JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates MC Hammer’s 64th birthday.
Tag: Oakland CA
New Audio: Kathryn Mohr Shares Brooding PJ Harvey-like “Doorway”
Oakland-based artist Kathryn Mohr creates music that exists in a liminal space of auditory dissociation. Drawing inspiration from lost items washing up on the shores of San Francisco Bay, Mohr’s work thematically touches upon the ephemeral nature of humanity, the warping of memory and how one’s trauma changes one’s experience of the world.
Mohr’s sophomore album Carve is slated for an April 17, 2026 release through The Flenser. The album was written over the course of five years and recorded over several weeks in a single wide in the Mojave Desert. The Oakland-based artist explains that her sophomore album explores how memory exists outside the body, embedded in places and landscapes.
The album’s material is shaped by her first return to the Southwest since a childhood road trip when she was five — and by the experience of moving through terrain that holds deep emotional weight, long after its origins faded. Thematically Carve considers how intimacy feels after years of isolation and what it takes to carve out a life that allows for trust, presence and feeling than mere survival.
Some of the album’s songs were written much earlier, during a prolonged period marked by emotional distance and apathy. During a four year period, Mohr was working through unprocessed childhood memories and trauma, and their long-term impact on her ability to connect with others. While the work was slow and difficult, it involved a fundamental reshaping of how she related to herself and to the outside world.
Mohr explains that the album took form after a difficult tour that ended in Joshua Tree. She pointed her car into the desert and drove alone, crisscrossing the Mojave Desert on dirt roads. Months later, she returned to record the album, working along with an acoustic guitar, a field recorder and limited supplies.
Following that period, she began to allow for intimacy and connection. The time she spent working on Carve didn’t create isolation, as much as mirror it. Working alone, out of an old, western-themed jail AirBnB, the physical enclosure reflected the emotional conditions under which much of the album had been written — distance, restraint and long stretches of stillness. For the Oakland-based artist, love wasn’t experienced as an escape or as a respite, but something inseparable from impermanence and the awareness of loss. The tension felt between connection and inevitability sits at the core of the album’s material.
Carve‘s third and latest single “Doorway” is a remarkably PJ Harvey-like tune that sees Mohr’s accompanying her crooned, stream-of-consciousness-like lyrics with buzzing and chiming guitar. The result is a song that captures the inner world and thoughts of its narrator with a woozy, uneasy and desperate precision that feels deeply lived-in.
“Doorway” was written in a Mojave Desert single wide, and as Mohr says, the song “…wrote itself really. The riffs came to me one after another and the lyrics were originally a stream of consciousness and me randomly reading from my notebook.”
New Audio: Draag Shares Woozily Meditative “NSPS”
With the release of their full-length debut, 2023’s Dark Fire Heresy and last year’s Actually, the quiet is nice EP, Los Angeles-based shoegazers and JOVM mainstays Draag — Adrian Acosta (vocals, guitar), Jessica Huang (vocals, synths), Ray Montes (guitar), Nick Kelley (bass) and Nathan Najera (drums) — received attention nationally and elsewhere for boldly pushing the boundaries of shoegaze into new, wild directions. And adding to a growing profile, the JOVM mainstay outfit have toured with Wednesday, MSPAINT, Glitterer and They Are Gutting A Body Of Water.
Building upon growing momentum, the Los Angeles-based JOVM mainstays will start the new year with the Miracle Drug EP, which is slated for a January 23, 2026 through Oakland-based tastemaker label, Smoking Room.
The EP will feature the previously released, EP title track “Miracle Drug,” a mind-bending blend of shoegaze, post-punk and nu-metal, and the EP’s second single “NSPS.” “NSPS” is meditative slow-burn, anchored around a woozy and lived-in sense of nostalgia, shame and heartache, from the perspective of a narrator, who has lived a messy life and attained a difficult, hard-won peace and constantly encounters elements of their past — in their present.
“I wrote NSPS on my 10 year sobriety anniversary. I’ve come very far in my sobriety journey and don’t struggle as much as I used to. Sometimes I miss my drunken days, but without needing to go back. On my 10 year sobrieversary, I spent a lot of time reflecting on past relationships and saw how many were taking advantage of me,” Draag’s Adrian Costa explains. “I remember the person I was back then, and I wanted approval so bad, even if it meant being abused by so called friends and partners. When I drive through the valley (818), I often drive through specific locations and landmarks in my life where abysmal and ridiculous events occurred during my drinking days. I still love this place and it’s still my place of comfort.”
