Under the Stars: Midsummer music notables, from gallant rock to Jilly from Philly

You know the drill, lovers of music and culture. We are Under the Stars, a quasi-weekly column that stays on message with strong-ass opinions, presenting new music releases and upcoming shows. We keep hustling with the changes, thinking outside the margins. Hop in. And thanks for spending some time with us.

MIDYEAR MUSIC NOTABLES

It’s August, and many things are happening in the live music and festival spaces these days, but I just wanted to drop a mid-year rewind. So far, it’s, well, been a year in music—especially among oldsters seeking that new street cred, revisiting previous albums to, let’s say, middling normie applause. Cheers to you, Lucky Star.

Others are just extending and expanding runs established over the past couple of years. Music from the 21st Century (ahem). Salute to Jeff Parker and SML, who just keep expanding the sound of jazz by keeping it ever-evolving. By far, Parker has some of the most adventurous players in the biz backing him. Hands down, no notes. 

As previously mentioned in this column, we are eagerly awaiting that Sweeping Promises record. Feels like they are going to have a year. 

Local artist SpaceMoth, aka Maryam Qudus, who released Inward Eye in June, has composed some of the most compelling neo-psychedelia and cosmic-pop by way of thrumming grooves and looped textures. It’s on my short list for December.

I’d also advise folks to pick up the new Nate Mercereau release. Out on LA’s Leaving Records, Mercereau has stepped up and presented a gallant neo-fusion progressive rock record that feels like a culmination of all the projects he’s been affiliated with over the past several years. It’s a grand leap into the majestic.

But there are two projects that I’ve listened to over and over in 2026 that I just want to mention here, once again.

GENA, the new duo of famed Detroit drummer-producer Karriem Riggins and Dallas singer-producer Liv.e. Their collaboration LP, The Pleasure Is Yours, dropped a few months back and has topped lists for some due to the commitment to, yes, classic Soulquarian production; proper, well-constructed R&B; and that thick, viscous low-end factor of bass, frequency, and love. In a divisive year on so many fronts, this has been a healer for so many.

Lastly, Jill Scott is back. To Whom This May Concern, Scott’s first album since 2015’s Woman is here to stand on business. Those ’70s bongos in the background with subtle James Jamerson-type basslines, such as with the mahogany-lush “Beautiful People,” or the DJ Premier-produced “Norf Side” with Tierra Whack and the Jilly from Philly boom-bap priestess blessing the mic, pushin bars in cars? Scott has returned to her throne, and luck has nothing to do with her star either.

THE KOREATOWN ODDITY, “RAGU & PREGO” (STONES THROW RECORDS)

“Raw cassette tape hip-hop shit” is one of the tags at the bottom of the Bandcamp page that KTown uses to explain the minimal, witty, tongue-twisting bars on his new single “Ragu & Prego” that have made him an LA staple in the rap game. Opening line: “Laughing like Fran Drescher when under pressure,” while he waters his plants, and we see an old Ras-G poster get slowly panned over in the background, just adds to the dart-accurate inner rhyme flow. He is playful but not playing. The beat doesn’t even show up until half the track is done.

That’s just a taste of how low-key swarthy a rhymesmith K-town is. While we glimpse, for three minutes and change, our scribe-linguist put on his best fuzzy green headphones and destroy word clusters like Alex Trebek (RIP) on a Canadian Q&A heater. Busting fiery wordplay live and direct from his daughter’s bedroom, Ktown is back with that art from the heart. Grab this single from the upcoming album here.

BLACK MARBLE AT RICKSHAW STOP, 8/25

Chris Stewart has piecemealed a successful career, trusting a particular internal whimsy for looping together makeshift-sounding synths, drum machines that take a second to boot up, and bass patterns that call to the late ’70s and early ’80s textual shift from boisterous punk into temperamental New Wave.

New Order; those early, like circa ’82, Madonna 12-inch singles; just-blossoming OMD, and elements from the power pop band The Necessaries featuring Arthur Russell and Modern Lovers’ Ernie Brooks. They all conjure, at least to me, visions of blue mohawks moving to and fro before a red light in a fog-filled basement dance floor, where all the scudding isolationists are happily swooning by themselves, giving discreet honor to the post-rock space.

Life In Small Spaces, Stewart’s fifth full-length release, one he details as “drawing on early American left-of-the-dial college radio staccato guitar lines,” has all the uses and versions of synth pop known to the era. From Jane Fonda’s low-impact “dance aerobics” tempos to early and late Cure twang, throw in some Pylon too.

He’s switched up the formula just a bit, giving space to live drum samples (a nod to Wire’s simple metronomic style, according to Stewart); Spaces, on a quick listen, feels like a celebration of this spectral version of pop that seems dense and vast in Black Marble’s construction.

Life In Small Spaces is out 8/21. Pre-order here. Grab tickets for Rickshaw Stop here.

TWIN BLOOM, TWIN BLOOM (DANDY BOY RECORDS)

Ensconced as we are in the local music scene, we can be say that Oaklands’ nuanced power-pop quartet Twin Blooms is one our most solidly rooted. Members Gvir Aviv, Mickle Nguyen, Joshua Cano, and Sandra Alva re-upped the jangle-pop formula so popular around these parts and infused a certain bronzed texture, opting for exuberance instead of primness. 

OK, yes, that regionalism… They’ve been released on the local darling imprint Dandy Boy Records, whose label head, Bobby Martinez, has stated in the press that his label releases a variety of power pop, shoegaze, and bedroom pop records by a cadre of inner circle friends. It gives the in-demand imprint a certain degree of specialty. 

As for Twin Bloom’s production mettle, that’s what is known as the coup de grâce. They collaborated with the most sought-after and coveted—do not confuse that with trendy—producer from the Bay Area, Maryam Qudus of Spacemoth and La Luz. Game over.

What else is there to say about Twin Bloom? Buckle up for the ride; they’ve already taken off. Grab the digital album here.

HERBIE HANCOCK, DAVIES SYMPHONY HALL, 8/17

Remember that time about five years ago when we at Under The Stars approximated that Mr. Hancock’s performance in Napa could be his last one in the Bay Area ever? Well, with this upcoming show at 201 Van Ness Avenue, this genius, one of the last titans from the Blue Note days, an integral part of Miles Davis’s legendary Second Great Quintet, seems to have no sell-by date, which is to our benefit.

It’s been well documented how many quintessential genre-defining jazz-fusion and funk albums he recorded here in SF at Wally Heider Studios, 245 Hyde Street, and Different Fur Studios during that creative leap of a 1970 swing. Head Hunters (1973), Sextant (1973), and Thrust (1974) are the well-known landmark vestiges that used to be available on vinyl in thrift stores in the early 90s but are no longer found for cheap.

Which leads me to Secrets from 1976, a break from that alternative out there jazz from earlier in the decade to more of a rolling, laid-back, measured type of vibe. Equipped with disco influences, Caribbean flavors, and ample use of the mellow features of the Fender Rhodes, released on August 15 in 1976, Secrets is just another era in a very long and prodigious career that seems to just keep rolling along.

Grab tickets here.

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