Posts tagged foliage

Year in Pop: 2024

As the curtain of 2024 descends upon the world’s stage, Week in Pop shares a brief showcase highlighting just some of our favorite acts that inspired us throughout a surreal year. Forever eschewing dubious quantified ranking metrics; this feature is (as always) a work in progress that illustrates some of the movers and shakers in the creative pop arts that made this year memorable in the most amazing of ways. And once again the following lineup is not meant to exclude the deluge of fellow talented luminaries that caught our ears, eyes, minds, spirits and hears this year, but rather a hand picked collection of upstarts presented in pseudo-chronological order. Without further ado it is now our pleasure and privilege to proudly present:

Week in Pop’s Year in Pop: 2024

zowy

Discovering these new degrees of artistic fluidity is multidisciplinary artist Zoë Wyner who presents their latest inspired endeavor titled zowy with the release beware magical thinking for Lost Sound Tapes. A singular set of visions brought to a radical realization with an assist from Brad Krieger at Big Nice, the Providence, RI tunesmith collects and condenses anecdotes, aphorisms and the expanses of intuition into a cavalcade of illustrious curiosities. Wyner pays homage to the scrappy denizens of the DIY ethos on the punchy arpeggiated synth waterfall of “underdog”, to the impassioned fury of "found" that soars through the celestial stratospheres and burns like an inextinguishable bonfire of purpose pure and true. The title track is an exercise in the alchemy of reminiscences, a sprinkling of magical realism, where charged objects and sentimental memories are delivered a in a mix of percussive woodwinds and expressively dissonant chords.

Josh Stokes

With 2024 being the year of big time Baltimore scene buzz, local luminary Josh Stokes continues upon a path of unrelenting proliferation. Pushing the limitations of stylistic production with an invigorated sense of purpose, Stokes released Universal Josh I am You You are Me at the start of the year that delivers a message of the inner-connectiveness at work in our shared plane of humanity. Since breaking out onto the scenes around 2016, the world of Josh Stokes can be chronicled by a dizzying oeuvre from Funktion, Toons, God Jewel, countless collaborations and releases that delivers fusions like a perpetual cosmic tabernacle tent revival. Stokes makes music to stir the soul, music for re-centering, music for healing, music that springs from a limitless well of inspirations that always feels fresh and from a place of sincerity and realness.

And while the world spins in an unpredictable and anxiety inducing tilt-a-whirl; Josh Stokes amplifies ecstatic visions and continues to lift up the culture and universal consciousness even higher with Power released later in the year. Stokes ignites movements towards uplifting personal agency. Having established progressive funk rhythms with a gospel fervor, Power propels itself to realms of futuristic hip hop manifested by an inspired maestro dedicated to edifying the epistemology of all things and everyone inspirational.

Foliage

With the release of Foliage’s latest EP Throwaways, Manuel Joseph Walker heralds the upcoming sixth album with some of the artist’s most dazzling and mesmerizing work to date. Boasting a creative repertoire that spans a multitude of directions from encyclopedic DIY intonations, progressive rhythms, a compendium of the contemporary and modern pop classical, to increasingly elaborate textural touches — Foliage has risen to the prominence as one of the west coast’s most treasured polymaths. Elevating the platform of what bedroom recording can be, what emotive expressions can be captured in the worlds of audio arts, what depth and dimensions the power production can encompass, extoling what can materialize within the polarities of minimalism and maximalism alike.

Get Lost Cassidy Frost

Presenting the debut of the new Get Lost Cassidy Frost single “C’mon C’mon C’mon C’mon” — the San Francisco artist shares an intimate anecdotal about a birthday evening spent alone on the floor whilst doing some enlightening soul searching. Following up the recent track "(Till the Flood of my Blood Makes a Moat for your Boat to) Float On", Cassidy Frost continues their own journey of embracing inherent identity, queerness, questioning the health of so-called social norms and finding that grounded center from within. Even while utilizing a catchy economy of minimalist bedroom pop production, Cassidy is able to convey concepts that are very real, serious, sentimental and ultimately life affirming in an opulent timbre and tones that will live rent free in the audience’s heads and spirits.

Joh Chase

The gospel according to Los Angeles by way of Seattle artist Joh Chase is the fantastic devotion to the edification of the self with the world debut of “Gone”. The ecstatic opener to the hotly anticipated new album SOLO for Kill Rock Stars, Chase follows up the recent heartland rumble of “Avalanche” with a personal ode to letting go of the trappings that no longer serve or suit you. Having been brought up in evangelical congregations where they began the development of their musical chops, Joh’s journey charts the pathways from leaving the church to find their own calling and place within the myriad clusters of cultural constellations. SOLO is the sound of a wide-eyed dreamer finding their visions manifesting in the material, terrestrial plane. Joh presents the aura of unity in a world that is broken, increasingly divided and presents songs that are fashioned to the tune of home. A place of one’s own. Joh Chase specializes in the statements of sound that are committed to building bridges, paths of friendship, roads of belonging amid a country of obstacles, barriers and prohibitive walls.

Leisure

In the grand tradition of these seismic solstice shifts is the return of Leisure with the haunting and hypnotic “Seasons”. We didn't mean to wait till the end to finally release this material, bandleader Jon Jurow explains, but now more than ever we feel and hope these songs can bring a sense of comfort, escape and inspiration to those who hear it. The then NYC-based pop group had been developing an album under the working title Hand In Fear after the release of Gone Again back in 2014 but was shelved as the world became consumed in chaos and instability. “Seasons” is the first listen from these sessions, recorded with Gryphon Graham, Leif Anders, and Eric Cardona to create a sound submerged in the chrysalis of creating a sound that gracefully sparkles like an embellished ornament of shimmering lead crystal.

The Fourth Wall

The Portland-based group of bandleader Stephen Agustin with Kasey Shun, Chris Lau, Kendall Sallay, and Andrew White presents Return Forever; a cycle of songs dedicated to the pursuit of perpetual jest and a transcendental level of happiness. Agustin draws from his family's own histories from Korea and the Philippines respectively, specifically a story involving a close relative that left behind her daughter when she moved to the United States. The poetry of forgetfulness concept is the groundwork for the album that strives to understand the intricate lineages and complicated challenges of assimilation and identity and all the conflicts that lie therein. Return Forever is an adventure into the eternity of the stars, entertaining the eternal return that can be found in observing the cycles of life that repeat themselves and discovering the traces of joy that connects us all.

Strange Men

Leading us once again into the zeitgeist of the storm is Strange Men, San Francisco’s rising duo of Róisín Isner and Ashley Clayton who present their new hard raging rocker, “Do What the Boys Do”. Complete with a video that was filmed and edited live at the SF’s studio the Complex by the iconic Panda Dulce (aka Kyle Casey Chu) and George S. Rosenthal with the aid of AI frame blending — Róisín & Ashley ferociously observe the waves of self destruction that surrounds us in hand with our own vulnerabilities. Raging against the status quo and the toxic machines of our own making; Strange Men show us a reflection of the weird, wild and out of control worlds we call home. While we are beset in an age that is obsessed with wellness, putting in the work, addictions to therapy and shopping, parasocial posturing and so forth — “Do What the Boys Do” is a dark ride romp into the malaise that consumes our communities and offers a sense of awareness and all its varying causes and effects.

FINE.

Experience the visceral, vulnerable and venerable album of ambition and actualization (W)HOLE [via SELF LUV] from Providence, RI band FINE. A basement pop project that began with Iz Dungan and Ly Barber, turned trio with the addition of bassist Betty Amrhein together create queer positive sonic symphonies that orchestrate exuberance and unflinching honesty through unrelenting energetic audio arts. On the immediate surface it might appear that FINE. are following the alternative rock playbooks from your favorite hedonistic heroes from the vintage terrestrial radio dials, but upon a closer listen they have made a record for our current time. Iz, Ly and Betty pour out the contents of fallen soldiers from all of yesterday’s parties, symbols of remembrance of liberties lost in the faces of our world’s acrimonious attacks on trans people, tributes to those that are no longer with us, motions to make more inclusive communities both in our front and backyards and harnessing a thunderous sound that makes melodic moves towards the infinite skies.

