Your local soft rock specialist Al Harper performing live on Lower Grand Radio on 3/7
Versâam drops nearly 40 beats on Hot Record Societe; the first release from Carlos Niño, Idris Ackamoor, and Nate Mercereau; plus new house label C3DO Recordings
“To a musician every listener is a gift.” — Al Harper
We first fell in love with “local soft rock specialist” Al Harper upon the release of her album Promises I Kept, a sweet, dreamy and Stevie Nicks-soaked piece of indie music. Two years later, the singer-songwriter returns with another full-length album, The Analemma Observation League.
Drawing inspiration from the sun’s “analemma”—the figure-eight shape that surfaces when you mark its position in the sky from the same location over the course of a year—the new album is a reflection and refraction on the passing of time, the poetry of our own personal seasons.
Excited to announce that Al Harper will be our next guest on Lower Grand Radio!
Hear Al Harper perform live on White Crate’s show on Lower Grand Radio this Thursday, March 7 at 8:30 PM PT. Tune in here.
If you ever want to dig into the archive of our live recordings from LGR—including performances by local Bay Area artists Asha Wells, Dani Offline, Blues Lawyer, Briana Marela, and more—check out this playlist on Mixcloud.
— White Crate
WISDOM & WITTICISM
“These are my deep cuts. The seclusion of covid created an incubator for my style. I fell deep into a state of flow which, in hindsight, feels like a lost chapter in the Versâam catalogue.” — Ellis Newton aka Versâam
Culled from the isolation of early COVID lockdowns, Transience & Permanence compiles nearly 40 beats by East Bay producer Versâam on Hot Record Societe. All made on the MPC2500, the minute-length vignettes flow through a familiar world of samples and freestyles and stuttering drum kits, mashing together pop culture licks, underground artists wisdom and witticisms, and blissful beats into a personal collage and now-time capsule.
— Ronny Kerr
NEW AGE, TOTALLY ALIVE
How long does it take to listen to a new album? An album is released, and you press play. And then it’s just the length of the album. But what if you really want to listen to the whole album? What if it’s an hour and a half long? What if you don’t want to put it on in the background while you work, do the dishes, or have sex? What if you try anyway, multi-tasking while listening to ethereal music wizardry, and it just doesn’t work—because the music demands full attention?
Assembled from material recorded in 2022 and 2023, Free, Dancing… is the first release by Carlos Niño, Idris Ackamoor, and Nate Mercereau. Depending on which circles you run in, any of these names could be well-known to you. Carlos Niño rapidly rose into the mainstream in November simply by virtue of having co-produced André 3000’s solo album debut New Blue Sun. Idris Ackamoor is a multi-decade legend from the SF jazz scene, and with his shapeshifting group The Pyramids in 2023 released one of our favorite Bay Area albums of the year, Afro Futuristic Dreams. And Nate Mercereau, some will recall, famously recorded a “duet” with the howling Golden Gate Bridge during the pandemic.
An amalgamation of experimental ambient jazz—it’s okay, “new age” isn’t an insult anymore—Free, Dancing… compiles material from the trio’s first three meetings (in Suisun Valley and San Francisco, including their performance at SFJAZZ last year for Noise Pop Fest). Brian Eno famously defined “ambient” music in 1978 as being “as ignorable as it is interesting,” and so the music here is possibly anti-ambient. It cannot be ignored. Because it’s not just interesting, it’s totally alive. Feathers waving, cymbals and bells shuddering beneath wailing sax, droning synth and electric guitar bellowing below, above, and through it all. The musicians are friends and they are making this music in the moment, with no agenda, and yet with full intention. And that’s what it sounds like.
Vinyl copies are available from Amsterdam’s Rush Hour Records and New Dawn.
— Ronny Kerr
HIGH-TEMPO HOUSE
High-tempo disco heights returned to Mothership last weekend to celebrate the debut of C3DO Recordings, a new label founded by international crew of producer/DJs Dylan C. Greene, We Are Neurotic, and 3kelves. Making the moment even better, Indonesian trio We Are Neurotic dropped the label’s first single “Hyperservice” with contributions by SF producer 3kelves, diving straight into an energetic, light-and-fast house track glazed with a piano solo in the breakdown.
— Ronny Kerr
SHOW RECS
Our top show recommendations for the coming week:
[rock] Illuminate ft. Cardboard People, DJ n0be, Jane the Message — Mar 1 at the Golden Gate Park Bandshell
[punk] The Losers, Croissant, Fog Lamp — Mar 1 at Bender’s Bar & Grill
[dub] Scientist, Orchestra Gold — Mar 1 at the Chapel
[rock] Spacemoth, Teal Pop, Chime School — Mar 1 at Kilowatt
[club] Rhonda presents: A Club Called SQUISH ft. Ben UFO, Conducta, Darwin, Manuka Honey — Mar 1 at 1015 Folsom
[club] Space Ghost, Mishka — Mar 2 at the Line
[metal] Ex Everything, Gravedodger, Kim — Mar 2 at Bender’s Bar & Grill
[r&b] The Seshen — Mar 2 at SFJAZZ
[classical] Kronos Quartet: Five Decades — Mar 2 at Zellerbach Rehearsal Hall
[club] Alice Glass, Pride Month Barbie, Tricky FM, Adam Kraft — Mar 2 at Rickshaw Stop
[club] DJ Tennis, Juliet Mendoza b2b Seven Davis Jr — Mar 2 at Public Works
[rock] Analog Dog, Pure Hex, Thank You Come Again, Grooblen, Agouti, Gloomy June — Mar 3 at Kilowatt
[experimental] Ana Roxanne, Nailah Hunter, Cole Pulice — Mar 3 at Gray Area
[rock] High Sunn, Curling, Junebug — Mar 3 at Neck of the Woods
[punk] Spiritual Cramp, Marbled Eye, YOFC DJs — Mar 4 at Kilowatt
[punk] Rhododendron, Mau, Ex Everything — Mar 6 at Stay Gold Deli
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