Psychedelic – 7th Level Music

Interview: Holy Wave – May 08, 2026

L-R: Yours truly, Julian Ruiz, Joey Cook, Ryan Fuson

Three of the psych-rocker lads from Holy Wave, Julian Ruiz (drums), Joey Cook (guitar), and Kyle Hager (keyboards, guitars, vocals) were kind enough to sit down with me outside the Far Out Lounge at this year’s Austin Psych Fest not long after their as-usual fine set Friday night. We talked about their latest album, Five of Cups, working with Lorelle Meets the Obsolete, horror movies, ramen, and lyrics changing on the fly.

7th Level Music: Good set as always. Every time I’ve seen you guys, it just kills. The Studio 22 and B-Sides album just came out, which is great. Thanks for putting that out there. What are you working on now?

Julian Ruiz: That was about fifty percent new songs [during our set].

Joey Cook: We’ve got a new record coming out July 10th (i’m DADA).

Kyle Hager: Did you say you DJ at Notre Dame?

7LM: Yeah, I’ve been DJing there for twenty-plus years.

JC: I think that might have been the first we heard of us [being played] on college radio. [Would that have bee] when Relax came out (2014)?

7LM: Yes, since Relax.

JC: Yeah, we got an e-mail saying, “You guys are on this radio station,” and we were like, “What? There’s somebody at a college radio station playing us?”

7LM: Speaking of Relax, I’m a horror movie geek, so whose idea was it to put Nosferatu on the cover?

JR: That’s the one guy who’s not here (lead singer Ryan Fuson).

JC: Me and Andy (Julian) came up with the album title.

KH: That (image) was the counter to “relax,” I guess.

7LM: Was there any word about Frankie Goes to Hollywood jokes?

JC: That what it came from. We were playing a show at (downtown Austin venue) Cheer Up Charlies and I would see that [Frankie Goes to Hollywood] shirt that would just say “Relax” on it.

JR: I love those shirts.

JC: I thought, “We should call the album Relax.”

KH: It’s a good fuckin’ message though.

7LM: It is. You know, I was going to bring that up. Jumping ahead, the messages on Five of Cups are even more relevant now…Trying to stay positive in this environment.

KH: Yeah, it’s…it’s been a decade so far.

7LM: That’s a good way to put it…It’s been a decade for sure.

KH: We’re probably closer to what people experienced in the Forties or Sixties, at least in my lifetime.

JC: We thought Interloper was the sad state of affairs record, and we had no idea what was coming.

KH: We didn’t know how sad it was going to get. We recorded it in 2019 and put it out in July 2020. It was right after the pandemic, we released a new record and were like, “Fuck…”

JC: And we had momentum. We were touring a shit-ton, and we were just on our game and then it was like, “Okay…”

7LM: Was working with Lorelle Meets the Obsolete [on Five of Cups] something you’d tried to do for a while and it finally worked out?

JC: Yeah, we meant to record at their place in Ensenada (Mexico) in 2021 and I was working here at a food truck and I broke my finger and had to have surgery on it. We had all planned this trip to go record there and I had to not go because I had to have the surgery, but we finally made it out there last year and did a record with them.

KH: The new record has them on several tracks. Lorena (Quintanilla) sings one of the songs on it again (as she does on Five of Cups’ “The Darkest Timeline”).

7LM: Are there any other bands you’re hoping to work with?

JC: The guy who produced the new record is Joo Joo Ashworth. He played in a band called Froth.

JR: He produced and engineered the whole thing.

JC: We’ve been friends with him for a long time and always wanted to collaborate with him. We’ve always loved Froth and everything he touches. He was, even more than Lorelle Meets the Obsolete, more of a collaborator on the record. The tone of it, and stuff like that.

JR: It was a culmination of a plan we’d been trying to do for so long.

JC: It was such a bummer when I broke my finger. My doctor said, “You’re never playing guitar again.” He did a great job, though. I barely play now.

7LM: Are you doing any more touring soon?

JC: Yeah, this fall we’ll be doing tours. East coast, Europe, then west coast in the fall.

JR: We’ll be in Chicago [at the Empty Bottle] August 13th.

