Tag: Steven Lee Lawson

Tuesday | 04.01
What: Refused are Fucking Dead w/Quicksand and Cleaner
When: 7
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: Sweden’s Refused are now in the middle of their farewell tour at a time when its music and professed politics are needed as the polar opposite of global fascism. The group pioneered subgenres of punk in the 90s culminating in the influential 1998 The Shape of Punk to Come that in a way presaged where punk and hardcore would go afterward even if Refused didn’t strictly innovate all of those styles of screamo, metalcore and the like. One of the top tier live acts of the past 30 years just go expecting greatness and be open to your expectations being exceeded if you haven’t seen the band before. Opening are NYC post-hardcore legends Quicksand whose own DNA in angular DC post-punk they have evolved into their own sound. Interestingly enough Quicksand formed shortly before Refused, split around the same time in the late 90s and re-formed in 2012 as well. Might be something in the universe but both are a welcome catharsis from the ambient dread and anxiety coursing through the world. Denver’s garage punk greats Cleaner will start things off which includes former and current members of Dirty Three and Muscle Beach.

Tuesday | 04.01
What: Hinds w/Mamalarky
When: 7
Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station
Why: Hinds are an indie rock band from Madrid, Spain that have garnered a bit of a following since coming to the attention of an international audience around 2014 with the release of its early singles. Its 2024 album Viva Hinds is a solid manifestation of the group’s eclectic stylistic leanings blending hearty garage rock, ethereal dream pop and charmingly lo-fi indiepop in the classic vein from the 80s and 90s. Opening the show is Mamalarky. The psychedelic pop band is also one that has hit upon its own sound that seems to have incorporated the kind of jazz and prog sounds one might expect out of a group of people that listen to a ton of Stereolab, library music and left field jazz. Its new record Hex Key is set to release on April 11, 2025 and for this show you’re more than likely to hear the new music and witness a band that has mastered the art of fusing transporting melodies with rhythms that sound assembled with choice stops and starts as if the people in the band are also very into Dilla and Palm.

Tuesday | 04.01
What: Ducks Ltd. w/The Bug Club and Mainland Break
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Sure Ducks Ltd. sound like its members grew up on a steady diet of C86 and Sarah Records and adjacent bands like The Pastels, The Clean and Talulah Gosh. To the extent the group is derivative at least its songwriting is worthy of being in such company and worthy of the comparison for its exquisite guitar work and pop songcraft. The band’s 2024 album Harm’s Way built upon the significant virtues of its previous output with irresistible energy and shimmery melodies that take the band’s tales of struggle and maintaining in a world that is undeniably crumbling into a lesser version of an already flawed version of itself. The Bug Club is a Welsh band that is a great fit for this bill with its raucous and noisy garage pop about everyday life which makes the title of its 2024 album On the Intricate Inner Workings of the System seem appropriately cheeky but is it? Yes, but because the inner workings of the systems we all live in are impossible without the contributions of people you may never know or encounter or you’re one of those people who doesn’t get recognition while all the credit goes to phony visionary billionaires.

Wednesday | 04.02
What: Kraftwerk
When: 7
Where: Ellie Caulkins Opera House
Why: Kraftwerk helped to popularize electronics in popular music with its influential and oddly popular avant-garde albums of the 1970s and this tour the group celebrates 50 years of its landmark 1974 album Autobahn. The latter pushed Kraftwerk into an international and even mainstream audience when it got radio airplay well outside of the band’s home country of Germany. The album also marked the shift of Kraftwerk being more conscious of their look as a band and a conscious effort at incorporating pop music concepts into its songwriting. If you’re wondering if visually the show will be interesting, yes. Will it sound rich and immersive? At this venue yes as well. If you’ve not seen Kraftwerk before best to check them out before it’s too late.

