Austin Sound

In many ways, the singer-songwriter has become a cliché. Maybe it’s too easy - pick up an acoustic guitar, pen a few flowery lines about heartbreak, add some recycled melodies, and voila! Thankfully, Sarah Jaffe breaks that mold. At 6 songs and 21 minutes, Even Born Again, Jaffe’s proper debut and produced by the Paper Chase’s John Congleton, is a mini-masterpiece. The Denton artist’s mournful melodies are wholly original yet comfortably familiar and every element of the EP, from the unique vocal delivery to the haunting strings, is emotionally gripping in all the right ways.

On This Machine Kills Rhythm, Austin garage-rock quartet The Spirit of Space make no effort to hide their influences. Musically, they stick around the “pop-ier” Velvet Underground realm, executing with a certain raw quality despite the seemingly calculated production. The fun and playful lyrics tend to lean more in the direction of ardent Velvet Underground enthusiast Jonathan Richman, as Spirit of Space weave tales of dream girls, loneliness, and pretty much everything that comes with being a young man. Well, except for the first track of the album that, in the spirit of Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” sees Eric Wilson describing the process of eating someone. But that’s just the first song.

With the weather tempting us with almost-cool temperatures and Austinites on a mass exodus to the Cotton Bowl, we can be sure of only one thing: It’s October, and it’s the weekend. This week we’ve got a new roundup of shows and album release parties to fill up the old social calendar and CD shelves. On Friday, La Snacks will finally be dropping their new full length, Newfangled, at the Mohawk in a show presented by Party Ends. The show also features a release by Transmography and a set by recent Sound Off graduates Follow That Bird. Saturday brings us solo shows at the Scoot Inn by Shawn Jones of The Lovely Sparrows, who have been all over our radar lately with their new album Bury The Cynics, along with The Wisdom Teeth and Dark Water Hymnal, whose sure-to-impress album we’re still waiting and salivating like Pavlov for. Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s roll through town on Sunday with their set of new albums, bringing David Vandervelde in tow. Think you can keep up? We’ll see, here’s our Weekend Preview.

This week we are excited to debut a new monthly feature with help from our friends at the Dallas/Ft. Worth blog We Shot JR and Houston’s the Skyline Network that offers some incite into what’s hot in their hometowns right now. We Shot JR takes the pulse of the North Texas scene better than any publication around, and the Skyline Network consistently uncovers the best of Houston before it breaks. Each month, Austin Sound will alternate checking in with each to see what bands are making waves in their neighborhoods and that we in Austin should be on the lookout for. In our first installment, We Shot Jr. offers up four local bands that have recently impressed them: Darktown Strutters, Bad Sports, Sunnybrook, and Febrifuge. Next month, we’ll check in with the Skyline Network to see what’s turning heads in Houston, but we recommend you keep up with both sites for the best that those towns have to offer.

Follow That Bird! has been quickly gaining force in Austin over the past year, and with the release of their new self-titled debut EP, will likely only be getting bigger. The trio delivers a heavy yet melodic punch, bruising riffs and basslines accentuated by Tiffanie Lanmon’s fervent drumming and Lauren Green’s punkish, jagged vocals. There is a distinct base of Nineties’ Riot Grrrl fury to the band, but they transcend that influence by stamping it with their own unique mark. As their answers below reflect, the trio is sarcastically playful and full of energy, but combine to unleash an infectious blast that continually surprises behind contorting rhythms and shifts and vocals buried deep into the onslaught of distortion. Catch Follow That Bird! this Friday at the Mohawk as they support La Snacks cd release show along with Transmography and the spinning of DJ Gross.

“If time was a river you wear like a sleeve, it’s sewn with a thread of hope so short you’d hardly believe,” sings Shawn Jones, a faint hint of sarcasm in his voice, though not enough to overcome the imagery of the phrase itself. Jones may very well be the thread that holds in the loose stitching of the album’s conflicting themes – everything from Pulling Up Floors-style emotional confessions to dark cynical humor – but also incorporates that small but distinct glimmer of “hope.” The space of the full-length allows the themes and instrumentation that were so densely crammed into the Lovely Sparrows debut Pulling Up Floors, Pouring on (New) Paint EP to diffuse and develop more distinctly, though hardly in isolation. The album is Jones at his best, refusing to allow his listeners to take his heart’s complaints too seriously, but reminding us behind every good joke is a stark reality.

It’s been four years since the New Year released their last album, The End Is Near, which had seemed to prophetically signal that the Kadane brothers were once more moving on to other projects. But with the north Texas quintet’s sudden return with their eponymous third album, the New Year has not only delivered their best record, but also seemed to have mastered the balance between slow burning, hazy modern malaise and a poignant restlessness that is in continuous search for something bigger, something with meaning. It’s a mellow set, propped up by a backside heavy with piano ballads, even as it courses with an urgency to move and escape. The mood is encapsulated in the mesmerizing build of the opening track, “Folios,” which dances a easy instrumental waltz for nearly 4 minutes before climaxing in the subdued questioning, “I don’t think the good years I’ve got can wait, so what are we staying for?”

Eve and the Exiles are back with their sophomore release Blow Your Mind, a fantastic party record full of 1960s inspired garage rock and a shot of blues. Cut on 2-inch analog tape at the Sweatbox Studios in Austin, Blow Your Mind features a 14 track program packed with precisely the kind of music that has made this outfit an Austin institution in their six years together.

“I don’t know what else to say except, be prepared to fall in love with this next song.”

Those were the words of vocalist Marc Ferrino during Low Line Caller’s set at Mohawk on Saturday night. Fall in love?? Did we ever! Not just with the song, but with all they offered. What a great way to begin one’s evening. Luckily, up next was The Lemurs celebrating the release of their new EP - Million Little Bits. Low Line Caller was a tough act to follow and the Lemurs did it with ease. It was a packed patio at The Mohawk, and it wasn’t just hype. Both acts were talented and put on a great, entertaining, rump shaking show.