New Video: JOVM Mainstays Draag Shares Genre-Bending “Miracle Drug”
With the release of their full-length debut, 2023’s Dark Fire Heresy and last year’s Actually, the quiet is nice EP, Los Angeles-based shoegazers and JOVM mainstays Draag — Adrian Acosta (vocals, guitar), Jessica Huang (vocals, synths), Ray Montes (guitar), Nick Kelley (bass) and Nathan Najera (drums) — received nationally and elsewhere for boldly pushing the boundaries of shoegaze into new, wild directions. And adding to a growing profile, the JOVM mainstay outfit have toured with Wednesday, MSPAINT, Glitterer and are about to wrap up a run of dates with They Are Gutting A Body Of Water.
Building upon growing momentum, the Los Angeles-based JOVM mainstays will start the new year with the Miracle Drug EP, which is slated for a January 23, 2026 through Oakland-based tastemaker label, Smoking Room.
The EP’s first single, EP title track “Miracle Drug” is a mind-bending blend of shoegaze, post-punk and nu-metal that evokes the inner turmoil of someone, who’s suffering from something that they know others can’t see — or even really understand. But in the song’s dreamier moments, there’s a sense of awe and appreciation over the small things.
“Living with an autoimmune condition is an invisible daily fight. Some days you want a miracle drug to escape what feels like a prison in your body,” Draag’s Adrian Acosta says about the new single. “But you don’t take your health for granted. And you learn how to appreciate life and super simple moments deeply. I feel like it’s given me a sharp vision of what really matters.”
The accompanying video is heavily inspired by the aesthetic and feel 80s and 90s Public Access TV including footage of local performers in a shitty studio, the band performing the song in a studio, home footage of young kids in their first band, as well as a lengthy call-in segment with calls from deranged viewers.
New Video: Street Eaters Return with Doom-Tinged and Witchy “Spectres”
Oakland-based post punk outfit Street Eaters — co-founders Megan March (vocals, drums) and John No (bass, vocals), along with Joan Toledo (guitar) — will be releasing their long-awaited and highly-anticipated fifth album, Opaque on September 5, 2025 through Dirt Cult Records. The seven-song album reportedly sees the trio attempting to stitch up the bloody wounds of their past while being a meditation on birth, death, excavated trauma, and trying to find steadfast kinfolk in a world that’s increasingly splintered, fucked up and cruel.
Much like all of us, Street Eaters have been through the wringer a bit since 2017’s The Envoy.
The band’s guitarist Joan Toledo, left a transphobic family and government in her native Florida, eventually relocating to San Francisco, where they became an editor at Maximum Rocknroll Magazine and a radical union organizer at the world famous City Lights Books.
The band’s front woman Megan March had a child. And while becoming a mother was, as she puts it, “an incredible joy and opportunity to rewire emotional pathways and deep wounds,” it was also a reminder of her own childhood: March’s mother was violently homophobic and eventually threw Megan and her teenage sister — both queer — from their childhood home.
For March, childbirth was both a traumatizing and transformational experience. Ironically born on July 4, her baby immediately entered a world steeped in bureaucracy: The hospital was so understaffed that March was neglected until the last moment and was forced to endure an emerging C-section. “I was borderline dehumanized by the toxic, misogynistic nature of the American medical system and its focus on efficiency and profit before care,” she says.
“Opaque is a record that gets deep into the stark and beautiful reality of growth and transition from trauma and loss,” Street Eaters’ March explains. “What does it mean to wake up one day and realize you are living the way you have always demanded to live — yet with all those jagged piles of emotional, physical, and social/political baggage still slicing through the veil?” The album isn’t just confrontational; it’s complicated. It sees the band, much like the rest of us, groping towards identity, understanding, and a place in the world in the process of being curated. “It’s a transition into finding peace with the world — a resonant connection with community and chosen family, getting beyond a lot of the pain and hurt,” the band’s John No says. “We’re trying to suture up wounds at this point and create something that’s healthy.”
