Trophii was definitely not intentional. The way they tell it, it’s hard to tell whether or not you’re hearing the story of how a musical act formed or how a couple met.

Is there a difference?

Richie Smith has been a mainstay in the Sacramento indie rock scene as a member of popular acts such as Wife and Son, Sunmonks, as well as numerous other local projects. Lindsey Pavao found regional fame and national recognition when she participated in the second season of reality competition show The Voice.

The story goes that, while Smith and Pavao had met previously (a little back and forth messaging on Facebook after they had both participated in a local Radiohead tribute show), the true start to their collaboration was born after Smith’s ex-wife, Mallory, had left her role in the project Life in 24 Frames following their divorce, and Smith needed to fill that vacancy with someone with similar vocal and musical talents.

Mutual friend James Cavern suggested Pavao. Smith says he didn’t think she would be interested.

“He probably said something along the lines of ‘Oh, she’s a flake’ or something,” Pavao said during a phone interview with Submerge, followed with “I flaked on you once,” directly aimed at Smith, and with a tone of playful jabbing.

The project wasn’t immediate. Following their time together in Life in 24 Frames, the two kept in contact, and when Pavao was in need of some assistance for her own project, she reached out to Smith.

“I asked him to help out with my solo record that I was trying to put out. Richie looked me dead in the eye when I showed him the songs that I wanted him to help out with, and he’s like, ‘I’ll do this, but I need to be a part of this whole record. We’re going to do this together,’ and there was something about how confident and how inspired he was to help me,” Pavao said. “About three months later it just became too entangled for it to be just my project. I didn’t even feel comfortable pretending like I was this solo artist anymore because the music wasn’t just mine. We were writing songs together. By the end of the summer we were Trophii.”

A few years ago, they began the recording process in their Sacramento apartment, and on Dec. 6, they will finally have a release show for the album Vitamins and Flowers, the fruits of their recording labor.

While the two have a fairly seasoned resume when it comes to music projects, the self-recording aspect was not exactly one they had a ton of familiarity with from the get-go.

“I’ve done a lot of positive self-recording and arranging. But, for a long time I didn’t have any recording equipment of my own,” Smith said. “Lindsey has some pretty nice gear, and once we started working together, I was able to use some of the stuff that she has, and start the demoing and pre-production process for what is now our first record.”

“I’m self taught,” Pavao added. “I’ve been recording since I was in high school. It’s an ever evolving process.”

When it comes to learning on the job—no matter the field—one has to expect a certain learning curve. For Trophii, the speed bumps were limited and the DIY approach gave them plenty of time to get things done right.

“I think mainly when it comes to parts arrangement, as far as capturing the sounds going in, I’ve been doing recording long enough to know how to achieve certain sounds that I want to get,” said Smith. “I think the arrangement part was tough … a lot of the engineering logistics as far as within the software programs—we recorded in Logic Pro X—was a challenge. Lindsey got Logic Pro X certified, and because she did that, we didn’t have to bring in an engineer to track our stuff.”

“Basically all of that happened within the last two years … She learned the program, I learned based on what she learned, and we did it together,” he said.

Post-production work was taken on by Sacramento legend Robert Cheek, well known for his work with projects such as Band of Horses and Chelsea Wolfe.

While most of the recording of Vitamins and Flowers was done at their leisure in the comforts of their apartment, they did track some acoustic drum arrangements with percussionist Christian Midthun.

“Basically, he was performing slash interpreting drum arrangements that Lindsey and I composed for the record,” Smith said.

The first incarnation of Trophii’s live act was as a six-piece, and Smith and Pavao found that too much to manage, both in regards to scheduling and on stage. Now they’ve cut that down to four members: Smith and Pavao, drummer Midthun and Ryan Tillema on guitar and bass guitar.

“They were the first to be on board with the project a couple of years ago. They’re good friends, and really talented players,” Smith said. “They’re both songwriters themselves, and multi-instrumentalists, and they have a really good understanding as far as songwriting goes and what’s appropriate … they really do a great job of interpreting the parts that we’ve arranged for this project and bring their own flavor to the stuff, which is really exciting for me to hear. They’re very capable.”

One thing that you notice about the record is that there are definitely differences from both Smith and Pavao’s previous sounds. When it comes to Smith, there is the addition of more electronic elements and that “dream pop” aesthetic that is hardly escapable, something not really found in his prior projects. As for Pavao, the work is far more layered, and while her vocals are a clear focal point, they’re far from alone in that sense.

“Our brains see music in different ways, which is cool,” said Smith. “I think it’s always changing … Every time we write a song it’s always different. I will say the more we do write music together, the more we do strike a balance.

