VOLUMES by Ezra Masch

Friday 6 - Sunday 8, Distribution Hall

Audiovisual artist Masch brings his site-specific light installation controlled by a drum set and a little help from some fancy programming. Friday and Saturday evenings each feature a different trio of renowned drummers to showcase what the lights can do in the hands of a professional percussionist. Sunday is open to anyone with tickets from the previous days’ showcases and, from 1-8pm, Masch invites local drummers to grab some sticks and see what kind of light show they can produce.   – James Renovitch

MASS Ambient

Friday 6, MASS Gallery

Vibe it out at MASS Gallery’s second edition of all-night ambient tunes. This one’s for the chillers, the loungers, the folks who like to recline while beeps and boops carry them away on a musical dream. Instrumental sets from Wish Lash and Plume Girl will set the auditory mood, with support from ambient DJ Clancy Jones. Meanwhile, visuals from Britt Moseley will bring an aquatic calm to the whole affair. MASS encourages attendees to bring “blankets, pillows, robes, friends, neighbors, etc.” with the gallery also offering snacks and bevvies for the interested. After a wild summer, don’t we all need a little ambient cool-down?   – James Scott

Diego Rivera Octet

Friday 6, Monks Jazz

A veteran of two decades on the international jazz scene, saxophonist Diego Rivera moved to Austin in 2022 to become director of jazz studies at UT Austin. But his professorial duties haven’t impeded his ability to gig at every jazz space in town. Though he released With Just a Word, a fiery quintet recording, earlier this year, the clearly restless Rivera has assembled a new eightpiece band with a lineup of local rippers, including trumpeter Mike Sailors, trombonist Andre Hayward, pianist Ross Margitza, and drummer Daniel Dufour. Expect not only cuts from Rivera’s existing book, but new tunes composed specifically from this killer ensemble.   – Michael Toland

Exploded Drawing 14th Anniversary Invitational

Friday 6, dadaLab

Producers often have around 10 minutes to showcase their music at Exploded Drawing. After that, five minutes tick by and the next artist is on. The effect is ecstatic. In this jaw-dropping showcase of quick-fire personal-best entries to the night’s lineup of original music, the through line is electronic and beat scene atmosphere pulsing with inspiration. At the 14th anniversary of Exploded Drawing, L.A.’s Mono/poly joins the bounty of wildly good artists, mostly Austin-based, but with representation from San Marcos and Brownsville. Supremely fresh and precision-crafted to sway crowds, the party moves fast, so be on time.   – Christina Garcia

Charley Crockett

Friday 6, Moody Amphitheater

Charley Crockett is no longer the underdog in country music. Having famously risen from street busking to festival stages, the tireless locally based troubadour continues to chart his own way. Two albums this year, $10 Cowboy and Visions of Dallas, evolve the legend to his current mission of kicking down industry doors, with ballads like the weary but defiant “Good at Losing,” but Crockett’s traditional sound wrangling country, blues, and soul, his deep bed of unexpected covers, and his charismatic stage show now have the industry chasing him to catch up. Seminal soul man Lee Fields opens.   – Doug Freeman

Bat Fest

Saturday 7, Congress Bridge

James Bond’s creator, Ian Fleming, once surmised that Diamonds Are Forever. English great Shirley Bassey would surely agree, but let’s not forget Paul Wall. The Houston word-bender cuts a sharp picture these days, lean and grinning ear-to-ear with a grill that looks like 1,000 rodeo champion belt buckles or a row of Super Bowl rings. Rave rectors Ghostland Observatory headline, while Austin legacy metal crew Agony Column – 40 next year – stack up on the Congress Avenue Bridge like the city also does on the Fourth of July, and this summer spectacularly so. DJ Smackola and a dozen other acts pile on. 3pm, $30 advance.   – Raoul Hernandez

