The competition was absurdly tough in choosing Ear Traffic’s top 10 overall albums of 2022 and (especially) for picking the top 35 tracks of the year, aka the HI-35. I suppose that from my perspective,[…]
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Ear Traffic’s best local albums and tracks of 2022
Real quick, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it yet again: The year doesn’t end on Nov. 30. It drives me up … not a wall, but perhaps an easily scalable chain-link fence …[…]
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Interview: Pleasure Venom defines “letting it out” as mental health fuels first full-length
(Photo by Ismael Quintanilla III, www.iq3photo.com) Audrey Campbell won’t offer a lot of specifics about the harrowing personal experiences that have helped make her spiky, four-piece punk animal, Pleasure Venom, the snarling force it[…]
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Interview: Urban Heat’s Jonathan Horstmann spins neurodivergence into gold
Usually, when you interview local musicians at Austin City Limits Music Festival whom you know to be playing their first ACL — like longtime local Jonathan Horstmann — it’s an easy, early warmup question soon after[…]
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ACL overview and Day 3 recap: Avoiding politics without even trying, and the best sets and songs of the weekend
Running around for my final day at ACL Weekend Two on Sunday, I realized just how little overt politics I had seen from any performers. With a midterm election coming, post-Roe America just a few months[…]
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ACL Day 2 quick recap: Pink, War on Drugs and Death Cab are musical sundials; Sloppy Jane commits to the method
This will sound like a strange premise, but I can be strange, so stay with me for a second: Imagine that you’re blind, you fall asleep on a blanket at ACL, and you wake up[…]
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