Schedule Outside Lands trip with playlists of our favorite artists

Black Mountain, "Bright Lights"
This Canadian group could have a second career as surveyors, because for them it's all about topography and geology. The band liquefies and calcifies layer upon layer of prog-psych-stoner-space orchestration.

Liars, "Cycle Time"
Reformed and deformed "dance-punks," industrially informed Liars have developed from phantasmagorical and difficult to taut yet approachable. At their best they are ritualistic, petulant, abstract, and concrete.

Tim Gough

Details

Friday, Aug. 22–Sunday, Aug. 24, times vary. $85-$225.50, www.sfoutsidelands.com.

Golden Gate Park

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More About

• Manu Chao
• Outside Lands Music & Arts Festival
• Jack Johnson
• Donavon Frankenreiter
• Ben Harper

Rodrigo y Gabriela, "Orion"
Really more of a goatee stroker with its coffeehouse undertones, this Mexican acoustic duo still manages to shred through metal and folk, reworking both into a flourished weave.

Radiohead Songs That Could Be Interpreted as Environmental Statements

"Fake Plastic Trees"
The little band from Oxfordshire, England — Friday's headliners — doesn't want us to leave our children a planet that's barren save for rubber plants and rubber plans.

"Paranoid Android"
Undoubtedly, more relaxed telecommuting policies could save fossil fuels, helping heal the ozone layer. And digital distribution means less petroleum-based packaging.

"Weird Fishes/Arpeggi"
With the lyrics "I get eaten by the worms/And weird fishes," singer Thom Yorke is definitely making a plea for recycling and community composting.

You, Me, and a Microphone Make Three

Bon Iver, "The Wolves (Acts I and II)"
Acoustic guitar can quickly go from the most affectionate to the most austere of companions when isolated. But even as he was being laid bare by the elements of a sojourn in the woods, singer-songwriter Bon Iver wrapped himself in layers of falsetto, a flannel of harmony, so to speak, and sweater weather took on tangible tones.

Donavon Frankenreiter, "Free"
The weather is rarely inclement for this surfing and singing contemporary of fellow Outside Lands performer Jack Johnson. The world's worst irritation would probably be sand in his shorts, which could explain the funky shimmy of Frankenreiter's six-string, which sounds one soft-focus montage away from what beach bums might consider billowy bliss.

Goapele, "Don't Be Shy"
Honing supple, midtempo meditations and honeyed funk, the Oakland songstress has been a presence on the indie neo-soul scene of the new millennium. She works melody between the gyrations of insistent beats and solvent instrumentation. Like the fog that hangs in our region, she's all about blanketing and bundling, crisp and flushed currents mingling.

Manu Chao, "Politik Kills"
Though capable of a righteous skank or squall, Barcelona-based bard Manu Chao never muddies the message. The multiculturally charged Chao clings to what is sacred — traditions, language, country — channeling the indigenous and indignant to globalization.