R.E. Seraphin

And as the world went sideways, Ray Seraphin graced us with the sounds and styles that graced our lives whilst quarantined in our home digs. We rocked out to Tiny Shapes, we rolled on with bedroom dormitory dalliance of A Room Forever, the skint, spent & suave Swingshift and now present the debut of the grandiose long player masterpiece — Fool’s Mate via Take a Turn Records / Safe Suburban Home Records. The Vallejo artist teamed up with recording at the Crockett, CA home studio of the Papercuts' Jason Quever with the enlisted brass of Joel Cusumano, Daniel Pearce, Josh Miller and Luke Robbins to round out the full send that Seraphin had been envisioning for over half a decade. The edges of previous works can still be found, with the scrappiness traded in for a fuller sound developed with the aid of a full band to bring Ray’s visions to their brightest zenith.

Total Slacker

Total Slacker’s Tucker Rountree addresses conundrums of contemporary existentialism in the new single and visual for “Chlorine” from the iconic artful dodger’s fifth album. Juxtaposing the rabid road raging interstates to nowhere of our current states of disconnect by casting the specter from the end of the previous millennium, the double helix of mindless performative mindfulness is mixed with the antiquated aesthetics of the previous dial-toned decades. The everybody is a star mentality that has manifested into the living the best life ever projections of current era showboating is lampooned with a sharp and wry critique that is told through the the camp of classic lifestyles of the rich and famous types of pomp and bourgeois circumstance of yesteryear’s swells and swanky socialites.

Swiftumz

Through the cycles of scenes that have transpired across the Bay Area for over the past few decades, few artists have had the kind of titanic influence over everyone the way Swiftumz has. Creatives and fans alike have name checked Christopher McVicker as one of San Francisco's most beguiling and mercurial stylistic shapeshifters. On the new album Simply the Best for Empty Cellar Records, McVicker has enlisted a top tier roster of fellow icons for the occasion from The Aislers Set, The Bananas, Dirty Ghosts, Kelley Stoltz to name just a few of the shining lights that grace this fascinating new full-length. Just as semantics forever fall short to capture the prismatic pop cult of Chris, Simply the Best boasts a bouquet of musical botanicals that one would expect to hear while digging through crates at the Amoeba Records in the Upper Haight on a foggy afternoon in the spring.

shirlette ammons

The spirit of shirlette ammons’ radical new album Spectacles rises high above the noise and the projections. Based out of Durham by way of Beautancus, NC — the artist meditates on the notions of her own identities of Blackness, queerness, southerness, twinness, not to mention poet, musician, art director, educator and an accomplished Emmy and Peabody awarded television producer into a married embrace of these magnificent multitudes. The follow up to 2016’s Language Barrier is an epic exercise in eschewing the perceptive connotations and nearsighted applications the world at large places on these individual spectacle points of identity and cultural presentations. Spectacles is an astounding portrait of ammons celebrating these myriad kaleidoscopic visions that comprise the beauty of the self and one another. With a production assist from Phil Cook, shirlette’s new album features a dazzling array of collaborators that includes (but is not limited to) Amelia Meath of Sylvan Esso, Mavis SWAN Poole, Jessamyn Stanley, G Yamazawa, Kane Smego, the Central Park School For Children, Brevan Hampden, Daniel Chavis, Darion Alexander, DJ Harrison, Chris Boerner, Brad Cook, Nyk Baglio, Matt McCaughan, Mykki Blanco, Fred Moten, Shorlette Ammons, Anansj Stephens, DJ Doowop, Dr. Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Vivica C. Coxx, Tunde Wey and many more…

Sarah Once Was

Delivering these psychic and lunar visions of heart is the debut of "Thumbnail Moon" from Sarah Once Was, accompanied with visuals of natural splendor courtesy of Aja Dewolf Moura. The musical outfit of Sarah “Mac” McNamara, known for work with the studios Wiggle World, Universal Hair Farm and countless other creatives, shares a lullaby for 2024. A song that that provides mindful pause in a world that is always going and going without stopping to appreciate the beauty that surrounds in abundance. “Thumbnail Moon” is a song to quell the pangs of anxiety, a song that assuages the stressors that weigh upon the psyche and soul that allows the serendipity of a sacred space where the entire natural realm feels like a sanctuary or a spa for the spirit from within to safely dwell in the warmth of a blissful solitude.

Zoya Zafar

Candid processes permeate the understated majesty of Some Songs from Zoya Zafar. The Orlando by way of Lahore, Pakistan artist follows up the Spaceless Craft EP with a full-length album that has been years in the making. Spanning years that have contended with the pandemic, battling an auto-immune illness and world travels; Zafar delivers music that is made with heart and the utmost care. With production and mixing assists from Max Helgemo and Gia Margaret, each mesmerizing movement on Some Songs glimmers and glows like the planetary stars that keep our humble globe company. An ineffable beauty and striking humility are found all throughout the record, as Zoya elevates the caliber and class of what chamber torch songs can be in a new era of constant kinesis, worldwide clamor and a chance to find a greater enlightenment.

The Doozers

Delivering the ultimate sound of spring 2024 is Detroit’s breakout act The Doozers with the debut of “5/3” that arrives not a day too late. The quartet of Sean Donnelly, Kyle Garland, Parker Grissom, and Melanie Kelley combine forces to create a sound that borrows tropes from all the big festival stage acts from the past 25 years (with trace elements of new romantic flair). Taken from their album Becoming an Entity that follows their 2019 EP, cheekily titled Full Length Album, The Doozers bring a sharp style that splashes like a carefree cannonball plunge off a hi-dive board. The cleverly blended electrified elements together bop brilliantly like the heavenly headliner you have never heard of that enamors all in attendance on the big top amphitheater bandshell. The Doozers arrive like the underdog that undercuts the hype and suddenly appears on every big showcase flier that floods your timeline feed.

S. Raekwon

We have been anticipating the album Steven ever since we discovered S. Raekwon’s lauded debut record Where I’m at Now. The NYC-based artist Steven Raekwon Reynolds has a knack for presenting candid cantations through an array of styles that convey varying degrees of the vulnerable, the sacred and sentimental. Steven showcases this trifecta of pathos, ethos and logos like a seasoned tunesmith enjoying a residency in a suave Greenwich Village artist salon. Following up the I Like It When You Smile EP, S. Raekwon takes the creative journey further inward in an exploration of identity like a sophisti-pop therapy session.

Female Gaze

Non-linear sequences abound on the new record Tender Futures from Tucson, AZ trio Female Gaze. Bandleader Nelene DeGuzman, Kevin Conklin and Nicky David Cobham-Morgese create a 5 song cycle designed to be experienced like a Möbius film loop. The band prefaces it with the following:

…[Tender Futures] is a cycle meant to be listened to on a loop, starting anywhere but listening in order until you reach your starting point again…

A record that rose out of DeGuzman’s own health struggles where days and nights blended together into the arbitrary atmospheres of ambiguity, Tender Futures offers tangible textures that enrobe the constructs of time and spaces as we embark upon them. Female Gaze gives room for how we perceive our lives, minute by minute, moment to moment. Honoring these aspects of reality, DeGuzman surveys where we are, how we feel and how we are engaging in that very instance. Tender Gaze invites you to experience time not as a simplified flat line but as a circle, where the the rises and falls of solar and lunar intervals are heard and felt according to a planetary alignment that is outside of our own immediate purview.

nicholas

Bravery is allowing others to see our uncertainty and earnestness of heart. Bravery is opening up to your fellow folks about the guarded things you feel from inside yourself. Bravery is the new single “888-BE-BRAVE” from Chicago artist nicholas. The creative call sign of Nick McMillan, the follow up to Heat Island Effect works in minimalistic ways. In collaboration with Marcus Darling and mixing/mastering by Brok Mende; McMillan brings a subdued song of passion, humility, apprehension with a soft string strumming stroll. McMillan makes a song to hum while walking home from a difficult day at work. Self-diagnostics are sung sleepily in a hushed restrained refrain as a personal assessment of aspirations and reluctance gently echo through the brisk air of dusk.

