Under the Stars: Dig Erykah Badu and The Alchemist’s frequency directive

Right around the fall equinox is typically when new music gets a bit deeper, representing our progress into the third quarter of the year. Some releases start to feel a bit more elevated, crucial, and vital. For music writers, our minds start to turn to what records we will be discussing in December’s end-of-the-year lists. It’s an excellent moment to cherish the big drops that show up to shuffle our best-of analysis.

It’s also when thoughts from sunny reverie to shadowing loss. I grew up in a household where Gloria Steinem, Dolly Parton, and Cassandra Wilson were revered. So it shakes me to my core that all three have transitioned so close to one another. It’s very “Prince and Bowie disappearing around the same time” type of eerie.

(For those who don’t know, go and listen to Cassandra Wilson’s “Tupelo Honey.” I dare you not to drop a friggin’ tear, Mang.)

We live in a very cynical, divisive world. And so when you have strong-ass women, who do their best to make this little planet a better place for all of us to live, breathe, and dream, it’s only right to acknowledge their spirit, that light when it passes.

(I’m really terrible at keeping up to date with people passing away. I was supposed to do a whole Diane Keaton thing that I’ve yet to get to—but that will happen.)

When you hear the stories of her numerous under-the-radar exercises in love—the gifts, the donations—it becomes clear that Dolly approached life with a sense of personal duty to try and make this horrid, cold, mean, vindictive world a better place for everybody. She never forgot where she came from…

It’s a life lesson on how we as humans can choose to do and be better. She subscribed to the old-school attitude of treating a congressman and a garbage man just the same. God bless.

RIP Gloria, Dolly, and Cassandra. Thank you, ladies.

Okay. 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, upcoming shows, and other adjacent items. We keep it moving, hustling with the changes, thinking outside the margins. We’ve been doing this for five years… Spend some time with us…

ED MOTTA, TOC TOC (MPS MUSIC)

Brazilian music titan Ed Motta will inspire anyone to become a bit more fluent in Portuguese, just to get closer to the 1980s electro-funk sound that makes his new release Toc Toc so inviting. After more than a decade of building his English-language repertoire, singer and multi-instrumentalist Motta somehow swirls his best Donald Fagen-type vocalizing in Portuguese, giving arrangements a both new and older funk structures. He’s pulling from his own genealogy, as the biological nephew of the legendary father of Brazilian soul, Tim Maia.

Toc Toc leans, arrangement-wise, on the most new-wavey DāM FunK synth washes. There’s some James Brown audible on the album’s eponymous single, which wades into brazen ’80s chord structures, as on “Glamour Hotel,” reminiscent of the sounds found all over Kashif and Ready for The World productions.

But once we get past the Jheri-curl juice and the bump-and-run, Toc Toc turns into a sweet R&B record, fashioned after boogie-induced Whispers records from the ’80s. Its two-step arrangements featuring rising melodies, shag carpet harmonies, and late ’70s-era Stevie Wonder-style deep Moog vibrations make Motta’s dedication to that era on the album oh, so memorable.

Scrap Duolingo—you don’t need to speak Portuguese to dig this LP. It’s operating on a universal love language-type of comprehension. Motta, who is sometimes seen as eccentric, but always sophisticated, has mastered this funk from The Gap Band on down (yes, in some stretches his voice does mimic Uncle Charlie Wilson’s). That’s a feat in any tongue.

Pre-order here.

ERYKAH BADU AND THE ALCHEMIST, BEFORE THE WORLD BLOWS: THE ABI AND ALAN EXPERIMENT (CONTROL FREAQ / YOUNG)

Erykah Badu’s first Bay Area concert was at Bimbo’s 365 Club in North Beach on April 23, 1997, in support of her debut record Baduizm. I did not attend because I could not get a ticket, but I remember my homie Herve, who lived in North Beach, remarking that, “Oakland showed up.”

What does that phrase mean?

It means that when Badu puts out that frequency, the tuned-in respond, in droves. (BTW, Eric Benet opened that show, for those keeping score.)

Badu does not put out records like podcasts… she moves with intent. Takes her time. When it does arrive, it kicks your chest in a little bit.

Her most recent “frequency directive” Before The World Blows, produced with The Alchemist, is undoubtedly a chest-kicker, and was recorded over 18 months between Dallas and Los Angeles. It was ready to go earlier this year, but Badu felt it needed to sit just a bit more. Alchemist had quietly been hoping to work with Badu for years. See, any hip-hop producer worth their weight in gold ALWAYS wants to make an R&B record, because they have the tools already.

For example, iconic producer DJ Premier—yes, from Gang Starr—always wanted to produce a Janet Jackson record, but for some reason on Ms. Jackson’s side of the street, it never happened. Which is why those five tracks on Christina Aguilera’s 2006 double album Back to Basics, the ones Premier did, go so hard. He was hoping to catch somebody’s attention.

