Unusual Animals On the Loose

Look, we're gonna make this one real easy for you. No thinking involved. Music. Art. Community. And a scientist who raps about space travel to a power point presentation. See? Simple.

Houston, Our Ears Depend on You, this Saturday at Diverseworks, materializes Rice Radio's KTRU's presentation of Ashmathitic Kitty's 4th Unusual Animals party. Huh? See, we told you we were gonna make it simple. Just trust us. Or, just keep reading.

DiverseWorks is excited to team up with Rice University's KTRU (91.7FM) and Asthmatic Kitty Record Label for Unusual Animals: Houston, Our Ears Depend On You. This live event developed, from Asthmatic Kitty's Unusual Animals Series, highlights local artists, our local community, and the variety of activities that make up the cultural being that is the city of Houston. As with past Unusual Animal events, this will feature Asthmatic Kitty artists playing alongside local bands, sponsored by local businesses and organizations. Asthmatic Kitty's Cryptacize & Future Rapper along with local bands - Moth Fight, Space City Gamelan, Hearts of Animals and The Wiggins. Diverseworks Art Space will host, and local radio station KTRU will supply promotion and between-set DJs.

So WTF is Unusual Animals anyway? We're glad you asked.
Unusual Animals, an imprint of the internationally celebrated music label Asthmatic Kitty, was created as a side-project aimed to expose more conceptual and experimental projects not fitting squarely into any one genre of music. Originally, Unusual Animals explored these sounds through vinyl-only releases, pairing its own artists with friends and sometimes-unlikely bedfellows.

During this year's SXSW music festival in Austin, Asthmatic Kitty took the Unusual Animals' series one step farther by hosting a live event that corralled the Unusual Animals' artists from the dash of car stereos and into live performances. The combination of local art, music, piñatas, food and culture brought about the second evolution in the series and a shift in focus. No longer strictly highlighting underexposed artists, the series now explores the contribution of all community members, urging the planet to recognize the variety of activities that make up whatever cultural being that defines a given city. Unusual Animals parties have previously occurred in Brooklyn and Indianapolis, and Portland will be hosting a Unusual Animals on the same day as Houston.

Sponsors include moving image exhibitor Microcinema International, local bar Poison Girl, Unusual Animals alumni Saint Arnold's Brewery, experimental music magazine Signal to Noise, Houston record store Sound Exchange, and Tito's Vodka, among others. Yeah, wow, huh? Seriously, it's like Christmas.

We'll tell you what's highly unusual: missing this collision awesomness. Houstonist will be on site all day, so find us and we can chat about, hmm, space travel. And we ain't leaving 'til that nutria karaokes.

The event is free and all-ages, and will start at 3pm at Diverseworks Gallery, 1117 East Freeway, Houston, Texas.