Holy Wave – 7th Level Music

Review: Holy Wave – Five of Cups

Depending on whom you ask, the Five of Cups tarot card can symbolize disappointment, regret, or being stuck in a past you won’t leave. If the card is presented upside-down, it can mean you’ve moved on from such things, or are about to do so.

Austin, Texas psych-rockers Holy Wave seemed to have a mixture of both feelings when they made their newest album, Five of Cups. They’ve openly discussed how, with tours being canceled and venues closing all over the world, that a career in music was pretty much a bust. The world was full of pessimism and anger. Thankfully, instead of succumbing to all of it, they channeled the energy into this record.

The weird synths that boldly open title track set us off on an introspective journey as Ryan Fuson sings about fat cats getting fatter while the rest of us spend most of our time in a metaphorical hamster wheel to keep those cats fat. For such despairing lyrics, the song is rather lovely. “Bog Song” is just as lovely, with bright guitars from Fuson and Kyle Hager throughout it. I’m not sure if Fuson’s guitar or Julian Ruiz‘s drums are trippier on “Chaparral,” but Hager’s electric piano and synths add a nice slice of 1970s psych to the already smoky track. In it, the band make references to their original home town of El Paso, Texas and both the good and not-so-good things they left there when they moved to Austin to pursue that music career that would be derailed (along with everyone else’s) in 2019.

The find the best way to ride out the bad energy of the last couple years on “Path of Least Resistance.” Be like water, my friend. I mean, the guitars on this track certainly flow and (holy) wave like those at a Texas beachfront. They keep walking their groovy Zen path (with Joseph Cook‘s bass leading the way) on “Nothing Is Real.” The past to which you’re clinging? It’s not real. It never was. The future about which you’re stressing? That’s not real either. It never will be. The dreamy instrumentation and vocals encourage you to be here now. The present is the only real thing.

We all felt some sense of “Hypervigilance” at some point in the last four years, and many still feel it. “I’m not like you, ’cause they can’t find me,” Fuson sings, wanting to get away from everyone and everything, but knowing in his heart that such a path can lead to madness. He decides to find solace in truth (“I have a secret power. I can see through your shit.”) and, again, just be here now with that truth. The sound of “The Darkest Timeline” seems to indicate it was recorded in an empty pool, an abandoned theatre, a ghost town, or a shopping mall with only five stores left in it. In other words, it sounds amazing (and gets added flair from Mexican psych-duo Lorelle Meets the Obsolete helping out on the track).

By the time we get to “Nothing in the Dark,” Holy Wave are cranking the fuzz and vocal distortions as if to obliterate their fears and ours of what’s lurking outside our homes. The album ends with “Happier,” and the band, and us, coming out of that scary darkness into bright light, turning that Five of Cups card upside-down and deciding to move on from all of it.

If you’re going through hell, keep going. Don’t stop and hang out there. That’s the message of Five of Cups. You can get through it. You can emerge happier. I’m glad they did.

Keep your mind open.

[I’ll be happier if you subscribe.]

[Thanks to Andi at Terrorbird Media.]

Holy Wave release “Nothing in the Dark” from upcoming “Five of Cups” album due August 04, 2023.

Today, Austin, Texas outfit Holy Wave continue to push their historically psychedelic sound with intricate, heady single “Nothing in the Dark”, premiering on post-trash. It’s accompanied by a beautifully-shot, atmospheric visual, directed by Vanessa Pla. The track follows airy “Bog Song,” and psych-tinged single “Happier” featuring Mint Field’s Estrella del Sol.

Both songs taken from their upcoming new album Five of Cups, out August 4, 2023 on Suicide Squeeze Records.

The band have also announced further US + UK/EU fall tour dates.

On the track, band member, Cook offers: “Nothing in the Dark is about how easy it is to let fear take over and control what you do and don’t do, how distractions can keep you from the things you want or disguise themselves as what you want. But when the light disappears from your life, like shadows, the distractions fade away, and you’re left with just yourself and the darkness. So I guess the song is about moving past the fear of the shadows; you can see in the light so that you don’t end up sitting alone in the dark.”

