The name suggests apathy, but as artists Who Cares put their lives on the line to be one of best hip-hop groups in Sacramento. Originally formed by Ernie Upton, aka Ernie Fresh, and Maxwell McMaster on production, Who Cares is the perpetual opener of rap shows. The self-anointed second-place finishers. And after the group’s Concert in the Park performance June 17, 2016, the band formerly known as Who Cares. Founding member Upton calls it their “big coup de grâce.”

“If we’re really trying to save each other’s lives with the music and it’s more a negative chore then I didn’t want to keep pushing that on anybody,” Upton says of the break-up. “Slowly it just broke apart.”

The news came up unexpectedly during an interview with Upton and current member Andrew “Young Aundee” Southard. The plan was to discuss the Juvenile Hall EP, a record sent to me weeks prior. But the information trickled out. The EP has been shelved, no longer the farewell album as planned. We drive for nearly two hours, discussing as much as we can. It feels vital to start at the beginning.

Origin, aka “Radical Reformation”

Upton traces Who Cares’ formation to 2002. He was on the mic with Max McMasters behind the boards. A year later they cut a record, a CD-R release they handmade with cut/paste album art to peddle at shows. The Who Cares sound reflects the era of backpack rap, bound to the history and four elements (MCing, DJing, breaking and graffiti) while finding a new footing in the suburbs through artists like Atmosphere and Company Flow.

Upton is a graffiti artist and wired to think visually. As Who Cares becomes a bigger part of his life he envisions a character that could be the group’s calling card. An image that embodies the nostalgia, teenage heartbreak and latchkey kid mentality that courses through the music. He saw a teddy bear with its mouth sewn shut.

“I was trying to knock off some old Teddy Ruxpin, cute character gone bad,” he says. “The first one I did, it didn’t look sad. It looked all cracked out. I put Who Cares on it and turned it in. People liked it.”

Upton commits to the bear during a graffiti mission with friends at an abandoned winery in Napa. He stops writing his graffiti name and draws the bear instead, this time making it cuter.

So the group slaps the bear on album covers, T-shirts, posters and stickers. Upton fondly recalls falsifying orders to Kinkos in order to make 5000 stickers for around $3. DIY isn’t always the most ethical path.

“People know the propaganda even if they don’t know the music,” Andrew Southard says.

Southard becomes a Who Cares fan in 2005 at the Heritage Festival at Raley Field, drawn to the group’s live performances and aesthetic. He remembers the exact moment.

“Ernie knew me and would always say my name on the mic,” Southard says. “It made me feel hella good.”

Southard joins Who Cares during an evolution in the group. At that time, it consists of Upton and McMaster with Ryan Hall on keys and Jammal Tarkington on saxophone. Southard adds an R&B vocalism and melodica, slowly becoming a more prominent member.

In 2006, Who Cares releases The Winter Came Back EP. The six-song cycle demonstrates the group’s growth, as tracks like “The Rain Song” and “Heaven Ain’t That Hard” weep with gut-wrenching saxophone solos and groove with live bass. It’s the sound of dexterity beyond their years, which Upton credits to Tarkington’s input.

“I’d probably still be on some nerdy backpack shit if I hadn’t become friends with him,” he says.

By 2010’s Teenage Ego Trip, the official debut, Who Cares evolves to a core three: Tarkington, Southard and Upton, while Dusty Brown is the silent partner and executive producer. In my review for Submerge that year, I call it a breakthrough that resolves the group’s identity crisis of electro versus emo rap.

The album is a long-time coming, but by its arrival, fans are aging out of Who Cares.

Southard says, “that DIY ethic was dying out.”

Best Show, aka “Let’s Fly”

Southard considers his first show Aug. 4, 2006, a night the group unanimously remembers as their best show ever.

“It was a full on Beat Street slamdown,” Southard says. “It was at the Mezzanine in San Francisco. It was Who Cares, Egyptian Lover, and Nucleus.”

Who Cares has always had a strong relationship with Sacramento artist Neal Bergmann, aka Lopan 4000. Southard and Upton describe Lopan as a true hip-hop head, perpetually stuck in ‘88. His connections lead to Who Cares opening for hip-hop and electro legends Egyptian Lover and Nucleus.

“Lopan made one of those life-size posters parodying the Beat Street poster with all our names in it,” Southard recalls. “I was at the free Chromeo show [at Mezzanine] a week prior to our show and saw it there. I felt super proud like that’s going to be my first fucking show.”

Upton says that night was the first time he felt like they were doing something, rather than just trying. After brief concern over possible hyperventilation, he falls into the moment on stage.

“I looked up and Cosmo D [of Nucleus] and his wife were sitting in the balcony,” he says. “They gave us a toast. That was before we were friends, but I still idolized him and Chilly B [also of Nucleus].”

The Fall, aka “Sad & Gray”

Who Cares is playing TBD Fest 2014, but the night before, Upton is in Reno for a DJ set. He speaks with Tarkington, who lives there now. Tarkington has to put oil in his Vespa, then he plans to meet Upton at the venue to hang out.

Except he never does.

“I was like damn this oil change is taking three hours,” Upton says. “Then the owner was like, ‘Did you hear about Jammal?’”

Tarkington is T-boned on his Vespa by a drunk driver in a pick-up truck who runs a red light.

Southard says, “We thought he was going to end up way worse off than he ended up being.”

