PLUS: Austin Chronic & 4/20 Merch • Summer Camps

April 27 • 2018

Apr 27 - May 3, 2018 / Vol. 37 / No. 35
Digital Edition

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SINCE SEPTEMBER WHEN I BECAME FOOD EDITOR, I’ve had more than a few moments feeling as if I were clomping around in oversized clown shoes. There was the formidable, but always fashionable, footwear I felt compelled to try to fill, and there’s also been the looming weight of First Plates. To “define Austin dining now”…

by Chronicle Staff

Traffik

Sleazy modern exploitation falls off its poorly staked moral high ground.

by Steve Davis

Levitating Platters

Populated by members from the psych-minded company of the Black Angels, the Horrors, the Earlies, and Elephant Stone, Mien pulls from the bands’ kaleidoscopic gloom and doom with brooding synth grandeur. The trance-inducing stupor of “You Dreamt,” unsettling electronic wig-out that is “Hocus Pocus,” sprawling temporal trip “Black Habit,” and Eastern expanse “Ropes” span space-trawling…

by Alejandra Ramirez

Soccer Watch

The Under-17 Women’s World Cup qualifying tournament in Managua, Nicaragua, were halted on Sunday due to security concerns after deadly clashes as citizens protest changes in Nicara­gua’s social security systems. That same day, President Daniel Ortega said that the social security administration had canceled the cuts in benefits and tax increases that were announced last…

by Nick Barbaro

Levitating Platters

Like Ronald Reagan on The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste (1989) and George W. Bush in Rio Grande Blood (2006), Donald Trump sits in the crosshairs of Ministry’s 14th album Amerikkkant. Underneath a ballast of distorted vocals and huge, industrial riffs, Al Jourgensen shapes his polemic: a caustic presidential critique on “Game Over,”…

by Alejandra Ramirez

Levitating Platters

Over three EPs, Jasamine White-Gluz pushes the genre confines of her Canadian shoegaze project. On this final installment, the frontwoman pairs up with Englishman Pete Kember of Spacemen 3, launching the venture into pulsing electronica. Thumping, 11-minute opener “Obsession” unveils trance-inducing disco played out in looping, effervescent echo. Fluttering “Triangle Probably” meshes best among the…

by Rachel Rascoe

Levitating Platters

Katie Crutchfield never shied away from picking at her wounds, but where earlier work under the Waxahatchee moniker peered into the immobilization left by devastation, fourth LP Out in the Storm simmers the fire heartbreak stokes. A confrontational roar, wide-eyed and sharp, “Silver” speaks plainly of rebirth as Crutchfield also calls out an ex on…

by Libby Webster

Headlines

City Council returns with its regular meeting today, April 26, to tackle scooters, membership requirements for Planning Commis­sion, and eviction counseling services for tenants. There’s also a move to rename the Old Bakery and Emporium space for legendary political consultant Pat Crow, who died last summer. See “Council: I Get Around,” Apr. 27. Sick Leave…

by Chronicle Staff

Levitating Platters

Marc Bolan’s spirit so thoroughly inhabits millennial psych golden boy Ty Segall, especially on “Fanny Dog” and “My Lady’s on Fire,” it’s curious this Steve Albini-produced double LP wasn’t titled Steam-Driven Warrior. Then again, warbly vocalisms, impenetrably fuzz-encrusted guitar work, and boppin’ elf grooves delightfully set the man apart from like-minded neo-hippies – alongside reverb…

by Tim Stegall

Levitating Platters

Hailing from southern Algeria, this Tuareg desert blues troupe twists Tinariwen’s template with their second full-length. Lead track “Azzaman” commingles traditional and contemporary culture via pan-African rhythms and blazing guitar work. Driving the point home, its accompanying video contrasts Chinese construction cranes against the kneading of dough for kesra. “Tumast” opens with funky bass fit…

by Greg Beets

Levitating Platters

What’s the sound of friendship? Applying signature vividness, Animal Collective’s Noah Lennox harnesses intangibles with five tracks of frantic nostalgia only available on vinyl perhaps because their message isn’t disposable. Opener “Flight” is hellish surf rock, booming mechanical bass slams, while “Sunset” maintains quixotic chaos, all hi-hats, cackling lows, and ethereal vocal fanfare. Trill but…

by Kahron Spearman

Levitating Platters

Jumbled, lo-fi mania, Ariel Rosenberg’s 11th studio album grew from the tumultuous life and death of fellow Los Angeles cult musician Bobby Jameson. There’s glitching, grooving hints of disco (“Death Patrol”), love-struck Nineties shoegaze (“Feels Like Heaven”), and hellspawn Beach Boys (“Bubblegum Dreams”). It plays like frantically turning the FM dial in the car, the…

by Libby Webster

Levitating Platters

Originally released in 1997, this vinyl reissue of Ulan Bator’s third album primes the Paris trio’s vision: post-punk drone interpolating dreamy psych. Led by occasional Faust sideman Amaury Cambuzat’s clanging guitar and menacing mutter, “Fièvre Hectique” shifts from icy brooding to fevered catharsis, and “Fuite” stirs black clouds of dissonant guitar into the final seconds…

by Michael Toland

Mr. Smarty Pants Knows

According to the late author Benjamin Creme, in The Gathering of the Forces of Light: UFOs and Their Spiritual Mission, our space brothers and sisters live on the etheric plane, but can temporarily be seen on the physical plane by lowering the vibration of their etheric bodies and spaceships to come within our range of…

by Mr. Smarty Pants

Levitating Platters

Fitting trajectory, Felt loosens up on the seriousness gripping Suuns’ last three albums into kaleidoscopic microcosms of Krautrock pulses, guitar ambience, and post-punk eruptions. Unlike their space-prog frontier on 2010’s Zeroes QC or the propulsive freak-out of Images Du Futur three years later, the Montrealers’ latest explores Vocodor throbs (“X-Alt”), electro slink (“Materials”), and industrial…

by Alejandra Ramirez

Levitating Platters

Scavenging proto-alt-rock’s past on its sophomore album, this L.A. foursome collects post-punk’s angular chords, synth-pop’s buzzing colors, No Wave’s brash indifference, and goth’s pessimistic glower. Then they gleefully assemble the parts after tossing the instructions out the window. Guitar and keyboard fight as often as collaborate, while Brady Keehn’s detached monotone unsettles the longer the…

by Michael Toland

Levitating Platters

Made up of four sisters hailing from rural Australia, Stonefield trudges along haltingly, a chaos of genre. Hammering prog (“Far From Earth”) and blistering doom metal (“Through the Storm”), their momentum wanes with milder moments of psychedelia. Drummer Amy Findlay’s expansive, cutting vocals and breakneck guitar lines courtesy of Hannah Findlay function best on the…

by Libby Webster

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