A song is a song until it isn’t, until it’s pushed to its limits and beyond to become harder, faster and more dissonant. The music on Oneida’s 17thfull-length album, Expensive Air, all started as tightly structured, melodic rock songs then broke open these structures through the instinctual, improvisatory interplay, honed to razor sharpness in two years of live performance. “Successis like laughing in a car gunning carelessly through an ice storm,” says Bobby Matador, “and Expensive Airis how you laugh at yourself as the car spins into the ditch, or a tree. Same trip, but a little closer to the bone.”

Brontez Purnell has been making music since the ‘90s. He started in The Social Lies, a hardcore Afro-punk duo in Alabama in his teens, and later Gravy Train!!! He then went on to lead his long-running project, The Younger Lovers. He is also a dancer, filmmaker, choreographer (The Brontez Purnell Dance Company), the author of eight books, and now a Sub Pop recording artist.

This fall, Brooklyn NY's, The Ladybug Transistor, will embark on a tour in celebration of the 25th anniversary of The Albemarle Sound. Originally released in 1999 on Merge Records, the band's third full-length LP exists just outside its fixed point in time and space. Perhaps the last great pop album of the 20th century, The Albemarle Sound is like few records from the turn of the millennium, its attention turned to the intricate arrangements of late 1960s pop and the strange and familiar environs of home. 

Celestial punk guitarist ALAN LICHT (Love Child, Blue Humans, Lee Ranaldo and the Dust) plays a very special solo show at Stork Club in support of his new album on VDSQ, Havens. Experimental electronics artist, Sharkiface, opens the show.

“The sonic fuel of the band is a blend of post punk, punk, funk, blues, psych rock, Afro beat, even bubble gum but the noise you hear is pure Des Demonas.” - Kim Salmon / The Scientists 

"100 Flowers (previously known as the Urinals are a power trio whose sole 1983 album is an enduring document of the Southern California underground. Based in crime-ridden '80s Los Angeles against the backdrop of juvenile hardcore and vapid hard rock, 100 Flowers crafted a sound that rests between the inspired bursts of The Minutemen and the pastoral jangle of The Dream Syndicate with similarities to the equally oblique Monitor and The Gun Club (who even included a Urinals cover in their set).

Currently based in Oakland, CA, Free Salamander Exhibit continues to shed its dead skin cells, casting off an accumulated detritus of metal, prog-rock, and art-rock influences.

"Half a dozen LPs in, the 22-year Czech band, Uz Jsme Doma, is free of its remarkable founding narrative as a band banned by the former Communist Czechoslovakian regime just for existing...What remains is the fierce commitment to the freedom inherent in Western art-damaged music. Uz embody the absolute unpredictability in Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention primarily, but also the multi-influence, anti-pop clatter of the Residents, Captain Beefheart, Pere Ubu, 1977 punk, and...prog. You won't know what they're singing about in Czech, but the limitless hyper-energy and collision of styles piling on each other with remarkable precision, always turns ears....It's glorious..." – Jack Rabid

BASIC is a mind-meld between noted Philadelphia guitarist Chris Forsyth, Douglas  McCombs (Tortoise), and Mikel Patrick Avery (Natural Information Society). "This Is BASIC", their debut album, is a complex and entrancing instrumental LP recasting forgotten scraps of guitar history into a moving mosaic of strings, skins and electronics.

Simply checking the pedigrees (ex-Arab On Radar, Chinese Stars, Some Girls, Doomsday Student, and Hot Nerdz) will only get you so far with Psychic Graveyard. With a manic output of four full-length albums—Loud As Laughter, A Bluebird Vacation, Veins Feel Strange, and now the brilliant Wilting–in nearly as many years, Psychic Graveyard makes consistently thrilling and unsettled sonic artifacts for a world emptied out and flattened by a joyless and sociopathic mediascape.

Formed in 1995 by Makoto Kawabata at the same time as the Acid Mothers Temple Soul
Collective. The group released its debut album in 1997 on PSF Records (Japan), and it was
selected as one of the year's best albums in The Wire magazine (UK). In 1998 the group played their first tours of the US and Europe. Since then the group has released a huge number of albums on labels from many different countries. As of 2017, the group has
released around 80 albums. Every year since 1998, they have toured extensively in the US
and Europe, and more recently have started performing around Asia and in Japan too. The
group has performed in collaboration with many musicians including psychedelic originators Gong and Guru Guru, Simeon (Silver Apples), Nik Turner (Hawkwind), and more.

WOLF EYES is a band from Michigan. Formed in the fall of 1996 by N. Young. They are known for their bizarre and otherworldly approach to music. Creating a sound that is both disturbing and hypnotic. The band has released numerous albums and EPs on various labels. With their intense and bizarre live performances, Wolf Eyes has garnered a reputation as one of the most frightening and weird bands in the world. Wolf Eyes is currently John Olson and Nate Young. They have performed together for over 20 years.

Chloe Troast is the only new SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE cast member to join season 49 and was named a NEW FACE at Just for Laughs 2023. Previously, she landed the Amy Pascal Feature Film GOODRICH starring Michael Keaton and shot a recurring role on Paul Feig's ABC pilot DROP OFF, opposite Ellie Kemper. Chloe can next be seen in HBO Max’s Feature Film SWEETHEARTS, starring Kieran Shipka, and Judd Apatow’s Feature Film, PLEASE DON’T DESTROY: THE TREASURE OF FOGGY MOUNTAIN, opposite Conan O’Brien, Bowen Yang and Megan Stalter.

Non Plus Temps traffick in On-U Sound post-punk dub stylings). The Spatulas (Cambridge MA) proffer uneasy psychedelic jangle pop, Mister Baby dish dreamy bedroom pop.

Talent Moat’s first foray into the 4 Star Theater features a dazzling array of electronic pop, post-punk, no-wave, art-rock, and avant-garde pop courtesy of noted traffickers Naked Roommate, LA’s Harry the Nightgown, and Juicebumps.

Spanning noisy improvisational rock, folky meditations, and more, Magik Markers fold aching ballads, brash guitar pop, and droning experiments into their music.

"Detroit’s Tvyek are revered DIY lifers, still flying the lo-fi flag nearly 20 years into their existence, laying it all on the line via cheaply recorded two-minute punk blasts informed by the Ramones, The Fall, Television Personalities, etc, but shot through their distinctive Midwest Michigan worldview. Overground is Tyvek’s first album in six years and is a welcome return — 11 bleaty jams flecked with skronky sax, frontman Kevin Boyer’s free association (but thoughtful) lyrics and more musical finesse than the hissy recordings may suggest.” - Brooklyn Vegan

Once again, Six Organs of Admittance showcases the intricate tangle of fingers on the fretboard and flash of lens flare slicing the air, as the future arcs 360 degrees around to become a part of the past as well. Oscillations in this glass bowl ripple outward eternally, but are rooted on the ground where all the creatures are moving and communing; humans too. An intimate cosmic expression, file under: rural-industrial psych, ecosystem goth.

Cindy Lee's fifth album showcases the project's most entrancing strengths: ethereal snowdrift pop and sly nods toward classic girl-group motifs…a mix of pop culture indoctrination, pain and suffering, hopes and dreams, fierce confrontations and wide-open confessional blurs.

Cindy Lee's fifth album showcases the project's most entrancing strengths: ethereal snowdrift pop and sly nods toward classic girl-group motifs…a mix of pop culture indoctrination, pain and suffering, hopes and dreams, fierce confrontations and wide-open confessional blurs.

Talent Moat is once again teaming up with the Noise Pop festival to present a FREE HAPPY HOUR SHOW at Bender’s Bar & Grill featuring top-shelf IRL entertainment from three of the best bands in the SF/Oakland sub-underground: THE LOSERS, CROISSANT, AND FOG LAMP.

Philadelphia guitarist Emily Robb (Bandcamp’s “Best Experimental Music of 2023”) teams up with Very Special Guest to debut a one-of-a-kind duo set. Heads, this one’s not to be missed!

"There’s no shortage of squall on Emily Robb’s new album, If I Am Misery Then Give Me Affection. It’s a guitar pageant! One listen and you’ll hear Charley Patton amidst the buzz, his primitive blues lurking in the cacophony. Pull those impulses forward 40 years and you’ll hear familiar sounds that take you right to the early Velvets.”

Hammered Hulls are a band from Washington D.C. A new band of long-time players, Hammered Hulls’ music hews close to some of their early influences. Alec MacKaye is the voice, Mark Cisneros is the guitarist, Brendan Canty of Fugazi is the bassist, and Chris Wilson commands the drums. Each of them brings their individual imprint to the total sound. This concussion of strength upon strength, unified by vulnerable songs, only barely contained, is the signature sound of Hammered Hulls.