Well, hello lovers of music and culture. We are Under the Stars, a quasi-weekly column that stays on message with strong-ass opinions, presenting new music releases, upcoming shows, and other adjacent items. We keep it moving, hustling with the changes, thinking outside the margins. We’ve been doing this for five years… Spend some time with us…
SAUL WILLIAMS, CARLOS NIÑO & FRIENDS, SAUL WILLIAMS MEETS CARLOS NIÑO & FRIENDS AT TREEPEOPLE (INTERNATIONAL ANTHEM), AT YOSHI”S, OAKLAND SEPTEMBER 30-OCTOBER 1
I should have seen this coming.
Witnessing Carlos Niño and Bay Area guitarist Nate Mercereau support the spry septuagenarian Idris Ackamoor a few years back at SF Jazz’s Joe Henderson Lab, after an official working in that building gave me a gentle push to attend—right in the middle of Noise Pop—was an eye-opening revelation.
Shakers and shells, vocal affirmations coming from Niño in his percussion corner, while Ackamoor bounced from song to song, playing rare instruments, donning an eye-catching suit. By far the coolest-anything goes performance that week. Spa vibes? Yes. Way out ambient jazz textures, and I was 100 percent all the way in.
Later that year, Carlos Niño and Nate Mercereau popped up on André 3000’s solo album New Blue Sun, a debut in several ways, coming almost two decades after Outkast went on hiatus in 2006—he’s apologizing, using wordplay in titles, and flexing that breath control. But this time it’s breathwork for woodwind instruments, for wanting to rap but not being able to.
And now, once again, Carlos Niño and Nate Mercereau surface together, this time with filmmaker, poet, activist, passionate human, and yes, he was just in this year’s most compelling film Sinners, Saul Williams.
Williams travels the musical earth—Trent Reznor, Rick Rubin, gone from hip-hop to punk. (My favorite is his collaborative work with drum and bass producer DJ Krust.)
Help us save local journalism!
Every tax-deductible donation helps us grow to cover the issues that mean the most to our community. Become a 48 Hills Hero and support the only daily progressive news source in the Bay Area.
But here he is on Saul Williams meets Carlos Niño & Friends at TreePeople, recorded live underneath black oak and walnut trees in Coldwater Canyon Park, Los Angeles, on December 18, 2024. Some would say that this is the ground floor of the entire contemporary ambient jazz movement.
Williams and Niño have been friends since the late 1990s, but here they tap into the right now, a period of time so difficult that Joan Baez doesn’t even urge young people to protest anymore.
That’s how broken things are, here in the US, and I assume around the world. (Publicists from overseas email me weekly, not just to push their sublime music wares, but continually ask, “How is it going over there,” and I know EXACTLY what they are talking about.
This live recording, part of the slow music movement—yes, it’s been labeled that—features nothing but hitters: Nate Mercereau on guitars and synthesizer, Aaron Shaw on flute and saxophones, Andres Renteria on percussion, Maia on flute and vibraphone, Francesca Heart on ‘computer, conch shell, and soundesign,” and Kamasi Washington on tenor saxophone.
But it’s Saul Williams, tapping back into the oral tradition here—talking, preaching, discussing, trying to make sense of the insane, delivering brain food to a fast-food society that’s lost its way. All of those cues give direction, reaction, focus, and wind power for this magical and powerful collection of musicians and revolutionaries who are attempting to transmit energies of the times into constructive hope, something we so desperately need as the country dismantles itself, and nobody seems to want to have an answer for how we dig ourselves out.
You can pick up Saul Williams meets Carlos Niño & Friends at TreePeople here.
Grab tickets for the Yoshi’s shows here.
JESSY LANZA, “SLAPPED BY MY LIFE” (HYPERDUB RECORDS)
There’s an informative “What’s In My Bag” episode from 2023, featuring Jessy Lanza, where she shares her love for Janet Jackson, Patrice Rushen, and Autechre with Amoeba Records. She specifically points out a long-player version of “Haven’t You Heard” by Rushen that features an “extended Fender Rhodes solo.” It’s the business, people. Imagine all those influences with just a hint of Drexciya vibes, and you get her new playful house track, “Slapped By My Life,” that is far more serious than it advertises itself to be. Please, go research this artist in a 2021 interview conducted by my boss Marke B, for DJ Mag, in of all places—the hottest place in SF right now, Golden Gate Park. But for my money, just seeing the collection of those artists all in one setting gives me a better understanding of what fuels this unique artist.
