Austin Sound

Last year, the Black Angels revived the Spirit of the Vulcan Gas Company and Austin’s Sixties psychedelic past with their Psych Fest held out the Red Barn on Burnet. It was one hell of an event, and we’ve been looking forward to a second installment ever since! Well, word has finally leaked out that this year’s Psych Fest will be a whopping 3 day event, to be held just before SXSW on March 13-15. With so many great bands coming to town for our annual indie bludgeoning, we expect this to be an amazing weekend and just hope we survive to make it to SXSW! The lineup and more details will be coming soon, but we’re hoping that given their recent tour backing Roky Erickson and project to record some his material, that the 13th Floor Elevator himself might be unleashing his unholy growl on the scene. We’ll keep you posted.

The Chronicle is reporting this morning that the Black Angels, who will be serving as both the opening and backing band for psych pioneer Roky Erickson on an upcoming west coast tour, has been entrusted by Erickson’s manager, Darren Hill, with over 60 homemade Rocky Erickson recordings, many of which have never been released. The Black Angels are going through the material and choosing 10 songs to record with Roky at Cacophony Recorders, which will be released as an album. That’s some exciting news for both parties, uniting Erickson’s seminal influence with the contemporary rise of local sextet, but it’s most exciting for Austin as a whole, pairing our exceptional musical history with our promising future. We’ll keep you posted as more details emerge.

Darkness is key. Every writer who attempts to wrap their head around the Black Angels mentions the music’s eerie darkness, but most fail to realize that this goes to the very core of what the band is about. The band’s gothic quality is often haunting, sometimes apocalyptic, and always the factor that sets the Black Angels apart from other psychedelic bands. Most reviews reference Heart of Darkness or Apocalypse Now and, upon listening, the analogy is obvious. The music and lyrics draw the listener into a world that is hostile and unknowable. Indeed, the band’s music is almost literary in its unrelenting gloominess - a quality that puts them as much in line with bands like Bauhaus and The Jesus And Mary Chain as with their self proclaimed psych-rock influences.

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Artist: The Black Angels
Label: Light In The Attic/Suretone
Genre: Psych Rock

With the band’s debut, Passover, vaulting them into the realm of attention spans outside of Austin it goes without question that the Black Angel’s upcoming Directions To See A Ghost is one of the most hotly anticipated releases that the local scene will push out this year. Will it live up to the hype?

This weekend, the Black Angels headline the first Austin Psych Fest at the Red Barn, and event that frontman Christian Bland has long wanted to organize. Since the release of Passover in 2006, the sextet have become the premier representatives of Austin’s resurgent psych scene, which includes many of the bands lined up for Saturday’s fest like Ringo Deathstarr, Horse + Donkey, and the Strange Boys. The Fest also serves as the christening for the new venue/art space, the Red Barn, which we expect will become the center of many more fantastic events to come. Also on the horizon for the Black Angels is their new album, Directions to See a Ghosts, due out in May on the awesome Seattle imprint Light in the Attic. We spoke with Bland about the Fest, the new album, and exactly what the relationship is between the Viet Minh and Black Angels.

This is gonna be a big one that you don’t want to miss. This Saturday, March 8, the Black Angels present the first Austin Psych Fest. As we noted in the intro to our Sound Advice Vol II Compilation, Austin’s psych scene is experiencing a rejuvenation, in no small part due to the return of it’s pioneer, Roky Erickson. No band embodies the spirit of the 13th Floor Elevators more than the Black Angels, and they’ve gathered some friends to help, shall we say, expand your consciousness.

11/15/06
The Plug Awards, which might be considered indie music’s anti-Grammy’s, has announced the nominees for their 2007 awards. Categories for the awards include your usual best artist and album, but also branch out into best local record store, venue and online publication. Austin is decently represented among the nominees this year, unlike last year which saw a lot of Spoon but not much else. (Although Super! Alright! was responsible for the awesome opening video for last year’s ceremony).

In the running for Best New Artist are both Voxtrot and the Black Angels, a nice recognition of the promising talent we have here. The Black Angels were also nominated for Album Art/Packaging. The Sword is up for Metal Album of the Year with Age of Winters and Alejandro Escovedo for Americana Album with The Boxing Mirror while I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness’ impressive video for “The Owl” got a nod. Midlake got several nominations – Indie Album of the Year, Song of the Year for “Roscoe” and Video from “Young Bride.”

Click images to view full-size picture

This was our first opportunity to review a show at the Mohawk, and we should note first off what a fantastic venue it is, especially for shooting pictures! And the show wasn’t too shabby either. The Black Angels were exceptional with all their flashback-inducing, psychedelic drones, but the opening acts – Charles Potts Magic Windmill Band and the Strange Boys – were surprising highlights of the night.

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