7LM: This is something I ask every band I interview: Do you have any favorite misheard versions of your song lyrics?

JC: We make our own versions.

KH: Ryan also changes the lyrics.

JC: He doesn’t remember his lyrics.

JR: Ryan always keeps everyone on their toes.

JC: We create alternate versions every single night.

KH: I don’t even remember what the chorus of “Western Playland” (from Freaks of Nuture) is, but I know that Ryan sings the way the Brazilian guys sing it. When we were in São Paulo, he was like, “Oh, that’s better.” He just sings what they came up with.

7LM: I asked Oliver Ackermann of A Place to Bury Strangers that, and he told me he loves when that happens because it means the song takes on a whole new meaning for each listener.

JR: Yeah, for sure, and I’m glad they’re listening to the lyrics.

7LM: Is there a way you choose who sings what? Kyle, is there a time when Ryan says, “You know what, you should sing this.” or vice-versa?

KH: Me and Ryan bring ideas to the table, but also, especially when Julian writes a song sometimes he already has a vocal idea and he sings it, but a lot of times either me or Ryan will gravitate towards singing.

JR: They’re the main singers, so when we have ideas we go to them.

KH: If one of us says, “Hey, I’ve got a vocal idea for this,” then we’ll start running with it.

JC: We would rather them sing.

KH: It happens pretty organically. It’s not like, “I’m singin’ this one!” It’s like, “I’ve got a cool idea. What do you guys think?”

JC: What instrument you play on the song is determined by who shows up first. Everyone wants to play the bass line first.

JR: I think Ryan really wants to be the drummer.

KH: We don’t switch [instruments] as much on stage much anymore. Half of the stuff that I’m playing, even from the old stuff, but especially from the new stuff, that’s not what I wrote on the song. The guitar parts on the new songs, its half stuff I wrote on guitar, half stuff somebody else wrote on guitar, plus what somebody else wrote on keyboard a little bit.

JC: Sometimes you have to hear your part being played by something or someone else. We have backing tracks with three of us playing guitar on the same song, and none of the keyboards get to be played, so you think, “Oh, there’s my keyboard part.”

7LM: You guys have so many psychedelic influences, but are there other outside ones? There are some songs where I think, “That’s almost a metal riff.” or there was some stuff you were putting down, Julian, that made me think, “That’s almost like krautrock.”

JR: Oh yeah.

JC: I think we’re all super into that krautrock stuff.

KH: Growing up in El Paso, everything was heavy music. That was the scene we all came up in. We all started off playing in hardcore and hardcore-adjacent bands.

[At this point, Alex Maas of The Black Angels stopped by to say hello, and, “I wasn’t able to see your set, but I heard several people said they laid down and closed their eyes, and just melted into the ground.” He also described Holy Wave’s sound as “an enchanted scroll” to his son.]

JR: It (“holy wave”) is a spell…

JC: There is a card in Digimon called “Holy Wave.”

7LM: Now I have to ask, are you guys gamers?

JC: Me and my wife play Mario Party a lot. We play FIFA a lot.

KH: Legend of Zelda is the only thing I really game hard with.

7LM: I run a D&D games almost every week with some buddies of mine. I once wrote a whole campaign based on The Sword’s Age of Winters album.

KH: Oh, that’s cool.

JC: The guitarist from The Sword, Kyle (Shutt), is a good friend of mine. He’s a coworker of mine. He’s a bad ass dude.

JR: A legend. Ryan’s super into board games.

KH: The guy who’s going on tour with us, Dylan, is the guy to talk to about D&D.

JC: He was having D&D parties during the pandemic.

7LM: I always like to ask this: I once heard an interview with Ray Charles in which he said he sometimes got bummed out because people only wanted to talk with him about music. So, is there stuff outside of music you guys are really interested in or are fascinated with?

JC: Food. In the van, it’s like a constant list of grocery items and food stylings.

KH: Geopolitical hypotheses.

JR: Kyle is like a history master. Everywhere we go, he tells us what’s going on.

7LM: Any particular part of history?

