Artlantis

Picture-perfect weather for a Saturday afternoon in Atlanta: uncharacteristically mild and dry, but sunny.  The kind of day that as soon as you step out of doors, you know you won't be going back inside for the rest of the day.

Which is all fine and good, as today marked the annual Artlantis festival on Ponce De Leon.  Like last year's festival, the event was held on the steps of the Druid Hills Baptist Church and featured both local bands and an arts market.

When I got there, Muleskinner McBride was playing his old-fashioned Appalachian blues and Carter-family vintage country songs.  Muleskinner recognized me from the Music at the Crypts benefit and acknowledged me from the stage. "I think you got there just as we were wrapping up," he correctly observed.

MULESKINNER McBRIDE

MIRROR MODE

Atlanta's electro-pop duo Mirror Mode, who also played the Music at the Crypts benefit and are a part of Lotus Plaza's touring band, were up next, accompanying each other on keyboards and guitar as they traded lead vocal chores.

WET RAINBOW

Wet Rainbow is a straight-up power-pop/rock band from Atlanta with a garage-y vibe.

KID PYRAMID

I saw Kid Pyramid open for Ava Luna and Twin Sister earlier this year at The Earl and thought he was terrific, but was not sure how his act would come across in the daytime, out of doors, and on such an unusual stage as the steps of the Druid Hills Baptist Church.  As it turns out, he came across just fine, and did another outstanding job of playing his soulful, energetic pop songs.

GHOST BIKINI

Ghost Bikini played a noisy and enjoyable fuzzed-out set of reverb-laden blues-punk.  Lead singer Anela  occasionally contributed some fun harmonica riffs.

FAUN AND A PAN FLUTE

How to describe this?  Faun And A Pan Flute play music that can be triangulated somewhere between math rock, jazz fusion, and prog rock, with long, complex song structures and diverse instrumentation, all infused with a sort of jam-band approach.  The octet completely took over the steps of the Druid Hills Baptist Church, setting up musicians on the stairs and the bushes surrounding the stairs, and still had players to spare.  The audience was quite receptive to their cerebral and idiosyncratic sound.

According to my calendar, today actually was National Barefoot Day.

DOG BITE

The last band up and the day's headliner was Dog Bite, a new band (they played their first gig last February) fronted by former Washed Out percussionist and keyboard player Phil Jones and Mood Rings guitarist Willaim Fussell (seated), who also played Music at The Crypts.  They played a very nice set of dream-pop and indie rock.

Finally, for those who might for some reason want to see a noisy, uncut video summary of this whole event without any editing or polish, six-and-a-half hours compressed into six-and-a-half minutes, here you go: