Thursday | 06.01
What: Kiltro w/Nina De Freitas
When: 7
Where: Mercury Café
Why: Kiltro started as the solo acoustic project of Chris Bowers Castillo who as a Chilean-American, had moved to the port city of Valparaíso where he worked as a walking tour guide. And that job not only afforded him the time to learn the city and take in its richly diverse cultural influences but also the opportunity to write a body of work as a songwriter. After returning to Denver Kiltro formally came to life in 2017 and Bowers Castillo developed his acoustic songs with loops, pedals and percussion elements. But in 2018 the project expanded into a trio with Will Parkhill on bass and drummer Michael Devincenzi and later with Fez Garcia on board as a percussionist for live shows.
Kiltro’s 2019 debut album Creatures of Habit had been recorded after the material had been performed live and getting feedback from audiences and friends before being committed to an easily transmitted and shareable form. But the group’s new album, 2023’s Underbelly, is the product of crafting music in quarantine and working in the studio, following whatever creative paths sparked the most inspiration in the moment resulting in a more experimental set of songs which incorporates aspects of shoegaze, ambient, South American folk, psychedelia and a literary yet spontaneous form of storytelling that feels like a deeply personal experience in the listening. The record is a hypnotic and transcendent work of surprising immediacy that one might compare with the likes of Devendra Banhart, Hermanos Guitérrez and more locally to the work of artists like Midwife American Grandma. It fuses the aesthetics of electronic music with the intimacy of mythical folk music around the campfire for a truly unique record refreshing in its originality.
Kiltro is following up the release with a tour throughout the USA in June and July with other live dates in support of the album in August and September with an appearance at VORTEX festival at The JunkYard at Meow Wolf on August 25. Listen to our interview with Bowers Castillo on Bandcamp linked below.
Thursday | 06.01
What: Reptoid w/Quits and Endless, Nameless
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Reptoid is a one man, industrial noise rock freakout from Oakland. His most recent album WORSHIP FALSE GODS (2020) is a borderline, or not so borderline, nihilistic set of songs like a series of trainwrecks about how we’re all pretty much screwed in face of likely developments in the history of our species and its impact on the environment. If you’ve been into Buck Gooter or Author and Punisher this is your thing. Quits is a crushing noise rock juggernaut of a four piece from Denver whose incisive songs and eruptive energy can be startlingly scathing and heavy at once. Endless, Nameless erases the line between progressive metal, post-rock, post-hardcore, black metal and shoegaze with a forceful elegance. Its 2023 album Living Without should end up on the more discerning year end best lists.
Thursday | 06.01
What: Sorted: Surgeon & John Templeton
When: 9
Where: Black Box
Why: Surgeon is a DJ and electronic music composer from England whose labels Counterbalance and Dynamic Tension has been issuing some fine techno records for over 20 years. John Templeton is based in Denver whose own techno music has made a bit of a splash in the Mile High City and his Great American Techno Festival brought some of the most innovative practioners of that style of music to town for several years.
Friday | 06.02
What: ACxDC w/No/Más and Berated
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: ACxDC is the infamous powerviolence/grindcore band from Los Angeles whose 2020 album Satan Is King is a seethingly uncompromising run of anarchistic political sentiment set to blast beats and oddly anthemic antiestablishment shout along songs.
Saturday | 06.03
What: M. Sage Paradise Crick release show w/Zander Raymond
When: 3 p.m.
Where: TBA in Boulder
Why: M. Sage has been a prolific and evolving songwriter and composer going back to at least far back as when he was based out of Fort Collins and doing early indiepop groups. But when he started writing and releasing music as M. Sage and often through his now defunct label Patient Sounds (2009-2019) it became obvious that Sage was thinking beyond standard songwriting even in the more experimental folk vein. His latest release, and first for RVNG Intl., is Paradise Crick, a collection of meditations on communing with nature as a route to a sustainable relationship with the world we all share. The pure fusion of acoustic and electronic aesthetics resonates with some of the more avant releases on the ECM label and its intuitive rhythms and informal structures ease the mind out of the standard pathways of being within one’s own mindset. This show is at unique venue and one must purchase a ticket at the link provided to get the address.
Saturday | 06.03
What: Danceportation – Justin Jay and others
When: 9:30
Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station
Why: Danceportation is an immersive dance party pulsing through the worlds of Convergence Station. Be immersed in the full exhibition while stunning live performances on several stages with psychedelic projections and sentient universes welcome you. Danceportation on June 3rd will feature a takeover from Justin Jay’s Fantastic Voyage, the Los Angeles-based electronic dance music imprint now celebrating its seventh year of exisence.
This lineup features multiple sets from Justin Jay, along with performances from Ardalan, DJ Swisha, Juliet Mendoza, Todd Edwards, Adrian More, B Goody, Blake, Coldsweat, Danny Goliger, DJ Parqués, Don Jamal, Ed Hoffman, Gusted, Keefe, Lipgloss, Massii, Mick Jeets, Mizzmegan, The Other Jon, Planet Bloop, and Taylor Bratches.
Sunday | 06.04
What: Korine w/CD Ghost, Voight and DJ Niq V
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Philadelphia-based dream pop band Korine plays a headlining show in Denver for the first time in support of the release of its 2023 album Tear. The group’s sound is somewhere between 80s New Wave groups like, yes, Tears For Fears, late 90s emo’s earnest emotional release and punk attitude. Voight will bring the dark industrial intensity with its scorching shoegaze/techno concoctions CD Ghost from Los Angeles released a set of lush pop songs called Night Music in 2022 that sounds like a a more synth driven and more ethereal Black Marble.
Monday | 06.05
What: Yeah Yeah Yeahs w/Perfume Genius
When: 7
Where: Red Rocks
Why: Yeah Yeah Yeahs have been delivering scrappy, uplifting pop music with punk attitude since forming in 2000 and as first put into recorded form with its 2001 self-titled EP. But the band comprised of three art school kids from New York never rested on its laurels and immediately its creative ambitions drove the band to explore new sounds and expressions to match its emotional growth as well. Its spirited live shows turn even its more melancholic songs into epic anthems that sweep you up in its always deep mood. In 2022 the band released its first album in 9 years, Cool It Down, a record that showcases the group’s gift for richly evocative songwriting and ability to surprise with its willingness to explore new directions in sound and subverting the tropes of pop lyrics while offering new ways of thinking about and feeling timeless themes of human experience with a thrilling immediacy. You also get to see Perfume Genius whose own career in crafting meaningful and engrossing synth pop isn’t short on reinvention and re-envisioning core artistic impulses.
Monday | 06.05
What: Clan of Xymox w/Curse Mackey, A Cloud of Ravens and The Siren Project
When: 7
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Clan of Xymox is the pioneering dutch darkwave band whose early post-punk songs has been foundational to the modern version of that music with its icily melodic synths and deep, mysterious yet emotionally resonant vocals from Ronny Moorings. Curse Mackey has been involved in a variety of electronic industrial bands of the past few decades including My Life With The Thrill Kill Cult and Pigface and the music under his own name has been more in the vein of synth pop end of darkwave. The Siren Project is a Denver band that has persisted since the old local Goth scene of the 1990s but has never been a fashion victim group in sound or appearance. Its downtempo music and dream pop guitar sound with Malgorzata Wacht’s soaring vocals and emotional power has set it apart from most bands in the Denver Goth scene so its music has aged well and its excellent and so far only official album Denouement should appeal to fans of Dead Can Dance and Faith & The Muse.
To Be Continued…
Queen City Sounds and Art 
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