Austin City Limits

Austin City Limits kicks off Season 43 October 7 on PBS and we are excited to announce a bounty of new fall tapings, featuring some of today’s most thrilling live acts joining this season’s broadcast line-up.

On Oct. 14, we open our doors to rap giants Run The Jewels. On Oct. 23, we welcome country superstar Chris Stapleton. Oct. 29 brings Austin hometown heroes Shinyribs, while Nov. 1 welcomes alt.rock icons LCD Soundsystem.  All four acts are making their ACL debuts.

Well known for their massively energetic live sets, Run The Jewels make their ACL debut in support of their third album, the aptly-titled Run The Jewels 3. El-­P and Killer Mike, two of the most distinctive and celebrated names in rap, might have seemed like an unlikely pairing on paper, but the duo subverted and pulverized all expectations with their critically lauded Run The Jewels collaborative LP in 2013. Tapping into the creative synergy they’d discovered in 2012 on Mike’s R.A.P. Music album (produced by El-­P) and El’s Cancer 4 Cure album (featuring Mike), Run The Jewels cemented their musical alliance with a set of uncompromisingly raw, forward thinking hip-­hop, garnering limitless critical accolades including the likes of Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, XXL, SPIN, New York Times, and many more. Uncut calls Run The Jewels 3 “the pair’s most focused and mature work to date,” while DIY says it’s “in equal parts an unequivocal call to arms and an excitable ode to a wonderful friendship.” New Musical Express comments, “There’s tons of fun to be had from absorbing the duo’s fury, and El-P’s sci-fi beats are as thrillingly big ‘n’ bad as ever,” while The Wire simply notes, “Every track is a killer.” Vice insists that RTJ is “funnier, hookier, and kinder as well as brainier and more political” than before, while AllMusic proclaims “They’re so good at this that it seems almost unfair in its effortlessness.” Witness it for yourself on Oct. 14.  

Kentucky-born musician Chris Stapleton is one of Nashville’s most respected and beloved musicians. Since releasing his now double Platinum debut solo album Traveller in 2015, Stapleton has received multiple Grammy, CMA and ACM Awards and remains one of the most critically praised musicians of his time. His sophomore follow up, From A Room: Volume 1, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Country Albums chart upon its release and, with it’s Gold certification, remains the strongest-selling country album of 2017. Rolling Stone calls the album “strikingly focused, sonically and thematically” while The New York Times praises, “Like Traveller, From A Room is earthen, rich with tradition, has a tactile intensity and is carefully measured.” A second album, From A Room: Volume 2, will be released later this year. More details to be announced soon. In celebration of the music, “Chris Stapleton’s All-American Road Show” tour is currently underway and will span throughout 2017. Of a recent performance, the Seattle Times declared, “Stapleton dazzled the sold-out crowd with a barrage of songs that defy easy categorization while receiving the kind of deafening cheers reserved for superstars.” Come see for yourself on October 23.

Led by Beaumont, Texas native Kevin Russell, who last appeared on ACL in 2007 with the Gourds, Austin’s Shinyribs began as a side project in 2007 before becoming Russell’s full-time concern following the Gourds’ dissolution in 2013. This year, the now eight-person Shinyribs dosed fans with the exuberant swamp-pop soul-funk of their fourth release, I Got Your Medicine. Tracked at Houston’s legendary Sugar Hill Recording Studios, it carries a New Orleans R&B vibe — with extra gris-gris added by Russell’s co-producer, Jimbo Mathus, late of the Squirrel Nut Zippers. AllMusic calls the album “funny, heartfelt, and dirty, a retro-soul album that never feels stuck in the past,” while the Austin American Statesman names it as one of 2017’s best albums so far. The band puts a gospel groove on “Don’t Leave It a Lie,” and throw several retro influences into Ted Hawkins’ “I Gave Up All I Had.” The syncopated sexiness of “A Certain Girl,” an Allen Toussaint cover, a gorgeous rendering of the Toussaint McCall/Patrick Robinson ballad “Nothing Takes the Place of You” and the bluesy “I Knew It All Along,” Russell’s very-successful attempt to write “just a real good done-me-wrong soul song,” are equally captivating. “Tub Gut Stomp and Red-eyed Soul” gets its title from Russell’s definition of his musical style; an energetic N’awlins romper, it’s filled with “freak-out juice” and “Jimbo stew.” Gospel rave-up “The Cross Is Boss” puts a clever, slightly satirical finish on the affair; Russell says the song — like the album — is meant as a reminder that not every issue has to be taken so seriously. “A lot of people are so tightly wound, they can’t let themselves go,” he says. “I can demonstrate to them that you can shake your hips, roll around on the floor, scream and shout, and it’s OK: people will still accept you. It’s just music; relax and have some fun.” Join the party on Oct. 29.

