Sammy Shiblaq, The Project of Liberation (Empire)
On The Project of Liberation, Sammy Shiblaq offers 16 soul-stirring tracks about the Palestinian struggle — and they all slap. The Detroit-raised, San José-based rapper puts listeners into the minds of everyday Palestinian people yearning for a normal life, who’ve had their homes bombed or stolen, and whose families and communities have been destroyed by Israel’s bombardment. Trunk-shaking anthems like “Gaza Strip 2 Detroit” and “48 Mile” hit the gas, with taut verses full of pride, indigence and defiance. Meanwhile, with their mournful melodies, “LLTR” and “Peace Without Freedom” make space for grief and heartbreak. Yet even as he takes in the horrors of Gaza’s humanitarian crisis, which human rights groups world-over have called a genocide, Shiblaq doesn’t leave listeners paralyzed with despair, but rather full of determination to work towards a more just world.—Nastia Voynovskaya
Shannon & The Clams, The Moon Is In the Wrong Place (Easy Eye Sound)
This is a gorgeous, gut-wrenching, love-soaked dream of an album born from a waking nightmare. When her fiancé died suddenly in a tragic 2022 accident, the world would have forgiven Shannon Shaw for taking some time away from the stage to heal and recalibrate. Instead, she and her band grieved the loss of Joe Haener by creating 14 gorgeous, multilayered tracks that successfully capture the beauty and wonder of true love, as well as all of the discombobulating darkness that lies in the depths of grief.
The Moon Is in the Wrong Place catapulted Shannon & The Clams into space, adding a layer of otherworldliness to the classic retro rock ‘n’ roll sparkle that the band was already beloved for. Not only is the album the perfect tribute to Haener and his relationship with Shaw, it now stands as a source of comfort for anyone who’s ever lost the love of their life.—Rae Alexandra
Siaira Shawn, Ephemera (Over Everything)
The latest album from this San Francisco-raised, Southern California-based R&B artist is a kaleidoscope of sultry soul and new funk. Shawn’s ability to combine pithy, poetic lyrics with heavenly vocal melodies is forefront in this project. On the song “Racing Home,” Shawn’s storytelling shines as she sings “Where’s the fire?” while passionately rushing home to a lover. Shawn floats on the standout track “Jujitsu,” singing about the dance that one does when they’re learning to properly love. And on the album’s first single, “What’s Better,” produced by Grammy-nominated Bay Area musician Mars Today, Shawn pauses time by speaking to the heart of anyone who has been so caught up in the throes of love that they’ve given jewelry to their partner in an effort to symbolize the depth of the connection. “My initials around your neck / But you don’t belong to me / But you belong to me,” sings Shawn. And in that, there’s a plea to the possessive lover in all of us.—Pendarvis Harshaw
Paris Nights, Full Package: Act 2 (PlayTooMuch Entertainment)
Unless you’ve been hibernating 24/7 in Siberia, you’ve likely seen “How’s It Goin’ Down,” an instantly hypnotic short video of East Oakland rapper Paris Nights flipping DMX’s classic track. Or you might have even seen her throwbacks to D’Angelo or Lauryn Hill. These viral hits helped her sell out Yoshi’s last month, but it was Paris Nights’ own music that sold me on her star quality. Full Package: Act 2 proves the East Oakland rapper’s skill and finesse on tracks like the fiancé-that-got-away ode “Love of My Life” and the flirtatious “My Way,” in which she raps circles around Kamaiyah. Meanwhile, Paris Nights’ heart is front and center in “From, Your Daughter,” an honest address to her mother reminiscent of Kehlani’s “The Letter.” EP closer “Proud” gives an emotional shoutout to everyone in her close circle. As long as she doesn’t lose that heart on her inevitable path upward, she’ll get the staying power her talent deserves.—Gabe Meline
Fake Fruit, Mucho Mistrust (Carpark Records)
I first encountered Fake Fruit opening for the iconic South Bronx sister act ESG. Tasked with hyping a mostly past-middle-age crew of old punks and hip-hop aficionados, Hannah D’Amato, Alex Post and Miles MacDiarmid more than delivered, bringing high-energy, propulsive rock and no small amount of fun to the stage.