Noelle & the Deserters

Among the flora, the wilderness, a michelada, a Mission burrito & Noelle Fiore; photographed by Doug Avery.

Noelle & the Deserters shared band made visuals filmed at Noelle Fiore’s hometown of Taos, New Mexico and all along the Rio Grande for “Canyon”. Featured off their album debut High Desert Daydream from Speakeasy Studios SF, their new record first arrived on our radar with the debut of the excellent and wonderfully exuberant “Born in the Morning” courtesy of our friends at BFF.FM. DIY pop heads will already recognize Fiore from her work in Tim Cohen’s (of the Fresh & Onlys) Magic Trick, playing with Shannon Shaw of Shannon & the Clams and the Deserters themselves starring Graham Norwood (of Bryan Scary, Graham Norwood), Alicia Vanden Heuvel (from The Aislers Set, Speakeasy Studios SF founder), David Cuetter (of Tarnation) along with Noelle’s hubby Jerry Fiore (from Sonic Love Affair). The group shines a light on what contemporary Americana can be, dusting off the records of your favorite cosmic American psychonauts who established the sounds of the southwest and far beyond that connect the otherwise disparate interstates, lonesome highways and all but abandoned trails to the goldmine portals of fuzzy memories.

Yea-Ming & the Rumours

I Can't Have It All from Oakland’s Yea-Ming & the Rumours sparkles with the honest sentiments that mirror life itself. It is the record that despite the title gives you so much from its roster of talents. Lead by Yea-Ming Chen, the Rumour team is made up and reinforced by Sonia Hayden, Eóin Galvin, Luke Robbins, Jen Weisberg, Jeff Moller, Jasper Leach and more. It follows So Bird… from 2022 with the sound that Yea-Ming & the Rumors have wanted to make since their inception from the mid-2010s. I Can’t Have It All is the record that has it all: the hesitations, the excitement, the apprehension, the ecstasy, the agony, and everything beyond and in-between.

St. Kio

Introducing St. Kio, the creative handle of LA polymath Nicole Bandoquillo who offers the uplifting and ethereal entrances of enlightenment with the debut of “Infinity Mirror”. The artist presents an eternal hymn of empowerment that cuts through the negativity of mindless chatter and manic scrolling with a joyful noise that cuts through the veil of night & day cycles with an aural rush of limitless purpose and inner peace. “Infinity Mirror” conjures up visions of elapsed photography that show the expanses of time through a sped up lens that crashes on through to the mythic other sides of our own respective worlds as we have come to understand them. The almost endless spirals we experience on account of our own programming are interrupted with the senses, sounds and sentiments of new frontiers and new realizations. A track to lift us up to where we belong and want to be that is on the other side of all the thoughts and traumas that bring us down. In Nicole’s own words:

“I wrote this song during a period of heartbreak, loneliness, and isolation. It inspired me to shift from self-pity to self-reflection, focusing on how I could improve and move forward.”

Sophie Swanson

Songs of heartbreak. Songs of healing. Songs of sorrow. Songs of rage. Songs of release. Songs of radical empathy. Welcome to the big surprise breakout hit of the summer, as Sophie Swanson presents the wonder work of Social Burnout. The New Jersey artist captivatingly conveys the strange social awkwardness of breakups, the bliss and burden of friendships, the performative dances we dance, the acts we act and above all the importance of restorative solitude in the face of an overwhelming world. Swanson has made the ultimate record that artists for decades have been trying to materialize and/or perfect. Its the record that you always wanted from the Breeders post-Last Splash, if Avril Lavigne transformed “Sk8ter Boi” into a fully realized subgenre, the record that Olivia Rodrigo keeps trying to make, the best song cycle not ghostwritten by Linda Perry, the solo rock record from Gwen Stefani we never got, and ultimately the sassy and snazzy sound for summer 2024.

Magic Fig

And as the technological and pop cultural fashions turn like a carousel of seasons, Magic Fig materializes with their self-titled from Silver Current Records. From the creatives behind favorites such as Almond Joy, Healing Potpourri, The Umbrellas, Whitney’s Playland, and more — Inna Showalter, Jon Chaney, Matthew Ferrara, Taylor Giffin, and Muzzy Moskowitz deliver a sun punch psych dose of pure luminescent solar beams. Levitating at the corner of tranquility and transcendent, Magic Fig journeys into the celestial places of the spirit. Completed with production and engineering supplied by Once and Future Band’s Joel Robinow, along with Paul Korte, and Tim Green — the Magic Fig self-titled sets sail along the cosmic and crystal glass glimmering seas.

Silverware

Silverware’s album One True Light for Ghost Mountain Records is the vision of SF by way of Lexington artist Ainsley Wagoner, the track sparkles with a suave serenity that emanates sophisti-pop styles and sounds like the light that passes through the most illustrious gems. Working with Omar Akrouche on the follow-up to 2021’s No Plans, Ainsley casts off the cares and diversions of the world with a sense of resolve, determination, and mindfulness. Joined by a chanting chorus of fellow Bay Area luminaries like Asha Wells, Sarah Simon, Simi Sohota, Taylor Giffin, Tom Smith, and more — Silverware’s lavish creative developments that have been over two years in the making stand as some of the most beautiful and breezy music to compliment the omnipresent San Francisco summer fog.

Close Calls

Jon Bernson and Michael Zapruder seeking new projections of expressions; press photo courtesy of the artists.

With all of this and more in spirit and mind, Jon Bernson & Michael Zapruder launch their collaborative new pop synthesis Close Calls with the single and visual for “JPEGs”. It’s a contemporary sci-fi love letter to the ubiquitous format that threads our connection to others, the earth, ourselves, and any bit of physical and ephemeral matter imaginable. Prolific pioneers of the influential collective and imprint Howells Transmitter, Bernson’s works spans from Ray’s Vast Basement, Window Twins, Exray’s, Higher Lows, holder of an Emmy and Peabody awards, in conjunction with fellow award-winning luminary Zapruder whose projects and developments range from contemporary classical, opera, to current work in rrunnerrss, with a composition doctorate. Together with their talents and visions combined — Close Calls is an exercise in creative concision that works to exhibit our modern day conundrum and curiosities that cuts the 3 minute traditional popular craft by half.

Weaver Line (fka The Ways)

London loves Sally & Benjamin of Weaver Line (formerly The Ways); press photo courtesy of the artists.

The most innovative artists beyond time immemorial express themselves from the central axis of infinite flux. London by way of NYC icon and multihyphenate Sally Way (née Horowitz, fka S the Supplicant, Luxe, Secret Lover, et al.) and Benjamin Way have embraced the alchemy that the stage and the pop craft of song afford. From finding each other through the contemporary circuits of underground theatre events, experimental endeavors that straddle the abstract, the absurd, the odd, to all out eccentrically entertaining — Sally & Ben present their creative duality of Weaver Line (fka The Ways). Fusing the places where the theatrical avant-garde and pop song synergy meet in a marriage under the banner of DIY, The Weaver Line present their inaugural offering of “No Heaven”.

Trap Girl

Cue Los Angeles force to be reckoned with, Trap Girl, as they unveil the debut of “Baddest Bitch” from their new album The Savage Goddess via Kill Rock Stars. Seen recently at Oakland’s Mosswood Meltdown, bandleader Drew Arriola-Sands, with Jorge Reveles, Jocelyn Aguilera, and Daniel Guzman bring their take no crap message to the whole wide world. Broadcasting a self-proclaimed passion for femme supremacy, Trap Girl brings the rage with a powder keg of queer positivity to drown out the harbingers of transphobia and the petty politicians that peddle their anemic agendas of projected insecurities and platforms of unfounded fear and indoctrinated hate.

