Fievel Is Glauque is an international band led by bandleader and pianist Zach Phillips (US), singer Ma Clément (Belgium), and a rotating cast of musicians spread across the globe. Their sophomore album and label debut on Fat Possum comes out October 25th. It is a live album recorded as an octet consisting of three live takes (no click track) collaged together.
To celebrate their debut album, This Heat is Slowly Killing Me, Aunt Katrina will be performing at Songbyrd Music House on July 5th with Lean Tee (Baltimore) and Berra (Washington D.C.). Aunt Katrina is an experimental pop band from Washington D.C. started by Ryan Walchonski (ex feeble little horse), featuring members of Snail Mail, Tosser and others.
Lifeguard at Songbyrd
with Autobahn
a co-pro with Red Brick presents
Ripped and Torn, the debut album by Chicago three-piece Lifeguard, may or may not take its title from the legendary Scottish punk fanzine of the same name. Or perhaps it references the torn t-shirts that rock writer Lester Bangs claimed the late Pere Ubu founder Peter Laughner died for “in the battle fires of his ripped emotions.” Or maybe it points to the trio’s ferociously destabilising take on melodic post-punk and high velocity hardcore, signposting their debt to the kind of year zero aesthetics that would reignite wild improvisational songforms with muzzy garage Messthetics in a way rarely extrapolated this side of Dredd Foole & The Din.
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Either way, Lifeguard stake their music on the kind of absolute sincerity of the first wave of garage bands, garage bands that took rock at its word, while simultaneously cutting it up with parallel traditions of freak. The half-chanted, half-sung vocals are hypnotic. Songs aren’t so much explicated as they are exorcised, as though the melodies are plucked straight from the air through the repeat-semaphoring of Asher Case on bass, the machine gun percussion that Isaac Lowenstien plays almost like a lead instrument, and that flame-thrower guitar that Kai Slater sprays all over the ever-circling rhythm section. Indeed, the trio play around an implied centre of gravity with all of the brain-razzing appeal of classic minimalism, taking three-minute hooks into the zone of eternal music by jamming in – and out – of time. And then there are the more experimental pieces – “Music for Three Drums” (which surely references Steve Reich’s Music For 18 Musicians), “Charlie’s Vox” – that reveal the breadth of Lifeguard’s vision, incorporating a kind of collaged DIY music that fully embraces the bastardised avant garde of margin walkers like The Dead C, Chrome, and Swell Maps.
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But all this would be mere hubris without the quality of the songs. The title track “Ripped & Torn” suggests yet another take on the title, which is the evisceration of the heart. Here we have a beautifully brokedown garage ballad, with the band coming together to lay emotional waste to a song sung like a transmission from a lonely ghost. “Like You’ll Lose” goes even deeper into combining dreamy automatic vocals with steely fuzz on top of a massive dub/dirge hybrid. “It Will Get Worse” is pure unarmoured pop-punk crush while “Under Your Reach” almost channels the UK DIY of The Television Personalities circa “Part Time Punks” but with a militant interrogation of sonics that would align them more with This Heat. Plus the production, by Randy Randall of No Age, is moody as fuck. Are they really singing “words like tonality come to me” on “T.L.A.”?! If so, it would suggest that Lifeguard are one of those rare groups who can sing about singing, who can play about playing, and who, despite the amount of references I’m inspired to throw around due to the voracity of their approach, are capable of making a music that points to nothing outside of the interaction of the player’s themselves.
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And sure, there’s a naivety to even believing you could possibly do that. But perhaps that’s what I have been chasing across this entire piece, the quality of openness that Lifeguard bring to their music. You can tell these three have been playing together since junior high/high school: the music feels youthful, unburdened, true to itself, even as it eats up comparisons. Lifeguard play underground rock like it might just be as serious as your life, but with enough playful ardour to convince you that youth is a quality of music, and not just of age. With a sound that is fully caught up in the battle fires of their own ripped emotions, Lifeguard make me wanna believe, all over again.
Lustsickpuppy with CPU Buddha and Bonnie Baxter at Metro Baltimore
Doors at 7pm, all ages
LustSickPuppy is perhaps best described as a rapper/producer wielding maniacal electronics, but that doesn’t quite get the full point across. LustSickPuppy takes their love of rap but adds a punk energy, often shouting their lyrics instead of coolly delivering them. Blending that with high octane jungle and other club style beats LustSickPuppy often ends up injecting even higher doses of adrenaline than their forebears. With their new album Carousel From Hell, LustSickPuppy is poised to make their rawest work yet.
Naturally defying categorization, Brooklyn native Tommy Hayes fully embodies the perseverance and limitlessness of a Black artist unafraid of their own power and more than capable of seeing it through. Since 2019, Hayes has only succeeded at transforming inner turmoil into an incomparable and uncompromising sound. Beginning in Bushwick DIY with their first single “Goatmeal,” LustSickPuppy has always been a scholar of digital production, working first with collaborators as with their Cosmic Brownie and As Hard As You Can EP’s before gradually transitioning to working alone. Since the release of As Hard As You Can, LustSickPuppy has toured Europe three times, played Spain’s Primavera Sound Festival, performed at Boiler Room, and opened for artists Dorian Electra and Machine Girl. With Carousel From Hell, LustSickPuppy has fully shifted to self-production.
