Bay Area based musician, Dario Slavazza will be headlining the Starline Social Club with local friends Mare Island, May 25th.

Slavazza is a multi-instrumentalist who, after years of working in biotech, decided to focus on music, working for the Magik*Magik*Orchestra as an arranger and production director, as a production manager for the award winning Pop Up Magazine, and Zoo Labs music incubator and recording studio, releasing his debut EP, Guilty Steps, last year. The songs contained on TRSR ISL are about that feeling of being isolated in the midst of constant activity. Inspired by straddling the tech of San Francisco and the earthy scrappiness of Oakland and the East Bay, he’s crafted this collection of songs with California always in mind. The series of snapshots that make up each story are strung together with soulful, swooning ebbs amidst marching high-energy rhythmic flows.

San Francisco-based band NRVS LVRS is the dreamy darkwave project of husband & wife duo Andrew Gomez and Bevin Fernandez. Today the band revealed their new single, I Am Almost Perfectly Awake from their sophomore album Electric Dread out June 30th.

"’I Am Almost Perfectly Awake’ is inspired by Clive Wearing, a musicologist who suffers from severe amnesia and experiences life anew from moment to moment, as if he is waking from a coma every twenty seconds. The title was taken from a line he repeatedly wrote in his diary, and we kept coming back to the phrase and how searching & sad it sounded. Trying to imagine living life with no memories had us trying to unpack so many different thoughts: how our identities are tied to our memory, how scary it must be to wake up not knowing who or where you are hundreds of times a day, and how the loss of a memory is a kind of death. While writing the album, we were dealing with quite a bit of death and loss in our own lives, so the idea of someone who is still physically present yet missing their identity resonated as a mirror image of the grief we were experiencing."

NRVS LVRS’ record release show is in San Francisco at Bottom Of The Hill on June 30th.

Houses of Heaven is the San Francisco based three piece of Keven Tecon, Adam Beck, and Nick Ott. Remnant, their inceptive EP, is a bleak, dub-influenced production, mixing elements of electronic music, Krautrock, and psychedelia, with nods to the the extreme sonic treatments of Adrian Sherwood. Produced by Monte Vallier (Wax Idols, Weekend), Remnant blends shifting textures of drum machines, live percussion, ambient guitar, vintage delays and custom engineered effects.

Black Waves opens with hypnotic percussion, Beck’s abstract rhythm guitar, and stark, angular basslines from former Soft Moon bassist Justin Anastasi, who makes a guest appearance on the EP. Almost Hidden follows with an effected wash of guitar and pulsing electronic drums. Remain is a dense, reverb-laden drone of guitar and synth bass. The EP closes with Subfloor, featuring Ott’s heavy toms, Tecon’s evocative reversed vocals, and Beck’s seraphic guitar.

The San Francisco based band, Mare Island has released a new single, Unawake:

While the various members of Mare Island have known each other and toured together for years, Mare Island is a band over a decade in the making. Vocalist Josh Staples and bassist Sean Leary grew up childhood friends in Sonoma County. Staples first provided guest vocals on Loma Preita’s 2007 album Last City, which started regular contributions. Having left Loma Prieta at the start of this decade, guitarist Sean Chao had a happenstance run-in with Leary in 2015. The duo began writing and demoing songs, bringing Staples in to provide lyrics and vocals, with Chao’s roommate Evan Sarna joining on drums. Mare Island’s music makes clear nods toward the members’ other projects, but with outward experimental pushes through the use of pitch-shifted loops and samples. Working with producer/engineer Ian Pellicci (Deerhoof/The Dodos/Thao and the Get Down Stay Down), the group brought in San Francisco’s Magik*Magik Orchestra, imbuing the songs with a rich, ethereal quality.

Mare Island will release their debut, Eponymous EP on June 23rd.

San Francisco-based songwriter, Kelly McFarling’s work is reflective of transitions, the wilderness, and its navigation. Sometimes she plays banjo, other times acoustic guitar. Often, she plays a Telecaster fronting her band, The Home Team, featuring pedal steel (Tim Marcus), drums (Nick Cobbett), bass (Oscar Westesson), and various other Bay Area musicians.

Water Dog, McFarling’s latest release, is her most intimate and folk-leaning record to date. She recorded the album in seasonal segments of 2016. The songs were first demoed with Allen Rothschild in his bedroom in Asheville, NC, where the creaks of his wood floor and the sounds of summer winding down made their way onto the recordings through open windows and live takes.The demos became the foundation of the record, and McFarling took them back to San Francisco, where Avi Vinocur of Goodnight Texas produced and engineered the majority of the record at his home in the Sunset District. “Recording at Avi’s house gave us the time to let the songs breathe and evolve.” McFarling said of the process. “It gave us space to make decisions at our own pace. I’ve never made a record like that, and it was a really special time. These songs were written in quiet spaces that were lived in. It made sense to record them in that way.”

Water Dog is out June 16. Here the album’s newest single, Both below.

Due out May 5 (Flenser Records), Succumb’s self-titled debut was recorded by bay area luminary Jack Shirley (Deafheaven, Botanist, Oathbreaker, etc.) and features seven songs touching on far-spanning influences including death metal, metallic hardcore, and ‘90s Napalm Death. The ace in the sleeve, though, is vocalist Cheri Musrasrik, who juxtaposes powerful metal riffing with a cavernous howl, waxing poetic on themes like human experimentation and dystopian futures.

 The San Francisco based band, Cathedrals has released a new single entitled, Try to Fight!