Upton adds, “He’s not the same saxophone player. It took a toll on his music.”

It takes a toll on the group, too. Uncertain if Tarkington will ever play again, things are put on hiatus. It’s tragedy in a bouquet of dead flowers for Who Cares.

Upton and Southard have been uncertain of the state of Who Cares for years. The two continue making music under the moniker, complete an EP titled Juvenile Hall with guest appearances from Murs and Cosmo D, but things still fall apart.

“I used to walk through everyday with music blowing through my brain like I was in a cartoon musical,” Upton says. “Now, the sound in my head is me complaining shit as I walk.”

Eventually Dusty Brown makes the executive decision. Sensing the apathy, he asks if Upton and Southard want to push other things. Asks if they wanted to drop the pretense and be free. But they can’t let go.

Upton turns down opportunities due to obligations to Who Cares. Requests for guest appearances and solo work are ignored in favor of pushing the group. Who Cares is the family. You can’t break up with your family.

Southard tells a story of meeting a hippy couple after a show at the Knitting Factory, who encourage them. “They said, you guys can’t quit until the miracle happens, whatever that means for you.”

Redefinition, aka “Heaven Ain’t That Hard”

On April 7, 2016 DJ Shadow announces his new album, The Mountain Will Fall, on Pitchfork. The article features an interview with Josh Davis, aka DJ Shadow. Near the bottom in the tracklisting is a familiar name: Ernie Fresh.

The collaboration with DJ Shadow comes together through a session with Egyptian Lover in Los Angeles. Upton and Southard bring friend and collaborator Mophono to the session. The four artists record a few songs, one of which is played in a Boiler Room set by Mophono. By chance DJ Shadow hears it and inquires about the rapper with the old school flow. He’s got a track perfect for Ernie.

Suddenly Upton is called to Mophono’s studio to work with Shadow. “To me, Josh Davis was in another galaxy,” Upton says. “My whole life was about emulating him. I was perfectly happy with being the best wannabe. I always thought his music was so good that rap would make it worse.”

Thinking of the hippy couple, Southard says, “I guess the DJ Shadow thing is [the miracle], but it’s not the form I expected.”

Being on a DJ Shadow record changes your perspective. Upton says he has difficulty disagreeing with Dusty Brown. He’s gone from the guy in the group going nowhere and stuck opening for his idols to having friends named Mophono, Egyptian Lover, Cosmo D and DJ Shadow.

“It’s reinforced the dream I’ve always wanted as a kid growing up,” he says. “It just fell in my lap, and now I have to let go of the past. It’s hard for a guy who made his whole rap career out of dwelling on the past.”

Eulogy, aka “Show Me Some Change”

Perhaps the ending was written in 2010 and the group couldn’t see it. Listening to Young Aundee’s haunting refrain of “I’m not trying to let anyone down” on “Show Me Some Change” foreshadows the Who Cares of 2016. On it, Upton is brooding, disillusioned and willing to step away in order to keep matters civil: You give it all to keep the ones that you love close / especially when the ones you love turn into a ghost.

The official end of Who Cares is a way to let those ghosts rest. Upton and Southard have a close bond that’s feeding into new music. New music like “Radical Reformation” featuring Cosmo D that channels the same punk and electro spirit of Afrika Bambaata’s Time Zone project. They credit their mutual love of anime as influential on the new direction. Upton’s pursuing more solo work and Southard says he’s down to be his “Nate Dogg.”

“It’s about looking in the mirror and asking, ‘Were you doing this in the hopes of being a somebody?’” Upton says. “Or is this just you? Then, you realize you’d do this every day no matter who’s fucking watching.”

He pauses, then adds, “I hope it stays that way forever now. That would be the reward.”

Who Cares will play its final show (at least for now) at Concerts in the Park on June 17, 2016. Also performing will be Vokab Kompany, The Good Samaritans, The Scratch Outs and CrookOne. Presented by Bud Light, Concerts in the Park take place every Friday night from 5 to 9 p.m. (through Aug. 5, no concert on July 1) at Cesar Chavez Park in downtown Sacramento. For a more info and a full lineup of upcoming concerts, go to Godowntownsac.com.

Visceral Sound Creation

While most teenagers in the ’90s were navigating their way through the precarious world of acne, young love and algebra, Andrew Southard—also known as Young Aundee—was honing his skills as a musician and launching his career as an electronic, hip-hop and trip-hop beat maker while learning to master the melodica, a harmonica with a blow tube, but more on that later.

With a calendar full of DJing gigs, including a slot at Submerge’s upcoming 200th issue party, and a new four-song EP release titled Caveat Emptor that features two vocal tracks and two heavily layered instrumental cuts, Young Aundee is hitting the local music scene hard this year.

“The first song ‘Amazing Grace’ is a beat that Dusty Brown had since 2007. We made some modifications to it,” he explains. “There’s no [specific] concept to it, but the name caveat emptor is a sales term that means let the buyer beware, so I thought it would be kind of applicable, like when you apply yourself to art and music you kind of have to take whatever discomforts come with the bad and the good.”

As he approaches his second decade of making music, the performer has amassed a catalog of music that ranges from punk rock to hip-hop, but says his journey as a singer and performer is still ongoing as he continues to cultivate his talents.