The point is, this Badu-Alchemist collaboration is flush with the proper alchemy, the right amount of looseness on producer’s part for Badu to wield her mysticism, wisdom, and dopeness.

It resides someplace between Mama’s Gun and the New Amerykah albums, Before The World Blows, and in 2026, that’s a good look. Badu been readin’ that cultural frequency.

Get it here.

DIRECTIONS IN STEREO AT 540 BAR, SEPTEMBER 25

Hold on to your butts, once again! Join resident DJ Circuit73 with special guest The Restaurant on the last Friday of the month at 540 Bar as Directions In Stereo cues up an eclectic, sonic backdrop for the evening.

It’s gonna be an all-vinyl set, so grab a drink and blast off.

The theme for September is “space.” Make preparations to hear an out-there nebula of space funk, galactic rock, interstellar soul, astral jazz, sci-fi soundtracks, and such, maneuvering through all eras, past and present.

Directions In Stereo is a human-curated sound and vision event going down in the heart of the Inner Richmond at 540 Bar in San Francisco, a purveyor of local craft beer, seasonal cocktails, quarterly art shows, and vintage pinball machines. 540’s inclusive nature and community vision are a perpetual favorite for both residents and tourists alike.

More info here.

THAO AT THE INDEPENDENT, NOVEMBER 8

Thao Nguyen (formerly of Thao & The Get Down Stay Down), known around these parts for making rapturous, dance-filled videos, is ready for her close-up again. It’s been half a dozen years since she gave birth to the “first great Zoom music video”—and now she is open to the notion of falling in love once more.

The artistic video for “Fossils,” shot in and around the our world-famous historic North Beach bohemian bar, Vesuvio Cafe, is giving those “she’s so back” vibes.

“I’ve learned that the point of life is not to emerge unscathed and that I don’t want to operate as I always have—masking fear as indifference,” she stated on the Kill Rock Stars site. Late this summer, Thao announced her first album in six years, Show Me, due October 30 alongside a string of fall shows. Its lead single, produced by Merrill Garbus, is “Sick of the Times,” a good same-as-it-ever-was version of Thao, a political banger, reflective of the times, with Tune-Yards and The Linda Lindas sharing backing vocals and uprising energies.

As she told Girl Underground Music, “I wanted it to be an anthem that will be used at political rallies, grassroots organizing, and mutual aid events, anything that can help us emotionally prepare to activate and to stay politically engaged at all levels, but especially at the local level. We need to keep each other buoyant, to remind ourselves we’ve got the numbers and the imperative.”

Both her LA and SF shows will donate one dollar from each ticket sold to Working Families Power. Same old righteous Thao, indeed. Good to have you back.

Pre-order Show Me here and buy tickets to the November 8 album release show at The Independent here.

GRYPH, NASH ANGELES (ELBOW GREASE)

As we slide into the fall, my ears are inclined in the direction of the almighty Dave Aju, who runs the Elbow Grease label out of LA, as well as the enterprising Nashville-born, LA-bred Michael Griffin and his aptly titled debut album Nash Angeles.

The latter, a Tennessee-raised polymath, is extending his love for music into the dance music realm. With co-producer Aju behind the boards, Nash Angeles is that unexpected hybrid record that shows how merging ideas doesn’t just multiply the world’s betterment; the fusion enhances beauty and depth.

This is an atypical record from Griffin, the “unorthodoctor” producer and a seasoned artist who now calls California his home. You’d be hard-pressed to find another project that takes those Southern accents and all the colors of contemporary dance music without losing a sense of place. Nash Angeles is where you want to be in spring, winter, summer, and fall. Coming off the collective Point Winona Sound Library Vol. 1 project earlier this year, LA’s Elbow Grease strikes again with that authenticity, Holmes.

Grab Nash Angeles here.

THEO PARRISH AND LOVIE IN CONVERSATION

Sometimes when the world keeps on moving fast, we need to slow down our brains, listen to sounds, words, and ideas that will release that tension, and hopefully allow a bit of knowledge and wisdom to seep in.

For a while now, I’ve been listening to Theo Parrish mixes. No matter if they are two, four, six, eight hours, they give my soul some green energy to work with.

This Red Bull-hosted discussion he had with Lovie touches on music, mixing, his famous Ugly Edits and the aforementioned Lovely Edits, his memories and thoughts on Ron Hardy, art school, and the reason for his “headsmasher” of a remix of the proto-punk cut “Politicians In My Eyes” by Death, which consisted of three Black brothers from Detroit.

I initially tapped in for a few minutes, but as usual when Theo Parrish is teaching, I got pulled in for the entirety of this beautiful session.