On the video, band member, Fuson offers: “We all acted in the video, but we also did the set design and all the props. Since it was a super small budget, we had to wear a bunch of hats to afford to pay the people who were good at their jobs, haha. The director Vanessa Pla also made some mean carnitas for the crew. They were fire.”

Tour dates
Live Dates
Aug 8 – Andy’s – Denton, TX
Aug 9 – Opolis – Norman, OK
Aug 11 – Back Alley Ballyhoo – Indianapolis, IN
Aug 12 – JJs Bohemia – Chattanooga, TN
Aug 13 – Upstairs at Avondale – Birmingham, AL
Aug 15 – Alabama Music Box – Mobile, AL
Aug 16 – Continental Club – Houston, TX
Aug 17 – Paper Tiger – San Antonio, TX
Oct 12 – Constellation Room – Santa Ana, CA
Oct 14 – Sister – Albuquerque, NM
Oct 15 – Hi-Dive – Denver, CO
Oct 17 – Sleeping Village – Chicago, IL
Oct 18 – Lager House – Detroit, MI
Oct 20 – No Fun – Troy, NY
Oct 21 – Mercury Lounge – NYC, NY
Oct 22 – Baby’s All Right – Brooklyn, NY
Oct 23 – Metro Baltimore – Baltimore, MD
Oct 25 – Gasa Gasa – New Orleans, LA
Oct 26 – Levitation – Austin, TX
Oct 29 – Love Buzz – El Paso, TX
Oct 30 – The Rebel Lounge – Phoenix, AZ
Oct 31 – Casbah – San Diego, CA
Nov 1 – Lodge Room – Highland Park, CA
11/7 – Lille, FR – L’Aéronef
11/8 – Groningen, NL – Vera
11/9 – Copenhagen, DK – Stengade
11/10 – Berlin, DE – Kesselhaus
11/11 – Halle, DE – Huhnermanhattan
11/12 – Prague, CZ – Cafe V Lese
11/13 – Munich, DE – Milla
11/16- Bucharest, RO – Control Club
11/17 – Belgrade, SE – Dom Onladine
11/19 – Zagreb, HR – Vintage Industrial
11/21 – Lyon, FR – Le Sonic
11/22 – Barcelona, ES – Sala Upload
11/23 – San Sebastian, ES – Dabadaba
11/24 – Madrid, ES – Wurlitzer Ballroom
11/28 – Vigo, ES – Kominski
11/30 – Bordeaux, FR – Allez Les Filles
12/1 – Paris, FR – Point Ephemere
12/2 – Brussels, BE – Botanique
12/3 – The Hague, NL – Hink Festival
12/4 – Amsterdam, NL – Paradiso
12/6 – Brighton, UK – The Hope & Ruin
12/7 – Bristol, UK – Crofters Rights
12/8 – Manchester, UK – YES
12/9 – Glasgow, UK – Stereo
12/10 Newcastle, UK – Cluny 2
12/11 – Leeds, UK – Brudenell Social Club
12/12 – London, UK – Moth Club

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Andi at Terrorbird Media.]

Holy Wave release “Bog Song” ahead of their new album due August 04, 2023.

Today, Austin, Texas band Holy Wave continue to push their historically psychedelic sound in an airy, ‘90s-indebted direction on the single “Bog Song”. The dream-poppy track is accompanied by a retro futuristic visual, put together by band member Ryan Fuson and animator Joshua Kirk Ryan. It follows psych-tinged single “Happier” which features Mint Field’s Estrella del Sol. Both songs taken from their upcoming new album Five of Cups, out August 4, 2023 on Suicide Squeeze Records. The band also have select upcoming US tour dates this summer.

On the track, Fuson offers: “Bog Song is a recounting of a trip I took with my dad in Idaho while he was guiding some elk hunters. I was both in awe of the landscape and wildlife while also feeling conflicted about our reasons for being in the mountains. I would sit in the dark, before the sun would come up, and look into the mountains and hills for elk. Sometimes seeing headlights cruising along some mountain road and I would wonder what their drivers intentions were and if the animals in those mountains ever watched headlights like those and wondered the same.”

