Djin Aquarian and More Tune In at Far Out Fest 333

Since its soft opening as a sometime-venue circa 2016, Little Harpeth Brewing has played host to some impressive shows. That’s been especially true lately, with Deerhoof, Eyehategod and Mdou Moctar among the envelope-pushing artists gracing the 500-capacity warehouse near Nissan Stadium in recent months.

But I hadn’t seen the room's relatively blank canvas used to its fullest until Saturday. That’s when Far Out Nashville co-founders Kari Leigh Ames and Brianne O’Neill brought in a crew that filled it with LED video art, mushroom-shaped recycling bins and a mountain of TVs, among other visual stimuli — as well as a wide range of off-kilter sonic explorers from in and out of town. 

This was the final day of Far Out Fest 333, Ames and O’Neill’s third annual celebration of mind-expanding music and art from Nashville and beyond. The previous night, a summer storm knocked out power for more than 40,000 in Nashville. Little Harpeth was spared, but the Ambient Tent pitched behind the venue on the banks of the Cumberland had to be moved inside. And Friday had been stressful for other reasons, with headliner Christian Bland (of Austin, Texas, psych kings The Black Angels) turning in a performance that was by all accounts lackluster. The weather Saturday righted itself though, fortunately, and the proceedings for Far Out followed suit.

Headliner Djin Aquarian described himself as a “survivor of the ’60s, Chicago Democratic Conventions, Vietnam War drafts, a bunch of drugs and maybe too much Kundalini yoga, too.” He played lead guitar in Yahowa 13, the early-’70s don’t-call-it-a-cult band immortalized in the 2012 documentary The Source Family, and he brought mirthful vibes with his 45-minute set Saturday. 

The Mount Shasta, Calif., musician had flown in from Oregon earlier in the week and was backed by a local pickup band made up of bassist Sean Flint, guitarist John Core and percussionist Sam Skorik. Aquarian & Co. began inauspiciously. There was a series of three group oms, followed by a string of free-to-be-you-and-me numbers (starting with Yahowa 13’s “Home”) played on a not-quite-in-tune acoustic guitar. I honestly struggled at first to shake his uncanny resemblance to Mr. Van Driessen, the crunchy teacher figure from Beavis and Butt-Head. But I dipped out for a few minutes, and when I returned the crew’s set had coalesced into heavy-duty, slow-burning cacophony on the cautionary tale “We Are the Dinosaurs.” That more than justified the long trip Aquarian took to get here for his first visit to Nashville in 20 years, as he told me when we talked briefly after the set.

Bringing the ambient tent inside, even if not by choice, put the extremes of what “psych” means on display. There were contemplative sets from local sound artist Dan Burns and noise duo Secret Friends (aka Banana Tapes’ Blake Patterson and Adam Reid), as well as some electro-acoustic exploration from Tyler Blankenship and Brandon Greer’s Neon Black. 

Then, Psychotic Reaction, a veteran outfit from Oklahoma — same as those fearless freaks, The Flaming Lips — delivered a more traditionally aggro, punkish performance. They conjured the MC5, Spacemen 3 and one of my personal favorite records of the Aughts: The Men’s MC5- and S3-indebted 2011 epic Leave Home.

Taking the Far Out crowd out were Kings of the Fucking Sea, the long-running but all-too-seldom-operational project of Ettes drummer Poni Silver and Flying V-wielding guitarist Chet Weise, the Third Man Books honcho who once fronted The Immortal Lee County Killers. Bassist Sara Nelson of early-Aughts NYC garage-rockers The Little Killers (better known these days as a co-founder of East Nashville watering hole Duke’s) rounded out the ensemble. With their big, booming ’80s drum sound and the menacing drag of their down-tuned riffs, the trio’s drawn-out songs brought to mind PiL’s droning 1978 classic “Theme” and Loop’s 1990 deep-cut shoegaze fave A Gilded Eternity. The set ended way too soon, and scratched an itch that doesn’t get scratched nearly enough around these parts.

See our slideshow for more photos.