Alright, it is time for you readers to get lost…in a good way. In a "lose your mind in melodic pleasures kind of way," in fact. The ability to do that nice thing is available to you, RIGHT NOW, because a local Austin band that has only been together since 2014 has gone and done it- just last month Daniel Eyes & the Vibe’s new EP release Sweet Dreaming released a four song EP with some mathy and delicious guitar from frontman Daniel Eyes, and you can listen to it here today.

This bluesy quartet has a good home here in Austin and their new output deserves a good listen in return. Single ‘Dessert Cocaine’ off of the new EP, for instance, is a perfect example of the 80s rock, blues pop sound that these cats have to offer, though maybe it’s a bit more of a flashback than some of you bargained for, putting thoughts of desserts and cocaine and “setting you free” in your brain (you heathens).

You can check them out on Spotify and Facebook for tunes and show dates, or better yet, catch them at their next show at Stubbs BBQ in downtown Austin on February 20 at 10:30 after the O.A.R. concert. Tickets are $6 in advance at www.stubbsaustin.com and will go up soon, so don’t miss out on some great Austin music and go buy your tickets early!

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Taylor Mangiameli
 

Morrison has risen- This is a natural thought progression upon hearing Ken Frost, lead singer of the Austin 60’s psych trio The Cuckoos, sing for the first time. Frost has a dead-on Lizard King baritone but, rather than run from comparisons to the Doors, the Cuckoos embrace it, own it, and then make it their own. The trio’s magnetism, mature sound, and youthful precociousness (Frost is the oldest in the group at 19) mean that there are many more doors of perception for these Moog-mavens to open. Here’s track “Stranger in Your Eyes” from their upcoming spring full-length release that offers a tantalizing organ sound straight from 1967. The dark psych groove perfectly coalesces with Frost’s intoxicating throwback vocals for a track that’s about as close as we’re ever going to get to a new classic Doors track, do listen below, flower children of 2016. The Cuckoos are also a nominee for ‘Artist of the Year’ in the psych category and would love your vote, so check the polls to the right if you want to help the guys out.

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Lee Ackerley
@slackerleemusic

Cross Record is an airy, sophisticated and sometimes creepy indie folkish duo that writes, records and lives out at a parcel of gorgeous Texas Hill Country land known as Moon Phase Ranch. With equal parts technical, atypical instrumentals from Dan Duszynski and the ghostliest, lovely and philosophical vocals from wife Emily Cross, Cross Record will play well with the folk/psych indie lovers out there, as well as those into that whole witchy thing going on right now. Recent release Wabi Sabi has the two at their best yet, with building cerebral tracks that are as deep-thought provoking as they are beautifully spacious and emotionally gripping. Catch a two-track preview of Wabi Sabi here, including the modern stormy day folk song “Steady Waves,” and check out the poignant minimalist and symbolic prettiness of the music video for second single “High Rise” below. It’ll get your spine tingling, and your mind soaring over a gloomy, picturesque Texas countryscape.

Lookin’ for some real Texas-ass punk shit? Give this new two-tracker from Austin’s Leche a few minutes to thrash yer brains up all nice and scrambly. It’s some grumbling, don’t care about nothin’ DIY bluespunk glory; real drunk Southern madman music the way you want it to be (and rarely get), and it’s fun as fuck. As Leche themselves say, “GEt your Butz REady To Spend the Next 4 Minutes In Heaven” by clicking yon play button below and, if you’re so inclined (wink wink, nudge nudge), the band says they’ll “meet you down Buttlick Alley between Beerland and Sidewinder for one heck of a time” if you send them a few old fashioned, green “American Dollers™”/for the download. Texas punk and buttlicks? A hard bargain to turn down, if you ask us.

OH, what a very most lovely and doomiest of days! Not only has Deli-beloved act Troller just announced that we’re but months away from the release of their second full album, they’ve also deigned to bestow upon us ravenous Troller fans a new, dark, weird single from that album in the form of one hell of a music video for song “Not Here.”