Slumped

This is the sentiment and mentality of Slumped’s new album Last Day on Earth. The Oakland band have been generating buzz since 2017, increasingly elaborating upon their musical productions to create some of the most grandiose rock & roll fit for both humble dives and stadium stages alike. Guided by the vision of bandleader Nathaniel-Thomas Punty, Slumped exalts the slacker pop canons that recall your favorite 90s underdogs and manages to perfect that punchy practice space luster and catapult it to an astronomical degree. As the Bay continues to bring some of the world’s best talents and arts, Slumped contributes to what can only be described and felt as an unstoppable force of nature that is not slowing any time soon.

WUT

DIY pop wunderkinds WUT; press photo courtesy of the artists.

Engaging with our shared world that is weird, widely repugnant, with striking elements of unlimited wonder [not to mention potential prosperity] are Vancouver’s rising vanguards of egalitarian enlightenment — WUT — presenting their new album Mingling with the Thorns via the distinguished DIY institution HHBTM. The central talents of Kaity McWhinney, Tracey Vath (both from Knife Pleat, Love Cuts), and Lauren Smith (of Tough Age, Jock Tears) deliver the successor to their brilliant 2020 visual album NOW with a record that swims through the undertows and riptides toward calmer, kinder, more sane, and sensible seas. Through collaboration that carried through eras of quarantines and sheltering in place, WUT edify and exalt the underground sound scenes established by the Shop Assistants, We've Got a Fuzzbox and We're Going To Use It, Talulah Gosh, Heavenly, etcetera into a full on creative platform to portray the cracked communities of our current era and the sacred, eternal search for the self, heart and soul (within a society that is turned sideways like a funhouse hallway).

Chime School

Welcome to The Boy Who Ran the Paisley Hotel, the much anticipated new album from Chime School. Local SF scene ambassador Andy Pastalaniec follows up the lauded 2021 self-titled with a sound and presence that is crisp and magnified to a large scale. Paisley Hotel dwells in a space where the pub circuit set makes the stylistic jump for the big top tent festival stage. Think about the time where your favorite independent idol signed with a major to create their big expensive sounding record, and that industry cliché describes only a fraction of the shimmering semiotics of the new Chime School record. Andy organizes day dream sequences into chapters of song, surfing the shifts of natural progressions with notions of human folly into a musical photo album with ineffably charged energy galore [specially designed to be enjoyed at maximum volume].

Dinowalrus

Never mind the Oasis reunion hype, as Dinowalrus descends from their DIY throne with the debut of the new single “Tunnel Vision”. The Brooklyn purveyors of brash bops follows up “Blackout Freakout” with a big tune that Richard Ashcroft never gifted us during the heyday of the Verve’s humble beginnings. Call it 90s revivalism, revisionism, resurrection, but don’t call it a comeback. It’s the sound of creativity operating at the speed of sound, racing against the daybreak of inevitable light that strikes at the vanishing point of the horizons that watches days arrive and depart in equal measure.

Still Ruins

Oakland pop art institution Still Ruins lavished us with one of the best releases of 2024 with their self-titled EP. The combined visions of Frankie Soto, Jose Medina and Cyrus VandenBerghe — they present an in-depth look and discussion of influences and inspirations that span from the obscure to the internationally observed and renowned. A collaborative feature that has been in the works for well over a year, Still Ruins share an exclusive glimpse at the shadows that stretch from the New Romantic era that make up the mesmerizing mixes and molds of songs like “Silhouette”. The deep blue seas and oceanic dimensions that delve into the rapid waters that run from the past and into the modern day tributaries heard on “Perfect Blue”. Tracing back those radical retro radio waves and synth sequenced sensations that informed “Until Then”. The pursuit of perfection and commitment to mining the majesties and maestros of heavenly hymns that gave rise to the blissed out baths of “Of Devotion”. Scouring the scales and archives of nearly infinite ethereal underdogs as arbiters of underground pop knowledge and taste on “Left Against”.

SCHØØL

SCHØØL [Francis Mallari (of Rendez-Vous), Erica Ashleson (from Special Friend, Dog Park), Jack Moase (of Liquid Face), and Marble Arch’s Alex Battez] sends the audience to the tattered banks of the earth that are on the brink of total collapse on “The End”. The band entertains what will happen if the world explodes, what feelings remain, and what chances we have as a society to carry on toward something better. Like the previous track “N.S.M.L.Y.D.”, SCHØØL super soaks the soundwaves, the sensations and sentiments that resemble the reckless and riled up youths in rebellion — raging against the monstrous machines. Delivering declarations of defiance in the face of the sordid systems of oppression. The Paris-based band believers in a more beautiful and abundant world lament the lack of peace with projections of anxiety and dismay in the face of perdition.

Baseball Gregg

They are a ray of light. They are a refuge when the going gets rough. They are peace. They are Baseball Gregg. Their new album Briefs from La Barberia, Baseball Gregg’s Luca Lovisetto (based out of Bologna, Italy) and Sam Regan (Oakland, California) celebrate the group’s tenth anniversary with the single and visual for the pensive & poignant “Penetration”. The trademark whistful sea swaying rock carries the weight of confronting prejudices with a vulnerable sense of pride, articulating intimacy and anger in equal measure. Sam confronts the ills and anguish at the work while turning the tables on the negative forces that seek to bring people down.

Slack Times

Many meditations, reminiscence, and more can be found and felt throughout the new tape Gone Things from Birmingham, Alabama band Slack Times. The trio of Chris McCauley, Abby Anderson, and Stuart Norman channel the sensibilities and smarts of your favorite cult DIY jangle dreaming act of underrated import in a journey through the ephemeral scrapbooks conjured by the spirit and mind. Mixed by Les Nuby at Ol Elegante, mastered by Álvaro Lissón, featuring additional contributions from Seth Brown; Slack Times’ evolution shows the power of sentimentality when applied to succinct, punchy guitar lead ballads of the utmost sincerity.

Wish Queen

Wish Queen’s double single Feeder/Floral Sheets is the pursuit of pensive exploration. Cleveland artist Grace Sullivan follows up the album debut Saturnalia with the next chapters that sounds like the foundational beginnings of a follow up full-length. The new duality between the new tracks offers a rewarding journey through the places of up close self-examinations and allowing/opening yourself up to the possibility of an interdependent and ineffable state of amour. Sullivan presents a pair of songs that course through the inward and outward terrain, surrendering and reconciling states of love that unlock new wonder waves of beauty and bliss.

figure eight

Delivering a sweeping and succinct record to sundown a year fraught with frustrations and a litany of grievances is the moving self-titled from one of Oakland’s most beloved bands, figure eight. One of the Bay Area’s best and most slept on acts, they are some of the shiniest and most humble stars of a scrappy—yet prolific—scene of lionhearted upstarts. The principle duo of Nash Rood and Abby Goeser have expanded to a quartet to include the talents of Nicholas Coleman from Softie and Pork Belly’s Nicky Esparza. Debuting with their lauded EP drown, figure eight turns up the tidal roar light of their sound like amplifier vacuum tube bulbs, ever expanding in their creative scope like tungsten filaments rising up n heightened degrees of temperature.

BAYEM

Delivering seasons of sun to brighten up our sullen solstice is rising Indianapolis artist BAYEM with the debut for the California dreaming coastal cool of “Malibu”. Recently bringing the torch song suave of “No Regrets”, to the retro neon pop steeped maximalism on “Avalanche”; the artist ventures into the azure oceans of deep introspection on the enchantment found with an elevated empathetic connection. BAYEM turns the creative dial to the emotive expressions found on the AM stations that our mothers and fathers and their mothers and fathers were raised on. The wave streaked beaches of romantic sentiment are dearly blended with tightly crafted production reminiscent of post-disco dilettantes with a sophisticated, windswept, and sweetened atmosphere of fantastical futurism rooted in the retro modernist of the latter twentieth century.

