Music

Kegan Warner has some big shoes to fill. Next month, he’ll be taking over the reins as host of Radio 1190’s long running Local Shakedown program, the weekly hour-long show devoted strictly to the best independent music coming out of Colorado. Warner replaces the outgoing and ever popular Katherine Peterson,…

Ask F.O.E. to describe himself in three words and you may find yourself surprised. Cool, determined, focused — these are all adjectives that elude him. No, F.O.E.’s answer is simple and to the point: fucking rock star. “How many people do you know that says “sex, drugs and rap?” he…

Paul Piciocchi likes intimate, cozy spaces where you can have fun without huge crowds. As the owner of Tryst (1512 Larimer Street) and Sutra (1109 Lincoln Street), a club that Piciocchi recently sold to its manager, Mark Strazisar, he’s done pretty well with smaller spaces. So when he took on…

With clear stylistic nods to the various projects of garage-pop luminary Billy Childish and a playful sensibility inspired by classic Denver indie-pop bands, Bluebelle (due at the Meadowlark on Saturday, December 12) writes pop songs with a bit of an edge. Fronted by guitarist Sarah Fischer, this band could be…

As much a conceptual project as what can perhaps best be described as a touring collective, Ten Out of Tennessee (Erin McCarley, Andy Davis, Katie Herzig, K.S. Rhoads, Tyler James, Matthew Perryman Jones, Trent Dabbs, Butterfly Boucher, Jeremy Lister and Andrew Belle) began in the imaginings of Kristin and Trent…

Hoarse, coarse and slavishly crude, the Texas outfit known as O Pioneers!!! might come across as a punk band at first — and, at its heart, it is — but beneath the growled aggression and blocky chords churns an artlessly artful, melancholy pulse that peels skin from flesh and pretention…

Although largely unknown outside its home town of Brooklyn, Telepathe is quickly earning renown for its gorgeous, otherworldly experimental music. Conjuring an amalgamation of Broadcast, Lush and early Ladytron, Busy Gangnes and Melissa Levaudis sound like they created their music in a place isolated from immediate outside influences — a…

Most people in their right mind run for cover when they hear of yet another new band described as indie folk or Americana. Letting that dissuade you from the music of We All Have Hooks for Hands would be a grave mistake. While there’s definitely plenty of jangle and twang…

If it’s true that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then a number of celebrated indie-rock bands should be positively gushing after hearing this record. Flashbulb Fires (formerly the Atlantic and Fiance) recalls a more sullen Arcade Fire, an act it name-checks in its bio; although Flashbulb Fires is…

The inaugural Hot Congress compilation cannot be fenced by any description other than “from Denver.” There is simply too much happening, too many moods and sounds, and nearly as many totally distinct voices as there are bands (eleven). What the comp lacks in singular vision, it makes up for in…

There was a time when Action Packed Thrill Ride’s tunes were steeped in countrified Americana, but over the four years the band has been at it, the sound has evolved. The quartet, which began as Lucas Johannes’s solo project, hasn’t completely abandoned its backwoods roots on this three-song EP; there’s…

“Holodeck” begins this initial offering from experimental electronic project Hideous Men with cycling low-end white noise to suggest the thrum of distant interstellar engines. But in short order, a gently executed mixture of neo-tribal rhythms and tropical pop weaves layers on top of and within each other. The resulting three-dimensional…

In 2006, Oblio Duo + The Archers established itself as a pillar of Denver’s hipster-country scene with The Flag, striking a just-right balance between mellow steel guitars and experimental weirdness. After a long wait, the partners are finally prepping to release a seven-inch split EP with Reno’s Flags on Fire…

Hot Congress doesn’t function as a musical collective so much as a support system between friends and compatriots in one strand of the underground music scene in Denver. Beginning in January 2009 with members of a handful of bands, the Congress convened its first meetings and discussed the vision for…

The roots of Swedish techno producer Mikael Stavöstrand go back to the industrial scene of the early ’90s. He later delved into experimental music and noise before finally introducing dance beats to the mix in 2001. “When I started doing minimal techno, around eight years ago, I made so-called ‘clicks…

Next Wednesday night, December 16, composer Phil Kline is bringing his Unsilent Night, made famous on the streets of New York, to Denver. Similar to the Flaming Lips famous mid-’90s Boombox Experiments — or predating those by at least four years — Kline basically enlists a bunch of people in…