There were a lot of great shows for me in 2025, and we’re now into the top half of the ones I saw last year — and all of this batch were at the Levitation Music Festvial in Austin, Texas.
#20: The Sword – September 26, 2025 – Levitation Austin – Austin, TX
Austin heroes The Sword are enjoying their return to touring and this set almost leveled the Palmer Event Center in Austin. The crowd was bonkers for this one and had been digesting a full menu of metal all day before they came out and provided another massive entrée.
Pixel Grip played one of the late night shows on the first day of the festival, and they did it a man down at that. No one minded, however, because they still sounded great and had a loving crowd packed into the Elysium nightclub who were all in the mood to dance and make out, and PG’s live sets are perfect for both.
#`18: Model / Actriz – September 27, 2025 – Levitation Austin – Austin, TX
“Come on, Austin, we’re all hot!” was the opening call by Model / Actriz’s lead singer, Cole Haden at their Levitation set. They played a hot set of post-punk that had the crowd roaring by the end and made a lot of new fans.
#17: Boy Harsher – September 25, 2025 – Levitation Austin – Austin, TX
Speaking of bands with roaring crowds, Boy Harsher packed people into the Stubb’s outdoor stage area on the opening night of the Levitation festival. It was a sexy, fun set that was a good one for the first night of headliners.
While we’re on the subject of sexy fun, Desire brought plenty of it at Elysium when they played a late-night set at Levitation. Black leather and latex, love songs, lust songs, and cat-like grace across the stage.
Who makes it into the top fifteen? Come back tomorrow!
I’m going to call the September 25, 2025 Thursday night late shows of Levitation Austin 2025 as “Day Zero” since the official festival doesn’t start until September 26th. “Day -1” would’ve been September 24th when you could’ve seen Mdou Moctar, Beach Fossils, Strange Lot, Water Damage and other good bands.
The main festival has a new home — the Palmer Event Center pretty much in the middle of the city, and only has the “pub crawl” events (shows at various venues downtown) at night. As usual, there’s always at least one good band playing the Thursday night before Levitation to entice you into coming to town early. This year, “Day Zero” had several: Warmduscher and Starjunk 95 among them, and I opted for two other shows out of six you could attend.
I first went to Stubb’s BBQ for what would be the only show I would attend there the whole weekend (which felt odd): Kumo 99, Martin Rev, and Boy Harsher.
Kumo 99 kicking off Levitation with a good start.
I’d only heard one song from Kumo 99 before coming to Austin, so I didn’t know what to expect apart from some electro music. What I got was electro plus synthwave plus Japanese vocal punk rock. I was impressed, and so were a lot of others judging by the size of the line at their merch booth after their set.
Martin Rev will hit you with a key-tar and then put you in the Sharpshooter.
Up next was the legendary Martin Rev — one half of synth / punk pioneers Suicide. He came out in ripped-up leather pants, a sleeveless shirt, and goggles suitable for alpine skiing or for Brett “Hitman” Hart cutting a professional wrestling promo. What followed was a weird, loud no wave noise set that left most of the audience (who didn’t realize who he was) baffled. Rev was hammerfisting his keyboard through most of the set, bludgeoning us with distorted din. He sampled Bon Jovi, ZZ Top, and The Trammps at various points while singing / talking with so much reverb in his microphone that one guy in front of me just yelled, “What are you saying?” during a brief break in the noise. Rev even did a bizarre cover of Sam the Sham & the Pharohs‘ “Wooly Bully” at one point. A woman next to me said, “I hope I can be that cool at (age) seventy-seven. I’m ready for bed by eight and he’s out here doing his thing.” That “thing” being not giving a damn what people think and giving them more of an experience than a performance.
Boy Harsher winning over the crowd at the first note.
The crowd (with a big goth and queer contingent. Hell yeah!) for Boy Harsher was huge by the time they took the stage. They played much the same set as when I saw them at Levitation France months earlier — packing in pulsing synthwave with great electro dance beats. I found out from the woman next to me that they’d played a DJ set from the back of a truck the previous day and had done a record signing at End of an Ear in Austin. That’s way cool.
