Fans of Loretta Lynn and Glen Campbell, say hello to Noelle & the Deserters

Take one last look back at 2024 with a new two-hour mix of all-Bay Area music, plus reviews of drum breaks by Reed Michaels and grime by Darama & Kush Arora

Jan 16, 2025

Part two is out! A NEW two-hour mix of our favorite music from the Bay Area in 2024.

This second part starts where the first part left off, weaving through club dance sounds, hip hop and hyphy, and landing in an ambient and experimental zone. Also check out the full lists of our favorite music from the Bay Area in 2024.

— White Crate

CLASSIC COUNTRY JOYRIDE

If you like your Natalies more Merchant than Imbruglia, your Dollys more Parton than Hello, and your Hank Williamses more I than III, then Noelle & the Deserters’ debut album High Desert Daydream is for you.

Like the first pistol shot at at the races, opening track “Born in the Morning” cuts straight to the chase, setting the tone for a consistently entertaining joyride down all roads country and country-adjacent. Here and throughout the album Noelle Fiore sings clever turns of phrase like: “I risked my heart on red, lost my shirt on black, should’ve gone all in on blue.”

“Church of Dog”—an ode to the spiritual release in adopting a puppy—veers into nearly too-silly territory, but its open-hearted sincerity proves undeniable. The call-and-response, harmonies, and guitar gunslinging of Graham Norwood certainly don’t hurt either. The rest of the band is fantastic too, with co-producer and owner of SF’s Speakeasy Studios (who released the record) Alicia Vanden Heuvel on bass, Dave Cuetter on pedal steel guitar, and Noelle’s own husband Jerry Fiore on drums.

Other highlights include “Taos” (a warm ode to the New Mexico city), “Watching Billboards Change” (a weary takedown of long work commutes), and “Wonder Why I Wander” (which winds its way through an unpredictable path before bonking you on the head with a delightful left-field key change in its final third). And it’s a country record, so of course there’s a murder ballad via the spooky dirge “Now I’ve Got You.”

For fans of classic country like early 70s Loretta Lynn or Glen Campbell tackling woes both modern and timeless, Noelle & the Deserters has you covered.

— Ben Einstein

IT’S THE BREAKS

What makes an album like Donuts by J Dilla so supremely relistenable? It’s the beats. The rhythms. The breaks.

Tapping into that magical power of timekeeping, Maximalist Minimalisms, Vol 1 is a new collection of almost entirely instrumental drum breaks by Reed Michaels, laying bare the kind of funky sonic grooves that form the backbone of jazz, funk, and hip hop. Michaels—who has played with Secret Sidewalk, The M-Tet, and several other funky groups in the Bay—threads between his drum playing here the lightest traces of basslines, sound effects, and kalimba (also known as mbira or finger piano), adding the faintest touch of ambient musicality to the record.

This is a drum library, not intended to be a work of art, so you could say it’s really meant for musicians in training or maybe for DJs and producers to mine for mixing. But (and maybe this is a drummer’s bias) it’s also a joy to listen to like any other album, a gratifying platter of rhythmic delicacies.

Join Reed Michaels and Mophono for a joint record release party along with Heavy Arts Ensemble at Neck of the Woods on Saturday, January 25.

— Ronny Kerr

BERKELEY/LONDON GRIME

On the three-track EP Rattle, Berkeley’s Kush Arora (aka Only Now) once again offers up his characteristically exhilarating industrial dancehall, this time in collaboration with London producer Darama. Both artists are well-known for their deconstructions of South Asian beats—and finely polished productions that leave the listener breathless. Coming in vicious and potent from the start, “Heart Meter” builds techno riddims around stuttering flute and a pinging heart meter, the alternating noise and silence suggesting the delicate line between life and death. Title track “Rattle” dips into a dubby whirlpool of Punjabi tumbi flute, amapiano, and grime. And “Grid” races to the finish, making no qualms about its debt to first-ever grime track “Pulse X.”