“I’ve grown up an outsider and a weirdo and just wanted to feel accepted, even though I never really was,” Hayes reveals.
“I’ve always felt this tense feeling in my chest that needed to come out and I had no real way of escaping it. I spent years of my life isolated in my head, not knowing who I was or how to feel and was constantly searching for chaos to make sense of the chaos I felt inside me. When I started producing it felt like for the first time I actually tangibly felt and heard all that was going on inside me.”
With knowledge of their stated goals of “genrefucking, representing Black weirdos, de-centering white spaces, destruction of male dominated spaces, representation of femme producers, murder of the patriarchy, and the creation of space for POC queer people,” the distorted shouts atop the atonal frenzy and fist-pumping bass of LustSickPuppy’s work is perfectly contextualized. The songs are born of the mentality of a punk rocker who loves the energy of the club and the expression of movement, and LustSickPuppy facilitates that at each show. Without such context, listeners may be too slow to grasp the importance of the aesthetics reminiscent of Foxy Brown, Lil Kim, and even Wendy O. Williams, likely failing to truly understand just how forward-thinking Hayes’ artistic choices and statements truly are.
“It is my intention to reconnect people with their emotions that have been numbed off of them so that we can return to the depths of feeling.”
Zap Outdoorz is a festival that bings together top electronic and punk acts from the DMV plus out-of-region favorites for a weekend campout in Appalachia. Our mission is to bridge worlds and move bodies, embrace our raw edges as humans, and ignite our collective energy. Organic by nature and intimate by design, we are at once a reverie and a homecoming, an annual celebration of what has been, what is, and what ought to be.
Dummy
with Flowers for the Dead & Tarotplane
7pm/ all ages
Dummy — the Los Angeles band comprised of Alex Ewell, Emma Maatman, Nathan O’Dell, and Joe Trainor — announces its new album, Free Energy, out September 6th on Trouble In Mind Records, and shares the lead single/video, “Nullspace.” Pop has always been a big part of Dummy’s sound, but it manifests differently on Free Energy. Sometimes it’s quite literal (and funny), such as the bubbly synth sequence made with a Korg EM1 popping all over lead single “Nullspace,” which features a melody written by O’Dell and is the song the band calls the record’s “sonic mission statement and really influenced by Mark Van Hoen, especially the cut-up dreamy dance-pop he was making on the Locust record Morning Light.”
Dummy’s debut full-length Mandatory Enjoyment arrived in late 2021 and quickly became one of the year’s sleeper hits. Pitchfork, Bandcamp Daily, Stereogum, Aquarium Drunkard, and other publications praised Dummy’s mix of ambient and twinkly guitar pop, their deep musical references, and the intentionality with which they patchworked it all together. Fans bought copies of Mandatory so quickly that Trouble in Mind couldn’t keep it in stock. Sub Pop Records also invited the band to contribute to their legendary Singles Club series. Bands loved Dummy, too, and the group were asked to open for Horsegirl, Botch, Black Country, New Road, Luna, Spirit of the Beehive, Dehd, Snooper, Sweeping Promises, Snail Mail, and more.
Where Mandatory Enjoyment was cerebral and lo-fi, the product of a lot of time inside, Free Energy is all movement, presence, and physicality. A creatively restless band, Dummy felt like they had done the best version of motorik pop that they could do, and wanted to get harder, dancier, a little more psychedelic. Ewell and Trainor began experimenting with home recording, using DAW as kind of an instrument for composition rather than simply a tool. O’Dell dug deeper into instrumental/sample composition, in addition to contributing more guitar leads. Maatman also steps into the spotlight in a big way, her vocals noticeably foregrounded and confident, adding to the live performance feel that forms the foundation of Free Energy. The result is a record that celebrates music’s ability to move the body, whether that be through a teeth-rattling wall of MBV-esque noise, a sticky pop chorus, or a joyous drum machine—or, if you’re Dummy, maybe all of them in the same song.
Additionally, Free Energy features guest appearances by friends Dummy has played with on tour, including Oakland-based saxophonist and electroacoustic artist Cole Pulice and Jen Powers of Powers / Rolin Duo, along with a series of field recordings the band made while on tour: the rushing of water, the rumbling of the van, indistinct voices, chirping birds; the sounds of mundanity rising to cacophony before petering out, treated no differently than the ecstatic rhythms, explosive hooks, and blissful ambient stretches that came before. If there is any key to understanding what makes Dummy such a compelling band, perhaps it is this: it’s all music to them.