Last month, I wrote about Opaque‘s first single “Tempers,” a furious, adrenaline pumping ripper that as March explains is about “being in isolation and not being sure what the future is going to be like and how things will be when the storm is over.” The album’s second and latest single “Spectres” is a doom-tinged, witchy incantation that’s deceptively belies its sweet and deeply loving core. The song’s narrator processes their complicated past while reflecting on healthy parenthood, striving to imbue love, caring and positive direction for their child — with the understanding that she also has to empower the child to be their own person. “I’m working to create a much better emotional landscape for my son o grow in — to find both understanding and healing from the breakage of cycles of abuse and isolation,” the band’s Megan March says.
Filmed by Joey Lusteman and John No, the accompanying video for “Spectres” is split between footage of the band performing in a small club and of March locking herself out in an industrial wasteland, trying to figure her way out.
New Audio: Street Eaters Share Furious and Impassioned “Tempers”
Oakland-based post punk outfit Street Eaters — co-founders Megan March (vocals, drums) and John No (bass, vocals), along with Joan Toledo (guitar) — will be releasing their long-awaited and highly-anticipated fifth album, Opaque on September 5, 2025 through Dirt Cult Records. The seven-song album reportedly sees the trio attempting to stitch up the bloody wounds of their past while being a meditation on birth, death, excavated trauma, and trying to find steadfast kinfolk in a world that’s increasingly splintered, fucked up and cruel.
Much like all of us, Street Eaters have been through the wringer a bit since 2017’s The Envoy.
The band’s guitarist Joan Toledo, left a transphobic family and government in her native Florida, eventually relocating to San Francisco, where they became an editor at Maximum Rocknroll Magazine and a radical union organizer at the world famous City Lights Books.
The band’s front woman Megan March had a child. And while becoming am other was, as she puts it, “and incredible joy and opportunity to rewire emotional pathways and deep wounds,” it was also a reminder of her own childhood: March’s mother was violently homophobic and eventually threw Megan and her teenage sister — both queer — from their childhood home.
For March, childbirth was both a traumatizing and transformational experience. Ironically born on July 4, her baby immediately entered a world steeped in bureaucracy: The hospital was so understaffed that March was neglected until the last moment and was forced to endure an emerging C-section. “I was borderline dehumanized by the toxic, misogynistic nature of the American medical system and its focus on efficiency and profit before care,” she says.
“Opaque is a record that gets deep into the stark and beautiful reality of growth and transition from trauma and loss,” Street Eaters’ March explains. “What does it mean to wake up one day and realize you are living the way you have always demanded to live — yet with all those jagged piles of emotional, physical, and social/political baggage still slicing through the veil?” The album isn’t just confrontational; it’s complicated. It sees the band, much like the rest of us, groping towards identity, understanding, and a place in the world in the process of being curated. “It’s a transition into finding peace with the world — a resonant connection with community and chosen family, getting beyond a lot of the pain and hurt,” the band’s John No says. “We’re trying to suture up wounds at this point and create something that’s healthy.”
Opaque‘s first single “Tempers” is a furious, adrenaline pumping ripper featuring scuzzy, serrated power chords, thunderous guitars and March’s urgent and impassioned vocals. March says, the song is about “being in isolation and not being sure what the future is going to be like and how things will be when the storm is over.”
The accompanying video directed by Krista Wright and Theo Garvey, in a hospital waiting room, where no one ever seems to get helped with anything. The band turns the hospital room into a stage that they rip up with a furious performance of the song.
New Audio: Frankie and the Witch Fingers Return with a Grimy, Blistering Ripper
Slated for a June 6, 2025 release through Greenway Records and The Reverberation Appreciation Society, Frankie and the Witch Fingers‘ eighth album, the Maryam Qudus-produced Trash Classic reportedly sees the JOVM mainstay happily plunging into a sewer-slick fusion of proto punk venom, fractured New Wave and industrial grime. Sonically brimming with wiry synths, angular melodies and squirming and biting grooves, the material is delivered with a sly, playful balance between smirk and sneer. The band layers playful unease while exploring themes of escapism, decay and overindulgence.