Friday | 04.04
What: ALO w/Cris Jacobs Band https://cervantesmasterpiece.com/event/alo-w-cris-jacobs-band/cervantes-masterpiece-ballroom/denver-colorado/
When: 7
Where: Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom
Why: ALO aka Animal Liberation Orchestra celebrates the release of its new album Frames (Brushfire Records) with a show in Denver. The band has evolved considerably since its core formed in 1989 while Zach Gill, Steve Adamsn and Dan Lebowitz were in middle school as Django. Of course when you transition into high school and then into your 20s your musical tastes will develop and change particularly during that period when popular music was turned on its early when alternative rock exploded in 1991-1992. What is often missed is how jam band music as we know it now came together around that time as well with groups like Widespread Panic and Phish emerging from the 1980s with albums and tours proving that improvisational music with roots in jazz, progressive rock, funk, folk and psychedelia could be made accessible to a wide audience beyond Deadheads. ALO’s earlier albums had a more experimental bent clearly influenced by that realm of music but by the late 2000s the group seems to have honed in on crafting ambitious pop songs that benefit from masterful musicianship. The early singles from Frames confirm that ALO’s attention to production detail has certainly resulted in music that is expertly layered and imbued with an accessible immediacy that will be on full display at this show.

Saturday | 04.05
What: Barbara (album release) w/The Milk Blossoms and Flutter
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Denver’s Barbara is releasing its new album SO THIS IS LIVING. The album sounds like a much more original fusion of hazy 1970s folk rock and deserty shoegaze. The rhythms are seemingly as tapped into Bossa Nova as standard pop song time. The psychedelic soundscapes shift mood and mode seemingly effortlessly so that there is a surprising depth to the music in which the breathy vocals perfectly evoke a dreamlike perspective suiting the themes of the record. Lyrics about disillusionment and wanting to cast off shallow and associations and trying to remain connected to what feels most vital and meaningful in life make up a solid portion of the album like an existential crisis examined from various perspectives of the lived experience. It’s a pleasantly surprisingly ambitious and actualized work of songcraft with a deep resonance sonically and emotionally. So it’s only fitting that another band well versed in poetic evocation of vibrant emotional openness and experimental, atmospheric pop, The Milk Blossoms, are on the bill as well bringing a full set of radical vulnerability. Flutter opens the proceedings with its jangle-y power pop seemingly steeped in the sounds and sensibilities of the likes of Big Star, The Posies and Teenage Fanclub.

Saturday | 04.05
What: A Strange Happening, Steven Lee Lawson and El Dolor
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge Bobcat Club
Why: A Strange Happening, go expecting to see the live band equivalent of an old time radio play mixed with a gritty, indie Americana band with all of the more ambitious storytelling required in the songwriting. There is a touch of vaudeville to the live show and the music in the best since of the band’s style being eclectic and refreshingly not really cribbing the style of another band. Steven Lee Lawson is one of Denver’s best lyricists and songwriters on his own with his own flavor of Americana borne of maybe listening to a lot of Neil Young and Sparklehorse early in life but Lawson is also someone who honed his ear and musical instincts being around the record store world and his poetry by living for a time in rural Colorado and daring to follow his dreams as a songwriter to Portland where it didn’t take root but which pushed him to setting aside his gift for a time before coming back to it seemingly more creatively focused in recent years.

Sunday | 04.06
What: Greg Norton & Büddies w/Black Dots and Valdez
When: 5
Where: HQ
Why: Greg Norton is the bassist of Hüsker Dü and this show will be him and members of Drag the River doing some of his old band’s music with openers in melodic punk group Black Dots and the solo work of soon to be former In the Whale guitarist Nate Valdez as Valdez. This project is more moody singer-songwriter material that in its own way is equal in quality to his more well known punk project with broad vistas of sound in the songwriting.

Monday | 04.07
What: Bestial Mouths w/The Siren Project
When: 8
Where: The Crypt
Why: Bestial Mouths is the long-running project of Lynette Cerezo whose alchemical blend of electronic industrial soundscapes, ritualistic rhythms and psychedelic tribal vocals has yielded a career of cathartic music that serve as a scathing critique of the destructive aspects of our civilization and culture on the personal and the societal level. The music is dark but Cerezo’s commanding presence as a performer seems more life affirming than melancholic. The Siren Project has been playing mostly in and around Denver since 1998 but it has also been one of the best and most compelling bands in the Mile High City though pretty much sticking to the Goth underground. This show is a surprising foray into the more indie American underground rather than the more traditional lanes tread by the band. With the Siren Project think something like a dream pop band that is influenced equally by the likes of The Cure, Cocteau Twins and Skinny Puppy with strong vocals and rich electronic atmospherics.

