FORTHE’s Bandcamp Picks: Spring/Summer 2023

Support Local Music On Bandcamp Fridays! 

Streaming apps like Spotify generally pay between $.003 and $.005 per stream, according to Business Insider. There’s a better way to help your favorite musician pay for rent. On Bandcamp Fridays, artists receive an average of 93% of proceeds from  sales of their music, and on all other days they receive an average of 82%. 

FORTHE’s Bandcamp Picks is a regular series highlighting brand new music releases from Long Beach musicians, producers, and bands on the Bandcamp platform. Below, two of our editors—Erin Foley and Jasmine Navarro—share a few of their favorite local music releases that dropped between  May and early August 2023. 

We encourage you to support these Long Beach artists and producers by purchasing and sharing their music. And if you’re a Long Beach musician or producer with an upcoming release, hit us up at editors@forthe.org. 

(Please note, despite a pause on  Bandcamp Fridays for the past two months, it’s back and happening every first Friday of the month for the rest of 2023.)

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BREATHERRR – Bliss Condition

Album art by Sumire Kishida.

Released June 9

In 2013, experimental musician Michael Espinach started dreaming up concepts for a solo project. He began learning GarageBand and teaching himself how to loop, leading to the birth of  BREATHERRR. Drawing on inspirations from his childhood such as Blink-182 and The Cure, and blending those sounds with his college-era favorites Health and Animal Collective, Espinach began to tap into a sound uniquely his own. 

Throughout the ten years that followed, the project was purely his own self-expression. Then, during the pandemic, Espinach started sharing his demos with long-time friends/collaborators J.P. Bendzinski and Joel Jasper, laying the groundwork for BREATHERRR’s 2023 release Bliss Condition. 

During the recording process, the three collaborated almost entirely via Google Drive, along with Colorado-based drummer Tyler Lindgren. The final master was finished in 2021.

On Bliss Condition, BREATHERRR deftly obscures his innermost fears behind layers of distorted guitars, snarling synthesizers, and pounding drums. GODLING, a faster paced song with a vibe akin to Death Grips, describes an inner turmoil:

“NARCISSIST PESSIMIST

ACT LIKE I DON’T GIVE A SHIT

TRUTH IS THAT I’M TENDER

AND MAYBE OVERSENSITIVE,”

The  gritty, overdriven sound  of the song belies the vulnerability of BREATHERRR’s lyrics.

On PFEIFFER, Espinach laments the feeling of looking for the same person in different lovers:

CAT EYES AND DIFFERENT FACE

 ANDROGYNOUS

AND DIFFERENT NAME

BACK POCKET

I KEEP THE PAST

SOFTEN THE BLOW

OF WHAT WON’T LAST”

His voice, lofty and feminine, swirls over a driving pop track, juxtaposing his apathy with a sense of distant hope; a glimmer of a dream of lovers yet to come.

Years in the making, Bliss Condition is a true manifestation of BREATHERRR’s decade of hard work—the type that can only come from years of self-reflection and dedication to one’s craft.

A year after  finishing Bliss Condition, the musicians in BREATHERRR decided to start planning a massive double-release show at Retro Row’s Art Theatre with local band Furcast.

Joined by Paul Rhoda (guitar), Patrick Tapia (drums), Ernie Mora (guitar/synth), Elise Ewoldt and Emily Wasilewski (backing vocals) and psychedelic visual artist Bill Gazer, BREATHERRR transformed Bliss Condition into a stunning multi-sensory experience.

The suggestion to have the show with Furcast at the historic  venue came during a conversation with Espinach’s friend Michael Roberts (who sadly passed away before she could see their dream come to fruition). In 2015, when Roberts was in college, she had a hand in organizing a BREATHERRR/Furcast show at CSULB, and the two kept in touch. A long-time employee at the Art Theatre, the pair knew it was the perfect space to show the community what BREATHERRR had been carefully crafting.

“When you book a show [at the Art Theatre], there’s a magic there,” Espinach says. He’s right; it seemed like the entire city was in attendance. The feeling was bittersweet though–Roberts was originally supposed to run the visuals for the show.

After over half a year of planning, rehearsing, researching, and organizing, Espinach said he felt overjoyed, but also left with a deep sense of exhaustion:  

“We put everything we possibly could into it.” 

BREATHERRR fans that missed the band’s packed-out album release show on June 29  at the Art Theatre can look forward to a live concert film and a complete live album to be released later this year.