The songs were born in the grime of Vernon, Los Angeles — a wasteland littered with gutted RVs and rusting machinery, where the air tastes like asphalt and dog food. But the alchemy happed during recording sessions at Oakland‘s Tiny Telephone Studio, where producer Maryam Qudus helped transmute the tracks into the final forms with unhinged tones, unconventional recording experiments and wild sonic detours.
Each day of the recording sessions began with cartoons blaring at full volume — a Looney Tunes ritual that turned the madness of the recording process into something childlike. Late night, sugar-fueled candy binges kept the energy spiking, pushing the sessions into a fever dream of jittery, spastic playfulness. The end result is a raw, twisted monument to rot and excess — and to toxic glamour and nihilistic salvation.
So far I’ve written about three of the album’s previously released singles:
- “Economy,” which offered a glimpse of what to expect from the album: grimy synth pulse right at the front, alongside angular guitar fuzz and muscular yet mathematically precise drumming paired with punchily delivered vocals and mosh pit friendly hooks and choruses. Sonically, the result is a scuzzier and grimier take on Freedom of Choice-era DEVO — with a similar, tongue-in-cheek sensibility.
- “Total Reset,” a sweaty ripper that sees the band pairing angular guitar fuzz with squiggling synth pulse, mathematically precise drumming and Sizemore’s punchy delivery with the band’s penchant for mosh pit friendly hooks and choruses. Sonically, “Total Reset” strikes me as a being a synthesis of King Gizzard and Devo — but with a mischievous sense of menace and unease.
- “Dead Silence,” a track continues a run of grimy and mischievous DEVO-meets-garage rock rippers, anchored around the band’s unerring knack for rousing, mosh pit friendly hooks paired with Sizemore’s punchy delivery singing lyrics about existential dread and death. Oh, how fitting for our fucked up, dire time!
“Gutter Priestess,” Trash Classic‘s fourth and latest single sees the band continuing with the addition of a DEVO-like sheen to the punchy, garage punk aesthetic that has won them acclaim globally. And while arguably being the grimiest, nastiest song on the album to date, “Gutter Priestess” may also be the most danceable.
“‘Gutter Priestess’ felt filthy from the get,” the band’s Dylan Sizemore says. “I was hooked up to Burroughs and his junk-sick energy, romanticizing my own bad decisions and dark thoughts, cutting up lyrics, letting meaning rearrange itself. The whole thing turned into a brown, sharded nightmare but with a seductive dancey pulse.
When we went to record it, everyone leaned into the crust. The parts feel barbed and sharp – like they crawled out of a drainpipe with glass in their gums. Hopefully the lighter synth lines in the chorus add a sugary sweetness to all the rot and decay.”
Instead of a music video, the JOVM mainstays partnered with FolksPatMedia to release a fully-playable “Gutter Priestess” video. The creators of the free-to-play browser game have contributed to beloved games like Alien: Rogue Incursion, Creed: Rise to Glory VR, Dead by Daylight, Lord of the Rings: War in the North, and more. You can check it out here.
Lyric Video: JOVM Mainstays Frankie and the Witch Fingers Share a Grimy Ripper
Acclaimed Los Angeles-based psych punk outfit and JOVM mainstays Frankie and the Witch Fingers — currently founding duo Dylan Sizemore (vocals, guitar) and Josh Menashe (lead guitar, synth), along with Death Valley Girls‘ Nikki “Pickle” Smith (bass) and Mike Watt’s Nick Aguilar (drums) — have spent the past decade restlessly mutating their sound into bold, electrifying new forms with every new release.
Slated for a June 6, 2025 release through Greenway Records and The Reverberation Appreciation Society, the Los Angeles-based JOVM mainstay’s eighth album, the Maryam Qudus-produced Trash Classic reportedly sees the band plunging into a sewer-slick fusion of proto punk venom, fractured New Wave and industrial grime. Sonically brimming with wiry synths, angular melodies and squirming and biting grooves, the material is delivered with a sly, playful balance between smirk and sneer. The band layers playful unease while exploring themes of escapism, decay and overindulgence.