Wednesday | 04.09
What: Dead Boys w/Burn Kit and King Rat
When: 6
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Dead Boys came about properly when punk was becoming a thing identifiable as such but have a leg in what might looking back seem like proto-punk. But after splintering off from the influential Rocket From the Tombs Dead Boys had a thrillingly scuzzy sound with poetic and borderline nihilistic lyrics that manifested perfectly on its 1977 debut album Young, Loud and Snotty and the 1978 follow up We Have Come For Your Children. Then the band split for many years as an active thing with lead singer Stiv Bators going on to form the also influential Gothic rock band Lords of the New Church before passing in 1990. Since 2017 Dead Boys have been back active with talk of a new album in the works although not without some controversy doing with A.I. for the vocals but this show will have a real live singer. King Rat is one of the classic Denver punk bands in the retro rock vein but with a passionate performance style and surprisingly literate lyrics for songs that often have to do with the usual rock and roll subjects.

Wednesday | 04.09
What: Archer Oh w/Couch Dog and Bruha
When: 7
Where: The Black Buzzard
Why: Archer Oh are a garage rock band originally from the Inland Empire but not in the vein that was popularized so much in the 2010s. If its new album The Internal Album is any gauge the group was more inspired by Gothic rock, 1960s pop, maybe The Walkmen and modern retro-garage bands like Shannon and the Clams. Meaning more than an average amount of reverb in the vocals and a willingness to head into distorted vocal territory in delivering its emotionally-charged songs.

Thursday | 04.10
What: Beth Gibbons w/Cass McCombs
When: 6:30
Where: The Paramount Theatre
Why: Beth Gibbons is the legendary singer of influential trip-hop band Portishead. With the latter Gibbons’ passionate, broadly expressive voice brought the soul and humanity to the group’s brilliantly ethereal music and a performance style that felt elemental as well. She sang that music with her entire being in the live setting. With her 2024 album Lives Outgrown Gibbons delivers an even more intimate sound with organic, acoustic sounds establishing the settings for her affecting songs of grief and loss. Anyone of a certain age gets to that part of their lives, particularly if you’re in the realm of creative types, that good friends and associates seem to pass away with alarming frequency and with a seeming cruelty of suddenness. It’s one of her most rewarding records of her long career and one imbued with a poignancy and compassion for human fragility. By all accounts the live performances of this music is as transporting and as emotionally cathartic as one might hope for.

Friday | 04.11
What: Bob Mould w/Craig Finn
When: 7
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: Bob Mould has somehow had an entire career of solid songwriting and live performances from his early days with foundational early alternative rock/post-punk band Hüsker Dü to Sugar’s amped power pop to albums under his own name with the always inventive and creative guitar work and knack for commenting on American culture with great insight and making it somehow personally resonant. In 2025 Mould released the excellent Here We Go Crazy and cementing himself as an artist that still finds a corner of sound and rhythm that he hasn’t completely worn thin and something to say about life worth uttering.

Friday | 04.11
What: Black Ends w/Supreme Joy, Team Nonexistent and Head Slug
When: 8
Where: Squirm Gallery
Why: Seattle’s Black Ends gets compared to grunge a lot because of where they’re from and probably because of the choice use of distortion. But listen to the songs on any of their releases and you hear a band that seems to be deconstructing rock music a little, dips into psychedelic microwormholes of tone bending, discordance built into melodies and off center yet commanding vocals that lean into the swaying and torrent of the songs’s unconventional structures. Refreshingly different from bands trying to be in an established style. Supreme Joy is the great, post-punk, post-garage band from Denver, Head Slug is a hybrid of noise rock and abstract pop and Team Nonexistent although from Denver and not the PNW seems most rooted in the realm of 90s grunge and punk but also without coming off stale.

