We don’t know all too much about what the debut album from duo Rikroshi (formerly Bells and Parks) will be like outside of the info on their Indiegogo page (the campaign wrapped up in June), but if the one available single "Watercolor" is anything to go by, winter 2015 is gonna bring us one hell of a dark, beautifully sulky album. This track is a bit gothy/new wave gloom and a bit of a melody that sounds somewhat folk-Asian inspired, and yet it isn’t afraid to really slam on some heavy-ass, big-chord guitar work. The high-pitched wandering voice of singer Tessa Bennecht and said slamming guitar noise complement each other very nicely in "Watercolors," which, as the season changes to something darker and more introspective, feels very apropos to this time of year. It even has a bit of the bittersweetness of the upcoming season that isn’t all shadows and cold, but sometimes is bright and cheery as well, when at the end of the track it goes major for just a few fleeting seconds to fade out on a positive note. It’s intriguing stuff from an artist pair in the midst of transition, and it feels just right as our world too transitions in these dusky months. Listen below, and get in the darkmonth mood.

Here’s a bit of a fun (and odd) one for you strangeness-loving musicheads out there in Austin-town this Halloween: quirky experimental musician and Zorch-member Shmu has just put out a quite fun album of his layered, colorful music called Shhhh! (which we’ll get to reviewing in full sometime soon), and alongside it he’s released a free compuoter game of the same name to accompany the album proper! This kind-of welcome cross-platform, multi-sensual experience seems to be a bit of a trend with the more boundary-pushing musicians of the day (one of our favorite rappers Malik did something similar not long ago), and it’s one we welcome with gamin’ fingers and music-eatin’ ears at the ready.

In the case of Shmu’s digital package (heh…heh), a quick jaunt through the game appears to say that it’s a kind-of psychedelic post-modern walkabout through a bizarre garden that looks like it was created by shoving the internet in the 90s, the old exploration/puzzle game Myst, a whole lot of high-quality drugs and the music of Shmu together into a digital blender. This game would be what popped out the other end of that imaginary machine, and the gameplay in my experience so far is of the first-person “explore this weird, but peaceful world,” art-piece-style genre (but which has shooter controls in its settings, so presumably at some point there be somethin’ to shoot at).

Shhhh! the game is utterly the perfect atmosphere within which to experience the deep dream pop music of Shmu, and it’s free for both Mac and PC here, so if gettin’ a bit weird with your music-listening appeals to you, this is right up your oddball alley. Also, give one of excellent tracks from the album below to getcha in the weirdness-explorin’ mindset while the game download settles its strange self right on into your ‘puterin machine.

Emcees Charlee Bankston and Deni come harder and hotter than a patch of city concrete sittin’ out in the Texas late-summer sun (we don’t have fall here, but y’all know that) on new minimalist track "Koolin." This beat is built on just about nothin’ else except a repeated oldschool rock ‘n roll sample counting "One, two, three, four," a few snares, claps and bass beats and the full-court press vocals of Bankston and Deni, who take turns spittin’ on the punchy beat. The rap here is allowed to be massively present due to the minimal beat, and it is some good damn rhymin’ with an earworm hook, and it’s hard to say whether the flow is the star for being so prominent and good, or if the boombastic beat is what makes it for providing so nice a frame for the emcees to do their thing over. Either way you wanna look at it, this hip-hop from Bankston and Deni is solid and catchy as fuck- the perfect thing to finish off the summer with a no-fucks-given bang. Get listenin’.

Stiletto Feels is a project that we’ve actually posted on before, back when it seemed to be known online as The Big Fist, but when we dropped a piece on a track back at that point, we got us a confused but polite message from bandleader Geoff Earle wondering how we’d found what was then an unshared SoundCloud account meant to show off what he was working on to his close friends.

