Ah, good to be back. After a week off, Andy and I were back behind the mike once again with two more hours of handpicked local goodness. Unfortunately, the stream was whacked again last night, so we weren’t able to record the show, but as always, you’ll find the complete…
The new Bad Weather California album is called Young Punks. And unless you consider reverb-drenched, Stones-inspired riffs to be punk, then the title might seem like an ironic misnomer at first. Stylistically, at least, the act’s rollicking psych-folk-rock is a far cry from the music of the bands that shaped…
People are going to drink through the good times and the bad. But where they drink may change. Mike, who owns the Rockstar Bar (3358 Mariposa Street), thinks that a lot more folks are buying booze at liquor stores and drinking at home these days. Mike doesn’t like drinking alone…
Although traditionally playing very few shows, Pacific Pride (due at the hi-dive on Saturday, March 14) seems to make every performance count. The outfit’s rich blend of lo-fi pop with frayed sonic edges is reminiscent of the golden age of New Zealand’s Flying Nun label when legendary bands like the…
It’s been five years since the X-ecutioners released Revolutions, and six years since the DJ collective last toured North America on the Scratch tour. In other words, this old-school turntablist crew is long overdue for another town-to-town live showcase of talents. Formerly known as the X-Men (the members changed their…
The music made by the mad Danes in Efterklang on their most recent recording, 2007’s Parades, invokes venerable imagery: hooded monks, cherubic sprites, uncorrupted angels and post-Renaissance composers dedicated to going for baroque. Tracks such as “Polygyne” and “Frida Found a Friend” are overstuffed with aural elements, ranging from sprawling…
Musically speaking, Oklahoma City is best known for the Flaming Lips, the Starlight Mints and Colour Music. Soon it will also be known as the home of Stardeath and White Dwarfs. Fronted by Dennis Coyne, the band owes an artistic debt to his famous Uncle Wayne’s long-running project. Mysterious, otherworldly…
Neil Halstead’s path toward his current incarnation as a dusty-road crooner of gentle reverie has been one long process of elimination. The hallmarks have been there since his shoegazing genesis in Slowdive, where the melancholic nostalgia of his breathy baritone was muddled by fuzz-tone guitars and sheets of white noise…
SuidAkrA has combined Irish folk music and melodic death metal for nearly fifteen years now. The act’s ninth album, Crógacht, delivers the same trademark sound heard on its predecessors: a swirling blend of keening bagpipes and thunderous double-bass drumming — plus roaring guitar riffs and screaming solos, of course. Vocalist…
Time to get nostalgic over ’90s-era electro-industrial music yet? If so, James Geist, Necrotek’s dark conjurer, is ready to capitalize. His one-man band, to be featured at a Friday, March 13, CD-release party at Tracks, uses virtually all of the subgenre’s time-tested elements: doomy melodies, snappy beats, synthetic instrumentation and…
It’s been nearly a decade since jazz pianist Marc Sabatella released an album as a leader. The guy’s had a lot going on since then: In the liner notes, he writes about how he began working with vocalist Wendy Fopeano, whom he eventually married, how he earned a Master of…
The twenty tracks on the Bocumast Instances Vol. 1 compilation cover an incredible amount of territory, from several varieties of relatively straightforward guitar rock and singer-songwriter material to outré experimental electronics. That kind of willful eclecticism can be crippling, but it works here for the simple reason that the label…
Given the fairly lo-fi recording here, it seems the Silver Cord was going for a more live sound. And while that approach has its drawbacks — namely sacrificing robust low end — it also highlights the stark tonal contrasts inherent in the songwriting. Dane Bernhardt’s spooky keyboard work is far…
One of the first production projects to team Alex Puodziukas and Jesse F. Keeler, who partner in the dance-music duo MSTRKRFT, was rejected long before anyone could hear it. The pair had known each other from the Toronto punk scene for several years when Keeler, then in a group called…
Often compared to synth-pop bands of the ’80s like New Order and Depeche Mode, Melbourne, Australia’s Cut Copy writes music that is equally inspired by unexpected sources. When they started out earlier this decade, none of the group’s members had ever played the instruments they currently employ to create their…
Carl Cox has never had the superstar status in the U.S. as some of his British peers, but don’t think for a minute that his place in dance-music history is in question. Cox’s roots go way, way back to the very beginning; this is a guy who was playing acid-house…
Remember this past November when we told you about the Young Coyotes’ Daytrotter session? We’ve been patiently waiting since then to hear the blasted thing. Well, thankfully, it looks like the wait is almost over, as next Tuesday, March 10 week*, the session will be available for download. As it…
This week’s tops-in-class flier comes courtesy of Lion Sized guitarist/vocalist Josh Bergstrand, who designed this excellent, eye-catching poster to promote his show March 26 at the hi-dive with the Ideal Fathers, who are headlining, and Snake Rattle Rattle Snake, who seem to be the inspiration for the imagery. This one…
Max3.com, Morning After Records, Gigbot, Indie 101.5FM and FuelFriends will be throwing one heck of a Denver showcase party at South By Southwest next Friday. The lineup includes the Epilogues, Meese, the Photo Atlas, Young Coyotes, Born in the Flood and the Overcasters. This isn’t the first time there’s been a…
The Cut Copy profile in this week’s issue contains only excerpts of our recent chat with Dan Whitford and merely scratches the surface of our exchange. Needless to say, Whitford had much much more to say about the act’s sound, he and his bandmates’ progression as musicians, recording the album,…
Efterklang is a Danish group whose latest album, 2007’s Parades, merges electronic touches with sweeping orchestration — a combination that results in a vivid, dreamy soundtrack to bliss. In advance of the outfit’s March 14 gig at the Larimer Lounge, bassist/multi-instrumentalist Rasmus Stolberg pulls back the curtain on Efterklang’s history,…
What began as a simple phone interview with Jesse F. Keeler for this week’s profile of the dance duo MSTRKRFT turned into something considerably stranger, and more amusing. Yes, Keeler talked at length — but when he had to use the primitive toilet in the group’s new Toronto studio, he…