The songs were born in the grime of Vernon, Los Angeles — a wasteland littered with gutted RVs and rusting machinery, where the air tastes like asphalt and dog food. But the alchemy happed during recording sessions at Oakland‘s Tiny Telephone Studio, where producer Maryam Qudus helped transmute the tracks into the final forms with unhinged tones, unconventional recording experiments and wild sonic detours.
Each day of the recording sessions began with cartoons blaring at full volume — a Looney Tunes ritual that turned the madness of the recording process into something childlike. Late night, sugar-fueled candy binges kept the energy spiking, pushing the sessions into a fever dream of jittery, spastic playfulness. The end result is a raw, twisted monument to rot and excess — and to toxic glamour and nihilistic salvation.
Last month, I wrote about the album’s first single “Economy,” which offered a glimpse of what to expect from the album: grimy synth pulse right at the front, alongside angular guitar fuzz and muscular yet mathematically precise drumming paired with punchily delivered vocals and mosh pit friendly hooks and choruses. Sonically, the result is a scuzzier and grimier take on Freedom of Choice-era DEVO — with a similar, tongue-in-cheek sensibility.
Trash Classic’s second and latest single “Total Reset” is a sweaty ripper that sees the band pairing angular guitar fuzz with squiggling synth pulse, mathematically precise drumming and Sizemore’s punchy delivery with the band’s penchant for mosh pit friendly hooks and choruses. Sonically, “Total Reset” strikes me as a being a synthesis of King Gizzard and Devo — but with a mischievous sense of menace and unease.
“’Total Reset’ is a spasmodic blast of punk and synth freakery, a tech product launch for the post-human era,” the band says. “Writing and recording a song can be such a hassle, so we let AI handle it this time (faster, cheaper, zero complaints). It spat out a nice little doomsday ditty: humanity is toast, a lucky few will be spared to reboot civilization. Weirdly enough, the song kind of rips, so maybe we don’t need humans to make things after all.”
The accompanying lyric video by Nespy 5Euro is a grimy, low-budget mix of crude, hand-drawn animation, graffiti. edited video and more that pulses with the song.
New Audio: Frankie and the Witch Fingers Shares Blistering “Economy”
Acclaimed Los Angeles-based psych punk outfit and JOVM mainstays Frankie and the Witch Fingers — currently founding duo Dylan Sizemore (vocals, guitar) and Josh Menashe (lead guitar, synth), along with Death Valley Girls‘ Nikki “Pickle” Smith (bass) and Mike Watt’s Nick Aguilar (drums) — have spent the past decade restlessly mutating their sound into bold, electrifying new form with every new release.
Slated for a June 6, 2025 release through Greenway Records and The Reverberation Appreciation Society, the Los Angeles-based JOVM mainstay’s eighth album, the Maryam Qudus-produced Trash Classic reportedly sees the band plunging into a sewer-slick fusion of proto punk venom, fractured New Wave and industrial grime. Sonically brimming with wiry synths, angular melodies and squirming and biting grooves, the material is delivered with a sly, playful balance between smirk and sneer. The band layers playful unease while exploring themes of escapism, decay and overindulgence.
The songs were born in the grime of Vernon, Los Angeles — a wasteland littered with gutted RVs and rusting machinery, where the air tastes like asphalt and dog food. But the alchemy happed during recording sessions at Oakland‘s Tiny Telephone Studio, where producer Maryam Qudus helped transmute the tracks into the final forms with unhinged tones, unconventional recording experiments and wild sonic detours.
Each day of the recording sessions began with cartoons blaring at full volume — a Looney Tunes ritual that turned the madness of the recording process into something childlike. Late night, sugar-fueled candy binges kept the energy spiking, pushing the sessions into a fever dream of jittery, spastic playfulness. The end result is a raw, twisted moment to rot and excess — and to toxic glamour and nihilistic salvation.
“Economy,” Trash Classic‘s first single is the first glimpse of the band’s refined sound: grimy synth pulse is placed in the front, alongside angular guitar fuzz and muscular yet mathematically precise drumming paired with punchily delivered vocals and mosh pit friendly hooks and choruses. Sonically the result is a scuzzier, grimier take on Freedom of Choice-era DEVO — with a similar, tongue-in-cheek sensibility.
