Record-release roundup

The Touchies’ release party for Mess with the Unicorn, Get the Horn happens June 20 at the Casbah, on a bill that includes Dirty Sirens and Chica Diabla. With its first single “Freak Time” now streaming online, the album includes covers of songs by the Jesus and Mary Chain and Saturday-morning TV characters the Banana Splits.

Also out this week is Neon Cough’s New Adventures in Wi-Fi. “The rib cage on the album cover is a reference to the anatomical theme that runs throughout the album,” says main man Dan Luko. “There are songs on there about hearts, brains, lungs, and skulls. The album was built one piece at a time, like Frankenstein’s monster.”

Heavy Glow’s first album, 2011’s Midnight Moan, is being re-released on CD for the first time on June 26, in an edition limited to 100 copies.

New Archaic frontman Tolan Shaw launches his new self-titled solo effort with a June 27 show at the Belly Up in Solana Beach.

Experimental drone rockers Monochromacy will debut their Cement Cathedrals EP (via Sam Lopez’s label Stay Strange) on June 30 at the Void in City Heights, where they’ll have a cassette edition containing a “bonus” track. June 30 also finds new-age jazz duo Keltik Kharma (violinist Chris Vitas and guitarist Fred Benedetti) playing a release party at Dizzy’s in Pacific Beach for their new full-length Cocktail Kharma.

Mike Wofford’s solo piano album It’s Personal debuts June 30 at the Athenaeum Music and Arts Library. “For this concert,” he says, “I will be playing material from the new CD, which includes original pieces of my own as well as others by composers whom I admire from the jazz and pop world.”

On July 14 at Lestat’s, soulful singer/songwriter Chris Carpenter shares the stage with several local ladies at the release party for Up All Night, including Runaways songwriter Roni Lee and violinist Jamie Shadowlight (both of whom play on the album), and drummer Haley Allen (Black Market III, Kiss & Yell). “We’ll be playing the entire album, plus bonuses,” says Carpenter.

The Belly Up will host Candye Kane’s July 23 release party for Coming Out Swingin’, engineered and co-produced by her ex-husband Thomas Yearsley and songwriting collaborator Laura Chavez.

Chris Leyva drops his Summer of Life album on July 27 at Brick by Brick.