“I’ve always kind of been interested in electronic music and electronic elements, and I love a good marriage of electronic music with rock music,” Smith continued. “When it comes to percussion, four of the ten songs had no acoustic drums, so I was left with the question of how to get these songs to move rhythmically, so I ended up programming all of our digital percussion and trying to blend that with shakers and tambourines and other auxiliary percussion instruments.”

The record, now finished and on its way to the hands of their followers, has the feel of a testing ground. While they certainly are proud of their work, Pavao and Smith were getting to know each other like any new relationship. Along with that comes the ability to reflect and perfect—something you are unable to do when you have no history with a person or group.

“I see us as always changing,” said Pavao. “We didn’t have a gameplan with this record. It’s like a whole lot of ideas all crammed into one hour. There are some things we could have done a lot differently, so moving forward we have a strong vision of where we are headed musically.

“I’m learning how to be the writer I want to become,” she added.

However, whether they felt the album was a learning experience, it’s not as if they aren’t proud of the completed project.

“My opinion on what we do aesthetically is that … our sound is evolving,” said Smith. “We’re brand new. We’ve only been running together for the last two years. But, we’re enjoying the process.”

“We’re not fucking apologizing for it, you know what I mean? I think it’s great,” he added.

See Trophii live Dec. 6, 2016, at LowBrau (presented by Le Twist) at their album release party. Doombird will also perform, and the show is FREE. LowBrau is located at 1050 20th St., Sacramento. The show will get underway at 9 p.m. For more on Trophii, go to Facebook.com/trophii. Listen to their album Vitamins and Flowers via the Bandcamp player below.

There’s a heady dose of sci-fi in the visual material for CTRL-Z, the latest record by Sacramento’s own Life in 24 Frames. Departures on massive interstellar vessels, arrivals on lonely, deserted planets and the calculations of hooded, monastic figures at the controls of complicated machinery. The ultimate aim of these figures is as cloaked as they are. Perhaps they’re only searching for new worlds or new life—perhaps they mean to create them.

It’s a fitting change in imagery for the band, who has always experimented with space and atmospherics in their work, albeit in a more earthbound, pastoral mode. When we last encountered them two years back, they had just released Bitter End, a record filled with warm sounds—layered vocal harmonies, acoustic guitar and a horn section. It evoked a journey on a wooded, sylvan path with many detours and changes in companions along the way. At this time, the band and their sound were in flux, a rotating cast of characters with a burgeoning assemblage of styles and instrumentation. Since then, two of their members (Richie Smith and Lindsey Pavao) have gone on to form the dream pop duo Trophii, and Life in 24 Frames has been minimized to a core group of Kris Adams, Jason Brown, Joe Strouth and Tony Caldron, with featured recording guitarist De’von Blue.

Consequently, CTRL-Z takes a much different path, directly out into the cosmos, rising and falling in speed but always confined to the tracks of time, which here take us through deeply personal reflections of one very tumultuous year on Earth. From the reverberating build of “January (My Condition)” to the otherworldly, plaintive chorus of “June (Halfway to One)” and the soaring harmonics of “September (Months Like These),” we catch glimpses, but never the full story, of heartbreaking moments, reconciliation, the birth of a child and the promise of new beginnings.

The band’s newly energized focus on sonic space (partly in order to maximize the sound of the remaining members) is perfect for highlighting the interior world of the mind and heart, the way time plays with perception, the way that stimuli in daily life can make the heart race and bring it to a standstill in the space of a few weeks. Within the new record’s spacey packaging, the musical contents are pressed to blood-red vinyl, an apt choice for the emotionally charged work inside.

There is far less tumult outside of the album, as the band members themselves move optimistically into a new era after coming off a year of successful recording. 2017 will begin with L24F signed to a new label, Gold Standard Records, alongside Doombird, with possible touring to follow.

We met with the laid-back Kris Adams and Jason Brown to hear more about the good news, and the story of how CTRL-Z came to be.

Would you say that this album is a more definitive statement from a more definitive version of the band?
Jason Brown: The sound of the band now is probably closer to what was originally envisioned, for the most part. Bitter End was kind of a stylistic departure for the band. I think we’ve finally solidified the members of the band, I think that’s helped quite a bit with the dynamic.
Kris Adams: I think this album really represents all of our influences and all of what we’re into combined. Like he said, Bitter End was a great album, but it’s also part of this alternate Life in 24 Frames timeline, with a lot of other people’s involvement in the band. This is us coming back to, like, if we would have made a second record that was an evolution of Time Trails [2011], then CTRL-Z is an evolution of that. It’s the perfect mesh of our performing styles.

