Mixtape 362 • Heat
Pack a light lunch and bring your paper money, because Station Model Violence is taking us back in time.
Pack a light lunch and bring your paper money, because Station Model Violence is taking us back in time.

If you visit Los Frankies’ website, you’ll see they describe themselves as influenced by early 2000s garage rock, which spins my head around while ghostly drifting clocks and peeling calendars are superimposed in the background. Great stuff! Also, I changed my mind while I was playing one of the songs, and decided it isn’t actually good. I’m not going to say which one, but I will say I’m sorry.

Boston’s Sleepyhead have been successfully dodging full wakefulness for a couple decades now, putting out an intriguing type of bedroom pop filled with subtle complexities, and their new album is filled to the brim with such. In other news we kick off with a Fugazi cover from quintessential NYC band BODEGA, whose lineage clearly traces back to legions of posterized grit punks.
For quite some time, Mommyheads have delivered the sort of complex pop and lyrical insight that fills in the cracks and gaps in your musical thinking with new ideas and sounds.

There are voices so distinctive that their timbre is an instrument onto itself. This is the case with Josh Caterer, who was first heard singing for a band called The Smoking Popes. He has a wildly diverse solo career now, but tonight we play his reworked version of a Popes song.

The baker took one last look at the cake, sitting on its gold-rimmed stand on the veranda, the carefully cultivated gardens surrounding the Palacio Rioja visible in the background. If it weren’t for the two backpack stealthcopters leaning against the railing, it would be Instagrammable, hashtag noneofyourbusiness. The architect finished the final touches, and gave a silent nod. In a smooth motion, the two of them had their packs on and had plummeted over the edge, carefully angling away to not disturb the icing.

It was a quiet night... I believe an unearthly materializing of liquid water from thin air had people on edge. Elsewhere, the phenomenon is so common it has its own word -- "rain" -- but here in the Grand Valley, it's so rare as to trigger suspicions of alien interference, chemtrails, or bitcoin market manipulation. Sometimes all three.

After a long absence, the RockaTeens return with their trademark sonic assault, but with the reverb turned down a bit. They kick off this week's show with "Turn and Smile".

A beat-heavy collection of international sounds, this band is literally all over the place in a boundary-pushing mix of afrobeat, bhangra, hip-hop, jazz and other genres.