Sacramento’s Trash Talk has been quietly creating loud, thrash hardcore since 2005. Last year, the band reluctantly emerged from the underground, receiving New York Times ink following an unforgettable CMJ performance.

Check out the new video for “Slander,” off the Awake EP from late 2011, featuring animation by artist Jay Howell, a longtime Bay Area resident now living in LA. Warning: Not a cartoon for kids!

–Whitney Phaneuf

SF’s pioneer producer Al Lover has just released a new album in support of the Austin Psych Festival taking place April 27-29 in Austin, Texas. Download or stream the mixtape, filled with the artist’s trademark chopped up blends of garage and psychedelic rock featuring artists such as Woods, The Black Angels, Psychic Ills and Brian Jonestown Massacre. The artist also just released an amazing new video for his track “Smoke Filled Thrills” from the album Satanic Tambourines, out now on Impose Records.

–Amanda Dissinger

We sat down with Tara Tati, the dark-rocking, cabalistic visionary behind Oakland’s emerging indie band, Metal Mother. Metal Mother is a finalist for the Deli’s Year End Best of SF Poll.

Deli: What first got you interested in music?

TT: Since I can remember, I was dancing around to the records my parents played. They listened to Talking Heads, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Marvin Gaye, Joni Mitchell, all the classics. But if you’re asking me when I got interested in making music, that’s a different story. I first learned that I loved piano when I was about 10, but never thought I was capable of being an actual musician. Writing songs and having a band seemed like a daunting and unthinkable task to undertake, so I dismissed my little talent as a hobby and nothing more. Then, in 2007, some friends who had seen me goofing on the keys at my house one day, asked me to play at their festival in Oregon, so I did. From there, the support and encouragement snowballed, making it a comfortable journey into musician-hood. 

Deli: How did you find your niche?

TT: I’m definitely still figuring it out. It seems the majority of my fan base is too broad to really know a specific demographic at this point, other than people who appreciate dark, melancholy, tripped-out music.

Deli: Where do your various influences stem from?

TT: Though I’ve been primarily involved with the underground rave scene for most of my adult life, it’s brought me full-circle to really appreciating the magic of live instrumentation and classical arrangement in addition to electronic production. I’m wildly inspired by other female performers such as Grace Jones, Siouxsie Sioux, and Bjork; and as for song writing and composing, I’m really into the work of Brian Eno, Sufjan Stevens, and Nico Muhly.

Deli: What’s it like to start your own label and what was the most difficult aspect of the process?

TT: I’ve started a couple other businesses in the past, so I kind of knew what to expect. When I decided to really go for it, I read like five books on how to start my own label and crack into the music industry. From that I devised a fairly solid plan, and of course, left room for sweet luck to fill in the gaps.

Deli: What’s up next for you in 2012? 

TT: Right now I’m starting to work on the next album, which will be inspired by the world’s greatest female warriors and witches. We’re also planning a tour in March, which will include a week at SXSW, and then there’ll be a couple more months of writing and recording followed by a slew of summer shows. There may be a music video happening in there too somewhere.

Deli: What do you find inspiring about the color black?

TT: It’s a blank canvas; all the impossibilities of vision are possible within its darkness. Plus, it symbolizes the great feminine mysteries that so heavily influence my songwriting.

Deli: What do you hope to accomplish in your career?

TT: I know its cliché, but honestly, all I’ve ever wanted is to be happy.  I’ve always believed that if I wanted it badly enough, I could find something I loved doing and actually make a living at it, no matter what it was.

Deli: If you could open for one artist dead or alive, who would it be?

Deli: Man, tough question. Shit, Klaus Nomi. Just so I could see him perform.

–Courtney Garcia

If you overdosed on the easy listening sounds of 2011, there is a chillwave backlash thriving in the Bay in the form of bass (avoiding the term "dubstep" since it also became a bad word in 2011).

Minnesota‘s single Sun Burst landed on a lot of electronic music lovers year-end lists, and 2012 holds even more excitement for the DJ boy wonder as he announced today he’s part of the Coachella lineup.

Another up-and-comer in the scene is Sound Science who recently released his first remix and is currently at work on his first EP. Expect a Deli preview of the reclusive DJ’s debut performance this year (rumor is he is the hot guy above).

–Whitney Phaneuf

Sun Burst (OUT NOW ON BEATPORT) by Minnesota

Tesseract by sound science

Last we mentioned Oakland troupe Kapowski, I professed my adoration for twee lead singer Jesse Rimler in the form of a marriage proposal. He friended me on Facebook, so it’s probably gonna happen.

Now Kapowski returns to our blogroll with a new mp3, "Section Eight," from their soon-to-be-released LP Boy Detective. On "Section Eight," Kapowski has rebounded with the same darling, stylistic middle eight harmonies and indie-tastic bleeps that landed them on our radar in the first place. There’s also a promo video to go along with the track featuring a tux-clad, suburban butler-bot who self-destructs all while a black and white Kapowski plays on the 50s era TV set (watch below).

If you find yourself smitten with Kapowski’s unquestionable charm, they’ll be throwing an album release party at Rickshaw Stop on February 1st along with fellow Oaktowners Mwahaha and Bells.

-Justine Fields

MWE: they may be Oakland-based, but within three seconds of hearing overlapping scaling clarinet squeals (they use three clarinets!), the listener is transported to the Middle East. The six-piece group also uses instruments not-often featured here on the Deli SF, like the zurna, davul and riqq. My living room is feeling pretty international with the sounds from MWE’s demo, which you can stream or download below.

