What We’re Listening to This Week

Adrian Quesada

Jaguar Sound (ATO)

Mayan civilizations worshipped jaguars as underworld conduits, so last week news arrived of their repopulation around the ancient city of Calakmul on the Yucatán Peninsula. Adrian Quesada's Jaguar Sound now transmits the soundtrack. "I came back from Mexico [in 2016-17] obsessed with jaguar iconography and the cultural and historical significance," texted the artist over the weekend. "The name Black Pumas came from that time." Said Pumas guitarist/producer debuted solo this June behind Latin siren song Boleros Psicodélicos, and now its spotted green sibling, purring alive on frameable cover art by Israeli visualist Yonil, excavates the same pandemic-induced home studio sessions for an instrumental chaser. Drawing inspiration from Italian film scores, Jaguar Sound wags cinematic keyboard washes, laps latent hip-hop beats, and growls guitar disambiguation. "Noble Metals" moonwalks the riff atmospherics of Santo & Johnny and Los Indios Tabajaras, while "Spirits" teams Brooklyn roots ethnomusicologists Ikebe Shakedown with Antibalas frontman Martín Perna for an Afro Latin spectral voyage. "Turk's Cap" phases a retro-futuristic two-man dialogue with Pumas drummer Stephen Bidwell that dismounts ? & the Mysterians. Twinkling piano in "Starry Nights" accents Quesada's guitar into a solar wind spiraling Alexis Buffum's violin and Mary Lattimore's harp. Serendipitously, new blockbuster Black Panther: Wakanda Forever also revisits the Yucatecan Panthera genus. Your turn.  – Raoul Hernandez

Old Fire

Voids (Western Vinyl)

Texas is one of the coldest places on earth. No, the blood pressure levels in my brain did not plummet alongside the 30 degree November nosedive. I've just been listening to composer/producer John Mark Lapham's latest release, Voids, a droning winter front of ambient Americana. This album keenly understands that the essential word in "Lone Star" is the first one. Inspired by Lapham's repressive West Texas upbringing and the loss that's touched his adult life in Abilene, Voids conjures the frigid isolation of seeking your human identity in a landscape dominated by wide-open, tyrannical emptiness. Walls of shivery strings, drums that shuffle like a funeral procession through a blizzard, a blaring clarinet that Thor Harris might as well have played through a snowblower – the gathering frost of Lapham's sonic sprawl is bitterly enveloping. Bill Callahan, the album's primary vocal guest (minus one soaringly gorgeous feature from Adam Torres), isn't invited onto his three tracks so much as locked outside without a jacket. The Austinite's usual warm, controlled singing instead quavers like chattering teeth.  – Julian Towers

Zero Percent APR

Higher and Higher Forever (Spared Flesh)

The Being Dead musical multiverse extends with alter ego side project Zero Percent APR's Higher and Higher Forever, a 44-minute tape-recorded minefield. The prelude and interlude theatrics of Cody Dosier and Juli Keller hearken to Sixties Shangri-Las melodrama warped with charming post-ironic self-awareness. The duo epitomizes music made for the joy of making music, expressed in a collage of home- and field-recorded samples washed in nostalgic tape saturation, taking prime form in "Don't Steal My Bike." Satire-laced track "Smoke Bongs" jolts synth, trap drums, and Gregorian chant to bend genre, while soliloquy skit "Who Am I?" laments ultra-relatable existential dread in stating: "Sometimes it feels like the only thing that's getting me through all of this is coming home and loading up a big fat bong, and smoking a bong all day." The album oscillates between ethereally laced vocals on "Hot Topic Philosophy" and slap-back echoes in "Kevin Curtin," an homage to our former Chronicle Music editor, alongside crushing fuzz in "Midnight" – all in all, a vibrant love letter to creation in Austin DIY.  – Mars Salazar

Norman Ba$e Gets "Lavish"

Spooky, cartoonish visuals accompany an old-school East Coast drum loop as the NYC-raised rapper once again delves into his retro-styled bag on the Halloween loosie. "Is he Biggie/ Is he 50 [Cent]/ Is he [MF] Doom?/ Either way, when he pass, put 'legend' on his tomb," rhymes the local before briefly touching on coming up from less than ideal living conditions. For those looking to catch Norman Ba$e live, he hosts the next edition of his Bodega Nights DJ series on Thanksgiving night at the Volstead Lounge.  – Derek Udensi

Font Writes "Sentence I"

Though a live reputation precedes them, sharp-slicing, stuttering guitars introduce Font on their new debut single – almost too squeaky-clean until the entrance of Thom Waddill's politely measured screech into throes of desperation. Masculine group vocals add a forthright anchor to the tightly wound, wriggling-out-of-its-seat track, contextualizing the 2022-debuted Austin band among sleek, playful post-punk predecessors like Parquet Courts and Omni. Clearing past Bandcamp archives, the fivepiece starts fresh with "Sentence I," where each line's six-string flourish lands like a question mark. Maybe we'll get "Sentence II" or a whole paragraph next.  – Rachel Rascoe