The best downtempo from the Bay Area in 2021
In the feels with Brijean (of Poolside and Toro y Moi), soul poetry by Caroline Chung, experimental darkwave from Dax Pierson, jazz drumming by Keshav Batish, and more
Q: What do you get when you mix disco pop, neo soul, Hindustani classical jazz, cumbia, and experimental electronic music?
A: This list of what I’m calling the best downtempo from the Bay Area.
As in all things, categorization is useful in music. But it also breaks down as soon you inspect the boundaries. So this is a list that casts aside stark definitions in exchange for a feeling. You may hear a voice or a saxophone. A live recording or an electronic composition. It may be meticulously constructed or effortlessly improvised, laid down for the sake of exploration or wordplay. A ticking clock, a dash of chimes. It’s called downtempo but that doesn’t mean you can’t dance to it. An offering of heart and soul.
Read on for the best experimental, jazz, and R&B from the Bay (and beyond) in 2021.
Peace,
ronny
Feelings - Brijean
Brijean (of Poolside and Toro y Moi) came into her own this year with Feelings, her second full-length and first for Ghostly International. A collaboration with Doug Stuart, the new album is essentially described by its tracklist: it’s “dreamy” and “soft” and “moody,” a half hour of beachside disco “paradise” “lathered in gold.” In short, it hits you right in the feels.
Sounds of Haejin - Caroline Chung & Citizens Jazz
Oakland jazz bassist, songwriter, and producer Caroline Chung and her band Citizens Jazz meld soul, jazz, pop, and poetry on Sounds of Haejin, featuring mostly original compositions alongside two memorable covers of “Burning and Looting” by Bob Marley and “Keep Looking” by Sade. The album features SF poet laureate Tongo Eisen-Martin and a dozen other contributors, making for a magical, healing session.
Nerve Bumps (A Queer Divine Dissatisfaction) - Dax Pierson
Jointly released by two of today’s best Bay Area labels, Dark Entries Records and Ratskin Records, Nerve Bumps (A Queer Divine Disappointment) is the debut solo LP by Oakland experimental electronic musician Dax Pierson. Using custom-built systems that allow the artist to navigate disability, the album earned high marks and praise from fans and critics alike for its seamless mixing of a wide variety of styles, from house and techno to electro and darkwave. Notably, this was one of the last albums mastered by legendary Bay Area engineer George Horn at Fantasy Studios before his death this past August.
Binaries in Cycle - Keshav Batish
Here’s at least one reason why you don’t make your end-of-year list the first week in December. I completely missed this album by Santa Cruz jazz drummer Keshav Batish when it dropped over the summer, but recently spotted it on KQED’s list of the 10 Best Bay Area Albums of 2021. The son of sitar and tabla virtuoso Ashwin Batish, Keshav Batish applies his internalized knowledge of North Indian classical music to a drum-driven collection of kaleidoscopic contemporary jazz.
JID006 - Gary Bartz, Adrian Younge, Ali Shaheed Muhammad
Now based in the East Bay, saxophonist Gary Bartz released funky soul jazz album JID006 in collaboration with Jazz Is Dead creators Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad (of A Tribe Called Quest). Bartz has played with a long list of jazz greats since the 1960s—Art Blakey, Kenny Burrell, Donald Byrd, Miles Davis, Max Roach, Pharoah Sanders, and McCoy Tyner, to name a few. Enough said.
Loteria, Vol. 1 - Gurkestra
Recorded in Richmond and recorded at El Cerrito Studios, Loteria Vol. 1 is the newest Latin jazz album by Oakland’s Gurkestra. Featuring a core quintet of instrumentalists plus two special guests across baritone and tenor sax, timbales and bongos, tuba and flute, and more, the album is a feast of sound produced by Camilo Landau. On first impression, it feels like you’ve collided into a band performing on the street at First Fridays or in the Mission, realized they were several bars above the average busker, and followed them wherever their music led, shouting and dancing into the night.
“Dejanos en paz, capitalistas” - Louda y Los Bad Hombres
“Enough is enough.” One of a handful of singles released by Louda y los Bad Hombres this year, the anti-capitalist track “Dejanos en paz, capitalistas” (“Leave us alone, capitalists”) reveals the nascent but growing talent of this SF six-piece. Cumbia may have been beloved by Latin people here in the Bay for decades, but that love is only getting stronger and encompassing more and more different styles, as it does here.
Colocate - Motoko & Myers
Motoko & Myers, the collaborative project of Oakland duo Wonja Fairbrother and Daniel Letson, offer up especially introspective electronic compositions on Colocate, released by Cincinnati label Soda Gong. Featuring a wide variety of sound sources—four-handed keyboard playing, 12-bit sampling, field recordings of cicadas in Kentucky and church bells in Germany—the album is an ambient techno gem.
“Rodeo Pantheon” - ONIKHO
Can’t get this one out of my head. ONIKHO released “Rodeo Pantheon”, an indietronica ice cream sundae for the ears. Not that it’s all superficial sweetness: Since finding solace in music production after being paralyzed in a car accident in 2014, the Oakland artist says she wrote this song “while climbing out of a deep mental health hole. Navigating medication to get your brain straight is a journey that deserves more conversation.”
The Turning Wheel - SPELLLING
While her previous work was primarily synth-based, the music on the third full-length from Oakland experimental R&B star Spellling (aka Chrystia Cabral) “features an ensemble of 31 collaborating musicians” directed by Cabral herself. But what remains the same is Cabral’s haunting, enchanting voice, the centerpiece of a swirling, downtempo soundscape. As one of my fellow musicians put it the week it was released, The Turning Wheel is an instant Bay Area classic.
LIGHT BEINGS #3 - Various
The third installment in a collaborative mixtape series by SMARTBOMB and Lower Grand Radio, LIGHT BEINGS #3 is described as “a multidisciplinary art capsule project of audio, visual and wearable artifacts carrying futurist messages from the outermost realms of imagination.” Featuring a bunch of the Bay’s best underground artists — including Salami Rose Joe Louis, Cheflee, W.A.L.A., RITCHRD, IDHAZ, and Ashtrejinkins — it’s a diverse but cohesive mix of sounds, seamlessly blending slurred hip hop beats, experimental tape loops, lofi house, and breakbeat.
SHUFFLE ON
Listen to our Spotify playlist of the best R&B, soul, and indie pop from the Bay Area.