The KUTX Class of 2023

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Revisit all of our 2023 Artists of the Month

January 2023

je’Texas

je’Texas have only been around since 2020, but you’d never know it from the first two singles, “Miss May” and “California Sun”. Each share a certain aged perspective, rooted in 60’s psychedelic jam bands, with a dearth of anything but all-out volume, a fuzzy amorphous mix, biting guitar sounds, and a lot of moving parts. There are bridges, tempo changes, even introductions (!), lending an unpredictability and shambolic nature to their sound. It’s not what you’re used to hearing today, and for je’Texas, their disdain for modernity is obvious.

Learn more about je’Texas HERE!

My KUTX: je’Texas

je’Texas in Studio 1A

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February 2023

Skateland

Dorian Williams II is a name that doesn’t exactly scream ‘rock star’. Yet new to town, Dorian’s bedroom pop project Skateland, with its moody, introspective songwriting, is already making its mark on the Austin circuit.

The handful of songs he has released so far, including his single, “As the Father, So the Son” (off a new four-song Skateland EP, New Wave Revival,) all burrow deep in the genre’s traits: hushed vocals, haunting psychedelic tinges.

March 2023

Jane Leo

Sometimes it takes a weird confluence of events to pull things in unexpected directions. For Austin musicians Jane Ellen Bryant and Daniel Leopold, it all started with a certain restlessness.

“We both had been doing our solo careers for a while,” explains Jane, who was working as a singer/songwriter, while Daniel was fronting his rock-oriented outfit Leopold and His Fiction. “We met at a time when we were both a bit burnt out on doing the same thing. Meeting each other swung some creative doors open and allowed us both to explore sides of our artistry that we had not done before.”

April 2023

Die Spitz

Die Spitz iss everything we love about rock bands. Feral, primal, relentless. A zero fucks attitude and the rare, lotto-winning magic you get when the precise, exact combination of people get together to play music.

In terms of time, Die Spitz is an infant. But their aural barrage has not gone unnoticed. Barely one year old, the quartet has already won three Austin Music Awards (Best Punk Band, Best Music Residency, and Best New Act). And they’ve already toured in support of LA punk supergroup OFF! and \Aussie’s Amyl and the Sniffers.

Whatever their future holds, it’s sure to be electric.

May 2023

LP Giobbi

Take chances. Be fearless.

LP Giobbi is doing something unique, integrating improvisation into what is typically rigidly formed music. Hardly the usual thing in the rave world. Not many DJs are playing live instruments over their mix, or citing Bill Evans and the Grateful Dead as big influences. Giobbi recently transformed Jerry Garcia’s eponymous 1972 release into a club favorite.

That’s the attitude that has taken LP Giobbi (born Leah Chisolm) in short order from high school piano lessons to the stages of Coachella, EDC, Lollapalooza, Bonnaroo, and Tomorrowland.

June 2023

Pelvis Wrestley

For Benjamin Violet, who fronts the Austin group Pelvis Wrestley, identity is everything. And they’re out to upend it.

Pelvis Wrestley has been a major draw almost since they began playing in 2018. Their brand of Americana is synth-y and muscular, and Violet, garbed in colorful cowboi gear, rivets your attention. That attention is likely to increase with the release of their debut album, Vortex Vorever.

July 2023

Being Dead

Being Dead’s Falcon Bitch (Juli) and Gumball (Cody), are so locked into a single persona that you wonder why they haven’t been playing together since grade school. Their debut album, When Horses Would Run (what, they don’t now?) places the same humor, vision and drive witnessed in their stage shows (and previous EP) on a much larger stage.

It feels spontaneous, and sometimes it is, but other times it’s not. Silly? They can be, sure. Serious messages? Yeah, some of that, too. Falcon Bitch and Gumball are ridiculous nicknames, and their onstage personas can gloss over all they put into their band; the craft they apply. They’re okay with that.

If things fall apart on stage, they lean into it. Ultimately, it all comes naturally; they never let anything stand in the way of a good time.

August 2023

Jedi 512

Austin’s Tyler Murray, who records under the moniker Jedi512, has been making his own music for years [at first as Jedi53], steadily adding to his song catalog, with several videos accompanying his audio tracks, as well. So why, with this library of material, was last July’s Summer Jam the first time he ever performed on stage?

“It took a while for me to understand I was making good music at home, you know? I just had a need for people to love me and I wanted to be accepted. My thought process of putting myself on stage? The true root of it was just fear. Pure fear.”

September 2023

Lesly Reynaga

Lesly Reynaga might have been born in Monterrey, Mexico, but it wasn’t until she moved to Texas that mariachi music really became a part of her life.

Reynaga just released her debut album, Valerosa, an ultra-modern take on mariachi’s folkloric past. The album’s selections nimbly skirt in and out of mariachi traditions with driving pop force. Wild enthusiasm met previews of the album both last year at ACL Fest, and this year at Lollapalooza.

October 2023

DAIISTAR

Not all surprises are bad. Take DAIISTAR, a band that was on pretty much nobody’s radar before the release of their thrilling debut album, Good Time.

Except DAIISTAR (pronounced ‘day star’) seems to have already gathered a psych rock pedigree. The album is produced by Black Angels frontman Alex Maas, engineered by White Denim’s James Petrali, and is out on the influential London label Fuzz Club.

In an age when a lot of new bands don’t even have a guitar player, DAIISTAR is a bit of a throwback, making music that dates back to the time of the Thirteenth Floor Elevators. They’re hardly alone, but unlike their psych and shoegaze peers, they have a strong purist streak.

November 2023

Never

“Hard To Go” is one of six delights on the new EP from the Austin band Never, No Guarantee. Vocalist and songwriter Emily Ng wrote post-punk burners a while back.

Never, the band she assembled after recording these tracks, is made up of members of Austin bands Luna Luna, Thelma & the Sleaze, and Nuclear Daisies. Having already completed a Texas mini-tour with them, she’s back in the studio working on a full length album.