Danielle de Picciotto and Alexander Hacke were both important figures in the recent cultural history of Berlin. De Picciotto was one of the co-founders of The Love Parade, a long-running electronic music event, where the participants were part of a parade through Berlin that, within the first few years of…

“Lower Than Life, High as the Sky,” the opening track on Clinging to the Trees of a Forest Fire’s new EP, is built on a foundation of death metal and grind, with a sound that’s stripped down to its rawest components. The ascending guitar line in “Garbage” makes the music…

With a name that is an amalgamation of “gang” and “aliens,” this Sacramento band has often been lumped in with the summery surf/garage pop that’s been popular of late. But there’s more of the Chills and Echo & the Bunnymen than Best Coast in the act’s freewheeling, driving guitar rock…

Someone is bound to compare Balkans to the Strokes because of the spiky, jangly guitar sound and the vocals, which are just shy of crooning. But these guys won’t care. Why should they? Not yet 21, they’re still discovering what their group is about, even as they’ve established a musical…

For a long time, “dance punk” was a bit of a fashionable joke in music. The guys in Ideal Fathers (playing a farewell show this Saturday, September 3, at the Larimer Lounge) ditched the fashion by really, truly not caring about looking foolish and ridiculous, as long as they didn’t…

CHRISTIE FRONT DRIVE at LARIMER | 8.28.11Christie Front Drive, the band that embodied the best of what emo was about and could be, last played a show on September 1, 2007 at the Marquis after a ten year hiatus. Fortunately it was only about a four year gap for this…

THE CHRISTINES at HI-DIVE | 8.27.11The last time the Christines played, it was December 6, 2008 at the hi-dive, around the release of its most recent offering, Here It Comes Again. This time around, it was a real treat to see James Paul, who played guitar with the band when…

DENVER AFTERDARK on LARIMER | 08.26.11While there were many memorable performances at the Denver Afterdark festival — presented by Analog Space, curated by Peter Black and spread out between several venues on the 2700 block of Larimer last night — the most unusual and, subsequently, memorable set of the evening…

The intentionally low-fidelity approach to the rich soundscaping of this cassette helps personify the project’s namesake. Sonically, think Nada-era Death in June and Cabaret Voltaire circa 2X45. With the vocals buried deep in a mix of robust bass tones worthy of Bright Channel, alongside surprisingly organic-sounding and dynamic electronic percussion…

Everyone in Mister Heavenly comes from higher-profile bands, such as Man Man, Islands and Modest Mouse. But Ryan Kattner, Nicholas Thorburn and Joe Plummer decided to do something different with Mister Heavenly, their side project. Melding a ’50s pop aesthetic with musical darkness, the members of Mister Heavenly have become…

By happenstance, this week has somehow shaped up to be a throwback/reunion of sorts to the best parts of local music from 1990s, with two beloved Denver acts from that era playing shows a day apart. This Saturday, August 27, the Christines will be at the hi-dive. Formed in 1992,…

When I was really young, my mom used to collage all of our furniture,” Cassie McNeil recalls. “I grew up in the mountains above Lyons, in a cabin where there’s no electricity or running water. My mom would collage every piece of furniture in my room. Little pictures and rubber…

KIMYA DAWSON & AESOP ROCK at SUMMIT | 8.21.11Toward the end of her set, Kimya Dawson brought Aesop Rock back to the stage for one of the most powerful performances in Denver this year. Although “Walk Like Thunder” has been available as a free download for close to five months…

STIFF LITTLE FINGERS at SUMMIT | 8.20.11″This is an old Irish folk song,” announced Stiff Little Fingers frontman Jake Burns before the very last song of the show. After an entire set of some of the band’s best material, it could only be “Alternative Ulster,” and as the song began,…

“Carnival of Souls,” the lead track on this EP, with its ominous evocation of early, all-analog synth pop, would be perfect for a John Carpenter remake of the classic horror movie of the same name. From the sounds of it, Joey Wiley watched one too many weird science-fiction movies from…

Belfast’s Stiff Little Fingers were teenagers who played mostly traditional rock-and-roll fare in the late 1970s before they discovered punk. The Fingers combined punk’s unrestrained, id-fueled energy with classic pop sensibilities to create music that was a cousin of sorts to what the Buzzcocks had already started the year before…

Starting out in Minnesota with no specific agenda, Tapes ‘N Tapes effectively absorbed the DNA of much of ’80s underground rock and’90s indie pop to create the kind of music that seems both fresh and familiar. Friends of the band sent songs off to blogs, and Tapes ‘N Tapes inadvertently…

Before some of us knew that Drew Englander made music, we knew him for his beautifully mysterious visual art. His imagery seemed to play around with fantastic homegrown mythologies of the type that children use to people their daydreams. That sort of creative outlook informs Englander’s music, which he makes…