Jack Wilson splits his time between the comfy, southern warmth of Austin and the cooler, sopping city that is Seattle. While he’s in Seattle, he’s backed by the Wife Stealers, and elsewhere, it’s pretty much just him. On his latest self-titled, Wilson zig-zags between full-on Americana rock, and solemn, poetic lullabies about places and people of timeless impact. He opens his album with the sound of footfalls on loose gravel — a sound that is immediately evocative of distance and mindful wandering — a more than appropriate prelude to an album that looks to transport the listener to the image [...]
Well how 'bout that? Don't know about y'all, but yesterday certainly was pretty awesome on our end. What with Jack White and Dave Grohl running around town, there's bound to be some awesome stuff that pops up, no? Looking over our lists for today, though, seems the best bets are away from the downtown fray, which has become increasingly the case over the past few years. In fact, you could probably do much worse than spending your day bouncing from the East Side between Pitchfork's show at the East Side Drive-In and Dig for Fire's lineup at the French Legation [...]
If you survived the pre-partying (and you better have as we're just getting started!), then you'll be out there flooding the streets and back alleys today as we officially kick off this little catastrophe we call SXSW. Wednesday Dayshows are generally the best to catch the bands you really want to see if they are playing, as not all the yahoos have yet arrived in town. Below, we've thrown down our top choices of shows that are going on, though we recommend also cherrypicking a few of your must sees and knocking them out today if you can. Among our [...]
And here we are again, this ol' rodeo. Some of us have already got almost a week of SXSW under our sleeves, others are just gearing up for the best part, which is obviously music. This year, the official SXSW showcases extended into Tuesday, because they can, but doesn't really kick off until Wednesday. Needless to say, though, there are some awesome events going to kick off the music side of the fest, and below our are picks to help you kick off the week right. From this point on, expect awesome music, free booze, and hipsters run amuck in [...]
This Wednesday, Austin Powell and I will be hosting the official release party for The Austin Chronicle Music Anthology , being held at Antone's with all proceeds benefiting HAAM . The lineup spans over three decades of Austin music, with reunions, special guests, and one-time-only collaborations (see below). Yeah, this is gonna be one helluva night. So what is this book, you say? Well first off, it's a thing with pages that you can actually hold in your hands and flip through, kind of like an iPad or Kindle except heavier, and [...]
Things get dark and heavy on the Gary’s second EP, El Camino . With these six songs, recorded by Steve Albini at Electrical Audio in mid 2010, it sounds like the weight of the world is pressing down on the band. Coming hot on the heals of their criminally overlooked debut full length, Logan , El Camino burns slowly with most songs feeling more like “Hurricane Sunrise” than “QSB” (both Logan standouts). And make no mistake; sounding like the product of a long haul Austin-to-Chicago roadtrip is not a bad thing. The Gary have consistently excelled [...]
Over two albums and the past five years, Wiretree has grown from the solo project of Kevin Peroni into one of the emerging acolytes of power-pop in Austin. Behind Peroni's ranging and easy tenor, the quartet brings touches of the Pernice Brothers and New Pornographers, with a twinge of pedal steel twang and shades of both classic Eighties and contemporary indie pop. It's a melding of influences and sounds that seems to finally come together in Wiretree's latest effort, the band's third LP tentatively titled Make Up , and currently being recorded at Hot Tracks! for a release later [...]
As they say, with a name like the Magnificent Snails, it better be good. Luckily for the local trio, who drops their debut EP, Baby Acid Trips , this week, they brandish a kind of pop flair that manages to be both catchy and continually interesting. With touches of horns and experimental torques, the Snails can ripple with softly gleaming harmonies, bounce with a kind of Vampire Weekend punch of infectiousness and even cut funky, garage-glam with an effective relish. Despite the fact that the trio includes Austin Sound contributor Chris Galis, we still recommend checking them out this [...]
On their sophomore LP, Candi and The Strangers jives out powdery synth-pop blended with muted disco and causes one to beg, “More Moog.” 10th of Always purveys movement through space, and its done remarkably well through fleshly synthetic melodies and vibrantly blurred rhythms. Because of all the dripping fuzz and boomeranging reverb on 10th of Always it’s hard to know whether Samantha Constant is saying ‘glide’ or ‘dive.’ But somehow it doesn’t matter. Part of the fun of the album is the ambience, and part of the ambience is traveling on a space ship or Milky [...]
Any conversation about the best new bands in Austin has to include Marmalakes, a trio that on the strength of last year's debut EP, Wonder Winds , and charmingly buoyant live shows has helped galvanize a scene of unassuming, earnest and impressive young artists. On songs like the anthemic "Vittoria", the band catches a perfect pop folk-pop hook that shadows elements of Local Natives and even Vampire Weekend, while winding through detailed landscapes with an alliterative laden wit. Marmalakes will be releasing their second EP later this year, but you should catch them as soon as possible, which happens [...]
