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[Event Preview/Playlist] The Underground Music Showcase – 7/28 – 7/31 – Denver, CO

Posted by Matthew Bloss - July 27, 2016

It’s no secret at all that The Underground Music Showcase in beautiful Denver, CO has become a mainstay for our Mile-High Ninjas, and as we’re just a day out, we are once again gearing up for another edition of one of the U.S. festival scene’s best kept (not-so) secrets. One of the few remaining music gatherings in the fair city of Denver to eschew the typical smattering of major label festival fare, The UMS boasts a lineup of over 400+ acts strewn across various shops and bars dotting Denver’s historic South Broadway district, and we’ve been salivating like one of Pavlov’s pit-bulls in anticipation of this year’s entry.

Headlined by a number of intriguingly eclectic acts including Poliça, Thee Oh Sees, Sunflower Bean, Allah Las, Lee Fields & The Expressions, and The Bright Light Social Hour as well as some of the city’s most promising acts like Flaural, Shady Elders, déCollage, The Yawpers, Inner Oceans and Sunboy; 2016’s version of The UMS offers us yet another tastefully curated weekend of music in one of the best settings possible. We’ll be out in full force all weekend, and in anticipation of this year’s festivities, we’ve put together a playlist highlighting some of our favorite UMS artists. Get your sunscreen ready, and we’ll be seeing our Denver friends in the sun all weekend!

’POLIÇA – Chain My Name’

’Thee Oh Sees – Web’

’Sunflower Bean – Easier Said’

’Allah
Las – Buffalo Nickel’

’The Yawpers – Sister Mary’

’Lee Fields & The Expressions – You’re The Kind Of Girl’

’Bright Light Social Hour – Escape Velocity’

’Flaural – Mind Field’

’Inner Oceans – WILD’

’Sunboy – Oracle’

’Shady Elders – Pale Blue Dot’

’déCollage – Rise Above’

[Psych Rock] Jagwar Ma – OB1

Posted by Dominic Powell - July 16, 2016

Jagwar Ma
O B 1

I was first introduced to Jagwar Ma via BIRP’s May 2013 release. In “Man I Need”, I found a 9-minute long primer to what would soon become a favorite genre of music. The influences of indie rock, glitz-pop, and psychadelia came together to form a symbiotic masterpiece with each piece complimenting the others. While Jagwar Ma has been touring regularly, fans have not been exposed to new material since the debut of Howlin’ in 2013. This week, the first single from the soon-to-be released album Every Now and Then, “OB1” has hit the airwaves.

Opening with a glitzy, reverb heavy loop set under Gabriel Winterfield’s vocals, the track wastes no time to root itself in the same psychedelic framework that made the band so popular in 2013 – and propelled Lonerism to universal acclaim in 2012. “OB1” plays out nicely over the course of a lengthy five and a half minutes, giving an ode to previous works like “Uncertainty” and “The Throw” which take equally as long to build up.

As the song unfolds, a subbed out bass line and a 90s-rock guitar riff carry the bridge and the hook respectively. Overall, “OB1” is a return to form for Jagwar Ma and gives fans a hopeful glimpse into what is in store from them in the second half of 2016. In addition to dropping a new album, fans can catch what is – in my personal opinion – one of the best live performances that exists all over the globe this summer and fall. Jagwar Ma’s website can be found here and a few of their tour dates are listed below the music video.

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[Event Review] Project Pabst: Denver

Posted by Matthew Bloss - May 27, 2016

While the influx of major brands into all sectors of independent art over the past decade or so has certainly seen a large swath of fans and critics let out a collective groan; it is events like Project Pabst that at least let us know that some corporations are putting their efforts in the right places. Last Saturday, a pair of us Ninjas set out into one of Denver’s most diversely beautiful neighborhoods, The Five Points/RiNo Arts District (which was conveniently also this writer’s own hood) to enjoy one of the more eclectically diverse days of music we’ve consumed in the Centennial State in years.

We arrived fresh on a sweltering afternoon just in time to see Brooklyn synth-pop outfit Small Black, who if you’ve followed us for some time, know we have developed quite the soft spot for -especially after playing our Halloween TMN Showcase last year. The four-piece paced the day wonderfully, ranging their sound from wistful electro-indie-pop, to chillwave, to lofi 80’s pop, and all of those murky spaces in between. After running through a slate of singles off of last year’s LP Best Blues, Small Black arced their set brilliantly, landing upon their shining star “No Stranger” to wrap up an hour-long set.

Check out the rest of our Project Pabst: Denver review after the jump!