“In the more live, songwriting atmosphere, I’m still coming into my own,” he admits. “Self-consciousness is still a problem for me, so when I do feel like I connect [to the audience] it means a lot to me. I guess ultimately that’s what I’m trying to do is connect.”

Making connections is a language that Young Aundee speaks fluently—he’s played with local and national acts ranging from Sister Crayon to witch house maestro oOoOO, and maintains a long-running musical partnership with Sacramento electronic impresario Dusty Brown. As he gears up to bring his latest project to life, Halftone Society Rhythm Section—a musical alliance he formed with producer Benji Illgen who performs under the name Mophono—Young Aundee says that the act will be a clandestine event shrouded in ambiguity.

“It’s a collaboration between a bunch of different musicians in the San Francisco jazz scene and also a couple in the beat music scene,” he explains. “Mophono [is] trying to keep it as elusive as possible, you’ll never know what it’s actually [all about] until you go to the show.”

A Young Aundee performance is both heterogeneous and unpredictable—drawing from his eclectic range of musical interests, his mood-drenched lyrical style combines genuine openness with raw, unapologetic observations of the world around us. Layered over a menagerie of twittering synths and methodical beats, his music is a reflection of the diversity that directs his musical compass, coalescing in a sonic wave that is both hauntingly beautiful and straight-up ear candy.

“The first band I ever played in, I was a keyboard player and it was kind of a Cure, pop thing,” he recalls. “I loved the feeling that we were creating something that was our own, as simple as that sounds, it’s true.”

When he isn’t constructing beats with Brown or tackling the logistics for the Halftone Society Rhythm Section album release party set for the end of the year, Young Aundee also throws down with the hip-hop group Who Cares. In fact, it was through his association with this act that Young Aundee established one of his favorite collaborations, with the ’80s Los Angeles dance scene legend Egyptian Lover.

“My very first show with Who Cares was in 2005 at the Mezzanine in San Francisco. It was the first time we ever performed a song called ‘Space Love,’ which is kind of on that freestyle, Debbie Deb, Shannon kind of shit, and the chorus in that song is straight-up like an ’80s radio song,” he recalls. “So he heard that, and ever since then we’ve kind of been on his radar. We approached him to collaborate on a track and he was available and was actually excited about the idea. To say that I worked with a dude that created a sound, especially on the West Coast, is a big deal to me.”

Creating sounds is Young Aundee’s jam—the soundscapes he constructs, whether performing live with Who Cares or standing behind his laptop churning out beat-drenched grooves at events like this week’s ArtMix at the Crocker Art Museum, draw from his wide-ranging musical pursuits, including the melodica.

“I started playing the melodica because of my connection to dub reggae music; it was made famous by a guy called Augustus Pablo in the ’70s,” he says. “I started playing it in my first band called Secret Six. We were like Bad Brains and Operation Ivy, that punk-reggae, but not the Sublime kind. Yeah, I call that Beach Hut Deli shit, they always have the Pandora station on Slightly Stoopid and Pepper, and all that horrible shit. I can’t stand it. You have to smoke dabs to feel that shit, the highly concentrated shit.”

And while he’s been making music since the days when he recorded original tunes on his four-track recorder at 14, Young Aundee says that his sound has evolved organically through the use of technology, but also as a result of his close relationships with his trusted production team.

“The dudes I work with predominantly are Dusty Brown and Benji, who are like two of the most underrated electronic music producers in Northern California,” he says. “I’m super lucky and blessed to be able to work with them on a regular basis.”

“I usually work with a lyricist, but I also write my own stuff out of necessity,” he continues. “I’m more of a singer and a part maker before I am a lyricist. I’ve worked with one of my best friends since I was in high school, his name is Jeremy Dawson and he collaborates with me on probably 70 percent of the lyrical content.”

The word visceral gets thrown around a lot around these days, but from Young Aundee’s purgative debut album, 2013’s Fear in the Fold, to his latest exploits with Halftone Society Rhythm Section, the singer-lyricist-beat maker says that it is because of those guttural, agonizing experiences that creativity emerges from the dark recesses of the spirit, both in and out of the studio.

“That’s what David Sedaris’ books are like for me, they make you laugh [but] they also kind of make your heart drop,” he explains “A lot of comedy does that for me; a lot of comedians are deeply disturbed, depressed individuals, that’s why that shit comes naturally to them.”

With Caveat Emptor hitting the streets and a full-length album he hopes to release in 2016, Young Aundee is hitting his musical stride. But it is his dedication to the exuberant exploration of the sonic world through bold experimentations and by taking risks that belie his quiet demeanor and allows him to draw in and connect with the crowd.

“Music is pretty transient, so it’s super rewarding to connect with an audience,” he says. “I don’t call myself a DJ but I think that’s the language people can adapt to more than the original music thing, so I’ll take it as it comes.”

Catch a Young Aundee DJ set for free Sunday, Nov. 15, 2015, as part of the Submerge 200th Issue Party at LowBrau, located at 1050 20th Street. The event will also feature live performances by Contra, Sunmonks, DLRN and Joseph In the Well. The party is free, 21-and-over, and begins at 5 p.m.