Discus

Pondering thoughts on the journey driven media mainstays are Chicago brothers Jake & Paul Stolz with the new Discus single “On Tour” that postulates the perpetual inherent ennui of trail trekking. Known as the rhythm section for Pool Holograph, Varsity, Central Heat Exchange, and many other acts; they hint at future musical endeavors to arrive in 2025 with a massive electric pop mammoth of a jam. Following up the electric retro rizz of 2023’s mini disc, the crunchy key and guitar odysseys connect together even cleaner, exhibiting two sides of the same coin, communicating an acute balance of both introverted/extroverted observations and languid emotion.

Annika Zee

Opening up the mythic gates to new dimensions of light is one of 2024’s biggest records from one of the world’s most important artists Annika Zee. The esteemed NYC by way of Toronto pop icon presents the magnificent world of Magnolia via Absurd TRAX, an album of heart and soul lead rhythms that rides toward new degrees of affection and a search for understanding. The prolific artist and designer has spent over a decade redefining what dance based music can be, compounding the world of kinetic and canonical creations into new heightened forms of pop crafts that paint new poignant songs that survey our surrounding societies and the sanctuaries of the self. Magnolia is a journey that searches the reconciliation and assertion of the self in a world of hardships and heartbreaks that marks the latest in Zee’s ever expansive catalogue that counts Patience, Bleu, Factory Pageant, Aging Aesthetics, and many other works that assert how art and expressive actualization takes shape in a rapidly shifting world. A singular pivotal force that forecasted the mainstream sartorial intersection of artistic agency once again shows the entire world how it’s done.

Aan

PDX institution of creative cool, Aan; press photo courtesy of the band.

Presenting the long awaited follow-up to 2019’s Losing My Shadow, Portland’s own Aan delivers the video for “Speculum Aenigmate” from their new album Over the Mountain. The new album from Bud Wilson and company dazzles with somatic sentiments on the grooving "My Body", the density dives of "Black Hole", journeying into the unknown ether of "Laced and Lost", to the enchanted and entrancing "Dope Magic". Embracing the ennui and alchemy of "Waiting Around", to scouring the thread lines of "Searching For Seams", to scouring the broken earth on "Break the World in Two". "Neon Orange Leash" shines color saturated light on the roads and sidewalks ahead, concluding the record with the penultimate "Cold Grey Eyes" that arrives at a smoldering piano lead ballad that brings it all back home with an icy and exhausted glance, leaving room for the possibility of infinite joy and approximations of hope on “Smile”.

Parentz

In this spirit of gratitude and grace we present Bay Area institution Parentz and the debut of the visuals for “Freaking Me Out” off the long-awaited mega album 1989. A pop entity that first graced our radars in 2011 with the IP obliterating wonder work Big that showcased Oakland artist Jeremy Sullivan re-envisioning/rearranging in a return to anachronistic alchemy that eschews tired revisionist warping in favor of recreation through resurrection, reconstruction, reformation, and above all re-imagining. The follow-up EP with the decidedly 2010s blogosphere-centric title FP&B<3Z1:FLY cast the bright lights on the patented East Bay inflected sound Parentz would pursue from that moment forward. Spending the next decade releasing a barrage of singles, 1989 rides on the wings of a Pegasus toward new future cool clouds that sport a higher degrees of consciousness whilst tech mining the criminally underutilized, underrated, and antiquated electro pop tropes.

…and so many more…

Keep up with all of our features from this past year and beyond here.

Bidding farewell to 2024 and ringing in 2025….

Year in Pop: 2023

With the year drawing to a close, Week in Pop presents a humble assortment of selections from just a few of our favorites and standouts from the creatives that inspired us with their expansive and expressive ingenuity. Presented in no particular order and not according to any arbitrary quantitative ranking system; this feature is a work in progress that showcases a rough draft compilation that highlights just some of those that shined a bright light into our collective worlds during this past trip around the sun. Not intended to be exhaustive or entirely definitive by any stretch of the imagination, we present to you a selection of some of the year’s brightest stars and their offerings of emanating brilliance with:

Week in Pop’s Year in Pop: 2023

Joy Postell, The Magician

The iconic Joy Postell; photographed by Joey Whitley.

Love is spiritual. Love is ineffable. Love is hope. Love is a new chance. Love is beautiful. Love is all the aforementioned and so much more. Love is The Magician, the inspired new EP from lauded Baltimore r&b pop icon Joy Postell. The artist has garnered attention over the past decade with a proliferation of singles, influential releases with the prescient Diaspora, Back and Forth and more that have uplifted the cultural consciousness with a higher message of celestial light for today’s turbulent times. Shining forth bright beams of truths in the face of systemic oppression and countering adversity with storytelling arts of earnest affections; Joy’s oeuvre of work intuitively precipitated the upheavals, uprisings and tribulations witnessed in recent years with a bastion of suave self-styled rhythm and rhymes that offer an antidote of unrelenting liberation in the face of global, local and personal points of conflicts and attrition.

Welcome Strawberry, Scared to Look (Cherub Dream Records)

Beyond the blur and whir with Welcome Strawberry's Cyrus VandenBerghe; photographed by Zachary Rodell.

Constrictions, life balances, better states of being, creative pursuits and more; these ideas and ascetic concepts factor in heavily to the world building bloom and plume of Welcome Strawberry’s brand new Scared to Look EP for the esteemed San Francisco imprint Cherub Dream Records. Led by Oakland musician Cyrus VandenBerghe, also of Still Ruins, the follow up to 2022’s self-titled debut places an emphasis on immediacy and introspection alongside the restrictions of excess. It’s an assessment of being the person we want to see in the mirror, the desire to curtail the things that no longer serve us and embody ideas, attitudes and energy in a fully realized sound that is present and tangible in all that we create. VandenBerghe–with the assistance of engineer/percussionist Daniel Baylis, vocalist Cheyenne Avant, Nick Bassett and Zac Montez on mixing and mastering–presents a prosperous place that surpasses the pit beyond all of our nagging fears; a sacred sanctuary where we can lay our burdens down; a point of respite; a proverbial safe space; the coordinates where the ego and superego intersect in a harmonious and ineffable congress.

Strange Men, "Hot Nights" (Big Pink Records)

San Francisco’s sensational Strange Men, from left, Róisín Isner & Ashley Clayton; photographed by Cassidy Frost.

As the story goes — a fateful wait for an 8 Bayshore Muni bus became the groundwork for San Francisco duo Strange Men's new single "Hot Nights" for the brand new SF/Seattle imprint Big Pink Records. Conceived by Róisín Isner who sounded out the phonetic percussive progressions to herself before conveying it guitarist/bassist Ashley Clayton; the two built a royal ruckus that shakes, sneers, trembles and quakes with a fury that rides high, tough and feisty all under a minute and a half. Strange Men abide by the intrinsic and psychic school of pop curation, edifying the economy of engineering and designing the perfect, succinct song that accounts for everything that you would ever want to experience.

C3zR, “B.B.B” ft. Ifeanyi Elswith

The inimitable and amazing Ifeanyi Elswith; press photo courtesy of the artist via Instagram.

Embracing the whole wide world — C3zR; photographed by Vanessa Valadez.

Introducing Chi-town’s new producer to know, C3zR, of whom today announces the breakout album Round Voyage for 600 Block Records with the stunning debut of “B.B.B” that features fellow local talent Ifeanyi Elswith. Born Cesar Pino, the multi-instrumentalist has built a style from the books of jazz greats, citing Bobby Caldwell, Ramsey Lewis to contemporary luminaries like Enny, Kaytranada and many more as guiding lights. Beyond these catalogues of favorites, C3zR has been busy fusing a brand new fashion and line of focuses that are all his own. Working alongside fellow rising star Ifeanyi, a new tier of rhythm and bops can be found from a collaboration that feels like nothing experienced before or since. Call it a mood. Call it a vibe. “B.B.B” bursts through to the surface from the underground with a coolness and suave that cannot be denied.

poolblood, mole (Next Door Records)

Toronto titan Maryam Said — aka poolblood; photographed by Jibril Yassin.