LCD Soundsystem makes its Austin City Limits TV debut in the wake of its fourth LP and first #1 album, American Dream. James Murphy founded LCD Soundsystem in 2002, releasing the classic 12-inch single “Losing My Edge,” a relentless groove topped with a monologue cataloguing the trendsetting bands and rare records discovered by its protagonist in his younger, cooler prime. LCD’s self-titled debut album followed in 2005, featuring “Losing My Edge,” “Movement,” and the Grammy-nominated “Daft Punk is Playing in My House.” 2007’s Grammy-nominated Sound of Silver became the most critically-acclaimed album of that year on the strength of the anthemic “All My Friends”–hailed by Time magazine as one of the 10 Best Songs of 2007 and covered in tribute by the likes of John Cale and Franz Ferdinand—as well as “Someone Great,” “Get Innocuous!” and “New York, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down.” Featuring “Dance Yrself Clean,” “I Can Change” and “Home,” LCD Soundsystem’s third album, 2010’s This is Happening was the band’s first to break the U.S. Top 10. This Is Happening was supported by a massive world tour culminating in a marathon farewell show at Madison Square Garden, documented by the feature film Shut Up and Play the Hits and the audio compendium The Long Goodbye. LCD Soundsystem marked the end of its hiatus with the surprise 2015 “Christmas Will Break Your Heart” holiday single, followed by a 2016 tour featuring headline appearances at Coachella, Lollapalooza and more. On September 1, 2017 the band released “the timeless, intricate album James Murphy’s fans always wanted but never expected” (Esquire): American Dream. Preceded by the singles “Call the Police,” “American Dream” and “Tonite,” American Dream moved Rolling Stone to rave “They signed off after three of this century’s finest albums… American Dream is on the same level,” while Entertainment Weekly hailed the record as “exactly the album 2017 needs—urgent, angry, achingly self-aware. And catchy as hell, too.” See and hear why on Nov. 1.  

Want to be part of our audience? We will post information on how to get free passes about a week before each taping. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter for notice of postings.

Austin City Limits is proud to announce three new tapings. Singer and songwriter Robert Plant, returns to our stage for the first time in more than a decade on March 21, singer/multi-instrumentalist Rhiannon Giddens makes her ACL debut on April 25 and rock stars Florence + the Machine come back for their second visit on May 20 .

Plant travels to ACL with his band The Sensational Space Shifters as part of his “Southern Journey,” visiting the “places that gave birth to so much of the music I love,” with a select run of live dates dubbed the “Blues…Roots and Hollers” tour. The music icon celebrates the American South as a continuation of the eclectic soulful journey he began since leaving Led Zeppelin decades ago. He has spent many years exploring Americana music and America itself, traveling though the U.S. and collaborating with roots musicians, including Alison Krauss for 2009’s six-time Grammy-winning album Raising Sand.  Plant’s acclaimed 10th solo album, 2014’s lullaby and…The Ceaseless Roar, combines his love of everything from American country blues and rockabilly to British folk, Moroccan trance music and West African griot into a vision all his own.  Joined by the diverse, versatile six-piece band The Sensational Space Shifters, Plant adds, “Having just begun work on our new album, we thought we’d take time out to raise a little sand and welcome springtime with one more adventure, another celebration of life and song.”  

Rhiannon Giddens makes her highly-anticipated ACL debut performing tracks from her release Tomorrow Is My Turn, a 2016 Grammy nominee for Best Folk Album. The widely acclaimed album, produced by T Bone Burnett, marks Giddens’ solo debut after a decade in the string band the Carolina Chocolate Drops.  Rolling Stone calls the debut “a spiritual archaeology of American racial and economic struggle via sublime covers of songs identified with Nina Simone, Patsy Cline and Elizabeth Cotten.”  Reviving, interpreting, and recasting traditional material from a variety of sources has been central to Giddens’ career.  The Piedmont, NC native’s work with the Carolina Chocolate Drops has investigated and promoted the foundational role African-American artists have played in folk-music history, while making recordings that are vital, contemporary, and exuberant. With her solo album Tomorrow Is My Turn, the classically trained singer has embarked on a more personal sort of journey, but with a nod towards history as well. She’s chosen from a broad array of songs associated with the female artists who are her musical and spiritual forebears for an album that serves both as patchwork autobiography and as a tribute to these artists and their legacies. Through the process of creating this album with a disparate set of musicians and practically a century’s worth of songs, she also illustrates the democratic way American music has taken shape and evolved: “The strength of American music is in bringing all these things together—Celtic, gospel, jazz, folk—all these things that make American music great,” she says. “Putting them side by side and having a production that pulls it all into a cohesive whole shows how related all these things are.” We’re thrilled to follow her journey for her ACL debut on Apr. 25.

Florence + the Machine had a gigantic 2015, seeing the release of her first U.S. #1 album How Big How Blue How Beautiful and nominations for five Grammy Awards. Released to extensive critical acclaim and named to year-end best lists from Rolling Stone, NPR Music, SPIN, American Songwriter, Consequence of Sound and more, the album landed Welch on Coachella’s main stage in a standout performance, bookings all over TV and in front of her biggest audiences thus far. Written and recorded over the course of 2014 and produced by Markus Dravs (Björk, Arcade Fire, Coldplay), the album follows Florence’s globally acclaimed Lungs (2009) and Ceremonials (2011). Called “Florence Welch’s most personal, vulnerable and moving album to date” by Rolling Stone, How Big How Blue How Beautiful reached #1 in the U.K. (her third #1 album in the country), Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Switzerland and Canada after reaching the top spot on iTunes charts in 24 countries worldwide. The album features the massive hit “Ship to Wreck,” which Fader calls “the best song of her career” and The Daily Beast calls “a testament to her ability to straddle pop and rock, convention and alternative.” As anyone who saw Florence’s previous appearance on ACL knows, her taping will present, as Entertainment Weekly puts it, “an outsize physical presence who doesn’t so much sing as emit deeply emoted sounds out of some wellspring of the collective unconscious who commanded her space and demanded undivided attention.” We’re happy to welcome back Florence + the Machine on May 20.

Want to be part of our audience? We will post information on how to get free passes about a week before the taping. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter for notice of postings.