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Program: ACL presents Satellite Sets
Episode: Brownout: Con El Cuete
If ever a band could boast having a complex genealogical tree, that band is Brownout. The eight-piece, Latin funk ensemble based in Austin, Texas, is both offspring and germinating seed to Grammy-nominated Grupo Fantasma. Brownout has taken Grupo Fantasma’s funk roots and blown them up. In the process they’ve taken on a life and developed a unique sound all their own.

PMT’s currently listening to:

T-Bird and the Breaks in KUT Studio 1a from Texas Music Matters at KUT on Vimeo.

Neon Indian on KEXP

Listen: Rock historian Ed Ward remembers the Austin, Texas label Domino Records (Fresh Air).

Domino records was formed by a group of 11 professionals in the state capitol of Texas, Austin,in 1957. They also formed their own publishing company called Balcones Music, named after the Balcones fault that runs through the state. The Slades were the first act signed,and several others were added before the label folded around 1961. Domino records was small in size and resources,but was still able to get radio play for many of their singles.They lacked good distribution, so many titles stayed local. Below are many of the Domino records releases,and several of the promotional picture inserts that were originally sent out to radio stations and other people of influence in the late 1950′s (Color Radio).

Free ‘NPR Music At SXSW’ Sampler

Download a free 11-song sampler of the artists featured by NPR Music at this March’s South by Southwest Music festival in Austin, Texas, including music from Spoon, Broken Bells and G-Side. NPR Music will offer live streaming, podcasts and full coverage of the exhausting and exhilarating music event. Presented with KUT in Austin, WXPN in Philadelphia, WFUV in New York, KEXP in Seattle, and The Current in Minneapolis/St. Paul.
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An mp3 has surfaced from the Roky Erickson & Okkervil River collaboration. “Goodbye Sweet Dreams” is the first track off of Erickson’s new album that will be released in April before the collaboration teams up for a hometown showcase during SXSW.

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Hear ‘The Golden Archipelago’ from Austin’s Shearwater until Feb. 23

NPR: Shearwater’s delicate, dramatic new album, The Golden Archipelago, wasn’t built for earbuds or tinny car stereos: This is immersive, artful music, meant to be examined in-depth from every angle. As if to prove that point, singer-guitarist Jonathan Meiburg assembled an elaborate and appropriately oblique 75-page “dossier” to go with deluxe editions of the record. Filled with maps, charts, art and photos, the dossier only enhances the otherworldly mystery of music that fuses instrumental majesty and natural beauty.

A working bird scientist when he’s not slogging through clubs with his ace backing band — bassist Kimberly Burke, versatile drummer and multi-instrumentalist Thor Harris, and frequent collaborators Kevin Schneider and Jordan Geiger — Meiburg isn’t afraid to infuse his arty rock with field recordings and the terminology of ecology, and to let his ambitions sprawl in ways both gentle and gargantuan. Shearwater is fearless in its seriousness and often awe-inspiring loveliness: As The Golden Archipelago finds him examining humanity’s complex relationships with nature, Meiburg’s whispers can hit like screams, and when he screams, the effect is so clean and graceful, it’s strangely calming.

Meiburg got his start in another thematically ambitious band, Okkervil River, with Shearwater functioning as a side project. But in recent years, Shearwater has become a full-time job whose work equals and often exceeds that of its better-known cousin. On The Golden Archipelago, Shearwater’s songs flow together fluidly, to the point where they work best as a 38-minute whole. Fortunately, you can hear them exactly as intended by clicking the link above: The album will stream on this page in its entirety for the two weeks leading up to its release on Feb. 23.

Please give The Golden Archipelago a listen — without interruption and on headphones, if possible — and leave your thoughts on the album in the comments section below.

NPR: Artists can be forgiven for having control issues when everything they touch is gold. Britt Daniel, Spoon’s gifted frontman, crafts brilliantly understated pop gems that follow a strict protocol: Keep the mix clean, the orchestration tight and the lyrics a bit oblique. It’s a carefully plotted formula that’s helped make Spoon one of the most reliably gratifying bands of the past 15 years, with more than a dozen studio albums and EPs to its name.


Transference, the group’s latest record — and the first it produced itself — stays the course, with simple two-beat rhythms, spiky piano grooves and crisp guitars. Daniel, along with drummer Jim Eno, keyboardist Eric Harvey and bassist Rob Pope, methodically injects a handful of catchy hooks and uncluttered studio effects to give the songs some lift.

But, as with most of Spoon’s work, Transference’s genius lies in what isn’t said. If the songs lack obvious sonic adventure, they more than compensate with flawless execution and an unshakable sense that something darker or more mysterious is lurking beneath the glittering riffs and poppy beats. Daniel and company know that art is more compelling when it plays with the audience’s imagination. In the case of Spoon, that exercise in restraint makes Transference memorable and alluring.

Transference is available to stream here in its entirety for the week leading up to its official release on Jan. 19, as part of NPR Music’s Exclusive First Listen series.

NPR: Iron and Wine is primarily the work of Florida native Sam Beam. [Beam now lives in the Austin area.] Beam started out as a film instructor in the late ’90s in Miami. He wrote and recorded songs in his spare time and started getting attention when his lo-fi basement tapes found their way to the indie label Sub Pop. In 2002, the record company released 12 songs by Beam on a collection titled The Creek Drank the Cradle. It was followed by Our Endless Numbered Days, which some music critics chose for the best album of 2004 for its gentle, acoustic strums, spare rhythms and simple poetry.

Austinist let out a dirty little secret this morning. Austin’s White Denim is heading over to Marfa to play a cheap-cheap show (thanks to assistance from the Texas Commission on the Arts). You don’t really need a good excuse like this to make the trek to West Texas, but it doesn’t hurt.

Show starts at 9:30 on January 15. Tickets at the door only.