Best Shows in Denver 02/14/19 – 02/20/19

Kikagaku Moyo performs at the Hi-Dive on Feb. 18 and The Fox Theatre in Boulder on Feb. 19 with Weeed. Photo by Jamie Wdziekonski

Thursday | February 14, 2019

Midwife, photo by Tom Murphy

What: An Ambient Valentine’s Day: Benefit for Resilience Rising: School Dance, Allison Lorenzen solo, Midwife, God of Water and Bell Hoss
When: Thursday, 02.14, 8 p.m.
Where: Rosehouse
Why: This show is a benefit women’s shelter Resilience Rising and includes more sonically ethereal and low key artists such as ambient slowcore star Midwife and the like-minded but less abstract artist Bell Hoss who sounds like she fled some pocket dimension that was perpetually the early 80s but where people didn’t get why Joni Mitchell is one of the coolest, most important artists in popular music.

Who: Grivo w/DH and Madelyn Burns
When: Thursday, 02.14, 8 p.m.
Where: Surfside 7
Why: Grivo is an experimental shoegaze/psychedelic rock band from Austin with music out on Holodeck Records.

Who: The Dead & The Daylily w/Turvy Organ, Avifauna and Tiffany Christopher
When: Thursday, 02.14, 7 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: This is Matthew Rossi’s first show as a guitarist in indie rock band Turvy Organ. You’ve seen him play in Tyto Alba assuming you’ve seen that underrated and great Denver dream pop band. Rossi has helped bring to that band a certain elevated emotional tonal palette and he’ll bring some of that to Turvy Organ as well.

Who: Codename: Carter w/Tonguebyte
When: Thursday, 02.14, 7 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Spy-surf phenoms Codename: Carter don’t play so often but when they do, it’s a worthy catching because they coordinate outfits and write songs that remind you that surf rock can have chops and imagination behind it.

Friday | February 15, 2019

Who: Scream Screen: Poltergeist
When: Friday, 02.15, 8 p.m.
Where: Sie FilmCenter
Why: The latest in Theresa Mercado’s Scream Screen series celebrating the life of master horror filmmaker Tobe Hooper. Tonight, 1982’s haunting classic Poltergeist.

Who: The Pollution, Perry Weissman 3 and DJ AKA Miggy
When: Friday, 02.15, 9 p.m.
Where: Goosetown Tavern
Why: The Pollution is rooted in the politically conscious but non-didactic punk of the 80s DC scene but influenced by psychedelic rock and weirdo 70s prog. Perry Weissman 3 is definitely within the experimental wing of jazz. Not necessarily free jazz but that element is in there too.

Who: Maya Jane Coles
When: Friday, 02.15, 9 p.m.
Where: The Church
Why: Maya Jane Coles is the UK DJ whose production and engineering work is noteworthy separate from her career as music maker. In the latter capacity Coles is known for her dark techno sets with a deep house and dub sensibility. Her compositions usually have a gently urgent quality amid moody synth swells and a finely crafted and separation of tones and textures as part of her layers of rhythm bumped along by expertly sculpted low end. Which is just another way of saying her music sounds like something you’d want to hear in the inevitable virtual experiential product of the future that tries to convey what it was like to go to a 2000s underground experimental dance music event in an illegal but safe warehouse in the middle of fall. Plenty of sonic allusions and nods to style can be found in one of her sets for the heads that work well whether you’re familiar with those references or not.

Saturday | February 16, 2019

Turkuaz, photo by Dani Brandwein

Who: Turkuaz with Eminence Ensemble
When: Saturday, 02.16, 8 p.m.
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: Turkuaz is a nine-piece, Brooklyn-based funk band whose sound is as eclectic as it is layered and multi-cultural. Though incorporating elements of psychedelia, R&B and rock Turkuaz’s sound can be readily compared to like-minded bands more associated within the cross section of jam bands end electronic dance music. Think on the more interesting end like Lotus, STS9 and The Disco Biscuits. That kind of flow of sounds and rhythms but rooted in executing the sounds with all live instrumentation and sounding more akin to Kool and the Gang or a Bernie Worrell band than something that has much in common with the EDM realm.

