Song of the Day

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January 4, 2024

Nova: “Bird in the Hurricane”

By: Jack Anderson

Just like a ragtag team of survivors, when you find the perfect pack for your project, playing without them is like taking an axe to the face. So sure, choir singer and solo veteran Nova Barton has strong enough chops to create and command attention all on her own, as heard on her 2021 debut Novaville. But despite maintaining her project Nova‘s eponymous/mononymous status, the backing band of UT buddies she recruited in support of Novaville was just too killer to keep out of the studio the second time around.

Now we dawn on NovApocalypse, Nova’s sophomore LP that’s set for release this April. With the full four-piece of friends in tow, Barton’s already restorative and poignant songwriting (no doubt informed by her music therapy studies) takes a meteoric ascent with wider-than-ever arrangements. And thematically, NovApocalypse is set to sound sort of like if Towns Van Zandt wrote The Road instead of Cormac McCarthy, crippling isolation, excessive blood spurts, rampant deception and all.

While the storm of NovApocalypse is still a few months out, Nova kicks off the cataclysm with a single release show 10:30pm this Saturday at Captain Quackenbush’s Soundscape following openers Hover at 8:30 and Boomershack at 9:30. That single? “Bird in the Hurricane”. Ideal HBO intro credit material from its first guitar strums, “Bird in the Hurricane” soars with pizzicato plucks, light treading percussion, serene string harmonies, grounded bass, atmospheric and Barton’s moody, multi-tracked vocals that collectively “carry the fire”, no matter how bleak the future may look.


Episodes

July 1, 2025

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Tamir Kalifa: “Jackie’s Rock”

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June 23, 2025

Ramesh w/ Invoke: “Broadway” [RECORDED LIVE IN STUDIO 1A]

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June 6, 2025

West of Rome: “Movement In Your Picture”

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June 5, 2025

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For about a decade, Austin power pop group Magic Rockers of Texas have been certifiable Austin Music Darlings, going through long periods of performing across town, sometimes as often as three times a week. And that’s just meeting demand. On their new album Gorging On American Fair, Magic Rockers serve-up a more decadent version of […]

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June 4, 2025

Miss Guilty: “Not the One”

Wet Hot Austin Summer is here, baby! And while we’re out all over town putting on free shows like The Drop-In and Music Under the Star, we’re here to splash some new tunes onto your summer playlist. Members of Austin punk band Miss Guilty met in a rockabilly project over a decade ago and in […]

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