It’s Under The Stars, babe….. Where we are always stoked to see local digs pop up in new visuals from local artists who treasure these Bay Area spots just as much as we do.
For example, Toro y Moi recently announced a new album, Hole Erth, which is set for release September 6 via Dead Oceans. The single “Tuesday” features an India Sleem-directed music video shot across Berkeley, Oakland, and San Francisco, California—and has a series of scenes shot at Divisadero Ethiopian dive bar standby Club Waziema.
Chaz Bear has DJed four different benefit shows for Waziema in recent years, showing again our local artists and musicians maintain deep roots in their Bay Area venues.
Fuck a doom loop, there’s so much love in The Bay.
DE LUX, VOYAGER 10TH ANNIVERSARY, FRI/12 AT RICKSHAW STOP
Eli Anaya’s promotion team Throwin Bo’s, a boutique music company with a stellar reputation for showcasing local talent in Bay Area venues for the past six years, has teamed up with long-running party Popscene for a unique event. Live act De Lux, consisting of Sean Guerin and Isaac Franco, creates dance music that feels organic, retro, and always warm, blending electro-disco, boogie, and synth-pop elements. They will be performing a special anniversary show at Rickshaw Stop, featuring their modern classic album Voyager. Released in 2014, this album skillfully combines the best qualities of iconic bands like Talking Heads, Blondie, and Gang of Four with the contemporary dance-rock sound of artists such as The Rapture and LCD Soundsystem.
It’s gonna be a beautiful night. Grab tickets here.
KIT SEBASTIAN, “FAUST” (BRAINFEEDER)
The most interesting record labels stay in demand through signing artists who capture the attention of listeners by presenting unique perspectives.
Brainfeeder, the black-owned record label founded by Flying Lotus, has added Kit Sebastian to its roster. The duo of Kit Martin and Merve Erdem should do well at the label with their cosmopolitan blend of Anatolian psychedelia, Brazilian tropicalia, ’60s European pop, and jazz.
This London-based duo has all the necessary elements that, on paper, may not seem like they would work, but when you listen to their music, it’s amazing. Whether it’s an Italian synthesized sound with double bass, horns, and strings that will excite breakbeat enthusiasts or a hallucinogenic mix of world influences, vintage synths, and introspective chic from distant regions that resonate deep within your psyche or dreams.
In a way, you could call Kit Sebastian Brainfeeder’s Khruangbin artist, but that would be a narrow-minded view.
Kit Sebastian fits nicely alongside artists like Broadcast, Goat, Os Mutantes, Cortex, Serge Gainsbourg, and many more.
Expect great things. Grab the single here.
CAL ACADEMY PRESENTS NIGHTLIFE: REMIX!
Listen up, culture seekers and nature walkers. Cal Academy recently announced a brand new live concert series that takes place after work hours this August. NightLife: Remix! will be held every Thursday in August, and will offer Bay Area music enthusiasts a month of curated weekday night parties at the most prehistoric venue in town, dead in the middle of Golden Gate Park, according to festival organizers. (Noise Pop is sponsoring a couple of the spots.)
It’s a play on the Academy’s wildly successful Nightlife night parties, that have given singles a chance to mingle—with albino alligators—every Thursday for more than a decade.
Two nights of live music will be curated by Noise Pop, featuring Mexico’s grunge punk quartet Margaritas Podridas on August 8 and powerhouse soul sensation Madison McFerrin on August 22.
Last summer, McFerrin, the San Francisco-born, Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter, exclusively shared with us here at 48hills five albums that inspired her.
With this upcoming performance, maybe she will inspire you.
Grab tickets here.
CHIME SCHOOL, THE BOY WHO RAN THE PAISLEY HOTEL (SLUMBERLAND RECORDS)
Word on the street is that Andy Pastalaniec recorded his second Chime School album, in his home studio on the foggy southern edge of San Francisco. Unlike the debut effort from 2021, there is a bit more riding on this record. According to the press release Chime School “became one of the defining acts of the seemingly never-ending, prolific, and multifaceted Bay Area pop scene” which translates to: It did quite well.
With numerous mentions in Bandcamp Daily, Brooklyn Vegan, even ol’ 48hills hopped on the praises of Pastalaniec and his ” spiffy Rickenbacker Guitar.”
That follow-up record, The Boy Who Ran the Paisley Hotel, set for release on August 23, with the effervescent lead single “Give Your Heart Away” shows further growth and deeper influence with a tune that rips and connects to UK indie-pop arrangements that have somehow inhabited the Bay Area indie scene over the past couple of years.
I asked Pastalaniec about that connection a couple of weeks ago and the role his label, Slumberland Records, plays in the lineage:
It’s no secret the Bay Area has an indie pop heritage that goes back to the early ’90s. Depending on how you look at it, the current crop of bands probably constitutes the fourth indie pop resurgence in the Bay—and I love debating what they are and when they started and ended.
But from an artist’s perspective I think its continual resurgence is due to the fact that whenever a scene comes together around this kind of DIY, jangly, punk-inspired poppy and sometimes noisy music, Slumberland has always been right there ready to support the best of it. That support resonates through scenes, sustaining active artists, and also through the years, inspiring successive generations of kids with bowl cuts, jangly guitars, and drum machines.
Pre-order The Boy Who Ran the Paisley Hotel here.
You can catch Chime School at Rickshaw Stop w/ Ducks Ltd, Mo Dotti on Mon/15. More info here.
And the Record Release party at the Make-Out Room w/ Hits, Telephone Numbers on August 23. More info here.
