Under the Stars does the heavy lifting, placing good music in your pocket.
Listen up: we are a quasi-weekly column that presents new music
releases, upcoming shows, opinions, and a number of other adjacent items. We
keep moving with the changes, thinking outside the margins.
Happy Pride month and yo, Let’s Get IT!
LE GUESS WHO? FESTIVAL IN UTRECHT, NOVEMBER 9-12
Progressive Dutch festival Le Guess Who? announced the first slew of artists for this year’s edition. Guest curators for 2023 include Stereolab, acclaimed mastering engineer Heba Kadry, ambient jazz composer Nala Sinephro, and Standing On The Corner’s Slauson Malone 1.
Stereolab headlines their own program, which features one of our fave artists Afrikan Sciences, Irreversible Entanglements, James Holden, Bombino, Kali Malone with Lucy Railton and Sunn O)))’s Stephen O’Malley, Bitchin Bajas, Rhys Chatham, and others.
“Such an affirmation, I can’t quite put it into words,” stated Afrikan Sciences upon the announcement of his selection for the festival. “Stereolab is a group that helped solidify directions in my musical path early on. This is like getting the nod of approval from the higher-ups that says don’t stop, despite setbacks and disappointments that at times trigger doubt. I’m going to channel the sonic passion in my performance with an outpouring of gratitude and a declaration of purpose and intent. I’m geeked.”
Grab tickets to this festival here.
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DAZED AND CONFUSED AT VOGUE THEATRE, JUNE 14 AND 15
It’s rumored the bulk of Richard Linklater’s budget for Dazed and
Confused went to its soundtrack licensing.
Homeboy didn’t need to overthink it. If you want to make a stoner movie for the ages, you gonna need some War and Black Sabbath on the soundtrack. That’s GP. “General principle,” for those not in the know.
The film takes place on the last day of school with the entire cast unsure
of its future.
So yeah … folks getting high AF. From the kegger at the Moon Tower to bong rips in people’s bedrooms, this vision of suburban Texas in 1976 has become beloved by all.
But dag-gummit, from ZZ TOP’s “Tush” to Nazareth’s “Love Hurts,” the film is designed to keep it hazy, laffing at the funny and the unfunny, because things are changing and there is no handbook or web search option to help these youngn’s’ along the way.
Dazed and Confused is the epitome of a summertime “smoke ’em if you got ’em” hang that requires plenty of popcorn. Remember that when it screens at the Vogue.
Grab tickets in advance here.
QUICKLY, QUICKLY AT POPSCENE, JUNE 2; “EASY LISTENING” EP (GHOSTLY)
Sometimes, the algorithm is correct.
When you look at the bottom of the Bandcamp page for Graham Jonson’s psyche-meets-soul project quickly quickly, the modern masterpiece Rare Pleasure by Mndsgn is the first album that appears. That makes sense, doesn’t it? A beat-obsessed producer with six short expressive songs filled with crazy drum sounds and some kind of melodic tapestry sandwiched between LA’s Vinyl Williams and our own Bay area connect Once and Future Band, riding throughout.
quickly quickly’s “Easy Listening” is the kind of groovy, trippy out-and-in-there strain that makes you look over your shoulder twice.
Catch quickly quickly at Popscene June 2. Purchase the release here.
THE BUDOS BAND, FRONTIER’S EDGE (DIAMOND WEST RECORDS)
Dang. They did it.
Ever since Burnt Offering, a thwacking slab of Afrobeat-meets-psychedelic-brain-fuzz—with Gandalf’s cousin on the album art—I had a feeling this band was moving in a different direction.
Lemme make it clear, Burnt Offering and V slap way harder than the group’s previous efforts.
They are both really legit.
After a two-decade run with the legendary Daptone Records come Frontier’s Edge, the first new music from The Budos Band out July 28. The release finds them on their own label, run by Budos’ saxophonist Jared Tankel and guitarist Tom Brenneck. The departure from Daptone was on good terms and the split from their long-time home base was an organic result of the band’s evolution.
“It’s just a natural growth,” Brenneck says in a press statement, admitting: “We’re going further away from the sound of Daptone and into territory they probably wanted to stay away from.”
As a result, Frontier’s Edge finds the group fully unlocked, charging forth with that raw acceleration.
You can pre-order the EP here—and snag slipmats, custom tees, and an official Budos flask.
