#Oakland

PREMIERETime Keeps Moving On for Lilan Kane in her Mellow Visual for "TKMO”

For the last year, most of us have been stuck at homes, unable or afraid to venture outside due to COVID-19; looking back, the stagnant nature of the past twelve months creates a kind of time warp - a fuzzy, murky glass through which we remember the year. Oakland-based musician Lilan Kane turned...

Ashley Prillaman

Oakland Duo Brijean Vibe Out With Moody Debut Album 'Feelings'

Working toward greater self-love and self-nurturing, she turned the smaller, foundational building blocks of that practice into songs - alongside collaborator Doug Stuart...

Bee Scott

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

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

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

Project Poppa Reflects on the Impact of Violence with Emotionally Vulnerable New Track "I Can't Breathe"

Project Poppa is settling into venerability. His latest release, “I Can’t Breathe,” sees the East Oakland rapper’s voice choked with emotion as he details the complexities and dangers of being a young Black man in America. “A lot of people like to say how are we mad what’s goin’ on/when we doing it...

Sophia Vaccaro

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Freddie is Ready for Their Closeup with Melanin Monroe EP

You know you are in for something good the moment that Oakland singer Freddie’s voice comes in on their EP opener “Oblivion.” Later in the song, their rich, evocative voice moves to deliver that ever-elusive diva wish: “I wanna be adored by ya/I wanna be adored by everyone.” It almost sounds...

Sophia Vaccaro

The Bay, Black Lives Matter, and BandcampLocal Resources and Ways to Help

Hey Bay Area, It's been a rough week. It's also been, hopefully, a first step in a greater reckoning regarding racial justice, discrimination, and police brutality in America. Black people are suffering even as they are mobilizing, speaking out despite years of attempted silencing, and working...

Sophia Vaccaro

PREMIEREGrace Sings Sludge Keeps Creepin' On in "Friend to All" Video

For the physical release of her fifth solo album (and first recorded in a studio) as Grace Sings Sludge, Cooper illustrated a 32-page booklet, which, she explains, wasn't deemed long enough to...

Lindsey Rhoades