Giving us all this and more is the almighty Maryam Said of poolblood released of one of the year’s biggest and most anticipated albums ⁠— mole. The long awaited to follow up to the Yummy EP from 2019, we discovered the pop universe of poolblood via collaborators ranging from Annika Zee to Shamir and more of whom pointed toward Maryam’s rising star based out of Toronto. Working in conjunction with the aforementioned Shamir Bailey along with Louie Short; mole is a mystifying and grandiose album that materializes like a psychic cinematic production that reveals the soul’s own lullabies, swan songs and saudade symphonies from the connective corridors that travel between the heart, mind, body and human spirit.

Gabby’s World, Gabby Sword (Carrot All Records)

Pop icon Gabrielle Smith clad in Junya Watanabe, Comme Des Garçons.

Transcendence and transformation defines the trajectories of mercurial spirits that open themselves to unlimited change. Nothing ever remains the same, life and time are not static constructs, motion is a part of the human exchange as history moves us forward into new chapters and new paradigms. Gabrielle Smith leads us into the frontiers of the strange and terrains of new discovery on the much awaited Gabby's World album, Gabby Sword. Co-produced with partner and Lindsay Barrie (otherwise known by just their surname), Gabrielle presents a voyage of healing and hemming the threads of today and tomorrow's musical textiles that allude toward future creative progressions.

Model Clocks, It’s Going to Be OK (Technofunk)

Vancouver’s premier pop vanguards — Model Clocks; press photo / cover art courtesy of the artists.

Subscribing to the universal construct of unbridled hope are the northern dreamers at Model Clocks who present the much awaited (and aptly titled) EP It’s Going to Be OK. The group of Simon Lock of Terrace, Chad McLeod, vocalist Jane Lauren Storey-English and guitar ace Dan Dall’Acqua together create a chorus of indefatigable inspiration and light. After pandemic related delays and navigating remote collaborations and the like, Model Clocks gives the world a work of unrelenting joy. Together they raise a banner of determination, ballads about navigating love, dream journals on the journeys of searching for meaning, the pursuit of better things and combining analogous eras into a synthesis that lends itself toward creative stylistic hybrids of the celestial sort.

Miracle Sweepstakes, Last Licks (One Weird Trick)

Wonders of wonders….Miracle Sweepstakes; press photo courtesy of the artists.

Toward the close of the chaotic and traumatic year that was 2020, New York’s adventurous wide-eyed pop voyagers Miracle Sweepstakes blessed us with the beauty of Rorschached that brought an abundance of endearing and eccentric light into our hearts and quarantined homes. Through the turbulence of the past 3 years, the Sweepstakes team of Craig Heed, Ian Miniero, Justin Mayfield and Doug Bleek endured the upheavals and tragedies of personal loss that lead them to largely record their massive new album by themselves. With the passing of Ian's father, the group took to his basement in Valley Stream, NY where they recorded with gear that his dad left behind in the home where the band used to practice back during the formidable years of their youth. Through experiments, trials, errors, breakthroughs and more — we present the band’s mighty testament to perseverance and prog pop prognostications with Last Licks.

Past Palms, Portraits

Electronic/ambient pop’s new appointed leader — Past Palms; photographed by Nuria Rius.

Thus sets the stage for the latest release from Richmond, VA pop polymath Past Palms as we bring you Portraits. Standing as one of today’s most profound and prolific artists in the realm of ambient arts — Portraits follows up a string of releases that instinctively grows more and more organic and ethereal in ways that are as mysterious as the communication and communion between the flora and fauna. From lauded releases like Ambient Music for Watering Plants, Summer Prayer, Empyrean, Senescence and more; Past Palms has arrived as one of the foremost institutions for breaking new grounds in the fields of finding new atmospheric arts that imitate, emulate and are intertwined with the air, ether and atmospheres that embody the environments of our lives.

Suzanne Bonifacio, “Mistakes”

Manifesting new creative tiers of existence with Suzanne Bonifacio; press photo courtesy of Ken Axford.

Like the atoms whirling and fleeting about in the breeze, carried by the wayward winds; we arrive at our own conclusions and points of calm by finding fleeting moments and places of pause within the maelstrom of everything that we cannot fully define or grasp that exists beyond the scope of our own comprehension. Thus sets the tone and stage for Suzanne Bonifacio’s staggering single, “Mistakes”. A slow burning sacred chamber track, the Buffalo, NY artist moves the lens inward toward meditative spaces. Delicately developed over the course of the past few years in a world consumed by the inertia of ghastly proportions that historians will pine over for eons — Bonifacio speaks to the guarded vulnerability of how we live. How we learn. How we grow. How we fall down. How we pick ourselves back up. How we fail forward. How we cope. How we arrive at our personal truths. How we love. How we find peace. How we organize a sense of order from the landfill heaps of memories, the weights and pressures of the world and how we arrive at a higher state of grace.

Liska, It Girl

Embracing the extents of infinity with Liska; press photo courtesy of Charlie Young.

Cue rising popstar Liska who unleashes the ecstatic extents of perpetual indulgence and serotonin per semper with “Infinity”. Alias Annelise Steele, a multidisciplinary artist based out of Chicago, announces the follow up to Le Boom with the anticipated It Girl EP that pushes the parameters of what maximalism can be. Drawing from the playbooks of debutantes and matriarchs that have rocked the systems, ruled the scenes and laid the golden cobblestones of yellow brick roads toward the emanating light of immortal stardom — Liska is fusing together a fashion of sound, sentiment, sensibility and style of ethereality in perpetuity. Beyond channeling every icon of the 80s and 90s who ever dared to shatter the champagne glasses in the VIP room of every boy’s club imaginable, Liska embodies an entity that has broken through the trappings of the mortal coil, inhabiting a world without end.

Otracami, touching the stove coil

The ascent of Otracami; photographed by Sai Tripathi.

These visceral and personal streams of thoughts comprise the debut single “Fold” from rising artist Otracami. The Brooklyn by way of Davis, California multidisciplinary polymath Camila Ortiz presents the album touching the stove coil that delivers songs of heart. Songs of experience. Songs of observations. Songs of sentimental stories. Songs that traverse the roadmaps of life, spanning coast to coast. Songs that collect the aphorisms that arrive as we live our lives. Songs inspired by the moments that have charged meanings. Songs of transcending the people we once were. Songs about who we are now. Songs about the road ahead. Songs that look back at the tributaries and trails we left behind. Songs about how we alter ourselves to fit the schemes of others. Songs about how we find ourselves through the noise and narratives of life.

Anna Hillburg, Tired Girls (Speakeasy Studios SF)

Anna Hillburg returns to San Francisco with an incredible new record; photographed by Justin Frahm.

“Holdin’ On” is Anna Hillburg’s ode to coping and trying to figure it all out. The song captures the feeling of fright and startled fears of coming back to a world that has been altered, rendered into terrain that stands at the crossroads of transitions, turmoil, rehabilitation, restoration, transformation, et al. From the glimmering, hopeful keys to the sincere horns; Anna looks outward and inward, seeking answers that only offer unlimited lines of questions and thoughts that beget new thoughts and perspectives. “Holdin’ On” deals with the feeling of the material realm that fades into the void of the ether, worlds that become beholden to the machinations of erasure and the sentiment of how truly fragile our communities, environments and ourselves really are.

