Indian Jewelry

Houston, Texas outfit Indian Jewelry centers on the core duo of guitarist/vocalist/keyboardist Erika Thrasher and guitarist/vocalist Tex Kerschen, whose work fuses drum machines, drones, noise, and strands of experimental, psychedelic, industrial, and garage rock into a dense, often melodic yet unclassifiable intensity. Additional outlets for the pair have included Swarm of Angels, Turquoise Diamonds, Japanix, the Corpses of Waco, the Perpetual War Party Band, and NTX + Electric, though the fundamental approach stayed consistent across every guise. Their earliest recording appeared in 2002 as the Swarm of Angels 7" Plessure on Girlgang Records, the same imprint that later documented Indian Jewelry’s alternate projects. Kerschen, Thrasher, and associates continued issuing singles under the Swarm of Angels and NTX banners until roughly 2005, at which point Indian Jewelry became the primary vehicle. Girlgang marked that transition by releasing the CD-R Sangles Redux, a collection spanning 2002–2004 material. The group’s first proper album, Invasive Exotics, surfaced in 2006 via Monitor Records; the same year they contributed to the Tigerbeat6 compilation Let’s Lazertag Sometime. Tigerbeat6 reissued the 2003 NTX + Electric album We Are the Wild Beast in early 2008, and Indian Jewelry followed that May with its third full-length, Free Gold!. The more streamlined, synth-driven Totaled arrived in spring 2010. Two years afterward, the Reverberation Appreciation Society issued Peel It, a reflective set shaped by Thrasher and Kerschen’s experience of parenthood. By the time of 2015’s Doing Easy, the lineup also incorporated Mary Sharpe and Richard Durham, yielding some of the band’s most concentrated yet mind-bending material.