Punk it up! See Brontez Purnell, Naked Roommate, Wife, and Black Thumb at El Rio on Sat Feb 8
New reviews: Jerod S. Rivera tinkers with Buchla analog synthesis, Comfort Fashion washes up on the shore with therapy rock, and Choke returns with a sonic assault
Mark your calendars for our first show of the year!
Taking place at El Rio in partnership with Talent Moat, we’re presenting queer punk multi-hyphenate artist Brontez Purnell alongside local weirdo punk rock groups Naked Roommate, Wife, and Black Thumb. Plus visuals by Zachary Rodell and White Crate’s ronny ronny ronny spinning Downtown 81-esque records between sets.
Sat Feb 8 at 9 PM
$15 at the door
21+
— White Crate
LIFE CHANGES IN SOUND
“This album comes at a time when I have begun fatherhood and all the life changes that go along with it.”
Dedicated to his wife and daughter, Dot Dash is the second full-length album by Oakland producer Jerod S. Rivera. After a couple years of creative blocks, Rivera says engaging with a Buchla 200e analog modular system helped inspire him to apply new ways of exploration to his established ways of music-making. He also collaborated with fellow local musicians Cat Laguian of Cone Shape Top (on “Seamstress Clock”), Elias Agogo (on “Rec-Rec”), Jonathan James Carr, and DJML.
The resulting work is a profound ambient techno soundscape. While the sound sources are largely electronic (save for some shakers, saxophone, and chimes), each track evolves organically, crawling or plodding along like some imaginary forms of life. Opening piece “Character Development” is soft and flitting, like leaves falling in a grove on a clear winter day. Then there’s “Motion Studies” and “Dot Dash” with the perfect timekeeping tick-tock-tick-tock of electronic music unhidden—but draped with lullaby-like keyboard melodies and sudden textural sound effects. One could fall asleep to this in the shady afternoon, or one could engage directly with its fullness, pondering the passage of time, the emergence of life, the creation of new forms.
— Ronny Kerr
ROCKING KIND OF THERAPY
“Check out this old cassette I found washed up at Baker Beach.”
Wait, what? As someone who has encountered worthwhile cassettes lying around strange places (I’m looking at you, Clifford Spleenhurfer’s Puzzle Pieces, which I once found at the local laundromat), this San Jose group’s suggestion that they randomly found a full-length album washed up on the beach immediately piqued my interest.
As it turns out, it’s a promotional line to introduce us to Salt Veridian, the new album by self-described “therapy rock” band Comfort Fashion. At times big and atmospheric (as on the opener “Banshee”), elsewhere longing and intimate as bedroom pop (e.g. “Heave”), the songs here strike at the same raw emotional indie folk rock we enjoyed in the band’s last full-length album, Cleave. The quietly grief-aware vocals, the hazy marching funk of the drums, and the layers of electronics and strings add up to a pleasantly off-kilter sound reminiscent of Icelandic groups like Sigur Rós or múm. From the poetic flourish of the promotional note to the poem published on the Bandcamp page to the very poetry of the music, it’s indeed a rocking kind of therapy.
— Ronny Kerr
SEVEN MINUTES OF HARDCORE
“For me this is the purest & true representation of what I had envisioned for Choke all those years ago.” — Gregg Paiva
Two years ago, we experienced a greasy, savory experience of hardcore punk at local delicatessen and punk rock institution Stay Gold Deli, the circle pit spinning and spinning to the whims of Choke, Slutbomb, and George Crustanza. It’s been about that long since the last Choke release, but the Oakland band just returned with a new seven-minute vicious sonic assault entitled Hatred Smile.
Recorded and mixed by Dino Ismic at Blindspot Studio in San Jose, the six tracks here waste no time in tearing down the hatemongers, genocide deniers, and life destroyers through vocal-syncopated drums, double-edged riffs of guitar and bass, and doubled up high/low register vocals.
For more like this, check out the 2021-2022-era Splits Comp by Choke also just uploaded to Bandcamp.
— Ronny Kerr
SHOW RECS
Our top show recommendations for the coming week:
[rock] Kathryn Mohr (album release), Maria BC, Katsy Pline — Jan 23 at Thee Stork Club
[rock] Brown Dog (album release), Sean Forth — Jan 24 at Little Hill Lounge
[rock] Mild Universe, Sweet Lew, Vivian Panache — Jan 24 at Rickshaw Stop
[club] FLUX AETERNA ft. Bored Lord, Likeholywine, Lonald J Bandz, Discnogirl b2b 40split — Jan 24 at Underground SF
[electronic] Jerod S. Rivera, Agnes Martian, X Medianoche — Jan 25 at Sutro FM
[punk] The Band Ice Cream (final show), Shutups, Diesel Dudes, Maryzelle — Jan 25 at Bottom of the Hill
[punk] Frightwig, Juicebumps, George Crustanza, Street Justice, Wife, DJ Yule Be Sorry — Jan 25 at the Knockout
[club] DEPTH CHARGE + FREQSHOW ft. Cam Steen, BOGL, Path2, TEJ, DJ Buck, Chris Sedayao, ipad baby, Golem — Jan 25 at Monarch
[hip hop] Reed Michaels x Mophono (double record release), Heavy Arts Ensemble — Jan 25 at Neck of the Woods
[club] ARCHANGEL, Yuca Frita, Tom Marsi — Jan 25 at Underground SF
[club] I FOUND LUV ft. blksoap, Zak Zodiak, Jayvi Velasco — Jan 26 at Fluid 510
[rock] Tommy Guerrero, Money Mark, Jeff Parker, Jared Mattson — Jan 28 at the Chapel
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