Mr. Gnome – Queen City Sounds and Art

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond October 2024

**Charli XCX performs at Ball Arena on October 11, photo by Harley Weir**

Fontaines D.C. photo courtesy the artists

Wednesday | 10.02
What: Fontaines D.C. w/Been Stellar
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Irish post-punk band Fontaines D.C. has always been a bit different from the current crop of shout-y punk bands yet sharing a sharply observed critique of contemporary society and politics with a literary sensibility. For its 2024 album Romance the group took a bit of a different turn in its sounds drawing inspiration from manga, horror and existential cinema, ambient post-rock, a post-ironic absorption of nu metal and trip-hop. It sounds almost entirely unlike their previous offerings while preserving the core of its irreverent spirit and poetic leanings and transforming the expression of both. Openers Been Stellar from NYC is almost an American cognate of the musical impulses and instincts one finds in Fontaines D.C.. Its own melodic yet brooding rock is also brimming with an energy that suggests a sober assessment of the world as it is and deciding to reject the temptation to dissociation and despair. The quintet’s new album Scream from New York, NY is noisy and atmospheric with shades of Washington, DC post-punk and NYC arty noise rock.

Wednesday | 10.02
What: Mint Field w/Wave Decay
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Mint Field is a shoegaze/krautrock band from Mexico City that has garnered a bit of a cult following the past several years. Its songs have the kind of entrancing melodies one would hope to hear out of a dream pop outfit but its arrangements wax into the realm of the avant-garde with the use of noise and recursive production and sound processing so that its music ripples in hypnotic if not always incredibly predictable directions. Its latest full length is 2023’s Aprender a Ser and its autumnal moods and atmospheric resolves are reminiscent of Blonde Redhead in a more gloomy mood. In 2024 the group released the songs that were cut from the previous year’s albums as a mini-LP called Aprender a Ser: Extended. Wave Decay is of course the Denver band whose music most directly sonically aligns with Mint Field’s unorthodox rhythms and otherworldly leanings.

High On Fire in 2010, photo by Tom Murphy

Wednesday | 10.02
What: High on Fire w/Weedeater and Cobranoid
When: 6
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: High on Fire is the band that Matt Pike started following the 1998 dissolution of foundational stoner rock band Sleep. High on Fire has been more hard edged even if the sludgy guitar sound is there. Depending on what record by the band you check out you’ll get a different flavor of heavy music. 2024’s Cometh the Storm is the first to feature Big Business and former Melvins drummer Coady Willis following the departure of Des Kensel. It’s vintage High on Fire but there is even more of a punk attitude in the energy behind the music’s rhythm.

Thurdsday | 10.03
What: Deicide w/Krisiun, Inferi and Cloak
When: 6
Where: Marquis Theater
Why: Death metal band Deicide hails from what many may consider the home of the genre in Tampa, Florida where legendary studio Morrisound Recording is located as well. The group has courted controversy from early on even before it changed its name from Carnage to Deicide in 1989 with wild theatrics and lyrics that were and have been gloriously, and colorfully anti-organized religion. But all of that wouldn’t amount to much if Deicide’s music was simply brutal guitar riffs and relentless rhythms with lead vocalist/bassist Glen Benton growling out scenes of horror and struggle. There is more creativity in what the group has done and while consistent in those regards its new album Banished by Sin reveals a good deal of evolution of style and experimenting with arrangements.

Thursday | 10.03
What: Luna Li w/John Roseboro
When: 7
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Luna Li came out of Hannah Kim’s garage rock band Veins. But people apparently showed up thinking they were going to be some kind of metal band or the like and the group switched its name to Luna Li in 2017. The COVID-19 pandemic gave Kim the opportunity to create videos of performances from her home with her playing various instruments that went viral and established the project as a noteworthy act out of the then nascent bedroom pop movement. With the release of 2024’s When a Thought Grows Wings, Luna Li has proven that its lo-fi aesthetic translates well to a more high end production with lush atmospheres paired well with Kim’s knack for the intimate quality of her songwriting. Think cosmic dream pop made for the late night roller skating rink.

Thursday | 10.03
What: Wardruna w/Chelsea Wolfe https://www.redrocksonline.com/events/wardruna-539577/
When: 6
Where: Red Rocks
Why: Wardruna won’t release its new album Birna until January 24, 2025 but you’ll probably get to hear a good deal of its orchestral, epic, ambient, Nordic folk majesty in one of the perfect settings for that music at Red Rocks. This is the band’s only North American show ahead of that album release but the group has demonstrated a desire for playing iconic, historical settings in the past and a fall show at the natural amphitheater will only add to the experience of the music in a one-of-a-kind way. Also on the bill is the dark, atmospheric, Gothic metal and experimental music artist Chelsea Wolfe who brings to her own shows a mystical quality that will bring to the show another expression of blurring the mythical with the aesthetics of the present. Wolfe and Wardruna composer Einar Selvik recently did an interview with Frank Godla or Metal Injection discussing the upcoming show and you can watch that below.

Friday | 10.04
What: Air play Moon Safari
When: 7
Where: Bellco Theatre
Why: Air’s 1998 album Moon Safari released in January of that year became something of an instant classic. It borrowed heavily from the aesthetics of library music, downtempo, abstract funk and psychedelic lounge music. But it was also an amalgamation of some of the musical impulses of the time in its retrofuturist compositions. Other bands in other styles of music were tapping heavily into 70s and 60s music that at that time might have been considered schlockily self-indulgent but recontextualized and recombined with innovative production techniques and modern sensibilities it was like an aural vacation to a more chill space than some of the conflict of the late 90s often forgotten in the current sweep of history in which horror seems to be piling on top of horror and every week and sometimes every day there’s something new that seems to take up the oxygen of existence. So maybe you’ll get to experience a temporary exit from all of that at this show marking a celebration of that singular record whose magic Air didn’t quite capture again even as it innovated further.

Friday | 10.04
What: Blonde Redhead w/Allison Lorenzen
When: 6
Where: Levitt Pavilion
Why: Blonde Redhead doesn’t often make an appearance in Denver more than once every two or three years but this is a chance to see the legendary dream pop/art rock band outdoors before the colder days of Fall descend. Opening is ambient indie folk luminary Allison Lorenzen whose delicate and emotionally rich soundscapes will fit in well with the music to follow.

Faye Webster, photo by Michael Tyrone Delaney

Friday | 10.04
What: Faye Webster w/Miya Folick
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Faye Webster has established herself as skilled practitioner of delicately orchestrated melodies and deeply personal storytelling across her five albums. Her imaginative songwriting is delivered with a soulful accessibility so that Webster can indulge moments of musical whimsy and inventiveness that make for albums that have a paradoxical diversity and consistency that lend them a timeless quality. Live, the singer-songwriter also bucks expectation in not just embodying the vulnerability and sensitivity required to make the music she does with authenticity but taking chances with stage sets and costumes that can make you wonder if you’ve stepped into an alternate reality serving the worlds and stories Webster has on offer. The summer leg of the tour for her 2021 album I Know I’m Funny Haha included the stage being flanked by giant, mythical, mysterious beings like something out of a supernatural manga. So expect something theatrical and entrancing for the presentation of the 2024 record Undressed at the Symphony.

Blood Incantation, photo by Julian Weigand

Friday | 10.04
What: Blood Incantation – Absolute Everywhere album release w/Steve Roach
When: 8
Where: Boulder Theater
Why: This will be completely different kind of show with the headliners being Denver-based, psychedelic death metal band Blood Incantation celebrating the release of its new album Absolute Everywhere. But this year also marks the release of a documentary about the band’s time in Berlin called All Gates Open: In Search of Absolute Everywhere. The group’s 2022 all synth album Timewave Zero revealed explicitly the fact that the members of the band had an interest in sculpting atmospheres beyond what it had done on previous albums and the new set of songs fuses the two worlds in a seamless way and expanding in some ways what death metal can be. So who is opening this show but legendary ambient composer Steve Roach who would be worth making out to see all on his own.

Saturday | 10.05
What: The Milk Blossoms album release, Wheelchair Sports Camp and George Cessna
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: The Milk Blossoms are releasing their latest album Open Portal on vinyl this night. The record is a resonantly introspective dive into memory and how little details can spark and linger in your brain, shedding light on significant moments and details of experience that the conscious mind can pass over and miss their holistic connectedness when limited by linear thought. These songs break down that process and turn it into poetry and music that feels like a direct experience rather than mere snippets filtered by one’s own psychological conditioning. Because of this the band’s songs can feel like dreams rendered into melancholic yet emotionally vibrant bits of pop goodness. Wheelchair Sports Camp is an amalgamation of dirty rap, masterful production, jazz wizardry and sharply observed social commentary in a brilliant and playful performance style. George Cessna’s songwriting like that of the late Kris Kristofferson recognizes no boundary between pop, rock and Americana with lyrics that are poignantly observant of personal struggle and common human moments navigating the often emotionally perilous world.