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[Denver Event Preview] Project Pabst – RiNo Arts District – 5/21

Posted by Matthew Bloss - May 20, 2016

Already an established and highly praised festival in Portland, Project Pabst is set to touch down for its first ever stop in Denver, and we’re chomping at the bit for their all-day lineup featuring the likes of TMN Favorites Best Coast, Small Black (who headlined one of our TMN Showcase parties back on Halloween), K. Flay, and local Denverites turned national darlings Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats; along with classic staples including the Violent Femmes, Charles Bradley & His Extraordinaires and loads more across seven stages on Saturday, May 21st in Denver’s booming and eclectic RiNo Arts District. We’ve been watching Project Pabst pick up steam as it nears closer and closer, and with the announcement yesterday that all tickets have now been sold out, it’s shaping up to be a beast of a day for music in the Mile High City.

In anticipation of this weekend’s Denver debut of Project Pabst, check out our playlist below featuring some of our favorite tunes from each headliner, start hydrating, and put aside your beer snobbery before loading your system with cheap domestic beer in the greatest craft-brew city in the U.S. We’ll be out in full force all day tomorrow, so keep your eyes peeled for our post-event review, and get in the spirit a little early with our official Project Pabst Preview Playlist (say that five times fast) below.

’Best Coast – The Only Place’

’Small Black – No Stranger’

’Best Coast – Do You Love Me Like You Used To’

’Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats
S.O.B.’

’Violent Femmes – Blister In The Sun’

’FIDLAR – No Waves’

’Big KRIT ft Trinidad James – My Trunk’

’Lights – Same Sea (K.Flay Remix)’

’Metz – Can’t Understand’

’Baroness – Shock Me’

[Show Review] Deerhunter at The Observatory North Park, San Diego, CA

Posted by Jordan Coburn - May 2, 2016

Deerhunter is one of our favorite experimental rock bands around right now. We’ve been following them for years, and to finally get to see them in concert was an occasion. On Friday night the Atlanta-born musicians took to the stage in San Diego, CA and delivered what we consider to be a performance solidifying their place as neo-rock superstars. Their music live seems to be the only way we want to listen to them from now on.

Lead singer Bradford Cox had a stage presence that was anticipated, but proved surprising in one respect. While we expected his presence to be profound, we weren’t expecting it to get so dance-y. It was much to our pleasant surprise that waves of dancing erupted in the crowd more often than not, namely the movement session that accompanied the latter part of “Living My Life”—a single from their latest album Fading Frontier that was accompanied by a saxophone in this live rendition. And who could forget the seductive stripping of Cox’s suspenders that followed not long after.

Towards the middle of the show the band dedicated a performance to the memory of Cox’s stepmother, set to the song “Take Care.” The song is already an enchanting piece on its own, but the band altered and extended the breakdown, taking the song to new depths that it hadn’t possessed previously. The percussions in particular led a crescendo that left the crowd in complete silence, only to erupt moments later in a reverent roar.

Following an encore, the band did a few of their older classics like “Desire Lines,” in which guitarist, vocalist and Lotus Plaza-creator Lockett Pundt sang it in its entirety. The passion and talent of the duo together was truly a sight to see. Following this came a few songs from the album that first got us started on Deerhunter, Microcastle and hearing the songs “Cover Me Slowly” and “Nothing Ever Happened” live were moments that we had hoped for but did not expect given the older date of that record.

The set wound up being, overall, everything that we could have asked for, and more. It’s sent us into a week long phase of listening to their discography, and has us being very appreciate of being able to catch them live. Hopefully, it won’t be the last time

[TMN Exclusive Interview] TMN Talks ‘Life of Pause’, Time Traveling & More with Wild Nothing’s Jack Tatum

Posted by Matthew Bloss - April 29, 2016

Wild Nothing
TMN Exclusive Interview + A Woman's WIsdom (Official SIngle)

Few people are able to conjure up such a visceral response through their artistic medium as multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and chief architect behind one of the most lauded music projects over the last decade as has the L.A. via Blacksburg, VA (and a few cities in between) Wild Nothing frontman Jack Tatum. Clearly a pensive and grounded artiste, Tatum’s abundant knowledge of music pours throug Wild Nothing’s pop-structured, but genre-eschewing catalog. Tatum and Wild Nothing’s sound has always toyed between abstract and direct, which has resulted in some of the most velvety, lush indie-pop tunes we’ve ever exposed our cochlear cavities to.

Last week, jut ahead of the start of Wild Nothing’s current international tour, we had the chance to catch up with Jack and see what’s been going on since the release of Life of Pause and ahead of yet another hefty jaunt across the world. Check out our show preview for Wild Nothing’s upcoming Red Bull Sound Select Showcase in Denver this Saturday with Inner Oceans & Flaural at the Bluebird Theater, and be sure to read our entire transcript below.

The Music Ninja (TMN): First off, let’s just take a second to thank you for taking the time to let us pick your brain and answer a couple of questions.

JT: Absolutely.

TMN: I’ve been a very vocal Wild Nothing consumer since your excellent 2010 debut, Gemini, and this past February you added another worthy addition to the Wild Nothing long-player catalog with Life of Pause which was the follow-up to perhaps my favorite album in the last 5 years, Nocturne. So, another thanks is in order for consistently creating some of the most tasteful sounds we’ve consumed in the past decade. So let’s get into it.

Jack Tatum (JT): Wow, yeah, thank you, for those very kind words.

TMN: Obviously an artist can undergo quite a sea-change as far as personal tastes and aesthetic go in a 7-year period; and with every passing release it seems like another piece of your psyche gets revealed both aurally and stylistically. We know you’ve probably answered this more than a few times on this latest round of press obligations, but were there any significant events going on in your life that sparked this burst of creativity and some of the material on Life of Pause, or was the writing and recording process pretty similar compared to your other EP’s & LP’s?

JT: Ummm… I don’t know. Not necessarily. I don’t know, for the sake of not making myself sound too boring…

TMN: Hahaha not at all.

JT: I’ve never really been someone that wrote kind of in response to any one sort of scenario or event in my life. I guess you could kind of say with the first record (Gemini) it definitely was very much a response to the relationship I was in at the time. And it’s, you know, a very mood based record… A very sort… of I don’t know how exactly I would describe it. But, as I’ve continued to write, I’ve found that I don’t necessarily need a spark to start writing. I think especially as I’ve gotten older I have been equally writing from experience as I am just to write and out of interest, or just purely composition, or trying to achieve a certain kind of sound, or something like that. But, yeah, I put out Nocturne in 2012 and then had the Empty Estate EP in 2013. And that EP in a way was kind of a response to Nocturne, just because we had been touring on Nocturne for so long…

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[Denver Giveaway/Event Preview] The Music Ninja Presents: Day Wave @ Lost Lake – 5/3

Posted by Matthew Bloss - April 20, 2016

Few acts burst out of the gates with such a far-reaching resonance like what we’ve been witness to with Oakland based troupe Day Wave, and for good reason. Cohesive and developed ensembles like Day Wave come along but once in a while in today’s highly saturated musical climate, so it’s with great excitement that we announce our next ‘The Music Ninja Presents’ concert in Denver, CO, headlined by one of the most exciting bands in any corner of the music industry. Most recently, the Jackson Philips led four-piece released their second EP Hard to Read, and after their earliest singles including “Total Zombie” and “Nothing At All”and of course the Mark Hoppus championed “Drag”, its only solidified their place near the top of countless critics’ ‘Breakout Acts of 2016’ list. On Tuesday, May 3rd at our favorite intimate venue, the Lost Lake Lounge, Day Wave bring their hazy brand of pop structured indie-rock to the Mile High City for the first time, and we’re beyond delighted to help ring them in properly with what will no doubt be a completely packed house. It seems like just yesterday we caught and interviewed Philips & Kevin Friedman’s (who is also an integral part of Day Wave’s touring band), first project Carousel, perform to about 20 people at the Walnut in Denver; so May 3rd also marks something of a sentimental show and reunion of sorts for a few of our TMN mainstays, but let’s save the nostalgia for a few weeks down the line…

Of course, it wouldn’t be a ‘TMN Presents’ night without letting our savvy readers in on the fun, so we’ll be giving away TWO pairs of tickets to this one. Entering our contest is as always, beyond easy. Just “like” The Music Ninja on FB, click on this post header if you’re still on the TMN front page, then comment below with your favorite Day Wave song, and boom, that’s it! (We even provided five below if you need!) And of course, we want as many people as possible to come dance with us, so for our friends looking to secure their spot, advance tickets are only $12.50 and can be purchased using the ticket link here.

There are a few rules, of course:
– The event is 16+ Be sure to tell all of your friends to increase chance of winning!
– You are responsible for your own transportation.
– You must bring a valid form of ID to pick up your tickets at the Lost Lake door.

Check out our preview mini-playlist, start commenting below and best of luck ninjas!

’Day Wave – Stuck’

’Day Wave – Gone’

’Day Wave – Drag’

’Day Wave – Come Home Now’

’Day Wave – We Try But We Don’t Fit In’