LookOUT Fest w/ Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, the Album Leaf, Julianna Barwick, Mary Lattimore, Felt Out, the Kraken Quartet

The Long Center Terrace kind of looks like a descending UFO, appropriate for a convergence of eclectically experimental and tranquilly otherworldly sounds. KUTX’s Soundfounder – aka weekly electronic music specialist Andrew P. Brown – sculpts a genre-merging lineup around synths and pristine production. The deejay co-presents with independent booking agency outer/most, reps of Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, the Album Leaf, and Julianna Barwick. It’s rare to see this much nationally recognized electronic music locally in one night.

Anchoring the first-year fest, Washington native Smith actually launched her sound-scaping on Austin label Western Vinyl. There, she released 2015’s Euclid to revive the Sixties Buchla 100 synthesizer, which the composer loves for its unpredictability. After playing their second-ever show in Austin (SXSW 2000 at Club de Ville), the Album Leaf combined delayed Rhodes piano and guitar on One Day I’ll Be on Time – of which principal Jimmy Lavalle offered a 20th-anniversary reimagining of last year.

Raised in reverberating Southern church sanctuaries, Barwick’s immersive vocal loops sustain the producer through collaborations from Odesza to Philip Glass. Also visiting from California, as are all of the above, harpist Mary Lattimore takes the classical instrument to unheard depths on newest West Kensington, composed with guitarist neighbor Paul Sukeena during pandemic dog days. On the local front, electro-acoustic duo Felt Out expand the melodic pop framework, while the Kraken Quartet tries tingly integration of percussion and gadgetry.