Saturday | 10.05
What: Kate Bollinger
When: 7
Where: eTown Hall
Why: Kate Bollinger recently released her debut full-length album Songs from a Thousand Frames of Mind (2024) on the Ghostly International imprint, a label more known for experimental and otherwise left field music. Bollinger’s own indie folk songs is the kind of thing you’d hear on the local indie rock station but if you listen deeper and watch any of her music videos it becomes obvious the Bollinger is an artist that experiments in tone and tonality and unconventional arrangements that somehow come together sounding like something from another era, but a mythical version of that era and her mastery of atmospheric songwriting is reminiscent of the warmly spookier end of The Velvet Underground’s folkier, drifty songs. Maybe on another tour the songwriter would be playing a regular club but this time around you can catch her at eTown Hall in Boulder and its finely curated programming.

Saturday | 10.05
What: Ginger Root w/Pearl & The Oysters
When: 7
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: With a name like Ginger Root and knowing nothing about the artist you might be expecting a jam band but no, the project led by singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Cameron Lew straddles the realms of soul, funk, jazz and pop in a seemingly self-aware style. Lew’s records unabashedly center the cheesier aspects of East Asian culture as a starting off point in writing with insight about the usual personal concerns while also commenting on society in a playful manner that at times can come across as surreal. His new album SHINBANGUMI is like a stroll through the kind of daytime television world that anyone that has spent time watching regular programming in Japan, Taiwan or Hong Kong will find familiar. That bizarre realm of crass commercialism, forced enthusiasm and manufactured positivity that serves as the backdrop of programming that isn’t necessarily advertising with often fantastic sound design is part of the aesthetic. But Lew turns the vibe on its ear while borrowing the chillout lounge energy to inform his own charming, psychedelic pop.

Saturday | 10.05
What: SynthBanger’s Fest: Arcade High, The Bad Dreamers, Master Boot Record, Starfarer, Watch Out For Snakes, The Runsaway Wild, Komonic, Bob Sync and Jacket
When: 3
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: DJ Tower presents the latest edition of his showcase of current Synthwave artists from Denver and beyond including Pittsburgh’s Arcade High, Los Angeles’ The Bad Dreamers and their late night crime drama pop and Master Boot Record from Rome, Italy and its orchestrated, energetic chiptune heaviness.

Saturday | 10.05
What: UPSAHL w/Conor Burns and Zoe Ko
When: 7
Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station
Why: UPSAHL came up as a trained multi-instrumentalist and singer but fortunately she channeled that knowledge into a skillset that has made her indie pop bangers have and uncommon musical depth and sophistication. Her early singles showcased her musicianship a little more but her newer work demonstrates that UPSAHL has a great command of production in crafting hooks for hedonistic dance club fare with interesting pop culture references like that to Jennifer’s Body in “Summer so hot.”

Descartes a Kant, photo courtesy the artists

Sunday | 10.06
What: Descartes a Kant
When: 7
Where: HQ
Why: Descartes a Kant from Mexico City sounds like its members came up listening to a combination of art rock and 90s alternative pop. Its 2023 album After Destruction is like the soundtrack to a pirate takeover of a television station including commercials and instructions on the use of technologies. All with a healthy, surreal and subversive sense of humor. The music is often a fusion of synth pop and punk for a sound somewhere between a Garfunkel and Oates song with a frenetic noise rock version of pop punk. Fans of Otoboke Beaver and Deerhoof may like this band’s strange sounds and undeniable flair for theater.

Sunday | 10.06
What: J.R.C.G. w/American Culture and Candy Apple
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Justin R. Cruz Gallegos’ second album Grim Iconic…(Sadistic Mantra) is a cathartic burst of hybrid musical ideas that bring together raw noise experiments, structured beats and a sound that has punk spirit but irreverent IDM sensibilities. It’s like a modern manifestation of the sort of thing Meat Beat Manifesto got up to in the early 90s and Trans Am’s more rock moments. But really it’s something different and more original than a lot of music with solid hooks and accessibility that came out in the past five years. Think something like if Fugazi and Sleaford Mods did a mashup project with a resurrected Macha producing. American Culture underwent a bit of a reboot of sound more in the direction of rediscovering and repurposing the melodic soundbending of Britpop groups and The Cure in a power pop mode without losing a raw human mode of expression in the past few years and is all the better for having pushed its boundaries past where it has been before. Candy Apple is what happens when hardcore kids realize the full noise potential of that music and stretch it into creative shapes outside the standard format.

Sunday | 10.06
What: Illuminati Hotties w/Daffo
When: 7
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Sarah Tudzin is known at least as much for her masterful work as a producer, mixer and audio engineer as she is for her music with her band Illuminati Hotties. The latter put out its latest album POWER in August 2024 with Tudzin as producer alongside another luminary in audio production John Congleton. Though the songs are spare in their arrangements they are imbued with an energy and a fuzzy edge reminiscent of 90s alternative pop with often surprisingly introspective melodic vocal hooks that pair well with those Tudzin crafted for guitar. The wryly observational lyrics and personal insight makes the record something with more depth than is obvious because the songs are so catchy. Opening the show is Portland-based indie folk artist Daffo. Growing up in Philadelphia, Daffo was involved in the DIY scenes of Philly and New Jersey where they developed some of their uncommonly sensitive songwriting and fluidly dynamic musicianship. Their song “Poor Madeline” is an affecting work that captures the wistfulness of looking back on a time of displacement and emotional turmoil in one’s life and specifically about the loss of the feeling of having a place one associates with home. It’s immediately relatable and Daffo’s arrangements reflect well the welling of emotions and the granular flow of them in your mind as you’re feeling them. This characteristic the songwriter brings to their other released material so far as collected on the album Pest/Crisis Kit released September 20, 2024.

Sunday | 10.06
What: Boris “Amplifier Worship Service” w/Starcrawler
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Few albums have been as singular in exemplifying an aesthetic as succinctly summed up by the title of an album as Boris’s epochal 1998 album Amplifier Worship. Boris didn’t invent doom metal or necessarily do it better than everyone else but that record is like a user’s manual for how to make heavy music that’s dense with atmosphere, not too polished to be interesting and thoroughly informed by a willingness to let the wildness and bleeding edges of the analog technology employed drift where it may while guiding it all to great heights of artistry and intensity. And for one night in Denver you can witness the Japanese heavy music greats deliver that album in its entirety.

Tuesday | 10.08
What: Pixel Grip w/Madeline Goldstein
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Pixel Grip is a Chicago-based band whose industrial dance club sound is steeped in EBM and techno. Its rhythms and tones have an angular quality but the band’s vocals are ethereally melodic. Live the band looks like they come straight from a Goth club that never existed in a cyberpunk manga but the music goes hard and has the kind of visceral impact one wants from a darkwave act with pretensions to dance music. Pixel Grip doesn’t pretend. Madeline Goldstein has been making a mark for herself as a producer of moody synth pop in the wonderfully gloomy post-punk vein. Her 2023 album Other World couches Goldstein’s melodiously, yes, otherworldly vocals reminiscent of Siouxsie Sioux in layers of entrancing tones and driving rhythms.

Shannon & The Clams, photo by Jim Herrington

Tuesday | 10.08
What: Shannon & The Clams w/The Deslondes
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Shannon & The Clams have been building a cult following for years since their 2007 inception. Lead vocalist Shannon Shaw was a startling presence with a powerhouse voice that made the band stand out when it was playing dive bars and the like a decade and more ago and the songwriting a mix of garage punk and the emotional delicacy and grit of 1960s girl groups has proven to be versatile and fruitful in exploring themes of love and heartache with creativity and passionate tunefulness. The outfit’s latest album The Moon is in the Wrong Place bears all the hallmarks of Shannon & The Clams’ blend of vital soulfulness and vulnerable introspection and waxes further into its psychedelic pop leanings.

