Sunday, June 14 — Pinto Sunshine, Khaliko, and Yes Dear kick off Innerspace’s Summer Series. $10. 7 p.m. (doors). 8 p.m. (show). Halfway Crooks Biergarten
Tuesday, June 16 — The Baby Bat Parade Tour feat. Christian Death, Gene Loves Jezebel, Black Season Witch, Psychic Death, Lashing, and Cauterize. $24.77. 7 p.m. (doors). Culture Shock
Since forming in London in 1980, the Pink Dots have carved out a singular space in the underground—too strange for pop, too melodic for noise, too abstract for goth, and too open-ended to be called industrial music. Led by enigmatic vocalist and founding member Edward Ka-Spel and rounded out by Randall Frazier (synths, samples, and electronics), Erik Drost (guitar), and Joep Hendrikx (live engineering and effects), the LPDs weave together surreal narratives and immersive, cinematic soundscapes that take shape like dispatches from a fever dream.
The group’s catalog spans countless albums, each one a kaleidoscopic swirl of experimental electronics, post-punk texture, avant-garde noise, and darkly poetic meditations on the human condition. On stage, their shows become ritualistic experiences—hypnotic and theatrical, blurring the line between performance and séance.
Erik Drost (from left), Randall Frazier, Edward Ka-Spel, and Joep Hendrikx. Photo courtesy the Legendary Pink Dots.
The LPD’s latest album, So Lonely In Heaven (Metropolis Records), finds the group at its most evocative, melancholy, and Orwellian in years, layering haunting synths, spectral melodies, and existential poetry into a deeply human meditation on isolation and transcendence. It’s a reminder that even after 40-plus years, the LPDs are still evolving; still chasing the unknown.
Bologna, Italy-based Orbit Service opens the evening with a set of deep, slow-burning atmospherics and haunted melodies. Featuring Frazier and Drost performing together, the duo builds patient, ethereal songs that hum with existential weight. They are the perfect gateway into the LPDs’ strange and beautiful world. The latest offering, Spirit Guide, leans deeper into cosmic territory, expanding its sound with shimmering drones, meditative textures, and a slow, patient gravity that feels like it’s tuning into another frequency.
For the faithful, this show is a rare chance to step back into the Dots’ orbit. For the uninitiated, it’s an invitation to get lost in one of experimental music’s most enduring and imaginative universes.
On March 16, The Masquerade announced that it was suspending operations to aid in the effort to slow the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus. Since then, the Downtown Atlanta music venue has canceled and postponed more than 100 shows in all three of its live music rooms — Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory. Many shows are being rescheduled for the fall and winter months, but the doors remain closed indefinitely.
The Masquerade is the city’s largest independently-owned music venue. Each night, the club brings more music to Atlanta than anywhere else, ranging from hip-hop, trap music, punk, hardcore, heavy metal, and jazz to DJ nights such as Torch DNB and the LA-based Emo Nite.
This means an awful lot of bartenders, sound engineers, loaders, caterers, box office staff, security, and administrative personnel are without work for the time being.
To help its employees pay the bills, a GoFundMe page is set up with all proceeds being distributed to the club’s employees, and there are donation perks.
Rad/ATL 