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…
SOUR WIDOWS, “BLOOD IN THE GRASS”
You can add the Bay Area alternative rock duo of Maia Sinaiko and Susanna Thomson to the growing list of artists whom superproducer and indie-rock star Jay Som, aka Melina Duterte, has looked out for in the production department. Sour Widows, coming off their past hit album produced by Bay-Area studio wizard Maryam Qudus, now readies their second full-length album, Sigil, for a late fall release.
The songs are said to be “crafted to curve” in unexpected directions and are the most magnetic the band has written yet. The unsaid blessing seems to be that Sinaiko and Thomson have the luxury of regional mentors in the making of their first two full album projects, a convenience many budding artists would be so lucky to have.
According to Pitchfork, the LP’s lead single, “Blood in the Grass,” was written by Susanna Thomson for Maya Bon of Babehoven and comes with a found footage-style video directed by Thomson and her bandmate, Maia Sinaiko. Expect something even greater than their first, a stellar album in its own right, on the way from Duterte; remember that veteran cool did wonders for boygenius. Pre-order here.
SPACE GHOST, BACK FROM REALITY (PEACE WORLD RECORDS)
I have this theory. Things in the world have become so breakneck and jarring that creatives, who are really rooted in the world and connected with their loved ones, understand the importance of creating on an “ambient,” if you will, version of their works to just dial things down to manageable levels.
Yes, it’s centering.
Oakland’s Sudi Wachspress, aka Space Ghost, is a consistent, tried-and-true electronic music producer who has always placed atmospheric, encompassing arrangements alongside street soul grooves, while maintaining an easy, identifiable house sound. His last full release, Private Paradise, was inspired by “microdosing shrooms” at Sea Ranch, the small community two hours north of San Francisco.
So now the aptly titled new album, four years later, Back From Reality, was inspired despite “the backdrop of global conflict, environmental decline, and economic uncertainty.” Wachspress still sees and promotes positivity and even moves in the direction of “interest in writing music for video games.”
Always down to drive around Oakland listening to his songs after the studio process is over, Space Ghost remains a local Bay Area producer aligned cosmically with that ebullient golden era of Chicago house sound. He’s added some new colors to the picture too, and they’re rippling with reflection. Back From Reality is out in October; pre-order here.
CHARACTER SELECT AT BLACK CAT, SEPTEMBER 30
It feels like those outside the typical shows’ ideas have taken hold over at Black Cat jazz club.
In February, I hit up a D’Angelo tribute performance night, and as I walked through the front door into a very modern-looking, but not necessarily overdone or swanky, barroom, the funky setup (meant most positively) resembled the plucky and interesting shows programmed downstairs.
Since vocalist Veotis Latchinson and his talented fellow musicians for sure put the spirit of D’Angelo in the air that night, I’ve kept an eye on the bookings at that spot.
For the later part of the summer and moving into the fall, Black Cat had some inspired gigs on tap that included a Prince tribute night by Black Cat All-Stars and a four-night engagement called The Coltrane Influence: Two Different Expressions ft. Wayne Escoffery & Tal Cohen. But something quite out of the ordinary is coming up. A band named Character Select plays what they call “video game music powered up with jazz, funk, and rock,” which does point to the increase in popularity of 8-Bit Cassette mixes popping up, and live-band videogame accompaniment parties.
But these types of new perspectives on typical and non-jazz arrangements will keep music heads in general popping down to Black Cat for that plucky, nouveau experience. Now that’s exciting. Grab tix here.
DOOHICKEY CUBICLE, GOOD AT IT
Alli Deleo and Francis Hooper make music you smile to, even though, at first, it’s like, “Whaaa.”
If you rely on the genre police description, you’ll get pop, alternative, dream pop, and the blank descriptor “leftfield,” which these days could mean a baseball player’s WTF position or the term “experimental,” another big-talk, no-meaning term. So I’ll cut to the goodies.
Vancouver duo Doohickey Cubicle (one of the craftiest band names of the 21st century) makes the groovy, quirky, at times nonsensical arrangements you want to hear at your fave dive’s backroom or downstairs where people go to disappear and work out those dance moves to the synthy guilt-so-good moments they are sometimes embarrassed by.
It’s upbeat house-y ideas, methinks, such as on track “It’s the same.” In other moments it’s quiet storm, sexy and high on kombucha, like the twisty humidity of “Luck and Fantasy.”
But that band name—straight outta ’70s TV cop shows: Deleo & Hooper know they’re kind of funny, but dead serious when crafting their own downtown Friday night arrangements. Good at it? indeed. Grab it here.
DARRYL JENIFER, THE WEATHER CHANNEL (ORG MUSIC)
Listen. When I caught pioneers of hardcore punk Bad Brains at my local live music venue on the East Coast—the same place where I caught the spirit watching funk legend Maceo Parker run down all his James Brown hits, after walking around outside, pre-gig, wearing a fake beard incognito (we still knew it was HIM)—their classic “Re-Ignition” ripped through the spot with gravitational force. Moshers, hip-hoppers, and reggae fanatics were caught in a frenzied “East Coast” stomp. Basically, if you were a fan of music, this DC-based band had your ear, and soul, engaged like no other.
Darryl Jenifer, Bad Brains’ bassist, recently put out jazz-adjacent project The Weather Channel that features “Re-Ignition II,” relocating the track in a more loungey vein that works like a lament on previous times, with flute solos and gentle brushes on the drums for atmosphere.
“When I was young, Stanley Clarke was my hero. I went to see him at the Capital Center in DC in 1978, and after the show, I got his autograph on a dollar bill,” Jenifer told Guitar World in July about the jazz legend. “I loved his speed and technique, but eventually I became more interested in vibration instead of notes. The pulse became more important than showing people what I could play.”
The Weather Channel does that thing that people tease aging punk rockers about—eventually you go country. Well, Jenifer’s country is that moody-vibey jazz space that feels like a new frontier for the bass legend to experiment and mosh around within.
“I’ve never believed you’re supposed to play a certain style because of where you’re from. If you’re Jamaican, people expect reggae. If you’re from Washington, D.C., you’re supposed to play go-go. But that never made sense to me,” he extolled at GW. “If I’m into punk, I’ll make punk. If I’m listening to Roy Ayers or Lonnie Liston Smith, I’ll make something inspired by that. I just play what I love.” Grab it here.
