9pm-12am! $10 at the door. 21+
April Magazine is a loose collective who belong to the criminally-underrated Paisley Shirt Records in San Francisco (“Listen to "The Boy In The Paisley Shirt" by Television Personalities and you'll get a good idea of what we're about,” their Bandcamp states). The main members of the group are Peter Hurley, Kati Mashikian, David Diaz, Mike Ramos, although often other friends fill in in what is a flexible formation; the members also contribute to other excellent San Fran bands such as Flowertown and The Reds, Pinks & Purples. April Magazine sounds like Galaxie 500 on quaaludes; they’re a more solemn washed-out West Coast sibling of Yo la Tengo.
Their new record, Sunday Music For An Overpass, is subtly beautiful, possessed of a quiet power. These lo-fi dream pop tracks have the potential to bypass one’s senses yet they don’t: instead they remove you from your anxieties and worries in a wave of hazy comfort. The album unfolds at a languorous pace, unrushed by external forces, unaware of them entirely. - Post-Trash
SYKO FRIEND (Post Present Medium)
Syko Friend’s third LP, ‘The Code,’ wanders endless margins and endless centers, reveling in every sound, every feeling, every word. It balances the vastness of choice with the certainty of an individual path. This path belongs to Sophie Weil, the sole member of Syko Friend, who acknowledges this swing of extremes, this movement from the center to the edge: “I do want people to understand what’s going on,” she affirms, “but I know it’s weird.”
Weil plays guitar like it’s a faucet, the warm roundness of bathwater just a half-turn from a furious scalding, another full turn from the whole-body shiver of winter rain. Her foundation is a roaming kind of fingerpicking, the nimble, leave-only-footprints comfort of a regular hike. But Weil knows the switchbacks and undergrowth too, constricting the guitar into a staticky bludgeon, or clearing out all melody for the raw nerve glower of a single minor chord. It’s an exemplary kind of American Primitive guitar work, the quiet revelation of intensely personal, timely expression found through century-old folk and blues forms. Weil’s vocals–curious, fervent, dynamic and certain–fit perfectly with her playing.
CHALK weaves an abrasive collage of sounds and musics that touch on peace punk, musique concrète, & American primitive. Neophobia explores the schizophrenia and horror of living in the contemporary era, an odyssey with an indeterminate point of departure or return.
Amidst the gloom, listening to Chalk is a restorative experience.
Chalk is an amorphous musical project orchestrated by Barry Elkanick (Institute, Blue Dolphin) While this is Barry’s “solo project” he regularly invites friends, other musicians and artists to accompany him. Under “Chalk” Barry has self-released 8 cassettes since 2015. While wildly ranging in recording techniques & approach, the cassettes have informed and culminated in the final sound present on "Neophobia" which is his first LP for Post Present Medium.