As the Sacramento summer heats up so does THIS Midtown! A Second Saturday block party series with music, art, beer, food and local vendors, THIS Midtown is returning on Saturday, Aug. 8, 2015, for the second-to-last show of the series. The lineup of live talent for this one is seriously incredible and we all should be thanking the organizers for throwing a party like this that is free to attend! Headlining will be Oakland-based indie-pop band Trails and Ways, whose new album Pathology came out recently on Barsuk Records. Regional groovers Sunmonks are also on the bill, so if you missed their set at Concerts In the Park recently, you can catch them at THIS. San Francisco rock outfit Tiaras, which features ex-members of Sacramento’s beloved garage rock band Ganglians, will also be on hand jamming out and Young Aundee will spin a DJ set. The party kicks off at 4 p.m. and runs until 9:30 p.m. Once things on the block wrap up, the after-party will be cracking off inside LowBrau with DJs Shaun Slaughter, Adam Jay and special guests playing nu-disco, tropical, house and funk tunes. THIS Midtown takes place on the MARRS Building Block on 20th Street in between J and K streets. Learn more at Facebook.com/thismidtown.

It’s been a long road, but Riotmaker’s Jeffry Valerio has put his demons in the rearview mirror

While some local bands seem to have everything handed to them on a silver platter, perseverance and endurance has helped Jeffry Valerio, frontman for Riotmaker, get through the hardest of times. The once fearless and seemingly invincible leader of Sacramento’s biggest reggae/rock band, Shakedown, found out he was anything but in 2005 when the band ousted him after serious bouts of hardcore drinking and drugs. The band seemed destined for great things and were one of the few local headliners that had hardcore fans until their untimely demise three years later.

Said Valerio of that period during a recent telephone interview, “After leaving Shakedown, I was out of the music scene for about five years. Shakedown was a very big deal to me and was my whole world. I drank a lot and did a lot drugs and really messed things up for the band and myself. We missed a lot of opportunities because we partied so much and I also put partying before making the band work. During the last year, we had a lot of differences and there were some shows I wouldn’t even remember. Consequently, I ended up getting kicked out of my own band and later stopped drinking to be with my wife and daughter and become a family man.

“Things were really bad and I stepped away from music,” Valerio said as if apologetic and thoroughly disgusted with himself. “To make matters worse, my wife and I separated shortly thereafter and now I have full custody of my daughter who is now 10 years old. Eventually, I started to work on my career outside of music and I worked my way up through the ranks of TGI Fridays and became a regional trainer and, at the same time, became a real drunkard. Eventually in November 2008, I decided I couldn’t do it anymore and put myself into rehab in Auburn.”

However, not all things were destined to go south in Valerio’s world as things started looking up. “Eventually, I moved in with a girl shortly after my stint at rehab and met two guys—one was my current guitarist Mat Venable who eventually married my roommate. We wrote and recorded for almost two and a half years and finally had some Riotmaker demos,” Valerio said.

After much heartache and deliberation, the band found itself finally doing its first show.

“On Feb. 23, 2013, we booked our first show at Marilyn’s on K,” the frontman reminisced. “Almost everyone of the Shakedown members showed up and supported, which made me feel wonderful. The very next day we got offered a show at Ace of Spades. Unfortunately, we didn’t understand when we were booked we were supposed to sell tickets, which we gave away to everyone for free. We showed up at the venue during sound check and the acting house manager, Thomas, almost didn’t let us play. Thankfully, Eric Rushing [talent buyer of Ace of Spades and The Boardwalk] knew I was sincere and merely laughed it off since he already knew me and realized I had been out of the scene for so long I didn’t know that was how the club worked.”

In just a few short days however, Valerio’s reggae/rock band, Riotmaker, will take the stage at The Boardwalk as part of a two-day festival dubbed Soundcheck: REVIVAL, put together by the fine folks at SacShows Presents. Once more, the band was responsible for hand-picking all of the multi-talented opening and supporting acts such as MDSO, Heat of Damage, Brodi Nicholas and others.

The show also is a momentous occasion for the band as it marks the release of Riotmaker’s official debut album. Their nine-song platter, recorded by the able hands of Joe Johnston at The Pus Cavern, is appropriately called Welcome to Calirock and features Hennessy, aka Jeffrey Harris (also in the Beatknocks hip-hop duo) on the reggae ditty “Everything Is Out” and Melissa McGregor from Once an Empire, whom the band met at Sacramento’s annual Concerts in the Park event, on “Ritalin Kid.” Valerio found great inspiration for the latter song from one local musician who’s made considerable waves in the Sacramento scene.

“The song ‘Ritalin Kid’ was written about Young Aundee when he was in a band called The Secret Six,” Valerio said. “He and I wrote a song together years ago and lifted a bit of lyrics to make this one.”

Currently, Riotmaker is a solid five-piece group with guests coming and going as needed for live shows. Valerio fronts the group, singing and playing acoustic guitar; Venable plays lead guitar, Scott Kennedy holds down rhythm guitar, Ben Lerch rocks the drums and bassist Justin Maddux handles the low-end frequencies.

The band’s name also has a story of its own that Valerio is quick to point out. “Mat and I would take breaks from writing and would listen to a lot of Avenged Sevenfold, Tech N9ne and more. There was one particular song that we loved called ‘Riot Maker’ by Tech N9ne and it just worked,” he said.

One of the band’s favorite Riotmaker songs to play live is a tune called “Girl Around the Way,” which is a tale about one of Valerio’s past loves, a woman who broke his heart and eventually led him to write the song. “This song was on our first, rather crude release and was written about her and our chance meeting. We made 1,000 copies of our first CD featuring the song and have since sold out of them but I still keep a handful with me as keepsakes.” he said.

