Playlist: June Music at Meow Wolf's Concert Venue

June is going to be a banging month for music at Meow Wolf. Our concert space is hosting fantastic bands and DJs as we approach the beating heart of summer. We challenge ourselves to showcase talent that audiences can't see anywhere else in New Mexico. Our shows are framed by a stage that is wholly unique, with an architecture, light system and viewing experience all its own.

Santa Fe's Duel Brewing helms the bar in our lobby, contributing to an immersive concert environment that is radically local and cannot be replicated anywhere else. We want to give Santa Feans a venue they can be proud of and we want to give visitors to our hometown a performance they'll remember for years to come.

To give you a taste of what we have in store for June, we've assembled a playlist highlighting some of the talent that will soon be leaving their mark on Santa Fe. This is just an introduction to our June lineup! Please head over to our events page for complete listings. That said, here's our official playlist for June 2017, including Bad Suns, Danny Daze, Hurray for the Riff Raff, The Districts and Machinedrum! Read on for more information about each act while you listen in.

June 2: Bad Suns

Los Angeles' Bad Suns are coming to Santa Fe on the heels of their second album Disappear Here, a release that Alternative Press called "dynamic and introspective," with songs that combine the moody atmosphere of post punk with pop music. Singer Christo Bowman describes the release as a balancing act between hope and darkness, inspired in part by the Bret Easton Ellis novel Less Than Zero.

“It’s a roller coaster ride between pessimism and optimism,” Bowman says. “I wanted these real moments of darkness to be represented and discussed, because we all go through it, but it’s really about hope and saying that you don’t have to succumb to that darkness. There is a light.”

You can learn more about the show here.

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June 3: Dance Monster with Danny Daze

Dance Monster is a series that continues Meow Wolf's decade-long love affair with electronic music. Once relegated to Santa Fe bars and event halls, Dance Monster is treated right in our venue with projection-mapped lights, the best DJs and producers from around the world and a crisp, bassy sound system that is to die for.Classing up the Southwest dance scene this time around is Danny Daze, a Miami producer who blends beach vibes with harder influences including Italo and Detroit Techno. His track Your Everything is supremely sexy and it has a spot on our playlist this month.Click here for more details about this event.

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June 6: Hurray for the Riff Raff

The angelic voice about halfway through the playlist belongs to Alynda Segarra, whose band Hurray for the Riff Raff will be preforming socially conscious roots and folk music with a pinch of old timey country. Her influences are timeless, but she speaks to issues that are very much of our day.

With its 12 tracks and its Travelers, Sages, and Sirens, The Navigator comes straight at you from the intersection of apocalypse and hope. This album rides Patti Smith’s high horse while straddling Chrissie Hynde’s thin line between love and hate. Segarra may lament the Trumpsters who want to “build a wall and keep them out,” but she knows that, like the outcasts she embraces, “Any day now/I will come along.” There’ll be no more hiding at the dimly lit intersections of class, race, and sexual identity — now we will all come into the light.“I feel like my generation, through groups like Black Lives Matter, is really focusing on that type of intersectionality — if one of us is not free, then none of us are free,” said Segarra. “The Navigator‘s role is to tell the story, tell it to the people who don’t know their own story, so they can be free.  — Hurray for the Riff Raff

Click here to learn more about Hurray for the Riff Raff.

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June 16: Machinedrum // Currents x Meow Wolf

Currents new media festival is wildly inspiring to the artists of Meow Wolf. One of the high points of our summer, Currents showcases creatives who are making art at the bleeding edge of technology. We're teaming up with them this year to present Machinedrum, who will be performing a live audio/visual set at our concert venue. Breaky and colorful with just a hint of IDM, Machinedrum (Travis Stewart) has an almost synesthetic approach to his live shows. He states:

“I played the songs for friends and their immediate reaction was that the songs made them feel something in their bodies, like the music was pouring energy into them. I realized that I was creating an album that will make people feel something instantly, connecting my intention with the listener.”

We're thrilled to be collaborating with Currents on this one. Click here for more information.

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June 29: The Districts

Closing out the playlist this month is indie rock outfit The Districts. Fans of the fuzzy, dense guitars of shoegaze will want to give this a listen. Ordinary Day soars and we can't wait to have it bouncing off the rafters of our exhibit. A theme uniting many of the bands on this playlist are dichotomies between optimism and pessimism. The Districts brave troubling themes in their music while coming out safe and sound on the other side. From the band:

For such weighty thematic material, though, Popular Manipulations is purely life-affirming rock music, bursting with energy that cuts through the darkness of the world that surrounds us. — The Districts

You can learn more about the event by clicking here. Thank you, as always, for your kind attention. And if you liked what you heard here today and want to share it with a friend, please consider using the social media links below. Be sure to come back in a month for another delicious playlist! — Billiam