Saratoga Springs-based electro-rockers Phantogram have been slowly building quite an impressive profile throughout the last year. Since their first headlining show at The Treehouse (RIP) in Columbus over a year and a half ago, they’ve toured with The Antlers, Metric, Beach House, Caribou, The xx, Zero 7, Yeasayer (the list goes on), appeared on Jimmy Fallon (where Questlove filled in on drums AND Jimmy called them “One of his favorite new bands”) and I’ve recently even heard them on the BBC’s indie radio station with Lauren Laverne.
They’ve contributed particularly to our Donewaiting family by being the first band to do a Donewaiting Live at Electraplay video, which you can see in its entirety here. Tonight they’ll play their fourth proper show in Columbus in promotion of their new EP, Nightlife, that will be released next month.
Joining the Outland Live bill tonight will be the eerily ethereal EXITMUSIC and Columbus natives Petit Mal. EXITMUSIC has been described as “dark, emotive, electronic music washed with icy guitars and husky yet angelic vocals”. Watch their creepy video for “The Sea” that’ll definitely get you in the mood for next week’s Halloween festivities here. Locals Petit Mal are emerging from the dying embers of Wing & Tusk (RIP) and are not to be missed. Doors open at 7pm with the first band on by 8.
I won’t lie. 
It’s a rock n’ roll cliché and a PR flack’s dream: Guy breaks up with girl, drinks heavily, pisses off all his friends, eventually sobers up and retreats to his parents’ house to record an album on a four-track. But man does this cliché jangle with some of the best in-the-red pop songs I’ve heard in a while. Stuart McLamb’s Chapel Hill band signed to Merge in October and is slated to have a new release in August, and after seeing the full band (now a 7-piece) put on a terrific show at the Wexner Center in the fall, McLamb’s next outing could be even better with a little help from his friends.
Every aspect of Andrew Bird just keeps getting better—his voice; his gorgeous, multi-layered violin arrangements; his whistling. It makes for a backdrop so compelling that he can sing about proto-Sanskrit Minoans, porto-centric Lisboans, Greek Cypriots and Hobis-hots and have you nodding your head in agreement instead of scratching it in confusion.
Hospice is one of only a few albums this year that completely transports me whenever I give it my full attention. (