Perhaps the album’s strongest cut is the groove-laden “The Busted Crown,” which is also the most personal. “I started writing the song during the end of Shakedown solo but then it got better and better when I added a full band.”

And while some would say the band is still in its infancy, Riotmaker has already supported some major national acts thanks to Valerio’s many connections and staying rooted in the scene while not actively playing. “We’ve played with Tesla, MC Rut, Oleander, Rome from Sublime with Rome, The Slackers, Fishbone, Yellowman, Authority Zero, and more,” he said.

Not a man to jinx any opportunities, Valerio is quick to point out that this album will be self-released, though they do have some outside interest.

“We’re going to have compact discs made first and most likely have vinyl later. I know all bands say they have interest and stuff, but we’re just gonna keep quiet until we know certain things come together,” Valerio said. “Right now we’re in a really good situation. We usually fund everything from our shows, but we had a backer that gave us $5000 for our recording. We were going to do the album ourselves and then Thomas Flowers [singer for Oleander] ended up recording ‘Are You There?’ with us and inspired us to record a full album. This same anonymous backer, an acquaintance from high school days, also gave us another $10,000 for a touring vehicle as well.”

The band’s album will be available through the band’s shows and, ultimately, at CD Baby so they can take advantage of digital and physical distribution opportunities (as well as synch licensing).

“We want to tour and eventually add some horns and a multi-instrumentalist who can play keys, percussion, and more,” said the enthusiastic bandleader. “We have our CD release and then will be playing the Unity Festival Arizona at Lake Havasu with headliners Fishbone and Anuhea on Saturday, March 14. The day after we just got added to a bill with Common Kings and New Kingston at Ace of Spades. We are also playing on April 18 at The Powerhouse Pub in Folsom with Once An Empire. Of course, we’ll be at Concerts in the Park in May and a plan to have a full U.S. Tour in June/July if all goes well.”

It’s a new day for Valerio and his band and he’s proof positive that things can turn around in time.

“With Riotmaker, it really is about the music and being with each other and hanging out,” he said. “We’re not setting out to be famous, rich rock stars. There is no animosity since the other guys are into playing just to play. We simply want to have a good time and we’re gonna tour as much as possible.”

Added Valerio in closing, “And while I don’t like the business part of music, Facebook and other social media have done wonders for us. I’m a social media whore and started the page back in 2008. Shortly after I started blasting it Riotmaker out there it got over 1000 likes in the first year.”

With nearly 8,000 likes on Facebook alone, one can only assume it’s only up from here.

Well done.

Riotmaker play Friday, Feb. 20, 2015 at The Boardwalk in Orangevale (9426 Greenback Lane) with A Mile Till Dawn, MDSO, Brodi Nicholas, Heat of Damage, and Bennett Hannon (of Kayasun). The show starts at 7 p.m. All ages are welcome. Tickets are $10 and can be purchased through Theboardwalkpresents.com.

(in 140 Characters or Less)

How many albums came out in 2014? Hell if we know. Eleventy-billion? It was a lot, let’s just leave it at that. You probably didn’t have time to listen to all of them, that’s why we picked out our 30 favorites from local and national/international bands to share with you. Now, now…we know what you’re saying. “But Submerge, now that the holidays are over and we’re all back to work and stuff, how do you expect us to read another long-ass ‘best-of’ list?” Hey, you know we gotchoo. We waxed eloquently about these 30 albums in Twitter-friendly blurbs. Now, who’s your best bro? We thought so…

30.

J.Sirus
Varsity Blues

Self-released

You’d think this homegrown MC was in Alcatraz from all the bars on his second album. But J.Sirus clearly breaks out here and is on the run.

29.

Sun Kil Moon
Benji

Caldo Verde Records

Heavy lyrics (assisted suicide) and the mundane (trips to Panera Bread) are equally vital. It’s folk, but it’s so much more.

28.

Sylvan Esso
Sylvan Esso

Partisan

Velvety voiced melodies woven into a dark bassy web. The two elements could stand alone as quality songs but together they’re beyond catchy.

27.

Ty Segall
Manipulator

Drag City

For his seventh studio album, the prolific fuzz-rocker charted deeper waters for a cathartic, trippy, Kinks-like psych romp over 17 tracks.

26.

Childish Gambino
Kauai EP

Glassnote

Been tough taking Donald Glover seriously as a full-fledged rapper. But now that he’s crooning like MJ we have no choice but to respect him.

25.

Exquisite Corps
Vignettes

Excorpsmusic

For their sophomore release, Ex Corps stripped down their sound, dropped a string section (mostly), to bring a driving, soulful rock album.

24.

White Reaper
White Reaper

PolyVinyl

There are at least three punks in Louisville. Together they’re called White Reaper and none of them can legally drink, so buy ‘em a 12er.

23.

Kurt Travis
Everything Is Beautiful

Blue Swan Records

Travis ditches the post-hardcore he’s known for and delivers an impressive full-length pop album with lush melodies and clean production.

22.

Young Aundee
Caveat Emptor

Waaga Records

Buyer beware. A lyrically sparse EP wading in the deep end of ominous soundwaves, so that the electronica must emote the mood.

21.

