by Andrew Sacher

Speaking of dub/psych artists who are playing Austin Psych Fest later this month, but are meanwhile in NYC for Unsound this week, Madison, Wisconsin duo Peaking Lights (who play a free Unsound show at Lincoln Center on Thursday with LXMP) just dropped the first track off their upcoming album, Lucifer (out 6/19 via Mexican Summer) and it's pretty great. Stream that track, which is called "LO HI," along with all of their dates, below...

Continue reading "listen to a new Peaking Lights track, see them for free"

by Andrew Sacher

Julia Holter at LPR last week (more by Amanda Hatfield)

Unsound Fest, which goes down from April 18 - 22 across multiple NYC venues, has announced its schedule for 2012. The schedule is listed in full below, and here are some of its highlights:

Julia Holter, who has been making a ton of buzz lately with her excellent new album, Ekstasis, and her NYC live debut, which you can now watch in full at NPR, will be playing the first day of the fest on Wednesday, April 18 at Issue Project Room with Julia Kent and Jenny Hval.

On Thursday, April 19, psych/dub duo Peaking Lights and LXMP will play a free show at David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center at 7:30 PM. That show will be followed by live sets by Actress, Next Life, and Hype Williams at Le Poisson Rouge at 11 PM.

Friday's (April 20) shows include Sun Araw, pole, and Inner Tube at Le Poisson Rouge at 6 PM and live sets by Laurel Halo, Ital, Demdike Stare, Hieroglyphic Being, Zemi17 and Monolake at Warsaw at 10 PM.

On Saturday, April 21, Biosphere and Lustmord's special TRINITY piece will be performed at West Park Presbyterian Church at 7 PM with an opening set by Jacaszek. After that show, at a venue TBA we'll get Sepalcure (live A/V set), Nguzunguzu (DJ), 2562 (DJ), Teeth (live), Throwing Snow (DJ), DaveQ (DJ), and Distal (DJ).

The festival wraps up on Sunday, April 22 with mostly Unsound LABS, including a talk with Biosphere & Lustmord on 'TRINITY' at the Goethe-Institut Wyoming Building at 4 PM. Glasslands will then hosting the Unsound Festival closing party at 9 PM with live sets by Napszyklat and Maria Minerva (who will be making her US debut) and DJ sets by Sun Araw vs Heat Wave and Eltron John.

Ticket info for all of the paid shows is available.

Full schedule including Unsound LABS below...

Continue reading "Unsound Fest posts schedule; tickets on sale"

by Andrew Sacher

DOWNLOAD: Maria Minerva - "Gloria" (MP3)

Maria Minerva

Last month, we announced that the Unsound Festival is returning to NYC on April 18 - 22 across various venues including BAMcinématek, The Bunker, Lincoln Center, ISSUE Project Room and Le Poisson Rouge. We also since mentioned the related Kickstarter campaign for UNSOUND LABS.

Now, a lot of really exciting additions have been made to the lineup, including Julia Holter (who makes her NYC debut at LPR on 3/6), Maria Minerva, Peaking Lights, Sepalcure, Nguzunguzu (who recently announced a tour), Laurel Halo, 2562, Inner Tube (aka Mark McGuire of Emeralds and Spencer Clark), and many more. The full current lineup is listed below. More details coming soon.

One of the most interesting additions to this year's Unsound lineup is Estonia's Maria Minerva (aka Maria Juur), who will be making her NYC/US debut at the festival. According to her facebook, she'll be "doing two things at the festival, more info soon." Maria first caught my attention with her first official LP, Cabaret Cixous, which dropped last year on Not Not Fun. The album showed a tasteful knack for ambient/experimental pop but left me admittedly feeling like she still had plenty of room left to grow. A few months later, she dropped the Sacred & Profane Love EP on NNF's sister label, 100% Silk, and it was exactly what Cabaret Cixous was yearning for. The most impressive moment on the EP (and her best song yet) is the track, "Gloria," which you can download above or stream below. Fans of Grimes, Julianna Barwick, or fellow Unsound performers Julia Holter and Laurel Halo, take note.

Lineup, song stream, and all Maria Minerva dates below...

Continue reading "Unsound Fest announces Maria Minerva, other lineup additions"

The Fresh & Onlys @ Psych Fest 2011 (more by Tim Griffin)

The Reverberation Appreciation Society and The Black Angels have released the initial lineup poster for the 5th annual Austin Psych Fest. This year's fest, running from April 27th - 29th (in Austin), will take place at Austin's two newest big venues, recently opened Emo's East and the soon-to-be open Beauty Ballroom which is next door.

