PLUS: SXSW News & Reviews • Summer Camps

April 26 • 2013

Apr 26 - May 2, 2013 / Vol. 32 / No. 35
Digital Edition

Cover Story

Austin Psych Fest Album Primer

Tinariwen Amassakoul (World Village USA) Formed in the camps of Colonel Gaddafi in Tuareg, Tinariwen is a nomadic tribe of soul rebels who’ve carved a distinct, Saharan sound indicative of the outfit’s long struggle. Banned in Algeria and Mali, 2004’s Amassakoul marks the band’s most electric and immediate work: gritty, dry, and powerful in the…

by Austin Powell

Record Reviews

Black Bananas Rad Times XPress IV (Drag City) Royal Trux co-founder Jennifer Herrema can’t string together one sensible sentence during an interview these days, but damn if the D.C. vet can’t rip it on wax. The fourth album from her longstanding RTX crew – but the first under the Black Bananas moniker – eschews the…

by Chase Hoffberger

Exhibitionism

Theatre En Bloc experiments with telling the story of our city’s growth but fails to be specific about it

by Dan Solomon

Moving Sidewalks

The YouTube footage looks familiar, but slightly tweaked, like some alt-universe Star Trek episode. Onstage, a lean figure in an impressively tailored suit (‘cuz every girl’s crazy about a sharp-dressed man), wide-brimmed hat, and flowing, rabbinical beard known the world over grins beneath his Ray-Bans, squeezing barbecue blues runs from what looks like a Silly…

by Tim Stegall

Austin Psych Fest Album Primer

Silver Apples (MCA) Light years ahead of its time, Silver Apples’ 1968 masterpiece still sounds like some lost transmission from a distant future – cold, strange, tense – cosmic poetry with an analog heart and intuitive percussion. Composed using nine audio oscillators with 86 manual controls, the LP spells out the NYC duo’s all-in approach…

by Austin Powell

Record Reviews

Os Mutantes Fool Metal Jack (Krian Music Group) Time hasn’t been kind to Os Mutantes. The Brazilians’ seminal back catalog bears the distinct time stamp of late Sixties São Paulo – avant-pop Tropicália – and 2009’s unexpected comeback Haih or Amortecedor did little to summon its warped charm. Sérgio Dias, lone member from the original…

by Austin Powell

Early Voting Locations

You may vote at any early voting location in the county in which you are registered. On election day, you may vote at any polling site. For a list of precinct locations: 512/238-VOTE or www.traviscountyelections.org. Williamson County: www.wilco.org/elections or 512/943-1630. Hays County: www.co.hays.tx.us/elections or 512/393-7310. EARLY VOTING LOCATIONS Open Mon.-Sat., 7am-7pm, and Sun., noon-6pm, unless…

by Chronicle Staff

Exhibitionism

Texas State University’s delightful staging showed off all the strengths of its musical theatre program

by Jillian Owens

Soccer Watch

The Austin Aztex continue their preseason preparations, leading up to the season ­opener May 11 in Oklahoma City. They won a pair of games last weekend – 4-1 over South­west­ern, and 2-1 over St. Edward’s – and conclude the exhibition season by taking on the UT men’s team this Friday evening, April 26, 7:30pm, at…

by Nick Barbaro

Austin Psych Fest Album Primer

Acid Mothers Temple Crystal Rainbow Pyramid Under the Stars (Important) Acid Mother Temple’s founding guitarist, Makoto Kawabata, only has one gear: interstellar overdrive. The Japanese ensemble has released a staggering array of cosmic freak-outs, careening drastically through free jazz, Krautrock, and Seventies prog – often in one take. 2007’s Crystal Rainbow arcs no exception, the…

by Austin Powell

Record Reviews

Deerhunter Monomania (4AD) Deerhunter’s sixth LP borders on a Bradford Cox solo album. More than anything else by the Atlanta indie band, it captures his complexity as a songwriter – frail yet abrasive, pushing back only to pull further in. Employing a couple of eight-tracks, “Neon Junkyard” starts in the red, overblown and overexposed. Another…

by Austin Powell

Roky Erickson

Roky Erickson pauses momentarily at the entrance to Patagonia at 316 Congress Ave. “Oh, yeah, wow. It’s filled with clothes,” he says with a mixture of hesitance and wonder. There’s nothing amid the fleeces and outdoor gear of the shotgun-styled room to suggest its brief reign as the Vulcan Gas Company almost half a century…

by Doug Freeman

Record Reviews

The Laurels Plains (Rice Is Nice) Don’t come looking for innovation from this Australian quartet. Starting with the grand swell of “Tidal Wave,” the Laurels unfurl a blistering, breathy mélange of shoegaze, psych-punk, and Britpop that rings instantly familiar. Yet unlike their more adventurous countrymen in Tame Impala, the Laurels don’t put a distinctive imprimatur…

by Greg Beets

Food Events

› Umlauf Garden Party The 15th annual Garden Party is raising funds for improvements. Thu., April 25, 6:30-9:30pm. Umlauf Sculpture Garden & Museum, 605 Robert E. Lee. $150. www.umlaufsculpture.org/gardenparty. › Austin Food & Wine Festival Food & Wine Magazine hosts demos, tastings, and more with local and national chefs. See austinchronicle.com/blogs/food for preview. April 26-28.…

by Chronicle Staff

Masaki Batoh’s Brain Pulse Music

When Japanese guitar samurais Ghost scared up folk-inflected lightning psych at Mohawk in 2009, the 30-year-old institution conjured an indoor electrical storm. Now, group constant Masaki Batoh strives to apply a similar electro therapy directly. Brain Pulse Music – according to the CD sticker – ties into Batoh’s “patent [for] a machine that derives sound…

by Raoul Hernandez

Exhibitionism

The works in Dance Repertory Theatre’s spring program proved unexpectedly timely in a week of unrest and anxiety

by Jonelle Seitz

Austin Psych Fest Album Primer

Boris Flood (Fangs Anal Satan) Only Boris could tour behind an import-only rarity, self-released more than a decade ago. An understated and oft-overlooked watermark, 2000’s Flood remains a work of calming mystery and subtle pleasures, revealing itself in four tidal movements stretched across 70 minutes. Imagine a Japanese version of Explosions in the Sky’s The…

by Austin Powell

Record Reviews

Goat World Music (Rocket Recording/Stranded Rekords) Goat comes with a dense, potentially dressed-up mythology. Originating in the remote Swedish city of Korpilombolo, the group claims to have a decades-long history of collaboration, with new members humbly shifting in and out as the years go by. World Music, then, should be taken as a document of…

by Luke Winkie

Drone Home

Ride Into the Sun (Fri., 3:30pm, Reverberation stage) Smoldering psych rock from Adelaide with wings like black angels and an imminent 7-inch release. Tjutjuna (Fri., 4:45pm, Elevation amphitheatre) Denver quintet makes mushroomed mantra its religion on latest single “Desert Shore.” Lumerians (Fri., 6pm, Levitation tent) Space is the place for Lumerians, the Oakland psilocybin psonictitians…

by Michael Toland

Record Reviews

Clinic Free Reign II (Domino) Little known fact that Clinic can get groovy. More alternate take than traditional remix, ambient collagist Daniel Lopatin (aka Oneohtrix Point Never) retooled the Liverpudlians seventh LP for what was supposed to be the original release. While the changes aren’t always drastic (see highlight “Miss You II”), feel free to…

by Austin Powell and Luke Winkie

Record Reviews

The Growlers Hung at Heart (Everloving) The Growlers left Black Key Dan Auerbach at the production altar last winter, ditching Nashville on account of an “overcooked” assessment of their third album and retreating back to California in hopes of drumming up some psychedelic sun. Hung at Heart opens with the bright, jangly “Someday” before sliding…

by Chase Hoffberger

The Luv Doc: Obnoxious, Whiny Creatures

Luvdoc, I love my sister, but I hate her children. They are the most spoiled, obnoxious, whiny creatures on Earth. She never disciplines them, and they get away with murder. The worst part is that they are disrespectful to her and to their grandparents. I won’t put up with it, and she gets mad at…

by The Luv Doc

Home Run

A pro ballplayer with a substance-abuse problem goes back home for rehab, and finds Christian redemption by coaching a Little League team.

by Louis Black

Filly Brown

A young, Latina hip-hop artist gets a shot at a record contract only if she is willing to compromise her ideals.

