With the arrival of fall, we're knee-deep in festival season, and Spune Productions is testing its fest powers in the heart of Deep Ellum with this weekend's first-ever Index Festival. The roster features a handful of locals (Yells At Eels, The Cush, Datahowler, The Angelus, Telegraph Canyon, A.Dd+, Low Dark Hills, Bethan, Blackstone Rangers, Air Review, DJ Sober) rubbing shoulders with bigger names like GZA, Washed Out and Grimes.
This weekend is also going to be crazy packed downtown, with the addition of the State Fair, Dinosaur Jr. at Prophet Bar and the Somebody's Darling CD release at Dada. Check out the full lineups and times here.
With that in mind, take a deep breath, and check out six Index Festival acts we're especially excited for.
The Cush, Friday, 3:50 p.m. We're glad this Fort Worth quartet, helmed by Burette and Gabrielle Douglas, has been gigging a lot more lately, as their lovely psych-pop ballads are the cure for any sort of seasonal affective disorder. Here's hoping for a follow-up to 2010's Between the Leaves.
Grimes, Friday, 7:25 p.m. Claire Boucher was in town back in March, when her excellent sophomore album Visions was just released. We chatted by phone before her show, and had a fairly illuminating conversation about technology's role in her music, and how she saw Visions: "I wanted to make an album about physicality that was still digital." Since then, she's graced the cover of several glossy magazines, and released the futuristic video for "Genesis," keeping us all talking about her.
Myths, Friday, 9:15 p.m. Vancouver has been pumping out some strange brew lately (see above), and duo Myths' aesthetic is part blacklight fantasy, part radical electronic theatre. Last year, Quinne Rodgers and Leif Hall released their self-titled debut, which was heavy on synth and bass, especially closer "Esprit de Corps."
DIIV, Saturday, 2:45 p.m. Brooklyn quartet DIIV (pronounced "Dive") offered one of this summer's sleeper albums in Oshin, updating a vintage sound with modern vision. Indeed, the album works as a whole, each song segueing seamlessly into the next in a whirl of guitar and mood, recalling the gaze of those favorite '80s touchstones from across the pond, without completely biting their style.
GZA, Saturday, 6:20 p.m. Wu-Tang mouthpiece Gary Grice has been touring his 1995 masterstroke Liquid Swords in its entirety the last few years, but this stop in Dallas promises to deliver a "mix" of material outside of that. GZA's been touring with Killer Mike, who put out one of the best albums of 2012 in R.A.P. Music. Fingers crossed for a collaboration.
Yells At Eels, Saturday, 8:30 p.m. We're not sure when the González jazz clan -- drummer Stefan, bassist Aaron and trumpeter Dennis -- sleep, because Yells At Eels seem to be playing everywhere, all the time. They just released a couple new slabs of vinyl: a 12-inch, Bandoleros en Gdansk, with Polish bassist Wojtek Mazolewski, with whom they recently played a set at Riot Fest; and a 7-inch, Wind Streaks in Syrtis Major.
