Progressive rock started out as largely a British phenomenon in the late ’60s but quickly mutated when it spread to the European continent and beyond. The artists that pioneered the genre attempted to bring artistic credibility to rock music either by infusing it with elements of classical-musical structure and daring…
“Denver has yet to solidify a place for hip-hop where these people are passing the mike and ripping the place apart,” says Jeff Campbell. “It will eventually happen, but it’s not happening right now.” Campbell, a longtime Denverite now decamping to Milan, Georgia, to take a job with the Genesis…
Since 2013, Denver Public Library cardholders have been able to download albums by local artists at the website volumedenver.org. The library, which pays artists a set fee to offer this music to patrons for a period of two years, has the ability to host 200 albums at any given time…
Canadian songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Basia Bulat has spent the last nine years garnering attention for her thoughtful songwriting and passionate live performances. Much of her recorded output could loosely be called folk but Bulat’s brand of that music transcends preconceptions. So much so that she was tapped by Denver gypsy…
Fifth Wall Productions is having its second run of The Soul of Wit 3: Sex, Religion and Politics this Saturday, March 5, at 7 p.m. at the Crossroads Theater in Five Points. The variety show, produced and helmed by Thomas Gerlick, aims to bring together the worlds of theater, music…
Denver-based experimental electronic artist Thug Entrancer has a new album, Arcology, coming out on Friday, May 3 released by Software Recording Company, the imprint run by Daniel Lopatin, better known for his performance moniker Oneohtrix Point Never. The album represents a bit of a departure from previous Thug Entrancer albums…
The Audio Social Dissent tour was, in essence, a traveling label showcase, since all three bands on the bill released their latest full-lengths with Third Man Records. Headliner Wolf Eyes couldn’t seem to be more different from the rock bands Timmy’s Organism and Video. Local opening acts Echo Beds, an…
Alison Wonderland is the stage name of Alex Sholler. The moniker was meant to be a temporary name she employed for a DJ night early in her career that she assumed she was going to discard soon enough — but the name stuck. Before making electronic music, Sholler was a…
Eleanor Friedberger was once a member of experimental rock band Fiery Furnaces with her brother Matthew from 2000 until 2011, when it went on indefinite hiatus. In that band the Friedbergers seemed to try out any crazy, creative idea they pleased from record to record, establishing themselves as one of…
Cult of the Lost Cause has been defying simplistic definitions since its inception in 2010. The band plays instrumental post-rock and comprises three transplants with eclectic tastes and musical backgrounds: guitarist Mhyk Monroe, bassist Thom McLoughlin and drummer Mike Salazar. Along the way, the band’s ethnically diverse membership has been…
Throughout its long career, irreverent humor and compassion for the human condition is at the core of Freakwater’s alternative country music. On its latest record, Scheherazade, its first album of new material since 2005’s Thinking Of You, founding members Janet Beveridge Bean and Catherine Irwin explore modern myths and archetypes…
Across the gulf of 46 years since its first eponymous album was released on February 13, 1970, it might be difficult to imagine how Black Sabbath’s music could have seemed evil and dark. But last night, when it was actually happening — those familiar bells, sounds of rain and Tony…
Pale Sun’s debut full-length, Darkmoonwhiteout, is the product of a handful of years of development, refinement, reinvention of a sound that primary songwriter, guitarist and vocalist Jeff Suthers has perfected across numerous projects since the ’90s. It is also his first vinyl release. Suthers’ band history: The abstract space rock…
Rival Sons from Long Beach, California is the opening act on the current, and purportedly last, Black Sabbath tour including the date this Monday, February 15, at the Pepsi Center in Denver. Since 2009 the four-piece hard rock band has been honing its sound and making a name for itself,…
Originally formed in Athens, Georgia in 2008, the band is now based out of Nashville. Considering its eclectic sound drawing from country rock and modern psychedelia, Futurebirds sounds very much like the product of a city that, along with Denver, co-birthed ’90s indie pop with Athens and a city where…
“We make fun of people getting underwear for Christmas in childhood,” says Bethany Wallace. “But some people only have the pair they’re wearing, and that’s a bizarre invisibility to our privilege.” Wallace is the organizer of UnderAware: Unmentionables Costume Party and Benefit Show for Urban Peak featuring live music from…
Since the beginning, women have played integral creative roles in the Denver music scene, and today there is no shortage of bands fronted and led by women. Ranging from noisy pop and folk rock to beatboxing soul and hip-hop, what follows is a list, in alphabetical order, of ten of…
Sam Fogarino will be the guest DJ at Lipgloss at Bar Standard this Friday, January 29. Fogarino is perhaps best known for being the drummer of Interpol, arguably the most popular of the bands out of the “post-punk revival” of the late ’90s and early 2000s. The band’s debut full-length, Turn…
There is a certain moment in a band’s trajectory when you can actually observe the music evolving. Denver four-piece Tyto Alba is experiencing just such a moment: a young band spreading its wings in sound and spirit before an audience’s eyes. Perhaps movement as a way of being comes naturally…
For the past two years Sofar Sounds Denver has hosted shows at secret locations throughout the metropolitan area. Whether a house, a back yard or an automotive garage (all past locations for Denver shows), Sofar has organized and internationalized the DIY-show format and its intimacy by providing an infrastructure and…
Sofar Sounds recently appointed Plume Varia guitarist and keyboard player Shon Cobbs as the City Leader for the Denver branch of the international concert series. Founded in London in 2009 by Rafe Offer, Rocky Start and Dave Alexander, Sofar started as a house show alternative to standard commercial venue shows…
On a cold Friday night in January, on a corner of the Baker neighborhood near the highway and train tracks, sits an unassuming venue for a music festival. Yet the location of the 1010 Workshop — around the corner from the original location of legendary center of local DIY music,…
