Basilica Hudson’s fifth annual Soundscape festival is, as one might imagine, a blurring of the sonic and visual arts set in the spectacular reclaimed industrial space of the Hudson mega-venue. Year-’round, the venue specializes in music as matter: music of atmosphere, layers, texture and color, analogous to visual arts whether or not it is being coupled with them. Basilica is largely genre-agnostic; you will find Post-Minimalist serious music, drone, electronica and the more texturally adventurous rock music here throughout the seasons.
The overstuffed music lineup for this year’s Soundscape is consistent with the Basilica brand up and down. The big-name headliner is Austin’s post-rock superstars Explosions in the Sky. A ten-plus-year career has seen the band releasing album after album of elegant and explosive instrumental guitar rock indebted to Tortoise and to early Pink Floyd, as well as numerous soundtracks and an increasing move toward less-explosive Minimalist soundscaping.
Other standouts on the bill include the great Chicago-based Outsider singer/songwriter Angel Olsen, whose scintillating 2016 My Woman is her first departure from a noisy lo-fi aesthetic, but no less weird and piquant for it. The fascinating drums-and-lute duo Xylouris White are no strangers to the area, as veterans of the O+ Festival. Former Dirty Projector vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Deradoorian comes back to the region after her recent set opening for Television at BSP.
As famous as Bowie in some worlds and utterly obscure in others, Genesis P. Orridge is noise- and occult-rock royalty, a founding member of both Throbbing Gristle and the considerably more pop-minded Psychic TV. He performs at Soundscape with the Toilet Brothers and second-gen Psychic TV drummer Edley O’Dowd.
Basilica specializes in creating immersive and otherworldly environments. For a complete description of all the weekend’s offerings, visit basilicahudson.org/soundscape. Soundscape goes down from Friday to Sunday, September 16 to 18, with the bulk of the music happening on Friday and Saturday nights. Ticket prices range from $125 for a full weekend pass and camping to $40 day passes. Basilica is located at 110 South Front Street in Hudson.
Join the family! 
