Five Here-and-Now Picks to See at Levitation

Automatic (Photo by Logan White)

The former Austin Psych Fest has now been called Levitation for half its existence (the festival began 14 years ago; you do the math). In 2022, the name change remains apropos. This year's lineup spans genres as far removed as jangle-pop, sludge metal, and Zamrock, with every artist on the bill united by the same not-so-basic intention: transcending the here and now!

Alongside five less-heralded picks below, headliners include King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard (on two nights), Osees (playing all four nights), the Jesus & Mary Chain, L7, and, of course, fest founders the Black Angels. As for participating venues, Mohawk, Stubb's, Empire, Hotel Vegas, and Elysium return from last year's convergence, while Scholz Garten sits out. Joining locales are the newly renovated Parish, Antone's, Scoot Inn, and the new 13th Floor – reopened in the former Beerland space by Black Angels member Jake Garcia, and appropriate considering the rock bar shares a 13th Floor Elevators namesake with the event.

March-opened Chess Club also announced a run of majority-local $10 Levitation shows, including a Thursday kickoff with Montaz, Oruã, Laminate, and Neon Lemon. With four-day passes eaten up, individually ticketed shows are still on sale at levitation.fm – eight out of a whopping 34 of which have sold out as of press time.

Automatic

Against a lineup run amok with throbbing, monotone talk-rock, the doomer humor of this L.A. trio imbues their familiar head-bob apathy with horrific vitality. In Automatic's expertly sterile grip, pencil-thin post-punk basslines and buzzy synths express the manic compression of our everyday lives. If nothing else, Bauhaus scion Lola Dompé wins the festival's How Are You Not a Drum Machine? award.

Imarhan

Serene, meditative guitar jams from the Sahara? At first blush, Imarhan might appear too earthbound for Levitation. Give their polyrhythmic grooves time to bend and contort toward the horizon, and any appearance of blues traditionalism will quickly reveal itself as a desert mirage. For an additional, somewhat sorrowful psychedelic effect: Find call-and-response vocals sung in the language of Tamasheq.

Imarhan (Photo by Fehti Sahraoui)

The Legendary Pink Dots

That prefix isn't bluster. You try blurbing the 40-year career of this cultishly beloved collective without failing miserably. My best shot: The Legendary Pink Dots wed Eighties-style industrial unease to Seventies-style ambient space-rock, with lead vocalist Edward Ka-Spel's ominous British whimsy tying it all together. Of course, I've only heard six of their 60+ albums.

Death's Dynamic Shroud

Time has revealed this Dayton, Ohio, trio as definitive survivors of the Obama era's signature psychedelic offshoot: vaporwave. Already rivaling the Pink Dots' prolific output only a decade into their career, Death's Dynamic Shroud's manic work ethic has kept them in the hazy corporate nostalgia game, but their unexpected pop sense has helped them outlast flash-in-the-pan peers. Heartwarming lesson: Thread together some fiendishly catchy vocal samples, and you can stay making abstract soundscapes until the day the internet explodes.

Temple of Angels

Too many bands want to be Cocteau Twins. These ethereal Austinites are the rare group that needs to be Cocteau Twins. Temple of Angels' gossamer guitars, damply popping drums, and shivery, gale-force vocals via Bre Morell might be familiar, but the hot-blooded passion they conjure when brought together is something 4AD wannabes spend careers futilely straining for.

Temple of Angels (Photo by John Anderson)