New Audio: LYV and Semi Team Up with Mistah FAB on a Summery and Club Friendly Bop
LYV is an emerging San Francisco-based, Mexican-American singer/songwriterand marketing manager at EMPIRE. The emerging San Francisco-based artist comes from an R&B and gospel background — but she has writing and co-writing credits for artists across a variety of genres.
Over the past 18 months or so, the emerging San Francisco-based artist has been steadily releasing material, including last year’s “Haunted,” a track that paired her sultry pop starlet vocal with an atmospheric, Quiet Storm-inspired production featuring skittering trap-like beats and ethereal synths. But at its core is an earnest expression of yearning and desire.
Her latest single “Fantasy” is hook-driven and summery, club friendly bop that’s a slick synthesis of elements of old-school house, contemporary R&B and Jungle Brothers era hip-hop that’s lush and roomy enough for LYV and Semi to croon with yearning — and for Oakland-based legend Mistah FAB to spit a few bars discussing a young, passionate, fervent love. It’s the sort of song you’d want playing in the background while you’re trying to seduce that long-held crush/love interest/sitautionship.
New Video: Low Praise Shares Existential Meditation “Time Is Calling”
Oakland-based post punk trio Low Praise — Andrew (drums), Chris (guitar vocals) and Warren (baritone guitar, vocals) — have specialized in the sort of nervous energy paired and chanted hooks that bring late 70s post-punk bands like The Fall and Wire to mind.
Low Praise’s full-length debut DRESSING was released yesterday. Recorded over the course of two sessions split apart by the peak of the pandemic, the album captures the band being forced to evolve and collaborate remotely, leading to experimentation in song structure and their overall sound. When the band was able to reconvene, they were able to reimagine the material in a stripped down, live band format. The end result reportedly sees the band writing material that’s their most diverse and wide-reaching while touching upon the anxiety and helplessly they individually and collectively felt during the pandemic.
If you’ve been frequenting this site over the past month or so, you might recall that I wrote about “Forget That It’s Summer,” a single built around looping and angular, reverb-drenched guitar attack and a nervous, motorik groove paired with chanted, mantra-like hooks. Sure it brings Wire, The Fall and even Blessed to mind, while evoking an eerily family existential dread and despair.
“‘Forget That It’s Summer’ was the first song we wrote together during the Covid depths, during our shared peak fear, anxiety and loneliness,” Low Praise’s Warren says in press notes. “As a band that had always jammed stuff out in person and worked off that energy this song was originally composed through chopping up loops, file sharing and experimentation. We actually built a complete version of this song as a weird loop construct with a ton of layers, mostly as a way to still make something, anything together during that self-imposed separation. We then reconstructed it as a stripped down live band version once we could finally get together again. So I think you kind of still hear that in the song that it was born from a pretty different process.
Thematically, this was a period where I think we were all mega-bumming and at the same time getting the immense appreciation and perspective for all of the little things you take for granted in normal life that we all lost access to during that period. Just being able to see your friends, make music together, have physical contact with the people you love. It was a period of forced reflection and forced appreciation. All put to a dance groove for some reason.”
“Time Is Calling,” DRESSING‘s second single is built around a decidedly 120 Minutes-era alt-rock take on post-punk featuring a sort of jangling guitar attack, thunderous drumming and the band’s penchant for pairing arena rock friendly hooks with an unerring sense of melodicism. But much like its predecessor, the song is rooted in existential dread — of time and peers passing you by while your life seemingly sputters in front of your eyes. In this line of work, the bitter feeling of failure is all too familiar.
“This song is about accepting impermanence. Like a lot of folks the past few years (especially), I was riding a wave of anxiety, depression, and uncertainty of what the future was going to be like. At the time I was nearing 40, unemployed due to Covid related layoffs, filled with existential dread, and pondering what I’ve done with my life and what to do with the rest of it,” Low Praise’s Chris Stevens explains. “I’d often wake up in the middle of the night with all of these thoughts and try to find a way to calm myself down in order to get a couple of hours of sleep. I already had the phrase ‘time is calling’ in my head, along with the main guitar riff and vocal melody. So, I would just run through lyric ideas based around that until I’d eventually fall asleep. When we all got together to go over the song idea, we ended up fleshing out the basic structure in one night pretty much. It’s just one of those songs that felt strong and we didn’t want to overthink too much.”
