Ep 382: Hits of the Bay 2025 pt 1

Playlist

1. 1′16″ No by Pleeay on Wealth & Hellness Vol. 1 (self released)

   Local Sure, you might encounter this type of transcendent peak on Side 3 of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, but it’s not that common otherwise and I’m rather stunned. Song of the year.

2. 4′43″ In the Waves by Malaphor (self released)

   Local Malaphor’s maiden release floats free of time or hurry, and in the twinkle of a rogue’s eye, leaves all our bullshit behind.

3. 8′23″ gl0om by Heavy Lifter on park n forth (pleasure tapes)

   Local Weird shapes at odd angles cohere to perfection on debut EP Park n Forth, this band is vaguely magical and assuredly rocks.

4. 11′06″ Gauntlet by Whine on Guns on Television (self released)

   Local I really can’t say it better than Henri Cartier-Bresson in the intro to this song, not to mention Whine for the rest of it.

5. 14′08″ Until Then I'll Be Flying by Wife on The Importance of Daydreaming (Recess Records)

   Local If debut Starla’s Theme was a series of brief, uncontrolled detonations, this year’s The Importance of Daydreaming finds Wife wielding uncommon chemistry for some very special effects.

6. 16′29″ Tío Gabriel by Flaco El Jandro on SALAZTLAN (self released)

   Salinas’ own delivers the guitar performance of the year, while denouncing terror against his loved ones: “Somos humanos y hasta más Americanos que el agente del hielo… Aquí pertenecemos y eso bien que lo sabemos porque nadie es ilegal.” I’m probably late to the party but there’s stuff happening on the Salinas/Monterey axis.

7. 19′33″ Break by Ryli on Come and Get Me (Dandy Boy)

   Local Call them Yea-Ming & the Heartbreakers for how they punch through each turn in the song, delivering an urgent chorus which this year felt far from hypothetical: “If I asked you to/ Would you break me out of here?”

8. 23′03″ Southside by Josiah Flores on Doin' Fine (Speakeasy Studios)

   Local Flores follows debut album Awful Feeling with this year’s Doin’ Fine and so are we, as he leads us down the 101 to south San Jose, where “there’s something in the southside wind, seems to blow my pain away.”

9. 25′31″ Scheduled Depopulation by Muffler on The Dark is Still Around (dietssecretinsult)

   Local Another life-changing bummer from Muffler, such anthems for the negative zone never sounded so... appropriate. I sure listened to this song a lot this year.

10. 29′07″ Permanent (for now) by Aux Meadows on Draw Near (Eiderdown Records)

    Local Every choice in an Aux Meadows track feels consequential: the beat here is conspicuous and so is the way the band slides into song with it, only to tighten their grip around it. But maybe these 'choices' are only in hindsight; rather, the band is in the moment and the song is blessed for it.

11. 33′59″ One Million Things by The Pennys on The Pennys (Mt.St.Mtn.)

    Local When R.E. Seraphin and Tony Jay went on tour together and someone called it the Whisper Tour, it clarified a kindred sensitivity between them; as the Pennys they've united the Bay for a kindred classic.

12. 36′58″ Is Love an Illusion by Hectorine on Arrow of Love (Take a Turn)

    Local I was at first nervous that the song would dare ask “Is Love an Illusion?”, like I feared that to voice the question would be to tempt oblivion. Yet in the up-step of the chorus, in the extended bridge, in the begging of the question, I hear this song answer an equivocal but sincere ‘no’, that at least love’s illusion is real enough to live on, that it is felt.

13. 40′20″ СНЕГ by MOEBAR HAYES (self released)

    Local Walk around with this song in your head for a month, then we’ll talk.

14. 44′12″ Beyond Capacity by Ayodele Nzinga on Ghetto Grimoire (Rocks In Your Head)

    Local In August I saw Ayodele Nzinga’s Lower Bottom Playaz perform August Wilson’s 1990 play Two Trains Running, and the next week Rocks in Yer Head Records released her poetry album Ghetto Grimoire. Like two trains running, the play rendered the past as present, and poem “Beyond Capacity” went out on the ledge, to look back, and dare us forward.

15. 45′45″ Landscape with No Near End by Distant Reader on Place of Words Now Gone (Lily Tapes & Discs)

    Local When a song’s passion appears to strain the limits of recorded fidelity; when a member of The Noriegas releases a singer-songwriter album that matches that band’s intensity; what a beautiful world.

16. 49′25″ Daydreams by Miss Hits, Veotis Latchison on MISS HITS (Zheniia Records)

    Local The like eleven things this song is doing is basically a recipe for a happy life— slow way down, emote in tribute to your lover, trill your windchimes, reflect on your feels— but to quote Lauryn it is also gloriously about that thing, that thing, that thing.

17. 52′12″ You Never Know by Fieldress on It's a Lot (self released)

    Local Subtitled “for the giddy love peeps”, this song is its album in microcosm: musically unpredictable, rich with incident, lyrically giddy, soaring.

18. 54′03″ No Interest by Beatcuntz on Beatcuntz (self released)

    Local Leave it to these Croissant, Drama, and Irma all-stars to bring you that no wave hit you’ve been craving, is Mabuhay Gardens open because Beatcuntz has a Flipper-like ability to make something groovy out of the void. And something new out of the guitar.

19. 56′14″ Probably Me by Luke Sweeney on Novel Tea (Dandy Boy)

    Local Bay indie’s greatest jump shooter has decamped for the hoops of Nevada City, and the Bay Area will be a little more full of shit in his absence, as he sings here: “Out of all the Luke Sweeneys I know only one will be me.” Good news, he tells me he’ll be back often.

20. 58′56″ Door 154 by Jack Erin Brown on Door 154 (Nudie/ Tunnel Records)

    Local The title cut to an epic soundtrack, described by Brown as an exploration of the contrast between soft psychedlia and hard beats, it’s no surprise that on friday night at the 4-Star Theatre Jack is soundtracking a snowboard film, because this is fucking tubular.