On July 12th, The Luminary welcomes visionary Baltimore band Lower Dens to the Elevator Music Series. Touring in support of the new album Nootropics, the band has expanded towards a more motoric palate and expansive sound. “The record as a whole begs for an assessment of all the flaws inherent in our existence, and to imagine a better, more suitable, logical way for humanity to live.”  So says Lower Dens leader Jana Hunter about the band’s stunning new album Nootropics.  It’s an ambitious work, and it delivers  heavily metaphorical, the symmetries and concordances of the lyrics run deep; the luminous lines of the music converge at a point in a future just out of view.  Lower Dens has made music that reconciles fear and uncertainty by freeze-framing it and turning it into a thing of beauty.

Pronounced no-eh-tro-pics, the title refers to a type of drug used to enhance memory or other cognitive functions.  That’s a reference to Hunter’s interest in transhumanism, the use of technology to extend human capabilities.  It could just as easily extend to the music itself  even the band’s newfound keyboards achieve a human-digital synthesis that aptly mirrors the album’s themes.

Supporting will be No Joy and Alan Resnic.

Doors open at 7:30pm and the show will begin at 8pm.

Tickets are $10adv/$12dos and are available online beginning May 3rd at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/246621.

The Luminary presents Moonface for the Elevator Music Series on June 24th, 2012. Moonface is not a band. Moonface is just plain half-old Spencer Krug, in any solo or collaborative projects he’s involved in from now until whenever. In early 2010 the first Moonface EP was released on Jagjaguwar. It was called Dreamland EP: Marimba and Shit-Drums, and sounds as the title suggests. This past winter, trying to keep sane in his snowed-in Montreal home, Spencer recorded another solo record. This new one is an LP called Organ Music not Vibraphone like I’d Hoped. It also sounds as the title suggests. Spencer Krug has made another record under the name Moonface, this time with the help of some new friends. The third product of an ongoing series of changing collaborations and approaches to tune-making is called With Siinai: Heartbreaking Bravery. Surprise, a two-part title. Let’s bust in to this brothel one door at a time.

Doors at 7:30. Show at 8pm.

Tickets are $10adv/$12dos and are available at www.brownpapertickets.com/event/241841

On April 30th, The Luminary welcomes Lotus Plaza, the side project of Deerhunter guitarist Lockett Pundt, to the Elevator Music Series. The shoegaze-informed ambience immediately resonates with any Deerhunter acolyte, but this isn’t just another tossed-off side project. Lotus Plaza’s sound is fully-formed and explores Lockett’s dead-on melodic sense and expansive songwriting ability. Kid Counselor and Mirror Mode will open the show.

Doors 7pm. Show 8pm.

Tickets are $8adv/$10dos and are available in advance here.

The Elevator Music Series is presented by 88.1 KDHX, Urban Chestnut Brewing Company, The Royale and Local Harvest.

On March 20th, The Luminary welcomes EMA to the EMS. Erika M. Anderson grew up in the dive bars and rotten graveyards of South Dakota.  She is a direct descendent of Erik Blood-Axe, the ruthless Viking warrior.  All the boys ask her why she is so tough.  She is 6 feet tall.  She loves the jukebox. St. Louis-based Britches will open the show.

Doors 7pm. Show 8pm.

Tickets are $8adv/$10dos and are available online here.

The Elevator Music Series is presented by 88.1 KDHX, Urban Chestnut Brewing Company, The Royale and Local Harvest.

Doors 7pm. Show 8pm.

Tickets are $22/$25 and are available in advance here.

The Elevator Music Series is presented by 88.1 KDHX, Urban Chestnut Brewing Company, The Royale and Local Harvest.

Like rich velvet hijabs or gold threaded abayas. Luxury as understood by the modest. Shabazz Palaces. If Bedouins herded beats instead of goats and settled in Seattle instead of the Atlas Mountains, this would be their album. Forward thinkers but nostalgic for a sparer time when ancient astronomers only recognized five planets. Hip hop. Black light uses electromagnetic radiation to eradicate microorganisms, but shabazz didn’t come to kill a sound, just to shine their own incandescent lamp on this. Hear. Hard and clear. Fifty thousand years in the making. Honorable.palaceer pink gators.

DJ Needles and LooseScrewz will open the show.

Doors 7pm. Show at 8pm.

Tickets are $15/$17 and are available in advance here.

The Elevator Music Series is presented by 88.1 KDHX, Urban Chestnut Brewing Company, The Royale and Local Harvest.

Support for the show will be Dustin Wong (Ponytail), Woodsman and locals Sleep in Sundays.

This is an all-ages show.

Doors at 7pm. Show at 8pm.

Tickets are $8 in advance, $10 day of show and are available online here.

Doors 7pm. Show 8pm.

Tickets are $10 in advance, $12 day of show and are available online here.

The Elevator Music Series is presented by 88.1 KDHX, Urban Chestnut Brewing Company, The Royale and Local Harvest.

The Luminary Center for the Arts is pleased to announce the second installment of our residency retrospective exhibition, Something Happened, which opens on Friday, February 24th from 6-9PM. Something Happened will feature work created by our artists-in-residence throughout 2011 as a way to create a dialogue between our studio and exhibition programs and further the engagement of the public in the process. The exhibition captures the explorations and experimentations that took place throughout the year, resulting in new work from each of the artists. The artists in the program represent some of the most exceptional artists working in the region and include Aaron Bos-Wahl, Jessi Cerutti, Alex Elmestad, Kristin Fleischmann, Dani Kantrowitz, Katie McCullough, Daniel McGrath, Ann-Maree Walker and David Weinberg.

Note: Ann-Maree Walker’s project, Generate, may be viewed online here.

Something Happened will remain on view Wednesday, Friday and Saturday from 12-6PM and Thursdays from 11AM-6PM each week through March 31st, 2012.

The Luminary’s exhibitions are generously supported by the Arts and Education Council and the Missouri Arts Council.

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