Under the Stars: Give Maryam Qudus all her flowers

It’s Under The Stars babe….. We are always stoked to see local artists rep the Bay Area to the fullest and leave their imprint in the most creative and masterful ways….. 

PRODUCER MARYAM QUDUS

Staring at the precipice of August, just past the midway point of the year, and two, count ’em, two highly reviewed records—News of The Universe by La Luz and Revival of a Friend by local band Sour Widows—stand as some of the most lauded rock releases of this year. 

Both were produced by none other than local engineering wizard Maryam Qudus, who also had a hand in the latest album by somebody called Taylor Swift, who seems to be rising on the scene.

I’m a witness, trust, to the screeching audio tape loops, sound reverb, and hellfire cosmic lo-fi bedlam Qudus is known for in spectral live shows as her stage act Spacemoth. 

in 2022, the second-gen Afghan American kid of working-class immigrant parents and her band played their first album No Past No Future at an Outside Lands night show at Rickshaw Stop. Qudus, staff engineer at both the San Francisco Arts non-profit Women’s Audio Mission and (at the time) Tiny Telephone recording studio, addressed the homecoming crowd with a welcoming “Hello, lovely people of the Bay Area, we can say that because we are, too.”

But this next feat, producing two full albums dealing with heavyweight material, is something else.

La Luz comes with a backstory: Singer-guitarist Shana Cleveland suffered a harrowing traffic accident on tour that nearly killed the band in 2013. Cleveland became a mother not long before she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She also struck out on her own, releasing one of 2023’s best singer-songwriter LPs, Manzanita. 

Qudus helped to widen the La Luz sonic bandwidth: Spectral elements of krautrock with proggy dimensions, boutique-retro ’80s synth-pop New Wave, and ’70s pop-rock adornments entered the chat.

Sour Widows’ Revival of a Friend also has a history of challenges and loss.

Maia Sinaiko, Susanna Thomson, and Max Edelman, friends since childhood, suffered a series of tragic personal circumstances, including the loss of loved ones to overdose and cancer. As they prepared to enter Tiny Telephone in 2023 to make an album partly of songs about navigating those losses, more troubles mounted, including a traumatic breakup and another cancer diagnosis in the family.

Things got so bad they joked that maybe there were signs, a few, that the band should cease.

But again, in the studio, Qudus held the steady hand. Adding layers of synths created space to provide roomy avenues for thoughtful engagement when dealing with difficult emotions.

But beyond the technical aspects of sound production, in both cases, Qudus provided the right environment for these predominantly female bands to be uninhibited. 

Unguarded. Divulging pure emotion. Offering both La Luz and Sour Widows a safe and creative space to engage with deep emotions. Their performances, intimate breakthroughs, are properly recorded to capture these deeply personal moments of revelation.

Shout out to local engineering wizard Maryam Qudus and we hope she receives the proper acknowledgment come the end of the year.

PAHUA, COMBO TEZETA, AND TERROR/CACTUS AT SWEETWATER MUSIC HALL, MILL VALLEY, AUGUST 8

Who has the stones to serve up a massive all-Latin lineup on a school night, when there’s so much dancing to be done? It’s Sweetwater Music Hall, naturally. Pahuna, the project of Mexican singer, composer, producer, and DJ Paulina Sotomayor, cited by Rolling Stone as “… an ode to nature and femininity,” doling out those electronic folk frequencies served up with proper strength and tranquility.

The almighty Combo Tezeta, Bay Area-based, twists up those danceable instrumental cumbias, chichas, and música tropical inspired by the late ’60s and early ’70s era of psychedelic Peru, infused with contemporary touches, highlighting the rich melodies and hypnotic rhythms birthed from the Afro-Latin diaspora along with just plain ole weird psyched-out soul acuity. Causing such a commotion they were selected to perform as part of NPR’s Tiny Desk Contest “On the Road” show at Lagunitas Brewery in Petaluma, CA.

To get dart accurate, these brothers deliver.

Complementing the array of talent, Seattle’s Terror/Cactus, the digital folklore and psychedelic electro-cumbia project of Martín Selasco, draws from Argentine folk, Peruvian chicha, and Colombian cumbia: Selasco weaves these influences into hypnotic electronic beats featuring psychedelic guitars, dub lasers, and field recordings.

Are you getting the full psychedelic picture, people?

Sweetwater Music Hall has your Thursday night trip into Latin music’s multi-hued future just waiting for you to come by and do the vibey hang.

Grab tickets here.

DANIEL VILLARREAL AT MOE’S ALLEY, SANTA CRUZ, AUGUST 8

Drummer and DJ Daniel Villarreal is one of those musicians that mainframe folks may not know familiarly, but cats in the know are eager to play music with and just be around.

Last year’s Lados B, literally “B sides,” is jazz, mushmouf blues, jagged rock and soul was just straight up the business.

With Jeff Parker on guitar, doing some of his best James Blood Ulmer free funk work in years, and bassist Anna Butterss showcasing her talent for making those tasty-meets-nasty grooves (remember her name, we’ll be talking about her later this year). Even our guy Neal Francis pops on Fender Rhodes for a track here. See what I mean: folks who know.

The free-flowing, improvisational juggernaut of a moment was recorded across two days in 2020 by the trio showcasing their feel for each other’s talents and the trusting bond these in-demand players operate with.

From cruising in a 1962 Chevy Impala SS to delivering deep-thought jazz meditations and a whole bunch of Afro-Cuban influences, the Fania-influenced Lados B projected that chemistry which cannot be fabricated. I missed Villarreal at Yoshi’s in Oakland last year, maybe I’ll get lucky this time around. But anyone attending his upcoming performance at Moe’s Alley is certainly in for a soulful funky performance.

Grab tix here.

PATRICE RUSHEN, PRELUSION

It’s the origin story we’ve needed.

Before Patrice Rushen was known as the Grammy-nominated R&B singer-songwriter, she was first known as an Afro-having jazz prodigy. At the age of 20, she embarked on her musical journey with Prelusion—a spectacular debut that introduced Rushen as a formidable new star on the jazz scene.

From jump, on “Haw-Right Now” you can hear Rushen’s skill in making jazz a multi-genre experience that is focused on bringing this music to where the listeners were in 1974. Her ability to effortlessly switch between piano, electric keyboard, synth, and clavinet as an arranger makes these five original compositions sound far ahead of what was happening on jazz radio during that time.

Discovered similarly to Roberta Flack, a phenomenal jazz musician behind the piano and keyboard who had no problems surrounding herself with top-flight talent, Rushen had those chops for days, even at 17.

The classically trained pianist scored her big break during her teens, earning a chance to perform at the prestigious Monterey Jazz Festival after winning a high school talent competition. Before long, she caught the attention of the legendary label Prestige Records (home to such greats as John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, and Thelonious Monk), who signed the promising teenager to a three-album deal.

Before she got signed to Elektra in 1977—the imprint had high hopes of disrupting Donald Byrd and Grover Washington Jr’s grip on the jazz-funk lane—Rushen, a young African American woman, wrote, performed, scored, produced, played, and ran her outfit on the pathway that Quincy Jones and Roy Ayers had found success.

With a veteran line-up featuring Joe Henderson (tenor saxophone), Oscar Brashear (trumpet), Hadley Caliman (flute), George Bohanon (trombone), Leon “Ndugu” Chancler (drums), Tony Dumas (bass), and Kenneth Nash (percussion) and her longtime producer and mentor, Reggie Andrews, Prelusion has a veteran polish through and through.

Pre-order the 50th Anniversary Reissue of Prelusion here.

BIRDIE, SOME DUSTY (SLUMBERLAND RECORDS)

Letting your phone and devices disappear, holstering that Twitter finger, and just enjoying being a human catching a breeze.

That’s what “Laugh” by Birdie does to my brain.

I’m allowed to not think—just experience. Ideas assemble without being triggered by obnoxious bad actors. Debsey Wykes and Paul Kelly are blowing blue skies, cool fog, and calming textures through my head.

Birdie’s 1999 debut album, Some Dusty, is the culmination of a series of fortuitous events, set in motion in 1992 when Wykes and Kelley became fast friends and then a couple, bonding over their shared love for sunshine pop and soft rock of the ’60s and ’70s. 

Some Dusty was recorded during the summer of 1998 with Brian O’Shaughnessy of Denim, Moose, and The Clientele fame. The charming, stoic arrangements and soft rock melodies to calm the busy mind float out like hors d’oeuvres at the most low-key dinner party.

Snag the long overdue vinyl reissue of Some Dusty on Slumberland Records, and make that summer dinner party cool as the fog west of Divisadero. 

Grab it here.