Playing The Bay

Every Tuesday, we explore the Bay Area music scene with an exclusive, in person video interview.

Khari opens for Freddie Gibbs at The Thompson House

Khari / Photo Credit: Phil Dowdy Live music in Cincinnati is back and Khari is taking full advantage. The Queen City-bred rapper opened for Grammy-nominated artist Freddie Gibbs last week at Newport, Kentucky’s Thompson House. “It meant a lot to open up for him,” Khari told Audiofemme after the...

Victoria Moorwood

Jill Tracy Offers Sonic Archive of Spending 2020 At Home on A Medicine for Madness

For half-a-decade, she has performed at the annual festival Flower Piano in Golden Gate Park's San Francisco Botanical Garden. Her concerts, known as "sonic séances" would take place amongst the Redwoods, where Tracy would, in...

Liz Ohanesian

Christian Singles Ruminate on Family Ties with Maybe Another Time LP

There is something deeply comforting about Maybe Another Time, the new LP project from Oakland's Rob I. Miller (under the name Christian Singles). Created in the wake of his father’s returning cancer diagnosis, no listener would come in expecting that — understandably so, as examining complex...

Sophia Vaccaro

Plush Palace Screams It Out on Debut EP

I love 2020. No, really — though to be clear I don’t mean in a political, interpersonal, or general sense; only in a musical one. Only in 2020 would someone have to audacity to refer to themselves as “introspective indie punk” in their Bandcamp bio. Genre, like the concept of hugging your loved...

Sophia Vaccaro

Sonia Espiritu Eases Into Comfort Zone on New EP

I don't know if this is a nostalgia thing for me, or perhaps something deeper and more insidious, but one of my most obsessive phases of music consisted of, for two straight years, listening to every song The Front Bottoms had ever put out on repeat. The Front Bottoms are the king, queen, and court...

Sophia Vaccaro

July Debuts with Delicate, 60s-Inspired Self-Titled LP

San Francisco's Kate Sweeney has returned with a new LP after a period of brief hibernation from indie folk band Magic Magic Roses. This time, she emerges with a new moniker, July, but a similar attitude. The self-titled LP is the epitome of dreamy and delicate with its no-caps titles and...

Sophia Vaccaro

Shutups Take Mundane Missteps and Make Them Worth a Dance on EP 5

Oakland band Shutup's new EP 5 is a very adult piece of work. This isn't to say that it is frigid or stuffy, but moreso that it provides a rollicking rock foray into the complexities of adulthood. Some of this grown-up feeling comes from Shutups' desire to not waste time. Almost every song on the...

Sophia Vaccaro

Nketiah Creates a Lush Electronic Soundscape with Mauve

I have to say it: I do not like long albums. If an album goes over twelve tracks, the synapses of my brain will cross and I will be lost in an impenetrable fog. I’ll probably start the album late or end it early upon repeated listens, depending on which half I liked more, and live out the rest of...

Sophia Vaccaro

The Leave Me Alones Waver and Warble on New EP

“Do I make you more interesting?” asks The Leave Me Alones lead vocalist Hayley on the Oakland band's new EP, Be Alone. This line, from opening track “Bad News,” is a testament to the strength of this EP’s lyrics, which pack their punch not with poeticism so much as the bracing directness that...

Sophia Vaccaro

PLAYING THE BAYFantastic Negrito on his New LP and the "Amazing Garden" of Black Roots Music

“I’m a busker at heart,” says Oakland’s Fantastic Negrito. “I started this [project] five years ago, busking — and I wanted to talk to people. The one thing I realized [is] that we need each other as people living on this planet…and if we don't talk to each other, we don't have anything.” Fantastic...

Sophia Vaccaro

Two New Bay Area Singles To Get You Dancing in the Light from Your Firmly-Closed Windows

Feeling extra trapped, Bay Area? It's fire season again, and this year, the smoke feels particularly disheartening and apocalyptic. Before the doom sets in, check out the following tracks - they're guaranteed to provide a little distraction, and may even help you get on your feet. First up is...

Sophia Vaccaro

https://faultradio.com/editorials/2020/7/26/album-review-alleyes-manifest-otoo

Alleyes Manifest Artfully Melds Past and Present on James Wavey LPs

Babe, the new album by James Wavey/Alleyes Manifest, is a worn patchwork quilt come to life in ten warm, layered tracks. “Love songs for listeners” is how Oakland’s Michael Bridgmon (Alleyes is his producer name, while James Wavey is his performance persona) describes it on Bandcamp. This is...

Sophia Vaccaro