Wednesday | 10.09
What: Crumb w/Vagabon
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Crumb’s foundation of jazz-inflected, psychedelic dream pop started garnering a bit of a following with its first two EPs Crumb (2016) and Locket (2017). It wasn’t the standard issue indie psych that had been flourishing often blandly in the middle of the 2010s. Crumb’s creative vision was more experimental and imaginative and its songwriting seemed to be informed by a deep listening of electronic music of the 90s and 2000s with rhythms that though often driven by live instruments flowed like something stemming from a production base. With its new album Amama, Crumb pushes its sounds further into colorful soundscaping with an aesthetic resonance comparable to the unique worlds of a Dash Shaw film and the wondrous imagery and sense of mysterious emotional familiarity.

Thursday | 10.10
What: Thou w/Slowhole, BleakHeart and The Flight of Sleipnir
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Thou may still be a cult band but its one that has garnered critical acclaim for its unique take on sludge and doom metal. Anyone that has seen the band live knows they don’t look like they’re about to get up and play the heaviest music of the night with a wild energy that stretches the music into interesting sonic and emotional shapes. They often look like you’re about to see some weird Americana. And in some ways that’s exactly what you get—a sonic portrait of aspects of the tortured American psyche. The group’s new album Umbilical is its most expansive and accessible yet without sacrificing the band’s rouch edges and idiosyncratic textures and tonal layers that make its songs such gloriously nightmarish passages of cathartic sound.

Jeffrey Lewis & The Voltage, photo by Brent Cole

Thursday | 10.10
What: Jeffrey Lewis & The Voltage w/The Grasping Straws and Gila Teen
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge Bobcat Club
Why: Jeffrey Lewis is a songwriter from New York City who is currently on tour with his band The Voltage. His rich and prolific body of work is a broadly diverse presentation of ideas and biographical/autobiograpical sketches that have a refreshingly and fascinating honesty and earnestness that fans of Half Japanese, Daniel Johnston, Camper Van Beethoven and Billy Bragg will find rewarding. It’s part punk, part folk, part Americana and all what might be described as captured, on recordings anyway, in brash burst of lo-fi vulnerability. Look for a new record from Lewis due out in March 2025 but for now take a visit to his Bandcamp page and really start anywhere.
https://jeffreylewis.bandcamp.com/

Friday | 10.11
What: Charli XCX w/Troye Sivan
When: 6:30
Where: Ball Arena
Why: Brat Summer just got extended into the Fall with Charli XCX’s latest tour in support of her 2024 album. The singer-songwriter-producer has long found ways of crafting enthralling modern pop music either largely on her own but often with various collaborators. Brat combines the brashness of Charli’s performance style and a radical vulnerability that has been an element of her lyrics for years. With Brat Charli and company tap into aspects of synth pop and transforms them into undeniable bangers with genuine emotional resonance. “360” became an obvious hit over the summer but “Apple” finds Charlotte Aitchison aka Charli XCX branching into new creative territory making the album one of the more innovative in mainstream popular music.

Little Fyodor and Babushka Band circa 2016, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 10.11
What: Franksgiving – in Memory of Frank Bell: Little Fyodor, Mr. Pacman and Sense From Nonsense
When: 9
Where: Lion’s Lair
Why: Franksgiving was a yearly fundraiser for colitis and Crohn’s Disease charities led by the late Frank Bell, DJ and purveyor of fine musical weirdness for years. The banner of that cause has been taken up by Little Fyodor who has shared Bell’s appreciation for the musically odd and a maker of plenty of that one his own whether with tape collage legends or his long running, bizarro punk band that is more punk than most bands calling themselves such. But then you also get costumed video game superhero glitchcore/synth pop legends Mr. Pacman and the ambient/soundtrack project of former Echo Beds drummer/programmer/vocalist Tom Nelsen.

Saturday | 10.12
What: Meet the Giant 15 Year Anniversary w/Church Fire and Jaguar Stevens
When: 8
Where: 1010 Workshop
Why: Meet the Giant is a post-punk band with a keen ear for electronic soundscapes resulting in a music that is visceral, emotionally rich and possessed of great sonic nuance. The band has two albums under its belt after a decade of incubating before playing its first shows and on the verge of releasing a third and you may get a chance to hear some of the new material at this show. Industrial dance synth pop firebrands Church Fire are releasing the vinyl version of their great 2022 album puppy god through Witch Cat Records at this show as well.

Sunday | 10.13
What: GEL w/MS Paint, Destiny Bond and The Mall
When: 6
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: GEL recently released its most recent collection of punchy and caustic hardcore in the album Persona. Hailing from New Jersey, the quartet started life as a powerviolence outfit called Sick Shit. But starting in 2018 the fledgling group leaned further into more pure hardcore but with more expansive rhythms and a layer of moodiness under the aggressive bluster. And this show features some of the most noteworthy acts out of the recent wave of American hardcore with Destiny Bond and its amped anthems of navigating ideas of identity, personal politics and a bursting of narrow definitions of how we have to be and a resistance to bland yet destructive conformity. MS Paint came out of the hardcore scene but its synth and drums-driven post-punk is like something new with resonances with the likes of The Screamers and The VSS. It’s also one of the most powerful live bands you’re likely to see this year.

Monday | 10.14
What: Unwound w/Quits
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Unwound was considered one of the premier noise rock bands of the 90s and early 2000s even though it mostly earned a cult following playing dive bars, DIY spaces, basements and in the end small theaters. Its raw and both controlled and unhinged post-hardcore style had an intense energy and dreamlike passages of a transcendent emotional headiness that implanted so many of the band’s songs in the psyches of fans. At one point a critic or two compared their style and influence to that of Sonic Youth, a band that likely had more than a passing influence on Unwound. Following the 2001 tour in support of its then and most recent studio album, the highly experimental and even avant-garde Leaves Turn Inside You, Unwound split in 2002 only to resurface in 2022 after the passing of bassist Vern Rumsey. For the recent spate of live shows Jared Warren of Big Business and formerly of KARP has taken up role as bassist as one of the only people who could really do it justice as he like Unwound was based out of Olympia, Washington in the 90s as well not to mention Rumsey worked on KARP records. Opening are Denver noise rock legends Quits whose emotionally charged songs may sound like jagged emotions and caustic pronouncements about humanity but are really sensitively rendered observations and fantasies about life in a world that can feel hostile to human frailty.

Monday | 10.14
What: Clairo w/Alice Phoebe Lou
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Bedroom pop artist Clairo in her relatively short career has created a body of work and musical style that has had reverberations for other songwriters in the past several years and garnered a cult following as well. Her melancholic and delicate vocals and inventive use of organic and electronic instruments have a timeless quality because Clairo has mastered mixing and blending the aesthetics of multiple eras into her own style so that even if there’s a nostalgic aspect to the song it has a paradoxical immediacy. Her new record Charm has some of Clario’s most accomplished production and songwriting so that so many of the compositions feel like indie instrumentation over beatmaking paired with the usual melodious and chill vocals and every so slightly psychedelic sensibilities.

Tuesday | 10.15
What: Iguana Death Cult w/Los Toms and Supreme Joy
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Iguana Death Cult from Rotterdam, Holland formed in 2015 when singer/guitarist Jeroen Reek brought together a group of friends who didn’t know each other but had his friendship in common. As they began to develop their music their sound absorbed the garage and surf rock influences of the 2010s and manifested those ideas in music that moved beyond trendy aesthetics and by the time of its 2023 album Echo Palace you might be excused for thinking they were influenced more by the likes of Parquet Courts, Gang of Four and The English Beat. Still fiery but angular, arty and more daring in its guitar work than most garage rock acts. Also on the bill is the ferocious, Denver post-punk band Supreme Joy whose own roots in garage rock adjacent-modes isn’t so obvious.

Tuesday | 10.15
What: Mr. Gnome w/Spyderland and Glass Human
When: 7
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Since its 2005 inception Mr. Gnome has cultivated an eclectic and evolving style of art rock that on its albums dives deep into concepts and aesthetics like they’re making a unique work with world building but not lacking in personal storytelling. Songs stand on their own yet fit into the mosaic of the work at hand. Its a level of creative songwriting that not many bands achieve without coming across as a little corny. Its latest offering is 2024’s synth-infused A Sliver of Space a seeming record about clinging to meaning as the world falls apart and resisting being washed away in the flood of world and life events.

Rootbeer Richie & The Reveille, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday and Saturday | 10.18 and 10.19
What: Rootbeer Richie & The Reveille album release w/Slow Caves, May Be Fern and Cactus Cat on 10.18 and w/Bubby Lucky, Jesus Christ Taxi Driver, Dayton Stone & The Undertones on 10.19
When: 7 both nights
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: The rock and soul review of Rootbeer Richie & The Reveille celebrates the release of its new album Never Needed Me with a weekend of shows including luminaries of the local rock and roll and indie rock scenes in Denver and Fort Collins.

