The Austin Chamber Music Festival stretches out from traditional European concert music this Saturday with a performance by jazz piano trio The Bad Plus at UT's Bates Recital Hall. Certainly there's such a thing as chamber jazz (the bent-cool miniatures of reedmen-composers Teo Macero, Joe Maneri and Jimmy Giuffre, for example), but the music of The Bad Plus is an entirely different animal. more ›

Great Lake Swimmers Ongiara (Nettwerk) Ongiara sees Great Lake Swimmers move a little further into country with prominent banjo strums and unforgiving Nashville-esque male/female harmonies. The themes are still dark, open and intimidating, never belying the band's daunting name. Production-wise, the songs are gorgeous: layers of acoustic guitars over a banjo and reverberating snare never sounded better. Tony Dekker's voice is straight out of the old dance hall and as slide guitars subtly make... more ›