Austin Sound

Hug is sheer novelty - something to amuse and offend listeners with their self-aware, completely ludicrous rock. It’s no surprise that the band pictured on the inside sleeve of their latest LP, Cravings, Lust, and Chaos, has two out of three members in a dress swaying back and forth in a drunk-possessed state, consumed by their own meta-pop about adulterous gay politicians, buying drugs in Mexico, and taking your pants off just for the hell of it.

Chaos plays like a cheap party trick. Stuck somewhere between blissfully unaware of its own tongue-in-cheek tackiness and subliminally insane, the tracks meander through patches of electro kraut-rock, socio-cultural narratives about humanity’s penchant for its own destruction, and a bout or two of actually listenable, tolerable, lucid moments, which unfortunately only work as relief from the rest of the album, and less as compliment.

Anyone who has been involved in a focus group knows the look in the eye of the moderator – trying desperately to weave together useful information spit forth by rednecks, faux-intellectuals, and single mothers, he sweats and stirs. If he is good, he succeeds, boiling a pile of opinion into a useful whole. Austin’s Focus Group are good moderators. Knowing that it is the process and not the individual pieces of content, Focus Group reaches across genres and wrenches out of it compelling, unique tracks. If nothing else, their latest release, Unicornography, will make the listener reconsider whether Jazz piano really can go with industrial synth drums.

With such a long and foreboding title, Mediocrity is the Strongest Inevitability, you’d think Austin duo, Dirty Dancing, would have somehow managed to avoid the inevitable. Over Mediocrity’s fourteen tracks of low-fi, electro-guitar noise, they manage to demonstrate the very dangerous, intimate nature of home recording, engineering, and producing. In pouring through their long-playing catalogue, there are only a few moments, somewhere near the album’s middle torso that glimmer with a chance of hope, and that’s only if you have the accepting palate: plenty of Velvet Underground, some 80s music by groups who were really good in the 70s, and a tolerance for (art?) noise.

Last week it was finally announced what UT is going to do with the Cactus Cafe. If you haven’t been keeping up, we recommend you check out Austin Powell’s coverage in the Chronicle, which he’s managed to milk for eleven freakin’ weeks. tl;dr. The basic deal that was struck was that KUT will hire a manager for the place and book most of the shows, while the University Union will handle the bar. KUT and the Union are going to split the profits (read: losses). This means KUT is about to put more FUN in their Fund drives!

So the big question is, should we care that the Cactus has been granted a stay of execution, or that it’s now KUT’s clubhouse?

Consumed/Hot Buttered Anomie, the new split 12” release from Austin’s Beautiful Supermachines and The Distant Seconds, is an excellent example of how sometimes less is more. With about ten minutes of music for each band, the EP proves to be a nice coda for both bands after their well-received debuts. Any more than the three songs per band and things might have gotten too heavy; instead, listeners are left waiting and wanting more.

“Hot Buttered Anomie,” The Distant Seconds’ half of the record, picks up right where their red-hot debut Spectral Evidence left off in late 2008. “Between The Brackets” continues the taut and tense interplay between Matt Baab’s guitar playing and Brandon Bunch’s synthesizers that made much of Spectral Evidence so great. For fans of their debut, “Between The Brackets” will be the clear favorite on “Hot Buttered Anomie.”

Austin has seen a number of solid orchestral pop and rock outfits in recent years, but perhaps none have created more buzz than Mother Falcon. The young group, which boasts around 20 given members, wowed the crowd at SXSW when they were given the opportunity to play the Austin Music Awards, but they have been equally swelling huge crowds along Red River as well. Their debut EP, Still Life, is an amazing example of expansive and intricately arranged movements carved into pristine and concise pop. Strings dominate and dance behind the emotive vocal turns, balancing the distinctive croon of Tamir Kalifa against harmonies between Nick Gregg and Claire Puckett. While the band’s album is mesmerizing (and they are planning on recording a full-length later this year), they are best beheld in their sprawling live sets. You can do just that this Sunday, May 23, as they play the aftershow for Of Montreal at the Mohawk. In other words, plan to stick around.

We remember back in the day when we started this site and all the kids loved Voxtrot. And rightfully so - they produced stellar indie pop with a disgruntled edge of wit that was all the rage back then, and their shows were packed and enthusiastic with bopping kids. But those kids have grown up, and alas, perhaps so does Voxtrot. They have of course been lying low for quite some time, with members moving on or sporting other projects here and there (Hey, what’s up with Sparrow House, Jared Van Fleet!?). But recently frontman Ramesh Srivastava decided to just go ahead and make the band’s demise official. Fair enough, that will happen. Though we only got one album and some awesome EPs and singles from Voxtrot, as Ramesh notes: “Part of doing something with love is being able to say “goodbye” at the right time.” You can read his full goodbye note on their site. Voxtrot will be doing one final run of shows, however, starting this weekend in Chicago. They’re doing 8 shows in all (including a two night stand at the Bowery in New York, who apparently still love their pop jangle!), and will be saying goodbye to Austin at Emo’s on Thursday June 3. We guess that “The Start of Something” always has to have its ending as well. Bye bye boys, and good luck.

We were kinda surprised at all the folks bemoaning the Eagles being tapped to headline ACL this year. Sure, it’s the Eagles, but what where you all expecting? It is ACL after all. And don’t worry, there is plenty in your indie wheelhouse that you’ll love - like Slightly Stoopid! Seriously though, we have to say that this is one of the better ACL lineups we’ve seen. The headliners are a big batch of big-money MEH, but even locally, the Fest is pulling in acts like the Sword and Balmorhea! Eclecticism! And sure, you can’t go wrong with the Flaming Lips, the Mountain Goats, Spoon, Band of Horses and LCD Soundsystem, but ACL is also bringing back some great lower tier stuff, like the Soft Pack, Girls, Local Natives, and MyNameIsJohnMichael. Sweetness. The 3 day passes are gone, baby, gone, but you can still buy your single day tix here, on sale now. Scope out the full lineup below. ACL will be unloading in Zilker Park on October 8-10.

We might have to change our name to Denton Sound if that little North Texas music mecca keeps sending us such good mp3s. (Just kidding, we’re way too snobby about the Austin music scene to even think anywhere else might compete). Still, the debut full-length from Sarah Jaffe, called Suburban Nature, is quite an album, building off of her excellent Even Born Again EP that garnered the young songwriter well-deserved praise across the board a couple of years ago. She will be officially releasing the album this weekend in Austin with a show at the Parish on Saturday, and a Waterloo Records instore on Sunday. Then she’s apparently going on a west coast tour with Lou Barlow, which is obviously awesome, but also a little strange seeing as how she was just on tour with Norah Jones? That’s a pretty big difference, though maybe we can just say that it testifies to her amazingly broad reach and cross cultural appeal. Or something. Anyway, download the new song “Clementine” below.

Shocking news: on their debut album In And Out And Back Again, Woven Bones sound like they are listening to a lot of The Jesus & The Mary Chain. There, now that that’s out of the way, perhaps there’s a little time to discuss their excellent album - just act quickly on the discussion, because the entire thing clocks in at about twenty six minutes and feels more like fifteen with its breakneck pace.

The band careens from song to song so quickly and forcefully, never slowing down to even acknowledge that there are flowers, much less sniff them, that – especially upon first listen – the audience is left wondering what herd of animals just trampled them.