Celebrated SF punk rockers Pardoner light up the summer with "Peace Loving People"

Bombay meets San Francisco on Baalti's new EP, Mammatus soar far above the Santa Cruz Mountains, and Top Secret Robot Alliance delivers dance punk love

Jun 30, 2023

We’re hosting a special show next Saturday. Not tomorrow. The Saturday after that.

It’s curated by the Bay’s psychedelic folk pixie Mae Powell.

We’re super duper excited.

See you there?

— White Crate

GRITTY FUZZY MELODIC

In their relatively brief existence as a band, Pardoner went quickly from local fame to wider appreciation; releasing an album with Father/Daughter and Pitchfork recognition by 2017. They’re one of the most celebrated San Francisco bands of the last half-decade. And now they’re back with new album Peace Loving People.

Pardoner is described by their label as having an “angular weirdness” and by Stereogum as “indie rock classicists”, but neither of those descriptors quickly and neatly sum them up. Musically speaking, they never stay in one place too long. While they’re not wildly detouring into disparate genres like flamenco or something, they do constantly exhibit a surprising duality: They’re somehow gritty and fuzzy but arrestingly melodic at the same time. This is made explicit on the single “Are You Free Tonight?” – after meandering in typical verse-chorus-verse construction for a minute, it veers abruptly into the kind of thrashing balls-to-the-wall punk you’d expect from them. OK – maybe that’s the angle they were talking about.

— Jody Amable

MASALA SLAPS

“There isn’t a clear Bombay sound or an SF sound yet when it comes to electronic music. I think that’s really cool and indicative of the diversity of sound in the emerging talent in both cities and probably makes a lot more space for exploration.”
— Mihir Chauhan in Mixmag

Mihir Chauhan and Jaiveer Singh of the SF-based producer/DJ duo Baalti provide so many choice quotes in their new interview with Mixmag that it was hard to pick just one. Aside from their comparison of Bombay and Bay Area dance music scenes, one of the best quotes revolves around their concept of “masala.” Though stateside we’re probably most familiar with masala chai and chicken masala, masala can describe any number of spice mixtures.

Baalti extends this concept even further by envisioning the power of masala when concocting their rich, varied, and flavorful sonic blends. On Better Together, a five-track EP releasing this week, the duo continues crossing Bollywood and South Asian samples with deep house, breaks, and electro. Does it slap? Yes, yes it does.

— Ronny Kerr

SHRED CITY

Four songs. Not one less than fifteen minutes. Expanding Majesty is the epic new full-length album by Santa Cruz trio Mammatus on Silver Current Records, offering a heavy psych rock journey through the stratosphere. The title track is straight up shred city, while the second piece “By the Sky” coasts on dreamy, ethereal wings. The more you listen, the more the minutes seem to melt away, as the jams roll on and on and on like a dragon into the dawn.

— Ronny Kerr

DEAR DANCE PUNK LOVERS

“Dance your pain
Dance your strength”

Dear dance punk lovers: If you like it a little bit silly and a little bit power metal, this one’s for you. Top Secret Robot Alliance, a project by Dion Thünder and Lucious Sandstone, just released God’s Gift III Dance, taking it back to the 1980s (or maybe just the mid-2000s) for a synthy good time. Produced by Oakland producer Moto Tembo to give it that extra house music thump, the EP features five songs all about dance—”Dance Floor” “Dance Against the Machine”, “Dance Yr Pain”, “Do U Wanna Dance (with One of Us)”, “Choose Dance”—in case you didn’t know the point of this music.