Testament, photo by Stephanie Cabral and Mia Demonz

Tuesday | 10.22
What: Testament, Kreator and Possessed
When: 6
Where: The Fillmore Auditorium
Why: Testament is one the most important of the second wave of thrash metal bands out of the Bay Area in the second half of the 80s that helped to define the genre with its unique approach to the musicianship. It had the wild exuberance of thrash in its first few years but backed by a technical precision and creativity in its execution that set the band apart from some of its contemporaries. Like its contemporaries, Testament was able to weather the implosion of the popularity of metal in the early 90s because its music seemed rooted in something more durable than hedonistic rock and roll tropes with more to say and its songwriting more imaginative than what was on offer from glam metal. By the 21st century the style Testament cultivated was vindicated with a new wave of popularity and the reunion of its classic lineup with brilliant lead guitarist Alex Skolnick returning to the fold. But this show includes other giants of 80s metal with influential German thrash group Kreator and pioneering death metal act Possessed.

Wednesday | 10.23
What: Minami Deutsch w/Nightfishing
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Minami Deutsch is the minimal techno-inspired psychedelic prog band from Tokyo whose motorik beats and hypnotic minimalism is both consistent and ever evolving in its soundscapes. Its 2022 album Fortune Goodies is like a gentle version of Kosmische that some may find resonances with the more abstract end of Deerhunter.

Wednesday | 10.23
What: Marc Rebillet w/Flying Lotus and Reggie Watts
When: 5
Where: Red Rocks
Why: Marc Rebillet is an eclectic music and multi-media creator whose live performances and YouTube streams, Facebook/Instagram live feeds etc. blur the line between electronic music, funk, R&B, comedy, performance art and whatever else seems to strike his fancy in the moment as an artist who has found a way to use the format as the medium of his artistic expression. For this tour he is bringing along like-minded creatives like filmmaker, experimental hip-hop and avant-garde jazz composer Flying Lotus and comedian and multi-faceted post-punk R&B storyteller Reggie Watts.

Thursday | 10.24
What: David Liebe Hart w/Magic Cyclops and DJ Wayzout
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: David Liebe Hart came to the attention of a wide audience for his appearances in the Adult Swim program Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! His surreal songs and puppet theater many probably assumed to be purely a character but there is an earnestness to Hart’s creative work that comes from a genuine place and his status an outsider artist is no pose. The music with his various collaborators has evolved to a truly unique kind of synth pop with themes of aliens, trains and the litany of tragedies of his love life. Magic Cyclops is not quite the Colorado (or is it Iowa, IYKYK) equivalent of Hart but his own take on surreal synth pop is driven by a concept of an egotistical people star whose personal is fueled by bombast and at times technical incompetence. His own songs, nevertheless, have their own charm and odd humor.

Friday |10.25
What: Photay w/M.Sage
When: 7
Where: Lost Lake
Why: For roughly the past decade Evan Shorntein has released experimental-leaning, electronic pop music as Photay. His latest offering is 2024’s Windswept which mixes minimal techno rhythms and structure with subtle textures and ethereal, sparkling melodies building to a playful mood. Opening the show is noted Colorado-based ambient artist, composer and curator M. Sage.

Trees Inside Out, photo courtesy Myshel Prasad

Friday | 10.25
What: Trees Inside Out (first show) w/Pleasure Prince and Extreme Sports Club
When: 7:30
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Trees Inside Out released its debut album IOVI on September 12, 2024. It’s a drifty bit of dream pop and space rock reminiscent of Low and Eleventh Dream Day. Its principle songwriters though are known figures in Denver’s shoegaze scene of the 90s and early 2000s with Roger Green (Idle Mind, The Czars) and Myshel Prasad (Space Team Electra) so really that alchemy of sounds extends from their own deeply creative songwriting and soundscaping and left field poetic sensibilities. Also on the record are Todd Ayers who was part of an early part of STE called Dive but later in Volplane and Sonnenblume; Sean Eden (Luna); Bill Kunkel (STE); Kit Peltzel (STE); John Rasmussen (among others, Pale Sun); and Lee Wall (Luna). That alone should be a reason to go to the show. Then Pleasure Prince is also on hand with their beautifully orchestrated, emotionally vibrant, experimental, electronic pop.

Saturday and Sunday | 10.26 and 10.27
What: The Magnetic Fields 69 Love Songs 25th Anniversary Tour
When: 7 both nights
Where: Boulder Theater
Why: Indie rock band The Magnetic Fields released 69 Love Songs in 1999 to great critical acclaim. Written as a concept for a music review by main songwriter Stephen Merritt that could have been 100 songs long but thought the shorter length more attainable and the math worked better for three sections of 23 songs apiece. The album is stylistically diverse and delivered with an almost nonchalant energy in the vocals and Merritt’s songs range in subject matter widely and depict relationships in a spectrum of sexual orientations. But mostly it’s an ambitious and sprawling collection of finely crafted pop songs that go well beyond the cliches and tropes of a subject that has been written about entirely too often without a fraction of the creativity.

Monday | 10.28
What: La Luz w/Tele Novella
When: 7
Where: Marquis Theater
Why: La Luz has evolved rapidly and in always interesting directions from its more surf rock-oriented sound when it began in 2012. But even then Shana Cleveland’s songwriting has set the band apart from presumed stylistic leanings. The band’s 2024 album News of the Universe is a futuristic, softly psychedelic set of songs that sound like the group has moved well into the richly atmospheric side of Krautrock and fused that perfectly with Cleveland’s expert pop songcraft and gift for intermingling classic songwriting and styles and sounds across decades and cultures into a coherent and entrancing whole.

What: The The
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: The The was both a critically acclaimed and commercially successful band throughout the 80s and 90s. Having come up from experimental music and post-punk roots, The The has always had a bit of an arty, left field edge even as many of its songs have enjoyed a bit of mainstream popularity like “Uncertain Smile” from its 1983 debut album Soul Mining, “Uncertain Smile” featuring Sinead O’Connor from the 1989 album Mind Bomb and “Dogs of Lust” from 1993’s Dusk. From 2003 through 2017 the project went on hold while main songwriter Matt Johnson focused on crafting music for soundtracks. In 2024 a new The The album emerged with Ensoulment a record of brooding, Americana flavored art rock noir songs about love, existential pondering and the band’s usual poignant social commentary.

Monday and Tuesday | 10.28 and 10.29
What: SHEROES Live with Carmel Holt
Where/When: The Colorado Sound 105.5 FM at 3PM on 10.28 and Indie 102.3 time TBA (10.29)
Why: The Road to Joni is a podcast that launched on September 6, 2024 hosted by SHEROES’ Camel Holt. The podcast honors the great folk rock/experimental pop legend Joni Mitchell. Guests have and will include the likes of St. Vincent, Brittany Howard, Hozier, Arooj Aftab and Bonnie Raitt. The first episode featured Taylor Goldsmith of Dawes, Lucius and Kathleen Edwards. Carmel taped episodes on her way across America from Kingston, NY to the “Joni Jam” at The Hollywood Bowl which occurred on October 19/20. She has also been making stops in various cities for on air visits and tapings at local NPR stations including The Colorado Sound in Fort Collins on October 28 and Indie 102.3 in Denver. Listen to the archived episodes here.

Tokyo Police Club, photo by Ross Macdonald

Wednesday | 10.30
What: Tokyo Police Club final tour
When: 7
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: The members of Tokyo Police Club grew up and went to school together in their hometown of Newmarket, Ontario forming the band in 2004 when most of the group were still in high school. Unlike most bands formed in that way, TPC has stuck it out and its particular style of left field, guitar-driven post-punk went on to garner a sizable following and commercial success with songs imbued with great energy and immediacy alongside a spontaneous quality and willingness to go off standard melodic structures. The band has thus been able to consistently craft music that comes across authentic because a little rough around the edges. In January 2024 the quartet announced it was splitting up with a final tour concluding in Toronto on November 29.

Vince Staples in 2017, photo by Tom Murphy

Wednesday | 10.30
What: Vince Staples w/Baby Rose
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Vince Staples released his sixth album Dark Times in May 2024 and offered a more vulnerable set of songs than his already impressive catalog of songs of emotionally open and introspective storytelling. This time out the moods are more downcast in a way that feels cinematic like Staples has written an album like an anthology of vignettes best embodied as a series of short films that illuminate themes of acceptance and the kind of resistance that comes not from some hokey everything’s gonna be alright insipidity but a deep assessment of how things are and working to not be overwhelmed by the challenges of finding meaning in a society that makes a genuine effort at doing so challenging.