KH: I majored in anthropology and minored in history, so I wanted to be able to put things into a cultural perspective to help everybody respect the meaning of a place. Like, was it a river that led people to live here? Was it a railroad that ran through here? Why does this city exist? Why are there enough people here that some of them would come to a Holy Wave show? I like know that when I go to a place.

JC: Everyone kind of works in TV and film. We all do art department stuff.

KH: If anybody out there needs something…

JC: Holy Wave Art Department! We almost titled the next record Art Department.

JR: When we stay [with friends] in Phoenix, there’s usually a horror movie going on in the background. [Last time], it was Terrifier. Insane, dude. I’m kind of a scaredy cat, but that one was kind of light-hearted in a way.

KH: That one’s weird. It’s weird to think about what the crew was doing while they were filming. That’s what creepy to me.

JR: Yeah, someone’s just eating a slice of pizza. It’s like, “Oh God, lunch was supposed to me thirty minutes ago and he’s still going…”

JC: Last year, we all worked on an indie movie (Two Sleepy People), and I was the art director, and Justin was, too. Ryan was the production designer. We went and saw the movie in the theatre and we were putting all this stuff in there, so we were saying, “There’s Andy’s couch!”, and the main character, he’s looking in the fridge, and he closes the fridge, and there’s a picture of Kyle smoking a cigarette. You can Easter egg yourself into some shit.

7LM: The first or second Psych Fest I ever came to, my late wife and I ate at his ramen place where I was told some of you guys used to work.

JC: (the long-since closed) Daruma?

7LM: Yes! I miss that place. Our waiter asked us who we were excited to see and we told him, “Holy Wave.” He said, “Oh, man! A couple of those guys work here. They probably made that broth you’re eating.”

JR: I worked there for, like, seven years.

JC: Yeah, he was in the kitchen, and Eric, our bass player worked there.

KH: Joey kind of worked there.

JC: Yeah, I worked for the company. At one point, we all worked at a ramen shop. What’s crazy is that our new bass player who’s filling in for Eric after this show, he also worked there. He was a server there. He was our bass player before Eric.

7LM: So, where should we get ramen now?

JR: There’s a place right there (pointing across the street), Tatsu-ya.

KH: That’s where Ryan works.

JC: If you want that Daruma ramen, they have it at Komei. That’s more of a sushi spot.

7LM: When we came back and saw Daruma was closed, we were like, “Nooo!”

JR: It’s so good.

JC: Yeah, it’s the best one.

Holy Wave melting people into the ground at Austin Psych Fest 2026.

Keep your mind open.

[Thanks to Holy Wave and Cheyenne Doerr!]

Rewind Review: The Limiñanas / Laurent Garnier – De Pelicula (2021)

Take psych-rock / ye-ye giants The Limiñanas and combine them with DJ / producer Laurent Garnier and what do you get? De Pelicula – a super-groovy, super-trippy album that tells the tale of two lovers in a film soundtrack format. The album’s title even means something akin to “like something out of a film.”

“Saul” is a mysterious track about a man who loves film and music but isn’t happy with life until he meets a young woman and decides to leave everything behind to follow her. Saul (“A small town guy.”) and this woman, Juliette (A “beautiful and gentle” prostitute), are prominent figures throughout the record. “Je rentrais par le bois…BB” (“I was returning / coming home through the woods…BB”) is a slightly frightening psych-drone track with Garnier’s synths creating a weird landscape and Marie Limiñana‘s beats creating a slightly paranoid sense.

“Juliette dans la caravanne” (“Juliette in the trailer.”) has Saul meeting Juliette in her 1960s trailer for a rendez-vous that changes his world and unsettles him. “Que calor” brings in Spanish lyrics instead of the French you’ve heard so far. Lionel Limiñana uses a mellotron and organ to neat effect here and the entrance of his fuzzy guitar turns your head into a strong wind.

“Promenade oblique” is another solid instrumental track with a groovy bass line from Lionel. “Te tournes en boucle” (“You’re turning / going in circles.”) is a twisting, looping track that details Saul feeling lost until Juliette shows up to pull him back into a clearer headspace. “Steeplechase” races along with some of Marie’s snappiest drumming and Garnier’s spy movie car chase scene-like synth pulses.

