Cougar Legs at the hi-dive

Based on song titles alone, you’d think Cougar Legs (due at the hi-dive on Saturday, September 19) was some kind of wiseacre Marcel Duchamp-esque joke perpetrated by pretentious artists. The act’s music, however, is more like that beautifully post-apocalyptic dirge that somehow ended up in a horrible science-fiction movie like After the Fall of New York. Looping his echoing trumpet, Joshua Trinidad creates gentle harmonies with himself, which is haunting in a way captured best in the opening paragraph of Neuromancer. Dave Kurtz’s asymmetrical percussion is pure free jazz that nonetheless provides a grounding for songs heavy on textured atmospheres and unconventional melodies. Trinidad and Kurtz, along with a rotating cast of collaborators, create the perfect accompaniment for gazing from Lookout Mountain at night toward the sea of Denver’s lights.