Who: KGNU Quarterly Showcase: The Milk Blossoms, Lady Gang, My New Dad (members of Dandu), Joshua Trinidad and Gregg Ziemba – DJs Joel Davis aka The Vibrarian and TerraSonic
When: Saturday, 02.16, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Lion’s Lair
Why: This edition of the KGNU Quarterly Showcase is, reliably, a fantastic showcase of some of the more interesting artists in Denver. The Milk Blossoms provide a gentle yet heartfelt emotional catharsis with every show with meaningful and experimental pop music by not trying to fit in any genre and giving you the raw, delicately rendered experience. Lady Gang is Jen Korte’s one woman, loop station composition extravaganza. Joshua Trinidad and Gregg Ziemba will kick the serious space jazz science and stretch the boundaries of consciousness in the process.

Who: Le Butcherettes w/Stars at Night and Viretta
When: Saturday, 02.16, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Le Butcherettes make weirdo prog punk within the context of what always seems like inspired performance art as Teri Genderbender channels rock and roll and mythological archetypes of her own creation at every show. Earlier this month the group released its latest album bi/MENTAL, a typically otherworldly and cathartic offering that isn’t much like anything else in rock in re-contextualizing and re-purposing tropes of the genre in creative ways.

Monday | February 18, 2019

Sharon Van Etten, photo by Ryan Pfluger

 

Who: Kikagaku Moyo w/Weeed
When: Monday, 02.18, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Kikagaku Moyo is a Tokyo-based psychedelic rock band whose 2018 album Masana Temples demonstrated further the band’s subtly eclectic sound rooted not just in 70s prog and psychedelic rock but also Japanese traditional music and perhaps 70s Japanese folk artists like Happy End, Karuomi Hosono, Itsutsu No Akai Fusen and Nobuyasu Okabayashi. There is a very organic quality to the band’s music, especially in the live setting where layers of sound are presented in a way that is deceptively simple. Definitely not informed so much by the trendy psychedelic rock wave of recent years. This Hi-Dive show is sold out but there is another day the next night in Boulder at The Fox Theatre.

Who: Sharon Van Etten w/Nilüfer Yanya
When: Monday, 02.18, 7 p.m.
Where: The Gothic Theatre
Why: Sharon Van Etten has been releasing worthwhile and wise records for close to a decade and a half now but her 2019 album Remind Me Tomorrow is her best work to date. The rough warble reminiscent of Marianne Faithful in her prime heard in “Seventeen” is thrillingly raw and the words imbued with a deeply painful letting go of ideas and associations once deep in one’s heart but no longer useful while the ghosts of those connections remain. But the whole record is flowing with the spirits of loves past and the album a gentle purging and reconciliation.

Tuesday | February 19, 2019

Men I Trust circa 2018, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Kikagaku Moyo w/Weeed and Ashley Koett
When: Tuesday, 02.19, 8:30 p.m.
Where: The Fox Theatre
Why: See above for the 2.18 Hi-Dive show entry for more information on Kikagaku Moyo.

Who: Men I Trust w/Michael Seyer
When: Tuesday, 02.19, 7 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Men I Trust has been described any number of ways but the live band evokes the mood of dusky nightclub R&B and soft lighting. But without evoking the early 70s Laurel Canyon pop sound so much in vogue lately. The band’s videos look like some kind of cinematic rendering of 1980s home movies and in a way reminds one of fan videos various people have made for Boards of Canada. It’s not often a band can maintain some sense of mystique these days but Men I Trust definitely has some.

