Doors @ 7pm
Show @ 8pm
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All Ages

Mustang Island, the third album from Austin-based band Little Mazarn, is a gentle force. Waves of grief crest like surf on the Texas coast. Wild horses break through long-shuttered gates, only to come back around. Lead songwriter, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist Lindsey Verrill (she/her) joins bandmates Jeff Johnston (he/him) and Carolina Chauffe (they/them). The ten-song collection continues work with Dear Life Records. A full-throated romp through the capabilities of community-minded songcraft, Mustang Island is both naturalistic and futuristic, completely recasting Little Mazarn’s origins in primitive folk. Instead, the band reaches towards sonic experimentation and spacious expansion. 

Lindsey’s heart-opening vocals and Jeff’s singing saw, both trademarks of the project, mix with unexpected bombastic drums, dissonant synthesizers, and a chorus of orchestral oddities. This mid-career ode dances confidently in the creative liberties granted by decades in the game – more dazzlingly lively, and honestly somber, than ever before. 

The band’s crossroads branch across prominent Southern outsider music: On cello, Lindsey has recorded with Patty Griffin and Dana Falconberry. Jeff has played in Bill Callahan’s band, as well as with Li’l Cap'n Travis and Orange Mothers. Carolina is known for prolific solo project hemlock. Little Mazarn has also collaborated with Lomelda to release their last EP, Honey Island General Store (2023), following past LPs Texas River Song (2022) and Io (2019).

Alongside silliness and reverence, including covers from Kate Wolf and Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys, grief directs much of Mustang Island. Lindsey left her job of seventeen years teaching cello at a local school. Recording also aligned with the passing of Jeff’s father, a career educator in Jeff and Lindsey’s hometown of Dallas. 

“Grief, and the avoidance of grief, is a big part of being human,” says Lindsey. “You make a choice, and then you grieve for the other choice. Or you finish a meal and literally grieve that it was so good. If you really befriend grief, you’re like, ‘Oh, it’s here, in this pancake, which I loved so much that I ate the whole thing, and now it’s gone.’” -Rachel Rascoe 

     ‘The music of Little Mazarn is a cool float a few feet from the ground through a dimly lit, almost familiar forest. It is quieter than silence, big as everything, still but always moving. If you’ve ever had flying dreams, or an amazing night time bike ride on LSD, this might be a world for you. Chords are made up of notes; Little Mazarn gives them all their own moment. There are NO superfluous notes played here.  Lindsey’s kind and twisting voice ambles along over the spare sounds of Jeff Johnston’s saw bowing, Ralph White’s electric mbira wanderings, and her own slow banjo. Like DJ Screw, Bohren & Der Club of Gore, and anyone who chooses to walk instead of ride, Lindsey realizes the amazing power of slow… slow… slow music. Lindsey is at once a baby and a wise old man. Get in this canoe at dawn on some Texas river that remembers when Comanche slept under the stars.’—Thor Harris, Talkhouse