In Tarot readings, the Five of Cups card signifies loss and grief. Depicting a cloaked figure with a bowed head looming over three spilled chalices while ignoring two remaining vessels, the Five of Cups is generally interpreted as representing a forlorn dwelling on the past and an inability to appreciate the positive things in the present. It was this card that struck a chord with vocalist/guitarist Ryan Fuson, member of the Austin TX subversive subterranean pop outfit Holy Wave, during a Tarot reading at the height of the pandemic. “I was really sure that the music world was finished and it seemed like internet aggression and, well, aggression in general was at an all-time high, so I was ready to stop playing music,” Fuson says. “It could be so easy to become jaded and pessimistic and I had to really decide what perspective I was going to take.”Rather than abandon music, Fuson and his compatriots chose to immerse themselves in their work. Fittingly, the Tarot card became the muse for Holy Wave’s sixth full-length album—Five of Cups.

Back at the beginning of their fifteen-year career, Holy Wave leaned into a tranquil realm of psychedelia, eschewing long-form jams and guitar heroics for a dreamy pop-oriented approach. As the band evolved, the early Sgt. Peppers-meets-the-Velvets sound yielded to more sophisticated melodies and tripped-out instrumentation, effectively steering their music away from sun-bleached nostalgia to a color-saturated dimension where sounds of the past, present, and future intermingled.

The childhood friends of Fuson, Joey Cook, Kyle Hager, and Julian Ruiz grew up in El Paso, where they cut their teeth in the local DIY scene. Hungry for more music and broader perspectives, the members made frequent road trips across the Southwest to catch touring bands who opted to skip West Texas markets. That wanderlust eventually prompted their relocation to Austin, but it also permeated in their adventurous songwriting and love for touring. No small surprise then that these aural explorers felt that a whole way of life was taken from them with the onset of the pandemic. But on Five of Cups, it sounds as if the physical limitations of quarantine life prompted Holy Wave to wander even deeper into new sonic territories.

Five of Cups opens with the title track, establishing the album’s auditory and thematic modus operandi from the get-go. Holy Wave’s lysergic textural palette is immediately apparent in the song’s woozy synth lead and anti-gravity guitar jangle, but the atypical chord progressions and vocal melody steers the music away from anodyne escapism into a pensive grappling between self-determination and defeatism. Holy Wave continue to ride the wistful and phantasmic train on “Bog Song,” where the members vacillate between swells of austere minor chords and layered electric orchestration. From there, the previously released digital single “Chaparral” plays with the band’s own sense of nostalgia, weaving references of their El Paso past into a tapestry of transcendental triumph.

Like so much classic album-oriented rock music, the real magic begins to unfold in the latter half of Five of Cups. On “The Darkest Timeline,” Holy Wave recruits their friends Lorena Quintanilla and Alberto Gonzalez from the Baja California, Mexico psych duo Lorelle Meets the Obsolete to add additional ethereal layers to their intoxicating after-midnight grooves. “Nothing in the Dark” functions on a similar principle, using a steady propulsive drum pattern as the bedrock to tape-warbled synths, arpeggiated guitar chords, jet streams of fuzz, and serene vocals. Five of Cups’ ruminations on combating defeat and disappointment are directly confronted on album closer “Happier.” Once again straddling the melodic line between melancholy and breezy sophistication, Holy Wave examines the synthetic construct of happiness in our modern age and how so often the attainment of comfort lacks any true sense of joy. Yet this isn’t some nihilistic dirge. Rather, it translates as a buoyant reminder that the bandwidth of human experience inherently requires peaks and valleys, and that euphoria is often found in the search outside of the familiar.

As with the Tarot card from which it got its name, Five of Cups is an acknowledgement of hardship and a reminder to embrace the joys available to us. And like early ‘70s Pink Floyd, Holy Wave have figured out how to conjure a sense of profound exhilaration out of pathos, filtering dark elements through a lens and bending them into a kaleidoscope of light.

Suicide Squeeze is proud to present Holy Wave’s Five of Cups on CD/LP/DSP on August 4, 2023.