Featured off the Tired Girls album via Speakeasy Studios SF, Anna delivers musical movements that tackle humanity’s collective exhaustion, identity, femininity, observing a world in flux, coping amid the cornucopia of seismic upheavals and so forth. Upon returning to San Francisco after a pandemic-era sabbatical in Nevada City, Hillburg articulates what is different. The differences outwardly, environmentally, internally, the externalities, the epiphanies, the inceptions of concepts, the constructs that are long gone, the things and folks that remain, the newness, the not so new and everything in-between that is found on the plane of our shared existence.

The Garment District, Flowers Telegraphed to All Parts of the World (HHBTM)

Weaving textile tapestries with The Garment District; photographed by Nicole Czapinski.

Presenting The Garment District's Flowers Telegraphed to All Parts of the World courtesy of the esteemed imprint HHBTM that features a rogues’ gallery of contributing talents from the likes of Lucy Blehar, Dan Koshute, Shivika Asthana, Corry Drake, Gary Olson and Alex Korshin under the visionary auspices of Ladybug Transistor legend, photographer, museum academic and polymath — Jennifer Baron. Orchestrated largely from vintage instrumentation at the home studio of David Klug in Pittsburgh [of which Jennifer expounds upon in lavish detail later in this feature], The Garment District takes the toolkits of the past to present something fresh that is more than the sum of it’s anachronistic counterparts. The Garment District showcases brilliantly how the very fabrics of constructs created in previous eras can be synthesized into new artifices of unbridled splendor. The wax, tapes and compact discs from your siblings, parents, grandparents, step-parents, aunts, uncles and everyone you have ever known become melded together for something that is absolutely fantastical. Baron and the crew conjure together a strong sense of supernatural feels that are adeptly blended into the material realm of the human senses.

Looms, The Dogs of Doubt

Brooklyn’s own legends — Looms; press photo courtesy of the artists.

Indictive of this are Brooklyn’s own beloved Looms, who present The Dogs of Doubt EP with the illustrious “You Already”. Bandleader Sharif Mekawy and company have endeared themselves to the world over the years with lauded releases like A Different Variety of Same, The Way Up, How It Has to Be, Sleeping Days and Waking Days — specializing in a craft that stirs a familiar sense of warmth within the listener while entertaining echoes of an enlightenment that Looms prove to be self-evident. The Dogs of Doubt offers something to help us cope with a distressed world, a balm to keep us keeping on and believing in the beauty of the human spirit as we all strive to make sense of a world caught in the whirl of circling the proverbial drain.

Jordannah Elizabeth, “Borders”

Baltimore author, journalist, artist, everything — Jordannah Elizabeth; press photo courtesy of the artist.

Jordannah Elizabeth delivered a live acoustic performance of "Borders”, the title track from the 2015 album of the same name. The Baltimore journalist, author, artist, academic, professor, media mogul, manager, model, publicist and so much more shares an intimate view of a song about the imaginary demarcation points that try as they might to keep us within the lines or defined by criteria that has no bearing or relevance. A prolific polymath who has spent years uplifting marginalized voices and talents, one of the world’s leading cultural critics who operates with strong fearlessness and grace, always spotlighting the esoteric and underappreciated undergrounds of extreme import and so much more than can fit within these humble pages — Jordannah shares a stripped down take on a beloved song about the perseverance of spirit and individuality with intonations of new works that have yet to arrive.

Sedona, “Touch & Go”

The absolutely iconic Sedona; press photo courtesy of the artist.

Enter the era of Sedona, one of the brightest stars to cast a glow on the pop art circuits enamoring fans and fellow artists alike. Week in Pop was one of the first media hubs to debut the artist/multihyphenate/phenom with the phone tag feels of “Call Me Up” that introduced one of the most beloved chanteuses to the world. Announcing a highly anticipated album debut in the works, Sedona follows up the recent single “Domino” with the red hot fleeting flight of fancy titled “Touch & Go”. A musical missive on the unbridled energy of infatuation, the track is an exploration of desire that grows from the fringes of fantasy and into the visceral realm of carnal congress.

Rob I. Miller, Companion Piece (Vacant Stare Records)

Denizen of all things pertaining to power pop DIY — Rob I. Miller; press photo courtesy of Nat McBride.

The Bay Area and beyond has been enamored by Blues Lawyer and the power pop offerings provided by Rob I. Miller as the much celebrated solo album Companion Piece proves that my, my, hey, hey — power pop is here to stay. "Clean" delves into the flannel garbed slacker steez where fuzz pedals light the way forward. A similar 120 Minutes mode is felt on "Bloodlust" that erupts into a beautiful blaze of unfettered oblivion, as "In Circles" operates with that Ardent Studios styled Big Star bombast that ponders the curious cases and shapes of interpersonal communication.

The Natvral, Summer of No Light (Dirty Bingo)

Artist extraordinaire — Kip Berman of The Natvral; press photo courtesy of the artist.

Created during the tumultuous period of the pandemic, former Pains of Being Pure at Heart bandleader Kip Berman presents the latest solo album Summer of No Light via The Natvral moniker. Sharing the debut of “Lucifer’s Glory”, Berman delivers tales of heroes and villains inspired during the stir-crazy days of being sequestered to the safety and sanctuary of home. Attending to family duties amid an apocalyptic backdrop of a pandemic and the feeling of a world that had entirely collapsed; The Natvral brings it all back to the basics by way of tunesmith testimonials like the ballads, novels, and sonnets bequeathed by old world troubadours.

The Parlor, You Are Love and I Am You

The expansive and embroidered pop realm of Jen and Eric from The Parlor; press photo courtesy of the artists.

You Are Love and I Am You is the ultimate abandon to the proverbial Steve Winwood penned "Higher Love". The record is all about a fusion of hearts that transcend beyond the mapped scope of our galaxies, delivered with the theatrical orchestral splendor of immediacy on "Now" that raises the curtain on the big show-stopping tune, "The Cloud of Unknowing". The song is designed for the festival stage, a fervent anthem of ascending toward an enlightened echelon in the new sacred spaces of the sublime that defy semantic articulation. Jen taps into the holy books of Saint Stevie Nicks on the glorious “Oceans (Carry On)”, traversing into the bouncy rocks & boulder beats of "Serpentine", careening along the catchy and glitchy cool cuts of "Ouroboros Loop". Mantras move upward on the hypnotic "Restless Life", the doe eyed devotional "My Only Ever Lady" that makes the multiverse feel like a warmer place of infinite love.

Total Slacker, "Freddy Krewger Sweater"

Time warps, hot pursuits and Total Slacker; video still courtesy of Nathan Kohler.

Tucker Rountree’s “Freddy Krewger Sweater” celebrates the styles of 80s throwbacks that mixes suspense and anarchic era specific sentiments that recalls all the campy media in conjunction with antiquated, modernist memories. Sitting pretty next to thriller classics like “Nightmare On My Street”, Total Slacker delivers a tribute to the Wes Craven franchise full of frantic phone conversations, creeping paranoia, stalker scares and more.

Forest Bees, Between the Lines: Stories and Sounds of a South Asian American Life (Dandy Boy Records)

The hive, mind and might of Forest Bees’ Sheetal Singh; photographed by Collen Eversman

Forest Bees debuted comfort and commiseration for the world in the initial wake of the global pandemic with the self-titled and recently Bay Area multi-hyphenate Sheetal Singh delivered the meditations and musings on culture and identity with Between the Lines: Stories and Sounds of a South Asian American Life. Featuring production by Maryam Qudus of Spacemoth, the new record is a magnificently transcendent pop cycle of narratives penned by Singh that ponders modern life experiences, conflicting connections and amplifying unsung narratives and heroines.