Saturday | April 12
What: Salads and Sunbeams album release w/Angel Band and Rabbit Fighter
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge Bobcat Club
Why: Into the Starless Night is the name of Salads and Sunbeams’ 2025 album out now on purple vinyl, digital download and likely on streaming platforms. The latter is stated that way because this band’s songwriting is steeped in an aesthetic and sensibilities of a more analog time and universe. Its warmth and lingering emotional coloring weave perfectly into its fine crafted melodies. Nathan Barsness has been in and around Denver in bands like the art punk pop band Insider Spider, the indiepop groups The Pseudo Dates, Games For May and Fingers of the Sun. All with fine releases along the way. But the new record is arguably the best set of music with which Barsness has been involved with along with his bandmates Suzi Allegra and Joshua Taylor. The songs all tell stories that embrace an adult version of the kind of fanciful whimsy and indulging the imagination as an attempt to hold on to the vulnerable and emotionally open aspect of one’s humanity. Its as much a work of literature as music. Angel Band sounds like it dropped right out of the C86 era with a stop in early 2000s Denver had they hung out with The Maybellines—so indiepop in the classic sense with the wonderful twee sensibilities that made so much of that late 80s and early 90s music on labels like Sarah Records and Slumberland so enduringly appealing—tender ballads and magnetically delicate melodies. Rabbit Fighter is similarly minded but its own songs have a bit more grit and rough edges in a way one might expect from the realm of all that great music one heard out of K Records and Kill Rock Stars.

Sunday | 04.13
What: Matt Andersen w/Julian Taylor
When: 6
Where: Swallow Hill
Why: Canadian blues musician Matt Andersen is touring ahead of the April 25 release of his new album The Hammer and the Rose. The title track is now available to check out as a single with a performance video that showcases Andersen’s emotional and tonal range as a songwriter. Andersen’s hearty vocals and energetic performance style is present on the album but the title single reveals Andersen’s level of nuance as a songwriter with vulnerable lyrics and command of atmosphere in the context of a song that transcends the style one might assume is his repertoire. While Andersen is no stranger to bringing a soulful tenderness to his vocals and musicianship, the new record’s level of sonic detail is impressive in how each element serves to make the songs memorable.

Tuesday | 04.15
What: Rosegarden Funeral Party w/Missing and Summore
When: 7
Where: HQ
Why: Rosegarden Funeral Party is Gothic post-punk band from Dallas that seems to weave in a much more tonally rich guitar sound than many of its peers seem to these days, borderline shoegaze. And with vibrant vocals reminiscent of a band out of the Los Angeles Paisley Underground with a similarly fearless incorporation of an eclectic palette of songwriting styles without losing a compelling moodiness. Missing from New Orleans struck a chord in its opening gigs with The Chameleons in 2024 and its album of the same year Nocturnalia represented well the depth of moody atmospheres and beautifully layered guitar work that elevated what might be solid post-punk band into something more epic in scope and creatively ambitious. Summore is a darkwave duo from Columbus, Ohio whose saturated synth tones and richly melodic vocals made its 2021 album Surfaces a standout of minimal synth dance pop.

Thursday | 04.17
What: Sean McConnell w/Amy Martin
When: 7
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Sean McConnell is a veteran songwriter who has been a contributor and collaborator with the likes of Tim McGraw, Martina McBride and Rascal Flatts. But since 2000 he has released albums of his own. At the end of February 2025 McConnell offered his eleventh album Skin. These songs find the artist expanding his style while really opening up for a listen that is both bold and intimate as he reflects on his life as a musician and family man and the challenges and revelations that come about as you try to do your best in the role of the latter and finding new ways to grow as the former. McConnell’s attention to sonic subtlety as someone steeped in country and folk is there but in moments such as the fiery “Demolition Day,” McConnell comes off like one of those great power pop rock artists of old but imbued with a refreshing immediacy.

Saturday | 04.19
What: Pale Sun and The Picture Tour
When: 3
Where: Mutiny Information Cafe
Why: Pale Sun is the non plus ultra space rock and shoegaze band from Colorado that includes former members of Bright Channel and Space Team Electra. Theirs is a dense and emotionally charged sound that carries you along to emotional depths and sonic heights. Billy Armijo may joke about being dark and Goth and his work with The Picture Tour is steeped in the gloomy melodic atmospheric rock you’d expect from someone who spent some time in their youth honing their guitar sound and style binge listening to The Cure, My Bloody Valentine and on an edgy day The Jesus and Mary Chain. But Armijo has songwriting chops that he put to great use in his old pop band The Bedsit Infamy and refined to even greater effect with his current band with wonderfully melancholic melodies and robust guitar tone that more bands that are dipping into the more interesting realm of post-punk should try to emulate. Catch both bands at a rare time during the day in a venue that isn’t a dark dive bar or their ilk.