Wednesday and Thursday | 10.30 and 10.31
What: T-Pain w/Akon (10.30) and Lil Jon (10.31)
When: 5:30 (10.30) and 6:30 (10.31)
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: T-Pain is most often associated with the popularization of Auto-Tune in popular music of the past twenty years and more. But for the artist it’s more than just a gimmick and he’s used it creative to give his vocals another dimension of expression beyond their normal range. And beyond the vocal treatment, T-Pain is a songwriter who has consistently tried to push the boundaries of hip-hop with his songwriting and production. In 2023 he released a record of eclectic covers called On Top of the Covers that includes “War Pigs” for which Ozzy Osbourne and Geezer Butler have expressed great appreciation. Other than the selections the album showcased the singer’s prowess as a vocalist without Auto-Tune. So for this show you’ll probably get to witness T-Pain at the peak of his abilities thus far. The first night of this two night run includes a performance from Akon who early in T-Pain’s career helped to give that artist a leg up into the music industry through his record label Konvict Muzik. But Akon’s own pop-inflected hip-hop and world music infused R&B has garnered himself no small following as well. The second night you will get to see Lil Jon who was pivotal in developing crunk and that EDM (particularly bass music) and Southern hip-hop crossover as embodied prominently by his hit 2013 single “Turn Down For What” which he performed at the 2024 DNC.

Mr. Gnome Poetically Evokes the Multiple Existential Crises With a Heartwarming Tenderness on Psychedelic Art Pop Single “Mind’s Gone”

With its languid, shuffling pace, Mr. Gnome’s “Mind’s Gone” is a day dream-y meditation on existential crisis and a tentative acceptance of uncertainty. The chrous of “My mind’s gone, I don’t even know just where to find it, I don’t even know just where it’s hidin’” speaks to being in a place where you’re questioning everything at a time in your life when everything seems up in the air and you try to maintain but you’re not sure you can. The simple rhythm, the echoing piano chords and the slightly distorted vocals with the hint of background spectral drone create the impression of despite a soul-felt state of having felt like you were on the right path and doing the right things and realizing that the carpet has been yanked out from underneath you. Over the past several years many people especially in the creative space have felt this and the pandemic amplified the precarious ability to pursue one’s art with integrity and without heavy distraction. With the cost of living having boosted egregiously over the past 12 years or more you can feel like what do you have to do to survive because the foundations of life have been eroded so quickly and then the world seems to be falling apart so what do you do? You try to hang on and hold onto the things that give you life meaning and if you’re a songwriter you write about that situation with a poetic truth and make music that doesn’t feel like it’s trying to evade a clear and present reality and struggle which Mr. Gnome has done here and on the rest of it’s new record A Sliver of Space due out for streaming, digital download and on CD and vinyl on September 27, 2024. Listen to “Mind’s Gone” on YouTube and follow the Cleveland-based experimental rock band at the links below.

mrgnome.com

Mr. Gnome on Twitter

Mr. Gnome on Facebook

Mr. Gnome on Instagram

Mr. Gnome’s “Nothing and Everything” is a Brooding, Psychedelic Synth Pop Reaffirmation of Love and Commitment in Challenging Times

Cleveland’s art pop duo Mr. Gnome returns with its first album in four years with A Sliver of Space due out September 27, 2024 on El Marko Records (vinyl, CD, download, streaming). Lead single “Nothing and Everything” and its lyrics video showcase what’s in store with the new record. We see a mysterious figure drawing down cosmic energies from the heavens while floating above a rocky, desert landscape like a figure out of a Dune novel. The brooding synths contrast well with Nicole Barille’s lightly distorted and passionate vocals and the finely syncopated beat and together the music serves a song that seems to be a reaffirmation of love and commitment during challenging times through personal struggles and doubts. Sure it’s a classic theme but Mr. Gnome’s particular approach and style gives the messaging a sense of being in it for the long haul even if things get tough and require extra grace. It’s truly a song for the current period of human civilization and the title speaks to the layered challenges we all face individually and as a civilization. Watch the video for “Nothing and Everything” on YouTube and follow Mr. Gnome at the links below. The band tours across the USA September 27 through November 2.

mrgnome.com

Mr. Gnome on Twitter

Mr. Gnome on Facebook

Mr. Gnome on Instagram

Queen City Sounds and Art Best Albums of 2020

Sex Swing | Type II | Rocket Recordings

This sprawling best of list was intended for publication in January 2021 but other priorities got in the way and I had written about many of these in brief in my year end best column for the December 2020 print edition of Birdy magazine in December. Others I wrote up for Birdy throughout the year. All of that text is here hopefully not in a form with my errors edited back in. At any rate it begins with what I’m going to call the album of the year, Type II by UK post-punk experimentalists Sex Swing. It not only stretched post-punk beyond the usual boundaries these days and it articulated the conflict, the outage and confusion of a world coming to terms with the great shortcomings of modern, international capitalism, the inadequacy of the conservative/far right and neoliberal government to address the needs of people across decades and most painfully and poignantly in the moment. That agony and anomie can be heard throughout the album but even separate from that context it’s just a great, experimental rock album. The original verbiage for the Birdy piece reads “An uncomromisingly mind-altering psychedelic noise rock ride through 2020 hell.” With any luck we’ll see the band in North America sooner than later and see for ourselves if the live show delivers. What follows is the rest of the best of list for 2020.

A.M. Pleasure Assassins | Careless Laughter | Self-released
This latest EP from Fort Collins-based, math-y post-punk band A.M. Pleasure Assassins sounds like it was written after a long period of contemplation and self-imposed exile from one’s usual social activities. “Said Yer Outta Gas” is imbued with a rush of exuberance reflected in its words about emerging from winter into a period of new beginnings. “Get It Right” finds the band waxing into the warped garage punk territory like something one would expect out of Memphis, Tennessee the past two decades — raw and ragged yet bracing. “Cain Was Killing Abel” strikes a more contemplative tone and the sprawling “Pretty Dead Beat” creates a beautifully hypnotic pulse of sounds with bell tones processed through reverb and distorted drones for an effect like a late 90s Yo La Tengo track. The four songs give the impression of nostalgic reflection, but one where you see and feel deeply the joys and pains of a good time in your life that you are wise enough now to know to enjoy in its full measure rather than through the lens of selective romanticism.

Abrams | Modern Ways | Sailor Records

Adulkt Life | Book of Curses | What’s Your Rupture?

ADULT. | Perception Is/As/Of Deception | Dais Records
Darkly urgent industrial dance anthems to purge today’s desperation, confusion and chaos.

Angel Olsen | Whole New Mess | Secretly Group
A tender yet bracingly fragile portrait of the realization that you can never adequately prepare for everything life might throw your way.

Anna von Hausswolff | Sacro Bosco | Southern Lord

A Shoreline Dream | Melting | Late Night Weeknight
With its first release since 2018’s Waitout EP, A Shoreline Dream presents a set of songs that seems less ethereal than their previous output. From opening track “Turned Too Slow” to closing song “Atheris Hispida” the progressive shoegaze duo has seemingly focused its attention on the texture and physicality of the music. One is tempted to say the guitars are more like hard rock, but only if your idea of hard rock is more in the vein of Swervedriver. But “Downstairs Sundays” has more in common with folk music in its intricate guitar interplay though threading through an uplifting, introspective drone. A Shoreline Dream still gives us its usual transporting melodies, but this time its astral realms are more focused and vivid as though coming out of its musical dreamstate into a phase of making those dreams real.

Autechre | Sign | Warp Records
Cleanses the mind with textural tones and hypnotically immersive, abstract rhythms.

Bambara | Stray | Wharf Cat Records

Bestial Mouths | RESURRECTEDINBLACK | RUNE & RUIN

Bison Bone | Find Your Way Out | self-released

Black Wing | No Moon | The Flenser

blackcell | Burn the Ashes | self-released
Denver-based EBM/IDM band Blackcell returns with its first full- length album since 2013’s In the Key of Black. Matt Jones’ processed, distorted vocals sound as ever like a dispossessed human resisting an ever increasing mechanization of life. These dark dance songs articulate so well the struggles of the human condition and seem so resonant for today as meaningful choices and control over your own life are leeched away into increasing labor defined by a gig economy, subscription and streaming services in the modern equivalent of pay-per-view, and a failing political and economic system that has channeled all the world’s wealth into fewer and fewer hands, nickeled and dimed to death and expected to take it like it is or not to streamline the technocratic wealth pipeline. Blackcell offers no answers but this time, its Gary Numan-esque end of the world techno feels particularly cathartic right now.

