metallic post-hardcore aggression with the influence of industrial music, Unsane’s sound didn’t come off like it was too steeped into existing rock subgenre. It was caustic and heady and unrelenting yet heavier than most metal. In 2026 the group’s 1998 album Occupational Hazard was remastered and reissued by Lamb Unlimited as a bracing reminder of Unsane at one of its creative peaks. Season to Risk from Kansas City has established its own legacy as purveyors of arty yet visceral noise rock as one of the best of the modern bands operating in a similar vein as Unsane and having started just a year later as the latter in 1989. Its own 1995 album In a Perfect World got a vinyl reissue in 2026.

Dominique Fils-Aimé, photo by Vladim Vilain

Friday | 09.11
What: Dominique Fils-Aimé
When: 6:30 and 9
Where: Dazzle
Why: Dominique Fils-Aimé is an acclaimed singer from Quebec who released her latest album My World Is The Sun in February 2026. The record is filled with field recordings and other contextual sounds that help set the mood to come. Fils-Aimé’s soulful singing is of course versatile and deeply evocative and resonates like a classic Neo Soul or R&B artist but there is something far more experimental in her songwriting like she is tapping into the kind of cosmic/spiritual jazz psychedelia as Alice Coltrane. You’re not just getting one extended flavor with the record and it is a showcase for a broad range of Fils-Aimé’s songwriting skills and vocal talent with a kind of epic journey through deep inner space.

F-Th| 09.11-09.17
What: Gypsy 83: Director’s Cut
Where: Sie Film Center
When: Varies by date
Why: The dirctor’s cut of cult film Gypsy 83 is screening for its 25th anniversary. The film is about two young goths Gypsy and Clive living in in Sandusky, Ohio who travel to NYC for a festival celebrating Stevie Nicks, an unlikely yet in retrospect fitting idol for goths in the 1980s with her witchy persona, fashion sense of dramatic music. Written and directed by Todd Stephens the film stars Sara Rue as Gypsy Vale and Clive Webb played by Kett Turton with John Doe of X fame as Gypsy’s dad and Marlene Wallace as her mom. Gypsy and Clive learn of an event called Night of a Thousand Stevies and make their way to the Big Apple to participate with revelatory adventures along the way. The soundtrack includes bands like The Cure, Claire Voyant, Velvet Acid Christ (from Denver metro), Switchblade Symphony and Apoptygma Berzerk and visually and thematically fans of the films of Gregg Araki. The late, great Karen Black appears as retired singer, and Gypsy’s mother’s best friend, Bambi LeBleau. For showtimes in Denver during its run at the Sie Film Center visit the link above.

Saturday | 09.12
What: Pond
When: 7
Where: The Gothic Theatre
Why: Australian psychedelic rock band Pond took a turn in a fascinating direction for its latest album Terrestrials (2026). Rather than the mind-altering, sculpted fuzz atmospheric psychedelic rock they set parameters to focus on more solid lines in the rhythms and guitar sound taking inspiration from late 70s and 80s post-punk and Gothic rock. The band didn’t drop its knack for memorable hooks and creative melodic framing but the resulting sound is less throwback than reinvention often sounding more like the art rock end of Magazine which drew some inspiration from the likes of Roxy Music and Brian Eno. And Pond this time out has employed its synths in a fashion that is stripped of modern affectations and overproduction for a record that is possibly the most creatively realized of its career.

Saturday | 09.12
What: Brandon Flowers
When: 7:30 doors, 9 show
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: Brandon Flowers is perhaps rightly known more for his career as the frontman of massively popular post-punk pop band The Killers. But this year he released his latest solo record ccalled Thrasher. And whatever one’s opinion of The Killers might be, without a doubt the songcraft of the band is respectable and on mainstream radio and playlists stands out in ways that can catch you unexpected. Thrasher proves that Flowers’ songwriting gifts translate well to a record of all honky tonk style pop country. With contributions from the likes of Jonathan Rado and Margo Price as well as country veterans like Bruce Bouton and Charlie McCoy there’s no doubt Flowers put in the time to bring some authentic sound to the songs.