When you are able to make the time, listen to what Theo Parrish has to say.

AWOL ONE & NICK ANDRE, BUY ART FROM A HUMAN (STRANGE FAMOUS RECORDS)

Producer Nick Andre is always a great hang, and exciting to watch as he moves between projects. There is no doubling back on previous ideas—he’s like a shark, always moving forward.

His most recent project finds him working with LA artist Awol One, switching up that rhythm jacket on “Buy Art From a Human,” which delivers a squelchy type of boom-bap, hovering around a Deltron 3030, universe.

AWOL One, the legendary lifer of the Los Angeles underground scene, is known for his time with The ShapeShifters and for his musical and artistic collabs with everyone from Abstract Rude to Xzibit.

A slew of collaborators including Lyrics Born, Mr. Dibbs, Sage Francis, and more add accents to this dense palette of sounds which carry with them a timely and intentional message.

Get it here.

AMOEBA’S WHAT’S IN MY BAG WITH DANIEL LANOIS

No, I didn’t stumble upon some low-grade acid—just producer Daniel Lanois’ Amoeba video segment that is bizarre, yet languid in construction.

He’ll be performing at the Presidio Theatre Performing Arts Center in early 2027, if you want to reserve those tickets.

Just some background: U2’s 1984 Unforgettable Fire remains one of my favorite albums from the band. It’d make my top 100 albums of all time, mainly because of its double-duty production from inside the Slane Castle, within the Boyne Valley of Ireland’s County Meath, where the band lived and ate alongside the recording. Lanois and Brian Eno, whose insights flow together like sequential parts of an atmospheric late-night story on that album, put the band on a new trajectory with this one—it’s an experimental, ambient record. Coldplay has been trying to top that record all these years to no avail.

Listen, I have issues with U2 from far later in their career—that whole iPhone biz, turrible—but Unforgettable Fire, with tracks “Pride (In the Name of Love)” and “MLK,” two lyrical tributes to Martin Luther King Jr., doesn’t just pay white guilt praise. It’s full of wayward sound structures boldly pushing the mid-’80s rock narrative far past the “everything is synthwave” trend.

The record holds up and then some. I know, that was a lot of words about U2. OK.

Lanois reminds us that he produced the Neville Brothers record Yellow Moon, which is an eerie, ambient, rhythmic tribute to the city of New Orleans, and his own homage to the almighty Meters. It’s a great record.

Then, out of nowhere, Lanois picked up a Biggie Smalls record and praised the late rapper for bigging up his neighborhood as inspiration for his debut album. Of course, I know this is a classic within a classic (standard-issue East Coast golden age hip-hop bible) because of unfortunate circumstances, but for Lanois to chime in felt unusually singular on his part, and eerily sincere and warm all at once.

Trippy-ass dude, but an interesting 10-plus minutes of music education, for sure.

At some point, Amoeba’s gonna figure out a music course from all of these very insightful and oftentimes-bizarre deep dives with knowledgeable musicians and entertainers, right? How lucky are we to have an Amoeba Records at the end of Haight Street?

TRAIN, MAD DOG IN THE FOG (COLUMBIA RECORDS)

Here’s what the Bay Area band gets oh-so-right in naming their 12th album after the beloved Haight Street pub. For anybody—and I do mean anyone, who exists in nightlife as an employee, performer, or patron—Mad Dog in the Fog, with its 5am early-watch European soccer matches, very competitive trivia nights, and the whole “let’s meet up at The Dog” linking point ease, connects folks who want to pre-game, watch said game, or keep the embers of a rolling weekend alive. Train frontman Pat Monahan received his first paycheck from one of the band’s earliest shows when they played at the community hub.

Naming an album after that milestone, no matter how you feel about said band, is the right way to pay homage to a local spot that feels untouched by AI tech slop. Those pints harken back to a sometimes lost era of SF.

Right on, Train.

Buy it here.

THORN WYCH, AESTHESIS (TOMPKINS SQUARE RECORDS)

It would seem the more we have tricks and technology to create and bend things, time-traveling may just be the next superpower wrought by newfangled tools.

Related: UK artist Thorn Wych makes instruments from tree branches, bowed strings, flutes, and percussion that she runs through a chain of loopers, pitch-bending glitches, and delay pedals.

You can read that for yourself in the Bandcamp notes. But this debut album, Aesthesis, released on the San Francisco imprint Tompkins Square Records, feels haunted and spooky from all that enhanced tunesmithing from said handmade instruments.

I don’t know this for a fact, but it seems Wych may be in search of some Folkways-type sounds; in consequence, we get arrangements that could have soundtracked The Blair Witch Project. This is an interesting project, and I look forward to future output from this daring artist and label.

Pick it up here.

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