Thursday | March 8, 2018
Who: Musical Mayhem: Jim Davies (GA), Universal Devils and Enji
When: Thursday, 03.08, 9 p.m.
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: This half of March’s programme for Musical Mayhem at the Skylark includes Georgia-based weirdo songwriter Jim Davies, solo videogram soundtrack-esque multi-instrumental looper Enji and Universal Devils. The latter is Tricky Dick Wicket, the drummer for Little Fyodor & Babushka band for over a decade. Universal Devils is his solo project in which he plays guitar, drums and other instruments in a kind of truly unique mix of metal and country and blues. Calling it “avant-garde” doesn’t quite do it justice because it’s accessible with pretty conventional songwriting even if the sounds used in the way they’re used are far from mundane.
Who: Elettrodomestico (Jane Wiedlin and Pietro Straccia)
When: Thursday, 03.08, 8:30 p.m.
Where: BarFly
Why: Jane Wiedlin is doing a Q&A before this performance for the screening of Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. Afterward, her band Elettrodomestico will perform in BarFly, the bar/venue attached to Alamo Drafthouse on West Colfax. The band formed in December 2016 following The Go-Go’s’ “Farewell Tour” (the great new wave band will perform again in 2018) when Wiedlin and Italian musician Pietro Straccia bonded over their mutual love the then recently passed David Bowie. The band the duo started is pretty different from The Go-Go’s and Bowie except for a knack for writing energetic pop songs with a little grit and thoughtfulness and mood to give the music some depth thematically and musically. To the credit of both artists Elettrodomestico is in no way riding anyone’s legacy or coattails. Rather, like Cindy Wilson formerly of the B-52s, it’s a reinvention and one worth listening to separate from any past associations.
Friday | March 9, 2018
Who: Terminals, Gort Vs. Goom, New Standards Men, Pygmy Grizzly, Frank Bell
When: Friday, 03.09, 9 p.m.
Where: Bar Bar
Why: This appears to be a bill of instrumental-focused, experimental music rooted in rock sounds and aesthetics bands. Terminals is sort of an improv post-rock/post-industrial band with guitars, synths, drums, bass. No set is ever the same but the group is more than capable of generating deep atmospheric magic. Gort Vs. Goom is a drums and electric bass duo who make the kind of music that could be described as what might happen if the Melvins set out to make a surf band dedicated to Minutemen. Sure the guys in GVG have vocals but it’s almost like surreal slam poetry. New Standards Men are probably a post-punk band but their sound sounds like it drew heavy influence from some of the more experimental bands on the Thrill Jockey imprint. Like Tortoise or A Minor Forest but with some expansive noise tones in the mix.
Who: Larians (Noah Simons solo), Houseplants, Jumanjihad
When: Friday, 03.09, 9 p.m.
Where: Denver Bicycle Café Beer Hall
Why: Noah Simons is perhaps best known for being the charismatic singer of post-punk band Male Blonding. But his musical interests range pretty far and his solo project Larians, which hasn’t performed live since maybe an RTD (Ready To Dance) event at Rhinoceropolis in 2014, is more in an experimental electronic music and dubtechno vein. Think something like Plaid’s tranquil melodics and use of synth strings alongside Burial-esque bass sculpting and persistent yet dissolving and reconfiguring atmospheres as an element of the beat. How will this all sound at Denver Bicycle Café rather than the main room at The Black Box? You’ll have to show up to find out. But for a taste of what Larians is about, Simons released the excellent “Dwell Led” single in February 2018.
Saturday | March 10, 2018
Who: Kikagaku Moyo w/Tjutjuna and DJ Rett Rogers
When: Saturday, 03.10, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Kikagaku Moyo is a Tokyo-based psychedelic rock/avant-garde band. With its roots in a project between Go Kurosawa and Tomo Katsurada busking the streets of Japan’s most populous metropolis, Kikagaku Moyo has, to some extent, gone against the grain of Japanese culture in the way Ghost did when it started up in the 80s similarly playing music on the streets, subways and ruins of ancient temples in and around Tokyo. Kikagaku Moyo got its proper start as a band when Go’s brother Ryu returned from learning sitar from one of the world’s masters, Manilal Nag in India. Incorporating elements of noise and ambient music, Kikagaku Moyo’s songs express a broad range of sonic experimentation from extended psych freakout jams to tranquil yet haunted folk songs. Unlike many bands that have dipped into the realm of psychedelia and prog, this Japanese quintet doesn’t get stuck in a single or predictable mode. Sharing the stage this night is Denver-based experimental psych band Tjutjuna. Also with musical inspirations traceable to the more out 70s prog and Japanese psych/noise bands like Acid Mothers Temple, Tjutjuna’s hypnotic oeuvre set itself apart from the trendy psych stuff that seemed to hover at the edges of all popular rock music from 2008 onward.
