Canadian DJ, producer, and mathematician Dan Snaith, otherwise known as Caribou, released Swim in 2010, and I’m not sure how I missed it. I actually hadn’t heard of him until he was slated to perform at the cancelled Levitation Music Festival in 2016. I had hoped to catch his set there, as I was impressed with the few songs I heard while researching him ahead of the festival, but Mother Nature had other plans.
So, I put him on a list of bands and artists whose discographies I need to explore deeper, and I finally got around to picking up a copy of this album. I don’t know why I waited two years, because Swim is excellent.
Starting with the hip and groovy “Odessa,” Snaith punctuates dance floor bass with strange bird cry-like sounds while he sings about a woman striking out on her own. “Sun” (the only lyric in the song, repeated over and over) bounces, thumps, and glistens with house beats and shining synths. The synths on “Kaili” are a bit distorted, but it works for the building tension of the song (which seems to be about another woman in Snaith’s life, this one dealing with illness and possibly approaching death).
“Found Out” is full of quirky beats and synths that sound like doors being slammed in a video game (and the jingle bells are a great touch). “Bowls” is lush with its slightly Asian bells, strings, and synths. I’m not sure if the title of “Leave House” means Snaith wanted to leave house music behind and explore other genres of electronica in 2010, but it wouldn’t surprise me if that’s the case. He explores many avenues on Swim, so it makes sense that he constantly wants to expand his boundaries and skill set. It reminds me a bit of Alan Parsons Project tunes with Snaith’s vocal work and the synth bass.
The album mellows out with the last three tracks. “Hannibal” and “Lalibela” are almost dream-house, and “Lalibela” is especially trippy with Snaith’s reverberated vocals. “Jamelia” is sci-fi lounge jazz mixed with warped house beats, almost like a space station night club is keeping the beats going while the station wobbles in orbit.
Snaith has plenty of other material out there, and Swim is intriguing enough to make me want to seek out more of his work. It might intrigue you as well.
Keep your mind open.
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We started the fourth day at the Levitation Music Festivalwith another tradition – the Sunday gospel brunch at Threadgill’s restaurant. It’s a pretty good deal, and the music always sound good. The band there this year was the Levites, and they were having a great time.
The first band we saw at the festival was Acid House Ragas, which consists of DJ Al Lover on synths and beats and can-we-call-him-a-friend-by-now? Rishi Dhir on sitar. They got the festival off to a nice start with meditative drone music.
Acid House Ragas at Stubb’s BBQ.
We left Stubb’s to grab a bite at the Moonshine Cafe, which serves “southern comfort food.” Holy cow. That was some of the best blackened catfish I’ve had in a long time. After stuffing our bellies, we returned to Stubb’s in time to almost bump into Christian Bland of the Black Angelsand Christian Bland and the Revelators. This was the fifth time I’ve met him, and I thanked him again for the festival. He and his bandmates help curate it, and I told him it was our fourth year there and we already had tickets for Levitation Francein the fall. He thanked me and was excited to hear we were going to the fall festival. He’s always in a good mood whenever I bump into him.
We caught most of the set from the Brian Jonestown Massacre. My wife flipped out when she realized band member Joel Gion was “the tambourine guy from Gilmore Girls.” They put on a set to an always appreciative crowd, and frontman Anton Newcombe encouraged all of us to quit using pesticides in order to save bees. We also met up with James from Ancient Riverand his wife, Nakia, while there. We hadn’t seen them since 2014, and I hadn’t seen James since 2015 when he and his bandmate, Alex, played a gig in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. It was great to catch up with them and meet friends of theirs from England who were also at the show.
Brian Jonestown Massacre
Mr. Newcombe later walked through the crowd during the Black Angels‘ set, shaking hands with yours truly and many other fans. The woman behind me gave him a big hug and her boyfriend also shook hands with him. It made that woman’s night. They talked about it for another ten minutes at least.
The Black Angels, as always, put on a great set. They started with “Young Men Dead,” their usual closer, and kept tearing it up from there. Lead guitarist Christian Blandshredded more than usual, and drummer Stephanie Bailey was once again an unstoppable beast.