Sunday | 04.20
What: Mogwai w/Papa M
When: 7
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: The title of Mogwai’s new album The Bad Fire is a Glaswegian term for Hell. Sounds like the members of the band were going through a tough spell. But these days doesn’t it feel like we all are to varying degrees? Reliably the band’s epic soundscapes take us through a catharsis of these feelings with expansive melodic vistas. This time out the group includes even more vocals than before and the songs sound more ethereal and fragile, brighter even at their most menacing. Somehow more cinematic than recent albums and among the band’s most creatively daring mixing expert use of space and an almost sound design approach to the mixing of elements. Papa M is legendary musician David Pajo formerly of Slint, Gang of Four, Dead Child. Papa M’s catalog is so diverse that saying you can expect this or that seems unfair to Pajo’s immense talent as an artist and songwriter, just go expecting something excellent and different. His new album Great Escape Artist brings together Chrome-esque noisy guitar fugues and Eno-esque guitar acrobatics alongside Motorik beats.

Sunday | 04.20
What: Dead Pioneers w/Cheap Perfume, SPELLS and I Am the Owl
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Dead Pioneers released its incendiary new album PO$T AMERICAN on April 11, 2025 and probably landed its members on a plane to a death camp in El Salvador. But that’s the risk you take when you write a noisy punk record that is beginning to end inspired invective against American exceptionalism built on a legacy of genocide and patriarchal racism. What was slavery after all but genocide directly fueling capitalism and practice for the modern capitalism we’ve been living under our whole lives? It’s astonishing the number of ways the band has found to educate and smash American myths and cherished notions built on the most flimsy of foundations. There’s a song called The Caucasity and while it contains a humorous message told in surrealistic and Alice Donut-esque fashion fitting the title it really does take down a far too prevalent phenomenon in American culture. So go expecting solidarity against everything that makes America kind of a terrible place too often but a place that can, we hope, improve. But wait the openers are also worth your time among some of Denver punk’s best as well as the fiery Colorado Springs political punk quartet Cheap Perfume, some of the best to ever do it.

Sunday and Monday | 04.20 and 04.21
What: The Backseat Lovers w/Jonny’s Day Out
When: 7
Where: The Fox Theatre
Why: The Backseat Lovers haven’t toured in a couple of years and make a two night stop at The Fox Theatre. The group from Provo, Utah first made a splash with audiences outside of their region with the release of their 2019 album When We Were Friends and breakout hit “Kilby Girl” (with its nod to the longest running all-ages and essentially DIY venue in SLC Kilby Court). Though the band is known for its live stage show its songs have an intimate quality with hushed melodies and vulnerable tenor and well orchestrated atmospheric elements that lend the perhaps more indie folk underpinnings of some of the songwriting an added dimension so that the band’s songs even in their occasional simplicity take on an epic quality that introspective musings often can in your own mind. The group hasn’t released an album since 2022’s Waiting to Spill so who can say what you’ll get to see at this show.

Tuesday | 04.22
What: Snooper, The Nervous, The Clue and Pink Lady Monster
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Nashville’s Snooper is a punk band in the sense that noisy weirdo eccentrics No Age are a punk band. Utilizing lo-fi electronics, frantic energy and surreal imagery the band sounds like a No Wave band had it discovered 2000s Memphis punk first and then went weird. The Nervous is a ferocious punk band in the thorny 90s vein that was decidedly and refreshingly not pop punk. Pink Lady Monster are definitely plugged into the No Wave, weirdo funk, jazz and noise pop thing with playfully imaginative lyrics and an undeniable groove even though the band’s music is gloriously yet elegantly splayed.

Wednesday | 04.23
What: Djo w/Post Animal
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Djo aka Joe Keery is perhaps more known to the world as an actor who has a recurring role on the hit science fiction series Stranger Things and was seen in the fifth seen of the TV series Fargo. Before his commitments to Stranger Things and acting generally took up more of his time and focus and need to be away from Chicago from 2019 onward, he was a member of psychedelic garage prog greats Post Animal. Keery released his first album as Djo Twenty Twenty in 2019. The music is more stripped down than what he did for Post Animal but it was clear Keery had maintained his ear for unconventional melody crafting with sounds that dip into non-Western psych and fuzzy stoner rock-inflected garage and richly realized synth-driven atmospheric passages like something out of a 1970s art rock record. In April 2025 Djo released his new album The Crux, an effort that showcased Keery’s gift for humorous couplets and self-aware observations. Post Animal got lumped in with a lot of the 2010s garage psych bands of that time but anyone that saw the band could tell there was something different about what they were doing and where they were coming from even if it wasn’t obvious. Something heavier, more rooted in hard rock with chops but also with the spontaneous energy that made that decades garage rock bands worth seeing. Though it’s been a few years since Post Animal’s most recent album it was announced that the group will be releasing its new album IRON on July 25. The record brought all six original members of the band together including Joe Keery and the lead single “Last Goodbye” sounds like the band has further evolved its sound into the realm of cosmic Americana. Expect a Post Animal headlining tour in fall 2025.