Wednesday | February 20, 2019

Alien Boy, photo by Sam Gehrke

Who: Sundressed, Awakebutstillinbed, Alien Boy and Sunsleeper
When: Wednesday, 02.20, 7 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Around the turn of the century pop punk had all but burned out any appeal to anyone but the most die hard fans because it seemed like every other band was still mining that musical territory hoping to play Warped Tour. But then that tide went out. Toward the end of the first decade of the 2000s some musicians in the punk world embraced melody in their songwriting and the relatable and emotionally resonant and urgent quality that the best pop punk and emo had. In the decade since there’s been a renaissance of that style of music but with musicians freely incorporating elements of other musical styles and ideas. This is a good showcase of that development now long since established. Alien Boy, however, has strayed the furthest from the sonics of punk canon and thus, for this writer, it is the most interesting band on the bill with its unabashed use of moody musical ideas from punk, shoegaze, post-punk and its own focus on the most poignant moments of their lives as a loci of inspiration. The band’s 2018 album Sleeping Lessons firmly established it as one of the most interesting punk bands of recent years. Awakebutstillinbed’s crackling and ragged energy also sounds promising for the performance like a less art/space rock Rainer Maria. It’s gloriously titled 2018 album what people call low self-esteem is really just seeing yourself the way that other people see you is the things of which modern emo legends are made.

Best Shows in Denver 05/17/18 – 05/23/18

Le Butcherettes perform Friday, May 18, 2018, with Hot Snakes and Git Some at The Oriental Theater. Photo by Lyndsey Bynes

Thursday | May 17, 2018

Brian Jonestown Massacre circa 2012, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Brian Jonestown Massacre w/Pale Sun
When: Thursday, 05.17, 7 p.m.
Where: The Gothic Theatre
Why: Brian Jonestown Massacre didn’t kick off any of the handful of psychedelic rock revivals since the 60s but it is one of the few bands that had the emotional resonance and quality of songwriting that made the original wave so interesting. The BJM also brought to the music a musical sensibility that didn’t emerge and synthesize until the 90s after the impact of the alt-country and Paisley Underground of the 80s refined psych, until after house and electronica generally, shoegaze and slowcore brought about different ways to use drones, atmospheres and beats in different contexts. The BJM freely absorbed all of that sort of thing and produced more consistently interesting rock music than most bands of its era. On later records, Anton Newcombe even brought in musical ideas that one might usually attribute to synth pop and krautrock for a hybrid music that pushed far past the bevy of modern psych bands it directly influenced. Pick up pretty much any of their early records and you’ll hear those echoes across a broad stripe of modern rock music. Pick up any of the band’s albums and you’ll hear something interesting that not anyone else is doing quite as well if at all. This show will probably be a more classic Jonetown Massacre set but that just means a good deal of emotionally changed, tonally nuanced songs that come from the heart. Even people who are stuck on the depiction of Newcombe in the great 2004 documentary film Dig! have to admit that he at least seemed like a sincere artist even at his lowest points. Opening is Denver-based shoegaze band Pale Sun, which includes former members of two of the best bands out of that realm of music that never quite hit national prominence in guitar genius and singer Jeff Suthers of Bright Channel and Moonspeed and multi-faceted drummer Kit Peltzel formerly of Space Team Electra and Snake Rattle Rattle Snake.

Who: Bevin Luna album release w/Jen Korte & The Loss and Wildflowers
When: Thursday, 05.17, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Like most of the musicians/bands that come out of Memphis, Bevin Luna’s songwriting is quite eclectic but not in that trying-to-please-too-many-people way. You get the feeling that Luna had to prove herself to some unforgiving audiences before she moved to Denver and started playing in the local scene in 2005. It’s rock haunted by country, traditional blues, folk and played with the energy of what a punk band should be. While not as swamp-haunted as, say, Gun Club or as countrified as Green On Red, Bevin Luna’s songwriting has roots in similar musical territory. Her new album, Baby Dragon, is fuzzier than some of her earlier music and the raw quality of the recordings really enhances Luna’s natural grit.

What: Glasss Presents the Speakeasy Series Season 2: R A R E B Y R D $, Shocker Mom, Pearls & Perils
When: Thursday, 05.17, 7 p.m.
Where: Hooked On Colfax
Why: Oh, sure, these artists play more than a few shows together. But it’s an example of some of the best bands/artists going playing shows in less-than-fancy situations to friends regardless of whether strangers will get it, thankful for friends showing up and putting on a great show anyway. To call any of these projects “hip-hop” would be technically accurate but wouldn’t encompass the imaginative soundscaping and beats and the use of natural dance moves in performing the music in a way. A short list of the most emotionally moving vocalists in Denver now would have to include KokoLa and Key Lady from R A R E B Y R D $, Robin Walker who is Shocker Mom and Olivia Perez who is Pearls and Perils. Fans of downtempo, lushly produced hip-hop and R&B should make the effort to check out these artists whether tonight or another time.