Live Dates
Aug 8 – Andy’s – Denton, TX
Aug 9 – Opolis – Norman, OK
Aug 11 – Back Alley Ballyhoo – Indianapolis, IN
Aug 12 – JJs Bohemia – Chattanooga, TN
Aug 13 – Upstairs at Avondale – Birmingham, AL
Aug 15 – Alabama Music Box – Mobile, AL
Aug 16 – Continental Club – Houston, TX
Aug 17 – Paper Tiger – San Antonio, TX

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Andi at Terrorbird Media.]

Holy Wave’s new single will leave you “Happier” than you were before you heard it.

Today, Austin, Texas band Holy Wave announce their new album Five Of Cups, out August 4, 2023 on Suicide Squeeze Records. In addition to the announcement, listen to the psych-tinged single “Happier,” premiering on FLOOD Magazine, and features vocals from Mexico-City songwriter and instrumentalist Estrella del Sol, of the band Mint Field. The track sounds like it was unearthed from a time capsule buried on a commune in 1970s California. It’s accompanied by an appropriately dark, trippy video directed by Arturo Baston that only heightens the acid-washed listening experience.
The band have also announced a string of August US tour dates.

On the track, Fuson offers: “We had been working on this song on and off again for a while and it all kind of came together right before we started recording this album. The song is loosely a song to Kurt Vonnegut, and a song taking some of his ideas and quotes and exploring them a little further. Mainly just a song about happiness today and maybe where it was during his time. While recording this song we knew that we wanted something unique for the outro, but we didn’t really know what it was that we were looking for, so we sent the song to Estrella and basically asked her to do whatever she thought was right and she completely exceeded our vision. It really took the song to a whole new level, some place we have never been before.”

In Tarot readings, the Five of Cups card signifies loss and grief. Depicting a cloaked figure with a bowed head looming over three spilled chalices while ignoring two remaining vessels, the Five of Cups is generally interpreted as representing a forlorn dwelling on the past and an inability to appreciate the positive things in the present. It was this card that struck a chord with vocalist/guitarist Ryan Fuson, member of the Austin TX subversive subterranean pop outfit Holy Wave, during a Tarot reading at the height of the pandemic. “I was really sure that the music world was finished and it seemed like internet aggression and, well, aggression in general was at an all-time high, so I was ready to stop playing music,” Fuson says. “It could be so easy to become jaded and pessimistic and I had to really decide what perspective I was going to take.”Rather than abandon music, Fuson and his compatriots chose to immerse themselves in their work. Fittingly, the Tarot card became the muse for Holy Wave’s sixth full-length album—Five of Cups.

Back at the beginning of their fifteen-year career, Holy Wave leaned into a tranquil realm of psychedelia, eschewing long-form jams and guitar heroics for a dreamy pop-oriented approach. As the band evolved, the early Sgt. Peppers-meets-the-Velvets sound yielded to more sophisticated melodies and tripped-out instrumentation, effectively steering their music away from sun-bleached nostalgia to a color-saturated dimension where sounds of the past, present, and future intermingled.

The childhood friends of Fuson, Joey Cook, Kyle Hager, and Julian Ruiz grew up in El Paso, where they cut their teeth in the local DIY scene. Hungry for more music and broader perspectives, the members made frequent road trips across the Southwest to catch touring bands who opted to skip West Texas markets. That wanderlust eventually prompted their relocation to Austin, but it also permeated in their adventurous songwriting and love for touring. No small surprise then that these aural explorers felt that a whole way of life was taken from them with the onset of the pandemic. But on Five of Cups, it sounds as if the physical limitations of quarantine life prompted Holy Wave to wander even deeper into new sonic territories.

Five of Cups opens with the title track, establishing the album’s auditory and thematic modus operandi from the get-go. Holy Wave’s lysergic textural palette is immediately apparent in the song’s woozy synth lead and anti-gravity guitar jangle, but the atypical chord progressions and vocal melody steers the music away from anodyne escapism into a pensive grappling between self-determination and defeatism. Holy Wave continue to ride the wistful and phantasmic train on “Bog Song,” where the members vacillate between swells of austere minor chords and layered electric orchestration. From there, the previously released digital single “Chaparral” plays with the band’s own sense of nostalgia, weaving references of their El Paso past into a tapestry of transcendental triumph.