It’s damn good too, pairing a Lynchian setting and visual style with a gripping performance from drag queen Louisiana Purchase, whose piercing, manic eyes and understated, elegant and sometimes terrifying dance grasps your gaze and won’t let go. The track, too, is of the highest Troller quality (which to us is a way to say it’s killer as fuck), doing their gorgeous drones and dark cathedral melodies and industrial drum machines thing to perfection on this devastating, heavy track.

Both track and video are exquisite treatment and representation of pain, something we typically get fed to us in music through highly pop (Taylor Swift) or deeply self indulgent and stereotypical (Adele) ways, but here get from a thoroughly non-mainstream (even in 2016) and queer-positive perspective. It’s done with beauty, finesse and a fine, sharp edge, and it bodes seriously fucking well for the upcoming album.

Watch and listen below, and look for Troller’s Graphic LP on April 8 through Holodeck Records.

Fancy Pants is a band that’s a shot of youth-fueled creativity with a sound that dances across music genres- unrestricted, untethered, and in search of fun. Megan Scribner’s soaring vocals are powerful and seductive, and Travis Drew’s instrumentals bring funk-electro guitar chucking and chillwave synth melodies to the music that provide the backbone of Fancy Pants’ sound. The Austin-based dance-electro duo is set to release their first full-length release, Funk Paradise, in the next few weeks, and songs like the recently released “Come and take IT” indicate that these upstarts are on track to infect Austin with their dance party vibe.

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Lee Ackerley
@slackerleemusic

Velo is indie rock with lush melodies that set the listener adrift in a psychedelic sea of strings, horns, and sun-drenched synths. Founded in late 2014, Velo is already making waves in the Austin music scene and elsewhere, including big shows that had the group sharing the bill with local standouts such as White Denim and Mother Falcon. While their music is atypical in its lack of heavy hooks, their broad sound is accessible and memorable as they strike up an orchestra of controlled chaos. Velo is currently working on a seasonally themed concept record with producer Keith Gary (Coldplay, Rufus Wainwright), which is slated for release in 2016 and is expected to feature excellent indie tracks such as those on their Spring EP from last year. Take a listen to that below, and get ready for the next entry by this intriguing act.

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Lee Ackerley
@slackerleemusic

One of Austin’s best-kept secrets, Mr. Kitty has become the dark prince of self-destructive synthpop here in town. Having shared the stage with Crystal Castles and begun to establish a sizeable following outside of Austin as well, this goth-electro genius is destined to darken many doorsteps across the nation sometime soon. Providing dark lyrics with romantic themes and new wave synths floating over pulsating drum machines, Mr. Kitty hasn’t missed on any of the five full-length releases they’ve put out so far. Factor in a powerful live show, and some of you may be kicking yourself for having not found them sooner. Mr. Kitty will be releasing the (Rose Edition) of the album, Eternity, on Valentine’s Day, and here’s a recent remix of Crystal Castles’ “Frail” to get you in the mood.

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Lee Ackerley

Fucking yes, this is that shit you wait for all year as an Austin music fan.

Super Thief is back after a spectacular album from last year, bringing us a furious record with the new dump sink EP. Back in March of last year we said that Super Thief’s eponymous last record hit our shit-wrecking nerve nice and good, and dump sink picks up right where that record did, except that it’s even heavier and more outright fucking vicious.

The four track EP is the band turning up everything that was in their last record, and that means it’s some rip-you-apart shit from beginning to end. The high-burning, churning pace starts from the get-go with heavy, fast, straight to 100mph opener “dog fart,” and it doesn’t let up a tiny bit on song two, “euthanasia.”

The tracks on dumps sink all seem to fuck with the idea of what a song should be in 2016 Austin, ditching all the indie prettiness and poppiness and burning a fiery trail off down that more experimental, dangerously hard path that shit like Death Grips, Liars, Flux Information Sciences, Fugazi, Sonic Youth etc. have gone down before them. Super Thief seem like they’re mad about the way people in the supposed underground think songs are supposed to be now, and even the names of the songs feel like damaging jabs at the expected.

