Artists and bands are from Denton, Texas unless otherwise noted.

A Shoreline Dream (Denver)
A.M. Ramblers
Andrew Tinker
Anonymous Culture (Dallas)
Autumn Owls (Dublin)
Babar
Baruch the Scribe
BigBang (Los Angeles/Oslo)
Birds & Batteries (San Francisco)
Boxcar Bandits
Br’er (Asheville, NC/Philadelphia)
Bridges & Blinking Lights
Buffalo Clover (Nashville)
Burywood (Austin)
Caleb Ian Campbell
Carrie Rodriguez (Brooklyn)
Claire Morales
Cocky Americans (Dallas)
Colourmusic (Piedmont, OK)
Corporate Park
Curvette
Damaged Good$ (Dallas)
Daniel Folmer
Dan Montgomery (Memphis)
Dem Southernfolkz (Dallas)
Dear Human
Delmore Pilcrow
Dim Locator
DJ MomJeans (Hollywood, CA)
Drink to Victory
Drive Like Maria (The Netherlands)
Doug Burr
Doug Gillard (NYC)
Dust Congress
.e (St. Louis)
Eaton Lake Tonics (Fort Worth)
Electric Electric (France)
Evangelicals
Feathers (Bedford/Austin)
Felili (Brooklyn)
Fergus & Geronimo
Final Club
Fishboy
Floating Action (Asheville, NC)
florene
Follow That Bird! (Austin)
420 Blues
Fox and the Bird (Richardson)
French Horn Rebellion (Brooklyn; Milwaukee)
Frontier Ruckus (Michigan)
Fur
Galapaghost (Queens, NY)
Giggle Party (Dallas)
GioSafari (NYC)
Glen Farris
Grandfather Child (Houston)
Green Corn Revival (Weatherford, OK)
Guitar George Trio (Sanger)
Handbrake
Har Herrar (Fort Worth)
Harvey Sid Fisher
HEALTH (Los Angeles)
Hello Lover (Dallas)
Here Holy Spain
History At Our Disposal
Hogpig
Horse Feathers (Portland, OR)
hotel hotel (Austin)
Icarus Himself (Madison, Wisconsin)
I-45 (Houston)
I Heart Lung (Long Beach/Pasadena, CA)
Indian Jewelry (Houston)
Ishi (Dallas)
Jack with One Eye (Denton/NYC)
Jacob Metcalf (Dallas)
Jenn Gooch
Jessie Frye (DFW)
Joe Pug
Jookabox (Indianapolis)
Julianna Barwick (Brooklyn)
Jupiter One (NYC)
Kaboom
Lane & Paul
Lazy Native
Le Not So Hot Klub de Denton
Little Birds (McKinney)
Mariachi Quetzal
Manned Missiles
Math the Band (Providence, RI)
Matthew and the Arrogant Sea
Midlake
Minorcan (Austin)
Monastery
Mount Righteous (Grapevine)
Museum Creatures
My Empty Phantom (Austin)
Natalia Mallo (São Paulo, Brazil)
Native Lights (Tulsa, OK)
Neon Indian (Brooklyn)
Nervous Curtains (Dallas)
New Science Projects
Nicholas Altobelli (Dallas)
OK Sweetheart
Ola Podrida (Austin)
Orange Peel Sunshine (Dallas)
Oso Closo
Parata
Pattern is Movement (Philadelphia)
Paul Benjaman Band (Tulsa, OK)
Peasant (Doylestown, PA)
Peopleodian
Pigeon John (Northridge, CA)
Pinebox Serenade
Points North
Pomegranates (Cincinnatti)
Pure Ecstasy (Austin)
PVC Street Gang
Quiet Company (Austin)
Record Hop
Robert Ellis (Houston)
Robert Gomez
Robot Arm
Roy Robertson
Rare Grooves (Los Angeles)
RTB2
Saboteur (Dallas)
Sabra Laval
Sarah Jaffe
Sarah Reddington (Denton/Portland)
Sarah Renfro (Brooklyn)
Savage and the Big Beat
Seryn
Shiny Around the Edges
Sleep Whale
Slobberbone
Small Time Ruffians
Smile Smile (Dallas)
Snarky Puppy (Brooklyn)
Sore Losers
Spooky Folk
Stardeath and White Dwarfs (Oklahoma City)
Strangers Family Band (Orlando)
Summer of Glaciers (San Francisco)
Sunnybrook
Telegraph Canyon (Fort Worth)
The Angelus
The Beaten Sea (Dallas)
The Black Angels (Austin)
The Bizarro Kids
The Contingency Clause
The Clouds Are Ghosts (Austin)
The Crash that Took Me (Dallas)
The Daily Beat
The Demigs
The Diamond Center (Richmond, VA)
The Fieros (Brooklyn)
The Flaming Lips (Oklahoma City)
The Hand Combine
The Heelers
The Hope Trust
The Jakeys
Kissaway Trail (Odense, Denmark)
The Laughing (Austin)
The Lonesome Heroes (Austin)
The Low Lows
The Middle East (Queensland, Australia)
The Naptime Shake (Dallas)
The Phuss (Fort Worth)
The POLYCORNS
The River Mouth
The Rocketboys (Austin)
The Slow Burners
The Shakes (Los Angeles)
The Terror Pigeon Dance Revolt (Purchase, NY)
The Timeline Post
The Virgin Wolves (NTX)
The Walkmen (NYC)
The Wellington Lights
This Old House
This Will Destroy You (San Marcos)
Thunder Power (Omaha)
Trebuchet
Trespassers William (Seattle)
Unwed Sailor (Tulsa)
Via Audio (New York/Boston)
Vexed UK
Warren Jackson Hearne and the Merrie Murdre of Gloomadeers
Welcome Signs
Western Giants
Whiskey Folk Ramblers (Fort Worth)
White Drugs
Woven Bones (Austin)
Writer
Yeahdef
Young and Brave
Zlam Dunk (San Marcos)
Zorch (Austin)

