Treefort Music Fest 2015 was an absolute whirlwind. In their biggest and unarguably most successful year yet, the festival had non-stop fantastic musical curation throughout the entire long weekend. Waking up each morning with a gnarly hangover, the only admirable thing to do was to pop into Big City Coffee for a heartstopping breakfast burrito and a few cups of coffee while checking out the festival schedule to figure out your show and drinking route for the day, then, hit the ground running. Check out our photo recap, including shots of Viet Cong, Foxygen, Built To Spill, Yahct, And And And, Aan, The Domestics, Bed., Wooden Indial Burrial Ground, Grandparents and more. Photos by Drew Bandy, Adam Smith, Jessica Pierson and Grahame Bywater.

Pyschpop outfit TØMA has just gone and done nice by us local-music obsessed folks by releasing their new EP in its entirety online at their Bandcamp prior to the full album release, which is a'goin' down at Holy Mountain on March 27. It's a mix of sounds modern and nostalgic, a bit Of Montreal and a bit of The Zombies, and it all combines into straight-up, good indie rock earworm fun. For those of you fully into the psych thing, you'll get yer fix here, but this EP also owes a good deal to the 2000s indie scene, like track "Live Forever" that invokes nice memories of when The Strokes were the biggest thing that'd happened in a damn while or "Heartstrings" that has some very Vampire Weekend guitar goin' on. It's solid, superbly enjoyable indie music from the Austin scene, and you can get the whole thing bangin' around in your brain below.

Austin’s premier radio station KUTX (98.9 on the digital dial) recently announced the lineup for somethin’ pretty damn great, and pretty damn Austin, in the form of the Live Vibe Collective presented KUTX Live free all ages concert series. Completely unsurprisingly, this event that happens at local meat n’ booze establishment Uncle Billy’s is particularly well-curated. Frequent visitors to The Deli might notice Hard Proof and Keeper on that list, our own 2014 #36 and #3 finishers, respectively, in The Deli’s Best of 2014 for this city.

Another name you should most certainly get familiar with from KUTX’s event before you head out to yet more free music (goddamn we are so spoiled guys) is the act ushering in the whole shebang with the first series in the concert. That’d be deep electronic pop act The Digital Wild, who are opening the series on April 5.

To prep ya for these exciting events here’s a bit from the most recent output from The Digital Wild, a group that fits as well into the indie camp as it does the beat-based in the Austin scene. The track is called “Around,” and anyone who ever dug Portishead’s early shit will find something immediately attractive in the slowed down, souled up sound here. The song is without a doubt a sultry pop hip-hop track, a quality that owes much to lead singer Chantell Moody’s alluring elfin voice that has a slight, engaging tinge of someplace cold in Europe to it. But, there’s also an element of cabaret lounge smokiness to “Around,” something especially heard in the slinking, wailing horns whose wavering, off-kilter style has a kinda “Life in Glass Houses” by Radiohead feel going on. That kind of genre blending and bending is The Digital Wild’s wheelhouse, something they do not just well, but seamlessly.

“Around” is just the latest addition to the small but growing digital pile of terrific tracks The Digital Wild has been putting out for about a year now, and it bodes nothing but well for the upcoming concert series. Start whetting that musical appetite now with “Around,” and check out one or five of the KUTX Live events happening soon.

The Family Almanac’s self-titled EP, out earlier this month, starts as it promises: “Dream I’m In” is like a sleepy sequence from a foggy Sunday, or a pleasant hangover morning in the Gorge. Vocalist and keyboardist Elizabeth Pixley-Fink gentle voice delights in the mood. The EP carries us to sleep, or to the edge of it; that is a place where the band’s music might do instead of sleep.

The slow, soporific mood carries on through the short EP. The first half of the record, including a stuttering jam by the band’s other vocalist Blake Mason, sound like the warm and sultry tunes of ‘70s harmonizers like Steely Dan and the sonic landscapes of Fleetwood Mac. 

The fourth song on the EP is “White Sugar”, a slow, bluesy ballad with doo-wop echoes in the background. The song builds to a beautiful chorus, about as loud as the band ever gets. But the sleepy tone is back for “Susie”. If the skin started to cook with “White Sugar”, here it is enjoying the shade once again on a hot day. 

The last track is another by Family Almanac’s male vocalist. “So It Goes” is a bouncier track than the rest, played with as much urgency as the band musters on this EP. 

Recently I had the pleasure to see the Family Almanac play a house show (the perfect venue for their lighthearted soft rock anthems) and found a lot to be excited about. With its talented members, Family Almanac has plenty of leverage to evolve in the future. I only hope they will release a longer album soon for those lazy Spring mornings when their sounds can start the spinning of my mind with ease.

- Eric Togethoff

Hailing from San Francisco are the Cool Ghouls.  Their salty guitar riffs reek of the Pacific Ocean and their harmonies will lull you like the waves of the bay.  In a time when every band seems to be “psyching out in their garage”,  The Cool Ghouls' sophisticated sound separates them from being just another band with reverb and a sick record collection. The song centric style of their sophomore release, A Swirling Fire Burning Through The Rye, makes for a great collection of recordings and stellar live performances.  The album flows seamlessly through ten tracks despite the band's three songwriters. The sound is reminiscent of early Grateful Dead, golden-era Creedence and The Velvet Underground, yet is fresh and modern. Recorded live to tape by Sonny Smith of Sonny and Sunsets, the band's live energetic vibe is beautifully captured. After touring the states a few times over and playing their hometown with heavy hitters like Nick Waterhouse and Of Montreal, it's only a matter of time before we see these California dudes make a national television debut.  Be able to say you 'knew them when' and see Cool Ghouls live this Sunday at the Know. Local punk crooners Mope Grooves and Dogheart open the show, fixing for a good time to be had by all. 

M. Rowan