Friday | May 18, 2018

Hot Snakes, image by Rick Froberg

Who: Hot Snakes, Le Butcherettes and Git Some
When: Friday, 05.18, 8 p.m.
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Hot Snakes’ Jericho Sirens, out March 2018 on Sub Pop, is the band’s first album since 2004’s excellent Audit in Progress. And, of course, it’s less playful than Rick Froberg’s and John Reis’s other projects (Obits, Rocket From the Crypt), and has perhaps more in common with their pioneering noise rock band Drive Like Jehu. Angular, at times clashingly atonal, jagged breakdowns, the songs somehow have an anthemic quality that one might attribute to a pop punk band. Except that Jericho Sirens is a seething commentary on how every part of our culture and world civilization in general seems to be on the verge of collapse with public and political rhetoric amping up a kind of Manichaean world view in which one must pick a side or one will be presumed for you. The title of the album, alone, brilliantly and poetically clues one in on the constant state of alert that is encouraged in everyone everywhere all the time now. On this leg of the tour is Le Butcherettes, a band whose own music embodies the violence and contrasts of modern Mexico while examining the nature of identity and the role it plays in our lives and how notions of such can warp perception and impose a harmful cognitive framework. But all headiness and doom and gloom aside, both Hot Snakes and Le Butcherettes are bands whose live show is so viscerally entertaining that even if you don’t look beyond the surface level you won’t regret going. That bands aren’t creating essentially content-free art right now, though, is incredibly refreshing. Git Some, from Denver, is cut from a similar cloth and even if you see Luke Fairchild moving around like a marionette drive by forces beyond his control, what he’s singing about also cuts to the quick of the harrowing reality of modern human, especially North American, life.

Saturday | May 19, 2018

Marisa Anderson, photo by Jason Quigley

Who: Godspeed You! Black Emperor w/Marisa Anderson
When: Saturday, 05.19, 8 p.m.
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: Marisa Anderson’s guitar compositions channel the sound of the natural world around her. Pastoral in tone with a detail of sound that suggests emotions rendered as sonic texture. Her forthcoming album, Cloud Corner (due out June 15, 2018 through Thrill Jockey), is like a step into that part of America that is off the main roads and outside the thought patterns and resultant culture that pushes us all to go, go, go at the expense of our own long term psychological health. It is music that if we take it in on its own terms reminds us to make time for being human and not the servants of modern post-industrial society. So it makes sense that Anderson is opening for one of the few bands that has maintained some sense of mystique and one that makes futuristic music commenting on world culture using a more classic music approach but not held back by a sensibility and tradition that emphasizes canon through interpreting the works of past masters. Godspeed! You Black Emperor shows how a group of small, committed people can use their talent and work to use conventional tools to demonstrate unorthodox, and even rebellious, ideas. Its 2017 album Luciferian Towers was released along with a statement reflecting a radical, yet completely sensible, view on international human rights. Maybe the band thought it better to think ahead than let the horrible leaders of the world try to dictate all its narratives.

Sunday | May 20, 2018

Mary Lattimore, photo by Rachael Pony Cassells

Who: Mary Lattimore w/Hannah Samano and Bellhoss
When: Sunday, 05.20, 7 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Mary Lattimore branches out on her latest album, Hundreds of Days. It’s still the beautifully detailed, intricate ambient melodies that have distinguished her earlier releases. This time out she has experimented more with electric and electronic instruments and equipment as well as her own voice to augment her masterful harp work. Lattimore’s playing has garnered her chances to tour (as a live performer) and collaborate with the likes of Jarvis Cocker, Thurston Moore, Julianna Barwick and gigs doing soundtrack work for the biographical documentaries about Marina Abramović (2012’s The Artist is Present) and Fred Rogers (Won’t You Be My Neighbor, also from 2012). Lattimore’s broad expressive range and ability to write pieces with a keen ear for the percussive and tonal quality of her instruments is impressive. And timeless. Except for the electronic elements it would be difficult to place Lattimore’s music in time and seeing it live or even listening to it on a recording. Of course if you go see it live you will also get to see how visceral an instrument a harp can be even as its ethereal tones seem to float off into infinity.