Sleater-Kinney, photo by Chris Hornbecker

Monday | 09.14
What: Liz Phair w/Sleater-Kinney and Snail Mail
When: 7
Where: The Fillmore Auditorium
Why: Liz Phair and Sleater-Kinney both helped to influence and shape the sound of a certain subset of underground rock in the 1990s. Phair spent a bit of time enjoying mainstream success with the release of her 1994 album Whipsmart but had already garnered praise as a talented songwriter for the more experimental and lo-fi masterpiece Exile in Guyville (1993). Even through subsequent records, all not nearly as critically well-received as Phair’s first two albums, Phair’s wit and personal insight shined through and as a performer she had undeniable, unvarnished charisma and presence. Sleater-Kinney emerged in 1994 out of Olympia, Washington with its first handful of albums on the great underground label Kill Rock Stars and earning a cult following for its superior songwriting and unique take on punk attitude and spirit with subject matter that seemed to resonate with what Phair was doing as an artist in Chicago while also aiming to perhaps establish themselves as artists encouraging other women to make whatever music they wanted to on whatever terms they wanted while being utterly themselves, which they have obviously succeeded in doing. Snail Mail is one of the great guitar rock songwriters of a younger generation whose shoegaze-adjacent pop with unabashedly, radically vulnerable lyrics.

Wednesday | 09.16
What: Sleep w/Pink Mountaintops
When: 7
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: Sleep without Matt Pike seems like an impossibility because the guitarist’s iconic psychedelic sludge style is one of the most influential sounds in heavy music of the last 35+ years. But when the group announced Pike was no longer part of the band and a new lineup that consists of Dale Crover (of the Melvins who saw the early version of Sleep in the early 90s who were clearly influenced by Melvins’ own artful crushing early doom metal) and Bubba Dupree of hardcore legends Void alongside, of course, founding member Al Cisneros on bass. The trio released a new album Hemispheres that reveals that while not trying to imitate Pike’s guitar tone and sound kept the heaviness and otherworldly quality of Sleep intact. The album released digitally on September 3, 2026 with a vinyl version out late October. Paired with the album is a new Sleep Comic Book including a flexi with a shortened version of “Have Spacesuit Will Travel.”

Saturday | 09.19
What: Atmosphere & Friends: Colorado – w/3OH!3, Everlast, Slick Rick, Z-Trip, Ra the Rugged Man and DJ Lala
When: 5
Where: Red Rocks Amphitheater
Why: Everlast is one of the featured artists on this now seemingly annual run with hip-hop stars Atmoshere headlining. Most may know him from his time as the frontman for hip-hop group House of Pain but by the late 90s he had established a solo career in which he fused rock and hip-hop in a way that didn’t seem cringe mainly because his lyrics were thoughtful and the songwriting not in some trope-y lane. In 2026 Everlast released his new album Embers to Ashes with some tender yet gritty vocal delivery and sparkling, late night atmospheric tones and well crafted moods. If you’re going to this extravaganza get there in time to catch his brand of blues American and its existential themes.

Monday | 09.21
What: The Tear Garden w/DJ Cosmos Mudwulf and Nathaniel Jamiel
When: 8
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: The Tear Garden have long been a missing link in the experimental psychedelic world of the 1980s and creative production of EBM with the 1992 album, its second, The Last Man To Fly a classic in the Goth scene possible due to its membership being Edward Ka-Spel of the Legendary Pink Dots and cEvin Key of Skinny Puppy. The band has famously never played a live show until this past week and the first leg of its North American tour. The group is now expanded to several live members including Randall Frazier who is also a member of LPD and Orbit Service. In 2025 the group released its first album in 8 years with Astral Elevator. Expect the enigmatic and cosmic, psychedelic poetry and enveloping atmospheres with richly tones melodies and rhythms. It’ll be basically a once in a lifetime chance to see them unless you go to other cities.

Monday | 09.21
What: Chanel Beads w/Horse Vision and Anastasia Coope
When: 7
Where: Marquis Theater
Why: Chanel Beads released the second self-titled album in 2026 as a send up of music industry expectations but on its own merit is a fine fusion of delicate indie pop and highly electronic dream pop so that it is simultaneously Iand intimate, a rarity in music. Think something like Just Mustard but even more ethereal. Overall it sounds like a bit of a throwback to late 2000s underground indie rock but without borrowing too heavily from the sounds and ideas, just the mood that maybe all hope isn’t stripped out of the world while also giving us songs that address current streams of anxiety.

Monday | 09.21
What: Aldous Harding w/Sam Burton
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Once again Aldous Harding offers an inventive and emotionally vibrant yet idiosyncratic experimental pop with 2026’s Train on the Island. It sounds like Harding was diving further into integrating keyboards into layers of vocals and dissonant drones to give the record the sound of something that isn’t fully smoothed over yet not lacking in any production. It’s just real and has an immediacy to the sensitive listener with Harding’s typically enigmatic but resonant lyrics. Harding’s life performance style is similarly unorthodox and she seems well familiar with performance art and the avant-garde while incorporating that strangeness into ambitious pop songs.

