Events

[INDIE] Remember the other folks you met your freshman year of college, the ones who lived on the same dormitory hall as you? Maybe you still know some of them—and that’s essentially how the guys in North Carolina-based Rainbow Kitten Surprise originally met. If the name is jarring to you, you’re not alone. But as someone pointed out to me maybe a year ago as I balked at it, it’s search engine gold: there’s no risk of having something else come up when you Google them. The name isn’t the only trick up the quintet’s collective sleeve, either. Their third album and debut for Elektra, How to: Friend, Love, Freefall is a sort of survival guide for adjusting to the pressures of adulting from the perspective of creative people, and it contains the single, “Hide,” written by frontman Sam Melo about the realization of his homosexuality. Melo wrote the song in 2015, but it took a while before he was ready to show it to his band mates. Now fully out of the closet, Melo let director Kyle Thrash take the video for “Hide” in a direction that goes beyond his own personal experience — the resulting clip is a moving mini-documentary about four drag queens living in New Orleans. Turning our cultural celebration of queer via shows like Ru Paul’s Drag Race and Queer Eye on its head, Thrash’s video is a reminder that for many people, being their true selves is still a huge struggle. But as an album, How to: Friend, Love, Freefall is more than merely a coming out party for Melo. Rather, it’s a genre-be-damned melting pot of indie pop with sizable helpings of acoustic soul and hip-hop for instantly recognizable influences. The song forms are unusual, the timing shifts around, and Melo’s whimsical vocalizations take some getting used to. The good news is that you won’t be mistaking them for anyone else, and that goes for the sound as well as the name. Catch RKS at Town Ballroom on Monday, October 1. Opener Caroline Rose is touring in support of Loner (New West). Rose’s earlier pair of releases showed off a passing fancy for retro-rockabilly as an occasional ingredient in her otherwise country-folk aesthetic, but Loner turns up the volume significantly, allowing Rose’s edgier anti-heroine alter ego to take the wheel. The results are unforgettably sassy and fun (check out the series of  videos for “Bikini,” “Money” and “Soul No.5” for a better idea).