What: Noise Night at Syntax Physic Opera: Ambigere (WA), Rasmussen, eMMAoWEN, Mirror Fears, Clutch Plague and Sunk Cost
When: Sunday, 05.20, 8 p.m.
Where: Syntax Physic Opera
Why: Ultra Metal presents this edition of Noise Night at Syntax. Noise isn’t for everyone but this lineup will be a much more than the cliché of harsh noise and simple pedal chaining. Rasmussen is a member of local noise legends Page 27 but his solo work is often ambient or even in the realm of dance music. Sunk Cost is Ultra Metal founder Johnathan Cash’s harsh noise project and to some it may sound like tuning in to amplified dead stations on the radio. But there is some soundsculpting going on and the visceral impact of those sounds through a P.A.. Mirror Fears is generally known for her brilliantly crafted, melancholic experimental, industrial pop music but as part of her overall musical identity there is the sensibility of noise and the use of sound in ways that simply don’t fit into a standard pop context. Clutch Plague has a more old school industrial, beat driven sound. EMMAoWEN uses soundscaping, harsh noise and sampling to make impactful commentary on culture and touring act, Ambigere from Olympia, Washington, creates sonically tactile environments that are technically ambient but clearly on the harsh end of that spectrum because there’s nothing soothing about it.

Tuesday | May 22, 2018

Japandroids circa 2012, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Wolf Parade w/Japandroids w/Adrian Teacher and The Subs
When: Tuesday, 05.22, 7 p.m.
Where: The Ogden
Why: Canadian post-punk band Wolf Parade went on indefinite hiatus in 2010 after producing a few of the most interesting rock albums of that time. Rather than the dance punk or Joy Division-esque mode of post-punk, Wolf Parade’s dusky atmospherics were more akin to those of Crime and the City Solution and Nick Cave. Singer and keyboardist Spencer Krug’s multifaceted career in and out of Wolf Parade included stints in noteworthy indie bands Frog Eyes, Sunset Rubdown and Swan Lake as well as his solo project Moonface. Guitarist/vocalist Dan Boeckner subsequently formed Handsome Furs as well as The Divine Fits (the latter with Britt Daniel of Spoon). Wolf Parade announced its hiatus was over in January 2016 and in 2017 it released Cry Cry Cry on Sub Pop. In support of the album, with clear stylistic nods to recently passed rock icons with David Bowie’s lush and emotionally rich songwriting and Tom Petty’s knack for pop storytelling, the band is currently on tour with another of Canada’s most dynamic rock bands of the moment: Japandroids.

From Vancouver, British Columbia, Japandroids played its own brand of punk and what one might call post-garage with a fiery energy at pretty much every show. Influenced by the likes of The Sonics and Gun Club, Japandroids put out an impressive, albeit relatively small, body of work at two full-length albums and two EPs (collected into a compilation humorously titled No Singles) before going on hiatus itself in 2013. And, purely coincidentally, announced it was back together in 2016 with Near to the Wild Heart of Life, which the band said in interviews was its first attempt to craft an album in a more traditional sense rather than written piecemeal in a headlong rush of being a band in its earlier days. If it didn’t have quite the urgency or ferocity of 2010’s Post-Nothing or 2012’s Celebration Rock, the traces of the record’s Replacements-esque, anthemic power pop was already present on the early material. Japandroids now just sounds bigger to match the intensity with which Brian King and David Prowse continue to bring to the live show.

Who: Kimbra w/Son Lux
When: Tuesday, 05.22, 7 p.m.
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Kimbra earned her bona fides by making soulful and eclectic indie rock that reminded fans and critics of other artists. Fortunately, Kimbra had the chops and talent to warrant glowing comparisons. Her debut album, 2011’s Vows, was a combination of upbeat lounge jazz and electronic pop and reminiscent of an Amy Winehouse record. And the album was critically acclaimed, garnering Kimbra the attention of future high profile collaborators like Mark Foster, Flying Lotus and Thundercat, the latter of which performed on Kimbra’s 2014 album The Golden Echo. With the 2018 album Primal Heart, Kimbra has broadened her songwriting palette and vocal range, now establishing a style that’s not so easy to compare to her peers and influences.