Mary Lattimore
with Elias Rønnenfelt
Through evocative, emotionally resonant music, Goodbye, Hotel Arkada, the new LP from American harpist and composer Mary Lattimore, speaks not just for its beloved namesake — a hotel in Croatia facing renovation — but for a universal loss that is shared. Six sprawling pieces shaped by change; nothing will ever be the same, and here, the artist, evolving in synthesis, celebrates and mourns the tragedy and beauty of the ephemeral, all that is lived and lost to time. Documented and edited in uncharacteristically measured sessions over the course of two years, the material remains rooted in improvisation while glistening as the most refined and robust in Lattimore’s decade-long catalog. It finds her communing with friends, contemporaries, and longtime influences, in full stride yet slowing down to nurture songs in new ways. The cast includes Lol Tolhurst (The Cure), Meg Baird, Rachel Goswell (Slowdive), Roy Montgomery, Samara Lubelski, and Walt McClements.
“When I think of these songs, I think about fading flowers in vases, melted candles, getting older, being on tour and having things change while you’re away, not realizing how ephemeral experiences are until they don’t happen anymore, fear for a planet we’re losing because of greed, an ode to art and music that’s really shaped your life that can transport you back in time, longing to maintain sensitivity and to not sink into hollow despondency.”
Memories, scenes, and split-second impressions have long filled Lattimore’s musical universe. As one of today’s preeminent instrumental storytellers, she has “the uncanny ability to pluck a string in a way that will instantly make someone remember the taste of their fifth birthday cake,” writes Pitchfork’s Jemima Skala. Lattimore’s impulse to record life as it happens matches her drive to travel and perform, as profiled by Grayson Haver Currin for The New York Times: “Lattimore recognized that being in motion shook loose strands of inspiration, moods she wanted to express with melody. She needed, then, to remain on the go.” That sense of fluidity has also made her a prolific collaborator outside of solo work. 2020’s Silver Ladders, recorded with Slowdive’s Neil Halstead, opened the door for Lattimore to widen the vision of her primary project as well, and its proper follow-up is the natural next scale. “All of these people I asked to contribute have deeply affected and inspired my life.”
For the title and inspiration, Lattimore’s mind returns to the island of Hvar in Croatia, where she first saw those silver ladders at the water’s edge. “There’s a big old hotel there called the Hotel Arkada, and you could tell it had been hosting holiday-goers for decades in a great way. I walked around the lobby and the empty ballrooms and it looked like a well-worn, well-loved place. My friend Stacey who lives there told me to ‘say goodbye to Hotel Arkada, it might not be here when you get back’ and I heard soon after that it was actually going to be renovated in a very crisp, modern way.” Lattimore became fixated on the ingredients that make a place special — for Hotel Arkada, the patinaed chandeliers, the patternedbedspreads, the echoes of its intangible charm — and how when those leave this world, as they inevitably always will, it feels important to memorialize them, “to bottle it for a brief second.”
Momma 'Welcome To My Blue Sky Tour'
with villagerrr
Momma is the musical project of Allegra Weingarten and Etta Friedman. After moving to New York from Los Angeles, the two brought on bassist and producer Aron Kobayashi Ritch, and drummer Preston Fulks, to flesh out their sound. Produced by Kobayashi Ritch, Momma's new album, Welcome to My Blue Sky, lays bare all of the precious and all of the ugly experiences of falling in and out of love, and the art of keeping secrets. Welcome to My Blue Sky comes out April 4th, 2025.
Momma ‘Welcome To My Blue Sky Tour’
with villagerrr
NIGHT 2!
Momma is the musical project of Allegra Weingarten and Etta Friedman. After moving to New York from Los Angeles, the two brought on bassist and producer Aron Kobayashi Ritch, and drummer Preston Fulks, to flesh out their sound. Produced by Kobayashi Ritch, Momma’s new album, Welcome to My Blue Sky, lays bare all of the precious and all of the ugly experiences of falling in and out of love, and the art of keeping secrets. Welcome to My Blue Sky comes out April 4th, 2025.
Beach Fossils
with Being Dead
Doors at 7pm, all ages
Throughout the last fifteen years, Beach Fossils have steadily earned their stature as one of the most definitive and enduring bands of the 2010s New York underground, consistently reaching new listeners as their sound has grown from the DIY solo project of Dustin Payseur to an influential four-piece dream pop band, self-produced and self-released.
Bunny (2023) continues the stunning evolution of Beach Fossils’ sound, pulling elements from the jangly melancholy of the self-titled debut Beach Fossils (2010) and What a Pleasure (2011), the gritty, post-punk inspired tracks from Clash the Truth (2013), and the lush arrangements of Somersault (2017). Throughout, Payseur is joined by core band members Tommy Davidson (guitar), Jack Doyle Smith (bass), and Anton Hochheim (drums).
Through tone and mood, Beach Fossils communicate a coming-of-age narrative of self-discovery. Payseur’s slice-of-life lyrics reflect on depression, love, adventure, loss, mistakes, New York City, friendships coming and going — a mélange of granular pieces in the process of continuing to find yourself.
