KUT & KUTX Studios -- Podcasts

KUT and KUTX news and music podcasts for Austin, Texas and beyond

Trust

Urban Heat: “Trust”

For the past four weeks you’ve heard plenty about our July 2022 Artist of the Month, Urban Heat. But in case these record-breaking temperatures are melting your memory, we’ll give you a quick recap. Analog sound designer/multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Jonathan Horstmann founded the three-piece back in 2019 under the name Urban Heat Island Effect. It only took a few mangled marquees for the fellas to drop that second half in favor of the more ambiguous, abbreviated handle we’ve come to love. Yet the Austin trio continues to inspire their initial namesake thanks to high-octane shows with dense crowds. Up until now, Urban Heat’s only had seven singles out (and each one of ’em swelters with mirthless, mechanical, ’80s-meets-modern goth-post-punk) but this weekend they counter our state’s triple digits with their debut six-song EP, Wellness. In the live realm, Urban Heat plays Sunday Weekend 2 at Austin City Limits Music Festival in October and KUTX presents the Wellness EP release show this Saturday at Hotel Vegas with openers Lovelorn and Holy Wire. Going back to these incendiary inner-city temps, it may be best to defy ERCOT and just let Urban Heat pulsate the sun’s rays back into orbit with the album opener off of Wellness. Because between a throbbing bass groove, Horstmann’s husky, vocoder-inclusive vocals, classic MIDI percussion, and an accompanying music video, “Trust” will leave you dripping sweat in the best way possible.

Armlock: “Power Of A Waterfall”

In their salad days of jazz standards, Melbourne multi-instrumentalists Simon Lam and Hamish Mitchell first connected over a mutual disgust in the genre they rehearsed academically. Fast forward a full decade, where, following shared endeavors with experimental electronic in I’lls and Couture, Mitchell and Lam are now tackling a lo-fi indie-shoegaze sound as Armlock.

Armlock released their debut Trust today, a seven-song whose delicate sonics imply an air of simplicity, masking how masterfully produced this record truly is. The poignant lyrics’ll tear straight to your core and the soft-spoken melodies (like those heard on “Power Of A Waterfall”) will leave you feeling melancholy in the best way possible.

Honesty & Happiness

If you’ve caught yourself wanting to lie in a social situation, you’re not alone. Honesty is a huge part of trust in every relationship but can be difficult to maintain across all sorts of interactions.

In this edition of Two Guys on Your Head, Dr. Art Markman and Dr. Bob Duke talk about honesty and happiness.

Texas Standard: May 9, 2018

The go it alone strategy: as North Korea returns three American hostages, a new test for Trumpian diplomacy, we’ll explore. Also, it’s being touted as an historic deal between inmates and the Texas prison system over air conditioning. What could be a lifesaver nationwide. And more cracked windows and more plane diversions: should there be age limits on commercial aircraft? We’ll explore. Also, Senator Ted Cruz’s Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke says there’s never been a connection between the border and terrorism. A Politifact check on that claim. And losing the plot: officials try to identify who owns a mystery cemetery. Those stories and more today on the Texas Standard:

Texas Standard: November 29, 2017

Midterms aren’t usually the most exciting elections, but there’s a whole lotta shakin goin on: political turnover our top story today. Also, more than 30 quakes this year in and around Pecos, more than all recorded there in the past ten years put together. We’ll ask why. Plus, the university of Texas, landing soon in New Mexico? Or maybe Texas A&M? Details of the forthcoming battle for Los Alamos and whether there’s a Rick Perry factor. And as the hurricane season draws to a close, voices from a storm more than a hundred years ago that forever changed the Lone Star State. That and so much more today on the Texas Standard:

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