Like so much classic album-oriented rock music, the real magic begins to unfold in the latter half of Five of Cups. On “The Darkest Timeline,” Holy Wave recruits their friends Lorena Quintanilla and Alberto Gonzalez from the Baja California, Mexico psych duo Lorelle Meets the Obsolete to add additional ethereal layers to their intoxicating after-midnight grooves. “Nothing in the Dark” functions on a similar principle, using a steady propulsive drum pattern as the bedrock to tape-warbled synths, arpeggiated guitar chords, jet streams of fuzz, and serene vocals. Five of Cups’ ruminations on combating defeat and disappointment are directly confronted on album closer “Happier.” Once again straddling the melodic line between melancholy and breezy sophistication, Holy Wave examines the synthetic construct of happiness in our modern age and how so often the attainment of comfort lacks any true sense of joy. Yet this isn’t some nihilistic dirge. Rather, it translates as a buoyant reminder that the bandwidth of human experience inherently requires peaks and valleys, and that euphoria is often found in the search outside of the familiar.

As with the Tarot card from which it got its name, Five of Cups is an acknowledgement of hardship and a reminder to embrace the joys available to us. And like early ‘70s Pink Floyd, Holy Wave have figured out how to conjure a sense of profound exhilaration out of pathos, filtering dark elements through a lens and bending them into a kaleidoscope of light.

Suicide Squeeze is proud to present Holy Wave’s Five of Cups on CD/LP/DSP on August 4, 2023.

Keep your mind open.

[I’d be happier if you subscribed.]

[Thanks to Andi at Terrorbird Media.]

Top 35 albums of 2020: #’s 20 – 16

We’re into the top 20 albums of 2020 (out of the nearly 80 new albums I reviewed last year). Who made the cut? Read on…

#20: Matt Karmil – STS371

This EDM record is full of throbbing bass, oil slick beats, and ambient / psychedelic synths. It works its way under your skin and moves your bones.

#19: Ultraflex – Visions of Ultraflex

Cover that looks like a 1980s New Age CD? Check. Synthwave keyboards that could fit right into a sci-fi film? Check. Sexy Replicant vocals? Check. Visions of Ultraflex manages to be both a neat synthwave album and one of the best make-out records of 2020 at the same time.

#18: Oh Sees – Metamorphosed

This album is “only” five tracks in length, and the first three are under two minutes each. The other two, however, make up for the rest of the album’s time length of over forty minutes. It’s a mix of punk rockers and prog-psych-krautrock jams that shows how deftly Oh Sees can move back and forth between styles.

#17: Holy Wave – Interloper

Holy Wave came back with a fine addition to their catalogue. Interloper blends psychedelia with some shoegaze and surf elements and is full of songs about not fitting in or being comfortable anywhere. That alone could sum up 2020.

#16: Oh Sees – Live at Big Sur

Yes, two Oh Sees albums in this list. Live at Big Sur was their second live-streamed show of 2020. They played at the Henry Miller Library and dove deep into their back catalogue to play stuff they hadn’t played live in years. The encore was a barrage of covers, many of them Black Flag tunes.

We’re over halfway through the list! Come back tomorrow for more!

Keep your mind open.

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Review: Holy Wave – Interloper

Austin dream-psych rockers Holy Wave‘s new album, Interloper, is a great blend of surf drones, shoegaze touches, and mind-trip riffs. The weird album cover art sums up the sound of the album fairly well – abstract to a degree, expanding and shrinking at the same time, and full of riddles.

Opening with a song called “Schmetterling” (German for “Butterfly”) is a good choice for the record, as the song spreads its silky wings and flutters out of your speakers with a happy, warm, Zen groove (“The sound of destruction sounds just like creation.”). “R&B” sings R&B lyrics (“I knew I wanted to be with you when you kissed me, and now these lips are just for you. I only have eyes for you.”) over psychedelic guitar chords and synthwave keyboards.

The Beatles-influenced title track is an ode (or possibly a lament) to the different worlds of touring the world and hanging out at home. The prominent synth work on it is quite good. “Maybe Then I Can Cry” is great psychedelia and a song about lost loves and holding onto memories. “Escapism” has the band hushing us as the psychedelic butterfly wings warm in the Texas sun and then take flight across an herb garden in some lovely hippie woman’s backyard.

