Ak'Chamel opening for Deerhoof

Ak'chamel open for Deerhoof at The Orange Show Center for Visionary Art on Friday, October 16. It's a double bill that puts two very different kinds of noise in the same room: Ak'chamel, whose ritualistic folk and psychedelia lean toward the atmospheric, and Deerhoof, who've spent decades pushing post-punk into something loud, jagged, and hard to pin down.

Deerhoof is the headliner here, and they're touring their twentieth studio album, Noble and Godlike in Ruin. That number—twenty—is the real story. For a band that's built its name on a fiercely DIY approach and a refusal to settle into a comfortable groove, hitting twenty albums is a hell of a run. They've earned a reputation as one of the most respected independent rock groups of the 21st century, and Noble and Godlike in Ruin is the latest chapter in that. If you've followed them, you know the sound: explosive post-punk psychedelia mixed with an unflinching progressive politics. It's music that doesn't ask you to sit still.

Ak'chamel takes the first slot, bringing their own brand of ritual folk and psychedelia to the table. While Deerhoof is all about the explosive, Ak'chamel works with a different kind of intensity—the kind that builds slowly and holds its ground. Between the two, the night covers a lot of ground, from the ritualistic to the post-punk.

The show is part of the Visionary Performance Series, an ongoing program of exhibitions, concerts, films, and performance art that The Orange Show stages both on its own properties and across Houston. The series also includes classes and workshops, so this is one night in a much larger calendar. Among the venue's regulars are free family-friendly Sundays at Smither Park, with live music, craft activities, and a vendor market; 'The Happening,' a monthly performance-art variety extravaganza; and the 'Office of Collecting and Design,' a traveling museum devoted to the diminutive, the misplaced, and the forgotten.

Ak'chamel and Deerhoof play from 8 PM to 10:30 PM at the Orange Show World HQ.