The Black Angels
We headed to Barracuda to catch synth-punks POW!. Unfortunately, we missed most of their set, but what we did hear was a fun and raucous. Their weird cover of the Addams Family theme was a nice treat.
POW! in your face
Following them were Oh Sees, who I’ve been wanting to catch for years. James told me he’d seen them perform the previous night and said it was an impressive, high energy set. Sure enough, all the hype you’ve heard is true. A mosh pit broke out within the first four bars and I was soon in it. Various drinks were flying, people were crowd surfing, and my shoes were a stained, dirty mess by the end of it. It was a great way to end the festival on a high note and leave us with enough energy and hunger to grab a late night pizza slice on the way back to our car.
Oh Sees
It was a nice return for Levitation Austin. The town, and the festival, needed a good comeback. Multiple people at the festival agreed with me that the vibe there is always good. You don’t see or meet a lot of jackasses at this festival, which is always a plus (but, good grief, why are people still smoking cigarettes in 2018, and especially in the middle of a crowd?).
Multi-instrumentalist, producer, and dream warrior Steve Davit has released his first EP of solo instrumentals, Off / On, and it might be your favorite new acid jazz record.
Beginning with the so-funky-you-can-barely-stand-it “Forward,” the album instantly makes you feel like you’re in a re-creation of a 1930’s jazz club on a space station in the next century. “Coniferous” starts with a ping-pong beat before Davit’s baritone saxophone and new wave synths add layers of intrigue.
I know Steve Davit and I have a mutual love for Morphine, and I can’t help but think Dana Colley’s saxophone work inspired some of Davit’s on “Philly Sophia” – which hits you like an expert boxing combination (set-up…delivery). “Wanna Dance” is smooth jazz mixed with quirky beats that almost make it sound like it’s moving forward and backward in time. The closer, “Night Song,” has synth-vibes and is perfect for walking out of a dive bar at 3am in hopes of finding a late night pizza slice and someone to cook brunch for in a few hours. It feel melancholy at first, but ends up being sweetly hopeful.
Davit’s currently on tour with Marian Hill, and he told me during my interview with him that he’ll have copies of Off / On for sale at shows. Grab a copy there or through his website. You need his grooves more than you probably realize.
Keep your mind open.
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The third day of Austin’s Levitation Music Festivalwas off to a good start when we bumped into Rishi Dhir of Elephant Stoneand MIENat a vegetarian breakfast cafe and then the Men at the same place. Mr. Dhir remembered seeing us at a small show in Pittsburgh and told us he and the other chaps in MIEN were a bit nervous about performing their first live show at Stubb’s BBQ that night. We told him we were sure they’d rock it. I also told Nick from the Men that they reminded me of the MC5, and he was a bit blown away by the compliment.
MIEN did indeed rock their first live show. We heard their soundcheck while dining at Stubb’s (Where, by the way, the best deal is the all-you-can-eat menu.) and we again saw Mr. Dhir not long before their set. We told him they sounded great, and they did during the full set. They played nearly their entire debut album and their nervous energy only seemed to benefit the set.
MIEN in their first live gig.
Local synth heroes (and Stranger Things score creators) SURVIVE were up next and put on a deep, creepy set that was longer than they expected. They kept thinking they were out of time, but they still had enough to play three more songs before they really were done. It was funny to see them look offstage and ask, learn they had plenty more time, and then grin as they tried to figure out what to play next.
SURVIVE getting creepy.
Finishing up the night at Stubb’s were shoegaze legends Slowdive. I was late to their party, but got on board with their self-titled return album after nearly twenty years of no new music. There was a good-sized crowd there by this point and people went crazy for them. Many professed their love for singer / keyboardist / guitarist Rachel Goswell, who seemed humbled by all the love.
Slowdive
They nearly leveled the place with reverb, fuzz, and dreamy rock. My wife wasn’t sure to make of it. She later told me it nearly put her to sleep, which I suppose is one of the goals of such ethereal music.
