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…
JWORDS, SOUND THERAPY
Jennifer Hernandez is a believer. Now, the Brooklyn-based producer, educator, and synth-builder known as JWords did not, in fact, tell me such—well, maybe not directly. We have never met. But it’s all in those synthy, levitating, airy soundworlds she’s known for. It’s what caught my ears when she first started; it’s what made me hop on that high-flying train-plane of a project H31R with Brooklyn rapper Maassai that made Headspace, a 14-track electronic fusion album that felt so damn indie good. Recently, JWords turned 30. The newly released Sound Therapy, the follow-up to her 2022 debut solo LP, Self-Connection, supposedly deals with the troubles and triumphs she’s experienced over the last few years. While some would conclude that this release “gets heavy at times,” actually, it accelerates with maturity, riding all those celestial planes where footwork aspires to be house, but it’s something else.
I’ve always thought/felt JWords works at an advanced clip. She’s of that generation, who absorbed the hip-hop and R&B heard on BET’s Rap City; Missy Elliot, Biggie, Nas, and whatever else may have been poppin’ in Jersey club music. According to lore, in her senior year of high school, she somehow found herself playing keys in an all-male psych rock band.
Dope, right? Well, this feeds her determination to continue being in love with synths but also to make beats, arrangements “on which fellow femme artists could express themselves away from men, free to explore their ‘whimsical, magical energy.'” That, right there, is called moving with intent. There is a track here, “LoveCrime,” that talks with those plinking synths while JWords speaks of how she cares for herself. It’s a vulnerable tone poem biz that’s just as beautiful as it is stunning while storm clouds gurgle up to close out the track.
“It’s a new era,” she’s said in the press. “A calmer, chiller, ‘Yeah, I got my shit together’ kind of era.” Opening salvo “LOtus,” a looped synthy pattern that feels joyful, animated, and full of opportunity, predicts said release full of wonder. Implying, “I’m getting there, and the path feels wondrous.” Sound Therapy doesn’t cheat. Not one move in the direction of mindless trap, robotic house, or any so-called trend. JWords stands firm on these out-of-left-field arrangements—hip hop blurred with house and techno properties that never get boring or stale. She’s still world-building, and it’s a stirring environment. Hernandez stays confident in that “whimsical femme energy” that keeps pushing on and makes me know for a fact, or anyone listening, that JWords is a believer for sure.
Pick it up here.
OLD SKOOL CAFE SUNDAY SUPPER, May 17 4:30-7 PM
It’s quite possible that in a town known for its fine dining and cuisine that brought (R.I.P.) Anthony Bourdain to the Bay twice, maybe three times on-camera, Old Skool Cafe, situated in the vibrant Bayview, somehow remains a slept-on treat, including classic eats and a purpose far greater than turning a profit.
What’s the mission, Chef? Old Skool Cafe exists to serve great food in an inviting atmosphere that is run by trained at-risk youth, ages 16-22, who study and execute all aspects of running a restaurant business. These future restaurateurs explore the art of being hosts, servers, chefs, and entertainers in a supportive environment, addressing their basic needs in hopes of breaking the cycle of poverty and incarceration.
Which is why Sunday Supper, taking place on May 17, 4:30pm-7pm at the restaurant, is such a structurally important event in these future proprietors’ education. It’s Old Skool Cafe’s signature fundraising and community-building dinner series, where each meal is prepared and served by Old Skool Cafe’s young adults—formerly incarcerated and at-risk youth—who are earning paid job training, mentorship, and pathways to long-term careers in hospitality.
It’s a meal, a tasty one, you just cannot miss. Help impact the Old Skool youth of today and tomorrow. More info here.
LYRA PRAMUK, HYMNAL (RESUNG) (POP.SOIL)
When Djrum, Laurel Halo, John Tejada, and others of that very specific heavyweight ilk decide to rework your album, it’s NOT a typical remix-album cash grab. More in the lines of a high compliment, and that’s just for starters. Displaying how the limits of the human voice can be restructured, avant-pop artist Lyra Pramuk has been leading a charge over the past decade. Encompassing six reworks of songs from last year’s album Hymnal, the upcoming project strikes Parmuk as “a global constellation of sonic voices invited to reimagine…. a work of ecological grief, spiritual invocation, and queer embodiment.
“This rework project invites artists to deconstruct and recompose individual tracks as acts of sonic translation: ritual, mourning, conjuring, renewal. Hymnal (Resung) is not a remix album, but a polyphonic transmission, each piece a new vector in the ongoing dialogue between collapse and care, ancestry and futurity, the body and the earth.”
Pre-order here.
BLISS ABYSS, BLISS ABYSS
The first song in, which would be ‘Red Disgusting,’ loaded to the teeth with the Cure’s driving force and gleaming sentimental guitar riffs, the Bay Area’s bliss abyss self-titled, self-released album will make those Robert Smith comparisons a happy association to process. Working throughout the shoegaze and post-punk genres, bliss abyss chooses to make their arrangements poppy and catchy, but never patronizing.
Joints like ‘impersonator’ present these blaring, fuzzy tunes, with the big hooks, loud choruses, and then melodic as fuck refrains, so if you don’t mind losing cool points, you can still sing along. Peter Wallner, lead vocalist, shepherds this trio throughout different climates of alterna-cool, guitar-driven thoroughfares of feedback, providing listeners with a full plate of options in the dream-pop and garage rock format; it’s a buffet that works.
Buy it here.
NEAL FRANCIS AT THE GUILD THEATRE, JUNE 20
The first time I heard Neal Francis, he sang like he had a head cold. His 2019 album Changes saw the piano prodigy and boogie-woogie enthusiast sing the bejesus outta mumblecore lyrics about redemption amidst chunky bass lines, shift-swinging horn charts, and Purdie shuffle-style drum breaks.
Bro, go ahead and keep that head cold because it’s working.
On his recent Return to Zero 2025 release, the Chicago singer-songwriter purposely made a record that sounds like Thin Lizzy went disco. Francis did the research and spent many nights soaking in the sounds of house music pioneer Derrick Carter during his DJ sets at Chicago’s LGBTQ+ party, Queen!
“I was going to the Queen! nights semi-regularly at one time,” stated Francis in SPIN.
“Derrick Carter is a really fun guy to talk to, a true music nerd. He’s one of those minds, like Questlove, just an encyclopedia. House music is like cycling, going from a band in a room, getting sampled by someone, and getting turned into a house track, and now it’s coming back into a band in a room environment, like this circle of inspiration.”
Francis is one of those artists who keeps pushing himself to do new things and present different angles and sides of songs, and has made a career that always finds something new in that boogie-woogie enthusiast’s talent that’s always upfront. He puts on a show that’s all gas to the end.
Grab tickets here.