Johnny Jewel “covering” Chromatics.
Speaking of way cool things, I walked a half-block after Boy Harsher’s set to Elysium where I caught Johnny Jewel‘s great set of his film score and other music – which included a set from Drive, a salute to David Lynch, and even a different version of Chromatics‘ “Lady.” He played various clips from Lynch films, Twin Peaks, giallo films, and other oddities throughout it.
Desire instilling that in all of us.
Up next, and closing out Day Zero, was one of Jewel’s many side projects — Desire. They played a long set of lovely synthwave and electro-dance tracks, mostly about wanting, finding, and / or losing love. The crowd loved them, and the trio work well together. They even played two New Order covers (“Bizarre Love Triangle” and “Blue Monday” – with Jewel on lead vocals for the second) and Taylor Dane‘s “Tell It to My Heart” — which was a natural fit for lead singer Megan Louise.
It was a late night, but worth it. There’s a lot of good synthwave at Levitation this year, and Day One will end with more…but first there will be a lot of metal.
Keep your mind open.
All right, all right! I’ll get on it…And you spelled my name wrong again, David!
Levitation France moved to a new venue in 2025. It was still in Angers, France, but no longer at the La Chabada location. It was now at the Lac De Maine park on the lovely lake in Angers, right by this massive pyramid structure that appears to be a reception center, restaurant, or maybe some kind of New Age retreat. The stage was placed in front of it, and it was off-limits to festival attendees, but that was fine. We were there for the music.
We weren’t sure we were there at first, as we got off at the wrong bus stop and had to walk through a dried-up park to get to the main path leading to the festival. Angers, and the rest of France, was in the middle of a heatwave. The grass throughout the park and the stage area looked and often felt like shredded wheat.
Once there on the first day, we arrived about halfway through New Candys‘ set. I’d seen them in France a couple years earlier, and looked forward to catching them again. Their newest record, TheUncanny Extravaganza, is impressive, and their 2025 Levitation France set matched it with strong hooks and solid rock to power everyone through the heat and relentless sun.
New Candys from Italy
Up next was DITZ, who wasted no time in crushing eardrums. The mosh pit was wild, kicking up a massive cloud of dust sometimes as thick as the stuff coming out of the stage’s fog machine. They had one of the wildest, strongest sets of the festival, and the one-two punch of New Candys and DITZ was great. Their lead singer led the crowd to the lake, dove in, and came back covered in lake weeds to finish the set.
DITZ pre-swim.
We took a much-needed break, scored some merch, water, and pizza (Pickles on pizza? It kind of works.), and found a small sliver of shade for a little while. My neck got sunburned as many others stood either in the shade of the two trees nearby or in the shadow of the tall sound booth at the back of the venue.
We came back for Kadavar. I hadn’t seen the German rock giants since the second Austin Psych Fest I attended in 2014. The lead singer mentioned it was their first time playing a Levitation festival since then. I yelled, “I was there!”, much to the amusement of a guy next to me. They blasted our faces off, of course, playing everything from doom metal to near-prog riffs.
A great return for Kadavar to Levitation.
We made sure to take more breaks on the second day to avoid further sunburn and dehydration. The first set we caught was by Heartworms, who put on a neat show of goth rock, psychedelic guitar work, dark wave (Theremin!), and a bit of performance art. They were my girlfriend’s favorite set of the festival.
Heartworms affecting hearts and minds.
We caught part of bdrmm‘s set, but had to get out of the sun for a little while. We enjoyed some chicken tikka masala, booze, and lemonade, and came back to check out Bryan’s Magic Tears – another band I last saw at Levitation France. They’ve only gotten better, creating snappy shoegaze and dream pop for an appreciative crowd.
Bryan’s Magic Tears mixed with audience sweat.