"Matrimony rock." Hmmm. As a music critic, I’m down with all sorts of genre hybridizing (i.e. chamber-pop, glam-pop, jazz-rock, etc.). It’s part of our job to make up those descriptors to give music some sort of mass understanding, so I’ve seen a lot of bogus combinations, but the first time I came across the term “matrimony rock” was on the Long Tangles' Myspace page. It seems to me that the word “matrimony” would contain certain connotations that act against the word “rock”, thus neutralizing the whole ordeal. The same way your best friend becomes a kitschy version of [...]
Nineteen , Frank Smith’s eighth overall album, is less boot-scooting music and more-boots-on-the-bar music. For a lot of their new album, the band doesn’t seem like it’s quite in the mood to do much other than drown their memories, so dancing seems a bit much to expect. Originally hailing from Boston – and not Nashville or Austin as one might surmise upon first spin – the foursome released a series of folky country-rock albums before relocating to Austin in 2007 and subsequently dropping 2009’s Big Strike in Silver City . On Nineteen’s ten songs, Frank Smith – [...]
You might be inclined to write off a band like Not in the Face! simply on the basis of their name, but that would be a mistake. The duo of Jonathan Terrell and Wes Cargal cast raw rock nuggets that can claw and scratch with a garagey abrasiveness, kick dirty roots, and even unload an outright fury of heavy Zeppelin-esque prog that would seem impossible from a two-piece. With Cargal abusing on the drums and Terrell flailing out front with proto-punk intensity, Not in the Face! delivers it direct and untempered. They'll be playing Club DeVille this Friday, February 4 [...]
There is some baggage tucked into Oh No Oh My’s body of work. The console is full of a slew of television commercials; the glove compartment, a contest for a Mr. Gatti’s jingle; and in the trunk, the band’s own take on their latest album. People Problems is a causeway of sophisticated indie-pop awash with ever-unfolding beauty, struggle, and tension, yet in interviews with the band, the songs on the album are simply about “slitting a girl’s throat” or “going crazy”. Here Oh No Oh My faces the near-impossible task of crafting something commercial out of material that [...]
Will Patterson's Sleep Good has blossomed over the past couple of years from a bedroom pop project into a full scale outfit that mirrors the rise of his other work with Bill Baird's Sunset. The two bands are often on the same bill together, and with good reason; both swim in the psych-pop wake of early Harry Nilsson, effusive and catchy, but not without a good amount of tongue-in-cheek wit that can bite and barb with ease and unexpected turns and experimentation that seem ever evolving in arrangements. Sleep Good dropped two noteworthy albums last year, Skyclimber and [...]
For all of the early allusions to literary figures made by the countless reviewers about The Dark Water Hymnal’s releases, one would think that the subtle and nuanced quintet would be overwrought with expert lyrical tumbling — but they’re not. Collapse the Structure is surprisingly easy to listen to and, at moments, revels in great moments of song-craft and instrumental build without flowing over, like an Arcade Fire album with the reins pulled in. If you need any evidence of the sheer playability of the songs on this album, go watch their acoustic performance [...]
Chris Brecht and Dead Flowers second album and follow-up to 2008’s The Great Ride , leads the listener through a musty corridor with a flashlight, opens a door and flips a switch to reveal stained floral curtains and yellowing lampshades. Slowly, with every listen, the curtains swish and the lampshades crack revealing the deliberate and delicate lace-like arrangements of the room: the Wurlitzer’s exacting pulse, the pedal steel’s reckless extension, the vocals’ penetrating reverberations. The assumption of what one thinks Motel is shrivels and falls off, and a song called “Living Twice as Hard” [...]
Rising out of the new pack of young indie bands making an impression, Little Lo might be best considered as splitting the difference between their peers Marmalakes and Mother Falcon, melding the folk-pop of the former with the ensemble energy of the latter. Fronted by the Jeff Mangum-meets-Michael Nau trembling vocals of Ryan McGill, the band can explode with a cathartic abandon of brass and keys and rolling percussion, but just as easily lull with a subtle folk touch that can silence a room. Though looking to release their official debut EP later this year, the outfit has already garnered [...]
My favorite part of Blue Water White Death’s self-titled debut album is definitely – without a doubt – exactly three minutes and fourteen seconds into “Song For The Greater Jihad”. At that moment, in a song that features some gentle acoustic guitar work, some slightly off kilter crooning, and a few well placed bombs of noise, there is such a weird howl that I rewound (or the equivalent in this digital era) back fourteen times just to hear it again and again – before I then finished listening to the song. It’s like if those creatures in The Descent [...]
Listen to Cowboy and Indian and the aptness of the moniker is readily apparent. Jazz Mills, who dazzled as a backup singer in T Bird in the Breaks, and Jesse Plemons, of Friday Night Lights fame, meld a supple twang with a rootsy grit in duet, adding in Daniel James' to lay down some funky blues touches on guitar. Though only formed less than a year ago, Mills and Plemons are a natural compliment to one another, and we are excited to see what the trio produces when they release their debut recording later in 2011. You can [...]
Austin Sound
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