Hey, it’s Under The Stars, babe. A quasi-weekly column that presents new music releases, upcoming shows, opinions, and other adjacent items. We keep it moving like insufficient funds, hustling with the changes, and thinking outside the margins. We’ve been doing this for five years… Spend some time with us…
PACHYMAN AND MNDSGN AT THE CHAPEL, OCTOBER 28
I’m letting you know about this one far in advance, but again, such stellar combo for the price of one is guaranteed to sell out. On this night, The Chapel features two foremost LA-based producers excavating rhythm via different prisms.
Puerto Rican-born Pachy Garcia, a favorite artist around this platform in particular, has explored dub in recent years, and presents visuals of his music that harken back to the genre’s roots. In his The Return of… Pachyman project from 2021, you can’t help but think about Garcia running around his LA basement studio 333 House on each track, playing everything—bass, drums, piano, congas—layering it on top of each other, working it out like a little madman on that reel-to-reel tape machine. Knob-twisting to the Gods like all get-out on the effects board until he hits dub-wise perfection.
Another Place, his new record that dropped on May 23, Garcia is serving a different muse, another drum, if you will. He pulls inspiration from pioneering synth-pop nonconformists and freaks like William Onyeabor and Yellow Magic Orchestra, even Basic Channel’s amniotic dub techno. Track “I may fuck around and leave town” drops dead center into the beat-centric manifesto “Hard to Part.” It’s a bucket for sure.
Ringgo Ancheta, better known to the world and his fans as the musician and beatmaker Mndsgn, is on the opening card for The Chapel show. This true sound designer, beat digger, and superior musician… Man, bills don’t get much better.
I first found his work on the beat tape, Snaxx, which is equal parts deep hip hop record-digging excavation and experimental soundscape, that auditory comfort food. I’m not even trying to be cerebral—it hits psychedelic, ambient, and cosmic, collected moments that creep together under the cover of night and fog. Like those nocturnal coyotes who come down from Mount Tamalpais in Marin County and cross the Golden Gate Bridge after midnight. Refusing to pay tolls, cruising around San Francisco before dawn, coming alive in that still mood.
Rare Pleasure from 2021, a career-shifting project featuring Carlos Niño (percussion), Fousheé, Devin Morrison, and Anna Wise (vocals), Miguel Atwood Ferguson (strings), and other contemporaries influenced by soft jazz, wavy library music, and most definitely more slo-mo than uptempo, is filled with warm grooves constructed by R&B, soundtrack music, psychedelia, and jazz.
This is one of those nights, San Francisco—heed the call and attend. Make your city, and respect yourself, look intelligent by digging into some top-flight music.
Buy tix to The Chapel show here.
MAE POWELL AT CAFE DU NORD, SUN/1
If the term “San Francisco cool” still remains, then Mae Powell encapsulates it.
We’ve been following her ever since her timely song from 2021 that seems to still ring true today (imagine that) called “FUCK I.C.E.”
It’s not the profanity that makes her SF-cool. Listen, I hit shows and talk amongst folks, and because this town is so small, you start to notice which local artists support other artists. Mae Powell is one of those artists, showing love to her peers. THAT is San Francisco cool.
There’s a peace, magic, and radical self-love in the certain way this solo artist and lead vocalist of Mild Universe expresses herself.
Recently, she was signed to the sub-label of Colmine Records, Karma Chief, and an album release is expected sometime late this summer. Until then, you can pick up her single “Rope You In” here and/or hit Cafe du Nord on Sun/1 to catch her supporting instrumental folk duo Tim and James.
Get your tickets here.
DELTRON 3030 AT THE REGENCY, JULY 23 AND 24
San Francisco’s favorite dystopian hip-hop group is ready to return for a celebration of their seminal release and their upcoming return record. That’s right, Deltron 3030 is reportedly in the process of preparing for the release of their long-awaited third album. But first, they’ll be taking a look back at their debut, performing the self-titled record in full on their upcoming North American tour.
Yes, the hip hop supergroup legends—Del the Funky Homosapien (aka Deltron Zero), producer Dan the Automator (the Cantankerous Captain Aptos), and turntablist Kid Koala—will be returning to the live stage this summer, launching a 16-date tour in Vancouver, BC on July 18 before traveling throughout the United States and Canada over the next three months. The band will stop in San Francisco on July 23 and 24 at The Regency. The tour will see Kid Koala pulling double duty as he opens the shows alongside Lealani.
Grab tickets here.
TORO Y MOI, “STARS AND SONS,” ANTHEMS: A CELEBRATION OF BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE’S YOU FORGOT IT IN PEOPLE (ARTS & CRAFTS)
There is a scene in Anna Boden’s and Ryan K. Fleck’s 2006 indie classic Half Nelson starring Ryan Gosling in which a young teacher in an inner-city school is out at a Williamsburg bar partaking in after-school activities while Broken Social Scene’s “Stars and Sons” plays quietly in the background. (The two directors also recently released the Oakland-centric feature Freaky Tales.) That scene was my introduction to the band, and I never forgot it, having dropped amid the whole Williamsburg, Brooklyn takeover by the—as a friend of mine living there at the time would call them—”aggressive hipsters.” Or as another friend of a friend would call them, “you know, those skinny white boy bars.”
“I remember first hearing about BSS when I was a sophomore in high school,” East Bay artist Toro y Moi stated in a press release. “You Forgot It in People especially caught my ear; I thought the production was so ahead of its time—the intros and outros, the interstitials… so much of it informed how I like to make records.”
The Oakland resident recorded a version of the track for this Broken Social Scene tribute album in which, he stated, “I’m so happy to be included.”
Anthems: A Celebration of Broken Social Scene’s You Forgot It in People is out June 6. The 13-song album features You Forgot It in People covers by Hovvdy, Mdou Moctar, Spirit of the Beehive, and others.
Pre-order here.
SEXTILE, “WOMEN RESPOND TO BASS” (SACRED BONES RECORDS)
So it wasn’t until I saw a music writer whom I respect refer to this new Sextile record as “electroclash” that a light in my brain went on. I don’t use terms such as… well, electroclash, electronica… man, it took me 20 years to start using the term EDM. I know it’s all semantics. But just like the person who only sees hip hop as rap, it’s that whole art versus commerce, commerce versus art argument all over again.
I gotta say, this Sextile record is not necessarily my joint, or jawn… But its joint “Women Respond to Bass” slaps. I’ve done the research, made the calls, and crunched the numbers over the years, and it speaks the truth. The track, Melissa Scaduto of Sextile says, “was written as a sassy strutter for the girls, gays, and theys.” It’s a dance floor interrupter. You can hear and see the truth. Sometimes, the most direct statement is the most catchy. There are some cool moments on this record; again, not necessarily stuff I’d be blaring, but I can see its accessibility. Cool stuff. Yes, I’d call it electronic music. Maybe I’m a music snob. You decide.
Pick it up here.