Summit
Spellbreaker

Self-released

Dark metal oozing with evil. The song “Soldier” alone has enough firepower to win the war on terror, but probably for the wrong side.

20.

Salt Wizard
Salt Wizard

Self-released

That mood with a playlist of Piper @ Gates of Dawn, VU-Loaded, Pet Sounds, Cowboy Junkies? Add this album to that list. Sac dreampop heroes.

19.

Hurray for the Riff Raff
Small Town Heroes

ATO Records

Puerto Rican from the Bronx grows up on doo-wop & Motown, then dips into riot grrrl punk before settling on the sweetest of country styles.

18.

SZA
Z

Top Dawg Entertainment

Emotive, raspy & powerful R&B voice delivers intelligent, poetic lyrics atop constructed soundscapes w/ unique time changes, spoken word.

17.

Michael RJ Saalman
Lxus Shaq

Crash Symbols

On Lxus Shaq, Michael RJ Saalman constructs a world of experimental pop tunes that spark sonic hallucinations through osculating synths.

16.

YG
My Krazy Life

Def Jam

A sly tribute to G-funk packed with synths, 808s and scary-ass gangster shit. It’s everything Republicans hate about rap.

15.

Crude Studs
Crude Studs 7-inch

Self-release

Aggravated verses meet sporadic, chaotic change-ups. From start to finish, the EP lasts 15 minutes. But, sometimes, that’s all she wrote.

14.

Chuck Ragan
Till Midnight

SideOneDummy

Heartfelt, moving folk songs that don’t forget to rock from Northern California’s sageliest songwriter. Ragan just gets better with age.

13.

FKA Twigs
LP1

Young Turks

FKA Twigs’ debut is a shuddering, sumptuous dose of futuristic chamber-soul perfect for carrying us into the chilly months of early 2015.

12.

Earth
Primitive and Deadly

Southern Lord

Carlson’s riffs combine with Lanegan’s vox to make molten metal magic. #stonerboner

11.

Mac DeMarco
Salad Days

Captured Tracks

Sounds like killing a sunny afternoon w/ nothing to do in a low-lying, wood-paneled den w/ beaded curtains, but it’s a good thing, really.

10.

Sturgill Simpson
Metamodern Sounds in Country Music

High Top Mountain

Refreshing ‘70s Outlaw Country throwback vibe w/ plenty of slick licks & proper twang. No phony caricatures. Old school troubadours proud.

09.

Tele Novella
Cosmic Dial Tone

Lolipop Records

Cosmic Dial Tone stylistically and instrumentally takes us back to the basics while keeping it quirky & eclectic, modern groovy done right.

08.

DLRN
Neon Noir

Waaga Records

The synth-fueled, sexier side of hip-hop for those in search of that golden-era feel layered with endless soundscapes & head-bobbin’ beats.

07.

The War on Drugs
Lost in the Dream

Secretly Canadian

What has 10 legs, smokes a lot of weed & sounds like mid-’80s Don Henley? The War On Drugs’ Lost in the Dream. We still hate the Eagles, tho.

06.

Future Islands
Singles

4AD

Dreamy synthpop embellished with the howls of Samuel Herring. This is Future Islands. If you haven’t been introduced, please do so now.

05.

Tycho
Awake

Ghostly International

Epic and absolutely addicting synth-driven instrumental album that’s ambient, groovy, melodic and psychedelic. Road trip to this!

04.

Dre-T
Sacramentality

Sol Life Music

Roots run deep in hip-hop, soul and intellect. The voice of the streets, a disenfranchised people and universally Sacramento all the same.

03.

G. Green
Area Codes

Mt. St. Mtn.

Staccato beats, quirky vocals & airy guitar riffs comprise the plucky quartet’s sophomore effort. Reinvention, done.

02.

Hoods
Gato Negro

Artery Recordings

With their first new album in five years, Sacto hardcore legends Hoods are back and as brutal as ever. Gato Negro is a mean pussycat!

01.

Sunmonks
In a Desert of Plenty

Crossbill Records

Sunmonks seduces w/ clattering beats, enchanting harmonies & horns to make ur heart sing. You’ll dream of celebration under the desert sun.

Though he makes his home in Copenhagen, Steven Jess Borth II’s electronica project CHLLNGR has deep Sacramento roots

The Red Bull Studios Copenhagen website is written entirely in Danish, but search “CHLLNGR” and you’ll likely land on a video mostly spoken in English, aside from a few locals in a bread store. The video features CHLLNGR (stylized, vowel-less Challenger), an experimental dub music project masterminded by Steven Jess Borth II, laying down tracks in the Red Bull Studio for its sophomore record, Form of Release. The documentary mostly depicts scenery from Copenhagen and the studio, recording artists in indigenous garb from New York City and rappers from the United Kingdom, but in the midst of this global project is Sacramento. Oddly, our city has played a pivotal role in Borth’s project since its inception in 2010.

CHLLNGR performed at the Submerge 50th Issue Party in 2010, having graced the magazine cover in anticipation of his then-untitled debut album. At the time CHLLNGR was in a larval state, still largely faithful to dub music traditions of instrumental reworkings of recordings that slug along at a reggae beat stripped to its “riddims,” which translates to bass and drums. It’s a genre pioneered by artists like Lee “Scratch” Perry, Errol Thompson and King Tubby.