We then moved over to the Empire Garage to hopefully catch the last half of No Joy‘s set, but alas they had finished by the time we got there. Dan Deacon already had a big crowd and was spinning up a wild dance party despite his laptop computer giving him fits and a vocal distortion pedal breaking. He had the audience building a tunnel with their arms above their heads and dance through it until his laptop computer crashed.
Dan Deacon’s dance tunnel.
We left a bit early, and I later read on Twitter than Deacon smashed his laptop by the end of the show after it crashed yet again.
Up next, my wife freaks out upon seeing Joel Gion on stage, Rishi Dhir returns, and I get Red Bull dumped on me.
I’ve been looking for Bombay the Hardway – Guns, Cars & Sitars for years. Lo and behold, I found it at Waterloo Records in Austin, Texas during my recent trip there, and in a used CD bin to boot. It’s a collection of “brownsploitation” music from 1970’s Bollywood action and crime films composed (often quickly and with all sorts of studio hiccups) by legendary Bollywood film music brothers Kalyanji and Anandji Shah and edited by Dan the Automator, who convinced Anandji to release these tracks from his vault. The result is a stunning, ultra-cool mix of funky jams, lounge music, and make-out tracks you need to hear.
“Bombay 405 Miles” opens the album with a nice sitar gliss and then turns into intense music suitable for a stakeout or sneaking into a palace to commit a jewel heist. “The Good, the Bad and the Chutney” brings in, no surprise, spaghetti western guitar touches to up the intrigue. “My Guru” has a lovely sitar groove throughout it, and the flute loop is icing on the cake (or chutney on the naan, if you prefer).
“Ganges A Go-Go” is 1970’s psychedelic garage rock filtered through a hookah, and it’s a crime if “The Great Gambler” wasn’t the opening song for a movie of the same name. It immediately throws you into a world of high stakes dice rolls, sexy people, exotic cars, and nefarious schemes. “Professor Pyarelal” is, by contrast, a lounge groove with between the sheets beats and sizzling synths. “Fists of Curry” doesn’t hit as hard as you’d expect with such a title, but it is slicker than Bruce Lee’s footwork.
The squeaky guitar and table-infused rhythms of “Punjabis, Pimps & Players” are a great combination, and you can just imagine “Inspector Jay from Delhi” going after them in his muscle car (with a case of $50,000 in the trunk) while his bad-ass, bass heavy theme song plays from its speakers. “Satchidananda” could be a love theme, or it could be the music for a leisurely journey on a Bond villain’s yacht. “Theme from Don” lets you know that Don is a bad cat who will probably punch your lights out as soon and then kiss your girl if you cross him, so don’t. The underlying synths on it convey menace, and those tabla drums and sitar riffs convey street smarts beyond belief.
“Fear of a Brown Planet” (a nice play on Public Enemy‘s record Fear of a Black Planet) has hints of John Barry’s James Bond theme in it, but it adds psychedelic spice to the mix. “Uptown Bollywood Nights” has fierce drumming and those tinny, weird, great synths you only seem to hear in bhangra and Bollywood music. The beats on “Kundans Hideout” are even wilder, as are the crazy vocal sounds (chants, whistles, and possibly a woman nearing orgasm). It’s the soundtrack of escaping from a madman’s lair and rescuing your latest fling along the way. The record ends with “Swami Safari,” which, as you might have guessed, combines surf rock guitar with Bollywood beats.
This record will stay in your head for days. It always sounds great. There’s a sequel out there that was released in 2001 that I now need to find. Find them both if you can.
Portland, Oregon is home to many things – big, foggy forests, dark coffee, gray skies, cliffs pounded by the relentless ocean, and now sludge-psych rockers Blackwater Holylight (Allison Faris – bass and vocals, Cat Hoch – drums, Laura Hopkins – guitar and vocals, Sarah McKenna – synths).
Their self-titled debut starts with the bass heavy “Willow,” which somehow mixes goth, psychedelia, and groove rock. The burst of drums and synths about thirty seconds in is exhilarating. You’re grooving with them like a 1960’s super-spy / vampire two-and-a-half minutes later. Hopkins’ guitar work on “Wave of Conscience” reminds me of early Cream, and McKenna’s synths remind me of some of Frank Zappa‘s work.
