Bay Area jazz rap, folksy cumbia, and Western ambient to start your 2025 right
Check out new reviews of releases by Kahj & Versâam, Chuck Prophet and ¿Qiensave?, and David Grunzweig—plus our weekly show recommendations
Our hearts go out to friends, family, and community in Los Angeles. We know many are suffering, but one story that’s dear to us at White Crate is that Brijean (an incredible musician and artist who previously designed flyer artwork for our WC series) and her partner Dougie Stu lost everything in the Eaton fire—her home, music studio and instruments, family heirlooms, everything.
If you have the means, please consider contributing to their fundraiser. Much love.
— White Crate
FIERCE POETIC JAZZ RAP
“This shit from Oakland with love”
Big Boi played a tiny secret show in SF last weekend, but that wasn’t the Bay’s best hip hop show of the new year. That honor goes to Kahj & Versâam, who played a passionate, celebratory show in the Joe Henderson Lab as part of SMARTBOMB’s full venue takeover of SFJAZZ. The Oakland duo ran through tracks from the EP Kahj Loves You, featuring Kahj spitting self-reflections with a voice like polished stone: You know they mean it because they say writing saved their life. The verses arrive over Versâam’s crisp, jazz-inflected boom bap, making for a classic pairing of fierce poetic delivery and smoothed out beats.
As Kahj pointed out at the show, one of the EP highlights is “Good Grief,” featuring a verse from Versâam plus enchanting vocals from Samplelov on the hook. The other feature is also a delight, bringing in Oddity (another local jazz-meets-rap creator whose release Oddisea, Pt. 4 was one of our favorite albums of 2024).
— Ronny Kerr
FOLKSY CUMBIA CROSSROADS
It’s something of a surprising pairing, the collaboration between veteran Bay Area singer-songwriter Chuck Prophet and Salinas-based cumbia band ¿Qiensave?. In practice, however, their joint album Wake the Dead feels completely natural—a fluid and thrilling meeting at a musical crossroads, like two drivers meeting for an exchange at a dusty desert intersection.
On the 2024 album, Prophet carries a swagger somewhere between Beck and Jonathan Richman, confident and full of life. His songs are gratifying and hooky with a timeless quality. Sometimes he’s shooting for the storytelling specificity you’d find in a Tom Petty or Paul Simon vignette (“Sally Was a Cop”); other times he tackles emotional and big picture stuff, like the numbness felt when lost love fades into the realm of memory (“First Came The Thunder”). ¿Qiensave? adds enchanting lead lines, rock-solid grooves, and a vocal presence that both responds to and harmonizes with Prophet’s lyrical musings.
Wake the Dead achieves two things at once: Listeners looking for a contemplative folksy record will link arms with those looking to dance to a rich, lush, and soulful cumbia record. Prophet and ¿Qiensave? have created a kind of cross-cultural sonic bridge whose goal is to make every listener feel good. It succeeds.
— Ben Einstein
WESTERN AMBIENT MUSIC
“The grand mythology of the American West unfolded itself across towering peaks, ochre hillsides of stacked sediment, ancient forests, and sparse plains of sagebrush and dry lakes. Constantly finding myself in awe of the beauty while reckoning with the living wounds of murder, displacement, and industrialization that haunt these landscapes. I felt a desire to express some of these ideas through a new set of music.” — David Grunzweig
Berkeley electronic artist and creative technologist David Grunzweig (of Tape Ghost and Night Sea) took a year off to focus on art. It’s a privilege we wish more artists could enjoy because it benefits us all. One of the rewards of his time in exploration? Palm Reader 7.
The latest in a series by LA label and event promoter New Palm, Palm Reader 7 is an hourlong ambient piece by Grunzweig recorded live at Chillits, an ambient music festival in Mendocino County hosted by a collective of Bay Area artists. Applying modular synthesis, live guitar, and looping, Grunzweig spins a sonic web conveying those complex, spacious feelings of the American West.
Nature, humanity, desolation, and surprising stirrings of life arise. Twangy guitar evokes cowboy legends but only vaguely. At the same time, vast thrums in minor key memorialize great loss. But, while deeply aware of human histories and tragedies, the piece presents neither a fully positive nor negative sheen on the experience of traveling through the West. Rather, like a boulder precariously balanced in a canyon or a whipping wind through meadows of juniper and sage, the music is just there, offering an example of tranquility in its simple way. Just being.
— Ronny Kerr
SHOW RECS
Our top show recommendations for the coming week:
[alternative] Pillowprince, Perhapsy, Mary Claire, Suver — Jan 9 at Rickshaw Stop
[experimental] arcane transmissions: opening reception (with Cone Shape Top) — Jan 10 at the Lab
[alternative] Uncle Chris, Monobloc, Sun Casino, Pateka — Jan 10 at Rickshaw Stop
[rock] Pure Hex, Badvril — Jan 10 at the 4 Star Theater
[rock] Affectionately, Malaphor, Grace Sings Sludge — Jan 10 at Eli’s Mile High Club
[techno/house] New Nostalgia — Jan 10 at Bar Part Time
[glam] First Church of the Sacred Silversexual — Jan 10-11 at Great American Music Hall
[experimental] Kin S'venta, Uriel, Raven — Jan 11 at Eli’s Mile High Club
[rock] French Cassettes, Tino Drima, Lucky — Jan 11 at the Independent
[club] Bored Lord, Three6Sashia, Rayreck, Faited — Jan 11 at Thee Stork Club
[techno] VITAMIN1000 ft. Clearcast b2b Farsight, Vertigo b2b Tom Marsi, BAD JUUJU b2b Skiis, Online Narcotics, Adware, Curb Alert — Jan 11 at secret location
[alternative] Sofia Wolfson, Marika Christine, Josiah Flores — Jan 13 at Kilowatt
[electronic] Valgur, Blood Rave, Ex-Heir, 55Castles, Ojos Rojos — Jan 9 at Thee Stork Club
SUPPORT BAY AREA MUSIC! Get access to our full Bay Area concert calendar, featuring specially curated recommendations for upcoming shows in SF and Oakland.