Mucho Mistrust, their sophomore album, maintains that intensity, with choruses meant to be screamed back from a sweaty, ecstatically dancing crowd. D’Amato deploys sweetness and raw acidity in equal measure, chronicling what sounds like a rough year. “I hope you had a good time on your sympathy tour,” she deadpans on “Más O Menos,” ramping up the repeated lines to a shriek.
The album settles into mellow introspection, exchanging shreds for gentle, dreamy guitar and some well-deployed sax. By the final track, we’ve reached a shaky resolution: Progress isn’t always linear, go easy on yourself.—Sarah Hotchkiss
Esotérica Tropical, Esotérica Tropical (Self-released)
A shaman and healer from Puerto Rico who found her musical identity in the East Bay, Maria Jose Montijo is known as Majo to friends and Esotérica Tropical on the bandstand. Her eponymous debut album is a wondrous collection of 10 songs and bomba-powered incantations, laced with love, longing and obeisance to ancestral ties, celebrating the natural world and her homeland. Part of what makes the album so enthralling is her fusion of folkloric instruments (harp and drums) with contemporary production via Luis Maurette, Heidi Lewandowski and Adam Partridge. Montijo’s voice is often set amidst an entrancing welter of Afro-Puerto Rican percussion from Julia Cepeda and Denise Solis. Tune-Yards’ Merrill Garbus contributes on “Realismo Mágico,” a song that combines metallic Tom Waits-ian clanks with soaring vocals. She’s not the first to ply these avant-folkloric waters, but Esotérica Tropical flows with a clarity and quenching succor all its own.—Andrew Gilbert
Seiji Oda, a gentle gigg… (UKNOWME!)
Seiji Oda’s a gentle gigg… sounds like doing tai chi in a park while an old-school Chevy drives by slapping “Tell Me When To Go.” With fat 808s, gentle xylophone and a whispered cadence, the Oakland rapper taps into a very Bay Area cultural intersection of going dumb at the club Saturday night and waking up to do a mindfulness practice on Sunday. I mean, if you think about it, there’s a strong overlap between the dances of the hyphy movement and age-old somatic healing techniques, or as Oda sagely puts it on the title track, “When I gig all my problems leave through my limbs.”
That intuitive Baydrestrian wisdom captivated listeners all over the world. But the three EPs Oda released this year — a gentle gigg…, Last Summer and peace + chaos — show he’s not just a viral gimmick, but a talented musician with range who skillfully weaves hyphy, jazz, indie rock and Japanese city pop into a signature sound.—Nastia Voynovskaya
Sour Widows, Revival of a Friend (Exploding In Sound Records)
A functional, touring indie rock band out of the Bay Area is rare these days. Simply being able to headline a bicoastal tour behind a new album places you in an elite class. So you really gotta hand it to Oakland’s Sour Widows, who’ve never wavered from making music they love and releasing and touring it exactly how they envisioned it. I remember how they fawned over Boston’s Pile as one of their favorite bands in 2019. Before long, they were on tour with Pile and then eventually, became labelmates on Exploding In Sound Records.