Faris’ bass takes front stage on “Babies,” and it sounds like she learned the craft from David J. of Love and Rockets. Her vocals and McKenna’s circus sideshow synths give the track a demented touch that you can’t shake out of your head. “Paranoia” starts out with appropriately intimidating reverb on Hopkins’ guitars, and they only get louder and creepier as the tune builds. Everything bursts forth when Faris’ sings, “Here comes the sunrise.” on “Sunrise.” It’s a lovely little gem in the middle of the darker previous track and the sludge metal of “Slow Hole” (which almost does sound like a sinkhole forming in the middle of a forgotten road).
Hoch’s beats are downright danceable on “Carry Her,” while Hopkins’ guitar work at first sounds like something off a mellow Cure record and then turns into a crunchy, distorted wallop. The album ends with the kinky / creepy “Jizz Witch” – a slow burning doom track that seems to be summoning up…something, but ends before whatever “it” is can emerge. Whew.
Blackwater Holylight’s debut is full of these shadowy moments. It works into the back of your mind and lingers there. It intrigues and unsettles in just the right balance, as good art often should.
Consisting of members of the Black Angels (Alex Maas on guitar, bass, and vocals), the Earlies (John Lapham on synths), Elephant Stone(Rishi Dhir on sitar, bass, and vocals), and the Horrors (Tom Furse on synths), MIEN are a psychedelic supergroup who have been at least discussing their self-titled debut album since 2004. Now that it’s here, they (and we) can rejoice in a job well done.
Staring with the cosmic “Earth Moon,” Maas’ vocals are drenched in smoky reverb as he sings about how our beliefs can alter our reality. Where that track is a lovely stroll through a psychedelic meadow, the second cut, “Black Habit,” is downright creepy with Lapham and Furse’s synths providing a dark drone under Maas’ lyrics about addictions. “(I’m Tired of) Western Shouting” might be my favorite cut on the record. The drum beats are wicked, as are Maas’ lyrics about 24-hours news cycles, angry Internet rants, and people being proud to be rude or even bigoted. The whole band clicks on it, and it slays live.
“You Dreamt” layers on the synths and is pretty much a dark wave track (and a good one). The instrumental “Other” floats on Furse and Lapham’s synths and could’ve easily fit into the score for Blade Runner: 2049. “I feel so high,” Maas sings on “Hocus Pocus.” You might feel the same as it warps into distorted madness and heady freak-outs. Thee deep bass synths on “Ropes” fuel the urgency of Maas’ vocals about fear.
“Echolalia” is defined as mindless repetition of words or sentences as a symptom of a psychiatric disorder or as a repetition of words by a child learning to speak. Both definitions seem appropriate for the track of the same name, as it churns with an almost frantic energy and then comes to an abrupt start that surprises you. “Odessey” has brighter synths, and even female backing vocals, but they hide menace within them. The album ends with a reprise of “Earth Moon.” It’s a mellower version than the first and it creates a nice, dreamy ending to a mostly spooky record.
It’s a solid debut. MIEN are currently on their first live tour, so don’t miss them or this record.
Keep your mind open.
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The second day of Levitation Austinwas going to be a feast of bands from outside the U.S. The number of international acts that play the festival every year is one of my favorite things about it. I’ve discovered many great bands I wouldn’t have heard otherwise at Levitation Austin.
After a great brunch at the South Congress Cafe (which I couldn’t finish), the first of the six bands we’d see that day was Superfonicos – an Austin band of locals and Colombians who play a great mix of Afro / Colombian funk. They played to a crowd that seemed to grow larger with each track, as more and more people walking by the venue came in to hear who was dropping all that killer groove.
Superfonicos kicking off the party.
Following them were musicians all the way from Algeria – Imarhan. My wife and I have fallen in love with Tuareg music thanks to the Levitation festival, and this was our second time seeing Imarhan there. A lot more people were hyped to see them this time than when we saw them in 2016. It’s not that they were a bad band in 2016 – far from it. It’s that they’ve been working hard, touring a lot, and have a fine new album (Temet) that’s getting a lot of buzz. They had everyone moving and people behind me in the crowd were stunned by their bass player and lead guitarist.
