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A packed viewers beneath a lightning-filled sky gathered on the Mohawk Austin on June 16 to look at a number of equally riveting and haunting music acts represented by San Francisco-based label The Flenser. With excessive expectations as the one sold-out showcase for the 2023 Oblivion Entry Pageant, the memorable lineup delivered an exhilarating nearly seven-hour exhibition of among the world’s finest darkish music. 

Ragana

The talent-stacked evening kicked off with the queer, anti-fascist, darkish steel energy duo from Olympia, Washington. By way of the intense Austin summer time warmth, the pair unleashed a melancholic wrath on stage that cradled the viewers with a well-recognized dreadful vacancy. Channeling queer and feminist themes inside their work, the lyrics’ emotional depth echoed with each soundwave. A refreshing new Flenser signee, the duo proved their expertise in pushing darkish music to new heights. 

Bosse-de-Nage

San Francisco’s elusive experimental black-metal group gave a uncommon efficiency filled with harrowing vocals with wealthy lyrics, dynamic drums and piercing guitar riffs. Having solely carried out about 20 reside live shows all through their round 15-year profession, the paranormal group carried out songs throughout their five-album discography. The infernal soundscape radiated into the sky as patrons of the Mohawk celebrated the sturdy steel act. 

Planning For Burial

Thom Wasluck’s post-metal ambient venture from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, took the stage subsequent. Wasluck delivered a hypnotically passionate efficiency as his elbow-length hair whipped across the stage. With solely a guitar, an array of pedals and a small blue suitcase overflowing with chords, the atmospheric ambient sounds of his spectacular solo act rang all through the venue. Filling an area with such compelling droning sounds proved to be a formidable feat, however after 300 performances as Planning For Burial, Wasluck’s beautiful stage presence ought to come as no shock. 

Mamaleek

Shrouded in multi-colored face masks, the faceless band from San Francisco and Beirut rocked the stage in homage to Eric Livingston, a band member who died in early March. The efficiency started with a robust trumpet solo because the quartet threw down some piercing darkish steel tracks. The band’s infusion of jazz and digital music into black steel blared into the evening as followers screamed alongside. After the bewitching efficiency, the band threw luggage of sweet into the group, leaving the sonically bitter efficiency on a candy observe. 

Chat Pile

One of the vital thrilling bands of the evening from Oklahoma Metropolis exploded onto the stage with sonic ferocity after an hour-long thunderstorm delay. The efficiency actually felt as if the band expelled poisonous waste from their amps as lead singer, Raygun Busch, freakishly strutted round stage, shirtless in cargo shorts, screeching into his mic. Between songs, Busch praised Texas horror movies like “Texas Chainsaw Bloodbath” for his or her profound affect on the band’s work and the artwork of filmmaking. The band’s quick set displayed their refreshingly hellish sound and the thrilling promise of the band’s future. 

Have a Good Life

The evening got here to a detailed with a efficiency from the legendary depressive, post-industrial, doom-gaze band from Middletown, Connecticut. The electrical efficiency rang deep into the evening as vocalist Dan Barrett passionately flung himself round stage, intermittently chanting the band’s profoundly miserable lyrics and falling a number of instances. Colourful summary projections coated the musicians as they performed vividly layered songs wealthy with bone-rattling bass strains, melancholic keys and atmospheric guitar. Have a Good Life ended the evening with a dramatic and heartfelt bombshell of a efficiency.

A Friday Supreme Court docket choice maintains protections on entry to the abortion medicine mifepristone whereas the standing of the capsule is set in decrease courts following a choice issued by a U.S. District Choose that might have suspended the Meals and Drug Administration’s 22-year approval of it. 

Earlier this month, U.S. District Choose Matthew Kacsmaryk of Amarillo, Texas handed down his opinion in Alliance for Hippocratic Medication v. Meals and Drug Administration, successfully reversing the FDA’s approval of the abortion drug.

“The district courtroom held that the FDA acted unlawfully when it permitted mifepristone first in 2000 after which in a collection of subsequent approvals in 2016, 2019, 2021 and 2023,” mentioned Steven Vladeck, the Charles Alan Wright Chair of Federal Courts on the UT Legislation College. “The impact of the rule would have been to mainly make it illegal for mifepristone to be distributed, which might fairly rapidly have meant that it will turn out to be inconceivable to legally get hold of it nearly anyplace within the nation.”

Following the choice, the Biden administration rapidly appealed, and the case now sits within the U.S. Court docket of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit for evaluation. Vladeck mentioned because the case is pending within the Fifth Circuit, the FDA and a sponsor of mifepristone, Danco Laboratories, requested the courtroom to challenge a keep to freeze Choose Kacsmaryk’s prior ruling whereas the attraction is made. 

“The Fifth Circuit granted the keep partially, however denied it partially, in ways in which would have been, I believe, actually complicated had it gone into impact,” Vladeck mentioned. “So the FDA and Danco requested the Supreme Court docket for a keep and (the Court docket) sided with the FDA and Danco and stayed all of Choose Kacsmaryk’s rule for nonetheless lengthy it takes for the attraction to work its means by the courts.”

Vladeck mentioned the prospect of the case making its means again to the Supreme Court docket for a full evaluation is just not a given. The courtroom might not need to become involved in a nationwide debate over mifepristone, however there are additionally massive procedural points – like whether or not the plaintiffs have standing – that might maintain the case from reaching the courtroom even when they wished to listen to it. 

“I don’t know that the case goes to go ahead,” Vladeck mentioned. “It’s doable to me that the Supreme Court docket doesn’t find yourself taking it up on the deserves if the Fifth Circuit sides with the federal government on attraction.”

The Fifth Circuit is about to listen to oral arguments Might 17 after which hand down its choice at an undetermined date.

“The important thing level is that nothing the Fifth Circuit does goes to alter the established order (of mifepristone) as a result of the Supreme Court docket has frozen the established order till and except the case comes again to the Supreme Court docket,” Vladeck mentioned.