The track, a bittersweet paean to Jessy’s husband, lends itself to a dancefloor-oriented sound, playful and floaty at a stealth 158 bpm. ‘I wrote ‘Slapped By My Life’ while my husband was going through chemotherapy. The treatment cycle was relentless, and he needed to sleep a lot, so while he slept, I made this song for him. It’s been challenging to find the space to be creative since cancer came into my life, but I knew this song would make him smile, and that was motivation enough. I dedicate this song to my husband Winston and to all the caregivers. You are the ones who keep the world turning.’
Out on Hyperdub, you can pick it up here.
PRINCE AND THE REVOLUTION, AROUND THE WORLD IN A DAY 3-LP DELUXE EDITION (SONY)
Just the announcement of a deluxe 3-LP reissue of Around the World in a Day—the seventh studio album by Prince and the third release on which his backing band, The Revolution, is featured in the title, originally released 40 years ago—pissed off Prince fanatics. Claiming there was no new music from the vault, some perceived it as “cash grab.”
Listen, I get it. Prince fans are, well, err, not happy. There is something going on in the Prince-multiverse these days.
The estate of Prince successfully blocked the release of a nine-hour documentary directed by Oscar-winner Ezra Edelman, which was set to stream on Netflix. The cancellation, announced in February, was the result of a long legal dispute announced. In March, Edelman publicly criticized the decision, calling the cancellation of his five-year project “a joke” and accusing the estate of censoring his artistic vision. He stated that his goal was to capture the complex humanity of Prince, and a new estate-controlled project is likely to be “propaganda.”
Edelman’s doc, according to those who saw it, featured not-so-happy points of the artist’s life; the blues behind the rhythm if ya dig. It seems the estate is looking to turn Purple Rain into a live musical on Broadway, cash in if you will, with a happier version of the film. So we have commerce blocking truth, again. Also, a new Prince doc, as part of a mutual agreement between Netflix and the Prince estate, will now develop an estate-approved documentary featuring exclusive content from the archive.
That’s a lot to unpack. But understand this.
You can easily argue that Around the World in a Day showed everybody what the five-foot Purple one was really about and deserves just as much examination as his pop masterpiece Purple Rain.
It was the first of many curveballs Prince Rogers Nelson would throw when distancing himself from that juggernaut, his watershed breakthrough album that sold 25 million copies worldwide. (MJ’s Thriller sold 70 million worldwide). It was Prince, not the populace, who would move further and further away creatively from that phase, almost immediately shedding that Grammy and Academy Award-winning, pop chart-conquering skin to push boundaries further in other directions he found interesting. Similar to David Bowie, once he climbed the pop music Sierra, he found the view mid. Unbeknownst to him, Prince would again reach such a level of record-selling delirium upon his death on April 21, 2016.
This deluxe reissue packs a wallop, folks, including the nearly 22-minute 12” version of “America.” This phase of his career, early to mid-late ’80s, saw Prince release 12-inch singles in abundance. Funk workouts for the heads. But “America’s” lyrics foresaw our future now: “Aristocrats on a mountain climb/Making money, losing time/Communism is just a word/But if the government turns over/It’ll be the only word that’s heard.”
Prince Rogers Nelson is not walking through that door anytime soon with new material, so we need to really appreciate and celebrate what we have from this artist, because it seems to be speaking louder now than ever.
Pre-order this deluxe re-issue here.
NIGHT TAPES AT THE INDEPENDENT 10/7
Stumbling upon the South London trio Night Tapes a couple of years back, I felt a rush of excitement. Here was a band creating dream pop infused with a heavenly dose of psychedelic elements that blended seamlessly into their shoegaze treatment. Music with an authentic, not performative, rawness. As if someone were sitting on their porch, or trolling around those South London skreets at the cockcrow hour, recording unfiltered moments and sliding them in with naked studio jams.
Welp, the truffle mushroom vibes, those slo-mo cooked frequencies that beckon for the golden hour wherever you happen to be on this earth, have been polished up on their recent release. “Assisted Memories” focuses on some top-notch, studio-savvy, upbeat disco-tempo ear-podding jams that speak to hips moving as much as heads tripping. Growth is a good thing, especially for Night Tapes, who are making it back to The Bay in early October.
Good for them, better for us.
While you wait, grab a dose here.
ARMED BYRD, “NOT WORRIED”
Jane Huang, the Bay Area artist who records under the stage name Armed Byrd, makes music that invites listeners to breathe, pause, and let go. Her debut single, “Not Worried”, a quiet score of mellow atmospherics, provides velvety feels combined with poetic sentiments that allow the senses to reboot.
Fresh from performing at the Kaleido Music Festival,, Armed Byrd explores the emotional exhaustion and inner conflict of modern life through electronic music.
Keep tabs on this rising artist here.