“Juliette” is the tragic backstory of the female half of our lovers in this tale, told through haunting synths and raging guitar. Juliette, born to a single drug-addicted mother, drifts into drugs and eventually kills a pastor who takes advantage of her…only for her to end up a party girl on drugs and having sex for money. “Ne gâche pas l’aventure humaine” (“Don’t spoil / waste the human adventure.) repeats the lyric of “Je t’aime.” (“I love you.”) again and again as siren-like synths give us a warning of what’s ahead for our star-crossed lovers.

“Au début, c’était le début” (“At first, it was the beginning.”) has Garnier taking lead vocals that sound like he’s mourning for lost times, reflecting Saul’s wish for something better for he and Juliette. He doesn’t get those better times, however, because at the end of the album, on “Saul s’est fait planter,” (“Sault got stood up.”), Juliette leaves him. She gets on a train and never returns. That’s French cinema for you.

It’s a cool record telling a cool story with cool grooves. You won’t regret taking this trip.

Keep your mind open.

[N’oubliez pas de vous abonner!]

Top 25 albums of 2021 – 2025: #’s 5 – 1

Here we are. The top five albums I reviewed in the last five years. I revised this list of all twenty-five records several times. It wasn’t easy to get here, but here we go.

#5: The Black Angels – Wilderness of Mirrors (2022)

This was a great return for my favorite band. The Black Angels came back in 2022 with anger about the past and hope for the future. It was a psychedelic, heavy reflection on the current times, what came before, and what was looming.

#4: Shame – Drunk Tank Pink (2021)

The album’s name refers to a color that’s often painted in jail cells to calm rowdy people. This post-punk album blends rowdy rage with punk riffs and cutting lyrics about how bonkers the world was back then…and still is.

#3: Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs – Land of Sleeper (2023)

Good heavens, this thing is massive. Pigsx7 unleashed an album that was designed to shake us out of our doldrums and also explore the weird world of dreams and how they merge with reality. It rocketed into my “best of” list for 2023 upon my first listen, and their tour for this was solid.

#2: A Place to Bury Strangers – Synthesizer (2024)

Speaking of albums that landed in my “best of” lists for a particular year and then never moved out of it, how could I not include an album by APTBS that, no joke, you can turn into an actual synthesizer. The album cover is a circuit board. You can create music with this thing. Plus, the whole album shreds. It’s a stunning work that I think only they could imagine and then execute so well.

#1: Matthew Halsall – An Ever Changing View (2023)

I almost didn’t hear this album or discover Halsall’s work. It got buried in a big stack of unread e-mails and press releases and I didn’t open the file until late fall of 2023, not long before I was about to make my “Best of 2023” list. Lo and behold, it was the most beautiful album I’d heard all year. “Ambient jazz” doesn’t describe it well enough. It’s an album that instantly changes the atmosphere around you for the better.

There you have it. Up next, my top twenty-five concerts of the last five years…which was more difficult to determine than this list.

Keep your mind open.

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Top 25 albums of 2021 – 2025: #’s 10 – 6

We’ve reach the top ten albums I reviewed in the last five years. It gets more difficult to make these lists as the numbers grow smaller, but here goes.

#10: Yard Act – The Overload (2022)

These post-punkers seemed to come out of nowhere and hit us with multiple sharp singles from their debut. The whole album was witty, biting, and wicked.

#9: King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard – PostDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation (2023)

Part-thrash metal, part-environmental activism record, all great. The title and cover image alone let you know you’re in for a wild time, and King Gizz pull no punches on it.

#8: DITZ – Never Exhale (2025)

A whole post-punk album about tension – a topic that post-punk does very well, as do these Brits. The cover image conveys the sense of the record and, like the music, puts you on edge and keeps you there.

#7: Aaron Frazer – Introducing… (2021)

Stepping out from his main gig with Durand Jones and The Indications, Frazer dropped one of the best soul records of recent memory and probably got a thousand date offers just from the first couple tracks.

