Weird roots run deep and tangled in Austin dirt – and though the city changes, we’re still reaping the fruit of the psychedelic and experimental music that sprouted here. Levitation and Austin Psych Fest have become yearly reminders of the influential artists that came up in or got a boost in the Live Music Capital, from initial innovators 13th Floor Elevators, through festival founders the Black Angels, and into the local, national, and international bands pushing the genre into stranger places.
Instead of trying to fill every bucket like the mainstream fests, or becoming restricted exclusively to bands that check the psychedelic box, this year’s schedule rewards underground listeners and Austin’s local scene, crafting bills that reflect a knowledge of our city’s niche fanbases with an eye on informed discovery.
Given our embrace of boundary-pushing and love of looking back, the schedule has become a welcome practice pad for new projects – like Animal Collective’s offshoot Croz Boyce, which plays with Austin noise collective Water Damage Saturday at Central Presbyterian, and polka-dotted experimental French-Canadian duo Angine de Poitrine, whose Saturday Stubb’s show sold out quickly. Tracing jagged lineages elsewhere on the lineup, a sort of immersive history lesson appears wherein audiences can catch both emerging acts and the bands that undoubtedly inspired them.
Some connections are easy to see: The torch Bikini Kill lit is handily caught by Die Spitz on Friday at the Far Out Lounge. Those needing a Midwest emo fix sans American Football, who canceled their Texas tour dates and thus dropped off Thursday’s bill, can reliably put their faith in Chicago’s quiet-loud guitar rockers Friko (Friday, Mohawk).
Other Austin appetites can be satiated by a variety of flavors. The gloomy glory of Joy Division and New Order looms over a generation of synth-embracing songwriters that’ve bent post-punk tenets to their own experiences. Those bands’ co-founding bassist, Peter Hook, struck out on his own in 2010 and brings songs from both projects to the Far Out Lounge with backing band the Light on Saturday, amid a lineup of younger acts creating in his shadow: I Speak Machine skews electronic and theatrical, while DITZ leans sparse and punk-industrial.
Hook’s lesser-known Seventies peers, Cabaret Voltaire (Saturday, Far Out Lounge), took inspiration from the Dada art movement and punk’s DIY ethos to create their avant-garde pop blend of electronic sampling, vocal effects, and danceable percussion. The ripples of this funk-inflected experimentation are felt in the aberrant pop sounds of Automatic, who play next on the South Austin stage. Locals Curse Mackey and SINE (Saturday, Elysium) are clear descendants of this era’s melancholic aura and boundless pop exploration, further electrified for the contemporary dance floor.
Belarusian trio Molchat Doma (Saturday, Far Out) blends these two approaches into a gothic sound brightened by shimmery moments of pop synth that feels aesthetically tied to the absurdist-yet-brutalist architecture on their album covers. Arlo Parks’ 2026 album, Ambiguous Desire, takes her earnest indie-pop songwriting to the club with strobe-timed synths and lush, dance floor-ready beats that kick off the fest Thursday at Mohawk. British synth acts Temples (Friday, Mohawk) and Powerplant (Friday, Far Out), meanwhile, season their New Wave with a hint of another genre staple of Austin’s scene: adventurous, irreverent rock.
When you see those words together, one band must come to mind: the Butthole Surfers. Texas-raised, idiosyncratic performer Gibby Haynes reunites with the audience that catapulted the experimental rock group to indie icon status for a Friday evening performance at the Far Out described as “Butthole Surfers Mania.” Their willingness to hop genres and drench their guitars in distortion can be seen in cult-beloved post-punk duo the Garden (Friday, Stubb’s). The act’s cheeky wordsmanship and punk roots also rear their heads in Australia’s Radium Dolls and Ireland’s Gurriers (Thursday, 29th Street Ballroom), and, mellowed by the city’s signature slackerdom, Austin’s own Gus Baldwin & the Sketch (Sunday, 13th Floor).
It wouldn’t be Levitation without psychedelia. Sunday at Far Out features many big names of the genre, but there are other gems to be heard too. Everything about Spacemoth – name, inspirational emphasis on nature and memory, hypnotic and textural sound – fits snugly into the genre. Producer and engineer Maryam Qudus works with Levitation alumni like Toro y Moi, Frankie and the Witch Fingers, and La Luz, and launched Spacemoth (Thursday, 13th Floor) as her solo musical project in 2022. Takuya Nakamura (Saturday, 29th Street Ballroom) is the Japanese jazz theorist behind some of the quirkiest experimentation on later Quincy Jones and David Byrne tracks. This year’s debut LP expands his own innovative catalog with difficult-to-categorize compositions. Bandcamp-exclusive sibling duo Los Thuthanaka snagged a Best New Music designation from Pitchfork for 2025’s self-titled album, a playful combination of electronic sampling and traditional Latin American elements.
As psychedelic music loves a looping riff, this festival cherishes a refrain. At least 19 of the 67 acts performing during the four-day festival have played Levitation or sister event Austin Psych Fest before. After a year of single-venue formatting at Palmer Events Center, this year marks a return to the multi-stage concept, with shows split between Red River Cultural District venues (Stubb’s, Mohawk, Elysium, 13th Floor), 29th Street Ballroom, Central Presbyterian Church, and the longest bills hosted – in an unexpected return – at Far Out Lounge.
While initially scheduled for Radio/East, Levitation co-founder and festival director Rob Fitzpatrick announced on August 28 that the “final permit for the expanded layout onto the neighboring property was not approved,” and thus, the festival’s central hub would move over to the South Congress venue, which has hosted several Levitation shows since 2022. “No one likes last-minute changes – certainly not us – but we’re as committed as ever to our mission of providing a platform for independent music and art,” the director wrote, thanking Far Out and the venue and production crew “working to make the magic happen.”
Seeing repeat names – especially local ones, like longstanding doom power trio the Well and newer indie act Grocery Bag – further reinforces the connection between Austin’s own history and contemporary scenes, and rough constellations of inspiration and sonic heritage are everywhere in the Levitation lineup once you connect the dots. It’s nice to know Austin can support legacy, discovery, plenty of reverb, and even a little repetition.
Levitation touches down across multiple venues Sept. 10-13.
This article appears in September 11 • 2026.