That track was taken down, and we’ve sat put on Earle (known for his work with Fresh Millions) ever since, until now. Just a few weeks ago, one of Earle’s other new tracks “Steal Your Guitar” was released at an Empire Control room show with a pretty fucking wildly good lineup (BLXPLTN, Shmu, Black Books, Corduroi, Chipper Jones and Dana Falconberry were just part of the list of groups playing), and now we can finally post on this killer-ass new music coming from one of Austin’s most uniquely musical minds.

We’re into being able to finally talk about the layered and indie electrofunky project that Stiletto Feels is, especially because “Steal Your Guitar” was so good back when we heard it a few months ago, we almost posted it as our single of the day instead of the track we went with. In fact, we like it so much, we’ve nominated Stiletto Feels for Artist of the Month on the strength of this track, as well on what we know is to come from these guys in the near future.

Backboned by a supersynthy, glimmering night of a melody that sounds a bit classic Vitalic or Kavinksy and then slammin’ into somethin’ funkier for the chorus, “Steal Your Guitar’s” main strength outside of its smooth synthetic grooves is its strange lyrics and subject and their equally weird delivery. Sung in a nicely and appropriately subdued but pretty manner that balances well with the heavy funk of the bass and the prettiness of the rest of the track, the lyrics of “Steal Your Guitar” are delivered from the perspective of a supposed friend of an unnamed musician’s friend who is outright telling the unlucky artist that they are about to have their guitar stolen, by said friend and for drugs.

The song is pretty bitchin’ in the way it creates this believable and poignant narrative of a situation that feels totally real (and, as I and many others who have owned guitars can tell you, this is definitely something that happens) and is pretty hardcore to listen to explained so directly. Paired with the fun and groovy instrumentals, it’s exactly the kind of pop song that we’ve been craving- something that pushes the edges of pop music out further while still being undeniably part of the pop canon.

Listen to this first track from Stiletto Feels here, and keep posted for more info on the rest of the tracks the project is said to be releasing soon. We hear it’s more of what we had found on that original SoundCloud page, all of which was perfectly killer, and that the recording process was quite unique indeed and involved folks from acts like Shmu and The Sword. We’ll have more on that as it releases, for now let Stiletto Feels tell you exactly how it goes down when a good buddy tells you to your face how they’re about to fuck you over.

Peligrosa, Austin’s premier Latin electronic music collective, has just teamed up with Houston-based collective Bombón to release what is absolutely one of the can’t-be-missed beat records from Texas this year. Now, electronic music collective is a term that probably brings up images of a council of brightly colored rave-outfit bedecked youths sitting about a table in their most regal of kandi jewelry and discussing molly-related group policies (No? Just me?), but in Austin, that concept more often refers to the complex and eclectic crews of veteran electronic producers like Applied Pressure, Feedback Alliance and the legendary Peligrosa.

Peligrosa has been a shining beacon of fun, smart beats in Austin since their birth back in ’07, and just this year they have taken their hard-won production and music-industry acumen to the next logical step by creating Discos Peligrosa, their very own label.

This record, a split aptly titled BOMBÓN X PELIGROSA, is one of the first releases by Discos Peligrosa as a new label, and it features Peligrosa and Latin robot soul mates Bombón taking turns dropping killer tracks one after the other for 7 stellar pieces of future Latin dance music. Both of these groups are all about taking the traditional sounds of Latin instrumentals and song structures (especially beats) and melding and exploding them from their original states into the newtech, future-leaning world. Both crews are on point in their efforts toward this highly commendable endeavor with BOMBÓN X PELIGROSA, which is exciting and dynamic from end to end and is actually scientifically impossible to avoid dancing to (Being Ultra Music Expert Geniuses, we know this to be a fact.).