Fast forward to 2024, where Maia Sinaiko and Susanna Thomson have dealt with far more loss and tragedy than anyone oughta have to, and along with drummer Max Edelman, have beautifully distilled it into an album about the magic of friendship and the little things in life that get us through the most painful moments. All throughout Revival of a Friend, they’ve harnessed their desire to write lasting songs, while also wanting to zone out and shred for a minute or two. You feel their catharsis when they see-saw vocally on “Witness” and on “I-90,” which might just be the best song they’ve ever written — filled with idealism, hope and unbridled love for what you desperately wish you could hold onto again.—Adrian Spinelli
La Doña, Los Altos de la Soledad (Self-released)
La Doña embraced her boldest ideas on Los Altos de la Soledad. The ambitious album sees the singer and multi-instrumentalist ascend as a producer, bandleader and storyteller, creating a mosaic of Latin American styles and traditions in her ode to working class, immigrant San Francisco. For the sumptuous bolero “El Regreso,” a cinematic string section and jazz flute by Elena Pinderhughes underscore a sense of longing as La Doña sings the real-life story of her music student who migrated to the U.S. from Guatemala alone. That sensibility of music as oral history continues on protest anthem “Corrido Palestina,” where La Doña affirms the irrepressible determination of anti-war artists and activists. And just as she and her homegirls might go from the protest to the club, she rounds out the album with the reggaeton-meets-cumbia dance floor track “Mejor Que Matarte” and off-kilter party anthem “Cumbia Bellaka.”—Nastia Voynovskaya
Ramirez, The Warlock and the Gorilla (G59 Records)
Ramirez’s The Warlock and the Gorilla sounds like a smooth ride through a thunderstorm in hell. The San Francisco MC, whose rap style descends from Memphis’ Three 6 Mafia, has an affinity for the dark side. On his latest project, he does two things really well: He pays tribute to rap classics and adds his own twisted lyrical flavor to the mix. The album contains a refreshingly grimy new interpolation of Silkk the Shocker’s “It Ain’t My Fault,” as well as songs that sample Too Short’s “Freaky Tales,” and King Chip’s “Interior Crocodile Alligator.” The aggressive, uptempo title track could be the soundtrack to a nightmare, and much of his album has demonic tones and references to violence. Yet Ramirez finds time to slip in a message about overcoming oppressive forces on “Casket Dreams,” featuring Pouya. He ends his second verse with the line “Always keep your head up when shit’s feeling too painful,” a reminder that even on a smooth ride through the underworld there’s room for some benevolence to emerge.—Pendarvis Harshaw
Sam Reider and the Human Hands, The Golem and Other Tales (Human Hands Music)
A precociously gifted jazz pianist from San Francisco, Sam Reider fell in love with folk music and the accordion as an undergrad in New York City. Today, the Oakland-based artist is one of the most consistently interesting composers working in the unplugged realm where jazz, chamber music and various American folk idioms converge. His most ambitious project yet for his all-star Human Hands, The Golem and Other Tales, centers on a narrative suite inspired by the Jewish legend of a supernatural creature that a rabbi conjures to life to protect the endangered Jews of Prague. Assigning each instrument to a different character, à la Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, Reider makes brilliant use of a stellar cast of players, including violinist Alex Hargreaves, alto saxophonist Eddie Barbash and Rising Appalachia fiddler and cellist Duncan Wickel, while artfully deploying an array of influences, from Duke Ellington and Astor Piazzolla to Bernard Herrmann and Raymond Scott.—Andrew Gilbert
LaRussell and P-Lo, Majorly Independent (Good Compenny)
Who knew that a jazz-rap flip of D-Lo’s “No Hoe” was what the Bay Area needed in 2024? Just as I streamed the original track every day on MySpace in 2009, I’ve had LaRussell’s “Yankin’” on repeat in my headphones as I walk out the door to face the day. Delicate keys prance over pounding 808s as LaRussell, young up-and-comer Malachi and hyphy vet D-Lo trade bars that are cocky, comedic and just out-there enough to keep you hanging on every word. That playful spirit is evident in the rest of the project, produced by P-Lo, as LaRussell pays homage to the lineage of Bay Area rap. Richie Rich slides through with an ice-old verse on “What We Doin’.” (His answer? “Smokin’ on herb that’s superb.”) “Lil Lad” is another standout, where LaRussell raps about Bay Area hip-hop as the soundtrack to memories with his dad. Majorly Independent asserts his place in that legacy.—Nastia Voynovskaya
