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October 16, 2024

DAIISTAR: “Velvet Reality” (KUTX Pop-Up at ACL Fest)

By: Jack Anderson

It’s always super cool to see our KUTX Artists of the Month get some additional hometown love out at ACL Fest. Off the top of our head, this year we saw Kalu & The Electric Joint, promqueen, Chief Cleopatra, and West 22nd added to the lineup. On top of those, we were stoked to see our October 2023 Artist of the Month DAIISTAR get some well-deserved recognition in the stacked ACL schedule as well.

Considering the quartet only hit streaming last February, DAIISTAR is decidedly still in a dawning phase. But with the release of their debut full-length Good Time last September, the four-piece made their mellotron-tinged brand of noise-pop felt far across Austin and beyond. Between a pair of recent remixes, a standalone original that dropped right around SXSW, and a handful of appearances on the West Coast over the next couple of months, 2024’s been a busy year for DAIISTAR.

And that includes the Good Time they had opening up the Miller Lite Stage this past toasty Sunday at ACL. After which DAIISTAR took shelter from the sun, shades still donned, in the KUTX multi-media tent for an unconventional twist on their Good Time closer “Velvet Reality”. Alongside the Sonic Boom remix that came out in April, this low-volume rendition of “Velvet Reality” is a testament to the versatility of DAIISTAR’s songwriting and the absence of limits in the nuanced world of noise.


Episodes

February 20, 2025

Persona 749: “Stereo Girl”

From the hockey rink of the University of Utah to the mean streets of New York City comes Persona 749. After being inspired through music heard at college parties, Landon Langenbrunner and Che Landikusic started writing music, but without real direction, they were making music from a place of fun, playing around in the sandbox […]

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February 19, 2025

Maddy Kirgo: “Spare”

New Orleans’s Maddy Kirgo writes music not only akin to the eclectic, all-embracing attitude of the Big Easy, but also to the sounds currently pouring out of its venues, or in her case, the buskers on the corner. To that end, her sounds simultaneously evokes the California country rock sounds of the nudie suit era […]

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February 17, 2025

MIEN: “Evil People” (Live In Studio 1A)

We all know that when an artist is featured on a song, it’s likely that they recorded it remote and sent the track to the main artist. But how does it work when you’re a quartet and only 2 of y’all live in the same place? To ask the members of Austin experimental psych band […]

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February 14, 2025

Kowloon: “Heart Begins With You”

L.A.’s Kowloon is truly a one-man operation. Songwriting? Him. Instrumentation? Him. Recording, production? Yep, all Kowloon. Backed by a full library of effects and music gadgets from various eras, Kowloon released a string of singles last year, demonstrating his affinity for the darkwave sounds of the 80s a la the Cure and Bronski Beat. Ahead […]

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February 13, 2025

Tommy Francisco: “Tommy’s Groove”

Even a piping hot bowl of tokontsu ramen can’t fully shake-off today’s bone chill, but maybe the headspace of partying on a yacht in Mallorca can. Austin native Tommy Francisco hit the scene in 2020 with “Fever,” giving him an international audience and proving his ability to blend his Latin and Indigenous backgrounds into a […]

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February 12, 2025

Serebii: “Verrans Corner”

Auckland, New Zealand’s Callum Mower, known as Serebii, has always focused on pushing forward. Forward musically, forward personally, and now, forward into naked vulnerability.   Serebii’s upcoming album Dime finds Mower at his most vulnerable. Historically, Mower has relied on his mastery of instruments and production with others, namely fellow New Zealander Arjuna Oakes, but […]

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February 11, 2025

Slept All Day: “Asteria”

Austin duo Slept All Day may be new on the scene, but don’t sleep on them. Together, the two create moving soundscapes a la Bonobo and Washed Out. And they use their vocals as an element of the scape instead of its driving force. And despite the electronic instrumentation and vocal effects, the music is […]

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February 10, 2025

Middle Satre: “Corrupted (Uncorrupted)”

Welcome! Today’s theme is vision and reimagining. After spending a childhood in Salt Lake City, Hunter Preuger moved to Austin to sow oats with his project Middle Sattre. The project quickly expanded into a six-piece…and then an eight-piece, and a year after the release of their debut album Tendencies, the experimental folk outfit returned to […]

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