Epik High: The Pump Tour

Saturday 7, Emo’s Austin

Your bias group’s bias group, Epik High has been setting, breaking, and resurrecting the standards of rap in South Korea for the better part of two decades. Cerebral lyricist Tablo, bar god Mithra Jin, and the casual musical genius of dance king DJ Tukutz have garnered the trio legendary status on the peninsula. Ten albums in, and Epik High continues to topple barriers, becoming the first major Korean act to perform at Coachella in 2016. After 20 years in the game, their relevance hasn’t waned, evidenced by their work with some of the country’s most sought-after artists: RM, Lee Hi, CL, and Jackson Wang, to name a few.   – Cy White

Parker Woodland Album Release Party No. 2

Saturday 7, Mohawk

Power pop-punk from a band of badasses fronted by a rainbow-sequined activist with the vocal color of Chrissie Hynde and the heart of a lion. Parker Woodland's brand of Eighties-inspired rabble-rousing on 2021 EP The World’s on Fire (And We Still Fall in Love) provides the blueprint for debut LP There’s No Such Thing as Time (see Abby Johnston's thoughts on the band's ferocious freshman effort here). Their live performances have twice as much fire – Erin Walter standing in front of a mic belting a squall with the might of them musicians! Part two of their album release weekend doubles as a birthday shindig for Walter and Kris Patterson, whose band Cobra Cats share the bill.   – Cy White

The Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival

Sunday 8, Far Out Lounge

A plethora of commercial, restaurant, and individually produced hot sauces – not to mention, the Lone Star sun – ensure the Chronicle’s 34th annual, Central Texas Food Bank-benefiting salsa celebration brings the heat. Yet what really makes this shindig the hottest event of the week is the music. Hazy psychedelic quartet Redbud, glam rock sextet the Past Lives, and indie pop quintet Flight by Nothing all take to the Far Out Lounge stage, while DJ Island Time provides additional grooves. And yes, we tried to book the Red Hot Chili Peppers, but they won’t return our calls.   – Carys Anderson

Our Rhythms, Our Voices

Sunday 8, Long Center

The stories of immigrant families aren’t often told with nuance or care for their cultures. Ecuadorian singer-songwriter Javier Jara stretched the scope of what his artistry can do and in 2022, he and his team interviewed immigrants from Latin America and created songs using their stories and the traditional sounds of their home countries. With the grandeur of 18-piece string orchestra Austin Unconducted, Jara brings these stories to four stages across Texas and an album that will debut later this year.   – Cy White

Jon Deas Quintet

Tuesday 10, Monks Jazz

Jon Deas won himself a Grammy Award for his work as keyboardist for Gary Clark Jr. by playing on the guitarist’s head-turning 2019 LP This Land. Outside of his day job, the multihyphenate runs KeyzStreet – a combination production house and record label – and, more to the point, leads his own bands on jazz stages around town. Blending hard bop, funk, blues, and soul, Deas and his banks of keyboards get the feet moving, head nodding, and heart pounding with his badass current quintet: Matt Muehling on guitar, Ryan Hagler on bass, Charles Reid on drums, and Mike Gonzales on percussion.   – Michael Toland

Green Day: The Saviors Tour

Tuesday 10, Germania Insurance Amphitheater

Imagine one’s introduction to the world coming in the form of a shitty album ... literally. When Green Day dropped Dookie on the world, there wasn’t anything quite like them on the scene. The ever-evolving shape of punk music from its 1960s origins brought us to this trio of bad-mouthed crash-bang rockers, who defined Nineties-era teen angst and outright rage at a system that seemed to set us up for failure. Thirty years after their debut, the band has sold a billion albums, worked with some of music’s elite – U2 and Lone Star legend Miranda Lambert, to name a few. Rancid co-signs the Nineties nostalgia while half-Asian, half-Latina L.A.-based indie crashers the Linda Lindas bring the angst and fury.   – Cy White