I will let the sounds
Of these woods that I’ve known
Sink into blood and to bone

Midlake, from “Core of Nature”
The Courage of Others

I found ways to describe The Courage of Others to friends who weren’t at Kevin Roden’s house to hear it. Like, “if J.R.R. Tolkien remade Koyannisqatsi, this record would be the score.” Or, worse, “a street-level version of the book of Revelation, narrated by Fairport Convention.”

But the night at Kevin and Emily Roden’s stately three-story home on Texas Street where upwards of 50 people sat through Midlake’s forthcoming album, start to finish, felt epic even without sound. Watching a stiff-shouldered Eric Pulido gaze blankly from the hallway into a living room filled with his friends and fellow Dentonites, confronting the fruits of almost three years of fits and starts and scraps and re-dos. Deciphering the poetry on the lyric sheets, we followed along, at once convicted and charged with hope. It was awkward to be quiet in the company of so many for that long, with no pressure to yell into the ears of the person next to you. We were trapped together, forced to soak in a whole composition.

And the air was frosted with psychic strain. Courage is a story of nature vs. human struggle, of the land drying up and breaking as its people mourn. The listener fades into this world as if it’s their own reality — is it far from their own? — and a stillness settles in the lush folk balladry. An energy breaks as the town does its best to protect what’s left. And with it, for me, sitting among neighbors with whom I’m fighting this very real battle against thoughtless ruin, a remembering of all that I love about a place, and a desire to share it.

I tried to articulate this to Eric Nichelson just after the eleventh song ended. Everyone had long stopped applauding after each track, and they were collectively stunned and milling around quietly after a cheer closed the session. Nichelson was leaning up against an armoir, shoulders also tight, drink at close access. I told him I hadn’t felt like this since I heard the Appleseed Cast’s Low Level Owl Volume 2 start to finish. And then I thanked him for using this vessel of an album to do something so powerful, so transformative.

“Well, we hope everyone liked it, but I mean, if they do they do, and if they don’t, well, we did our best,” he said. “There will be albums after this one — we’re already working on the next one. This
doesn’t have to be our big break. It is what it is.”

Nichelson didn’t realize it until I motioned to my lyric sheet, but he was quoting “Fortune,” a track on The Courage of Others. It’s an Ecclesiastical celebration of work for work’s sake. Themes in 2006’s The Trials of Van Occupanther echo this theory of worth; even in the catchy “Young Bride,” a downtrodden wife is encouraged to move about if only “to make the day seem shorter.” That’s what Midlake does with trappings of psychadelia and prose-poetry — they make magic out of simple things forgotten. Like gathering in someone’s living room, just to listen to music with friends.

About half an hour after Pulido made the announcement this listening party will be remembered for — that the Flaming Lips would headline an outdoor show with his band on Saturday, March 13 during NX35 — Flemmons and I ducked outside to check Twitter from my iPhone, sure that someone would have broken the news and ruined our fragile announcement plans. Two telling things happened then. The first: I realized that I had just left my phone in my purse while in public for the longest stretch of time since I acquired it. The second: the feeds were clean, meaning I wasn’t the only one who had been finally, restfully, in the moment.

Midlake begins their tour of Europe on January 22 with three sold-out dates in Newcastle, Leicester, and Cambridge. I wish them well on adventures abroad, but honestly, I’m thrilled for the advancing of days because it means it will soon be March, the guys will be home, and there will finally be room in their town for a crowd that does them justice: room enough in the streets where they’ve stayed, to work, to make it better.

The Courage of Others is set to be released on Bella Union February 2.