The big set of the night, and the festival, for me was from The Limiñanas. I’d wanted to see them for quite a while and they rarely, if ever, get across the Atlantic Ocean. The French psych-rock legends didn’t disappoint us. They played a great set complete with classics, tracks from their new album, Faded, and even a cover of The Cramps‘ “TV Set.”
When you get a chance to see The Limiñanas in France, you go see them.
We stuck around for the first half of Boy Harsher‘s set. They dropped heavy dance beats, dark bass, and sultry sounds across the night and the water. We would’ve stayed for the whole thing, but we had an early train to catch the next day and public transportation back from the venue was minimal that late at night.
Nothing harsh about Boy Harsher’s set.
It was another fun year in Angers, despite the heat. I hope they’ll bring in some man-made shade next year if they keep it on the lake. One of the best parts about Levitation France is the opportunity to see so many bands who don’t get to tour outside of Europe much, if at all. All Levitation festivals are great ways to discover your new favorite band. We already plan to go back next year to discover more if the dates work out for us. See you there?
Diving further into his love / obsession with 1980s horror / thriller synthwave music, Boy Harsher‘s Augustus Muller teamed up with artist / kinky movie maker Vex Ashley of Four Chambers to create two films scores – one to a film that already existed and another to one that is new, and both of which explore the sexual relationship between humans and technology on the album Cellulosed Bodies.
The first half is a tribute to David Cronenberg‘s 1996 film Crash – in which the main characters are turned on by car crashes. Muller’s six-song “score” to the film (originally done by Howard Shore). “Fur and Metal” slowly takes us into this new, weird world of strange pleasures and soon we’re “Sharing a Smoke,” but how much of it is from a cigarette and how much is from burned wreckage along a dark road? Muller’s use of synths throughout the six tracks are at times haunting and other times throbbing like the pulse in your neck after something stressful and / or sensual. “Perverse Technology” is a perfect example of this, as somewhat creepy synths rise and fall like a lover’s chest taking deep breaths to maintain control while the beats mimic the twitchy brain impulses to seize pleasure now instead of making it last as long as possible. “Body as Machine” sums up the theme of the album’s first half (and Cronenberg’s film) in the title and in the grinding, pulsating synth-beats, and “Shattered Glass” ends the first half with something that isn’t quite afterglow, but more “after-shadow.”
The second half is Muller’s score to Ashley’s film Automaton – which, according to the liner notes, “…features a severe computer entity and trapped prey, succumbing to pleasure…” Reading that, and then hearing the ten tracks that follow, you think, “Yeah, that sounds about right.” The tracks featuring fewer beats, but more experimentation – again the theme of exploring new pleasures that at first might seem frightening – such as “Initialize,” “Next Subject,” and “Endoscopy.” “Examination” uses some subtle industrial clangs for beats, but they never overwhelm the track. “Acceptance” has the “trapped prey” accepting its pleasurable fate (or is the computer accepting it?). I’m guessing it’s the former, because the next track is “You Belong to the Machine” – which builds with a slow menace like a snake that’s been released into a dark room.
“Observation” sounds and feels like the evil / sexy computer is watching its prey / lover from a drone that rises and falls like a hawk drifting on warm wind. “Stretching / Invading” is about…well, I think you can guess. “Who Is in Control” can be taken in multiple ways. It’s the question in a BDSM relationship. On the surface, the computer in Ashley’s tale is in control, but what would it be without its lover? The computer needs the lover to achieve some kind of feeling. The second half of Cellulosed Bodies ends with “Subdue Yourself” – the only track with vocals (from dominatrix Miss Marilyn) – on a whispering aftercare note.
It’s a strange, lovely, sexy record, and one of the more intriguing releases of the year.
Fully embracing their love of John Carpenter film scores, and horror movies in general, Boy Harsher‘s newest record is actually the score to an original short horror film written, produced, and directed by them – The Runner.
The album’s first notes on “Tower” immediately set the dark, creepy tone and both unsettle and intrigue you. You don’t know where this is going, but you’re willing to risk the danger to find out where it leads. “Give Me a Reason” brings in a sexy vibe, with smoky vocals by Jae Matthews that have an underlying menace to them. She could very well be singing, “Give me a reason to love you.” or “Give me a reason to kill you.” at any moment.