Of particularly special note on this record are the kick-off track “Chamba” by Bombón and “Santa Marta” from the Peligrosa side of things. “Chamba” comes in with a bit of a hip-hop meets Latin electronica thing, and whose oddly reassuring deep demon vocals anchor the track’s party vibe to somethin’ that’s fun-ly sinister (I get the evil toons from Who Framed Roger Rabbit dancing to it in my head). “Santa Marta,” on the other hand, starts out about as light and chill as a track can with some pan flute bars, but this being Peligrosa, it quickly transitions to some bouncy melodic dance mallet-work (something like a xylophone sounds like) and then to straight-out, nuts-ass electronic wonkiness at 1:11 in. Frankly though, that’s just my particular taste on this record when it comes to best tracks, because there is not a weak one in the bunch here. Slink-beat album-closer “Vientos” with it’s Atlantic City boardwalk in 2060 vibe almost knocked off “Chamba” for my top spot, and the weird warped hedonistic “Me Gusta” is definitely one of the best weed tracks since Madvillain’s “America’s Most Blunted.”

Get up on this thing below and blow your friends minds by dropping some of the most undeniably sick future dance music available in the world at yer next party instead of That Goddamned EDM again, and keep up with Peligrosa at their blog here, which is frequently updated and has some pretty damn decent writing if we do say so. Viva Peligrosa.

Austinites, assemble! A cute indie band needs your help gettin’ you more of that sweet, jangly music you crave. Local act Grey Lakes has finished the big majority of a record they’re hoping to release this year, but they need a little help along the way to finish up those persnickety and expensive things that come with record-creating like mastering. They’re running an indiegogo page right now to raise the funds (as of this writing it looks like they need about $4k in 9 days), and they’ve released a couple of singles to show you lovely potential listeners what they can do for ya.

The two tracks released so far, "Sea Foam Green" and "Our Blood" are nice little pretty-ass indiepop gems that deal with classic pop concepts, but bring them out in ways that feel refined as opposed to tired. There’s much twangly, floating guitar here and breathy vocals that feel like they hearken back to when indie was more rock-pop and didn’t have as much of the folky influence goin’ on yet. "Sea Foam Green" is especially heavy on the indie-pop side, and the band does very well with the components of this genre to layer them just so in the track so that it culminates in a droney, well-balanced and pleasing way with all layers present.

Puttin’ out a record is a tough thing, and really most musicians outside of the biggest acts put a ton more into these financially and in terms of hours worked than they actually get back out of it, and you can help make it happen and also get yourself a nice bit of music to listen to by headin’ over to the page and droppin’ a dollar or two of beer money. Check out the tracks below, and help these guys out if you feel so inclined. The scene needs you to live, remember that kiddos.

If you’re into the non-radio-play hip hop scene even a bit, you know that the Drake "Back to Back" freestyle diss track that the sports-cursing Canadian dropped on SoundCloud a month ago has been just about the only off the cuff verses anyone has been hearing lately (63.9 million plays as of this posting), so much so that the thing must be paying all of Soundcloud’s bills by its own damn self at this point. So, maybe now we think is a good time to be reminded that just ’cause one really famous rich dude made another sort-of famous rich dude look somewhat goofy in a fairly decent freestyle rap, Drake’s verses weren’t good enough to end all of freestyling forever. Hell some of them ain’t even that good- there’s def cats out there who hold down rapping’s most difficult and impressive tradition with much more power and skill, and they’re still droppin’ bombs on SoundCloud even after the Destruction of Meek Mill at the Hands of the Canadian Aubrey Drake Graham.

To wit, give yer brain an ice-cold dose of Austin’s David Shabani and his newest release, a freestyle good enough to be an album track called "YUL to DFW" that’ll get you right cool for these last few mind boiling summer days. Shabani is, as the track’s title might suggest to those who are hip to the locational acronym game, a Texan via French Canada who has been building a rep and a fan base here in Austin through a consistent, quality output of tracks (a ton of his stuff is free on SoundCloud) and some big damn shows like an appearance at the 2014 X Games out at that big fuckoff rich person racetrack thingy. "YUL to DFW" is catchy like some kinda head-noddin’ virus and does everything a truly good freestyle does- it’s fast, smart as hell, it sounds so clean and put together it’s hard to believe it’s all off the dome, and you wanna jam it again a few times just to catch everything.