Tall Tee, Talk To Me (Self-released)
If you’ve ever found yourself cutting a rug to funk and boogie records from Egyptian Lover to Sandra de Sá at the cultish monthly Sweater Funk parties at the Knockout in the Mission, then Talk To Me is for you. Dammit, if you just want to listen to music that’s fun as hell, then Tall Tee’s debut album is for you, too. The duo of Joog (from Vallejo) and Flex (from Frisco) have put down a record ripe for all sorts of celebrations. At times they come across like a Fil-Am Chromeo, funkifying their way through the back-and-forth vocals on “Gimme That” and two-step harmonizing on “Distant Lover.” “So Fly” comes with disco panache and yacht rock synths, before delivering a lyrical boogie-breakdown in the shape of “Rapper’s Delight.” There’s a lot to rally behind on Talk To Me, an apt companion for feeling great.—Adrian Spinelli
Naked Roommate, Pass the Loofah (Self-released)
In their second studio album Pass the Loofah, Naked Roommate return with a distinct blend of sounds that blur the line between dance punk and ’80s electro pop. Every instrumental choice in the album feels intentional yet haphazard, like the rich tenor sax in “Fight Flight” and the grainy, wavy static at the start of “Ducky & Viv.” Nostalgia bleeds through each song in some way or another, and if you listen closely, you can hear how every song is connected as the album progresses. There’s something inherently Bay Area, too, about songs like “Bus.” Beyond the fact that the song is a four-minute, grooving ode to public transportation, its lyrics echo a communal call to journey together, wherever life takes us: “Will you stay still as the world passes by? / Passes by / Passes on by / We take the bus.”—Shannon Faulise
John Mackk, Signing Day (10K Projects)
After it dropped in January, John Mackk’s Signing Day sent ripple effects through the streets and across social media platforms. The high-octane Oakland rapper’s “Slow It Down,” which features a Bobby Valentino sample, has been one of the most popular songs out of the region over the past calendar year, and has been remixed multiple times with verses from the likes of Mozzy, Mike Sherm, 310babii and more. Produced by Denero “N3ro” Johnson, its combination of quaking bass and heavenly strings creates a catchy dynamic, especially when paired with Mackk’s lyrics. The song’s popularity might only be overshadowed by Mackk’s other 2024 single, “Pose For Me,” (which isn’t on his latest album).—Pendarvis Harshaw
Osees, Sorcs 80 (Castle Face)
Osees have put out so many albums and changed their name so many times (you might know them for their imperial San Francisco-based run as Thee Oh Sees), you’d imagine fans and critics would’ve gotten fatigue many times over. Yet John Dwyer’s ever-shifting garage-rock project seems to attract a new generation of fans with every new incarnation. Though they’ve been based in L.A. for a decade, you don’t have to look far in the Bay Area music scene to see bands barely of drinking age imitating Dwyer’s jerky presence and jarring whoops. It’s a testament to Osees’ malleability that Sorcs 80 lacks a single guitar and still feels essential. Hearing Dwyer and crew coax such brain-zapping sounds out of their synths is enough to give you faith in the future of rock as a fertile breeding ground for out-there ideas — especially if enough young punks rip off this record.—Daniel Bromfield
Quinn DeVeaux, Leisure (Self-released)
Quinn DeVeaux, a longtime singer and guitarist from Oakland, has always rooted his repertoire in blues, R&B, soul and gospel traditions. July’s Leisure found him once again harnessing those distinctly American genres: A grab bag of styles like soul, rock and country, Leisure is a rollicking good time that almost jumps out of your speakers. There’s so much energy packed into it, you almost feel like you’re seeing it live.
When it was first released, Leisure felt like a crowd-pleasing record for barbecues and house parties. Recently, however, it has taken on new meaning for me. The way it pays respect to the very best of American music stirs up a strange patriotism: Though many of us may be losing faith in American institutions, Leisure is a pointed reminder of one of our greatest cultural contributions to the world. Our artistic heritage is something we can’t afford to abandon, and something no one can truly take away — not so long as people like Quinn DeVeaux are keeping it alive.—Jody Amable
Ian Carey & Wood Metal Plastic, Strange Arts (Kabocha)
