Bastiengoat lays down "timate", a silky sleek EP of beats for the club (or bedroom)
Bastiengoat lays down "timate", a silky sleek EP of beats for the club (or bedroom)
The Watershed lights up a trio of chill hip hop singles; Grand-O dedicates "Oro" to late SF rapper Dru Hush; ONIKHO shines on indietronica gem “Rodeo Pantheon”
Omicron be damned, it feels good to bounce around the Bay Area, music to music.
Last Friday, I met Oakland producer ONIKHO through a friend—check out her new single below—and she brimmed with excitement sharing that she’d be singing with the Awesome Orchestra at Freight & Salvage on Sunday. When I returned the excitement and started asking about times and tickets, she was like, it’s sold out. Good!
Later, I cruised with a few friends to T4T LUV NRG, featuring Bored Lord (one of the year’s top 21 breakthrough DJs, according to Mixmag) opening up for Eris Drew and Octo Octa. Were they spinning exclusively vinyl all night long? The skips made it seem so, but the house, techno, and breaks cut so deep it didn’t matter. We danced and danced.
Finally, a couple days ago, I met up with a few friends at North Oakland’s White Horse Inn—the oldest continuously operating gay bar in the U.S.—to see San Francisco Ain’t Dead alt rock darlings April Magazine open up for Dummy (touring from LA) and Body Double, an Oakland post-punk monster led by Candace Lazarou.
Voice and orchestra. Vinyl and bass. Pop, punk, and pure people power.
Peace,
ronny
THAT NEW NEW
That’s some silk. Oakland producer bastiengoat released timate, a slinky four-track EP of juke, garage, and hard house. My favorite track, flanked with syncopated piano and irresistible synths, may be the juicy two-stepper “page st.” You can catch bastiengoat spinning with Bored Lord and IDHAZ tomorrow at Vinyl Dreams.
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Spark it up: Brycon and Equipto team up with Phesto Dee of Souls of Mischief and Hieroglyphics on the laidback “Spliff Part 2 / Jazz Radio Interlude” b/w “Wilderness,” two cuts from the upcoming full-length Can't Stay Perched All the Time. Out January 24.
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“A set of guidelines to live by if you want to have days and nights filled with stoic gluttony.” Also from the Watershed collective, MC-producer duo Professa Gabel and Monk HTS link up and launch to space on another chill hip hop track: “10 Flights.”
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“This Whole Project Is A Reminder To Myself To Stay Pure With This Rap Shit. That’s Why I’m In Front Of The Laundry Mat, Its Symbolism To Stay Clean; To Stay Golden.” Dedicated to fellow SF rapper Dru Hush, Oro is a seven-track EP of mostly downtempo, soulful rockers from Grand-O.
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Can’t get this one out of my head. ONIKHO released “Rodeo Pantheon”, an indietronica ice cream sundae for the ears. Not that it’s all superficial sweetness: Since finding solace in music production after being paralyzed in a car accident in 2014, the Oakland artist says she wrote this song “while climbing out of a deep mental health hole. Navigating medication to get your brain straight is a journey that deserves more conversation.”
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“All pretty personal, pretty cathartic.” onmommas released SPEAK SIGILS 2, a compilation of four short bassy club mixes, ranging from hip hop to house to all the ass-shaking goodness in between. You can catch onmommas spinning live on her Lower Grand Radio show Club Proxii every fourth Saturday at 5 PM.
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“The struggle for freedom is the next best thing to actually being free.” Leading with this quote from Lean Alejandro, a left-wing political activist from the Philippines, “Tempestuous” is an industrial punk rager by Silakbo. For more from the only Bay Area DIY distro and label focused on Philippine and Filipino-American punk, check out Aklasan Records.
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NO BIAS, which started firing up some of the best dance music in the Bay a year ago, released “ONLINE” by DJ SHADOWBAN, wasting none of its three minutes in delivering the sharpest cuts of hardcore breaks this week.
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Are you a fan of legendary avant-garde saxophonist John Zorn? Well, maybe you won’t be too happy to hear that Smartmeter has a new piece in three parts entitled “i killed john zorn.” Or maybe you’ll just love it. The suite make up the thrilling conclusion to Smartmeter’s latest 25-min demo tape of grindcore.
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Kojjio by Tyler Barber made Bandcamp’s New & Notable this week for its “irresistible hooks across sprightly blips of synth.” The Oakland producer says the EP’s three tracks originally began as an “homage to the arpeggio,” but eventually transformed into these pleasant ambient pop pieces.
MAYBE MISSED
A sonic reign of terror clawing deep into the most wretched, abominable, and hideous realms of human nature. Nihilistic beyond comprehension.
When I was last in New York, my friend brought me to this over-the-top metal bar in Brooklyn called Saint Vitus to see a double bill: Hell and Mizmor. Needless to say, I now listen closely when he talks about metal. As he saw me digging into Bay Area music over the past year, he offered this as his favorite metal album from Oakland. Obviously, it rips.
Dearth—described in their label’s ceaselessly incredible promo materials as “black death metal plague wielders”—released To Crown All Befoulment in 2020. From the brief snare drum herald on the first two seconds of the album to the last cymbal crash, it’s a pounding, wailing horror glorifying the end of the human race. All the vinyl has been snatched up, but Oakland label Sentient Ruin still has matte laminated digisleeve CD copies.
CLASSICS
“Sounds like Human League stuck in a car with the Residents.” Pretty much. Originally released in 1981 with a young girl on the cover, Music for Teenage Sects cleaned up its name (kinda) and art for its re-release, now being distributed by Dark Entries Records.
A side project by David Javelosa and his bandmates in Los Microwaves, Baby Buddha experiments with new wave and post-punk in the most give-no-fucks manner possible. The unexpected covers of country classics “Stand by Your Man” and “Your Cheatin’ Heart” (originally by Tammy Wynette and Hank Williams, respectively) plus Elvis Presley staple “All Shook Up” stand out simply because they demonstrate how an artist can so completely make a song their own while keeping it recognizable. Throw the jukebox in the blender and turn up the volume, cool?
BEST OF THE BAY 2021
Listen to a mix (part 1 of 2) of the year’s best music from Oakland, SF, and the Bay, recorded live on Lower Grand Radio. Kicks off with hip hop, moves into soul and jazz and dance, and then finally descends into a downtempo, ambient comedown.