Freestylin’ should be part approachable shit, like references to pop culture and current events or common daily life shit, and part personal perspective and peaks into the rapper’s life. Shabani knows this, flows this and nails this, dropping in everything from bits on Star Wars, Anita Baker, Montreal not having an NBA team and even looking for the remote in the couch while sticking in personal shit like a bit on his life story, such as in the hook (the part that’ll definitely get stuck in your head) where he lays out he went from "Montreal to Hamilton/Hamilton to Dallas/Dallas down to Austin/Feelin’ good, feelin’ awesome." That call-out to these four heavily populated areas should make it instantly dig-able by anyone with the good fortune to live in any of em, and should especially hit with Austinites, this city being so full of transplants and all (for better or worse, though in Shabani’s case certainly for the better).

Let Shabani get up in your head and move that mildly great Drake piece right along into the museum of old freestyles where it belongs, and also get introduced to one of Austin’s solid young rappers heading up the Most Likely to Succeed pack in this city’s scene with this freestyle below, as well as his other tracks over at the internet’s home for new hip-hop tracks before Meek Mill just loses it and tries to burn down their server warehouses.

A question for the kids (meaning all you fine folk 25 and under) before we get to the review of the super-solid recent 3-track output by local band Hovvdy that we got on a split with also damn good band Loafer. Right, so: do y’all still know Pavement? I mean, I don’t expect anyone who was born in a year numbered higher than 1990 to be jamming anything like Archers of Loaf or (definitely not) proto-indie like Minutemen, but Pavement is still a big deal….right?

Oh god, I hope that’s right; I’m just gonna keep believing it with my fingers in my ears to block out the chorus of “Who?” that I expect. Knowledge of the bands from the pre millennium that made music what it is is especially relevant to me when it comes to this review, because that kind of 90s indie that opened the doors for rock music to be both pop and experimental while also being approachable is super helpful in understanding is why these Hovvdy tracks are such soul-touchers for the fan of indie from days before the festival and the internet changed the genre into the massive machine that it is in 2015. Not that it’s bad now. Far from it. But, it’s very different now. There was a time when you really couldn’t expect even most music fans to know the shit you dug, and that’s the ancestral grounds where these three Hovvdy tracks seem to be returning back from on some sort-of musical time-warp pilgrimage: they drip 90s, and that drip is sweet (…though that sentence is kinda gross).

I figure that Hovvdy probably gets what I mean here to some degree, because they go so far as to use the term “slack” as one of the tags on the Bandcamp page for their part of the split, a term that very specifically references 90s indie, and an attitude which Hovvdy quite embodies with their tired-of-the-world’s-shit vocals and lyrics about houses and weird relationships and being an introspective person. Take this verse from second, gorgeous slow sleeper track “Phase” for instance: “i still feel you’re special to me/everyone around agrees/it must be my phase of nothing/nothing sounds so easy to me/i can let things pass right by me/i was made that way.”

In terms of sound, you can clearly hear all the elements of your standard “Band” on these three songs- guitars, drums, keys and vocals are all quite distinct and easy to pick out- and the tracks are readily identifiable as yer “indie rock” type of music. Yet, they do that Pavement/Modest Mousey/90s experimentally-opened indie pop thing by making all of the elements just a bit weird. There’s fuzz over the intro beat to first track “Treat” that makes the snares sound like they’re coming out of era-appropriately shitty speakers, the guitars often twiddle around in slightly-out-of-tune land, tracks don’t stick to the typical song structure completely (like how “Treat” just ends quickly, when it damn feels like it should). The three tracks also fulfill the promise of bands like Pavement that didn’t shy away from accessing a wide palette of emotions and song-types within their genre by jumping around in the soundscape, from the up and fun energy (though still fully slacker-style) of “Treat” to the pretty thoughtfulness of “Phase” to the plodding, enveloping sound of very (oddly for a slow track) short “Color.”