BleakHeart | Dream Griever | Sailor Records

Body Double | Milk Fed | Zum
Vignettes of personal psychological horror expressed as seething, angular post-punk pop.

Body Negative | Fragments | Track Number Records

Bootblacks | Thin Skies | Artoffact Records
Soaring synths and guitar sketch a vivid image of a deep yearning for personal transcendence and rebirth.

Boris and Merzbow | 2R012P0 | Relapse Records
Alien soundscapes of stunning immediacy that challenge preconceptions of all artists involved.

Botanist | Photosynthesis | The Flenser

Cabaret Voltaire | Shadow of Fear | Mute

Camila Fuchs | Kids Talk Sun | Felte Records
Avant-garde, psychedelic synth pop for tropical vacations in parallel dimensions.

Causer | Hellebore: Demos | self-released

Chicano Batman | Invisible People | ATO Records
Un-ironic, un-corny psych Tropicalia love songs for an inclusive future of unified humanity.

Choir Boy | Gathering Swans | Dais Records
Every song is an introspective Goth R&B ode to radical self care.

Church Fire | Some Lonely Wip | self-released
This collection of “unfinished/unmixed/unmastered/instrumentals” bridges the gap between Nine Inch Nails and Crystal Castles with their raw, lo-fi, maximalist glitch. Without the highly emotive and cathartic vocals that have been part of Church Fire’s signature sound we are invited to visit the soundscapes that give those vocals a powerful musical context. What is obvious here is the band’s playfulness and gift for pairing dark tonal choices and buoyant rhythms anchored by spare textural elements. On “pixie death tickle” there are wisps of voices but they serve as more a musical aside from the strong, bright, urgent main passages. The “wip” in the title may refer to “works-in-progress” but these songs would work as mood pieces in a soundtrack to the inevitable English language Inio Asano manga film in mirroring that artist’s talent for simultaneously expressing melancholia and joy.

cindygod | EP 2 | Fire Talk

Clipping. | Visions of Bodies Being Burned | Sub Pop
Brooding, seething, menacing industrial hip-hop horror stories from an all too near future.

Cyclo Sonic | Pile of Bones EP | self-released

Damn Selene | Nobody By That Name Lives Here Anymore | self-released

Dan Deacon | Mystic Familiar | Domino Records

Dead Voices On Air | Stone Cross Shuttle Worn | self-released

Deafbrick (Deafkids + Pet Brick) | s/t | Rocket Recordings

Death Bells | New Signs Of Life | Dais Records
Atmospheric post-punk brimming with an infectious sense of hope after a time of struggle.

Death Valley Girls | Under the Spell of Joy | Suicide Squeeze
Acid jazz flavored garage psych with an ear for emotionally rich infinite horizons.

Deerhoof | Teenage Cave Artists | Joyful Noise
Reliably Beefheartian, lo-fi No Wave-esque, boundary-breaking avant-pop.

Down Time | Hurts Being Alive | self-released

Drew Danburry | Icarus Phoenix A Sides and B Sides 2020 | Telos

Drew McDowell | Angalma | Dais Records

Dyad | Dormant | self-released
Charles Ballas and Jeremy Averitt are perhaps better known for their participation in acts like Howling Hex and Esmé Patterson’s live band respectively as well as their production work for Echo Beds. But DORMANT from their long-running collaborative project DYAD showcases their mutual knack for genre-bending IDM-esque soundscapes. DYAD freely blends elements of non-Western polyrhythms, intricate and textured instrumentation, luminous jazz keyboard progressions and tasteful electronic arrangements that convey an eclectic and international flavor. Imagine music equally influenced by Herbie Hancock, 80s Ethiopian synth pop, Daft Punk, Warp Records artists and informed by a deep sense of play, and you will have some idea of the soothing and imagination stirring quality of this music and its brilliantly new age downtempo future jazz sounds.

eHpH | Infrared | self-released
This Denver-based electro-industrial duo minces no words on the opening track “Idiot” in its introductory sample “I’m gonna say one thing, fuck Trump.” And then on to choice sampling of 45s words and those of journalists cataloging some of his offenses against humanity. The menacing descending synth bass progression and minimalistic percussion puts the focus on the words. The rest of the album is less explicitly and specifically topical but it is the band’s most fully realized and focused effort yet. The pulsing pace and Fernando Altonaga’s distorted vocals draw you into meditations on the perils of creeping authoritarianism on “Tarnished.” The pastoral pace and deep melancholy of “Forever Haunted” resonates with the artfully despairing tones of the Closer period of Joy Division the way its circular guitar line and synth melody rides a wave of personal revelation and the contemplation of an unrelievedly bleak future. EhpH has long been one of the more interesting modern EBM bands but Infrared demonstrates that the group of Altonaga and Angelo Atencio have fully integrated those roots with a more contemporary post-punk and darkwave sensibility, thus never sounding stuck in the past.

Emerald Siam | Inventions of Ascension | self-released

Emma Ruth Rundle & Thou | May Our Chambers Be Full | Sacred Bones Records

Emmy The Great | April / 月音 | Bella Union

Entrancer | Decline Vol. 4 | Multidim
In constructing this latest installment in Entrancer’s Decline series Ryan McRyhew utilized Rob Hordijik’s DIY synth, the Benjolin, as well as the Make Noise Shared System. Though both are modular synthesis devices and visually look complex, McRyhew, in naming the equipment on the Bandcamp page, takes some of the technological mystery out of music making with synths and puts the emphasis on the creativity end. For twenty-seven minutes forty-four seconds of the single track of this album, “Decline XVI,” we travel with McRyhew through the sonic analog of the distorted ebb and flow of civilizational decay that we seem to be experiencing right now. Yet at the heart of the piece we hear a separation of more industrial sounds and those more organic like the inevitability of nature reasserting its primacy in our own consciousnesses and in the entire world.

Equine | Light Wa/orship | Noise Pelican

Eve Maret | Stars Aligned | White Supulchre Records

Eyebeams | It Means Trouble | Hot Congress

Eyedress | Let’s Skip to the Wedding | Lex Records

Eye of Nix | Ligeia | Scry Recordings
Uplifting, psychedelic, blackened noise doom journey to a pagan underworld and back.

Facs | Void Moments | Trouble In Mind
The post-punk equivalent of crime jazz’s subterranean menace.

Faim | Hollow Hope | Deathwish

Fearing | Shadow | Funeral Party

Fire-Toolz | Rainbow Bridge | Hausu Mountain Records

Flaming Lips | American Head | Warner Records
Overflowing with compassion and musical salves for the pain and despair of the fractured American psyche.

French Kettle Station | Spirit Mode | Slagwerk

Future Islands | As Long As You Are | 4AD
A soulfully soothing and transporting examination of the roots of one’s melancholic impulses.

Galleries | Resolve | self-released

Ganser | Just Look at That Sky | Felte Records
Incandescent yet contemplative post-punk dense with conceptual content and poignant social commentary.

Gold Cage | Social Crutch | Felte Records

Hard to Be a Killer: A Tribute to Ralph Gean
In an alternate universe Ralph Gean is a beloved rock and roll hero widely known for his brilliantly unique and off-beat songwriting. But the British Invasion derailed that trajectory and Gean instead has since become a bit of a legendary figure with a cult following in Denver music who has periodically played shows and championed by figures as politically disparate as Boyd Rice (who compiled a collection of Gean’s work in 2007) and Jello Biafra. That fandom is reflected on this sprawling tribute album assembled by Arlo White of Hypnotic Turtle Radio and bands like Deadbubbles and The Buckingham Squares. Every interpretation of Gean’s songs is a worthy listen and a fine showcase for his sheer breadth as an artist. Contributions from local, experimental eccentrics like Little Fyodor & Babushka, Claudzilla and The Babysitters lovingly capture Gean’s essential appeal as an artist with an unvarnished charm and humor. Eric Allen of The Apples in Stereo fame highlights the science fiction cowboy persona that Gean could convey while White’s band Diablo Montalban with the late, great eccentric DJ and Denver cultural figure Frank Bell give “Switzerland” a real dark exotica treatment reminiscent of weirder moments in Tom Waits’ catalog. A fascinating portrait of an important yet often overlooked artist.