Directed and edited by Gregory Downing and Bad Acid Presents, the accompanying video for “Time Is Calling” is centered around slickly edited stock footage of old computer and manufacturing technology, time lapse footage of 1970s New York that references the passing of time while nodding at Kraftwerk.
New Audio: Low Praise Returns with Existential “Time Is Calling”
Oakland-based post punk trio Low Praise — Andrew (drums), Chris (guitar vocals) and Warren (baritone guitar, vocals) — have specialized in the sort of nervous energy paired and chanted hooks that bring late 70s post-punk bands like The Fall and Wire to mind.
Low Praise’s full-length debut DRESSING is slated for a May 19, 2023 release. Recorded over the course of two sessions split apart by the peak of the pandemic, the album captures the band being forced to evolve and collaborate remotely, leading to experimentation in song structure and their overall sound. When the band was able to reconvene, they were able to reimagine the material in a stripped down, live band format. The end result reportedly sees the band writing material that’s their most diverse and wide-reaching while touching upon the anxiety and helplessly they individually and collectively felt during the pandemic.
Last month, I wrote about “Forget That It’s Summer,” a single built around looping and angular, reverb-drenched guitar attack and a nervous, motorik groove paired with chanted, mantra-like hooks. Sure it brings Wire, The Fall and even Blessing to mind, but it also manages to evoke an eerily family existential dread and despair.
“‘Forget That It’s Summer’ was the first song we wrote together during the Covid depths, during our shared peak fear, anxiety and loneliness,” Low Praise’s Warren says in press notes. “As a band that had always jammed stuff out in person and worked off that energy this song was originally composed through chopping up loops, file sharing and experimentation. We actually built a complete version of this song as a weird loop construct with a ton of layers, mostly as a way to still make something, anything together during that self-imposed separation. We then reconstructed it as a stripped down live band version once we could finally get together again. So I think you kind of still hear that in the song that it was born from a pretty different process.
Thematically, this was a period where I think we were all mega-bumming and at the same time getting the immense appreciation and perspective for all of the little things you take for granted in normal life that we all lost access to during that period. Just being able to see your friends, make music together, have physical contact with the people you love. It was a period of forced reflection and forced appreciation. All put to a dance groove for some reason.”
“Time Is Calling,” DRESSING‘s second and latest single is built around a decidedly 120 Minutes-era alt-rock take on post-punk featuring a sort of jangling guitar attack, thunderous drumming and the band’s penchant for pairing arena rock friendly hooks with an unerring sense of melodicism. But much like its predecessor, the song is rooted in existential dread — of time and peers passing you by while your life seemingly sputters in front of your eyes. In this line of work, the bitter feeling of failure is all too familiar.
“This song is about accepting impermanence. Like a lot of folks the past few years (especially), I was riding a wave of anxiety, depression, and uncertainty of what the future was going to be like. At the time I was nearing 40, unemployed due to Covid related layoffs, filled with existential dread, and pondering what I’ve done with my life and what to do with the rest of it,” Low Praise’s Chris Stevens explains. “I’d often wake up in the middle of the night with all of these thoughts and try to find a way to calm myself down in order to get a couple of hours of sleep. I already had the phrase ‘time is calling’ in my head, along with the main guitar riff and vocal melody. So, I would just run through lyric ideas based around that until I’d eventually fall asleep. When we all got together to go over the song idea, we ended up fleshing out the basic structure in one night pretty much. It’s just one of those songs that felt strong and we didn’t want to overthink too much.”
New Video: Oakland’s Low Praise Shares Nervous “Forget That It’s Summer”
Oakland-based post punk trio Low Praise — Andrew (drums), Chris (guitar vocals) and Warren (baritone guitar, vocals) — have specialized in the sort of nervous energy paired and chanted hooks that bring late 70s post-punk bands like The Fall and Wire to mind.
Low Praise’s full-length debut DRESSING is slated for a May 19, 2023 release. Recorded over the course of two sessions split apart by the peak of the pandemic, the album captures the band being forced to evolve and collaborate remotely, leading to experimentation in song structure and their overall sound. When the band was able to reconvene, they were able to reimagine the material in a stripped down, live band format. The end result reportedly sees the band writing material that’s their most diverse and wide-reaching while touching upon the anxiety and helplessly they individually and collectively felt during the pandemic.
