It’s Under The Stars, a quasi-weekly column that presents new music releases, upcoming shows, opinions, and other adjacent items. We keep it moving, hustling with the changes, thinking outside the margins. Seeing who’s real and who’s just keeping it transactional… We’ve been doing this for five years. Spend some time with us.
GILLES PETERSON PRESENTS INTERNATIONAL ANTHEM (INTERNATIONAL ANTHEM)
It’s always cool. Nice, to gain acknowledgment for hard work put in… but what’s special is when the person giving that recognition knows exactly what they are talking about.
Global tastemaker and vinyl gawd Gilles Peterson signed the production duo 4hero, comprised of Dego McFarlane and Marc Mac, to his Talkin’ Loud label right around 1997, back in the day. I’d been stuck on 4hero and ALL the Reinforced Records releases happening around their takeover of drum and bass at the time. Peterson heard a younger culture taking their swipes at jazz and infusing it with the sound of the times. Influenced heavily by jazz fusion artists like Return to Forever and Weather Report, ultramodern yet moony, Peterson heard, well…
The future coming back into the fold and championed that movement.
So the gist of Gilles Peterson Presents International Anthem, a double-LP-length compilation of tracks from that Chicago mainstay imprint, curated by the cultural impresario, is not hooey. He feted International Anthem “Label of the Year” as part of his 2020 Worldwide Awards. As you flip through these cuts—the stripped-down “Creator has a Master Plan” from Dezron Douglas and Brandee Younger, the get your shit and go “Open The Gates” by Irreversible Entanglements with Moor Mother reminding us all it’s “energy time,” the bluesy, funk-forward terrain covered on “In/On” from Daniel Villarreal, and the bugged-out Afrobeats on “Industry” by SML—you can see what Gilles saw happening again: a new generation defining what jazz is to them while making it dangerous and beautiful once again.
Grab it here.
SF HIP-HOP FESTIVAL 2025 AT THE MIDWAY, JULY 18-19
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It seems the time is about right, ya know? With the Hip-Hop 50-year celebration happening a couple of years ago, the Bay Area will debut its own SF Hip-Hop Festival, spanning two days of music, speakers, and 30-year anniversary performances from culture-defining groups from the East and West coasts. Happening at the Midway July 18-19, the festival begins with, of course, RAKIM, forever the hip-hop and rap pioneer, legend, and icon, being the featured speaker at Culture RenAIssance: A Hip-Hop & A.I. Symposium. The panel will explore the evolving relationship between hip-hop and artificial intelligence, touching on ethics, innovation, and equity in music tech.
Saturday looks to be an all-star, all-coasts performance showcase like never seen before. Headliners include West Coast rap legends Tha Dogg Pound, marking the 30th anniversary of Dogg Food, and Digable Planets, currently touring in celebration of 1994’s Blowout Comb. Bay Area legends Souls of Mischief, Mix Master Mike with Invisibl Skratch Piklz, RBL Posse, San Quinn, and Los Rakas will join a stacked lineup reflecting the scene’s depth and diversity. This promises to be a one-of-a-kind event, a gathering of tribes when art and minorities are under attack; it could not have happened at a better time.
Scoop more info here.
FOUR TET, “INTO DUST (STILL FALLING)” (XL RECORDINGS)
Have we progressed so far, gettin’ all ambient, the 2020s electronic music obsession, that now Mazzy Star needs to enter the chat? What to do with a wonky, ear-wormy arrangement from none other than Four Tet that uses the guitar picks, vocals, and essence from Mazzy Star’s “Into Dust (Still Falling)” rolling over some 5am come-to-the-light drum arrangement, with a pesky snare in tow? According to those who would know, the always open-minded Resident Advisor team has reported it’s a staple in his recent sets, and that’s all fine, well, and good. But is it necessary?
Decide here.
CHARLES KYNARD, WOGA (WEWANTSOUNDS)
Organist Charles Kynard, born in St. Louis, headed to Los Angeles in the early ’60s, where he started recording for the Pacific Jazz label, carving out a niche that would soon pay off for the organ player who possessed “chops.” Later on, switching to Prestige Records, he recorded a series of albums that would become the foundation of the soul-jazz canon: Reelin’ With The Feelin’ (1969), Afro-Disiac (1970), and Wa-Tu-Wa-Zui (1971). These long players, packed with sample-ready breakbeats manifested by giants, featured the life work of Bernard Purdie, Paul Humphrey, and Idris Muhammad. Those beats have since been snatched up and repurposed by Bonobo, Cypress Hill, and The Chemical Brothers, to name a few.
In 1971, Kynard joined Bob Shad’s Mainstream Records and recorded three highly sought-after albums for the label, including Woga. Loaded with top-flight LA session veterans—Chuck Rainey on bass, Paul Humphrey on drums, and Arthur Adams on guitar—Woga is a combination of contemporary covers and funky originals that paints the audible colors of the time by way of instrumental jazz jams, illuminating Kynard’s bandleader skills and forever unfuckwithable Hammond organ chops.
From the opening moments of “Little Ghetto Boy” to the groove Holmes thing happening at the top of “Hot Sauce,” Kynard can light up a melody or play it real cool and mellow, letting his band of professionals cook—that’s what they do—while he pieces together what the vibe of the track shall be, all the while humm-singing the lines he’s playing, you can hear him, if you listen real close.. Woga, a fine combo of covers and originals, adds a forgotten Charles Kynard to the Jimmy Smiths, Brian Augers, Lonnie Smiths, and Johnny “Hammond” Smiths’ inner circle of organ masters.
Grab it here.
LOS BITCHOS AND COMBO TEZETA AT GREAT AMERICAN MUSIC HALL, JULY 23
Talk about a double slam of modernity. Globetrotters Los Bitchos and Bay Area-based Combo Tezeta broadcast to the world the updated glow-up world music has embraced over the past five to 10 years. This isn’t your burn the incense, snap your fingers, and hope to manifest a magical ticket version of non-Western musical arrangements. No sir, buddy. This is the buy new underwear and hold on to it way out, groove-oriented, psychedelic-tinged, it’s a goddamned party throwdown. You can argue if Khruangbin started it; both answers work.
But you cannot deny the friggin’ London-based, pan-continental, all-women instrumental four-piece Los Bitchos (by the power of Greyskull, dammit, that is their name). The amount of Van Halen girl gang, high off mezcal, spaghetti westerns, and Tarantino flicks energy loaded up into their ‘70s Anatolian rock with instrumental retro-futuristic blends of Peruvian chicha, Argentine cumbia, Turkish psych, and surf guitars. Simply put: mind-blown emoji.
But hold up. Get to this show early so you can bear witness to Combo Tezeta, the Oakland-based outfit whose electric, polyrhythmic, highly danceable blend of instrumental cumbias, chicha, and música tropical, inspired by the psychedelic late ’60s and early ’70s in Peru, is psychotropic bombacity for the soul. I’ve witnessed both groups absolutely electrify full rooms into a pan-continental party, and by the looks of this dynamically curated bill—shouts to GAMH for the proper grouping—I expect nothing less than dancefloor madness all night. It should be one of the best shows in the Bay all year. You’d be foolish to miss out.
Grab tix before they sell out here.