In those days CHLLNGR consisted of Borth, Andrew “Young Aundee” Southard and Dan “DJ Whores” Osterhoff in the live setup. But behind the scenes, the project relied on a troupe of local collaborators who continue to be influential cogs four years later on Form of Release, namely Dusty Brown and Justin “Dr. Echo” DeHart.

Much like British outfit Unkle, CHLLNGR defies simplistic classification because Borth seemingly doesn’t have “no” in his vocabulary. It loosely takes the form of a collective, rather than a solo project, as each release hosts a revolving cast both credited as guest features and buried in the fine print of liner notes. The only consistency across CHLLNGR’s two LPs (Form of Release and 2011’s debut Haven), outtakes release Hidden Tracks, and the Datter EP are Borth and the mastering finesse of Dr. Echo. Well, perhaps one other: Sacramento.

For example, Haven’s closer “Dusty” features vocals from Jessica Brown, a long-time contributor to her brother’s eponymous project Dusty Brown. The lyrics to “Dusty” were written by Young Aundee, while the title of the song is assumed to be a reference to Dusty, who opened his studio to Borth to create early Haven demos.

“Dusty gave me access to all his vintage gear,” Borth said. “In that period Young Aundee was there in Dusty’s studio most of the time and he played a really big part. He did most of the arrangements for [“Dusty”], also he did the lead synth on ‘Ask For’ and quite a bit more.”

In the initial Submerge interview, Borth mentioned a few particularly noisy recording sessions with Zach Hill of Death Grips, although it is unknown if they were utilized for Haven—given its nocturnal, downtempo qualities I’m inclined to think not. But in those early sessions Borth’s mindset was hinged upon experimentation. Whereas on Form of Release, CHLLNGR has evolved into a wish list come true of vocalists and co-producers.

“Form of Release, I really wanted to have a vocal album,” he said. “I was comfortable with some instrumentals, but I definitely wanted something that was not necessarily traditional pop songs, but a weird pop music.”

The detraction from having Red Bull’s insoluble budget was that Borth got his wish in the form of a curse. The album features JOSIAHWISE IS THE SERPENTWITHFEET from New York City, Dels from the United Kingdom, Grace Hall of Skin Town from Los Angeles, Blaqstarr from Maryland, and no possibility of uniting this group for a live set, particularly JOSIAHWISE, who contributes to five tracks.

“It’s pretty much just been me,” Borth said. “I’ll sing the songs in their place. With JOSIAH’s songs it’s very tough because he’s an insanely talented vocalist and writes complicated melodies I can’t exactly pull off.”

When I ask about his live setup for his New Year’s Eve performance at this year’s TBD’s New Year’s Eve Block Pary, Borth laughs at the thought as he mentions he’ll have to rely on Sacramento once again. “I need to start sending some emails around because I need to borrow some equipment,” he said. “But I want some old friends to join me on stage as well.”

If Borth is the captain of CHLLNGR, Dr. Echo is his first mate. Through emails he wrote that he and Borth never met properly in Sacramento, though he theorizes they were “probably in the same place at the same time on numerous occasions.” Though his connection to Sacramento has faded, Dr. Echo began as a drummer in dub band The Defendants with former !!! member Tyler Pope, and later ran Soundlab Studios in various Midtown locations before moving to Los Angeles in 2002. Having mixed “98 percent” of CHLLNGR’s output, Dr. Echo was flown out from his current home in Anaheim to Copenhagen on Red Bull’s dollar at Borth’s request. Dusty Brown was also flown to the studio in the last week for the task of “filling in the gaps,” according to Borth.

“Dusty was crucial,” Borth said. “It’s always been in the back of my head to collaborate more with him. I just have a lot of respect for him, his stylings, how quick he is and how he can really bring his ideas to the table and they can be very well thought-out. He has so many years of experience with electronic music that he can just get in there and finish up any ideas that I had started. He tied up the loose ends in a huge way.”

Borth is the captain of CHLLNGR, there’s no questioning it. In a Skype call we discussed the process of recording in the Red Bull Studio and he notes that the majority of the songwriting was done on his laptop with a micro-Korg and spring reverb prior to their three-week recording stint. He said the documentary just captures the focused grind of piecing an album together in three weeks.

“Most of it was doing really nerdy stuff,” he said. “Just running the sounds I’d already made and having the other collaborators record their vocal parts. Dels came out and JOSIAH came out. Justin [Dr. Echo] was there pretty much the whole time with me.”

As first mate, Dr. Echo has witnessed the evolution of CHLLNGR from dub homage to a spacious nocturnal metamorphosis on Haven, and into the Form of Release sessions, which reveal CHLLNGR at its most pop-y and universally catered state. He attributes the early alterations to Borth’s love of R&B as a heavy influence on the distinct sound, particularly in the melodies and harmonies, and the more recent growth to his prolific mind for collaboration.

“I think it should be evident that dub music from the ‘70s to ‘80s is a major influence on his sound,” Dr. Echo wrote. “However, ‘dub’ can be a vague term these days. Qualities such as spaciousness, sonic subversiveness and otherworldliness seem to remain appropriate to CHLLNGR’s sound throughout the years… I really think CHLLNGR’s music truly exists in the cracks of today’s genres.”