H Lite | Green Youth Heattech | self-released
Anton Kruger has been known for his inventive, hyperkinetic electronic and experimental music. But for this new EP he took a deep dive into contemplative realms of sound. Elegant, heavenly strings, luminous swells of tone and crystalline percussion embody the title of the song “Light Language.” The spacious sound design aspect of all the song’s on the album are reminiscent of Plaid in the enigmatic playfulness and the stretching consciousness to find inspiration through creative work. Every song brings forth a singular and imaginative portrait of tone, texture and rhythm that takes you on a journey to alien spaces that strike one as familiar and ultimately comforting like a dream. It is post-glitchcore IDM that dispenses with the anxiety in favor of a soothing spirit.

Houses of Heaven | Silent Places | Felte Records
Gloomy street tribal dance anthems fortified with dark, minor chord melodies.

Human Impact | s/t | Ipecac Recordings

In The Company Of Serpents | Lux | self-released
In the Company of Serpents has long been a band that has aimed to infuse its music with its interest in cinema, esoteric knowledge, literature, and with all of those come out of directi human experience, emotion and an attempt to make sense of life and imbue it with meaning. Lux is the fullest manifestation of those aims written into its most sonically dynamic set of songs to date. The crushing yet fluid heaviness of its sound is paired perfectly with elements of song that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Spaghetti Western soundtrack. “The Fool’s Journey” opens the record as a sort of map for the path set before us ending with the enigmatic “Prima Materia.” It’s a musically diverse and rich album that places In the Company of Serpents apart from a mere doom band and more in the realm of Swans’ and Neurosis’ own heavy explorations of the human psyche.

IDLES | Ultra Mono | Partisan
Pointed yet loving politi-punk built on a hip-hop framework.

Insect Ark | The Vanishing | Profound Lore Records
A seething and entrancing hybrid of a Junji Ito manga and industrial psychedelic doom.

Jarv Is | Beyond the Pale | Rough Trade Records

jOoHS UhP | Big Glasss | Records
This record is so irreverent and self-deprecating it uses the swagger language of much of hip-hop to make statements that are the opposite of anything some other artists would brag about. The irony runs so deep even the elements of the music sounds like swagger. There is a song called
“NoWeDon’tWannaMakeGoodMusic.WeTriedAndIt’sBoring.” The glitchy, industrial beats are so unconventional and eccentric you would never confuse this duo with anything resembling traditional hip-hop. It all has more in common with Renaldo & The Loaf and The Residents than even a weirdo like Kanye. Though often confrontational and obnoxious there’s no denying the relentless creativity of the production and glorious seeming lack of regard for how a song is supposed to sound.

Juliet Mission | Surren | self-released
Surren is the third EP from Denver-based post-punk band Juliet Mission. As with previous releases the trio’s command of blending layers of atmosphere with strong rhythms and a contemplative melancholy is impressive. The short title track actually has three movements that flow from existential introspection to passages of dark realization to a mood of uneasy acceptance. All four songs in their brooding beauty demonstrate, as have the most recent albums from The Church, that you can write vital and engrossing rock songs from an adult point of view with elegance and grace, and without defaulting to an adolescent, and thus thematically limited, perspective.

Jupiter Sprites| Holographic | Jupiter Sprites Records

Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith | The Mosaic of Transformation | Ghostly International

Killd By | Neotropical (tape reissue) | Noumenal Loom

King Krule | Man Alive! | Matador
Like The Fall gone hip-hop chillout lounge post-bad trip horror movie dreaming.

Klara Lewis | Ingrid | Editions Mego
Distorted melancholic cello drones like the glitched image memories of past life regression.

KoKo La | Curriculum Vitae | self-released
Koko La has long already established herself as an artist of note as one of the MCs and producers in the hip-hop group R A R E B Y R D $. Her soulful voice and presence often draws out subconscious emotions and gives them form in the music and performance. Curriculum Vitae finds Koko La exploring the experiences that have shaped her. Aided by Machete Mouth and Kitty Opinion$ on a couple of tracks, Koko La excels here with shining a light on those experiences that challenge you in various ways, while at the same time, giving you a better sense of self and the boundaries you must draw the border for people who might seek to dismiss you as a human or otherwise put you in your place. The trap beats and hushed atmospheres provide a fascinating listening experience, like you’re honoring the subconscious thoughts and feelings that affect your waking life by giving them an identifiable form that also allows you to comprehend, embrace and reconcile the wounded sides of yourself.

Lazarus Horse | Oh the Guilt! | self-released

Lithics | Tower of Age | Trouble In Mind
Surreal, minimalist post-punk funk disintegrating into disorder like American democracy.

Lone Dancer | Temporal Smearing | Multidim

Mamaleek | Come and See | The Flenser

Many Blessings | Emanation Body | Translation Loss Records
Ethan McCarthy of Primitive Man renown returns to his ongoing noise soundscapes with the enigmatic and forbidding Many Blessings. In typical fashion this set of five pieces stretches beyond what McCarthy has done with the project in the past. Throughout this album there is not the harsh noise and deconstructed drones of some earlier work. Rather, it is layered collages of sound that give voice to the raw angst and anxieties that sit as a background hum of modern civilization eating away at our collective unconsciousness. The concluding track “Harm Signal” is like a symbol for the whole effort — a flow of sounds, a frequency, that we usually ignore but which causes untold destruction to our existence. These songs identify and give expression to energies and forces we’ve bypassed our whole lives but which are now impossible to ignore, like a sound art metaphor for the social and political forces that have come home to roost of late.

Marissa Nadler | Moons | self-released

Melkbelly | PITH | Carpark Records/Wax Nine

Memory Bell | Solace | self-released

Metz | Atlas Vending | Sub Pop

Midwife | Forever | The Flenser
Madeline Johnston wrote Forever during one of the darkest times of the Denver DIY music and art community. Her community was scattered and challenged in the wake of the Ghost Ship fire with so many lives seeming to be on hold with no hint about when thatdespairing period would end. And the 2018 death of Colin Ward hit everyone whose lives he touched so deeply that it seems like the kind of hurt that will never fully heal. Johnston’s almost ghostly, delicate and vulnerable vocals and distorted, ethereal guitar seem to drift together in an effort to make some sense of those feelings with a nuance and sensitivity that always comes across as emerging directly from those places of acute pain and ache and loss, and honoring the need to just feel all of that whenever the need strikes and for however long into your life it lasts even if that is, indeed, forever. An especially touching and evocative tribute to a uniquely restless and creative yet sensitive and emotionally refined person in Colin Ward, Forever is a tender and heartbreaking, healing catharsis in the listen.

Mild Wild | Mild Wild, Vol. 1 | self-released
Intensely personal, imaginatively lo-fi aural snapshots of daydreams and poetic observations.

Mint Field | Sentimiento Mundial | Felte Records
Dream pop slow burner illuminating and warming the inner regions of the melancholic heart.

Moby | All Visible Objects | Mute Records
Retro rave and chillout lounge songs mourning our collective loss, yearning for a hopeful future.

Molchat Doma | Monument | Sacred Bones Records
Introspective, elegantly minimalistic, lo-fi, Belarusian gloom pop.

Mong Tong | Mystery | Guruguru Brain

Moodie Black | FUZZ | Fake Four

Moon Pussy | Hurt Wrist | The Ghost Is Clear Records
Guitar riffs like swarms of angry insects sweeping through. Syncopated percussion like start- and- stop jackhammers. Bass lines like a half- ton coil being struck and emitting a menacing fluidity. Tortured vocals erupt with Brutalist, post-hardcore poetry. All of this helps to make this latest Moon Pussy record the perfect companion and reaction to a radically uncertain world seemingly in perpetual crisis mode and on the verge of we know not what. Fans of bands on the Amphetamine Reptile imprint or Touch and Go will be thrilled with the band’s seemingly endless supply of inspired, aggressive and savage noise rock riffs and the ability to articulate directly from a place of desperation and outrage. “Fail Better” should be the theme song of these United States.

Mr. Bungle | The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny Demo | Ipecac

Mr. Gnome | The Day You Flew Away | El Marko Records

Mrs. Piss | Self-Surgery | Sargent House

Napalm Death | Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism | Century Media

New Standards Men | I Was A Spaceship | self-released

Night of the Living Shred | Return of the Night of the Living Shred | self-released
The name of this album of course invokes the title of the 1985 horror comedy Return of the Living Dead. And the Colorado Springs-based metal group has taken the opportunity to give us an unusual and eclectic record that not only reflects its members’ broad taste in music but a deeply healthy sense of humor about the world and themselves. “Shred Shoppe Quartert” is an a cappella song in the style of a barbershop quartet. There are rap, punks, death metal, doom and grindcore songs. All of it performed with a charming exuberance even though the entire track list reads like something out of a heavy metal version of Mad Magazine. “We Get it, Mike Patton Is a Musical Genius” with screaming like a cover of something by Naked City with lyrics mocking that? That’s genius. Even though the record is largely a put on in one way or another, the fact that it has so much variety makes it eminently listenable.