#6: Gum / Kenny Ambrose-Smith – Ill Times (2024)

This dynamic Australian duo created a cool, electro / dance-rock record that tackled grief and uncertainty. It made you want another one from them right away. I still do.

Who made the top five? Come back tomorrow. It was a tough call, but I made it.

Keep your mind open.

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Top 25 albums of 2021 – 2025: #’s 20 – 16

Here we are at the top 20 albums I reviewed over the last five years. Read on to see who made the list!

#20: BODEGA – Broken Equipment (2022)

Sharp, witty post-punk that the world needed then and still needs now. Songs like “Doers” both poke fun at and slap around over-achievers and the work grind, while “All Past Lovers” is a heartfelt love song.

#19: Dry Cleaning – New Long Leg (2021)

Speaking of good post-punk, Dry Cleaning’s first full-length album was a great dose of it. Weird guitar, heavy bass, funky drumming, and odd spoken lyrics? I’m all in.

#18: TV Priest – Uppers (2021)

More damn good heavy post-punk here from these Londoners. The whole album is sweaty, gritty, and growling.

#17: Bonnie Trash – Mourning You (2025)

Holy cow. This record is heavy in both tone and emotion. It’s an album about grief and how it can crush you if you’re not careful. There is beauty here. It’s not just gloom. It’s a stunner that captures all of the emotions you feel after a heavy loss.

#16: Meatbodies – Flora Ocean Tiger Bloom (2024)

These guys were my favorite discovery of 2024. It’s groovy, heavy, and trippy psych-rock that we need more of in this day and age.

Come back tomorrow to see who’s in the top fifteen!

Keep your mind open.

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Austin Psych Fest 2026 – Day Three recap

The final day of the 2026 Austin Psych Fest was the most humid of the three, and easily the most soulful. The festival bumped up all the sets by an hour, presumably to avoid the thunderstorms predicted to roll in around 10pm that night just as the final set was about to end.

As a result, I wasn’t able to get in a disco nap before the festival and trotted my slightly sunburned body to the Far Out Lounge just in time to catch Night Beats play a solid set of psychedelic, fuzzy soul rock. It had been a few years since I’d seen them, and they haven’t lost a step. They still deliver the goods.

Up next were the funky Dumbo Gets Mad, who had everyone happily dancing in the hot sun without a care. Finding shade is a skill at this festival. You have to claim spots early or rely on the charity of others to squeeze you into a shady space. The occasional breeze elicited happy sighs from the crowds, and it kept hitting at good times during DGM’s set to make dancing all the easier.

A big crowd had assembled for La Lom, who hit the first note exactly at the start of their set time. The Los Angeles trio played a fun set of instrumental cumbia, rockabilly, and border rock. Everyone was smiling during this set. Couples were dancing and making out. People were cheering their ancestry as La Lom announced the origin of several tracks (“We’re going to play a song from Columbia!”, “This is an old one from Mexico!”).

Trish Toledo was the next artist on the bill, bringing her Latina soul siren vocals to the second stage with her killer backing band. She started with her version of Diana Ross’ “Bad Girls” and proceeded to win and break hearts from there. Everyone was spellbound by the end.

Trish Toledo wrapping everyone around her fingers.

The night, and the festival, ended with the big sounds of Thee Sacred Souls. Much like La Lom and Ms. Toledo’s sets, everyone was buzzing and happy during it. The heat and sun didn’t matter (“It’s like being in a club at 3am,” said lead singer Josh Lane). People all around me were dancing, cheering, smooching, and loving the opportunity to go out with dance grooves to carry them home.

The thunderstorms hit almost an hour later, preventing me from getting to the late night show downtown. That was a bummer, but overall it was a good time and, as always, an excellent blend of genres and bands from all over the map.

And now, my random Festival Awards!

Best set: The Flaming Lips. The sound engineering was top-notch and it was a fun set list. On a personal note, they were one of my late wife’s favorite bands and they played the night before our 29th wedding anniversary, so that was special. I got choked up during “The Golden Path.”

Heaviest set: The Black Angels. Good heavens, the modern versions of the songs from Passover somehow have even more fuzz and weight on them.