-JN

furcast – A Walk Through Hell

Album art by Janelle Carbajal.

Released June 29

In conjunction with their live performance at Retro Row’s Art Theatre on June 29 (with co-headliner Breatherrr), the cinematic and psychedelic jazz ensemble furcast released their first album in nine years.  The setting was fitting. A Walk Through Hell is the score for a hauntingly epic hero’s journey. With songwriter Johann Carbajal on vocals, bass, and synth, Vincent Mazza on guitar, Kael Sharp on trumpet, and Ryan Sutera on drums, they also put screams, gasping breaths, and moody tempo changes to great use. Michael Espinach from BREATHERRR posted on Instagram that they “deserved every second” of the standing ovation they received when done.

 The first track off the album alone takes the listener on a rollercoaster adventure all by itself. “Kings / A Walk in Hell” clocks in at just under nine minutes and features heavy drums, police sirens, and the sound of burning forests (“and that’s all in the first minute,” Carbajal points out) until eventually the tone becomes more calmly melancholy… only for another percussive CRASH or two to jolt us along through the hellscape as an ominous voice chants and the fire is raging again.

Carbajal says, “this is planet Earth, and it’s a dark scary place…I know there are a lot of hopeful moments but 90% of life feels like we’re just getting through something…” 

Speaking to Carabajal you start to get that A Walk to Hell feels like a journal for the songwriter who is reflecting on the “demons” that come along in life and the ways that he has held himself back by fear.

To illustrate how long Furcast had been working on the album, Carabajal reflected that Long Beach’s own late, great Ikey Owens (Free Moral Agents/Mars Volta/Long Beach Dub All-Stars) actually started recording it soon after Furcast released their first album, Together, in 2014.

Carabajal remembers that Owens told him that they would record his vocals next, when Owens got back from going on tour with rockstar Jack White. Carabajal had joked that if he was going on tour with someone like Jack White, they wouldn’t finish the furcast project. But Owens, who was the one who had approached Carabajal to work on it in the first place, insisted that he would have some weekends free. Something compelled Carabajal to reveal in that moment, right before Owens turned to leave, something he hadn’t told him yet. Carabajal had been a massive fan of the keyboard player since he was a teenager, as he also started out on keys, and working with him was a dream come true. (“I saw Mars Volta with him on keys ten times…I used to study videos of him.”)  He told Owens of the photo they had taken together a decade or more prior, when Carabajal was just sixteen years old. Sadly Carabajal was right that they wouldn’t finish it, but not because Owens was too busy. The acclaimed musician sadly passed away at the age of 38 due to a heart attack while on tour in October 2014. 

Thinking of the grief of that loss compounded with other tumultuous life moments through the years, Carabajal reflected that it was probably him that held the band back from releasing music. 

Though furcast hadn’t put out an album, they continued to play live shows throughout the years, always meeting new musicians and incorporating new feature artists. On their new release, their two feature tracks are standouts. DRTYWTRZ joins on the song “Pray” which is one of the more dreamy and hopeful sounding parts of the album, the voices singing feel almost trance-like. “Sweet Jesus” featuring Sheila Vand grabs your attention right away with the sound of someone gasping for breath. With a haunting yet seductive tone, Vand (who feels like a new character being introduced) sings, “all the others have kindly taken their leave, so let me believe in you, I’ll do anything you want me to…sweet Jesus…”

(Vand, who is an accomplished actress and director, has worked with Carabajal on so many projects that he likened their relationship  to the longtime partnership of moviemaker Tim Burton and composer Danny Elfman.) 

The songs get shorter as the album progresses, but it ends on a redemptive note with dreamy, psychedelic outro, “Angels.” It feels like a quick, but heavenly nap on a cloud that is over in less than two minutes. 

Keep an eye out for more live shows this October. Furcast will be in Mexico for a big Halloween show but will play in Long Beach at some point earlier in the month. 

-EF

HeyDeon – “Whole Life” / “Honored”

Album art by DMAC.

Released (on Bandcamp) on July 3

HeyDeon (Deon Samuel Williams Jr.) caught my attention when I saw him on the line-up with two other bands we have featured in previous Bandcamp Picks (Soular System and Nebulaz Beach) at Supply & Demand. With a big smile on his face and an easy-going upbeat groove, HeyDeon’s music has a good-natured and joyful vibe: 

I’ve been waiting for you 

my whole life, 

no bye byes, 

just high fives…

It was refreshing to see a young person not afraid to sing about being in love! He not only openly expresses his love and gratitude in his lyrics, but you could feel it in his energy and could see exactly who his muse was during his performance. While still engaging the crowd, he was singing the love songs that his partner had  clearly inspired directly to her and the energy between them was palpable and sweet. After his performance, he joked that it was “mom & dad’s night out” as he held  his arm around her. 