Emo's East is now the only Emo's since their Red River location closed on 12/30, and the Beauty Ballroom is (hopefully) having their rescheduled Grand Opening on January 27th (with Theophilus London and Treasure Fingers) and continuing on January 28th.

APF will feature around 60 bands over the three day, two room event. About 40 are included in the poster below, with another 20 or so to be announced in March. Announced bands include the Black Angels (who played Emo's East on New Year's Eve), the Black Lips, Brian Jonestown Massacre, Dead Meadow, Olivia Tremor Control, Wooden Shijps, and many more. Weekend passes go on sale this Saturday (January 21st) at 12pm CST at austinpsychfest.com.

Check out photos from the 2011 edition of Psych Fest (held at Seaholm Power Plant) HERE.

Chaos in Tejas, a different kind of Austin music fest that happens in June, also announced bands on their lineup today.

SXSW, which is in March, continues to announce bands all the time and recently posted their initial schedule.

Psych Fest 2012 poster, lineup and Bandcamp mixtape, below...

Continue reading "Austin Psych Fest annnounces initial 2012 lineup, new venue; SXSW posted their initial schedule"

by Bill Pearis

DOWNLOAD: Peaking Lights - All The Sun That Shines (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Peaking Lights - Tiger Eyes (Laid Back) (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Peaking Lights - Hey Sparrow (MP3)

It never fails, the week after CMJ I get sick. So here I sit, with a big cup of green tea and a stuffy head, writing about shows that I want to go to, but probably won't. But hopefully you are in better health. There's a lot of great options this weekend.

As you may have heard, two-year-old Williamsburg club Bruar Falls is closing November 1. I live pretty close to the place, have seen a lot of great shows there and am bummed it's shutting its doors. But for Bruar Falls' Last Week Ever, it's going out in style with a bunch of great shows. Tonight (10/28) it's The Beets, Tanks Amigo, the Beachniks and, just in time for Halloween, a Misfits cover band.

Saturday night (10/29) is for you punkers out there: Stalkers, Tough Shits, Ex-Humans and Dino's Boys. And then Sunday night (10/30) it's Dive, Shark?, Air Waves and Bright Lights. And then Halloween night (10/31) is the for real last night ever with Friend Roulette, Hunktronik, Clouder and KNTRLR.

A lot of these bands are BF regulars so I imagine there will be a palpable party vibe there all weekend long. I'll miss ya.

Peaking Lights

Tonight (10/28) is the NYC debut of Wisconsin husband and wife duo Peaking Lights whose alluring, dubby album 963 came out early this year on Not Not Fun but is getting wider distribution next month via Mexican Summer and Domino imprint Weird World. You can download a few tracks from the record at the top of this post.

A lot of the strange sounds heard on the album come via homemade instruments and effects boxes that Aaron Coyes makes in the basement of his and singer Indra Dunis' home. You can find out more about this via an episode of VBS TV's Soundbuilders which is streaming at the bottom of this post. After watching that, I'm curious to see how Peaking Lights will pull off a live show, what with all the delicate McGuyver-esque gear. But the record's great and I'm hoping for the best.

Radical Dads

One of my favorite sets at CMJ was seeing Radical Dads at Bruar Falls on Saturday night and reminded me just how good they've become. In fact, I'd go as far to say as they're one of Brooklyn's best bands right now. Certainly one of the more unheralded. If you like Wild Flag, I urge you to check out RD's debut album Mega Rama which has a similar vibe but is much less hyped. There's a streaming player at the bottom of this post.

I'm happy to report that Mega Rama is getting a belated vinyl release in December via Loud Baby Sounds. You can pre-order it now. The album art is one of my favorite record covers of the year and have been dying to own a big 12" version of it -- not to mention getting to play it on my turntable. Also on the vinyl tip, Radical Dads also have a 7" coming out in December, "Skateboarding Bulldog," which you can stream or download via a widget at the bottom of this post.

But more than maybe anything I suggest going to see them live which you can do tonight (10/28) at Spike Hill where they'll play with Plates of Cake, Quilty,  and Conversion Party. Cover's only five bucks.

Star Slinger

If glitchy dance music is more your thing, the weekend has two very good options. Star Slinger, who was supposed to play here in the spring but had to cancel, is finally making his NYC debut at Music Hall of Williamsburg tonight (10/28). After a bunch of head-turning remixes and download tracks, Star Slinger recently released his first "official" single, "Dumbin," via Mountain Dew's Green Label Sound which you can stream or download at the bottom of this post.

