Being a sound designer doesn’t often mean you’re looking to use your own music, or even that you’re a musician at all. Sound designers are the folks who choose the right song to elevate scenes and make you feel a certain type of way in a TV show or the person who finds the right bit of background music to make your ad pop. In any case, you’re like a music scientist and detective in one — sourcing the right materials and experimenting until you find the solution to the mood and tone equation.

Native Austinite Keihl Phillips is seeking to buck a part of this trend with his own self-titled music project. Though the project began as a way to beef up his profile on the sound design side, Phillips caught the bug, and earlier this spring, he released A Mixed Bouquet, a synthesis and love letter of all of Austin’s music genres in one thoughtfully produced package. “Iced Green Tea” takes us down the more electronic and house veins of the city, providing a chill, pulsing groove perfect for a nighttime drive around the city and your Fourth of July playlist.

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Belgian/Canadian duo GHOSTWOMAN are all about finding freedom in a reckless space. On the upcoming album Welcome to the Civilized World, they take this notion head-on and put it center stage.

The album was recorded on an old tape recorder using old instruments. The recording space was a home they didn’t bother to treat for sound, and the lyrics came long after the songs, which the duo let flow through them without any pesky overthinking. What they’ve created is something organic that oscillates around different sounds all tied together by the aforementioned conditions and nostalgic inspiration.

The album’s debut single “Alive” takes on a vintage country rock sound, not quite like the Byrds, and not quite like Whiskeytown, but something that takes you to both of those places simultaneously.  

Welcome to the Civilized World is out September 5th on Full Time Hobby and Dine Alone Records.

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So, you’re a runner looking for a playlist. Maybe you do a quick Spotify or Tidal search, hit the one that matches your personal taste the most, or just hit play on the first one that pops up. Maybe you go an extra step to ask a friend or consult a subreddit. Maybe. Eventually, you cobble together a perfectly timed playlist. But what if, what if you just fully composed your own?

That notion struck Finnish DJ, musician, and music curator Aleksi Pahkala, better known as Local Al. Despite being a lifelong athlete, he was forced into a position where running became a necessary method of exercise and movement – not an option he would have ever chosen for himself. But Pahkala seized the opportunity and took his previous relationships with music and musicianship to another space. Putting breakbeat structures and what he deems a subtempo (a state, not a tempo, something that moves with you) for an electronic experience fit for your spiritual and physical cardiovascular health. 

His debut album Subtempo Studieds: Run Now, Understand Later is made to accompany you on your run, not necessarily dictate it. Think of it as an album for running, not exercising. And each element has been put to the test foot-to-ground by Pahkala, tying together music and biology.

Subtempo Studieds: Run Now, Understand Later is out now.

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Even if the name Tamir Kalifa is new to you, his projects certainly are not. A member of both the orchestral-indie collective Mother Falcon and its alter ego rowdy party band Sip Sip, Kalifa’s part of two of Austin’s biggest “moment bands” of the 2010’s.

A photojournalist who splits his time between Austin and Berlin, Kalifa marries his storytelling talents on Witness, a nine-song album with each track visually represented by a set of photographs. On “Jackie’s Rock,” Kalifa gingerly pays tribute to nine-year-old Jackie Cazares, one of the victims of the Robb Elementary shooting in Uvalde in May of 2022 whose family Kalifa has grown to know in particular. The song is a beautiful demonstration of combining delicate and powerful, and here’s where Kalifa pulls out some of the Mother Falcon magic, using strings to be sun-soaked and lovely without being outwardly cheerful or disingenuous.

Witness comes out this fall.

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It’s the last week of Pride Month, and we’ve got one more great profile for you, and this one gets a little teaser.

Ramesh Srivastava spent the 00’s enchanting audiences with the catchy indie-pop group Voxtrot, a group Ramesh started after high school and moving to Europe. He brought Voxtrot back home to Texas, making them one of Austin’s most prominent bands of the 2000’s.

Part of what prompted Ramesh’s move to Glasgow was the need to seek community compared to the loneliness of being a queer half-Indian boy in Texas. After Voxtrot broke-up win 2010, some of those same demons came full circle, creating an identity crisis surrounding his queerness, religion, and culture. His innerwork through that process is encased in his upcoming solo album Search for Freedom & God, a work dealing with everything from existentialism, spirituality, love and heartbreak, and the pursuit of purpose.

Ramesh stopped by Studio 1A recently to preview some songs from the upcoming album, fully acutalized with the help of award-winning Austin string quartet Invoke. You can see the full Studio 1A at KUTX.org.