To Be Continued…

“Undone” by uah is Like a Warning Transmission From a Dying Planet

“Undone” by uah begins with the sound of strings strummed for textural rather than tonal effect gives way to a saturated field of sounds. Rapid cycling movement in the field of noise and a vocal seemingly coming to you in reverse. The effect is like a Pink Floyd song, perhaps “Welcome to the Machine,” through the lens of an alternate dimension, those vocals going on to sound like something recorded using an EVP recorder while distorted synths act like the snow of an old television commandeered by an alien using archaic technology to send a desperate message that sounds like the mourning dirge of a dying planet. It’s reminiscent of one of those mysterious broadcasts from the 80s when an old school television or radio hacker would take over a station for a short period of time to transmit an enigmatic message. The song is orchestral though somewhat forbidding and almost overwhelming in the way it hits the ears yet also hypnotic in effect. It recalls an Orbit Service or Legendary Pink Dots composition but rendered in pure electronic form propelled by emotional urgency. Listen to “Undone” on Spotify, follow the acclaimed composer uah aka Usman Haque at the links below and check out the rest of his debut album Let Death Live now available.

Gomddam Memory Fuse Industrial and Psychedelia to Ward Off the Mass Narrative Brainwash on “Pandora’s Omelette”

The enigmatic title of “Pandora’s Omelette” is as mysterious as Gomddam Memory’s music itself. Are the clear vocals and the more distorted vocals both by næringssorg? Is one of them producer ade? It hardly matters as the song strikes a balance between darkly ambient psychedelia reminiscent of an unlikely blend of Legendary Pink Dots and early industrial ministry. The song draws us in with pulses of modulated bass tone as one vocal repeats “crack” and the other “don’t mind” and going on to say “the voices.” Perhaps the song is a creative and poetic exploration of the idea of the conflicting narratives, conscious and those embedded into one’s world view and cognitive framework, that swirl in our minds as influenced by the events around us and our interpretations thereof and those interpretations pushed upon us by family, friends, mass media and what we opt for in our leisure time entertainment. The blend of psychedelia and industrial music is reminiscent at times of the Love and Rockets song “Haunted When The Minutes Drag” and even more of that group’s rock and electronica fusion landmark Hot Trip to Heaven (1994) and the ways in which Love and Rockets mixed the personal with the societal with the more mythical (Gomddam Memory certain invokes the mythical and the mystical and humorous in the song title). Stamping the song with a specific genre or style tag wouldn’t be adequate but fans of the aforementioned with find something to appreciate about this fascinatingly strange track as will people who appreciate the newer darkwave that can see beyond the sometimes narrow framing. Watch the visualizer video for “Pandora’s Omelette” on YouTube and connect with Gomddam Memory at the links provided.

Gomddam Memory on Bandcamp

Gomddam Memory on Instagram

“Song for the Garden” is Half Shadow’s Cosmic Folk Ode to Our Innate Connection With the Forces and Manifestations of Nature Within and Without

There’s that section in the 2005 Flaming Lips documentary The Fearless Freaks where we’re shown publicity photos of the band wandering in a psychedelic landscape and they’re referred to as these trippers and weirdos when Wayne Coyne really wasn’t someone into psychedelics. But that aesthetic and sentiments expressed and the complexity of impressions resonate with the music video for the latest Half Shadow track “Song for the Garden” (from the forthcoming album At Home With My Candles due out April 7, 2022 on Bud Tapes & Dove Cove Records). Jesse Carsten sits with an acoustic guitar in a natural landscape of rock formations, beaches, drying plants, woods in the near distance as animations layer over the top of the footage and images collage together in sync with the way his vocals meld and melt together with the warping background melody and the processing of his own vocals. The lyrics poetically describe what seems to be a mystical experience with the spirit of the natural world itself as an aggregate entity of which we’re never really apart except in the limited and self-involved cognition of typical human consciousness. The music is somewhere between ambient pop, cosmic country and psychedelic folk and wonderfully not choosing to fit into a narrow genre. It’s a song that washes through your mind and makes the truth of being connected to a larger existential context obvious and impossible and unnecessary to resist. Sonic touchstones perhaps worth mentioning would be solo Syd Barrett, Orbit Service and Legendary Pink Dots but best experienced for yourself so watch the video on YouTube and follow Half Shadow and Carsten at the links below.

