Ekko Astral transforms WTJU into a mascara mosh pit
Date: 03/30/2024
Time: 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm
Join us at 2244 Ivy Rd for a special Saturday afternoon concert as Ekko Astral rocks the house, presented by WTJU Rock‘s Deadbeat Club and Radio Freedonia. No tickets are required. Parking is available in the WTJU lot as well as the Sentara lot next door. You can also listen live on 91.1 FM, stream via wtju.net, and video stream on WTJU’s Facebook and YouTube channels.
The band will be playing at Chinchilla Cafe the night before, Friday, March 29, along with Crush Fund and 7th Grade Girl Fight.
Ekko Astral are a glitter noise punk band from Washington DC composed of Jael Holzman (vocals and lyrics, guitar), Liam Hughes (lead guitar), Miri Tyler (drums), Guinevere Tully (bass), and Sam Elmore (rhythm guitar). The group takes their name from a lyric on the Death Grips “Come Up And Get Me”, and their music unquestionably mirrors that band’s proclivity for loud instrumentation and relentless, rebellious verve.
The band’s debut album, pink balloons, marks the jump to a major indie label home in Topshelf Records but also a massive jump in ambition from their debut EP, QUARTZ, expanding upon post punk building blocks into a larger and more unique style; pulling “from post-punk, no-wave and queercore into a raucous punk palette they’ve dubbed ‘mascara mosh pit.’”.
In a 30th anniversary piece for Fugazi’s album “In On The Kill Taker”, Paste Magazine hailed Ekko Astral as the band most clearly operating in their lineage and carrying the torch for DC punk, “pairing innovative sounds and community-building with trans liberation”. They are one of the preeminent bands in a growing wave of trans musicians like Home is Where, Glass Beach, Anita Velveeta and Crush Fund leading the “queer punk revolution”
pink balloons (to be released on April 19th, 2024), the band’s first full length LP, is a maximal display of the band’s “mascara mosh pit” sound, blending distorted no-wave art rock with moments of infectious joy engineered to make you scream along while you shove someone in the pit. Equal parts catchy, hilarious and searing, the lyrics are a delirious stream of consciousness.
