Spring is popping, and with it comes music of the moment. We outlined a couple of new spring-into-summer albums to keep an ear out for—and reached out to Bay Area musicians, writers, and DJs to find out what is hitting their ears these days.
It’s spring listening…
ESSENCE MARTINS, SLEEPING ON IT EP
Getting all the good bits—nutrients—folding in indie, folk, pop, and soul, UK vocalist Essence Martins’ musical color wheel is full of emotion, splattered with different, vivid moving parts. Fed from a vast diet of vocal musicians—Norah Jones, Lauryn Hill, Simon and Garfunkel—and having later discovering Paramore and Phoebe Bridgers, her orbit glistens with genuineness.
Grab it here.
HXH, STARK PHENOMENA (OFNOT)
Ambient textures expanded into large swaths, prepped for deep listening? Bring it.
HxH, the improvised electro-acoustic duo of Lester St. Louis and Chris Williams, has been described as the future sound of New York. The two have taken this new Black American version of electroacoustic music, lasting minutes to hours, through acoustic terrain and austere beats. Their labor garnered them an award-winning music residency at Pioneer Works in Red Hook, Brooklyn, a “museum of process” that helped nurture the artistry of the late great free-jazz trumpeter jaimie branch, drummer Jason Nazary’s face-melting project Anteloper, and numerous other projects from underrepresented communities.
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Be ready for this new type of calm.
It’s here.
DJ DELON’S SOUNDS OF SPRING
I crack up when folks who always have their finger on what’s what share the news with me. Yeah, I haven’t been keeping up—and love it when they hit you with joints, jawns, darts, flammable.
Alain Grissette aka DJ Delon shared some true hitters that make spring pop, Jack. Along with Gavin Turek, Grissette is feeling Another Taste’s funk-disco from the Netherlands and San Francisco-born Jessica Pratt‘s psychedelic indie folk.
So take that, springtime!
CHIME OBLIVION, S/T (DEATHGOD)
John Dwyer is a bad mofo. Somehow, the self-run music machine (Osees, SORCS 80) drops records like Trump assigns tariffs. Yep, I’mma stay on it, folks. Dwyer’s latest all-star project, Chime Oblivion (out April 18), features him with Weasel Walter, Dave Barbarossa of Bow Wow Wow and Adam & the Ants, with H.L. Nelly on vocals. It leans into post-punk and pulls inspiration—serious rizz points—from The Slits and a form of The Waitresses that is more rhythm-obsessed.
It’s no wave for the freakin’ win ova here.
JOSHUA SIROTIAK’S SOUNDS OF SPRING
Joshua Sirotiak, a veteran of the Extra Action Marching Band who now lives in Sacremento and played with Ben LaMar Gay circa 2018, currently mans the tuba for MJ’s Brass Boppers and Inspector Gadje Balkan Brass Band. He says he just downloaded the new Dirty Projectors project and keeps Doechii’s Alligator Bites Never Heal mixtape steady in the rotation.
SEXTILE, YES PLEASE (SACRED BONES)
Always on the NFAC (not f*cking around crew), Los Angeles-based electronic punk band Sextile gets after it. Techno and trance together, without restraint. Forget coffee in the AM; pop this album—out May 2—in your podhole.
HERE.
PACHYMAN, ANOTHER PLACE (ATO)
The first track, “Hard to Part,” off the new release coming on May 23, had Puerto Rican-born, Los Angeles-based musician Pachy Garcia serving fools breakbeats like they were fresh out of the ESG kitchen. Shoot. Having a bad day? Fire up… whatever you regularly fire up, and put on some Pachyman for dubwise or any otherwise relief. Your day will get better… quickly.
Self-medicate here.
TAMARA PALMER’S SOUNDS OF SPRING
Publisher, writer, founder of her online Music Book Club, our Good Taste food columnist Tamara Palmer is always up to something. A constant idea machine, that’s what her friends call her. When asked what spring things were hitting her ears, she states she’s listening to some early Augustus Pablo and all the early VP Records mentioned in Ms. Pat’s My Reggae Journey memoir, while also peeping some of the jams on the new Lady Gaga album Mayhem.
VINYL WILLIAMS, POLYHAVEN / PORTASYMPHONY (HARMONY RECORDS)
Certain artists have so many tricks in their trick bag that they don’t get to feature them in one concert or album release. Welp, Lionel (Vinyl) Williams is cognizant that he presents many musical forms: soft-focused hues, breakbeat bedlam, chord changes of the elevated sort, and rhythm-gone-mad excursions into the blissful chambers of lush, harmonious pop, out June 13.
He’s that guy.
His double LP, titled Polyhaven / Portasymphony, comprises two new full-length albums—one lo-fi and one hi-fi—that make space for all the Williams you’ve seen in concert and heard throughout his extensive career. It’s a project where all these ideas about production style come through and sketch otherworldly pictures through sound. Yes, he’s collaborated and shared the stage with artists that share a similar vision, such as Toro y Moi and Unknown Mortal Orchestra, but Williams is his own separate multiverse, and finally, we get the proper astrology, two albums’ worth, to dissect it.
Get updates here.
ANDY PASTALANIEC’S SOUNDS OF SPRING
Andy Pastalaniec, who just came off the road from a successful Spanish tour with his band Chime School and is also the drummer in Seablite, had nothing but great things to say about two San Francisco bands coming into focus: The Pennys, a new supergroup from Mike Ramos and RE Seraphin with a cameo from Yea Ming, and NOW, featuring William Smith (Cindy), Hannah Forrester (Thunder Boys), and Oli Lipton (Cindy, Violent Change).