by Louis Black

Record Reviews

Tamaryn Tender New Signs (Mexican Summer) New Zealand native Tamaryn Sitha Brown and collaborator Rex John Shelverton don’t bother pushing any envelopes with Tender New Signs. The San Francisco-based duo’s second album together hews closely to the dream pop/shoegaze formula, as her ethereal vocals drift seductively over his effects-soaked arpeggios and vaguely hip-shifting grooves. Brown’s…

by Michael Toland

Austin Psych Fest Album Primer

Om Pilgrimage (Southern Lord) Like Sisyphus, condemned to roll a boulder uphill for eternity, Om’s monastic doom-metal dawns slow and punishing – deliberate – steadily plodding unilaterally toward some heightened state. The duo’s third LP from 2007 remains its grail, a wandering album of deep meditation, coiling around Al Cisneros’ entrancing bass grooves and old-world…

by Austin Powell

Headlines

› City Council meets today (April 25) with plenty on its plate, and Austin Energy governance on its mind – a decision on an independent board will wait until next month, and meanwhile the budget process has begun, with a full-day work session May 2. See “Council Preview.” › Early voting starts Monday for the…

by Chronicle Staff

Mud

Hypermasculine yet soulfully romantic, this coming of age story with thriller elements stars Matthew McConaughey.

by Kimberley Jones

Austin Psych Fest Album Primer

Man or Astro-Man? Experiment Zero (Touch & Go) The last great satellite launched in Man or Astro-Man?’s space race, 1996’s Experiment Zero continues the Auburn, Ala., oddballs’ sci-fi surf at terminal velocity. Of particular note are eleki-riptide “Test Driver,” a mostly faithful cover of Japanese surf icon Takeshi Terauchi’s 1966 classic; plus a Talking Heads…

by Austin Powell

Pain & Gain

One of the dirty secrets of modern American filmmaking is what a skilled director Michael Bay really is.

by Louis Black

Austin Psych Fest Album Primer

The Raveonettes Chain Gang of Love (Columbia) “Chains, black leather, and sex – yeah, it’s not that complex.” So purr Sune Rose Wagner and Sharin Foo in “The Love Gang.” Add “distortion,” and that’s essentially the blueprint for the Copenhagen duo’s 2003 major-label debut. The album adds a soft layer of fuzz and hum to…

by Austin Powell

Mr. Smarty Pants Knows

In Cream’s “Sunshine of Your Love,” the first eight bars of Eric Clapton’s solo are a quote from the Irving Berlin song “Blue Moon.” The Mount Graham Red Squirrel, native to Arizona’s Pinaleño Mountains, is America’s rarest and most endangered squirrel. It hoards conifer cones and fungi in piles known as middens. The first bank…

by Mr. Smarty Pants

Record Reviews

The Soft Moon Zeros (Captured Tracks) Zeros is vampire rock. The rain-slicked precipice of darkness. Icy keyboard laser beams shocking life into dead flesh. Shattering, panic-attack drum-machines on the brink of self-destruction. Guitars like creeping neurosis. “It Ends” scrapes off tattered metal, “Die Life” blisters in mottled bass. Oakland’s Luis Vasquez always had a thing…

by Luke Winkie

Quote of the Week

“We’re not interested in taking over Eastside High. We like to help, we like to work, and we like to move on.” – Chris Caesar, Johns Hopkins School of Education, on the group’s approach to improving schools

by Chronicle Staff

Record Reviews

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club Specter at the Feast (Abstract Dragon/Vagrant) The death of BRMC bassist Robert Been’s father – the Call’s frontman/BRMC soundman Michael Been – cast a pall over the trio’s vision, and on Specter the Bay Areans clearly struggle. Melancholy pervades the dreamy “Fire Walker” and “Returning,” while creeping darkness duels with a…

by Michael Toland

Civics 101

Thursday 25 PROPERTY TAX FORUM Chief Appraiser Marya Crigler and Tax Assessor-Collector Bruce Elfant present information about the appraisal process, exemptions and deferrals, payment plans, and the deadlines all property owners should know. 6pm. Carver Library, 1161 Angelina. Free. tax_office@co.travis.tx.us. AUSTERITY: THEY SAY CUT BACK, WE SAY FIGHT BACK! Organize against state and local austerity…

by Chronicle Staff

Graceland

Ron Morales’ hostage thriller is a fluorescent-lit tour of the city’s seedy underbelly.

by Leah Churner

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