Welcome to Bandcamp Friday! Until midnight tonight, 100% of any money spent on Bandcamp will go directly to the artist, making today the perfect day to support your favorite Bay Area bands.

Why buy music in the streaming era? Because Spotify is estimated to pay $0.003 - $0.005 cents per stream, depending on the artist. Even if you buy an album for $1, you’re paying the artist the equivalent of 333.3 song plays. That impact matters, especially for independent artists.

To celebrate, the BFF.fm community is sharing their hidden gems, ride-or-die faves, and local legends that you can support today. Discover something new, revisit an old favorite, and support the Bay Area music scene!

Cutie Pie: Cutie Pie EP (indie/bedroom rock, San Francisco)

Songwriting siblings Deston and Avianna Swift craft easy breezy melodies that give me the warm fuzzies. Homemade, heartfelt, scrappy and sweet…I’m head over heels for Cutie Pie. ~ Cosmic Amanda, Hot Local Singles

Cancer and Capricorn: Waking in the Whatever (indie rock, San Francisco)

Charles Kieser describes Waking in the Whatever as their rawest and most confessional record yet. Pulling from indie rock, grunge, post-punk, and classic rock, expect big guitars, and even bigger feelings. ~ Cosmic Amanda, Hot Local Singles

Various: Seeds (indie/country/etc, Bay Area)

A 17-track compilation from San Francisco’s Athamé Records celebrating music in progress. Demos, alternate versions, experiments, and unfinished ideas make Seeds feel like a peek inside the creative process to come for this exciting new label. 👀👀👀~ Cosmic Amanda, Hot Local Singles

starbelliedbug - Lush EP (slowcore/shoegaze, San Francisco)

I have highlighted them before but this debut EP from starbelliedbug is worth a listen and purchase! If they had a mascot, it would be a Teletubby smoking while driving a pink Volkswagen. This album captures that dreamy and surreal feeling of living in the Bay Area amidst a burgeoning arts and music scene that is desperately trying to hold on. ~ Swirving, audiosyncrasies

Unity - Comes Back To You/Was There Ever Unity? (indie pop/rock, Oakland/Bay Area)

While Uniqlo may have only just recognized the homies at Unity, the group have been holding it down for over a decade. Also my sources* say this is the feel good album of the summer (*source = me). ~ Swirving, audiosyncrasies

coherence - welcome to the mountain (post hardcore/punk, Oakland)

Recorded sometime during the pandemic but finally released in May of this year, Oakland’s coherence have heavy riffs paired with emotive lyrics. Check it out any time you want a glimpse of hope before confronting the injustices of the world. ~ Swirving, audiosyncrasies

BLOUS3 - the pledge, the turn(noise punk, art rock, shoegaze, Sacramento)

Cutting through the sea of modern shoegaze, the bass and the drums on the track “dustdon’t settle” immediately jump through your speakers or headphones. Another dope release from the homies at Cherub Dream Records! ~ Swirving, audiosyncrasies

Tricky FM - Twin Star Fantasy (electronica, electronic pop, San Francisco)

This new release from local artist Tricky FM embraces the afterglow of the euphoria that the masses of the BRAT/Outsidelands/Portola summer are still fixated on. ~ Swirving, audiosyncrasies

Terminus Est by Heavy Arts Ensemble (in the style of jazz).

Melanie Wilson and her boyfriend Diego are artists who roll their eyes and are too cool for school when they perform together as a duo. They move in some high-end, techie circles in Oakland and San Francisco. Perhaps you've had the good fortune to see them play live. The Heavy Arts Ensemble was formed about a year or two ago, and they used to perform around the East Bay at outdoor barbecues, fish fries, and clam bakes; I could be wrong. With this ensemble, Diego evolves his solo sound by bringing in real musicians to play bass, cello, and horns. Oh, and Melanie plays tambourine and runs the live light shows. Listen, I genuinely hate everything, but I was happy and pleasantly surprised. Their latest EP, Terminus Est, contains some of the best improvised music I've ever had the pleasure of hearing. They are smart with it. Their music has the spirit of un-music or non-jazz. It stays focused on the sound in the room. Diego knows how to combine the rawness and the spit of real music. It's authentic and self-aware. They really excel as a group and are unlike anything else. The result made my partner exclaim, "Hey, what's this?" I told her who it was, and she said I LIKE IT – so this is my happy choice this week for Bandcamp Friday. - Rhan Small Ernst, tapecase radio