These three tracks are music that, since I came across it, I keep coming back to for the right reasons when it comes to songs that play on old grounds: it’s nostalgic, but it’s fresh to death in that it does its own thing with these sounds from the past. It’s warm and inviting to this dude from the era who remembers suburban half-malaise- it reminds me of trips to the record store with a car full of friends who could barely afford the gas, the record store being not where you went to buy shit for a trendy collection, but the place that mostly sold CDs and you went because you knew you’d hear shit you just would never have found anywhere else. It’s music whose hand I wistfully want to hold on the hood of a car on the single hill overlooking our small hometown that we both feel weird about and want to leave, but both sorta know it’s a time and place we’ll look back on and miss.

I’d be interested to know how these tracks sit with kids born in the post-1989 set, but I’d venture to guess that there’s a ton here to love for you guys as well, what with the eternal fetishization of the past being a thing and indie like this still, as these tracks prove, obviously riding strong in the cultural zeitgeist. Give it a try yourself below, and if you have any feels on this here music that makes me feel old and young at the same time, let this semi-foagie know in the comments below. We’ll likely be getting to the Loafer section of this soon as well here on The Deli, though you should certainly go ahead and give ‘er a listen now, as it’s also damn decent indie weirdness. Slack lives, y’all.

Milk and Cereal, released in May 2015, is the title of the newest album from June 2015 Artist Of The Month: Malandros. The 4-piece, heavy reverb, surfer rock sounds of Milk and Cereal make you want to sit out in your backyard with a piña colada and your feet dipped into hot pink kiddie pool. From the clean chops of the lead guitar to the rolling punch of the bass, Malandros’ new album has some wonderful new tunes for you to soak your head in. The song ‘Hollow Eyes’ makes you want to cruise a little red convertible on some winding roads in the middle of nowhere. This is one to definitely put the top down to, so get a good listen on below.

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Taylor Mangiameli

Before the advent of internet porn and digital cable, pre-pubescent teens and teenagers beginning their descent into sexual deviancy would turn to X-rated channels on the analog cable box to decipher pornographic images through signal distortion. It is in this same vain electronic artist Artificial Earth Machine’s new video for the song ‘Secrets’ is shot in, except swapped in for images of penises and silicone boobies are images of motherboards and other electronic eye candy.

The video for ‘Secrets’ is the first music vid from (The Deli’s Artist of the Month for May) Artificial Earth Machine’s new album Biosphere Simulator, and it was filmed by the man behind the Machine himself, Benjamin Crowley. Crowley’s affinity for laying moody extraterrestrial beats with robotic-like vocals is on full display on the song, and the video itself is alien and somewhat disturbing in Cronenberg fashion.

Don’t take my word for it though, check out the video below and give a listen to Artificial Earth Machine’s trippy experimental electronic album Biosphere Simulator too.

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Tavon Perkins

@tavonperkins

ARTIFICIAL EARTH MACHINE – "SECRETS" from Benjamin Crowley on Vimeo.

Deep summer is a good time for music in Texas. That weird auburn heat that comes down, part the blonde of summer and part the brunette of fall means you can actually get out about in the summer sun and take walks and drives and hang on patios and listen to some goddamned music without wondering if you’re gonna die if you don’t stay perfectly, freakishly hydrated. Change is comin’, and I dunno, maybe I’m alone in this, but it feels like a time when certain tracks and types of music fit the general mood of the earth that don’t always fit at the same time. It’s a pretty nice vibe.

Speakin’ of, here’s what we’ve got for you to vibe to for the end of the month’s Artist of the Month poll, and why we think they’re the shit. This poll is ending quite soon, tomorrow in fact, but we thought we’d give a little last bit of edge to the competition by dropping it all right here for you to gander at, compare, and choose your own personal victor. Put your ears under the tap and let it flow in, and then take that imbibed energy and convert it directly into a vote upon the voting block at your right, if you have not yet and are so inclined. We’ve got a couple early-fall appropriate electronic rock bands, and an introspective hip-hop act appropriate for that change-is-coming feeling, and an indie band that will soundtrack those last golden dyin’ days of the summer just perfectly for ya, so let’s dig in to this month’s selections.