Was the concept of having the songs named after each month of the year always part of this project?
KA: It was always something that I thought about in the back of my mind. I didn’t know how this would take shape, because it was a very personal thing for me, and so I wasn’t sure if these guys were going to be cool with such personal and intimate thematic material. I didn’t know if some of these songs would ever come to light, or if they would become part of an acoustic side project or something.

When I first pitched to Joe the idea of months, I was afraid that it might be lame, but his first instinct was, “We should plan this out thematically so each of the songs have a particular feel.” He was the one who talked to me about the record by Thrice—Alchemy Index—as a good example of thematic grouping. It’s a collection of four EPs that deals with the four elements: fire, water, wind, earth.

You’ve alluded that these songs refer to the events of a particular year, 2013. What was significant about this year in your life?
KA: 2013 was the year that my son was born. I think becoming a parent changes anyone as a person. That was more or less what I wanted to capture on the record, this transformational period. For some people it happens at 18, for some people it doesn’t happen until they are 45. But everybody goes through that period in their life, where things dramatically change, and the way you were living is no longer sustainable to the way you have to live, whether it be having a child or having a death in the family. It’s more about overcoming adversity.

What does the title CTRL-Z mean for you?
KA: Anyone who’s tech-savvy gets it. It’s the UNDO key on a computer—it’s like a geek apology. It’s just saying sorry, even though you shouldn’t necessarily be apologizing for the things you’re sorry about. There are things that I think everyone does in their life that they end up feeling guilty for, but they know on a certain level they shouldn’t feel guilty about it. If you’ve listened lyrically to the songs, I think it’s pretty black and white what that is.

Has being narrowed down personnel-wise made it harder to re-create your studio sound live?
KA: Shrinking the band down to a four-piece, after having played as five, six and even seven-piece over the last four years. I think we’re sonically bigger than we were before to be honest with you. We became gearheads over the course of this record, so my pedal board grew from a vocal processing pedal, an overdrive and a delay to a massive setup. I don’t know how many pedals I’ve got—12?
JB: That’s something we really experimented with on this album was not so much instrumentation, but sonics—ambience, sound effects, that sort of thing and that’s something we hadn’t really explored a lot as a band, so this album it reflects that experimentation into this sonic coloring, and it’s pretty apparent on the album. But as far as reproducing it live goes, I think this is the easiest album to do live, because the instrumentation has been pulled back to the four of us. With all that extra stuff gone, I think there’s a lot more room for us to fill in the void. I think this album pushed all of us a little bit outside of our comfort zones.

How do you feel about signing to a label for the first time? Excitement? Trepidation?
KA: This isn’t our first time talking with a label or being offered a potential deal, but with this one, it was a no-brainer, almost. It was very low-risk for us, it was perfect—for me it’s nothing but excitement.
JB: I’m excited. I mean, with anything in life there’s a little trepidation, but considering what we discussed today, I think it’s going to be a perfect fit for them and us.
KA: I’m really looking forward to it, and I can happily say that we’ll be labelmates with Doombird. Robert Cheek, who produced this record and has produced all of our records has also recorded their new record. We’ve intermingled with each other—some of their members have played on the last couple of records, and we recorded at the same studio. It just felt right. I think we’ll be the third band signed to this label, it’s quite new. I couldn’t be happier for it to be with Doombird. Hopefully that means some shows with the two of us coming in the next year.

Do you think the meaning of the concept album has changed in our current times?
KA: I think sitting in that room with the label and talking about plans to move forward, the climate of music and live music today, and people’s tastes and methods of listening, it’s very important to think about. People don’t listen to music the way that I listen to music. I’m kind of an outlier in the fact that I still listen to albums, and I don’t necessarily mean albums as in vinyl, I mean the act of listening to a band’s album completely. I never feel like just listening to a particular song. That meeting was a wake up call to realize that most people aren’t listening to music like that anymore. It’s good to realize that once in a while because I’m in my own bubble, you know? I don’t tend to get out a ton. I don’t see a lot of live shows, I have two kids. I’m not exposed to culture.

If this is a concept record, then we’ve created a piece of music that is meant to be listened to front to back, for 40, 45 minutes. The songs all meld into each other—some of them don’t even have audio gaps. It’s just this continuous, Pink Floydian thing. We’ve had double duty to make sure the album is also listenable when broken down into separate songs, because this is how some people are going to consume the music. If you take just the song “November,” for instance, you can listen to it and still really enjoy it without feeling that you’re missing anything. It’s really hard trying to maintain continuity with all these songs but still make them able to stand on their own. It was a very tough thing to balance. We approached it like Pet Sounds, where you have these anchor tracks spread throughout the album that can be pulled out and listened to as singles, but if you lock all of those back into their appropriate places, there are little things between each of them that make them one whole experience. It’s like a modular album.