Childish Gambino: The New World Tour

Tuesday 10, Moody Center

Amidst the rush of reactions to the startling M. Knight-adjacent visual mindfuck that is “Lithonia,” and riding the cresting madness post Drake’s musical disembowelment with track “Yoshinoya,” Childish Gambino brings his New World tour to the perfect place for stunts, shows, and gloriously indulgent music. With his latest release rumored to be his last under the baby mob boss moniker, Gambino gifts fans of his music and of spectacle something to behold, supporting an album that’s as much a film as it is a collection of sonically filmic narratives. The effervescent musical brilliance of WILLOW is a perfect match to Childish Gambino’s ostentation.   – Cy White

Okay Kaya

Wednesday 11, Empire Control Room

In hitting highly discussed topics like overstimulation with genuinely unexpected wordsmithery, Okay Kaya's esoteric, danceable pop songs feel ready-made for the terminally online who would actually rather not be perceived. Known for stark arthouse visuals and collaborations with King Krule and Porches, the singer-songwriter was born in New Jersey, then raised in Norway. I return again and again to the false folky sweetness of "Insert Generic Name" and "Mother Nature's Bitch" off her 2020 LP. Today, she tours an independent fourth album, Oh My God - That’s So Me, due Sept. 6. Inspired by a character in Tove Jansson's Moomin stories, single "The Groke" summarizes, "She's not a woman. She's not an omen. She's dark ecology." A no-context video features flaming nipple tassels.   – Rachel Rascoe

Lucinda Williams and Mike Campbell

Wednesday 11, ACL Live at the Moody Theater

Lucinda Williams playing Austin always feels like a homecoming, and an even more triumphant one in recent years as the songwriter recovered from her 2020 stroke. Yet last year’s Stories From a Rock n Roll Heart rang like a defiant statement of her undiminished power behind her stunning nostalgia-seeped lyricism and distinct drawl, with Williams striking simultaneously rocking and introspective. Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell joins for the co-headlining tour with his band the Dirty Knobs, slinging the new LP Vagabonds, Virgins & Misfits, which includes a gorgeously gritty duet with Williams on “Hell or High Water.”   – Doug Freeman

Mitski

Thursday 12, Moody Center

In the wake of anthemic 2014 indie rock album Bury Me at Makeout Creek – after which she began her ongoing run with the label Dead Oceans – Mitski played ATX locales like Barracuda and showcased across multiple South by Southwests. She’s on an entirely stratospheric pop trajectory now: After sixth album Laurel Hell earned hordes of new fans in 2022, the lovely “My Love Mine All Mine” became her first single to reach the Billboard Hot 100. Austin sits on the expanded tour of The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We, created after contemplating retirement. Southern Gothic starlet Ethel Cain, a favorite of the Chronicle at ACL Fest 2023, opens. Find limited resale tickets.   – Rachel Rascoe

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Music Notes

by Derek Udensi

Fresh Fridaze

Friday 6, Flamingo Cantina

The College of Hip Hop Knowledge-hosted monthly rap showcase moves to Sixth Street after taking place at Independence Brewing Company for its first 40-plus events. Performers for Fresh Fridaze’s Flamingo Cantina debut include Envy N and SpaceGoonz. There is notably now a $5 cover charge, with ages 21 and older permitted to enter.

Coheed and Cambria

Saturday 7, Moody Center

Longtime Claudio Sanchez-fronted prog group returns to town after headlining Stubb’s last year. Coheed and Cambria released their two newest singles, “The Joke” and “Deranged,” back in May. The New York band opens for headlining act Incubus, who performs 2001 album Morning View in its entirety.

Hoots for Help Hoot Night

Monday 9, the Coral Snake

Hoots for Help raises funds for HAAM by featuring musicians in tribute sets of up to three songs. This Hoot Night centers on hip-hop, with performances coming from artists such as Fak3 5miles and Norman BA$E. The former covers OutKast while the latter pays homage to the late Mac Miller.

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Want to see all of our listings broken down by day? Go to austinchronicle.com/calendar and see what's happening now or in the coming week.