"Try to Fight came about when we finally met in the studio to share and build upon the ideas we’d written separately. Coincidentally, one of Brodie’s melodic ideas fit perfectly on top of an instrumental Johnny had written. With spring now in full bloom, we’re so excited to finally share this song in time for the summer." – Cathedrals

San Francisco based artist, Jay Som has released a new single entitled, Turn the Other Cheek for "Our First 100 Days" campaign. You can catch Jay Som performing in San Francisco at the Phono Del Sol Festival on June 17th.

On Everybody Works, 22 year-old Melina Duterte solidifies her rep as a self-made force of sonic splendor and emotional might. This album – which Duterte wrote, recorded, played and produced entirely by herself, save a few backing vocals – was made in three furious, caffeinated weeks in her bedroom studio throughout October. Duterte even ditched most her demos, writing half the LP on the spot. If last year’s aptly named Turn Into compilation showcased a fuzz-loving artist in flux, chronicling her mission to master bedroom recording, then Everybody Works is the LP equivalent of a mission accomplished.

With this record, Jay Som takes us places we never could have imagined, wedding lo-fi rock to hi-fi home orchestration, and weaving evocative autobiographical poetry into energetic punk, electrified folk, and dreamy alt-funk. Inspired by the complexity of Tame Impala, the simplicity of Yo La Tengo, the messiness of Pixies, and the pop sounds of Carly Rae Jepsen’s E•MO•TION, Jay Som delivers 10 gorgeous tracks. Everybody Works features lushly composed pieces like "Lipstick Stains," shoegazey shredders like "1 Billion Dogs," sublimely spacious synth-pop beauties like "Remain," and luxe, proggy funk with "One More Time, Please."

San Francisco’s Lords of Sealand has announced the release of Motion, a four-movement dissection of the lives of plants and whether or not they are truly animate. Following the release of 2014’s debut album Found Fiction, recorded just 3 months after the the full lineup was assembled, the band intentionally employed a more intricate and methodical group composition dynamic that is now being first unveiled on Motion.

Originally conceived as a distraction from the long production process of the upcoming full-length dream-based album Zs, Motion quickly grew into a self-contained but dense concept record in its own right. Disparate influences including, Yes, Genesis, The Mars Volta, along with the addition of synths, electronic percussion and sound design elements paint a vivid homage to the classic prog epic that feels fresh, modern and, dare we say, danceable.

"Motion, simply, is an exploration of the lives of plants, asking if plants are, in fact, animate objects. Deeper, it explores a concept that is fundamentally human: what does it mean to be living an impactful, meaningful life? It is about yin and yang. The music and lyrics together take you through the journey of a lifecycle, the ups and downs that come with living a purposeful life." –Lords of Sealand

The Ethiopian-born, Oakland-based artist Meklit will perform at Rickshaw Stop on May 6th!

Combining Ethiopian jazz influences with soul and pop, Meklit’s music melds complex rhythms with vibrant melodies. Her new album When the People Move, the Music Moves Too will be released on June 23rd through Six Degrees Records, and was produced by multi-grammy winning artist Dan Wilson of Semisonic (Adele, John Legend) and features Andrew Bird as well as the Preservation Hall Jazz Band horns on several tracks.

When the People Move, the Music Moves Too is the result of a fateful encounter Meklit experienced in Addis Ababa with the legendary vibraphonist/composer Mulatu Astatke, who helped spark Ethiopia’s 1960s musical renaissance. She was deeply engaged with his music at the time, but he pushed her to think about how to bring her own experiences into her songs – “He was very pointed with me, saying several times ‘You keep innovating!’” she recalls. “He took me to task and he tasked me. It took me a while to digest that. It’s a big thing to have someone like that say that to you. I sat with it for a couple of years.”

The San Francisco based band, The Undercurrent, has released a new music video for their first single, Waves, from their upcoming EP. The song and video embody the band’s soulful, indie pop sound with a distinctive California vibe. This new Bay Area duo cleverly combines driving beats, layered guitar riffs, and distinctive melodies, by tying them all together with heartfelt lyrics. The Undercurrent is currently working on their first EP, Lost in the Haze, expected to be released Fall 2017.

As a multi-instrumentalist and producer, Paul is able to both craft and record complex guitar parts, compelling bass lines, and dynamic drum beats, whilst maintaining a keen ear for detail and balance. Wendy’s expressive and soulful voice spans.

On April 20th, the San Francisco based neo psych band, Down Dirty Shake will be performing live and sharing a bill with the SF based band, Cosmic Correlation Conspiracy and the UK based psych duo Black Doldrums. Make sure you head down to the Elbo Room to experience a full on night of heavy psychedelic rock vibes.

Down Dirty Shake is a rock n roll band based out of San Francisco. The group is deeply influenced by the 60’s/70’s. Touching on latin, psych, soul, pop and garage rock. The live shows are guaranteed to be an experience; always full of energy and raw emotion. DDS is most well known for there annual milk bar residency and throwing DIY music festivals. Cosmic Correlation Conspiracy made their first appearance as the opening act for the 1960’s cult-classic, The Chocolate Watchband on their 50th year anniversary show at the Acid Test in May of 2016. Stemming from the universal musical tradition of reinterpretation, their music is a fusion of freewheeling freak-flagged blues with a twist of eastern mysticism and tribal rhythms. Black Doldrums supported Sterling Roswell of Spacemen 3 and Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth at the Stock Newington Music Festival as well as Lee Scratch Perry and The Fall at Levels Festival. Additionally, they took time out to play two shows back to back in London and Manchester for the Alan McGee curated charity events Musicians Against Homelessness, supporting ‘Blue Orchids’ and sharing the stage with Martin Bramah (founding member of The Fall).