In anticipation of the release of CTRL-Z, you can catch Life in 24 Frames with Epsilona and Skylis live on Nov. 26, 2016 at Goldfield Trading Post (1630 J St., Sacramento). Advance tickets for this all-ages show are $10. What a great way to unwind after what is sure to be a vexing Thanksgiving dinner! For more info, go to Goldfieldtradingpost.com. Keep an eye out for the release date of CTRL-Z by following the band at Facebook.com/lifein24frames. Stream their song “November” below.

When the somewhat mysterious and criminally underrated local supergroup Contra took the stage at our 200th Issue Party at LowBrau just a couple months back, frontman Kris Anaya (Doombird, An Angle) said something to the effect of, and I’m paraphrasing here, “We don’t have any music for sale, so just listen and enjoy it.” Well, turns out, after enough pressure from friends, fans and local press, Contra is finally readying the release of their first proper EP. “The seven-song album was compiled around a three year period,” Anaya told Submerge just last week. “We decided we finally wanted to put something out. I would say this was because the Browns [brothers Zac and Dusty Brown of Tycho, I’m Dirty Too, Dusty Brown, and Little Foxes] pressured me into doing it, those bastards.” Anaya mentioned that the EP was recorded and produced almost entirely by himself and the Brown brothers, with the exception of the drums, which were engineered by Robert Cheek (Band of Horses, Tera Melos, Chelsea Wolfe). For now the plan is to just give the album out for free at the release show at Harlow’s on Friday, Feb. 12, 2016 and to put it up on Soundcloud after that. They’re also kicking around the idea of doing a physical release, but aren’t sure yet. “This recording was made for fun and just for the pure enjoyment of music and in no way do we look to benefit financially from this music. We would love it if people just came out to the shows, listened to the music and enjoyed their time in a room, that’s basically the single greatest joy we share, our love for music.” When playing live, Contra is composed of six excellent local players: Dan Block, Joel Daniel, Brian Gogineni, Dusty and Zac Brown, and Kris Anaya. You really owe it to yourself to catch this band live! Learn more at Facebook.com/contraaband.

Music is awesome, isn’t it? Whether intentional or not, music is a big part of everyone’s lives. It’s all around us: on TV, in ads, in our headphones and earbuds attached to our smart phones with streaming audio. Chances are if you’re reading Submerge, you love music too. Even though there is more great music being made than ever and access to it is becoming easier and easier, it’s still sometimes hard to know where to look to discover new tunes. Enter Submerge’s annual year-end best-of list! In 2013 there were so many amazing albums released that we actually expanded this story to feature the top 30 instead of the top 20. You’ll notice that a lot of this list, approximately 50 percent, is local. That’s not by mistake. That’s not because we tried to include local albums just to round out our list. No, we just have that much talent right here in our own city.

Compiled by all of our contributing writers and staff, we hope this list will help you discover something new. And because all of our attention spans are so short nowadays (are you still with us?), we kept our reviews to 140 characters or less, because we all know that reading someone’s short, to-the-point Twitter post is a helluva lot better than reading someone’s four-paragraph-long Facebook rant. Now, set forth and discover some new jams! Who knows, your new favorite band/album may be waiting for you somewhere on this list.

30.

Danny Brown
Old

Fool’s Gold

What can you say about Danny Brown? He’s rap’s Jim Morrison, The Lizard King. Old has been on repeat since the day I got it. And will be.

29.

Run the Jewels
Run the Jewels

Fool’s Gold

As dope as promised, it gets no better than this. Killer Mike is at his best, and El-P provides the perfect sonic-scape for destruction.

28.

Biosexual
The Window Wants the Bedroom

Debacle

Fantastically produced debut album of avant-garde supergroup featuring the great Jocelyn of ALAK, brother Michael RJ Saalman and Zac Nelson.

27.

Paper Pistols
Deliver Us From Chemicals

Self-released

2 can do it all. Skinner & Lydell are all binary: beard/belle; drum/voice; age/youth; decadent/austere; beautiful/music.

26.

EGG
Overly Easy

Self-released

If Cake and Phish had a baby? Close, but doesn’t quite describe this amazing band. An infectious sound that makes you wanna get up and GO.

25.

M.I.A.
Matangi

N.E.E.T.

M.I.A. is pissed off, and still fresh as ever, rapping over aggressive beats and keeping the Sri Lankan sound alive.

24.

