Photo by CJ Foeckler
GGOOLLDD @ Turner Hall, Jan. 9
Friday, Jan. 8
Midwives w/ Buildings, Soup Moat, Volunteer @ Frank’s Power Plant, 9 p.m.
Midwives have been wowing crowds and blowing out eardrums with their furious, no-gimmicks live shows for years, but it was only last year that the Milwaukee hardcore quartet got around to releasing an album, a self-titled LP that played like a great, lost SST Records release from the late ’80s. Wasting no time, they followed it up last month with similarly breakneck EP, Cowboy Songs. This loaded bill pairs the group with two awesomely sludgy Milwaukee punk bands, Soup Moat and Volunteer, and the Minneapolis punk act Buildings.
Top Ten MKE List Party @ Brenner Brewing Company, 7 p.m.
Chalk it up to an innate human desire to rank and order things, or to the impulse to share art we find meaningful, but every winter music fans commemorate the year in music with lists ranking their favorite albums, songs and shows. And while list making may seem like an inherently anti-social exercise, it doesn’t have to be. Milwaukee’s annual Top Ten MKE List parties give music fans an excuse to get together and socialize. At Brenner’s event, each attendee is given a large sheet of paper and a marker, so they can write down their lists and tape them to the wall, then discuss their picks over some good beer. Expect to meet some fellow music lovers and hear some strong opinions about Kendrick Lamar and Father John Misty.
Sonus Umbra w/ Might Could @ Shank Hall, 8 p.m.
Funny thing about prog-rock bands: They often get better with age. The Chicago-based prog institution Sonus Umbra has been playing together in some form for 25 years, dating back to when band leader Luis Nasser founded the group, then called Radio Silence, in Mexico. The group has seen plenty of turnover since then, but their sound has only sharpened. 2013’s Winter Soulstice was a moody 70-minute epic, dense with keyboards, strings and woodwinds. The band will launch their 25th anniversary tour with this show, which will also mark the release of their latest album, Beyond the Panopticon. Members of Sonus Umbra also play in Might Could, a more acoustic-minded prog band that will be celebrating its own new release on this tour, a record called The N.E.S.F.A.N. Trilogy.
|
|
Saturday, Jan. 9
GGOOLLDD w/ Canopies and Rio Turbo @ Turner Hall Ballroom, 8 p.m.
Few Milwaukee bands from the last decade have arrived as fully formed as GGOOLLDD, who made an instant splash with their 2014 debut $TANDARD$, a sterling set of electro-pop that staked a savvy middle ground between Passion Pit’s synthy alternative and Fleetwood Mac’s romantic rock. This fall they released a highly danceable follow-up EP, For The Night, and repackaged some of their early tracks and remixes for a beautifully packaged LP on Gloss Records, GOLD+. This headline show will serve as something of a belated release party for those recent efforts. They’ll share it with two similarly electric-leaning Milwaukee bands, Canopies and Rio Turbo.
Tenement w/ Laffing Gas and Fine Young Casuals @ Lucky Cat, 8 p.m.
The Appleton/Milwaukee pop-punk band spent their early years working fast, cranking out short releases at a steady clip, but they took their time for their latest full-length, Predatory Headlights, a doorstop of a double LP that spans 28 songs and runs nearly 80 minutes. In that time it covers a lot of ground, touching on righteous punk and sweet power-pop between more experimental detours that reflect frontman Amos Pitsch’s interests in avant-garde jazz and classical music. It was one of the most sprawling, ambitious punk albums of 2015, and also one of the best, earning cheers from Rolling Stone and The New York Times, and placements on countless 2015 year-end lists.
Wednesday, Jan. 13
San Fermin w/ Andy Shauf @ Turner Hall Ballroom, 8:30 p.m.
Composer Ellis Ludwig-Leone enlisted a lot of help for his debut as San Fermin. More than 20 players lend their voices and instruments to the chamber-pop project’s self-titled 2013 debut, including singer Allen Tate, a baritone crooner who often comes across like a more sober version of The National’s Matt Berninger. The album garnered plenty of glowing comparisons to Sufjan Stevens and Dirty Projectors, as well as high accolades from The New York Times and NPR, which deemed it one of the best records of 2013. Since then, the band’s lineup has stabilized. The group’s peppy 2015 sophomore album Jackrabbit is their first with Charlene Kaye, and like its predecessor, it’s swollen with bright, richly arranged pop songs. Saskatchewan indie-pop singer-songwriter Andy Shauf opens this show.
