Save the date 11/9! Big news coming soon for our 4th birthday
New music reviews in this newsletter: Post-punk by Fake Fruit, ambient house by Space Ghost, indie experimentation by Briana Marela, and lofi bedroom pop by Cindy
SAVE THE DATE!
Saturday, November 9 — All day and night
Announcement coming soon :)
— White Crate
POST-PUNK PERFECTED
Listening to Fake Fruit’s Mucho Mistrust feels like having the answers. Like even if you are still figuring things out, ultimately you already know.
On their second full-length album, Fake Fruit takes their signature post-punk sound—multi-level guitars, keep-you-on-your toes drumming, D’Amato’s incredible lure-you-out-of-the-house-and-chew-you-up vocal range—and expands, polishes. This is on triumphant display with “Cause of Death,” with the core instrumentation buoyed by a huge bedrock of harmonies and woodwinds.
Fake Fruit’s music is so attractive because they sound fully formed and confident, but their repertoire remains equally dynamic and varied. They nail sassy cynicism while still expressing vulnerability and confusion. They don’t take their audience for granted: Every song is a fresh opportunity to connect and share the successful collaboration that this group embodies. All anyone wants is to do more of what they love, and get better each time, and Fake Fruit shows us how.
Mucho Mistrust is out now via Carpark Records. Fake Fruit is currently on a national tour, and they next play the Bay on Friday, November 22 at the Chapel.
— Ainsley Wagoner
INDIE POP IN TRANSITION
“I am Teardrop Star, a girl who fell from a star. I cry almost every day of my life. I feel lucky to feel so deeply.” — Briana Marela
It’s not often we get a full view and understanding into an artist’s evolution. Some beloved artists simply change their stylistic direction without explanation or excuse, leaving some fans behind, puzzled. Briana Marela is not one of those artists. She is open and intimate with her life and music, as evidenced on her 2022 release, You Are a Wave, a technically complex and gut-wrenching work written after the death of her father.
Teardrop Star, Marela’s latest release, is from an earlier chapter. Recorded mostly in 2018 in a wide variety of spaces, including Oakland, New York, Los Angeles, and Anacortes in Washington, the album documents an artist not just in motion but in flux. In the mid 2010s, Marela released a couple albums on Bloomington indie label Jagjaguwar, but she says she was dropped for lack of commercial success.
Between the more accessible indie pop stylings of those early albums and Marela’s more recent experimental work sits Teardrop Star, a transitional album expressing awareness of loss, awareness of sadness, and awareness of change from the eye of the storm. It is a confident kind of grief, fearlessly wandering from thumping anthemic-lite beats (“Horizon”) to strange hazy soundscapes (“Susu’s House”). She says we may never hear these songs performed live, but just understanding more of what makes the artist—and her art—is gift enough.
— Ronny Kerr
A NEW BAY DANCE LABEL
“I started Peace World to retain control of my creative work, open a pathway to dedicating myself full time to music, and show the world that the Bay Area has a thriving underground dance music scene.” — Sudi Wachpress aka Space Ghost
Continuing the slinky city night drive funky house that made Dance Planet irresistible, Oakland producer Space Ghost returns with Dream Tool. It is not just four tracks of mind-caressing, ambient-laden grooves; it is also a statement. After years working with Apron Records, Pacific Rhythm, PPU, and Danish label Tartelet Records, the artist debuts this new music on his just-launched label Peace World Records.
Just as Space Ghost’s music is supremely retro, tapping into 80s city pop seratonin and 90s ambient house minimalism, it is also very much of the current era, infused with finely polished productions and a new generation’s dedication to intention and self-care. Equally, it is dance music for the world but decidedly, as the label launch represents, dance music from the Bay.
— Ronny Kerr
CURL UP IN THIS SOUND
“People have told me that they can’t quite identify my influences. Me neither. The foundational layers of music of the past and my past have been metabolized like breakfast and turned into more me, sorry to say. But I experience the music of people I’m connected with and it impacts me in the moment.” — Karina Gill
Bedroom pop quartet Cindy return this month with Swan Lake, an EP of softly spoken yet firmly grounded ditties. Citing some of the Bay Area’s recent wave of indie artists as influences—April Magazine, Sad Eyed Beatniks, Violent Change, Katsy Pline, Flowertown—Cindy’s songwriter Karina Gill is well aware of how this music fits into this place. Slow, hazy, foggy, and dreamy is how we described Cindy’s release from last year Why Not Now?, and the same holds true here. And isn’t it a rare thing to not constantly be changing for the sake of change? There are a couple upbeat pieces, a gorgeous instrumental (“The Birds in Birmingham Park”), a dollhouse waltz of egg shaker and triplets (“The Bell”), and a Velvet Underground-esque poetic detour (“Swan Lake”). In short, Swan Lake is a sound world worth curling up inside. Out now on London label Tough Love.
— Ronny Kerr
SHOW RECS
Our top show recommendations for the coming week:
[classical] Woven Verses ft. Mahsa and Marjan Vahdat — Oct 17 at Freight & Salvage
[punk] Unity Fest ft. What's Important, Code Abi, Whine, Protect Me, Toad, Love Spiral, & more — Oct 17-20 at various venues in Oakland and SF
[ambient] Shipwreck Detective, Roziht Eve, Albert Yeh — Oct 18 at Spire the Church
[hip hop] Jammy, Simmy, Cilo, Seiji Oda — Oct 18 at Elbo Room Jack London
[rock] TWIN SHRIEKS ft. Jeffrey Lewis & the Voltage, Present, Mint, Vangozeer, Crossing I’s Dotting T’s, & more — Oct 19 at 924 Gilman, Oct 20 at Prop Shop
[fest] KQED FEST ft. La Misa Negra, Brijean, Bululú, Aki Kumar, DJ Brown Angel — Oct 19 at KQED Headquarters
[techno] FREE TECHNO SHOWCASE ft. Adra, Dhyan Møller, Max Gardner, Zachary Noel — Oct 19 at the Music Concourse in Golden Gate Park
[hip hop] HISTORY OF THE BAY DAY ft. Souls of Mischief, Mob Figaz, Kamaiyah, & more — Oct 19 at the Midway
[rock] Blue Zero (record release), Thin Veil, Pocket Full of Crumbs, The Heart Wants — Oct 19 at Eli’s Mile High Club
[rock] Secret Secret as ABBA, Country Risque & Sadie Alan as the Eagles with Linda Ronstadt, Mitch Rocket as 4 Smashing Cranberries — Oct 19 at El Rio
[folk] Kelly McFarling — Oct 19 at 428 Waller St.
[classical] SF Music Day — Oct 20 at SF War Memorial & Performing Arts Center
[fest] VOTEZILLA ft. Orchestra Gold, Deborah Crooks, Jim Ocean Band, Pete Kronowitt — Oct 20 at the Golden Gate Park Bandshell
[rock] Chokecherry (EP release), Pure Hex, MX LONELY, Horrhaus — Oct 20 at Rickshaw Stop
[rock] Sarah Coolidge, Body Double, Nonbinary Girlfriend, Suver — Oct 20 at Ivy Room
[punk] Still Ruins, Public Circuit, Ex Heir, Pink Stiletto — Oct 22 at the Golden Bull
[alternative] Aroma, Veronicavon, Tricky FM — Oct 23 at Bottom of the Hill
[club] JJKØ, Tirox, Dedo, DJ Bayb Sol, Joey Trip, Charles Hawthorne, Rey Luv — Oct 23 at F8
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