Free Week Unleashed: These Four Austin Acts Hit the Ground Running in 2024
Catching up with Daydream Twins, Redbud, SINE, and lluvii
By Julian Towers, Laiken Neumann, Carys Anderson, and Angela Lim, Fri., Jan. 12, 2024
Snowballing every year as a much-loved wintertime tradition, Free Week manages to elevate a common occurrence on sleepy weekday nights year-round – meaning multi-act, all-local concert bills – to main event status. Cue the lights, because for one long weekend in early January (conceptually repeated in July for Hot Summer Nights) Austin music is the main event. The whole enchilada. The reason for the season.
In the club-hopping spirit, and looking to walk off our chicken parm from Marinara Miracles, Chronicle writers caught up with four Austin acts we'd already had our eyes and ears on during last week's pro bono bonanza. Scattered across Red River Cultural District clubs, their performances proved predictive of plenty more music to adore in 2024.
Redbud: Psych-Funk For the Fishes
The squishy, wobbly, sepia-toned psych-funk of Redbud sounds thick in the way cough syrup tastes thick. It's maybe the music fishes dream of whenever you accidentally leave the tank light on overnight. For humans, like the work of key band influences Unknown Mortal Orchestra and Hiatus Kaiyote, it also probably hits pretty wavy on most substances. Corticosteroids, though?
"This week my vocal cords are actually, literally on steroids because I've got laryngitis," says bandleader, lead songwriter, and noted Mars Volta megafan Katie Claghorn. "Also like, just me as a person is on steroids. I'm hardcore.
"I'm really raging right now," she adds, before launching into an extended monologue about the trampoline at her house. Also "really raging" was Redbud's breakout 2023, which brought a KUTX Studio 1A session, expanded touring, and the release of their five-track Long Night EP (though not, regrettably, a visit to Austin's Red Bud Isle Park, which Claghorn sheepishly admits she hasn't been to since 2022).
"We've been able to go up to New York a bit to play some shows. It was fun to see what that scene holds – the music and the artistry," recalls Claghorn. "But down here, I think the EP release party at the Ballroom in February was really the moment. It just felt like we were finally revealing who we were to the Austin music scene, and Austin in general."
Well, for the most part.
"I have to say, however, we're nominated for Best Pop at the Austin Music Awards and like I get it and I'm so grateful, but I'm also surprised because you look at the list and it's a lot more dancey-poppy stuff," Claghorn laughs. "What we have to do to get labeled as pure proggers, I don't even know. I thought we were experimental!"
If their Friday night show at Cheer Up Charlies was anything to go by, we recommend the quartet keeps playing music on steroids. Kicking off with a chunk of material currently being tracked for a debut LP with producer Dan Duszynski (Sun June, Good Looks), Redbud played a freaky-leaky 10-song set. Literally occurring on Free Week, the performance was also free as in "free your mind," so hopefully those Levitation programmers were looking out.
On par with her mind-altering aquarium soundtracks, as our interview ends, Claghorn muses: "What's the best-sounding color? I got to say sunset orange. It can go relaxing or it can go really hype. Versatile, but always attention-grabbing." – Julian Towers
lluvii: Indulgent Jam Waves
Austin art-rock wizards lluvii (pronounced "UV") carefully left one song from debut EP Pacifico out of their midnight set Saturday night. But Free Week night owls at Mohawk indoors begged for an encore – a real surprise, not even routine for the room's frequent touring acts. "All right, we'll do one more for you," guitarist and vocalist Carol Gonzalez said with a shocked smile.
The surreptitious tempo changes of "Wayn" elicited a mesmerizing ebb and flow, characteristic of the quartet's entire Latin-infused jam set. Luna Luna all-stars Kaylin Martinez and Ryan Gordon commanded the rhythm section – the former's tight beats bolstered by bongos and the latter's basslines snaking through jazz and funk. Keyboardist Felix Kimbrell yelped a mariachi grito to introduce an unreleased noise rock descension, while Gonzalez led the proceedings with purring alto vocals.
Formerly known as Carito, a pet name Gonzalez's family calls her, the band rebranded as lluvii shortly before releasing Pacifico in December. "It just became really collaborative. It no longer was a solo project," the singer says. The "resurrection," as Gonzalez describes it, welcomed Kimbrell to the crew, whose dreamy flourishes add lush layers. Refreshing the group of longtime roommates, the keyboardist first tapped into their jam room just a month ago before embarking on a lluvii Texas tour.
Minus the new addition, other members' sonic heat far precedes lluvii's indulgent grooves. In-demand drummer Martinez has played with Gordon for seven years and joined Gonzalez in Denton-launched psych-punk project Manifest Destiny's Child. "Playing with Carol and Ryan and Felix, I get to actually express what I have in my head. It challenges me in every single way," says Martinez, who also plays with post-punk crew Never.
Atop hazy guitar tone, an array of percussion colors Pacifico, including an agogô made with Brazil nut shells, mimicking the sound of rushing water. The concept is no coincidence, as Gonzalez began writing the project out on the Pacific Ocean as a research assistant for UT-Austin's Marine Science Institute. The songs' unconventional structures and quick switch-ups may have thwarted one audience member's mosh attempts, but this unique bite sources the foursome's kinetic energy.
