THE SPRING ISSUE
Music
Eric Copeland
For years, Brooklyn’s Black Dice has made all kinds of racket: minimalist, beat-centric cerebral dance constructs that have led them ahead of the avant-electro rock pack, if there is such a thing. Original Dice roller Eric Copeland has been busy over the last two years, constructing, poaching and recording his seventh studio album. The latest […]
Major Lazer
The influence of classic Jamaican reggae and dub music on contemporary house, electronic and hip hop production is a topic that often slips under the radar of, well, most people. Some would say a groundbreaking moment occurred in the late ‘60s, when legendary Kingston reggae sound engineer King Tubby began to experiment with what a […]
Girls
A tiny practice studio in San Francisco’s seedy Tenderloin District is sweltering from a seven-hour recording stint. Another faultless song has been recorded by JR White and Christopher Owens, the founding members of SF psych-pop band, Girls. Did you choose the name as a homage to girls? I love girls. John loves girls. I’ve seen […]
Genius in the Glitter
ITEMS PURCHASED/CONSTRUCTED FOR THE OF MONTREAL, SKELETAL LAMPING FALL TOUR: One giant foam rock, four ready-made cowboy costumes, 100 cans “Great Stuff” insulating foam sealant, one fake upright piano, one Centaur costume, one custom-fabricated rotating steel riser, 24 breakaway bottles, one gilded roman litter, one 300 pound steel gallows on wheels, one human-sized pig costume, […]
Kid Cudi
Eclipsing the Record Industry’s Preconceptions Scott “Kid” Mescudi’s music doesn’t really fit the profile of rap, at least not in the most common sense of the word, and one should hesitate before simplifying his sound by calling it that. Then again trying to place it into some type of “post-genre genre” that doesn’t even really […]
Jarvis Cocker
Jarvis Cocker’s Un-Ironic, Post Post-modern Rock Moment A rock and roll band took over an art gallery in Paris this May, setting up camp for five days. They rehearsed, provided the background music for yoga classes, and played for a children’s event. In between downward-facing dog poses and puppet shows, they also performed for the gathering masses, […]
Sirens of Rock
Three pop singers get trapped in an elevator. This is fate’s way of creating a supergroup. Here at SOMA we drew names from a lotto at random. The following ladies are our lucky winners. The next Ronettes as dictated by probability… Allison Mosshart, started her first band in the eight grade. Unlike most teenage punk […]
The Strange Boys
The Strange Boys occupy, appropriately enough, a weird space in music. A quick listen and one might label them as just another ramshackle member of the garage rock revival from the early 2000’s. And with such a forgettable name, you might assume they were that band from O Brother Where Art Thou? Even their album […]
Pink Mountaintops
You would never peg Stephen McBean as the sensitive type. While he may be better known as the songwriter behind the theatrical psychedelic revival of Black Mountain, his personality better mirrors the folksy nostalgia of his more personal project, Pink Mountaintops. Outside Love, the latest from the Canadian-based outfit, oozes heartache, pain and hate nearly […]
Helado Negro
From the opening song that is the Tropicalia-infused sweetness of “Venceremos,” Roberto Carlos Lange’s new solo album under the moniker Helado Negro rocks and lulls like a hammock swaying in a cool ocean breeze. As it should—the Prefuse 73 musician has been busy mining the fields of Latin American lullabies for his new album, Awe […]
Rainbow Arabia
Rainbow Arabia are like a pair of musical chemists in this new world. Mix one beaker full of English post-punk, add one vial of traditional Middle Eastern folk, throw in some ‘90s American optimism; then set the resulting concoction to a dance beat. Danny Preston, who started the project with his wife, Tiffany Preston, explains: […]
Gang Gang Dance
The band Gang Gang Dance (GGD) is like a thunderstorm: dramatic, powerful, and energized. After a build up, when voltage accrues and focuses, lightning strikes. Sometimes the effects are beautiful, and other times they are completely devastating. Explosions have defined the band’s musical evolution. Lightning killed an original member; a recent tour fire destroyed all […]
Jeremy Jay