After the MHoW, which also has SHLOMO and Shitego on the bill, you might want to swing over to 285 Kent where there's  a "secret guest" headliner. (G-Side and Mr. Muthafuckin' eXquire play as well.) Though not mentioned out-and-out, they do link to Star Slinger's website on the Facebook invite.

Gold Panda

Then Saturday night (10/29), the Fixed party at Cameo has UK act Gold Panda who's been remixed by Star Slinger and is following up last year's excellent Lucky Shiner with his spin on the latest installment of K7!'s DJ Kicks series. In a bit of Brooklyn weekend synergy, GP's track "An Iceberg Hurled Through Northern Clouds" just got remixed by Peaking Lights and you can stream the remix of that below.

The Fixed party at Cameo also features Lemonade, Blondes and an open bar from 8 - 10. Gold Panda then heads the next day (ouch) to Moogfest in Ashville, NC.

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Saturday night has a pretty killer show at Glasslands. Obits headline and are still driving on the high octane tank of gas that is their second album, Moody, Standard and Poor.  Perhaps even more exciting, for some folks, is opener Office of Future Plans which is the new thing from Jawbox man J. Robbins.

Terry Malts

And finally, a little preview into early next week. Don't forget that the Wax Idols/Terry Malts tour hits Cake Shop on Tuesday (11/1) and Shea Stadium on Wednesday (11/2) for a double dose of San Francisco style fuzz. As I wrote elsewhere on this site:

Wax Idols are the new group from Hether Fortune, who has spent time in Hunx & His Punx and Bare Wires. Fuzz pedals crash into jangly guitars, vocals are high sneer but also full of harmony, and there's room for both girl group balladry and a tough cover of Wire's "Sand in My Joints." The band's debut, No Future, is out next month on HoZac and is quite good. You can check out "Dead Like You" from it at the top of this post.

As for the Terry Malts, their debut 7" on Slumberland from earlier this year is three quick blasts of sunny pop covered in a thick blanket of white noise. (Somewhere between '80s West Coast punk and C-'86 lies their sound.) It's the new project from most of the guys in Magic Bullets, a band that has been put in cold storage -- they played their final show August 24. They've got a new 7" out in about a month, and you can download "Distracted" from the first one at the top of this post.

Other bands on the Cake Shop bill are still TBA but the Shea Stadium show also features Sundelles, Habibi, and the ever-present Dive (if you haven't seen them yet, you're making an effort not to).

That's the main stuff. More daily picks are below.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 28

Pixies continue to tour their best album, Dolittle, tonight at Asbury Park Convention Hall with Surfer Blood opening.

Meanwhile... Tanya Donnely, who was in the original line-up of the Breeders (not to mention Throwing Muses and then Belly) is doing a show at Joe's Pub. She'll be aded and abetted by Michael Hearst of One Ring Zero, writer Rick Moody, as well as Magnetic Fields cohorts Claudia Gonson and Sam Davol, plus Carrie Bradley who was also in the Breeders at one point (and folk rock band Ed's Redeeming Qualities).

Over at St. Vitus, it's an evening of dark sounds, with French minimal waver Frank (Just Frank), Bootblacks and Philly's Hot Guts.

continued below...

Continue reading "Peaking Lights, Star Slinger, Radical Dads, Bruar Falls, Gold Panda, Wax Idols, Obits & more in This Week in Indie"

by Andrew Sacher

DOWNLOAD: Peaking Lights - "All The Sun That Shines" (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Peaking Lights - "Tiger Eyes (Laid Back)" (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Peaking Lights - "Hey Sparrow (MP3)

Dub-infected psych-pop duo Peaking Lights (made up of husband and wife Aaron Coyes and Indra Dunis) released the excellent 936 LP earlier this year on Not Not Fun. The album's got a raw vintage sound full of strong looping basslines, reverb guitars, and soft, cool vocals mixed with whatever other noises Aaron and Indra managed to work in. Initial reaction to the record was a little slow, but it seems to be catching on considering the duo recently signed to Mexican Summer in the US and Domino imprint Weird World outside the US, who will re-release 936 on November 21. The release will be preceded by a remix 12". Check out videos of two album tracks below and download MP3s of a few others above. The album art and tracklist are also below.

Domino also reports that Peaking Lights will begin recording their followup this November, which should see a Spring 2012 release via Mexican Summer and Weird World. The duo plans to self-produce the album and are bringing in Al Carlson (Yeaasyer, Ford & Lopatin) to engineer it.

Peaking Lights have a few international dates scheduled including a show this week in Chicago and one in NYC on October 28 at Glasslands. Tickets for this show are on sale now.

All dates, videos, album art and tracklist below...

Continue reading "check out Peaking Lights --- MP3s, videos & dates (Glasslands)"