Who: Daikaiju w/TripLip, Dr. Zilog and Smellephant
When: Saturday, 03.10, 7 p.m.
Where: 7th Circle Music Collective
Why: Daikaij is to surf rock what Crash Worship was to noise and post-punk—as experienced, as much an exuberant collective cult ritual as music. Catch the band tonight at 7th Circle or Sunday at the Triple Nickel in Colorado Springs.
Who: King Eddie (video release) w/déCollage
When: Saturday, 03.10, 10 p.m.
Where: BarFly
Why: Tonight King Eddie releases the video for “Enter the Man” from its 2017 boundary pushing psychedelic rock album Holographic Universe. Both that band and the playfully surrealistic psychedelic pop band déCollage will perform before a screening of Renée Laloux’s 1973 animated science fiction classic Fantastic Planet. King Eddie sounds like maybe the music had its origins in writing what had become a trendy psych rock but Jay Mars and his bandmates injected heaps of imagination into the songwriting and arrangements to produce a body of work that synthesizes pop, psych and the avant-garde with the aesthetics of the virtual reality visuals that have become a bit of a specialty for Mars.
Wednesday | March 14, 2018
Who: Uppermost w/Snubluck and Zurc
When: Wednesday, 03.14, 7 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Behdad Nejatbakhshe, aka Uppermost, left his life trajectory into a career as a lawyer to pursue making music. Eight albums in, with the forthcoming Perseverance due out March 23, Uppermost has created a body of work that is a synthesis of pure electronic production and more analog musical elements. For instance on his 2017 album, the loosely space-themed Origins, the producer incorporated live guitar and orchestral arrangements in the recording process. The songs tend to have a bright, upbeat quality with a quality that suggests peaceful spring days and gentle breezes. That Uppermost is inspired by the likes of Burial, Flume and Bonobo should come as no surprise since his own compositions have a soothing yet energetic quality as well. With Perseverance, Uppermost has crafted a body of songs that have an expansive spaciousness with a daydream-y quality that first came back into vogue with the so-called chillwave artists—bright tones, hypnotic yet uplifting atmospheric swells and smooth but irresistible low end. The record feels built for summer nights at casual hangouts with friends and is arriving just in time.
Who: Cars & Trains and Curta album release w/Utajahs and Nighttimeschoolbus visuals by Skyrider
When: Wednesday, 03.10, 8 p.m.
Where: 7th Circle Music Collective
Why: Curta’s new record, End of Future Park, sounds like the natural progression from its dystopian predecessor, 2015’s Replica. Curta’s music has always seemed to sit somewhere between the no-rules-use-of-sounds beatmaking of turn of the century alternative hip-hop, industrial, noise and collage sound composition. End of Future Park is no different but with that album, rapper Jake Danna captures the time between 2016 and 2017 (and, let’s be real, 2018 so far) when underground culture seemed to be under attack and the erosion of all civil institutions and of civility itself and the postmodern nihilism as expressed in a completely understandable cynicism that has blighted the public and personal discourse seemingly everywhere you go. Across the whole record, Danna confronts his own cynicism and there’s a bit of a different feel to this record than a lot of music coming out of late in a way more people probably need to hear—a tone of wanting to find and create a self and a society where that deep rooted cynicism isn’t entirely justified. The record comes out on March 19, 2018 but you can probably pick up a copy at this show where also on the bill is Nighttimeschoolbus, the duo that answers the question of what happens when an idiosyncratic indie pop artist teams up with a masterful alternative hip-hop producer.
Queen City Sounds and Art 
You must be logged in to post a comment.