Half Shadow on Bandcamp

Half Shadow on Facebook

Half Shadow on Instagram

$YNDRM Articulates Our Collective Discontent With the Era of Mediated Social Experience on “Shadow Life”

At the start of $YNDRM’s “Shadow Life” we’re drawn in by a mysterious, darkly lush tone and the sound of ethereal xylophone to a story about the mediated nature of a large portion of public life. In a melancholic, reflective emotional quality, $YNDRM sings about the dynamic of how the way we are encouraged by social media and public interactions of all kinds to present a manufactured and finely manicured persona and for what? Fake social capital that gets us nothing of substance? Are out lives destined to be fodder for an algorithm that will never see to our substantive needs as living creatures who crave nourishing lives and experiences and not to be a consumer of the surface level data used to market to us the facade of our desires as massaged by the agenda of the most massive of corporate entities? $YNDRM bemoans this state of counterfeit identities “in a world where nothing seems to matter and points out how that is unsustainable and that this reality is showing signs of fragmenting as is much of culture and the political and economic system despite the seeming all powerful nature of it all. The song is reminiscent of the artier rock end of Peter Gabriel, a more pop Legendary Pink Dots and early solo rock Brian Eno. Listen to “Shadow Life” on Soundcloud and follow $YNDRM at the links provided.

syndrm.com

$YNDRM on Facebook

$YNDRM on Instagram

Queen City Sounds and Art Best Albums of 2019

This best of list was intended for publication in 2020 and parts of the entries with comments were published in my year end best list for the print edition of Birdy magazine in Denver for the December 2019 issue. The full best of list is presented here with those short reviews included with the appropriate album and the rest included without comment and several album covers shared as well. The album of the year was All Your Sisters’ Trust Ruins (listed first) because it encapsulated the mood of the year and the band put on one of the best shows of 2019 and the record felt like a leap forward in style and execution for the band. Soon I’ll publish the full best of 2020 list too in a similar format with the commentary for those items that made it into the print edition of Birdy for December 2020.

All Your Sisters | Trust Ruins | The Flenser
A brutal, maximalist summation of the turmoil, conflict, sense of chaos and confusion, rage and frustration and overwhelming flood of negative input from world and societal events of the previous few years. In articulating those feelings and experiences and more alone as powerfully as it does, this album by All Your Sisters transcends genre by providing an example of how industrial and darkwave music can burst beyond established conventions with the sharp-edged and precise percussion framing and channeling the fiery energy at the core of the songwriting.

Adia Victoria | Silences | Atlantic

Adrianna Krikl | Celestial | Self-released

Aldous Harding | Designer | 4AD

Alex Cameron | Miami Memory | Secretly Canadian

Altas | All I Ever Wanted Was | Self-released
A lush deepening of the band’s sweeping, cinematic aesthetic.

Anamanaguchi | [USA] | Polyvinyl

Andre Cactus | Dune Juice | Multidim Records

Andy Stott | It Should Be Us | Modern Love

Angel Olsen | All Mirrors | Jagjaguwar
Poignantly dreamlike examination of identity in an age of universal scrutiny.

Bestial Mouths | INSHROUDSS | Rune & Ruin

Bellhoss | Geraniums | Self-released
Buoyant, lo-fi slowcore love songs for inner awkward nerd.

Bethlehem Steel | s/t | Exploding in Sound
The utter exorcism of oppression through bursts of melodic/atonal poetry.

Big Dopes | Crimes Against Gratitude | Self-released
Captivating indie pop earworm vingettes of American malaise and hope.

Big Thief | U.F.O.F. / Two Hands | 4AD

Bison Bone | Take Up the Trouble | Self-released

Black Belt Eagle Scout | At The Party With My Brown Friends | Saddle Creek

black midi | Schlagenheim | Rough Trade Records
A primer for the new avant-guitar rock revolution.

Black Mountain | Destroyer | Jagjaguwar

Blanck Mass | Animated Violence Mild | Sacred Bones

Blood Incantation | Hidden History of the Human Race | Dark Descent

Boy Scouts | Free Company | ANTI-

Briffaut | A Maritime Odyssey: Heaven is Only a Boat Race Away | GROUPHUG

Calexico and Iron and Wine | Years to Burn | Subpop

Cat Tyson Hughes | Gentle Encounters With Things | Self-released
Ambient, aural snapshots of memory fragments from the hypnogogic state.

Cau5er | The Tower | Self-released

Ceremony | In the Spirit World Now | Relapse Records

Chastity Belt | Chastity Belt | Hardly Art

Cheap Perfume | Burn It Down | Snappy Little Numbers

Chella and the Charm | Good Gal | Self-released

Chelsea Wolfe | Birth of Violence | Sargent House

Chimney Choir | (light shadow) | Self-released

Chromatics | Closer to Grey | Italians Do It Better

clipping. | There Existed an Addiction to Blood | Sub Pop

Consumer | In Computers | The Flenser

Control Top | Covert Contracts | Get Better Records

Cop Circles | Vacation for Hurt | Self-released
Subversive, Laurie Anderson-esque, New Age, No Wave send-up of corporate seminar jingles.

Cosey Fanni Tutti | Tutti | Conspiracy International
Heavy and hypnotic industrial rave autobiography through sound.