No Age | Goons Be Gone | Drag City

Of Feather And Bone | Sulfuric Disintegration | Profound Lore Records

Oneohtrix Point Never | Magic Oneohtrix Point Never | Warp Records

Otzi | Storm | Artoffact Records
Emotionally intense post-punk at the intersection of Sleater-Kinney and The Cure.

Perry Weissman 3 | Backlog | self-released

Plack Blague | Wear Your Body Out | self-released

Plague Garden | LEFT IN THE GRAVE | self-released

Pod Blotz | Transdimensional System | Dais Records

Pole | Fading | Mute Records

Primitive Man | Immersion | Relapse Records

Princess Dewclaw | Wild Sugar | Glasss Records
On the Wild Sugar EP Princess Dewclaw has reinvented itself as a gritty, industrial darkwave band. That element was there on its 2017 album Walk of Shame (in fact the songs “Walk of Shame” and “Into the Words” have carried over in a significantly different form), but there seems more of an edge here. The vocals come more directly from channeling anxiety and pain into catharsis. Rather than acoustic drums the electronic and programmed drums sync more closely with the cutting synth work. The effect is like a caustic and politically charged take on a pop song with mainstream appeal. In that way it has an appeal similar to that of Alice Glass’s emotionally raw solo offerings.

Protomartyr | Ultimate Success Today | Domino Records
Burning poems songs evoking a Jim Thompson-esque modern America in slashing/clashing post-punk.

Public Memory | Ripped Apparition | Felte Records
If Tarkovksy and Jarmusch could team up to make a cyberpunk movie this would be the soundtrack.

Rafael Anton Irisarri | Peripeteia | Dais Records

Raspberry Bulbs | Before the Age of Mirrors | Relapse Records

Reverb And The Verse | RESONATE | self-released
Since 1999 Reverb & The Verse has been developing and writing some of the most imaginative hip-hop out of Denver. The groupput their songwriting on this ninth record through a rigorous process of experimentation and weeding out the material deemed not quite there. Though steeped in classic MC wordplay, the beats and expertly crafted synth work and rhythms seem as informed by the likes of Minneapolis alternative hip-hop that came out of the 90s as it does 80s and 90s synth pop. All of these elements make for a sonically rich and diverse listen a bit like a cross between Clipse and Meat Beat Manifesto.

Riki | s/t | Dais Records
Goth synth pop for skate rink parties in abandoned malls.

Run The Jewels | RTJ4 | Jewel Runners

Shabazz Palaces | The Don of Diamond Dreams | Sub Pop

Shitkid | 20/20 | PNKSLM
An unlikely and fascinating hybrid of garage rock and soulful synth pop.

Shocker Mom | The Mediocre Depression | self-released

Sightless Pit | Grave of a Dog | Thrill Jockey
Sublime and caustic, often claustrophobic, soundscapes of terrifying and transcendent beauty.

SNAD/Jackson Lee| Jargon/Syntax Error 12” EP | Deep Club Records

SPELLS | Stimulants & Sedatives | Snappy Little Numbers
This record is raw even by SPELLS standards. But it’s perfect for 11 songs about the messiness of adulthood with lyrics that frankly go for the jugular. This isn’t new for this pop punk band and its anthemic choruses, but it’s always interesting to hear the contrast between the primal pop of the songwriting and incisive portraits of American life that dispense with the soul-destroying niceties. “We Can’t Relate” is a pointed declaration of the disconnect between the culture of the wealthy and the working class. “I’m Sorry I’m Not Sorry” is something of an apology song for being how you have to be in a world that demands essentially unacceptable compromises. Imagine an amalgam of Blatz, Stiff Little Fingers and The Replacements and you have an idea of the sound, the vibe and the sentiments expressed throughout.

Spice | s/t | Dais Records

Sprain | As Lost Through Collision | The Flenser
Colossal, sprawling, slowcore deep dives into the catharsis of anxiety and rootlessness.

Spunsugar | Drive-Through Chapel | Adrian Recordings

Squarepusher | Be Up a Hello | Warner Records

Stay Tuned | Remote Control | self-released
Brilliantly sampling from American media and entertainment culture, both musically and thematically, Stay Tuned has produced not just a signature song with this arc of eleven tracks but a signature album. Dense with content each song uses the format of autobiography to comment on aspects of society like the shallowness of celebrity culture and the way we formulate our dreams and aspirations in terms and frameworks taken from preexisting constructs like television shows, movies, video games and other media — of course expressed through the corporate controlled channels we most often use to communicate with one another. But in free associating musical and other media references in a collage of sounds in the beat, Stay Tuned uses media tropes and collective myths and imagery to showcase how we can subvert the prevailing power relationships and the monopolistic paradigms of our time.

Stephen Malkmus | Traditional Techniques | Matador

Studded Left | Sidewalk Vitamins | Girlgang Music

Stūrī Zēvele | Labvakar | self-released
An endearing indie pop manifestation of the essence of close and warm friendships.

Sumac | May You Be Held | Thrill Jockey

Suo and Data Rainbow | s/t | Multidim

SUUNS | FICTION EP | Joyful Noise

Syko Friend | Fontanelle | Post Present Medium

The Drood | Totally Comfortable | self-released

The High Water Marks | Ecstasy Rhymes | Minty Fresh

The Microphones | The Microphones In 2020 | P.W. Elverum & Sun

The Paranoyds | Pet Cemetery EP | Suicide Squeeze

The White Swan | Nocturnal Transmission | CockThermos

Through Flames | Through Flames | self-released
Riveting, radical experiments in political poetry and sound design.

TI-83 | Demo | self-released

Time | These Songs Kill Fascists | Dirty Laboratory
Hip-hop artist Chris “Time” Steele displays a true gift for fusing autobiography and lived experience with historical context and knowledge of political theory on this album. He’s always been a brilliant lyricist whose expert wordplay has seemingly effortlessly combined his sharp sense of humor with a wide ranging curiosity about the world and a growing body of knowledge of history, culture and politics. On These Songs Kill Fascists, Steele works with Daiba, Mick Jenkins, long time producer AwareNess, Giuseppe, Ron Miles, JXSHYB, Cat Soup and Psalm One to create a jazz-inflected story cycle commenting astutely on social issues now getting some focus. While a riveting listen purely as a well crafted album, These Songs Kill Fascists does not function as merely socially conscious entertainment, it seems to have been crafted as a form of praxis that challenges artist and listener in a dialectic of critical pedagogy that mutually encourages ongoing personal growth and social transformation.

Tobacco | Hot, Wet & Sassy | Ghostly International
Bright, bombastic, noisy synths paired with darkly humorous musings disrupt the album’s aesthetic of nostalgic comfort sounds.

Torres | Silver Tongue | Merge Records

Uniform | Shame | Sacred Bones Records
Scorching and thrillingly diverse industrial hardcore inspired by noir literature.

Usaisamonster | Amikwag | Yeggs Records

Vivian | The Warped Glimmer | self-released

Voight | s/t | self-released
Maybe it’s Chase Dobson’s treatments and mixing and mastering after Adam Rojo and Nick Salmon wrote and recorded this album, but the self-titled Voight album is the closest the duo has come to sounding like it’s blurring the line between its rock and electronic aesthetics. Guitar chords burn and shimmer out, percussion flurries and traces out a minimalist beat and Salmon’s vocals float through the songs like a person who was once lost but is now rediscovering his ability to feel and to express those emotions with a coherent self-awareness. Every song has an expansive quality reminiscent of Clan of Xymox and The Twilight Sad. The tone of the album perfectly walks the line between urgency and introspection without ever compromising an underlying delicacy of spirit and emotional refinement.

Wayfarer | A Romance With Violence | Profound Lore Records

Wetware | Flail | Dais Recordings

White Rose Motor Oil | You Can’t Kill Ghosts | self-released

Windy & Carl | Allegiance and Conviction | Kranky

WL | ADHD | Beacon Sound

Wolf Parade | Thin Mind | Sub Pop

Yves Tumor | Heaven To A Tortured Mind | Warp Records
Futuristic, effervescent, downtempo, synth pop-inflected, R&B informed non-binary funk.