If there were to be a remake of the 1985 John Hughes flick Weird Science with two bookish girls creating their perfect heartthrob via computer, rather than two ‘80s era nerds creating Kelly Lebrock, Jeremy Jay would surely land a starring role. Because, by all outward appearances, he is a Godard-loving, Modern Lovers-listening indie girl’s […]
The Golden Filter
Merely saying that 2009 has been quite a year for The Golden Filter would be a massive understatement. It’s rare, if not completely impossible, that an American-based duo with a desire to keep their anonymity, who write songs almost entirely with electronic sounds, and whose personal philosophies are the exact antithesis of the current generation […]
Mission Creek Music Festival
The Mission Creek Music & Arts Festival: Evolving and Explosive A once-navigable subterranean creek, originating from the foothills of San Francisco’s Twin Peaks region and curving east towards Mission Bay, quietly flows beneath San Francisco’s Mission District. Above ground, indie kids, yuppies, and bohemians party and promenade on the bustling city streets, having no idea […]
The Whip: Manchester Rampant in the 21st, Persistence in Destination
Text by Markus von Pfeiffer Photography by Okeedokee There is no evading Amsterdam. No jitterbugging your way through that town. It beams a primal, irresistible homing beacon straight to the hypothalamus. I was connecting through the city on my way home from the forests of Gabon, where I’d collected specimens of the rare butterfly Charaxes […]
MSTRKRFT: Touched by the Fist of God
Photography by Geoff McLean Text by Jorge Hernandez MSTRKRFT’s Jesse F. Keeler’s voicemail goes something like this: “I can’t take this, because I’m doing something important, so text or email. And if you’re one of those people that hangs up before the tone, don’t bother calling back ‘cause I’ve already deleted you.” A piquant summation […]
Hush Life: Asobi Seksu—-Mellow Out, Fuzz Down
Text by Michael D Ayers Photography by Jesper Justesen New York’s Asobi Seksu fill 500-person rooms, make regular rounds in Europe and have produced two records of hard-hitting, fuzzed out fem-pop, which use Yuki Chikudate’s delicate vocals as their locus. But following 2006’s Citrus, some confusion brewed as to how to proceed. On one hand, […]
The Bird and The Bee: Living Past the Future
Text by Markus von Pfeiffer Photography by Autumn de Wilde It didn’t happen in their home base town of Los Angles. That would be too cheap. In addition it would break my blood-oath of never returning to the city which casts no shadows—even on the warmest of summer days. No, we three met in San […]
Telefon Tel Aviv: Electronic Punk Rock Pirates Making Music for Strange Seaports
Text by Sage Rader After nearly five years on hiatus, Telefon Tel Aviv’s Josh Eustis and Charlie Cooper have something they’d like to say: “I swear to God, we couldn’t give a fuck what anybody thinks of this record… we don’t give a SHIT. Really. Finally. We did this record for ourselves.” It only takes […]
Guilt Complex: Prolific A.C. Newman Rolls Solo, Again
Text by Michael D. Ayers As the front man for critically acclaimed indie-rock act The New Pornographers, you’d think that front man A.C. Newman would have his hands full. The group has released four records this decade; Newman first branched out in 2004 with The Slow Wonder, a jangly pop record that mixed a love […]
Elisa Toffoli: Dancing on the Edge of the World
Text by Rhiannon Nicole Anderson Silently praising myself for my rudimentary Italian conversational skills, the musician Elisa Toffoli answers the phone. “Hello? Do you mind if I call you back from my house, I’m walking my dogs and can’t hear you very well,” she apologizes. And yet, despite being oceans apart, a bad connection and […]
An Inspiring Rock & Roll Renaissance
Vashti Bunyan’s charmed new era Text by Adam Pollock Of all the rare ‘plucked from obscurity’ stories of recent memory, many of which feature a cameo by Devendra Banhart (interestingly), the tale of British pop chanteuse Vashti Bunyan is proving to have one of the happier second acts. Bunyan was the next-at-bat big thing in […]
THE STREETS
Proto hip-hop icon Mike Skinner crafts his indie-embraced, chart-topping tracks one day at a time. What happened to the roughed up, tongue-in-cheek Mike Skinner that everyone knows…or thought they knew? The Birmingham-based Streets lead man has returned light-hearted. But as a precautionary disclaimer: he didn’t plan it to be this way. Just like he didn’t […]