Super Thief is obviously hitting a hell of a stride here with these two excellent releases. They’re seriously getting franticness right, using their distorted, whining guitars with Super Thief’s signature crunch sound, their screaming vocals and devastating speed in a tight-as-fuck structure for music that simply doesn’t let up. With the release of dump sink and their album from last year, Super Thief isn’t just a very interesting noisy local hardcore band anymore; they’re maybe the most interesting noisy band I’ve heard period in a long time. Get a listen below.

Well alright, alright, alright y’all. We’ve reached the end of our open submissions for artists looking to be considered for The Deli’s Best of Austin Year End Poll for Emerging Artists. Many thanks and tacos to all those that submitted their work; we took a listen to it all.

After tallying our editors’ ratings for the Open Submissions stage, it’s time to release the results. Please note that to avoid conflicts no local editor was allowed to vote for bands in their own scene.

Total submissions from Austin: 25

Jurors: Jurors: Cody, Dan, Paolo

Acts advancing to our Readers/Fans Poll:

1. Hard Proof (Afrobeat) – 8.17 (out of 10)

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2. Madisons (Folk/Americana) – 7.5

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3. The Cover Letter (Alt Folk) – 7.5

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4. Jackie Venson (Blues Rock) – 7.33

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5. Tennessee Stiffs (Alt Folk) – 7.33

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6. COSMS (Post Rock) – 7.17

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7. Molybden (Folk/Americana) – 7.17

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Honorable Mentions (ranked above 6.5):

Bazile, SIGNY, Booher, Paula Maya, Steady Legend, Wildcat Apollo, Indoor Creature

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WHAT’S NEXT: These results end the first phase of the poll. We will soon unveil the artists nominated by our local jurors, and then let our readers and our writers influence the poll with their vote.

Keep creating, keep supporting, and stay tuned for your chance to vote!

—The Deli Austin Staff

A musical act with a good sense of humor (that’s actually fuckin’ funny) that’s also straight killer when making more serious-minded shit is a hard thing to find. Count one more then in the ever-growing lists of reasons why Austin, and the world at large, is lucky to have CAPYAC, the city’s premier future funky outfit and the new group that made arguably the biggest impact on at least this writer’s 2015. With their new EP “Movement Swallows Us” still warm out of the oven, CAPYAC has elected not to rest on the merits of its already classic recent work and has released a new track called “Mama Never Told Me” that reveals that the funky-sexy duo also has a damn silly side to it.

“Mama Never Told Me” is basically about cupcakes, bright-ass colors, the funk, babies and some wildly-bedecked Austinites (including the band itself) gettin’ down to it all like it’s some serious fuk’n bizness. Producer Delwin Campbell is still riding the hothand here with another damn fine beat, this time anchored by a “Mama/Said” sample that is timed with sickness, and as ever Eric Peana is a funk vocalist master, this time with a tongue-in-cheek sexyfunk rap thing going on.

In the end though, the best way to get prepped for this excellent new addition to the catalog of Austin’s most exciting, most future-ready act is to read about it in their own inimitable words:

“Official release statement from Capyac:

Hello from Chez Capyac. Today we have the honor and privilege and honorable privilege to introduce to you our first food-related single. Why sing about food? Because singing and food share a mouth. When we were first approached by world famous director Meredith, we knew she had something. What did she have? Cupcakes. Magic. Studio magic. Ever heard of Hollywood?"

We have indeed, CAPYAC. We have indeed.

Hey you- are you a sciencefreak? Do you think that space shit is rad, and the more explodey and whacked out it is (say, the more space-tentacles there are involved), the radder it is? Are you into geometry and angles and orbs and all that perfectly impossible math shit? Does the idea of a rocket-packed four-legged robot, zooming constellations and funky angles over a mind-flipping twinkled-out beat get your futuretech boner a’rarin’ to go?

Well maybe you should watch Austin producer Magic Nanna’s sexy-ass techporn futurebeat science freakout of a music video for his track “Malachite.” This is utterly on-point, heady stuff from a highly talented member of Austin’s world-class beatmusic cadre, showing Magic Nanna’s got his brains in weird, deep and far-out places and we’re all lucky the man’s got the musical chops to relate that shit to us through his beats. This could well be your new go-to get high and spaceout track, so get to it below.