Shame on You if You Missed It set: Almost Heaven. They were the second set on the first day and put on a sharp, post-punky / electro-funky set that had a lot of people buzzing by the end of it and wearing their new band shirts over the next two days.

Wildest set: J’cuuzi. Absolutely bonkers and a ton of fun. Crazy costumes, exotic dancers, glam-punk riffs, a spinning chair substituting for a stripper’s pole, and more stuff I’ve forgotten were all crammed into it. They opened the festival and set a high bar for everyone to follow.

Loveliest set: Trish Toledo. This was like a cool breeze refreshing you after a long day. The soul ballads and psychedelic funk sounds were a great addition to the festival. This was another set you’ll kick yourself for missing if you weren’t there.

Sweatiest set: Night Beats. Lead singer and guitarist Danny Lee Blackwell’s shirt was soaked enough for him to win a wet t-shirt contest by the end of this. The fuzzy, guitar-roar sounds were sweaty, too. Everyone in the crowd was sweating, at least a bit dehydrated, and yet ready for more by the end.

Happiest set: La Lom. Everyone was dancing and smiling the whole time, including the band. The back-and-forth cheering between La Lom and the crowd reflected how everyone was participating in a big party and not caring about the humidity.

Most Happy to Be There set: New Candys. I didn’t get to see every band at the festival, but of all the ones I did see, the Venetian trio seemed to be the happiest to be there and hanging out with the rowdy crowd and a bit surprised at how many people came to see them.

Trippiest set: Holy Wave. These guys do psych-rock very well and are local favorites. I usually see them in dark venues or at night, but the afternoon sun only seemed to make them sound brighter and dreamier.

Most Shredding in a Set: Ty Segall. There were a few times in his raucous set that he just unloaded a crate full of mega-riffs. How a mosh pit didn’t break out during this is beyond me. It must have been the heat.

Keep your mind open.

[Don’t forget to subscribe!]

[Thanks to Cheyenne Doerr for the press credentials and support.]

Austin Psych Fest 2026 – Day Two recap

I heard the thunder rumbling as I started the walk to the Far Out Lounge for the second day of Austin Psych Fest. I got about three blocks when the rain started. My phone’s weather app said it was just an isolated storm that would soon pass. I put on the raincoat I’d packed and continued walking…

…into a full-on thunderstorm complete with flash flooding and rain hitting so hard that at one point I thought it was hail. I later learned there were funnel clouds in the area at the time. I sloshed my way back to the Air BNB place I was sleeping in for the weekend, wrung out my socks, and waited out the storm for at least another hour before making the trip in the now sunny, jungle-humid afternoon.

APF had been delayed for those two hours due to a couple lightning strikes. As a result, the first four bands of the day – Commercial Breaks, Strange Lot, The Dead Canyon Family Reunion, and Grocery Bag – ended up with canceled sets. Annabelle Chairlegs barely managed to squeeze in their set when the festival finally opened.

So, first on the bill for me was Ty Segall. I hadn’t seen him since the (unknown to everyone at the time) final Psycho Music Festival in Las Vegas in 2021. As one photographer in front of me said before the set, “You never know what you’re going to get with Ty.” That’s true. You could get a lot of shredding, acoustic ballads, or even electro-infused dance rock. For APF 2026, Segall and his band brought the rock.

Ty Segall and crew bringing another kind of thunder.

It was a fun set from him, and a ripper of a way to start my festival day. He included at least two new tracks which sound great. The set had a heavy 1970s garage rock sound to it, and I’m surprised mosh pits didn’t erupt throughout it.

Segall’s set was followed by a double-bill of psychedelia. Up first were world travelers Al Qasar who had everyone dancing and grooving with their neat mix of Dutch, Brazilian, Arabic, Jamaican, and several other nations’ sounds. They even ended with a wild reworking of Depeche Mode’s “Personal Jesus.”

Then, Melody’s Echo Chamber performed to a big crowd who fully embraced their mind-bending sound and light show. I saw a lot of, ahem, blissed-out people during their set having a great time.

Is it a jellyfish? A butterfly? A jellyfly? A butterfish? That edible kicking in?