However, on the next track they declare “I’m Not Living in the Past Anymore.” It’s a hot synth-rock track and a highlight of the record with the band pleading for us (and themselves) to stay in the present and embrace all there is, was, and will be. “No Love” is a dreamy track, not unlike a Slowdive tune (who are known influences on the band) with its vocals and instruments sounding like that butterfly now gliding along a lazy river that flows near a club playing a mix of acid jazz and psych-rock.

The title of “Hell Bastards” sounds like it’s going to be the theme song to an obscure European WWII movie from the 1960’s, but it’s actually a cool krautrock song. The beats of “Buddhist Pete” (the longest track on the record) get into your shoulders and make you move. The closing track, “Redhead,” drifts into your ears, settles in your brain, and stays there like a butterfly perched on your arm.

An interloper is someone who becomes involved in a place or situation where they’re not wanted or don’t belong. It’s easy to feel like that, especially in 2020, and even in a “normal” year if you’re in a touring band. Holy Wave probably felt like interlopers scores of times while touring, and Interloper is a great narrative of them being out of place at home and abroad.

Keep your mind open.

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Levitation Austin 2019 recap – Day One

It was our fifth year attending Levitation Austin since 2013. The festival had been moved to the autumn from the spring this year, so I was interested to see if the change on the calendar would affect the size of the crowds at some of the venues.

The four-day festival started for us at Barracuda – the club where we would end up spending most of the next four nights. Nearly all the bands we wanted to see were playing there over the course of the festival, and the first show there was sold out. First up were Hoover iii from Los Angeles, who played a good set of psychedelia mixed with some shoegaze elements.

Next were a band I was really keen on seeing – Minami Deutsch. A Japanese band that makes krautrock? I’m there. They put on my favorite set of the night. We later met lead singer / guitarist, Kyotaro Miula, outside Barracuda at a food truck where we all complained about the unseasonably cold weather (for Austin, at least) and I convinced him to try the chicken shawarma wrap.

Another California band, Jjuujjuu, was next. I hadn’t seen them since a trip to Arizona years ago when they were part of the Desert Daze tour. They still sound great with their heavy psychedelic tunes.

Coming all the way from Melbourne, Australia were Stonefield, who were good to hear after I arrived too late to catch them in Chicago with ORB and King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard a few months ago.

Austin’s own Holy Wave soon followed, and they put on a good set of stoner psych to a happy hometown crowd.

The night ended with Kikagaku Moyo, the second Japanese band of the night. I stayed for the first half of their set and then had to call it quits due to being exhausted from a long day of travel and the cold weather at the outdoor stage that was almost to the point of chilling me to the bone. Regardless, what I heard was good. Anything involving sitar shredding is fine by me.

It was a cold, but good start to the festival. The next day would bring confetti, Hell’s house band, more sitar shredding, and warnings against falling asleep.

Keep your mind open.

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Levitation France 2018 recap

This year was not only the first time my wife and I traveled to France, it was also the first time we traveled to Levitation France in Angers – a mid-size town about one and a half hours by train southwest of Paris. It was the sixth year of the two-day festival and we’d wanted to go ever since we started attending Levitation Austin in 2013. The dates finally worked out this year, so we made the trip.

First, the festival is held in Le Quai – a great performance space venue in Angers along the Maine River. It has at least five performance areas in it, and the festival uses two of them for shows, two for food trucks, one for merchandise, and one for a bar.

That’s the outside of the venue in the main food truck area. Immediately inside that big open door is the main stage (called the “Forum”). We didn’t start there, however. We started in the smaller performance space (“T400”) at the back with French garage rockers Wild Fox.

They were the first band on the first day, and they came to make a statement. They threw down wild energy that whipped up the early crowd, ending by kicking apart their drum set, playing with broken strings, and churning out plenty of good feedback.

I’ve heard a lot of good things about the new album from La Luz, so we checked out their set on the Forum stage. They had a good crowd, and their California sun-drenched psychedelia was a nice match for the sun coming in through the window behind them.

We grabbed a bite from the food trucks (where I scored some tasty Senegalese food), and then headed toward the T400 stage to check out Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs. On the way there, we passed Holy Wave doing their soundcheck on the Forum stage. They were playing Interpol‘s “Untitled,” much to the delight of myself and a woman who came running from the back bar to cheer them.