And, bonus, MWE performs in skeleton costumes (see picture above). Hope they dress the same for their next Bay Area show. I wanna see me some zurna live!

-Justine Fields

Emily Whitehurst and Jaycen Mckissick, the duo otherwise known as Survival Guide, have crafted a lovely blend of electronic bleeps, fuzzy synths and seductive vocals on their debut 7" Wildcat. It’s quite the earcandy – stream below – reminiscent of the duo’s punk past as members of the SoCal outfit Tsunami Bomb. Catch this new Bay Area band in its first live appearance at Bottom of the Hill on Friday, January 20th. -Justine Fields

When they first started, they were making a hundred bucks a day playing in the hollows of an Oakland subway station – and that, of course, was an ambitious stretch, jamming nearly six hours of street-style soul daily with no break. Three years later and on the cusp of a bold, new year, the California Honey Drops have raised nearly $25,000 in a recent Kickstarter campaign supported by the generous contribution of fans. Likewise, the quintet of jazz, blues and Bebop enthusiasts takes no gift for granted, and have already booked their calendar solid through March, playing a stint of shows on both coasts, including a stop at next year’s Jazz Fest in New Orleans. On top of the tour, they’ll be releasing a live album in the spring, followed by their third studio LP later in the year.

Then there’s Europe. In addition to rigorous promotion in the U.S., Oakland’s rising stars intend to court their international fan base with equal fervor. Having already hit several countries across the Atlantic in 2011, this coming year they intend to conquer more. Impressively, they are a one-stop shop, balancing the business and creative realms of their career. From the onset, they have managed, booked, and publicized themselves with little more than an aggressive belief in the power of their artistic covenant, and a goal to expand the love affair they commenced in the Bay. 

“We’ve built this band from the ground up,” explains founding father and frontman Lech Wierzynski, who learned his craft early on in DC jazz clubs, under the instruction of Ray Charles’ legendary trumpeter, Marcus Belgrave. “Our strategy when we started was to always hit the subways during rush hour to play. A little while later, we recorded a demo on Garage Band and started bringing that with us to sell, then after that we brought stickers…It became an enterprise and we eventually created a solid local fan base.”

Reverberating off the slick groove of a washboard, trumpet, upright bass, and drums, California Honey Drops serenade the world with bluesy funk songs about the axioms of Dixieland. The band’s anthems are earnest and naturally alluring, a musical interpretation of cultural exposition. They’re as comfortable performing at barn parties in Northern Cali as they are chic Manhattan industry haunts. What’s more, they won’t pass through a town without playing a gig. No, not ever. 

“We were in Asheville,  and we didn’t have a show booked, but we really wanted to play,” recalls drummer, Ben Malament, of their recent travels through the folk city in Western North Carolina. “It was a Monday, and there was this art house called the BoBo gallery. We asked if we could play there, and they told us they never had any people there on Monday…We ended up doing several shows and the place just filled up with screaming girls.”

Influenced by the evolution of jazz from years past to present – artists like Duke Ellington and Ray Charles, ragtime and rhythm & blues – it begs the question how five white guys from California can pull off a sound so quintessentially grounded in African-American ethos. Nevertheless, by carrying a sincere interest in the historical milieu of their composite genre, along with a divergent spectrum of taste, this band of pseudo-traditionalists is able to overcome whatever creative boundaries may be limited by race. They’ve admittedly gotten some “slack,” though.

“We do a lot of research on the blues and the history of music,” comments saxophonist, Johnny Bones. “We’re just playing the music we love and trying to do it justice. We’re careful not only to research books, but to actually go out and play with folks and talk to folks…To talk to people of all races…We have people come up to us from New Orleans all the time, and tell us they’re feeling it.”

Adds Wierzynski, “What’s different in music is style and delivery. We play country music too, redone as soul….We’re taking it from all sides; if we like it, it’s in there. Duke Ellington took material from 20th century composers…Ray Charles did country songs. Was that white music? If you go back far enough, you dissolve the lines.”

California Honey Drops has tapped into the underground soul revival in Oakland, played at a neighborhood bar in Brooklyn and rocked the New York subway in Midtown (where, incidentally, they ran into a crowd of Oakland followers). They are chameleons with a vivid presence; they fit in everywhere and they always make an impression.

“People in Oakland know us, they are our family, and we want to create that everywhere,” stresses Wierzynski. “Our hope is to bring music for music’s sake.”

Mallamont agrees. “Because we’re not bound by a commercial genre, we can market ourselves uniquely. We’re a roots band. We’re paying homage to music’s essence.”

—Courtney Garcia 

Less than a week before Christmas, San Francisco gathered a showcase of local artists to perform both holiday anthems and new musical endeavor at The Make Out Room. The club was sparkling for the season; its ceiling dripped with tinsel, silver stars and colored lights, and its floors graced with decadent Mission scenesters sipping cider and sampling miniature winter-themed cupcakes from a local bakery. Among the several artists on the bill, emerging indie rock crooner, Jascha Hoffman gave one of his only performances this year in the city, debuting a new LP of work to be released in 2012.

Lady Lazarus, SF’s resident haunting singer-songwriter Melissa Ann Sweat, is capping off an amazing year by offering fans her latest album Mantic for free on Bandcamp. Released in January, Mantic received a 7.8 from Pitchfork and praise from Stereogum upon its release. 

In addition, Sweat has released two new videos for “Lake Pontchartrain” and “Kurosawa’s Dreams and Me” and will embark on a mini West Coast tour including the FMLY fests in both LA and Oakland: