MONDAY: Complexes | Velahsa | Orange Tour
Indie rock trio from MPLS. Sounds like Fugazi + Japandroids.
Velahsa is a rock outfit. Tony on Bass, Jack on Drums, and Bryan on Guitar.
Named after an annual clandestine tour of rooftops and tunnels, ORANGE TOUR was formed by a group of seasoned musicians and has been writing music together since summer of 2009. Drawing inspiration from across the indie rock spectrum, as well as from New Wave pioneers such as Devo, The Cars, Talking Heads, and The Police, Orange Tour blends the classic with the modern, channeling more recent sonic influences including Phoenix, The Sounds, The Raveonettes, and Cut Copy.
Recommended If You Like:
The Cars, Devo, Talking Heads, No Age, Fucked Up
TUESDAY: Bailiff
Fast forward through eight months of songwriting boot camp (with mentors Dan Smart and Jon Alvin) and a $16k-raising Kickstarter campaign, Bailiff kicked off production on their second LP – entitled Remise – in April of 2013. Bunkered in a sub-suburban studio with engineering wunderkind Beau Sorenson (Death Cab for Cutie, Superchunk, Bob Mould), the band spent two weeks forging their most eclectic work to date. Remise is imbued with flourishes of West African blues, Celtic folk, and jagged electro-pop, while reaffirming Bailiff’s knack for writing a durable hook.
Recommended If You Like:
Gov’t Mule, Mutts, Mannequin Men, Archie Powell & the Exports
WEDNESDAY: Mr. Hide
Mr. Hide is a psychadelic/garage group from Minneapolis, MN featuring members of Moonstone and Dante & The Lobster.
Recommended If You Like:
Thee Oh Sees, Mikal Cronin, Mary Allen & The Percolaters, The Sex Rays
THURSDAY: Into It. Over It.
If there’s a common thread spanning Evan Weiss’ career it’s his innate ability to take chances and push the limits of what people perceive Into It. Over It. to be and that forward trajectory continues with his fourth full-length Intersections. The album is the culmination of the long trail of LPs, EPs, cassettes and splits with acclaimed artists like Daniel Johnston and Koji that serve as sonic mile-markers spanning the seemingly endless highway of Weiss’ musical journey.
Recommended If You Like:
Owen, Koji, Stay Ahead of the Weather, Transit, Their / They’re / There
FRIDAY: Grolar Bears | Honeystick | Hippo Campus
Grolar Bears is a symphonic noise funk band from Minneapolis, Minnesota. “Cos: The Original Motion Picture Score”, their debut album, pays tribute to the scores of early 70s Blaxploitation movies.
Four young Minnesotan boys, together collecting the falsehoods of memories and the illusion of growth. A brotherhood of bothered consciousness, bursting with the passive resurrection of awareness and the abandonment of regulations. The lake-smitten lads base their musical endeavors on the ever-elusive halocline, a misperception of air found within a body of water. Screaming testimonials against the hypocrisy of ourselves, the energetic, near-danceable indie tunes they produce stride hand-in-hand with an underlying cynicism and un-helpable stupor of drunken distaste for glorification. When nothing at all feeds their fire for the mountain, they make their ascent regardless. ‘We are all the halocline.’
Recommended If You Like:
Ween, Thin Lizzy, Chromeo, Blaxploitation soundtracks, genre-hopping 80’s kitsch pastiche
SATURDAY: Cate Le Bon
From the bewitching circular riff of the album’s opener “I Can’t Help You” to the closing title track that sees Le Bon accompanied by piano and the occasional burst of double-tacked clarinet, Mug Museum‘s reflective song writing weaves around a richly detailed framework. Like all museums it is a contemplative space, a personal world that is open to everyone. “A place of weighted hauntings and considered reconciliation, where you resolve and tailor your purpose and significance within your relationships” is how Le Bon describes it. As these ten songs attest, Mug Museum is also a unique and dreamlike edifice and one that has been created by an artist at the height of their powers.
Recommended If You Like:
Euros Childs, Super Furry Animals, Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, Smoke Fairies
SUNDAY: Irie Sol
Irie Sol’s founder, Junior Williams, moved to America from Kingston, Jamaica, with the dream of starting a band that would fuse the genres (reggae, dancehall, ska, and dub) indigenous to his native island with traditional American music forms (hip hop, funk, soul, rock, and jazz). He’s “dubbed” (pun intended) the resulting music “Alternative World” to acknowledge its roots and routes in World and Alternative music and to conjure an Alternative World of global unity with music.
Recommended If You Like:
Jamaican-style rap over blazing bebop horns, soulful melodies, tight drum & bass
