Hopscotch is finally here. Be sure to check out the top five bands WXDU DJs are most excited to see at Hopscotch this year! Let us know who you are most excited to see and keep us up to speed on all the cool things happening this weekend by using the hashtags #WXDU #hopscotch14. See you at the fest!

1. Circuit des Yeux- Friday, 10:00 PM Tir Na Nog

2. Tim Hecker- Thursday, 12:30 AM King's Barcade

3. Tony Conrad- Friday, 11:00 PM Vintage 21

4. Obnox- Friday, 9:30 PM Slim's

5. Sun Kil Moon- Friday, 12:30 AM Lincoln Theatre

 From Hopscotch:

1. Circuit des Yeux

A few artists have had studios built for themselves – Jimi Hendrix’s Electric Lady Studios a notable example – but certainly few albums have had studios built for them. Circuit des Yeux’s Haley Fohr and Cave’s Cooper Crain erected U.S.A. Studios in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood over a few weeks in January 2013 for the two months of recording sessions that make up Overdue. Founded with the acquisition of a one-inch Otari MX-70 tape deck (moded to 8 tracks) and a vacancy in a friend’s apartment, the studio endured hundreds of hours over its brief flash of life. Overdue weaves a sonic bildungsroman, documenting the transition from collegiate cloister in pastoral Bloomington, Indiana to the noisy, haggard Chicago South Side. Even with the hand-constructed baffles and grandmother-sourced quilts thickly covering the walls (and, intermittently, a light crust of sloppy snow), the sounds of Little Village are literally embedded in the recording. The strains of nearby norteños pierce the floorboards and the elevated trains murmur just a few dozen feet from U.S.A. Studios’ flawed sanctuary. The songs rise above the din, however full orchestrations and damaged hallucinations alike. Fans of Fohr’s prior, more experimental work are not catered to with this immeasurably more sophisticated new effort but nor will they, or any other listener, be disappointed.

2. Tim Hecker

Born in Vancouver, Tim Hecker is a Canadian-based composer and sound artist. For more than 15 years, he has produced a variety of audio works, exploring the intersection of noise, dissonance and melody. Fostering a physical and emotive approach to songcraft, Hecker pairs digital and analog sources to create textured tracks that range from soothing to restless. In a 2013 interview, he referred to his process as "an attempt at a kind of continual transformation" and The New York Times has described his work as “foreboding, abstract pieces in which static and sub-bass rumbles open up around slow moving notes and chords, like fissures in the earth waiting to swallow them whole.” His 2006 Harmony in Ultraviolet was ranked #13 on Pitchfork's top albums of the year and, in 2011, he was featured on NPR's "100 Composers Under 40" list. Hecker's Ravedeath, 1972, which Hopscotch Festival alum Ben Frost helped record, won the 2012 Juno Award for Electronic Album of the Year. His 2013 follow-up and seventh studio record, Virgins, was dubbed a "masterpiece" by Spin, and it found Hecker recording with live ensembles for the first time. He has played shows with Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Sigur Ros, and we're very pleased to announce he'll perform in September at the 250 person capacity Kings Barcade.

3. Tony Conrad

The career of Tony Conrad is hard to fathom: member of pre-Velvet Underground group The Primitives with Lou Reed and John Cale; just-intonation pioneer with La Monte Young in the Theater of Eternal Music; collaborator with Kraut legends Faust on the seminal LP Outside the Dream Syndicate; groundbreaking experimental filmmaker responsible for the iconic strobe film “The Flicker." At age 74, his work as a master violinist continues unabated. Both solo and in collaborations with fellow vets like Charlemagne Palestine, he performs stunning long-form drones that can make a room feel like it’s rocketing into space.

4. Obnox

Lamont “Bim” Thomas is an Ohio post-punk soldier. He’s spent years in the underground trenches of Columbus and Cleveland, drumming for stalwarts such as V-3, the Bassholes, and This Moment in Black History. But he’s perhaps found his ultimate calling in his solo project Obnox, which has churned a lode of increasingly-exciting singles and albums in the past four years. His latest LP, Louder Space, is also his best, a perfect expression of his punk, garage, hip-hop, and R&B leanings, executed with heightened clarity at Columbus’s legendary Musicol Studios.

5. Sun Kil Moon

Pick any five year span of Mark Kozelek’s nearly twenty-five years as a working musician and you will find a list of accomplishments that rival most artist’s entire catalogs. From his start as the creative force behind the highly influential Red House Painters in the early 90's, to his original film scores, Sun Kil Moon output, and the formation of his own Calo Verde Records, Kozelek has proven himself as one of the more prolific artists of his time. Since 2003, Kozelek has used the moniker Sun Kil Moon as his primary musical outlet. Following Red House Painters' final studio release, Old Ramon, Kozelek began writing material which would become Sun Kil Moon's debut record. The resulting album, Ghosts of the Great Highway, received widespread critical acclaim. The project's second studio album, Tiny Cities, arrived in 2005 and was comprised entirely of Modest Mouse cover songs. Sun Kil Moon's third release, April, in 2008, featured collaborative work with creative affiliates Will Oldham and Ben Gibbard. After an extended delve into solo recording, with 2010’s classically inspired Admiral Fell Promises and three studio albums released under Kozelek’s own name, Sun Kil Moon's sixth studio album, Benji was released in February, 2014. The album, an intensely detailed, personal, and altogether stunning collection of 11 songs, is one of the best of the year (Stereogum recently ranked it #1 on its top 50 of 2014 so far) and arguably even more vivid than its densely rich predecessors. Replete with despair, beauty, humor, depth, and honesty, Benji comes across like a great, albeit semi-depressing novel—a stream of consciousness book on tape with sparse instrumentation and inescapable imagery. And with the Hopscotch date slated as Sun Kil Moon's only scheduled performance in the Southeast in 2014, we look forward to seeing it all unfold in person.