Curse | Metamorphism | Fake Crab Records
Eight, powerful, darkwave, prophetic warnings of our potential future.

Danny Brown | uknowhatimsayin¿ | Warp Records
Relentlessly inventive beats and tragicomedic, self-immolating swagger, sci-fi autobiography.

Davi Valois | Bátraquio | Space Cow Music

Deafkids | Metaprogramação | Neurot Recordings
Immersive, ambient-industrial death grind.

Doo Crowder | One For the Losers (& Other Pilgrims) | Self-released
The greatest art pop record since the death of Harry Nilsson.

Dog Basketball | s/t | Self-released

Drab Majesty | Modern Mirror | Dais Records
Moodily heartbreaking deep dive into the essence of love, memory and beauty.

Drowse | Light Mirror/Second Self | The Flenser

Dude York | Falling | Hardly Art

Earl Sweatshirt | FEET OF CLAY | Tan Cressida

Elizabeth Colour Wheel | Nocebo | The Flenser
Majestic, urban-tribal, noise-sludge dream psych.

Empath | Active Listening: Night On Earth | Get Better Records

Entrancer | Downgrade | Multidim Records

Ex Hex | It’s Real | Merge Records
Cosmic New Wave power pop gems beginning to end.

Facs | Lifelike | Trouble In Mind

FEELS / Shannon Lay | Post Earth / August | Wichita / Sub Pop

FM Cubgod | Handsome? | Self-released

Foxes in Fiction | Trillium Killer | Orchid Tapes

Frankie Cosmos | Close It Quietly | Sub Pop

French Kettle Station | Over X Millennia | Self-released
Retro-furturist, New Age pop shade jams on contemporary wack culture.

Future Sound of London | Yage | Fsol Digital

Gila Teen | Doesn’t | Self-released

Glissline | Digital Bipolarism | Multidim Records

Gold Trash | Quiet Violence | Glasss Records
Collage glitch industrial hip-hop daggers into misogynist culture.

Goon | Natural Evil | Convulse Records

Guerilla Toss | What Would The Odd Do? | DFA
Mind-altering, subtropical, disco punk dance pop.

Guidon Bear | Downwardly Mobile: Steel Accelerator | Antiquated Future Records

Gun Street Ghost | Battles | Self-released

Half Shadow | Dream Weather Its Electric Song | Illusion Florist

Haunted Horses | Dead Meat | SIXWIX

Have a Nice Life | Sea of Worry | The Flenser

HEALTH | Slaves of Fear Vol. 4 | Loma Vista Recordings

HIDE | Hell is Here | Dais Records

Holly Herndon | Proto | 4AD

HTRK | Venus In Leo | Ghostly International
Love songs from downtempo dance clubs in the future urban decay.

Jamila Woods | Legacy! Legacy! | Jagjaguwar

Jenny Hval | The Practice of Love | Sacred Bones

Kal Marks | Let the Shit House Burn Down | Exploding in Sound

Kid Mask | dead sore(s) | Self-released
Dispatches from the industrial glitch techno hard rave revolution.

Kim Gordon | No Home Record | Matador Records
Scathing jazz cool poetry set to hip-hop-inflected noise.

Kristin Hersh | Possible Dust Clouds | Fire Records

Kyle Emerson | Only Coming Down | Swoon City Music

Larians | Looming Boy EP | Self-released
Loneliness and isolation distilled as shimmering IDM nuggets.

Legendary Pink Dots | Angel in the Detail | Metropolis Records
A brilliant synthesis of classical sonic architecture, emotionally charged ambient and deep social critique.

Lightning Cult | EP 2: Ether Waves | Cloud Command Sound

Lingua Ignota | Caligula | Profound Lore
Caustic, industrial fusillade against patriarchal fragility.

Lisa Prank | Perfect Love Song | Father/Daughter Records

Little Fyodor | Pithy Romantic Ballads | Self-released
Arch punk cynic and curmudgeon begrudgingly admits affection and survives.

Lot Lizard | s/t | Different Folk Records

Lower Dens | The Competition | Ribbon Music

Malibu Ken | s/t | Rhymesayers

Mannequin Pussy | Patience | Epitaph

Mdou Moctar | Ilana: The Creator | Sahel Sounds
Intricate African prog suffused with the joy of the creative act.

Moon Pussy | Band Meating | Self-released
Eruptive, searing, angular, anti-pop exorcisms.

Muscle Beach | Charms | Sailor Records

Necropanther | The Doomed City | Self-released

New Standards Men | Field Recordings From Late Capitalism Vol. 10 | Self-released

No Gossip in Braille | Bend Toward Perfect Light | Cercle Social Records
The transmogrification of sorrow into transcendent melodies.