Thursday | 04.24
What: Spiritual Poison, Compactor, Maltreatment, Dead Hawk and Fauve at Glob
When: 7
Where: Glob
Why: Spiritual Poison is Ethan Lee McCarthy’s dark ambient project. Compactor is a New York based death industrial artist that uses outmoded machines and other objects to make uniquely unsettling sounds. Maltreatment is the solo project of Brandon Artus who is in Vermin Womb with McCarthy and it’s some harsh noise, tape manipulation and samples sound collage. Dead Hawk from Colorado Springs seems to create soundscapes to fit titles that are a poignant and pointed commentary on the destructive effects of late capitalism and social neglect. Fauve is probably not the French multimedia collective but a noise artist with connections the better end of the local metal scene.

Friday | 04.25
What: The Velveteers w/Tiny Tomboy and May Be Fern
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: The Velveteers are headed out for a couple of big dates with The Black Keys but headlining this hometown show at The Bluebird. The band that fuses heavy blues rock, psychedelia and electronic pop recently released A Million Knives that showcased the band’s evolving into that expanded palette of sounds and modes of expression. Tiny Tomboy recently released its own album 2025 Psychic Scar showcasing knack for combining grunge/noise pop grit and shoegaze-inflected pop songcraft. May Be Fern is a talented band that seems at home playing a variety of musical styles landing somewhere in both funk and indie rock.

Saturday | 04.26
What: Clementine Was Right w/The Milk Blossoms and Silver West
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Clementine Was Right sounds like a band that came up listening to a lot of alt-country and decided some of it was better than other aspects and discovered ample fodder for songwriting for turning memories of growing up in rural California into surreal poetry and with real immediacy that would be recognizable to anyone that came up under less than ideal circumstances. Didn’t most of us? All of us? The Milk Blossoms always sound like it came out of finding the tender places in the psyche after examining the experiences that seem to stick out in our minds for all manner of reasons and transforming those nuggets into ear worms to soothe the thorny spots in our brains. Silver West is a solo cosmic country and folk project from photographer and sound mixer Hali Webb.

Saturday | 04.26
What: Cryogeyser w/Flooding and Flesh Tape
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Los Angeles-based Cryogeyser has a sound that fits somewhere in the realm of desert-y dream pop and introspective dream pop though its live shows tend to feel more visceral. Its self-titled 2025 album finds the band heading into more sonically elevated territory in moments when it leans into the raw emotional lyrics more heavily and with elegantly crafted, spacious guitar work. Flooding is like if a dark folk band embraced black metal aesthetics to pair with songs about the collective trauma late capitalism is inflicting on everything and everyone. It’s elemental and enthralling stuff and as pointed as it is cathartic. Flesh Tape from Fort Collins is an amalgamation of noise rock and the shoegaze end of emo.

Saturday | 04.26
What: Jan Jelinek/Andrew Pekler w/sleepdial, virga delta & Mitch Smith
When: 7
Where: Aztlan Theater
Why: Jan Jelinek and Andrew Pekler are both composers from Berlin who in their separate endeavors have mastered their individual aesthetics of ambient and minimal techno. Both masterfully weave field recordings and processed samples into their soundscapes with inspired collages of sound to create greater emotional resonances. Denver’s sleepdial will put in a rare performance of abstract post-rock expressionism.

