New Music, Emerging from your Local Scene
One of the more generous + worthy festivals in town takes place tomorrow 9/21 all over Austin: it’s HAAM Benefit Day, kicking off at the unusual live music hour of 8AM (when current poll nominee Dan Dyer, above, will play Whole Foods) and continuing on past midnight. Many many participating businesses will donate 5% of the day’s proceeds to the Health Alliance for Austin Musicians. Full day’s lineup right here.
(photo above by Jon Patillo)
Claustrophobic and darkly experimental, Warm Ghost is the brainchild of programmers Paul Duncan & Oliver Chapoy.
Their music is composed of slow paced, dense electronic pieces that haunt without scaring, graced by vocals that range from low pitch moodiness to celestial falsetto openings. The band’s stronger signature sound lies in the use of heavily processed synth layers (distortion, reverb and deep modulation are the duo’s favorite effects), while electronic drums and synth bass arpeggiators keep the music’ pulse steady and emotionless. Minus the celestial openings, this is how New Order may have sounded if Ian Curtis was still in the picture… The band just released a new EP called Claws Overhead, you can catch them live at Cameon on October 10 and 16 and at Glasslands on the 12th.
It has been a busy year for Radar Eyes. They released their debut album (or cassette) via Plustapes back in March to rave review and more recently released a 7" inch through HoZac Records as part of their "Hookup Klub".
You can catch Radar Eyes tonight (9/20) at Empty Bottle playing a free show with Crocodiles and Heavy Times.
Singer songwriter Chiara Angelicola is coming
back with a new stage name, Bird Call, and an updated and improved sound, in the new EP "The Animals Know". This bird decided to bring a piano to the forest to record a collection of leisurely
atmospheric folky tunes and mellow waltzes that draw inspiration from the sound of Regina Spektor
and Fiona Apple. Its musical "nest", a wisely sparse orchestration that allows Chiara’s soulful soprano (reminiscent at times of Kate Bush) to shine and charm, was built by Joel Hamilton, whose portfolio will impress any music fan (among others Hamilton worked with Tom Waits and Elvis Costello). "The Animals Know" will be released on 09.25 with a show at Pete’s Candy’s Store in Williamsburg. Bird Call is also scheduled to play Rockwood Music Hall on October 10. –
Mikhael Agafonov
Sean Hoffman and Leyla Akdogan, the dynamic duo between Loch & Key, released their debut effort Jupiter’s Guide for Submariners earlier this year and have been sailing the musical high seas ever since.
The album opens with Mt. Washington, a bossa nova drenched ode to East LA, that sets the pace between the jazzy and the contemporary. After tapping your toes and snapping your fingers through ‘In The Town of the Queen of Angels’ — ‘The Girl from Ipanema’ finds herself in Los Angeles? — We end up at ‘A Rather Large, Television-Shaped Head’ with its more contemporary guitar work and Cardigans-esque feel. ‘Maybe’ and ‘The Man Who Fell From the That Sky’ slow the collection down with sincere balladeering before ‘Devil’s Backbone’ kicks into a western gunslingin’, God-fearin’ romp. ‘Goodnight Bright Eyes’ closes things out with a solemn, but hopeful, instrumental. The album is a dreamy mix of Leyla’s subtle, airy vocals on top of Sean’s menagerie of guitar work.
The entire album was recorded in Sean’s Echo Park studio which features guest appearances from guitarist Vudi (American Music Club, Swans, Ariel Pink), drummer Derek Brown (The Eels, Everest), and pianist Marshall Thompson (Jem). With their friends to help them, Loch & Key’s love and fascination of Los Angeles is apparent in every song, with ‘Mt. Washington’ and ‘In The Town of the Queen of Angels’ paying special tribute.
Loch & Key will be continuing their residency at Redwood Bar for the last two Thursdays of September.
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Jupiter’s Guide for Submariners |
