Denver music

Barbara: “For Good Measure” (co-prod. Briana Harris)

Save for those with seemingly disposable resources, often nonprofits get stuck in their original stomping grounds. So when a local endeavor expands enough to inspire, incorporate, and impact folks far beyond their initial reach, it’s cause for celebration.

That brings us back to Project Traction, spearheaded by our personal favorite philogynist audiophile – Spoon drummer/Public Hi Fi producer-engineer Jim Eno. Through Project Traction, female and gender-fluid musicians pair up, put fresh perspectives in the producer’s chair and find middle ground with all-women artists. And sure, Eno is present to provide technical expertise and a keen editorial ear during these sessions, but really, it’s the women who turn Project Traction into such magic. Sadly though, the depressing lack of women-on-women productions isn’t just limited to the creators of Central Texas.

Thankfully though, Project Traction’s already gained enough ground to grow past Austin’s city limits and all the way up to Colorado. And the forthcoming Project Traction: Volume Two kicks off today with a pairing of Producer Briana Harris (alto saxophonist of Greeley soul nonet The Burroughs) with Denver indie rock trio Barbara. Together alongside Eno, Briana and Baraba have mind melded the masterfully-mixed, super moody “For Good Measure”. It starts off as a pretty simple, straightforward indie rocker, but just past the halfway point, the dynamics shift, the arrangement gets more abstract, and the overall artistry goes off the wall all the way to its beautifully abrupt final chord. Well done, ladies. Well done.

The Runaway Grooms: “Mister Ford”

In the late ’60s and early ’70s, jam bands were all the rage. But now, in an era where song durations hinge on short attention spans or knowledge that shorter tunes simply hit bigger streaming numbers faster, jam bands are actually pretty polarizing. Even more recent innovators like Mars Volta or Godspeed You! Black Emperor have struggled to stay accessible because of lengthy runtimes. We’re so far removed from the long-form improvisation that jazz and rock normalized half a century back, that when a contemporary group can keep on jamming and pack it in on wax, they’ve got a serious leg up.

Take for instance Central Colorado quintet The Runaway Grooms. Sure, TRG’s 2020 debut Tied to the Sun simmers down with a 13-minute epic, but “Tales of Ernest” is really an outlier of their studio output. Instead The Runaway Grooms prove the power of brevity when laying down tracks. In doing so, The Runaway Grooms are able to evoke classic jam acts like The Allman Brothers or The Grateful Dead without sinking into the long song gimmick (looking at you, Phish). That ability to relegate the extended stuff to concerts is no doubt informed by seven national tours, but you don’t need to check their list of stops to experience This Road.

Tomorrow, on the heels of a statewide CO tour, The Runaway Grooms release their third album, This Road. This Road winds over eclectic retro blends in the ilk of Steely Dan and Yes across five originals. And with no genre stoplights in earshot, The Runaway Grooms navigate This Road by opening up the throttle, hitting hard left turns, and at times, coming to an abrupt stop, all while charting a cohesive musical pilgrimage. So if This Road is already giving you wanderlust jitters, rip into the record early with a single that that sounds like Jethro Tull and War had a funky-prog love child in the year between Aqualung and The World Is a Ghetto: “Mister Ford”.

Shadow Work: “Warm Tones”

There’s no doubt; Denver’s got a splendid music scene. Yet despite an artist multiplicity that gives Austin a run for its money, it’s rare to come across an act that captures several sounds of the city simultaneously. So if you want a calculated combo of post-hardcore guitar, jazz-injected percussion, and turbulent pride-of-punk bass riffs, sign up for shadow work.

This capricious art/math-rock trio first crawled out of the woodwork on last May’s debut album Robben Island and have since gone on to share a handful of singles, including two in 2022 alone. The latest one, “Warm Tones”, (mixed and mastered by Snoop Dogg/Lil Baby/Trey Songz producer John Scott) sets the stage for a Southeastern U.S. tour at the end of the month. shadow work has stops planned for Birmingham, Nashville, and Atlanta, so if you’re the type to hold onto Texas’ high temps as long as possible, consider working their whirlwind “Warm Tones” (with its daring dynamics, melancholy chord changes, and jaw-dropping instrumentation) into your upcoming Fall playlist. Either way, keep on the lookout for a national tour and a new record from shadow work within the next year.