BILL ORCUTT
A New Way to Pay Old Debts
(Editions Mego)

Recorded at 24th and York in SF in the early summer months of 2009, these 14 songs are characteristically live enough to give the impression of hanging out in the same room as Orcutt, or an adjacent one, rather than hearing him filtered through a studio. The approach suits the furious storms of broken-neck blues — literally: Orcutt plays a repaired acoustic Kay guitar with two strings removed — that are unleashed from start to finish. Along with the Berkeley Guitar compilations and recent solo albums by Ava Mendoza and Sean Smith, A New Way to Pay Old Debts is a sure way to prove the Bay Area is a guitar nexus. Check out a track from the album after the jump. Read more »

DEERHOOF
Deerhoof vs. Evil
(Polyvinyl)

Why "vs." evil, Deerhoof? Wouldn't Deerhoof is Evil be more challenging? No matter, while navigating familiar territory, the 12 songs here show the band is still inspired, and more graceful. The melodicism and gleaming decorative touches of "Behold a Marvel in the Darkness" and "No One Asked to Dance" match a romanticism that is winning. "Secret Mobilization" is a straight-up rocker, and the time-lapse bloom of "I Did Crimes for You" is just about gorgeous. In moving further beyond a Jane Birkin-meets-1990s-noise realm, East Coast counterparts Blonde Redhead seem to have gotten lost as of late. Not Deerhoof. A song from the album and album release show info after the jump.

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REUBER
Ring
(Staubgold)

This is the most characterful techno album in a long, long while. Instead of obeying minimalist trends, Reuber goes for something epic — Ring is Kosmische, but much more enthusiastic and lively and cheerfully vulgar (the finale verges on trance) than anything that sound's huge cluster of revivalists have put forth in the past few years. The surging syncopation is Moroder-esque or Tangerine Dream-y rather than studious, and the album's energy verges on gonzo, from the coiling, roiling metro-ride momentum of "Ringer" — the centerpiece and highlight — to the tribal fervor that lingers at the far edges of the two tracks before and after it. Performance clips of his Tuvan throat techno after the jump! Read more »

Today the University of San Francisco (USF) announced that its radio station, KUSF, is moving to an online-only classical music format.

Before its transmission unceremoniously went to dead air and static, KUSF had been on air for 34 years. An important independent media source, it's been one of the Bay Area's chief sites for new and innovative music, with DJ-informed playlists devoted to local, experimental, international, “loud,” and “other” music, in addition to genres such as rock/pop and hip-hop. Read more »

Anika's self-titled album on Stones Throw is getting play these days, but not as much talk about its cover versions as one might expect. The time seems right to serve up a few of the originals next to Anika's versions and ask which you prefer. We're able to do this with two songs: "Yang Yang," written by Yoko Ono, and "I Go to Sleep," written by Ray Davies and made popular by the Pretenders. (Produced by "beak," a.k.a. Geoff Barrow of Portishead, Anika's interpretation of the latter is very Joe Meek-meets-Cluster-meets Flying Lizards.) Before the jump, I'm also including links to some of the sources of other lovelorn tracks on Anika, including truly amazing live film/video recordings of the teen-death anthem "Terry" by Morrissey-favorite Twinkle, and Skeeter Davis's plainly bereft "End of the World." Read more »