The Men
New Moon

Sacred Bones

Brooklyn noise punks retreat to a rural cabin, finding a balance between a Mudhoney dustup and a Grateful Dead peace-in.

23.

Gauntlet Hair
Stills

Dead Oceans

Gauntlet Hair dropped the dopest, weirdest album we’ve heard in a minute and then immediately broke up. Spacey, strange, with a dash of pop.

22.

Jacuzzi Boys
Jacuzzi Boys

Hardly Art

The Miami trio switched things up with a more polished than pure garage sound. Still playful and infectious, just adding new dimensions.

21.

Gap Dream
Shine Your Light

Burger

Mid-tempo sex appeal born of psychedelic melancholy and rock ‘n’ roll disco; drugs, dance, drugs, booze, dance, fuck.

20.

Miley Cyrus
Bangerz

RCA
 
Crying cats ftw! The most dissed/discussed AoY; w/ hits by Dr. Luke, Pharrell & Mike WiLL, twerk! This is Miley’s year.

19.

Chuuwee
Thrill

Self-released

With rap albums you usually either get bangin’ trap beats OR real lyricism. On Thrill you get both. One of Sac’s best in top form.

18.

Century Got Bars & Bru Lei
Midtown Marauders

Self-released

A flawless Tribe tribute and audible tour of this fair city’s nucleus. If you’ve spent more than five seconds in Midtown, you want this. 

17.

David Bowie
The Next Day

RCA

Charming, confidently progressive with kick-ass guitar solos. It’s classic Bowie with a modern, enthusiastically suspended twist.

16.

Black Sabbath
13

Vertigo/Universal

Pure smokin’ stoner doom rock at its finest! Timeless lyrics and riffs. This album picks up where the band left off with Ozzy 30 years ago.

15.

Nails
Abandon All Life 

Southern Lord

Yeah, it’s a light version of Unsilent Death (the most brutal album ever), but it’s still hard and evil enough to kill your grandma.   

14.

Bombino
Nomad

Nonesuch

A perfect album for trekking the Sahara. Blues guitar, smooth Tuareg vox, steady rhythm. Produced by Dan Auerbach (of The Black Keys).

13.

Meat Puppets
Rat Farm

Megaforce Records

Return to form for desert-baked Brothers Kirkwood. Simple, honest, catchy… Bare bones and poignant. May the Puppets live forever.

12.

Foals
Holy Fire

Transgressive

With Holy Fire, these British boys delivered their most focused (and heaviest) album to date, bringing a new meaning to “modern rock.”

11.

City of Vain
Back Against the Wall

Self-released

Sacto punkers bring forth one of the best punk rock records of the year, not just locally, but globally. Warm tones and classic style!

10.

Middle Class Rut
Pick Up Your Head

Bright Antenna

More fierce rock ‘n’ roll from Sac’s Dynamic Duo…and we <3 it! Grimy grooves and distorted chaos mark MC Rut’s best album to date.

09.

Horseneck
The Worst People Ever

Artery

Booze-fueled bone-breaking sludge metal with a sense of humor. This EP gives Sac’s heavy music fans something to smile about.

08.

Tel Cairo
Voice of Reason

Illicit Artists

Tel Cairo is the best kind of weird. If Kurt Cobain made hip-hop music in space it would sound like Tel Cairo’s Voice of Reason.

07.

Foxygen
We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace and Magic

Jagjaguwar

Flamboyantly lilting pop with occasional Jagger twists; creates proneness for nymph-like prancing, sometimes mincing.

06.

Death Grips
Government Plates

Self-released

A dizzying mix of poetry, yelling and other stuff people hate. But in the eloquent words of MC Ride, “Fuck your idols/ Suck my dick.”

05. 

Screature
Screature

Ethel Scull

A solid debut by the Sacramento quartet. Guttural lyrical torrents coalesce with shadowy, rhythmic tones, blending into a dynamic framework of sound.

04.

!!!
THR!!!ER

Warp Records

Your favorite dance-punk band is back again with more rump shaking, baby making, all-night-party-inducing tunes. Instant classic!

03.

Cove
Candles

Self-released

It’s an insightful album. An emotional excavation replete with lyrical fluidity, melodic flirtations and a groovy aftertaste.

02.

Doombird
Cygnus

Eightmaps

Vivid percussive landscapes seen through a celestial-tinged lens. Spacey harmonies embedded within hypnotic textures and bright timbres.

01.

Chelsea Wolfe
Pain Is Beauty

Sargent House

A beautifully haunting album. Wolfe’s ghostly vocals, layered with cascading guitars, violins and synths, will put you in a trance.