Espresso News goes underground

Medium coffee, hold the cream, extra music.

Espresso News in downtown Boone hosts two top envelope-pushing experimental pop music acts, Bird Names and Bubbly Mommy Gun, Friday, Sept. 23.

The stop in Boone is part of the groups’ Atlantic coast “All-Stars of Fringe Pop” tour. Hailing from the creative haven of Athens, Ga., the groups “will cast radical musical visions, refined with nuance and rich with soul,” a tour spokesperson said. “Distinct in feeling but alike in purpose (expression through music that is challenging, fun, and startlingly original), Bird Names and Bubbly Mommy Gun will perform in tandem to stir rare feelings and inspiration in the mountain ear.”

Formed in mid-2000s Chicago, art pop veterans Bird Names has produced a series of highly acclaimed low-fi albums and toured extensively.

The “All-Stars of Fringe Pop Tour” marks the live debut of the extra heavy Bird Names Psychedelic Big Band, a six-piece band playing taut compositions for three guitarists, two drummers and a keyboardist.

Bird Names tours in support of its fifth full-length album, “Metabolism: a Salute to the Energy of the Sun,” which Private Leisure hailed as “a mind-blowing record, for sure.”

Coming up in Georgia, Bubbly Mommy Gun has embodied the best of doing things oneself by making things like nobody else would. Their music is jazzy, toe-tapping dream pop, a surreal atmosphere of tone and sound bent around a core of sharp, yet ambiguous, feeling.

“The playfulness, catchiness, and craft of the songs make for happy, obsessive re-listening,” the spokesperson said.

The group is finishing the follow-up to “Ain’t Got No Favorite Color,” which Flagpole magazine calls “effortlessly nuanced pop music, immensely enjoyable.”

The bands play Espresso News Friday, Sept. 23. For show times, call Espresso News at (828) 264-8850. To give the bands a listen, visit birdnamesmusic.com and myspace.com/bubblymommygun.