Pigs x 7 were so loud and heavy that we had to fade back a bit and leave their set early. I think my wife’s head was about to split open from the intensity. We caught Holy Wave‘s set. They’re another band I’ve wanted to see for a while, and they put on a nice set of Texas psych-rock and seemed to be having a great time.

We then zipped back to the T400 stage to catch most of Prettiest Eyes‘ set. It was our favorite of the night. The electro-punk oddballs from Puerto Rico and Mexico put on a great show with crazy beats, boundless energy, and plenty of swagger. My wife picked up a button from their merchandise table afterwards. I need to get their latest album. John Dwyer of Thee Oh Sees said at Levitation Austin this year that they’re one of his favorite bands. It’s easy to see why when you see them live.

We headed back to the Forum stage to see the Soft Moon. If you haven’t figured it out by now, the two stages are so close together, and the set times staggered so well, that you can see every band that plays over the course of the two days without trouble (and usually see their full sets). We saw the Soft Moon at our first Levitation Austin festival, back when it was still known as the Austin Psych Fest. It was good to see them again and get a hefty dose of industrial dark wave.

We ended the first night with the Blank Tapes, who my wife was keen on seeing after she checked out one of their videos. They have a nice, mellow sound that blends some folk with their psychedelia. My favorite song during the set was one the lead singer wrote to sing to his house plants (“Not marijuana…Regular plants.”).

On day two, we got to Le Quai in time to see Bryan’s Magic Tears start the show. They played a nice set of psych-pop, but hunger won over on us and we headed to the food trucks for some crepes and a great Senegalese chicken sandwich.

Go! Zilla were on the Forum stage immediately after them, and they provided some nice psychedelic dinner music for us.

The biggest surprise of the day, and possibly the whole festival, was the set by Flamingods. They put on a wild set of Middle Eastern, Afrobeat, and psychedelic music that had the members changing instruments so many times that I couldn’t keep track of whom mainly played what.

We then caught Juniore on the Forum stage. They’re an electro / post-punk three piece from France who put on a quirky, neat set with one of them wearing a silver mask the entire time. My wife said it reminded her of a Sleestak from Land of the Lost.

We were keen on seeing MIEN at the festival since we’d been at their premiere live gig at Levitation Austin earlier this year. They didn’t disappoint and are well in the groove after a lot of touring to support their debut album of dark psychedelia.

Another fun surprise was the set by French electro duo Oktober Lieber. They were heavier than I’d expected and threw down some impressive industrial dance grooves.

The rest of the night was full of electronic music for us. First was French musician Flavien Berger – a one-man show of techno beats, vocal effects, and synth work.

We ended the night, and our first Levitation France festival, with Radar Men from the Moon, who played nothing but synths, keyboards, and sequencers instead of their usual guitars and drums. It was a great, powerful set that made us run for the merchandise room and buy their first record.

We’ll definitely go back, but I’m not sure it will be in the cards for next year. We loved the festival and Angers. Cross it off your bucket list, too.

Keep your mind open.

At Le Quai, the fire extinguishers apparently spray siracha.

Keep your mind open.

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Detroit’s Echo Fest sets lineup for 2016.

One night only! Detroit’s Echo Fest has announced another great lineup for the psychedelic rock festival. Returning to the newly renovated Magic Stick, Echo Fest boasts Nik Turner’s Hawkwind, Holy Wave, Wolf Eyes, Rogue Satellites, Heaven’s Gateway Drugs, Nest Egg, festival curators Sisters of Your Sunshine Vapor, and many more cool bands.

It’s a great way to spend the day, so get your tickets now.

Keep your mind open.

Levitation Austin artist spotlight: Holy Wave

Fresh off the release of their new album, Freaks of Nuture, Holy Wave will be performing their groovy stoner-psych rock at Levitation Austin on April 29th. I loved their last record, Relax, so I look forward to hearing the new material (especially since I missed them the last time they played Levitation Austin a couple years ago). My wife also likes what she’s heard from these guys. I think you would, too.

Keep your mind open.

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