Boss Battle

Boss Battle has just one track available online right now, but they are a band in the process of dropping hard onto the scene. They’ve only been around since 2014, but this first single “Ride” (which just officially dropped 8/31/2015, but which has been kickin’ around the net for a while) is some hard pounding electronic-heavy rock good times. As they call it, the “megapop dual lead vocals” dominate and drive this track that’s got a Mindless Self Indulgence pop/hard/electronic/weird thing goin’, but which is more trying to nail the good pop song instead of just weirding people out. Well-thought of and known Ohm Recording Facility producer Chico Jones provides one half of said vocals, giving this band his 28 years of recording experience and a notoriety boost off the bat, and a slew of recent shows and the looming release of EP “Attack Time” get Boss Battle their nod for this edition of the Artist of the Month poll.

The Nimbus

The hype on The Nimbus is a little early, but well deserved- the band is on the eve of a 7” releasing on September 17 at a show at one of Austin’s best and most underrated clubs, The North Door on East 6th and I-35, but we thought we’d nominate them now because of just how excited we are for more from this band. The Nimbus’ own take on electronics drenched rock music is stylistically, in turn, steeped in the 80s new wave and gothic styles, with clear dramatic vocals over layers and layers of melancholy electronics, heavy thudding beats and droning guitars. The upcoming 7’ and supporting shows along with the just-so-enticing teaser video released for the new record get The Nimbus some deep support here at The Deli, and the early but definitely warranted Artist of the Month nomination. Check out the teaser below.

Tone Royal

We profiled Tone Royal a few weeks ago just after the release of his damn solid debut album Rushing Greatness, and since even that short time ago, it seems like this man’s star has risen considerably. Right now he’s up for not just our Artist of the Month, but also is promoting himself in the San Antonio Music Awards poll and is climbing the charts at Reverb Nation. He was also recently featured in a My San Antonio article on emerging twenty-something’s from the area, and he’s got a big show lined up at The Korova (8/19). He was also set to be a feature at Weird City Hip-Hop Fest until its quite damn depressing cancelation about nine hours before this posting, but despite that sadness (that’s really a blow to the whole area’s hip-hop scene, and not just Tone Royal), this young man is making waves with the smart delivery on his new album, which you can read more about in our recent review here, and which you can listen to in full below.

The Villas

It’s pretty hard to make an impact with just a few songs available, but like Boss Battle above, The Villas have done just that with three lovely tracks from upcoming record Long Player. The Villas do a thing that’s very rooted in the traditional indie rock formula of the 90s and 2000s with little electronics, a punk-gone-nicer feel and big and/or surfy guitar chords over some twangy bass and beats that change-up pretty frequently. Vocals that equally snarl and smile and lyrics like stand-out track Julie’s that say “It seems to me/You’re the apple on the tree/Waiting for the sun/It’s my time” that hearken back to indie rock’s roots in approachable suburban-era good if a little cynical feelings make these three tracks stand up as some of the best Austin indie of the year, and make this young band quite intriguing indeed.

Dark wave electro-industrial duo Mirror Mask released a wickedly glum love song called, ‘Get Back,’ earlier in the year. The track is dripping in new wave romanticism and electric machinations like some illegitimate lovechild of Cabaret Voltaire and Tears For Fears. Fans of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross collaborations or Pilotpriest will dig the edgy foreboding musical textures on this gothic electro-pop song from Mirror Mask. ‘Get Back’ sounds as if it would be spun in any dimly lit after-hours EDM club in the 80’s or any decade thereafter, and hopefully we’ll get an EP or album sometime in the near future from the talented duo. For now you can check out the song below, and make sure to come back here for updates on the group.

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Tavon Perkins

@tavonperkins