Sunday | 04.27
What: L.A. Witch w/DAIISTAR
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: L.A. Witch has never really been content to languish in a stylistic rut but it has always been able to maintain a sort of mystique with albums that explore themes through concepts that on the surface are easy to understand and reveal their complexity and richness the further you go in. The band’s new album DOGGOD was recorded in Paris rather than the band’s home city of Los Angeles and the songwriting isn’t short on the economical use of elements to craft expansive songs that has kept the band interesting all along. This time out the guitar lines are slinky and dark and trace new paths to an existential psychedelia via Krautrock-esque rhythms that easily go off the beaten path and back. In moments it sounds like if The Cure came up through garage rock and went weirder with that aesthetic. On this tour you also get to see Austin’s DAIISTAR whose melding of 60s psychedelic rock, Madchester and synth-infused space rock sets it apart from its peers with shades of BJM and Indian Jewelry on the edges of that sound.

Sunday | 04.27
What: clipping. w/Counterfeit Madison
When: 7
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Los Angeles hip-hop experimentalists clipping. have truly been pushing the artform to new realms from the beginning. But its new album Dead Channel Sky sounds like it’s anticipating a renaissance of tapping into the ideas and hybrid styles inherent to the literary form of cyberpunk for inspiration. The touchstones are all over the record but taken to a new level. The title of the album alone is a clear nod to the iconic first sentence of William Gibson’s influential 1984 novel Neuromancer. There’s a song called “Mirrorshades pt. 2 (ft. Cartel Madras)” that is an obvious reference to Bruce Sterling’s 1986 landmark cyberpunk Mirrorshades anthology. And the other allusions are so on point for the present with some furious updates to big beat sounds that groups like Sextile and Jockstrap have been incorporating into their own music but clipping. is using these concepts and sounds to make a commentary on how the dystopian science fiction of another era while it never quite happened the way it was presented but that our world has manifested an even darker vision of the extreme corporate Libertarian nightmare that Gibson, Sterling, Lewis Shiner, Pat Cadigan, John Shirley, Rudy Rucker and he godfather of that movement Philip K. Dick had projected onto the future. With rapidfire rapping worthy of Busdriver, Dead Channel Sky finds clipping. delivering music even more relevant than when it was showing other hip-hop artists the way over a decade ago. Counterfeit Madison is a Chicago-based composer, pianist and soul singer whose forceful and heartfelt vocals and performances likely landed her on this bill.

Monday | 04.28
What: Godspeed You! Black Emperor
When: 6
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: Godspeed You! Black Emperor is of course the legendary and even foundational post-rock band from Montreal, Quebec, Canada. For those unaware the band’s music though generally functionally instrumental with some vocal samples included as part of the music has from its early days included social and political commentary into its album and song titles whether directly, poetically or creatively or all. Its latest album is 2024’s “NO TITLE AS OF 13 FEBRUARY 2024 28,340 DEAD” which is more than likely a reference to the Palestinian genocide ongoing and the relative apathy or disregard the world powers have shown to halting those events and how the allowance of that genocide is a precursor to conflicts to come and a sign of the hollowing out of even the conceit of international law much less human rights. It’s a set of mournful pieces imbued with great delicacy of feeling that expresses the horrors and despair of the moment but indulges a moment of hope in the end.

Tuesday | 04.29
What: Korine, Johnny Dynamite & The Bloodsuckers and Uhl
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Philadelphia’s Korine has been offering a gorgeous fusion of shoegaze and synthpop that fans of M83 will appreciate. Its new album A Flame In The Dark is even more deep into the realm of chillwave. Live the band comes off as an especially sonically present and emotionally charged post-punk band if the members had come up on emo and discovered post-punk and its immediate pipeline to dream pop and shoegaze.

Wednesday | 04.30
What: Dummy w/Supreme Joy, Cherry Spit and Sun Swept
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Dummy from Los Angeles only has two albums out so far but both are examples of how you can completely embrace pop songcraft, experimental soundscaping and art concepts and make something mysterious and entrancing. Musically the group often remind one of what would have come next out of the indie underground of the 2000s had too many parts of that not been overshadowed by the glut of garage rock. Colorful melodies, layered rhythms not all steeped in the Western mode and a willingness to overlap retro sounds and modern production techniques. Maybe these people listened to a lot of Stereolab and Broadcast but also stuff like Zero Zero and Peaking Lights. If not the emotional and sonic resonances are there for fans of any of that. Supreme Joy is like a post-punk band if it came up through garage rock and Pavement. Cherry Spit is an explosive hurricane of noise rock. Sun Swept is the Denver-based cosmic ambient project of Sarah Christiansen.