“Forget That It’s Summer,” DRESSING‘s latest single is built around a looping, angular and reverb-drenched guitar attack and a nervous, motorik groove paired with chanted hooks. Sure it’ll bring Wire, The Fall and even Blessing to mind, but it also manages to evoke an eerily familiar existential dread and despair.
“‘Forget That It’s Summer’ was the first song we wrote together during the Covid depths, during our shared peak fear, anxiety and loneliness,” Low Praise’s Warren says in press notes. “As a band that had always jammed stuff out in person and worked off that energy this song was originally composed through chopping up loops, file sharing and experimentation. We actually built a complete version of this song as a weird loop construct with a ton of layers, mostly as a way to still make something, anything together during that self-imposed separation. We then reconstructed it as a stripped down live band version once we could finally get together again. So I think you kind of still hear that in the song that it was born from a pretty different process.
Thematically, this was a period where I think we were all mega-bumming and at the same time getting the immense appreciation and perspective for all of the little things you take for granted in normal life that we all lost access to during that period. Just being able to see your friends, make music together, have physical contact with the people you love. It was a period of forced reflection and forced appreciation. All put to a dance groove for some reason.”
Directed and edited by Gregory Downing, the accompanying video for “Forget That It’s Summer” is centered around stock footage of summery scenes and old school projector cues cut and edited in a way that pulsates along with the song’s nervous groove.
Live Footage: Orchestra Gold Performs “Keleya” at Bandcamp, Oakland
Oakland-based psych outfit Orchestra Gold is rooted in the decade plus-long collaboration between Malian-born vocalist Mariam Diakite and Oakland-based guitarist Erich Huffaker. The duo first met in Bamako, Mali in 2006. At the time, Huffaker was very busy: he was working for a nonprofit, studying djembe and dunun (drums) and immersing himself in the city’s burgeoning music scene when he had met and befriended Diakite. The duo recognized a deep and profound musical connection, which led to Diakite relocating to the States to start a band — Orchestra Gold.
Since Diakite’s relocation to Oakland, the rising psych outfit has specialized in a kaleidoscopic sound that meshes Malian folk with psych rock and elements of Afrobeat and soul. Sonically they create a trippy and funky soundscape featuring swinging rhythms, funky bass and scorching guitar riffs while Diakite delivers heartfelt and thought-provoking lyrics in her native Bambara language. Their long-held goal is to transcend national and musical borders while being a much-needed healing force.
The band’s third album Medicine was released earlier this year. The album sees the band firmly continuing their pursuit of spreading healing and community through their music. In the lead-up to the album’s release, I managed to write about two album singles:
- “Koniya (No Benefit to Envy),” a song which featured shuffling rhythms, scorching feedback and distortion-driven riffage serving as a lysergic and sinuous bed for Diakite’s expressive delivery. The end result was a song that arched upward towards the cosmos while rooted in earthly matters.
- “Gende,” an expansive and trippy song that beings with a lengthy, dreamy introduction featuring looping and swirling guitar textures. Around the 2:25 mark or so, the song rapidly morphs into a breakneck Fela Kuti-meets-Black Sabbath-meets-Tinariwen-like ripper, centered around a funky horn line, scorching riffage and looping guitar textures. Diakite’s expressive vocal and shuffling, propulsive polyrhythm glide and dance around the song’s disparate parts. The end result is a song that’s lysergic but defiantly — and boldly — African and danceable.
Orchestra Gold is about to embark to Austin for this year’s SXSW where they’ll play sets at several showcases. In order to build up buzz for their SXSW appearance — and to get the word out about their crowdfunding campaign to cover the tremendous cost of overhead for the trip, the band shared live footage of them performing album single “Keleya.” “Keleya” is centered around looping guitar, shuffling percussion paired with boom bap-like drumming, a James Brown-meets-Fela Kuti-like funky horn line paired with Diakite’s plaintive wailing. The end result is a hypnotic yet danceable song that brings James Brown, Fela Kuti, and Black Sabbath to mind.
For more information, check out the band’s GoFundMe here. If you dig this band, and you have a few bucks, any support you can offer is helpful.