Kelley Stoltz - Writing The Thread LP (psych pop, San Francisco)

San Francisco songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Kelley Stoltz returns with Writing the Thread, his 21st album and his second full-length release of 2026, arriving to coincide with a new run of live dates across the UK and Europe.

For more than two decades, Stoltz has quietly built one of the most distinctive and prolific catalogs in American independent music. A songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer and inveterate home-recording enthusiast, he has followed his own path—moving easily between psychedelic pop, post-punk, garage rock, glam, folk and the melodic pull of classic songwriting, while somehow always sounding unmistakably like himself.

Coming just months after May’s If You Don't Know Me, Buy Now, Writing the Thread captures Stoltz in an especially prolific stretch, still chasing songs, sounds and unexpected turns more than twenty albums into his career. - Cavity Rock, That Tracks

James Wavey - Sleepers Break EP (garage rock, San Francisco)

His latest project, the Sleepers Break EP, was recorded live with a band at Wyldwood Records and marks a bold sonic evolution by blending garage rock and soul with raw, introspective lyricism. Teaming with guitarist Jafar Green, the EP shifts gears from his previous hip-hop centered albums and embraces the wild and unruly sounds of the likes of the Stooges, Love and Mick Collins of the Dirtbombs.

The new single - "Flourish" - is a blend of garage rock, soul, early R&B and post-punk with the fever of a holy revival.

He speaks of the Black experience but there’s a universal truth to his words. It’s a rallying cry for those ready to rise up and say they’ve had enough. It’s punk rock through a garage psych lens. - Cavity Rock, That Tracks

The Reds, Pinks, & Purples - True Love Daydream EP (melancholy dreamy shoegaze, San Francisco)

The Bay Area’s favorite daydreamer/poet transforms his signature bittersweet dream pop into shimmering shoegaze. This mostly instrumental EP wraps around you like a soft blanket on a rainy day, warm and comforting. - DJ B-rated, The Sunday Screeches

The Goods - Goodbye Summertime (jangle psych, Oakland)

The Beatles meet California sunshine on Goodbye Summertime, a deeply personal album filled with features from Bay Area legends like Cherron Arens, Yea-Ming Chen, and Ian McBrayer. Sugary pop meets emotional tumult, upheaval, and introspection in the blinding sunshine - the perfect goodbye to the adventures and transformations that only happen on long, hot summer days. - DJ B-rated, The Sunday Screeches

Noothgrush - Violations of Consensual Reality (sci-fi sludge, Oakland)

Three things are certain in life: death, taxes, and metalheads going feral for pink merch. Luckily, Transylvanian Recordings has us covered with a new release from the archives of Noothgrush, this time with vocalist Dino Sommese of Dystopia. Crushing, lofi grooves from a nearly lost chapter of the Bay Area metal scene are served on 3 stunning, neon platters - snag one before they’re gone! - DJ B-rated, The Sunday Screeches

Joel Cusumano - Appendix (alt rock/college rock, Oakland)

 Joel Cusumano is back with APPENDIX, and true to its name, the new EP feels like a collection of loose pages left tucked inside last year’s WAXWORLD. Released through Oakland’s Dandy Boy Records again, it’s a four-track project that carries forward the underlying feelings that Waxworld first weaved together, with that same uneasy feeling, trying to make sense of the chaos in the world today. The album keeps its whimsy though, which you can feel in the music video for “Stigmata,” parodying an unending headline scroller while Cusumano’s voice fills the tracks with enough packed into the margins to make it feel like its own little world. - Addie, BFF.fm volunteer