NoSwoon | s/t | Substitute Scene Records
Effervescent yet introspective dark wave synth pop.

Nots | 3 | Goner Records

Nuancer | I Hardly Know Her | Self-released

Obtuse | Who’s Askin’? | Self-released
Gloriously earnestly meaningful, off-the-cuff, utterly unpretentious pop punk.

Oh, Rose | While My Father Sleeps | Park The Van

Oko Tygra | Assistoma | Grey Market Records
Masterfully executed emotionally stirring downtempo dream pop.

Old Time Relijun | See Now And Know | K Records

Orbit Service | The Door to the Sky | Self-released

Pedestrian Deposit | Dyers’ Hands | Monorail Trespassing
The sonic analog of places we don’t want to visit but are drawn to anyway.

Pharmakon | Devour | Sacred Bones

Pinkish Black | Concept Unification | Relapse Records

Pile | Green and Gray | Exploding in Sound
Furiously poetic, orchestral and thoughtful blueprint for arty, noisy post-punk to come.

Plaid | Polymer | Warp Records

Pop. 1280 | Way Station | Weyrd Son Records

POW! | Shift | Castle Face Records

Priests | The Seduction of Kansas | Sister Polygon

Redwing Blackbird | Too Klaus For Comfort | Self-released

Rowboat | Birchwood Halls | Self-released

Secret Shame | Dark Synthetics | Portrayal of Guilt Records

Sheer Mag | A Distant Call | Wilsuns Recording Company
Modern blues punk’s equivalent of Judas Priest’s Stained Class.

She Past Away | Disko Anksiyete | Metropolis Records / Fabrika Records

ShitKid | DETENTION | PNKSLM Recordings

Silence in the Snow | Levitation Chamber | Prophecy Productions

Sleaford Mods | Eton Alive | Extreme Eating Records

Sleater-Kinney | The Center Won’t Hold | Mom + Pop

Slugger | Is Real | Self-released

Sole & DJ Pain 1 | No God Nor Country | Black Box Tapes

somesurprises | s/t | Drawing Room Records

Spirettes | Esoteria | Self-released
An ethereal distillation of deep yearning and determination.

SRSQ | Temporal Love/Unkept | Dais Records

Stonefield | Bent | Flightless

Strange Ranger | Remembering The Rockets | Tiny Engines

Studded Left | Popular Intuition | S/L INTNL.
Psychedelic post-punk portraits of life and love in our dystopic USA.

Summer Cannibals | Can’t Tell Me No | Tiny Engines

SunnO))) | Life Metal and Pyroclasts | Southern Lord

Swans | leaving meaning. | Young God

Tacocat | This Mess Is A Place | Sub Pop

Telefon Tel Aviv | Dreams Are Not Enough | Ghostly International

The Coathangers | The Devil You Know | Suicide Squeeze

The Hecks | My Star | Trouble In Mind Records

The Ocean Blue | Kings and Queens / Knaves and Thieves | Korda Records

The Paranoyds | Carnage Bargain | Suicide Squeeze

The Stargazer Lilies | Occabot | Rad Cult

The Twilight Sad | It Won/t Be Like This All the Time | Rock Action
The sound of a valiant struggle against existential failure.

The Vanilla Milkshakes | Punching Cows | Self-released
Humorous and heartfelt pop grunge odes to perpetual outsider status.

Total Trash | Field Guide | Self-released
Melancholic, post-psychedelic, slowcore, glitter jams.

Turvy Organ | The Ghost at the Feast | GROUPHUG

Tyler The Creator | Igor | Columbia
Dense, gritty, hazy beats and meta-exploration of identity as human and artist.

We Are Not a Glum Lot | The Price of Simply Existing | Self-released
Gripping, emo-inflected, math-y, post-punk bummercore.

Weeping Icon | s/t | Fire Talk
Cathartic, thorny, darkwave doom garage.

Whipporwill | The Nature of Storms | Self-released

Wreck and Reference | Absolute Still Life | The Flenser

Xeno & Oaklander | Hypnos | Dais Records
Heavy/heavenly techno for the dance club on Mount Olympus.

Xiu Xiu | Girl with Basket of Fruit | Polyvinyl

Zealot | The Book of Ramifications | Self-released

Short Takes #3: February 2019

earth control pill – leaves on leaves – self-released

Lead track “drippy tree” is an interesting and comforting collage of retro synth sampling and minimalist beats that pulse and bounce softly like one of those balloons with a grip shaped like an animal head that many people rode around on as kids. And that sort of melancholic, textured atmosphere with some white noise melded with abstract melodies layered with flowing tones and blurred beats that is suggested in “drippy trees” manifests in a variety of ways across the album without ever really replicating the feel of each song. In that way it’s reminiscent of early Aphex Twin but after the advent of modern experimental electronic dance music, tropical pop and deep house. Earth Control Pill pulls ideas together for this album as the title suggests as an organic process of layering wherein the elements complement each other seemingly naturally in the context of clearly technologically produced sounds. Altogether the songs, as sequenced, feel like a slow processing of sorrow by soothing the pains of loss while knowing they’ll never fully go away and the feeling of resignation of that reality. “Fog” strikes a somewhat jaunty note and, in fact, sounds the least like fog of all the songs though may highlight a time of fond memories connected to fog and how magical it can seem on an otherwise sunny morning. Whatever the inspiration or impetus behind this collection of music, it might be described as an ambient version of indie pop with the assembled use of discarded and currently unfashionable sounds to make something beautiful and tranquil with no obvious touchstones in contemporary commercially popular music.

Abjects – Never Give Up – Yippee Ki Yay Records

This debut LP from London’s Abjects strikes one as something akin to a frantic, grunge-y power pop record. But in the interest of not getting lazy and being quick to pigeonhole a band, the members of Abjects come from different corners of the world and met up in the UK bringing with them a vastly different set of cultural backgrounds that does give these songs an ineffably different flavor than 90s retro bands that all grew up in countries where the predominant language is English. The rhythms have an urgency yet fluidity that makes it easier to change directions and character rapidly with guitar work and vocals that seem adept at working counter point giving the songwriting an unusual and fascinating dynamism like something one might have heard in early Blonde Redhead songs or out of Velocity Girl.

Bison Bone – Take Up Trouble – self-released

One thing Bison Bone has always done exceedingly well is not limit its songwriting and creativity to the expectations of a subgenre of music. Yes, it’s coming from the world of country but also psychedelic rock but for the latter not in any obvious way. Its instincts seem inspired more by the hybrid country, punk and psych of the likes of The Flesheaters, Green On Red and Uncle Tupelo than much of the Americana that has come along since where it has not been too predictably been bathing in the musical DNA of early 1970s Laurel Canyon. Bison Bone’s music sounds like there is some real grit and real life experience behind it and paying of dues and not trying to mimic a beloved and trendy style of music. Take Up Trouble is urban honky tonk with the relatable storytelling intact but with a flair for wordplay and thoughtful commentary. What really makes these songs is the little details that bring the song together like the minimal guitar solo in the middle of “Hey Bartender” and the drone at the beginning of “Late December” to suggest memories of coming out of the haze of a memorable dream or of the heatwaves on the late afternoon road following a long day of driving and having a moment of reflection on what it’s all been about.

Bruce Lamont – Broken Limbs Excite No Pity – My Proud Mountain

Like an industrial ambient rendition of a culturally hybridized folk music from a hundred years hence, this latest solo record from Bruce Lamont of Yakuza is akin to an Ian McDonald novel. The latter has written several works of science fiction and fantasy that seem aimed at subverting tropes set in places that aren’t the usual locales for fantastic fiction. The influence of anthropology and straight out cultural concepts outside the developed world is so pervasive his work has a tonality and range that is refreshingly unpredictable. Lamont’s interest in non-Western musical ideas too informs these songs of immersive textures and compound rhythms. With “Goodbye Electric Sunday” the science fiction parallels are obvious but throughout Lamont weaves a series of narratives that are reminiscent of My Life in the Bush of Ghosts in sounding ineffably futuristic but as a commentary on the civilization on the verge of collapse of now.

Confluence – Closure, Start Over – self-released

Denver’s Confluence represented a musical rebirth for songwriter Ian Gassman whose work in other bands including his 2000s indie rock band Night Owl. The latter was more in a power pop meets Elvis Costello vein. Confluence was much more math rock in the late 90s and early 2000s sense that one heard touches of in the likes of Modest Mouse and Deathcab For Cutie. Confluence made no bones about nor held up its nose at complex arrangements and guitar solos but all in service to the song. Like it was using its technical skills to have fun and not just to show off. This record came out four years after the band was a functioning outfit and serves as a swan song and a reminder of how Confluence managed to fully integrate indie rock with musical chops and emotionally resonant vocals with a refreshingly unironic earnestness. Fans of LVL UP and Palm should definitely give this record a listen.

Eerie Wanda – Pet Town – Joyful Noise Recordings

Obvious touchstones for the 2016 Eerie Wanda album Hum would be 60s pop stars like Margo Guryan and Françoise Hardy. All of that atmospheric soulfulness and orchestrated sonic details was present in Marina Tadic’s songwriting and recording for that record. For Pet Town, Tadic stripped back some of the seeming orchestration and opted for the use of space and non-tonal atmosphere as well as raw guitar recording, fretting sounds included. The result is a more up close focus in sound rather than the nearly panoramic folk pop of Hum. Same introspective, melancholic lyrics but this time reminding one of the vibe of the Beach House’s 2008 album Devotion conveying a sense of warmth, isolation and reflection on times that haunt you with a sense of comfort and nostalgia.