“Autonomy” is a peppy new wave bright spot on the record, with guest vocals from Cooper B. Handy. “The Ride Home” switches back to giallo film dread and terror as it slithers around the room like some sort of killer dressed in a black trench coat and holding a gleaming straight razor. “Escape” is trippy synthwave made for a nightclub that took over an abandoned arcade.
“Machina” is another sexy number, this one with guest vocals from MS. BOAN, reminiscent of early Human League tracks. An untitled piano / synth track follows, and its lovely and unnerving at the same time. The album closes with “I Understand” – a brief, dritting track that fades away like a last breath.
So, yeah, it’s all perfect for a horror film soundtrack.
Boy Harsher – comprised of vocalist/lyricist Jae Matthews and producer Augustus Muller – present “Machina,” the latest offering from their new album The Runner (Original Soundtrack) out next Friday,January 21st via Nude Club/City Slang. Following singles “Tower” and “Give Me a Reason,” “Machina” continues teasing the cinematic universe of The Runner, the short horror film written and directed by Boy Harsher.
Featuring guest vocalist Mariana Saldaña of BOAN singing in Spanish and English, “Machina” is a playful yet cautionary tale about companionship and dependency. Saldaña describes a cold, sterile entity, the Machine, that is soulless and without a heartbeat. The track blends the bright palette of HI-NRG and Italo with Boy Harsher’s shadowy aesthetic and was sonically inspired by Muller’s time at the renowned Mexico City club Patrick Miller. Muller elaborates: “I was reminiscing about Friday nights at Patrick Miller. I was trying to create an artifact from a club in a far off place and an unknown time.” The electrifying self-directed video produced by Muted Widows comes from the world of The Runner, presented as an exclusive NUDE TV studio performance by Saldaña.
Boy Harsher’s fifth release is not a traditional album — it’s a soundtrack that balances eerie instrumentals with pop songs that push the boundaries of the duo’s sound. In the midst of last year’s chaos and Matthews’ MS diagnosis, she kept thinking about a sinister character: a woman running through the woods. The duo developed this idea further into The Runner, a film that follows a strange woman as she travels to a secluded, rural town where her violent compulsions are slowly revealed. The story intertwines with Boy Harsher performing on a public access channel. Their music scores the strange woman’s descent deeper into the unknown. The Runner features break-out performances by musician Kris Esfandiari (King Woman), performance artist Sigrid Lauren (FlucT), and musician Cooper B. Handy (Lucy). The Runner and its soundtrack are both a return to form and an evolution for Boy Harsher.
The Runner will begin screening in select theaters this Friday, January 14th and streaming via Shudder (North America, the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand) and Mandolin (rest of the world) on Sunday, January 16th. Visit therunner.film for more info on screenings and tickets.
Darkwave duo Boy Harsher have announced the release of their debut horror film, The Runner, with Shudder – AMC Network’s premium streaming service for horror, thriller, and the supernatural – to stream the film in North America, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand beginning Sunday, January 16th (Mandolin will host the film for the rest of the world).
Written, directed, and produced by Jae Matthews and Augustus Muller of Boy Harsher, The Runner follows a strange woman as she travels to a secluded, rural town where her violent compulsions are slowly revealed. The story intertwines with Boy Harsher performing on a public access channel. Their music scores the strange woman’s descent deeper into the unknown. The Runner features break-out performances by musician Kris Esfandiari (King Woman), performance artist Sigrid Lauren (FlucT), and musician Cooper B. Handy (Lucy).
Last year, in the midst of the obvious chaos, but additionally with Matthews’ MS diagnosis, Muller started working on moody, cinematic sketches. It was uncertain what these pieces would become other than catharsis — the duo were unable to tour and making “club music” did not feel right. In Matthews’ period of convalescence, she kept thinking about a sinister character: a woman running through the woods. Together, the duo developed this idea further into a film that explores lust, compulsion, and the horrific tendencies of seduction. The movie is intercut with a meta-style “documentary” about Boy Harsher’s recording process. Being released alongside the film is Boy Harsher’s new album, The Runner (Original Soundtrack), out January 21st on Nude Club/City Slang. The soundtrack balances eerie instrumentals with pop songs that push the boundaries of the duo’s sound.
