Maybe you’re in a musical rut; maybe you’re just looking for something to keep the New Year’s party going. Either way, Free Week presents a fine solution: Over 70 local acts play gigs with no cover charge Jan. 3 and 4, which means you can discover new music and save a few bucks at the same time – or put that money toward your bartender, who needs it the most during this sleepy holiday season. In the spirit of sonic exploration, I caught up with haha Laughing and Marry Cherry – two bands I’ve never seen before – ahead of their sets at the mini-fest.
Marry Cherry unleashed three singles and an EP in 2023, then opened for Geese at the band’s ACL Fest late-night show at Antone’s in 2024. Yet with a debut album and the band’s first official South by Southwest showcase upcoming, 2025 is poised to be the psych rockers’ biggest yet.
“It does [feel like it’s picking up],” says vocalist Adam Schnitzer, who formed the band with drummer Stevie Trudell at the tail end of 2021. “It’s always been something I really cared about, and it’s been very important to me, but I also work a lot, and it’s been hard to balance those things. So it’s nice to see the ball rolling a little bit.”
The fuzzed-out guitars of well-streamed tracks like “Divebomb†and “Knockout†explain the quartet’s longstanding affiliation with the 13th Floor – where they’ll play Friday, Jan. 3, alongside Matador Sphere, Strange Lot, and Christian Bland & the Revelators – but latest offerings “High All Night†and “New Direction†preview Don’t Lose the Feeling, which Schnitzer hopes to be out via Green Witch Recordings by March, with a more textured sound. Sultry horns and glitchy sound effects pepper the slow-stalking former, while the latter pulses with a rave-ready breakbeat.
Indeed, “the band is moving more towards sample-based stuff,” Schnitzer confirms. Though still a fan of Austin’s famed kaleidoscopic subgenre, the bandleader says, “We’re trying to push the envelope and do something a little more creative, and find a way to pull some things that we’re influenced by, but still make it feel modern.”
Expect even more experimentation on LP No. 2, which Marry Cherry already has in the works. “This album is done. It’s already mixed, mastered, ready to release,” Schnitzer teases. “We’re already working on a second album that I think is going to push the envelope quite a bit more [with] breakbeats, drum loops, samples. It’s leaning towards a lot more electronic, drum machine-heavy [sound]. But this one has a lot of that too.”
This article appears in January 3 • 2025.