This self-described “Sucker for Love” recently put his entire catalog on Bandcamp, including an EP released last August that is sweetly titled We Were Meant To Be and features an image of the beautiful couple embracing.  

“Whole Life” features production by Jay James. “Honored” features production by Alexander Gonzalez. 

-EF

Extreme Sports Club – “Congratulations!”

Photo by Pedro Martinez.

Released July 28

Extreme Sports Club is a team of Long Beach musical all-stars: Byron Scott Adams (vocals), Furcast’s Johann Carbajal (bass, synth), Ryan Sutera (drums), Kael Sharpe (trumpet) and Vincent Mazza (vocals, guitar, bass, synth). Maile Hutchinson contributed violin and background vocals. Their  single, “Congratulations!” comes in at a satisfying three minutes and thirty three seconds and feels like a cloud cover cracking open on a summer day. Horns and strings swell at the apex as Adams demands, “You gotta give me something / Or it’s actually over.”

“[Adams and I] split lead vocals,” the ever-playful Mazza writes to me via Instagram message. “He sings great and powerfully and I whisper like a freak.” Mazza’s voice skitters and twists in the background. 

The Furcast crew’s signature psychedelic pocket-groove is all over this track, and Adams’ and Hutchinson’s voices blend together perfectly. The song is playful and fun, but doesn’t lack depth.

“Congratulations!” was recorded by Miguel Vasquez; Derek Simpson executive produced. Mazza writes, “[Simpson] encouraged me to start this project and continues to be a shining light in the infinite flummoxed flux.” He thanks you all for listening.

-JN

Angela Jane Bachmann – “Divine P_$$y Fortress”

Artwork by Juan Paz and Cait.

Released (on Bandcamp) on Aug. 3

Angela Jane Bachmann’s 2020 album Uncommon Likeness is still on steady rotation on all my dance party playlists, so I was stoked to see that she just released a great new song to add in the mix. 

“Divine P_$$y Fortress” starts softly with the lyrics “Simply as I am,” but the beat quickly drops and the moodiness lifts. 

 I had lost my way for awhile, 

but no longer running away from myself

Learning to trust your innate wisdom and being sure to honor yourself wherever you are in your journey brings confidence and true beauty. Bachman says, “To my ladies out there, so much of our lives are about comparing culturally to what society deems for us as beautiful or successful, but so little care is on self-love as you are. But your depth is deeper, it is intuitive, and so much of your own beauty is defined within, and you deserve to actually know that.”

The following mantra/chorus is such an earworm:

Tell me Sorceress,

Divine P_$$y Fortress,

Portals of lightness,

Free me from bondage

In honor of what she calls the “Divine energy” or intuition within that “cannot be contained,” and her disdain for having to promote these concepts through social media, Bachmann says, “Left out of artificial intelligence and screens, [Divine energy] is a life force that can be felt as a vibration…It is in the nature of all things, not in algorithms made by tech bros.”

“Divine P_$$y Fortress” was recorded at Bachmann’s self-proclaimed “favorite magical Long Beach studio,” Dream Machine. Stay tuned— she’s promised that the single is only  the first of several to come this year. 

-EF

CHECK OUT THESE OTHER LOCAL RELEASES

Lakim – Life’s a Prison 
Released May 26

Holy Death – Neck Wound Session 
Released June 16

Don Nichols – Our Intention Driven Anomalies 
Released June 21

Garden Patrol – “Never Ever” / “Valentine” 
Released June 24

Eyes and Flies – Swirl Maps
Released June 28

Comfort Noise – Ponds
Released June 28

Healing Gems – “Dreameater”
Released July 2

The Triptych – Her Magic Orchestra
Released July 2

Fernanda Valdivia– Since You Been Gone
Released July 7

Florida Street – Anthology Vol. 1
Released July 21

Joel Jasper – “Blank”
Released July 21

Junatime + Izzy & The Fins – Champagne & Blue Skies 
Released July 21

slowsleepwaves – ARCANUM
Released July 23

Kershawn Tha Don – BUTTA
Released July 25