Today, Boy Harsher, the Northampton-based duo of vocalist/lyricist Jae Matthews and producer Augustus Muller, share “Give Me a Reason” from their new album The Runner (Original Soundtrack)out January 21st, 2022 via Nude Club/City Slang. Following the heavy presence of lead single “Tower,” “Give Me a Reason” finds Boy Harsher leaning into their signature dark pop sound with snappy synths.
“With ‘Give Me a Reason,’ we wanted to write something that encapsulates that feeling of yearning — the way we feel when we catch eyes from across the room. Our music can be flirty and crushable, and it’s fun to play with that,” explains Matthews. Over a steely beat, she intones, “Speak of the devil // and she will appear // afraid of the runner // who draws herself near.” Boy Harsher continue teasing the cinematic universe of The Runner, the short horror film written, produced, and directed by the duo which will be released in January 2022. Listen to Boy Harsher’s “Give Me a Reason” Boy Harsher’s fifth release is not a traditional album — it’s a soundtrack that balances eerie instrumentals with pop songs that push the boundaries of the duo’s sound. In the midst of last year’s chaos and Matthews’ MS diagnosis, Muller started working on moody, cinematic sketches. In Matthews’ period of convalescence, it was uncertain what these pieces would become other than catharsis, but she kept thinking about a sinister character: a woman running through the woods. The duo developed this idea further into The Runner, a film that explores lust, compulsion, and the horrific tendencies of seduction. The movie is intercut with a meta-style “documentary” about Boy Harsher’s recording process. The project is a reconciliation of uncertain times made into sound and moving images. The Runner and its soundtrack are both a return to form and an evolution for the duo.
More information on screenings for The Runner is to come. Following the release of the album and film, Boy Harsher will embark on a North American and European tour — all dates are listed below and tickets are on sale now. The duo also recently collaborated with Møffenzeef Mødular to create a limited edition drone synthesizer called The Runner. Watch the “Tower” Video
Following the release of their album ‘The Passion Of…‘ earlier this year, New Orleans-based punk band Special Interest have announced a new 12″ release ‘Street Pulse Beat‘, which features remixes from Boy Harsher, Ruth Mascelli and DJ Haram. The record is set for release on Jan 8th via Nude Club Records and is available for pre-order and today the “Street Pulse Beat (Boy Harsher Remix)” is streaming online.
As well as the ‘Street Pulse Beat’ Maxi 12″, Special Interest will also digitally release ‘The Passion Of: Remixed‘ on Jan 8th, which is made up of 11 tracks, including the remixes on the 12″ & various other reworks by artists such as Hide & w00dy. People who purchase the Maxi 12” on Bandcamp, will receive a free download of ‘The Passion Of Remixed’ too.
All proceeds will go to House of Tulip (https://houseoftulip.org), which was co-founded and is currently co-led by 2 Black transgender women. House of Tulip provides trans and gender-nonconforming communities in New Orleans, Louisiana with economic stability and safety through zero barrier permanent housing and pathways to education, healthcare, employment, and homeownership.
“This remix of ‘Street Pulse Beat’ came from the depths of springtime lockdown. In a bleak and uncertain world, Special Interest was keeping our creative spirit alive. This remix was made entirely with the OB-6, SH-101, and the JV-1080. Trading in distorted guitars for plucky bent synths, Boy Harsher’s remix offers their signature melancholy sound. Ali Logout’ confidently controls the energy, reminding us that synthwave can still have a backbone and can hang with the punks.” – Boy Harsher
Adding to this, Special Interest vocalist Alli Logout said the track is “A ballad for lovers delusions of grandeur in the depth of the terror that is codependency.”