Many of us zipped over to the smaller stage to catch New Candys’ set. The Italian trio (No longer a quartet?) roared for the whole performance, knocking out heavy riffs, shoegaze fuzz, and slapping beats. “Damn, those guys are really good,” said a guy behind me once they’d finished. He was right.

The day ended with our hosts, The Black Angels, performing their Passover album in its entirety as well as other tracks (including at least one new song). The crowd was packed for them. One group in front of me had some weird fire dance circle going with a couple lighters being waved near the ground. The Black Angels are currently touring to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Passover, so don’t miss them. It’s a good opportunity to hear a lot of deep cuts.

Don’t pass over a Black Angels show! See what I did there?

Up next: Latin psychobilly surf rock, psychedelic cumbia, and a lot of soul!

Keep your mind open.

[Don’t forget to subscribe before you go!]

Austin Psych Fest 2026 – Day One recap

I hadn’t been to Austin Psych Fest in several years. Mind you, I’d been to Levitation festivals multiple times, and on two continents, but I hadn’t been to APF since the Reverberation Appreciation Society brought it back after “APF” had been changed to “Levitation” and moved to the fall. APF returned to the Far Out Lounge in Austin a few years ago for the RAS’ spring festival, and this was the first chance I had to make the trip.

Austin’s own J’cuuzi were the first band on the bill and the first I wanted to see. They set a high bar to meet for everyone to follow, complete with dancers, t-shirt tosses, a somewhat famous spinning chair, a Capri Sun costume, bubble guns, and so much dance-punk / art-punk / glam-punk / drag-punk / I-don’t-know-what-the-hell-is-happening-punk that you could barely take all of it in during their set and left you feeling a bit post-orgasmic and somewhat baffled afterwards.

L-R: Durs, Gorge Bones, Trey Razeldazl. Oddly enough, this was one of the calmer moments of J’cuuzi’s set.

Next up were another local group, Almost Heaven. The electro-duo were celebrating the release of their first EP, Raw Cranium, and immediately commanded the stage upon the first note. The whole set was bumping, with solid, wicked beats from Jaelyn Valero and vocals from Stefan Barazza that reminded me of everything from The Cramps to Roxy Music.

Almost Heaven getting us pretty close to there, really.

Within moments of their set ending, you heard this loud wall of sound coming from the other direction. That turned out to be shoegaze rockers Glare blasting us with multiple guitars and echoing vocals. It was a change in tone for the festival up to this point, and not a bad one at all. Sometimes you need a ton of reverb and fuzz to keep you going for the coming hours.

Not long after that, we dove into psychedelic waters (It is a psych fest, after all.) with Holy Wave. I’ve been a fan for a while, so it was good to see them again after a few years. As usual, they put on a good set of psych-rock that ranged from dreamy to heavy. I bumped into The Black Angels’ Alex Maas later and he described their sound as “like opening a scroll.” Accurate.

I needed a break by this point, so it was off to Torchy’s Tacos across the street for some much-needed grilled chicken nachos. They were delicious, as was the Cubs working their way to a win over the Rangers at the time. I got back in time to see a big crowd had gathered for Diiv and their trippy set of shoegaze rock that mixed in weird short films of corporate presentations and public domain footage. It reminded me of Devo’s corporate anthem stuff.

The night ended with a fun set from The Flaming Lips. The crowd was happy to have them back and they seemed delighted to be there. Confetti and balloons rained down on us for several songs, with “Turn It On” and “The Golden Path” being big highlights for me, as well as their encore of “War Pigs.” Everyone was exhausted but elated by the end.

A typical day for Wayne Coyne and the Flaming Lips.

The festival is off to a fun, sweaty start. Up next, more local talent, a guy I haven’t seen live for many years, Italian shoegaze, a twentieth anniversary show, and more!

Keep your mind open.

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Rewind Review: New Candys – Vyvyd (2021)

Back in 2021, we were just coming out of a catastrophe that shut down the entire world. Everyone was euphoric from being able to get outside and see each other again. We’d seen how gorgeous the Earth is when we all pause and stop screwing with it. Rivers cleared, smog abated, dolphins swam in Venetian canals. We were given a vivid reminder of how vivid the world is.