Miranda and the Beat, self-titled (Ernest Jenning Record Co. / Khannibalism)

La fête de Miranda and the Beat; photographed by Allen Ying

The story of Miranda and the Beat is something like a cult film favorite. With west coast beginnings, Miranda Zipse and Kim Sollecito made a dash for the Big Apple where they rounded out their punky pop posse with Dylan Fernandez and Alvin Jackson to make music in the vernacular of the viscous and visceral. Presenting their self-titled debut album via Ernest Jenning Record Co. / Khannibalism (a vanity imprint curated by legend King Khan), Miranda and the gang invite you to traverse NYC’s seemingly infinite expanses of electric asphalt on the world debut of “Concrete”. Catching the attention of the world with their Third Man Records single "Such A Fool”, the band trades freak beat psych frenzies for speedy leather clad punk dive bar devotionals.

Nova One, create myself (Community Records)

The inimitable and elevated world of mindfulness and majesty — Nova One; photographed by Maurisa Mackey.

Nova One gave the world a message of self-love, care and light with the lauded album lovable released during the throes of the pandemic that followed up secret princess and this year the Providence, Rhode Island artist Roz Raskin delivered the latest chapter with create myself via Community Records that takes on our current era of reconstruction with the liberating message of being free to be the person you want to be. If the previous offering was about learning to love yourself and others again, Roz presents an album dedicated to working on the self to be the realest and truest version of yourself. A record of actualization that treads rocky waters, swims through the depths of the seas and floats through the galaxies that meditates on human shortcomings, processing the pain, working through the hard stuff in the aims to arrive at a better state that embodies living a personal truth. The hardships and challenges are confronted head on in the hopes of being the honest superhero of the self that lives within the core of the human spirit.

The Leak, self-titled (Slang Church)

Get in the van and on the long and winding road with the Leak; press photo courtesy of the artists.

Seattle’s powerhouse of players The Leak presents a succinct cycle of big electric heavy hitters with their self-titled debut EP via Slang Church. The team of Taylor Clark, Sam Peterson, producer Dylan Wall and Niko Wood. the gang soak up some ultraviolet beams on "Weed in the Sun" with the vibe of baking in the solar rays while laying in the grass on the quad of an art school you flunked out of, "Congrats" exhibits some of the best presentations of modern day pop balladry, to elevating the power pop traditions with "Like a Shout". The playful side of the creative process shines through on "Poison the Sea", as the grandiose and boisterous "All Things" brings the record to a triumphant close.

Holly Waxwing, The New Pastoral (PC Music)

Heralding the pop praxis of Holly Waxwing; photographed by Molly Matalon.

Providing the world over a decade of enlightened electro touched tapestries from Peach Winks, remixes, Goldleaf Acrobatics and more; Waxwing hones in on the places where electronic adjacent compositions intersect within ecosystems of sensational splendor. These are works to further edify the unlimited landscapes found in the great outdoors, as well as offering elevated electro pop menageries for the introverted sorts that prefer the comforts of their cozy indoor domiciles. Holly Waxwing makes visceral music for ecologies and economies where even the most synthetic of rhythmic keyboard sequences feel holistically formed as if sprouted from the earth on its own accord.

Frankie Rose, Love As Projection (Slumberland/Night School)

DIY pop legend Frankie Rose; photographed by Esme Rogers Smith.

The bands have become canon: Vivan Girls, Crystal Stilts, Dum Dum Girls, Fine Place, et al. The artist stands as a singular force of visions and volition, the prolific Frankie Rose with the brand new album Love As Projection for Slumberland/Night School. Nearly six years since the release of Cage Tropical, Rose releases her most grandiose record to date in a full length that basks in the maximalist glow of big time productions and affectionate expressions. Projection shines at the top of every stylistic chart that it embraces, like an electro-emblazoned display of purpose, pride, presence and limitless persistence.

The Reds, Pinks & Purples, The Town that Cursed Your Name (Slumberland)

The grandeur and grace of Glenn Donaldson; press photo courtesy of the artist.

The Town that Cursed Your Name is like the novella about quandaries of settling into the arms of townie-dom or fleeing the coop for greener and brighter pastures and metropolises of illustrious promise & prosperity. Musings on mortality languish lavishly on the beautiful "Too Late for an Early Grave" that gingerly dovetails with the impulse to take flight for something/somewhere/anywhere/anything other on the timeless ballad of actualization and autonomy — "Leave it all Behind". The sound, vibe, prescient presence and utter immediacy of the record feels both rooted in the now while leaning toward the feelings from days of many futures past. "Life in the Void" is an anthem for every working stiff, the clock punchers of the world, those born with a plastic spoon in their mouths that missed the boat on all the suspect startup tech money luxuries, the every-person of whom were never handed anything but a nametag, a broom, dustpan and a corporate company polo shirt replete with insufferable color palette choice combinations.

Nima Kazerouni, self-titled (Shrimper)

Nima Kazerouni of So Many Wizards and more arts of wonder; press photo courtesy of the artist.

Expressing all of this and so much more is the righteous return of one of LA’s most influential artists, Nima Kazerouni, releasing his debut solo self-titled via Shrimper. Leader of the beloved So Many Wizards, Nima shares songs that revolve around leaning into fatherhood, ballads from the heart, songs from the lockdown and songs dedicated to new re-emergences and newfound affinities. Created in the confines of his own home studio (with an assist from Stereophonic Mastering’s Timothy Stollenwerk); the EP offers a more intimate side of the artist who has penned countless songs to dream on and fall in love in to/with. Nima rises from the chaos and worldwide wreckages of recent years with something that is composed with the deepest degrees of sincerities. Interpersonal relations are examined with raw honesty, reflections on the roads less and more often traveled, expressions of discovering a greater love and greater purposes in a cycle that curates the sentiment of a transcendent sanctuary with song.

Hibou, Arc

Peter Michel of Hibou, live at Bottom of the Hill, SF; photograph courtesy of Week in Pop.

The LA by Paris by way of Seattle bandleader Peter Michel composed Arc during a summer spent by the Canal de l’Ourcq, then recording his song cycle of sincere sentiments in the warmth of last autumn. The luster of days and evenings running their natural courses comprises the breathtaking "Night Fell", that feels like a dusk sojourn spent along the Seine with a bottle of rosé champagne shared with a dearly beloved soulmate. "June" exudes a sense of melancholia, like the transition of the solstices from spring that lead lionhearted into the life progressions and changes that arrive with the season of seemingly perpetual sun.

Figure Eight, drown

Abby & Nash of Figure Eight; press photo courtesy of the artists.

Giving the world the razor sharp economy of three blessed and blissed as all get out tracks with the drown EP, Figure Eight immediately captured the attention of the mind’s musical theater that seeks to witness crescendos of unbound melodic mountaintops awash in the aura and garb of unrelenting, uncompromising dissonance. Figure Eight themselves create case studies in the discipline of achieving indelible harmonies deep within the throes of chaotically controlled discord.

Foliage, "Can't Go Anywhere" (Club Mix)

Foliage’s Manuel Joseph Walker live at Bottom of the Hill in SF; photograph courtesy of Week in Pop.

The original track perfectly sums up our lives in the quarantine mode, locked in the confines of our own spaces and left with our own thoughts of a new better world, a new and better life, full of new, better and more meaningful exchanges with others. Just as the source material seeks for something beyond the mundane and menial claptrap jargon of unprecedented circumstances and mindless talk of the new normal — the Club Mix opens up a new level of catharsis in returning to the dark and dusty dives and dance halls that rejuvenate the human spirit among the company of fellow friends, acquaintances, contemporaries and everyone.

The Ian Fays, “Olive Says” (WWNBB)

The Ian Fays on the keys; press photo courtesy of Brian K Creative.

In this grand tradition of transformative art we present to you San Francisco’s The Ian Fays as they bring us a Valentine’s song for the holiday season with “Olive Says”. The core group of twins Lizz and Sara Fay follow up their recent wistful rustic single “Viola” with a magical torch song suited for smoky clandestine speakeasys, DIY spaces to the most elegant of jazz lounges. As a creative team that works in styles that span across myriad continuums of modern and post-modern constructs of musical sensibilities; “Olive Says” embraces baroque strings in a waltz that steps and sways inside of an endless melody that you never want to end.

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