LigtningCult_EP1_Burner — Lightning Cult, *EP1: Burner*

Lightning Cult – EP 1: Burner – self-released

A welcome return to the songwriting of Mike Marchant who in the 2000s and early 2010s brought an uplifting moodiness and energy to his indie rock bands Widowers and as a contributing songwriter to Houses as well as Mike Marchant’s Outer Space Party Unit. This isn’t as overtly as experimental as Widowers and the Outer Space Party Unit, nor as psychedelic as the latter. Rather it shines on Marchant’s gift for subtle dynamics and vocalizing with strong yet nuanced emotion. Throughout the EP it’s a mixture of texture and bright tones with driven and shaped by the aforementioned qualities. Marchant has struggled with serious health issues for several years at this point and one is tempted to look for that in this set of songs and if it’s there it’s more in the focus of the songwriting to put something together that feels good and honest to perform and worthy of attention beyond one’s consideration shaded by knowledge of his challenges as a human, at least not anymore than everyone faces. As such, Marchant demonstrates here why he garnered such wide attention during his time in Denver because none of this feels rote or desperate to recapture past glory. There is a timeless quality to Marchant’s music because he’s never really tried to fit in with trends while not spending much time mining the past. This EP is a great example of that. It’s not his masterpiece but if this is a comeback it’s better than many we’ve seen.

Lying On Ice – The Dream – Asylum Moon

Pulling apart this record to its components and influences is easy enough because there’s plenty of post-rock informing the guitar ideas, 80s and 90s darkwave and downtempo. But what it really sounds like is if someone got the essence of 80s moody Goth/post-punk but didn’t get trapped there with same production ideas and mood. There’s as much modern electronic pop aesthetic throughout the album like everyone involved is well aware of the likes of Purity Ring, Robyn, CHVRCHES and Phantogram. Composer Jesse Maddox is known more for his work in the world of taiko in Colorado including manufacturing the drums but has had a lifelong interest in dark, industrial music so working with talented dream pop vocalist Angela Cross from Los Angeles with the finished songs mixed and produced by Dave “Rave” Ogilvie of Skinny Puppy fame the project could have been fairly predictable. But it is instead of a deeply atmospheric, sonically rich set of songs including a cover of “Smothered Hope” that shares with the original and deep melancholy and being engulfed with urgent emotions but is more in a psychedelic vein, more Tear Garden than Skinny Puppy. Speaking of the former, Edward Ka-Spel does guest vocals on the stark yet lush and cold “Surrender,” and brings to the song his signature vocals lending a sense of being at the end of one’s struggle with all the things your ego screams to cling to before acceptance of your own mortality sets in.

Shadows Tranquil – Wander – self-released

Doran Robischon was once a guitarist in Gauntlet Hair and since that time there have been hints of a new musical project. Then Shadows Tranquil played shows in the past couple of years. But if you missed them there was no way to hear that music until the fall of 2018. Wander may remind anyone in the know of another Denver band, A Shoreline Dream. But only in that there are the aesthetics of electronic music underlying the songwriting. But there is more noise rock and psych punk behind the drifty push of the songs on Wander. In that way at times one is reminded of Nowhere-period Ride especially when the songs shift dynamics and add expansive layers of atmosphere and percussion only to pull the sounds back and redirect their momentum as the stream of sound progresses. The recording might be a little lo-fi for some tastes but that adds something of a tiny bit of mystique to music that sounds like the musicians skipped the late 90s and 2000s entirely and landed back in 2018 a late entry into the Holy Mountain Records (USA) catalog.

T-Rextasy – Prehysteria – Boogie Agency Records

Balancing the humorous with the meaningful and melancholy is a difficult balancing act in music, but T-Rextasy have long since mastered that art and this record simply reveals an evolution in the band’s sophistication of songwriting. “Coffee” has plenty of profane and playful double entendre while articulating a relatable frustration. The songs aren’t merely irreverent surf-ska punk songs, they’re like musical theater pieces for a play about young urban Bohemia but brimming with sharp observations as social commentary and character sketches that explore what it means to navigate the fraught political, economic and cultural environment in America today. Identity, sexuality, class and examination of one’s yearnings are discussed in story form with an undeniable affection and compassion for all the soft and hurt spots in everyone. Fans of the the melodramatic tones employed by Julie Brown in “The Homecoming Queen’s Got a Gun” and the teen tragedy songs of the 60s that inspired it will find much to love with Prehysteria.