Imarhan
Closing the night at Cheer Up Charlie’s were hometown heroes / aliens Golden Dawn Arkestra, who entered the venue through the crowd and billowing sage incense everywhere before they launched into a sun-worshipping funky freakout that had a packed crowd of dancing revelers all communing with other-dimensional beings. GDA never disappoint, and some people we met that night (one of whom was in a psychedelic band out of Chicago) who hadn’t seen them before thought the set was one of the coolest things they’d ever seen.
We then went over to Barracuda to see Chilean psychedelic rock outfit Vuelveteloca. Unfortunately, we missed the first half of their set, but what we did here was psych-rock as solid as the Andes.
NYC’s The Men followed, and they came out gunning. In the first two tracks I thought, “This might be the closest I ever get to an MC5show.” They even played some Captain Beefheart-like stuff by the end. They were loud and brash, which made the next set even weirder.
The final act we saw the second night was another Chilean band – Follakzoid. I’d only heard a couple tracks by them before coming to Austin, and they were good ones that bordered somewhere between shoegaze and psychedelia. I didn’t know what to expect from a live show, but I can tell you it about melted my mind. They played two tracks and an encore. The two tracks during their main set were about twenty-five minutes each of droning, repetitive (in a good way) space rock that is hard to describe. Imagine synth bass and riffs combined with drumming from apparently a human metronome (considering how long he kept those beats going) and maybe five different notes played in different ways and with different effects and levels of distortion and reverb. Sound weird? It was – wonderfully so. Sound like it shouldn’t be good? You couldn’t be more wrong. It was one of the best sets I saw all weekend, easily in the top three.
Up next, my wife tries to figure out the big deal about Slowdive, we bump into more musicians, and a laptop keeps giving someone fits.
It was our fourth trip to the Levitation Music Festival (which I still call the Austin Psych Fest now and then), and we were happy and eager to support it after the weather-battered and cancelled 2016 festival. That took such a toll that the 2017 festival in Austin was also cancelled. This needed to be a good bounce back for the Reverb Appreciation Society (who curate the festival) and the city of Austin. The city still remembered the series of bombings that plagued the city just a month earlier, so the town needed a morale boost. It worked. The limited number of deluxe weekend passes (which allowed access to all shows across the four days) sold out in minutes. No, I didn’t get any of them. I, like most of the attendees, had to buy tickets for individual shows.
The biggest change for the festival this year was that it was no longer held at Carson Creek Ranch and its three outdoor stages. The 2018 festival was held in multiple venues in downtown Austin – Stubb’s BBQ, Emo’s, Cheer Up Charlie’s, Empire Garage, Barracuda, Beerland, the Mohawk, Volcom Garden, and Hotel Vegas. My wife said she preferred the festival this way, as it gave us more places to relax between (and during) sets and more options for food. We rented an apartment via VRBO that was a ten-minute drive from the venues and the Spot Hero parking app became our best friend over the course of the four days. We never paid more than $10.00 for parking for an entire night while in Austin.
I had five shows slated for the first day of the festival (Thursday). The first was Ron Gallo. I hadn’t seen Mr. Gallo and his crew since I saw them open for Screaming Females in a small Fort Wayne, Indiana show. I was keen to see how big of a crowd they’d get since they’d achieved notoriety with their first record and toured with the Black Angels. I’m happy to say they had a good crowd at Stubb’s and were a great opening to the festival. They encouraged us to create our own reality and that everything will be okay.
Ron Gallo at Stubb’s BBQ.
We headed out for dinner after their fun set, and I started two trends that continued the entire weekend. The first was finding pennies. I found at least three every day we were in the city. It bordered on bizarre. I don’t know why Austin apparently has no use for pennies (and even quarters), but I’ll happily take them.