"They always say one word whenever they hear something nice," says Kimbrell, gesturing to his bandmates. "'Tasty.'" – Laiken Neumann
Daydream Twins: Sugar Rush Shoegaze
When Jordan Terry and Aidan Babinski debuted as Daydream Twins in 2021, they chose the perfect project name. First single "Carpop" reveled in soft-sung vocals and velvety guitar atmospherics, and their following full-length dealt in similar ethereal soundscapes. Once the band began playing shows, however, they realized a live-wire energy in live performance – and a certain joy in stomping on the distortion pedal. Queue hefty new EP Bombinate, which captures the enthusiasm of a gig with propulsive drums and, above all, heavier riffs.
The project came to life over the summer, when the band – rounded out by bassist Chris Welvaert and drummer Jacob Silvia – hit the East Coast for the first time. "We went on a little tour with our buddies Sad Cell and played three of those five songs a bunch and got immersed in the live music world, as opposed to just getting in [the] studio and recording and doing stuff in the headphones," Babinski explains. "I call it our 'sugar rush' EP because it's us turned up all the way."
It's a natural progression for Welvaert and Babinski, who once bonded over "doom-adjacent stuff" despite their dream-pop output. Guitarist Babinski grew up playing drums and laid them down on the record, resolving to bring more movement to the project. (Check the title track and seven-minute fuzz-bass march "Cut" for proof of his success). Elsewhere, "Gleaming" offers a rare duet between Babinski and Terry – a change the primary singer says she forced her partner into accepting. "I wrote both parts and I recorded both parts and then told him which one he needed to do," she recalls sheepishly.
Despite a more vigorous sound, Daydream Twins maintain that enigmatic shoegaze flair when they hit the stage. Thursday's Free Week show at Empire offered a who's who of twentysomething bands, with the quartet following sets by old friends Sad Cell, plus Grocery Bag and Farmer's Wife. Avoiding crowdworking small talk, the group focused on the music, plowing through a 30-minute set shrouded in smoke and red lights.
Three gigs across the no-cost winter festival preview the band's busy 2024 schedule. In March, they'll take on their first South by Southwest as official artists, though it'll be hard to beat last year, when Welvaert recalls they played "something like" 16 unofficial shows. "We had 18," Terry quickly corrects, to group laughter. At least they'll have inspiration for LP No. 2. – Carys Anderson
SINE: Electronic Communion
When Rona Rougeheart stands in the white-hot spotlight, she magnifies her presence with self-programmed visuals and an intense, soul-peering glare. The 34-minute Friday set shook the 13th Floor with currents of "electronic boom," the way Rougeheart describes her beat-driven, boundless panorama as SINE. Onstage, crimson waves ruptured with each strike of a digital drum in "Communion," while hypnotic synths pervaded "Jetset" and "Future Whores."
"This is where the sinning happens, OK?" she said after performing November single "Dolor," an ominous ritual with lyrics beckoning the crowd to pray. Dressed in all black, the Austin artist whispered the temptations of closer "Dark Matters" over a chilly, throbbing sub-bass: "A heaven that you can't deny/ They'll take you to the highest high."
Living in Austin since 2009, the singer/percussionist earned endorsement from Gretsch Drums while playing in Eighties New Wave-inspired act Dead Love Club from 2014 to 2016, as well as other bands around town. After beginning to build her own tracks in Ableton, she stepped out from behind the kit to form SINE in 2016. On using performance to unveil previously hidden struggles, she says: "I want to stand onstage and show [the audience that] they don't have to take it and feel like that anymore."
Her next album, Luxuria, due Jan. 19, oozes self-gratification with playful jabs at rage, sex, and money. With production by Danish industrial artist Claus Larsen (Leæther Strip), Rougeheart embraces a sinister expansion in the collection's entropic and celestial grooves. The new era heightens her bold, larger-than-life visual presentation, meticulously seen in everything from SINE's digital media to clothing.
"We're not all depressing vampires," the New York-born musician quips in reference to her project's dark, dominatrix-inspired aesthetic. "I'm actually pretty happy, really."
The multi-instrumentalist began to discover her heavy, electronic soundscape in middle school when she saw Depeche Mode at Houston's Southern Star Amphitheater with her sisters. As the youngest daughter of Irish and Taiwanese parents, she recalls: "It dug out that part of me that was always there." Flash to 2019. In further communion with gothic UK heroes, SINE landed an opening spot for the 40th anniversary Bauhaus tour in Orlando. After Peter Murphy canceled, Rougeheart and bandmate/collaborator Curse Mackey lent a hand in saving the show with an improvised set led by David J.
"I get told no a lot, and I guess I'm persistent," Rougeheart reflects. "They can't get rid of me." – Angela Lim
Find favorite shots from Free Week 2024 by photographers David Brendan Hall and Isabella Martinez, including snaps of Daikaiju, Mugger, Magna Carda, and many more, in our photo gallery.