New Candys are from Venice. Those dolphins might have swam right by their apartment building for all I know. They saw the change in the city, and the world from the pandemic. The clear waters and skies, and all of what had happened and what we lost before, during, and (they saw it coming) after them sureley inspired Vyvyd.

The album starts off with a killer bass line from Alessandro Boschiero on the track “Twin Mime” (a song about suppressed rage and desires finding companionship in them). Fernando Nuti‘s vocals are layered with echo effects, making him sound both present and distant at the same time. “Zyko” is a play on “psycho” and has a bit of grunge guitar flavor from Andrea Volpato. The title “Factice” might be a play on “practice” or “fact is” or “fuck this.” I doubt it has to do with rubberized oil (a “factice” arises from mixing oils with sulphur), but I’m willing to believe it could be a reference to display perfume bottles (“factices”) that are filled with colored water. I’m leaning toward “fact is” or “fuck this” with Nuti’s lyrics of feeling trapped (“We look so sick, I’m gonna lose my mind…Need to get out of here, somewhere to go far from my mind.”) and the lack of accountability by so many (“Are you forgiving what went wrong? I keep forgetting what we want.”).

Volpato’s guitar on “Begin Again” is beautiful and haunting. “Evil Evil” is fuzzy, frantic, fierce garage-psych with blasting guitar work from Nuti and Volpato and a driving, almost relentless beat from Dario Lucchesi. “Vyvyan Rising” has a great sound and feel to it across the whole track and, I think, is about Nuti questioning his faith (“All that I wanna know, are you speaking the truth? When everything around is getting so bright but ends up not being pure white.”).

“Helluva Zoo” slows things down just a touch, adding acoustic guitars to their soundscape. “The Clockmaker” has Nuti musing on how time gets away from us and how precious it is (“I feel lost since I have no memory. We should spend the time ahead as one being.”). The use of a ticking clock sound in this track is a great touch, as loud as a cowbell beat at the right time. “Q&K” stands for “Queen & King” and is about two people trying to find some kind of equilibrium, an allegory for the entire world in 2020 (“Are we alone together?”). The closing track, “Snake Eat Snake,” is about the desire to retreat within, which can eventually lead to a never-ending, meaningless introspection if you’re not careful.

Vyvyd was made during a weird time for weird times (which have only kept coming). Hearing it in 2026 still feels relevant. New Candys are still evoking vivid sounds and memories, and are currently on tour (soon to be at the 2026 Austin Psych Fest, among many other shows).

Keep your mind open.

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Review: Strange Fruit – Drips EP

Hailing from Jakarta, Indonesia Strange Fruit have been playing synth / motorik / krautrock / electro music for over a decade and have now released a wonderfully trippy new record – Drips.

Beginning with the bouncy, blissful “Pouvoir Moteur,” Dino Kristianto‘s repetitive, robotic beats instantly get your head and feet bouncing and the synth work by Baldi Calvianca and Irza Aryadiaz and Nabil Favian‘s bass line locks in the groove. John Tampubolon‘s guitar chords drift in and out of the track like a groovy ghost.

“Iridescent” is like a haunting goth synth track you once heard in a car ride one night and have been searching for ever since. The lyrics allude to how light and color can cause euphoric bliss under the right circumstances…and so can the entire track.

Calvianca’s vocals on “Monopolar” sound like transmissions from orbit, and the rest of the track is something you’d want while doing a space walk to gather ore samples on an asteroid, or while drifting in a boat on an Indonesian river, or while making out at an afterparty…with an android.

The title track closes the EP and appropriately has Tampubolon’s guitar sounding like its melting like a slow-burning candle As if these four tracks weren’t cool enough, the EP includes the Jonathan Kusuma “Hypnodubmix” of “Iridescent” and four different versions of “Monopolar”: remixes by Tom Furse and Hardway Bros and then two live dub mixes (one with and one without vocals) by Hardway Bros. The Furse mix is especially good and makes the track even more psychedelic.

This is the kind of EP that makes you want to track down everything else a band has to offer.

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Shauna at Shameless Promotion PR.]