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South Texas rockers West of Rome are here to dislodge the kernel from your craw and even offer you a spittoon so you can get that novel, satisfying “ting.” The band is made-up of childhood friends who, in the absolute tumult leading up to and including the pandemic, decided to finally come together creatively to carve out their own little slice of happiness and maybe try to make a little bit of sense of the mishegoss.

And while their alt-country-for-the-dance-hall sound does make for a perfect night in your mud kickers, the songwriting digs as deep as their energy whirrs. In “Movement In Your Picture,” the lead single off the group’s debut album Keep It Fly In the Negative Zone, singer Kevin Higgenbotham pontificates on life’s unanswered questions and windows of opportunity that were never opened past the curtains.

West of Rome brings a night freewheeling fun to the Continental Club tomorrow night for a long-awaited album release show with Warren Hood.

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For about a decade, Austin power pop group Magic Rockers of Texas have been certifiable Austin Music Darlings, going through long periods of performing across town, sometimes as often as three times a week. And that’s just meeting demand.

On their new album Gorging On American Fair, Magic Rockers serve-up a more decadent version of their usual fare, in large part due to the addition of powerhouse guitarist Will Grover, freeing Campo to focus even more on his penchant for punchy, sardonic songs that make “miserable bastard” seem almost aspirational and his adept propensity for songwriting and composition. Bassist Chris Kues brings in his pedal steel to add the right touch of honky-tonk to a couple of great bar anthems, and as a drummer should, McGarrity Stanley is deftly able to hold the chaos together and throw himself in.

While Magic Rockers of Texas albums are always stellar, anyone in the know knows the real magic is in their live performance. And if you don’t know, welcome in.

Magic Rockers of Texas open for David Ramirez tonight at CBoys.

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Wet Hot Austin Summer is here, baby! And while we’re out all over town putting on free shows like The Drop-In and Music Under the Star, we’re here to splash some new tunes onto your summer playlist.

Members of Austin punk band Miss Guilty met in a rockabilly project over a decade ago and in 2015, they reformed into Miss Guilty, an ear-wormy punk band full of female-laced adrenaline. Six years after their debut EP Busted, the group returns with Calling Your Bluff, a punchy 6-song output bursting with Halloween-levels of ear candy without the red dye 40. Maybe a little…for the danger.

On “Not the One,” we get snarl-lipped attitude twisting the “f***-right-off” narrative into a sarcasm-leaden anthem embellished with squacky sax runs a la X-Ray Specks. So put on your Poly Styrene braces and get ready for this one, endorsed by KUTX’s Wet Hot Austin Summer.

Playing their EP release show this Sunday at Knomad over on Corona Dr., this is Austin’s Miss Guilty with “Not the One.”

Calling Your Bluff is out today. Miss Guilty plays an EP release show Sunday at Knomad Bar with Tiny Specks and Tan Mala.

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Our April 2025 Artist of the Month was Next of Kin, the country trio, made up of Lili Hickman, Madison Baker, and Caelin bring a breath of fresh country energy to the Austin music scene they’ve been part of individually for years.

In that time, the three fell in love with each other’s music, and each pair within the trio became fast friends. In 2024, Next of Kin released their debut single “Jekyll & Hyde,” to high praise and frequent airplay, portraying the same magic that brought together the Highwomen and Dolly, Linda, and Emmylou. From there, the path was set for the next year and a half leading up to their EP Homemaker, which came out last month with two successful shows at the Contintental Club and a recent announcement that Next of Kin will be performing at ACL Fest this fall.

You can see the full Studio 1A at KUTX.org where you can also find their My KUTX episode, and artist profiles on Lili and Madison. You can see Next of Kin at Cheer Up Charlie’s on Friday, June 20th.

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Like the sun finally coming out from the clouds after five days of relentless summer thunderstorms, comes the new album from Detroit indie pop duo JR JR. On Back to the Land, it’s all in the name. After spending time letting their bubbly, direct indie hooks take side stage for some more experimental endeavors, here, the duo marry the two philosophies.

Like your sibling who came back from college, still the same person you love to fight with, but now with an added layer of sophistication and maturity. Back to the Land‘s title track opens with a delicate, folksy guitar melody hearkening back to the charm of 2011’s It’s A Corporate World. The album’s pervasive theme of reconnection and renewal builds up before throwing back the curtains on a shimmery, sythn-driven chorus.

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