We ate at Daruma, a great ramen bar in downtown Austin. We started the second trend of the weekend there – Meeting musicians. A group of six sat at the bench-like table with us and we learned they were a self-described “gospel / hip-hop” band called Kings Kaleidoscope from Seattle who were playing in town that night. We also learned there that our broth was probably made by the bass player and / or drummer for Holy Wave, who were playing a record release party that night. We didn’t catch them, because we wanted to get back to Stubb’s to see Ty Segall. We got back a bit earlier than we’d planned, and ended up catching Parquet Courts‘ set first.
Parquet Courts at Stubb’s BBQ.
They played a loud, energetic set, but it sounded like they were being heckled by multiple people in the crowd who either wouldn’t shut up between songs or kept yelling out requests. A couple band members told them multiple times to cool it.
Ty Segall came to shred. Every song seemed designed to burn the Stubb’s stage to the ground. He had some problems with the lighting, however, and had to tell the light technician to change the lighting and stop strobe lights and projections because he couldn’t see the rest of the band from his position on stage. My wife asked, “Shouldn’t all of that had been established in his contract ahead of time?”
Ty Segall at Stubb’s BBQ. That’s him shredding on the far right.
We missed his encore because we went to Barracuda to catch Virginia stoner metal powerhouses Windhand. We got there about halfway through their set, and they were already melting faces. My wife asked if the bass player’s hair covered his face because their music had melted it. It was a reasonable question, considering how heavy their riffs were.
Windhand throwing it down like a titanium gauntlet at Barracuda.
Unfortunately, we missed the set by Christian Bland and the Revelators, but we did get to Beerland to see Austin’s own Ringo Deathstarr. They’re local shoegaze legends, and I’d wanted to hear them for a while. Despite the Beerland sound engineer not being able to keep some microphone feedback in check, Ringo Deathstarr put in a solid performance. Their drummer has serious chops. I left wanting more.
Ringo Deathstarr at Beerland.
We got back to the apartment around 2:00am, which was another trend that would continue all weekend. It was a good first night, and we were happy to be back.
Up next, a day of funk, garage rock, and Chilean psychedelic freak-outs.
Keep your mind open.
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Los Angeles’ Crystales, named after a glass cathedral in Orange County, California, play a skillful style of shoegaze dream rock on their debut self-titled album. The tight connections of the band mates (brothers Nick and Billy Gil on guitar and vocals, neighbor Jason Hanakeawe on drums, and cousin Tony Infante on bass) only help amplify their skill set. It’s always good to hear new, good shoegaze, and Crystales fit the bill.
The album opens with a daring song titled “Boring.” Trust me, the album isn’t. The song’s about a boring wanna-be lover and how draining it can be to socialize with someone who can’t take the hint. The sunny guitars on it seem to give the song’s subject a chance at romance, however. “Séance” is just as bright, and I love the way the fuzz kicks in during the chorus like an unexpected wave knocking you over on a beach.
I also love that there’s a song called “Kate Blanchett” on this album, and that it’s one of the hardest rockers on the record. Who doesn’t have a crush on her? “Lie Awake at Night” takes a stroll into a psychedelic park on a sunny day and is about someone missing their lover. It’s secretly melancholy, but the wall of dream pop sound hides it well. Countering its love lyrics is the heavier “Shoggoth,” which refers to a Lovecraftian monster that can drive people mad just by looking at it. Is it any coincidence that Infante’s bass is prominent throughout the track and thuds like a fearful heartbeat? “When It’s Over” is brash and bold but it still keeps that shoegaze fuzzy edge that runs throughout the album.
“Ariel” is the sound of southern California road trips with the top down and the front passenger trying to make out with you while you’re driving. That shimmering sound continues on “Donkey” and “I Don’t Care.” “I Don’t Care” isn’t as apathetic as its title would have you believe, but it is about cutting ties with a lover who holds you back from your potential. “Agrias” lures you into a bit of a trance, and the closer, “Honora,” brings back some hard-edged crunch to the guitars to send you off feeling like a bad ass.
This is a solid debut. I’m loving the resurgence of shoegaze in the last few years, and bands like Crystales are giving us fans of the genre a lot to love.