Who: Y La Bamba w/Malahierba, Stelth Ulvang, DJ A-Train
When: Tuesday, 05.22, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Y La Bamba’s Luz Elena Mendoza was born in San Francisco to parents from Mexico and coming up she took in the folk music and folklore of Mexico. She mostly grew up in Oregon and when she formed Y La Bamba in Portland, Mendoza found musicians who shared her musical tastes and inclinations. But rather than a straightforward folk and Americana act, Y La Bamba included, of course, lyrics in Spanish as well as subtle use of electronic instruments to enhance a sense of the otherworldly present in the group’s vocal harmonies and acoustic instrumentation. In a way, the music suggests the feeling one gets from reading the more mystical works of Zora Neal Hurston in which the material world is very tactile but informed by the presence of the spiritual world in the subject matter and the tone of Hurston’s writing. As with Hurston, Mendoza channels her ancestors and their cultural traditions but bringing her own rich imagination and intelligence to bear in her creative interpretation and expression and extension of those ineffable influences.

Wednesday | May 23, 2018

Wye Oak, photo by Shervin Lainez

Who: Wye Oak w/Corsicana
When: Wednesday, 05.23, 7 p.m.
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Wye Oak is the rare band that has recognized a rut as it’s threatening to happen. With its 2011 album Civilian, the duo’s music was finding placement in film and television and that would have reinforced a creative tendency by rewarding creation using a generally specific method. So the band took some time off from Wye Oak with drummer Andy Stack moving away from Baltimore in search of being around a different sort of artistic climate in Texas and Portland. Guitarist and vocalist Jenn Wasner put time into Dungeonesse, an electronic pop and R&B project with producer Jon Ehrens. When Wye Oak was working on new music it took a different direction with less emphasis on Wasner’s admittedly imaginative and evocative guitar work and more on beats and textured, composed melodies. Thus the 2014 album Shriek and Tween, the 2016 album that all but outlined that transition from the musical thinking of Civilian to that of Shriek. The 2018 Wye Oak album The Louder I Call, The Faster It Runs is the kind of album a band releases after it has reinvented itself and then considered what it would like to say next before doing so.

Who: Starjammer vs. Lunetta, Atari, Sleepy Nemo, Human Hearts and Mahou Odd Genie & Norm L. Princess
When: Wednesday, 05.23, 7 p.m.
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective
Why: Starjammer is difficult to categorize beyond it’s self-described “Avant-Garde/Dub-Reggae.” Seems legit as Squids Madden was recently seen playing sax on stage with Godspeed You! Black Emperor at The Ogden. He will also probably bring his lighting rig to add another layer of otherworldliness to this collaborative set with Lunetta, a project that could be described as lo-fi industrial psych. Atari cuts together vinyl records to produce truly unique samples that he manipulates by hand at the live show giving less actual control over frequencies and rhythms from the sample proper. He gives the sounds the contexts and thus the art of what Atari is doing. Mahou Odd Genie & Norm L. Princess sounds like some kind of weirdo field recording project mixed with intentional music and noise. Basically, the show with the weirdest music this month unless you’re going to an Ultra Metal event.

Who: Bob Log III w/Simulators
When: Wednesday, 05.23, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Bob Log III is a one man band who, sure, plays a mutant version of Delta blues but he does wearing a face-obscuring-ly tinted helmet and otherwise looking like maybe he was pulled from a band in Judge Dredd or a reconstituted civilization following the era depicted in the Max Max movies. When he was a member of Doo Rag, Bob Log III’s confrontational performance style won over audiences when he was opening for much more famous bands. Probably because not many people had seen anything quite like it. Opening for Bob in Denver is SIMULATORS, the noise rock/post-punk band comprised of Bryon Parker formerly of Accordion Crimes and Raleigh and Brian Polk of Joy Subtraction. The band’s jagged rhythms and blunt, to the point music should appeal to fans of Shellac because it often does sound that savage.