Lorelei K dedicated a song to a special person in her life while holding a beautiful rose. Photo: Jessica Waffles
It’s been nearly three years since the streaming platform Bandcamp launched its “Bandcamp Friday” initiative.
If you’re unfamiliar with the event, it’s straightforward: To help musicians amid the uncertainties of the ongoing pandemic, Bandcamp selects a day where the company forgoes its revenue share.
This allows the platform to pass on to bands an average of 93 percent of money spent on music and merch. As of Jan. 27, per Bandcamp, the initiative has generated more than $91 million from nearly 1.5 million fans. The next “Bandcamp Friday” is Feb. 3.
To help you prep, we’ve rounded up recent releases from five North Texas acts you might want to hear — and support. (You can also check out our prior “Bandcamp Friday” recommendations here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.)
Lorelei K, Swimming Pool Eternity (The Live Concert Album)
Regular KXT listeners are well acquainted with the dynamic talents of Lorelei K and its arresting lead singer-songwriter Dahlia Knowles. On the heels of the absorbing Swimming Pool Eternity last year, Knowles and her bandmates played the album through live at Denton’s Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studio for a one-night-only performance. Fortunately for those of us not in attendance, the nine songs were recorded for posterity, and presented here in all their glory.
Zac Leaser, Libera
With just five tracks, Fort Worth’s Zac Leaser, a one-man (and self-described) “technical melodic death metal” act, makes a formidable impression. A blizzard of guitar notes underpins Leaser’s guttural singing on opener “Malus,” while Denis Shvarts contributes a guest solo on the nearly eight-minute epic “Addictus.” Crank it up and punch a hole in the wall.
Austin Moxie James, Builds a Castle in the Sky
There’s a profoundly haunting, moving quality to Builds a Castle in the Sky, a new EP crafted by Denton-based singer-songwriter Austin Moxie James. Citing the inspiration of “various dreams and the dread of waking up,” there’s the distinct sensation among this quartet of songs — recorded to cassette four-track —of drifting through a liminal space, delicate and effervescent. “The Heart//The Lungs” is one of the more gorgeous songs to materialize locally in recent memory.
Bosque Brown, You Said
Five years have passed since Mara Lee Miller — a singer-songwriter who performs under the musical moniker Bosque Brown — last released new music, but less than a month into 2023, we’ve got a pair of fresh songs to cherish. Miller, assisted by Jeremy Buller, remains one of the most criminally underrated artists in the state, a fact of which you’re reminded anew, listening to the guitar effects-blitzed swirl darting around her cut-glass vocals on “You Said.”
Scott Honea, College Park Mall
Arlington producer, multi-instrumentalist and composer-songwriter Scott Honea’s College Park Mall is a 12-track instrumental journey into the past. As Honea explains, “This instrumental synth-pop album pays homage to a time and place that no longer exists.” Elegiac and engaging, this LP is a blissful nostalgic plunge for children of the 1980s and 1990s — Hot Dogs on a Stick not included.
Preston Jones is a North Texas freelance writer and regular contributor to KXT. Email him at [email protected] or find him on Twitter (@prestonjones). Our work is made possible by our generous, music-loving members. If you like how we lift up local music, consider becoming a KXT sustaining member right here.