Ring in the New Year with CHLLNGR and an A-list lineup at this TBD’s New Year’s Eve Block Party, which will take place Dec. 31, 2014 (duh) on 20th Street between J and K streets. A-Trak, Sister Crayon and Gigamesh (among others) will also perform. Tickets start at $45. Check out Tbdnye.com for more info. NOTE: #TBDNYE IS ALMOST SOLD OUT! LIMITED AMOUNT OF “LAST MINUTE” TIX ARE STILL AVAILABLE, BUT THEY WON’T BE FOR LONG! ACT NOW IF YOU WANT TO GO!

DLRN Release the first half of Neon Noir

Shit is about to get weird, folks—Fear and Loathing is about to descend upon Sacramento with a sonic boom reminiscent of the drug-induced adventures shared by a famed Gonzo journalist and his faithful companion.

No, Hunter S. Thompson hasn’t canceled his self-imposed exile from the realm of the living to wreak havoc on our City of Trees; rather, “Fear and Loathing” is the inspiration and title of one of the tracks off the forthcoming release from the hip-hop duo DLRN. And if you’ve checked out the video, a slick and sexy visual experience that includes plenty of booze, a hint of the drug culture that made Thompson so famous and the artists donning animal masks, the inspiration is clearly entrenched in the Gonzo spirit.

“I think, in context of this particular song, the vivid images from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and the really dark, abyss-like backdrop of [Thompson’s] stay there, helped me contextualize my own dark experimenting in that city,” says Sean LaMarr, DLRN’s vocal impresario.

Neon Noir, an LP segmented into two parts (part one of which is set to drop June 3, 2014 on the Waaga Records label with a limited-run cassette tape offering—yes, you heard right, that plastic rectangular mechanism for inducing eargasms—as well as a digital version for all of you who ditched your cassette players when CDs took over the music world), is the continuation of a narrative arc that LaMarr has been developing since the group formed six years ago.

“Neon Noir was a full album that got broken into two albums,” LaMarr explains. “In part because [of] Waaga—their strength is really electronic and electronica music, but they really gravitated toward our songs that were in that vein. So, [there’s an] A side and a B side of the project where one is more electronically charged and the other is more hip-hop.”

Forged in the fires of the electro-synthed-out vibe that seems to be permeating just about every facet of Sacramento’s musical landscape these days, DLRN’s LaMarr and production prodigy Jon Reyes are storytellers in the deepest sense of the word—often taking inspiration from literary legends like Thompson and Kurt Vonnegut.

“We have a great appreciation for the written word. Probably more than the spoken word,” LaMarr explains. “The line in Stevie’s hook [on “Fear and Loathing”] ‘Everything is beautiful and nothing ever hurt at all’ is a Vonnegut reference, too.”

“DLRN is really just a collection of both mine and Sean’s experiences, and our interpretation of what this world is,” Reyes continues. “From the movies we consume to the music we listen to, we put it all back through our art. Really it’s just an incubator of all of our ideas; trying to share with the world how we see things.”

The duo’s love for storytelling is also explored through their videos, the majority of which have been conceptualized and directed by Sami Abdou of Upper Cloud Media. He’s the mastermind behind the videos for the tracks “Dear Langston,” “Reset,” “Good Company” and “Fear and Loathing.”

“We take a lot of time and energy, and you know, really try to give the best product we can—visually and with the music itself,” LaMarr says. “Hopefully they complement each other the right way.”

While Reyes, born and raised in Sacramento, has relocated to the Bay Area, the hip-hop twosome’s love for Sacto is clear—local lyricists and vocalists Young Aundee, Leia Layus, Nami Ramo and Stevie Nader (who is also in the video for “Fear and Loathing”) also make guest appearances on Neon Noir. The visual exploration of their sound also provides a purview into the soul of Sacramento itself. Iconic Sacto landmarks are littered throughout the video for “Dear Langston”—the city’s skyline, and even the Old Ironsides sign, makes a cameo as LaMarr strolls down the grid’s streets, pouring his heart out in song.

“Sacramento—and we both feel this way—is an amazing place to curate and create art,” LaMarr says. “I think some of it is partially out of desperation, being like there’s not, at least when I was coming up, there wasn’t much to do until you were a certain age, so the outlet of creating and making art was paramount [to] my development as a person.”

The duo, who has known each other since high school, began their artistic journey as a part of an art collective that included dancers, spoken-word artists and graffiti writers. And while the collective wasn’t a formal organization, the close-knit group of friends who were collectively exploring their creativity in an interactive and supportive environment served as the catalyst for their current creative endeavors.

“When we first started creating music we were very into what would be considered alternative hip-hop,” Reyes says. “I think just the way music has evolved our sound has to evolve as well. I think with every project, we try to find different ways to put things together. I find I’m most creative when I’m learning new things.”

As LaMarr and Reyes gear up for the album’s release and a June 4 release party at Dive Bar as a part of a South by Southwest-inspired block party on the K Street Mall, their latest exploration of this narrative arc delves into that Gonzo sensibility, but keeps that hip-hop swagger.

“With ‘Fear and Loathing,’ [it’s] the story of me going on a friend’s bachelor party in Vegas and just my interactions with people in those moments, and walking down hallways and those beautiful hotels and feeling super lonely,” LaMarr explains. “It just was a moment when I was like, ‘Wow everybody comes out here on some sort of conquest and at the end of the day [we’re all] just wandering these halls.”

Dive Bar is hosting DLRN’s record release party during the Block Party on Wednesday, June 4. Show starts at 10 p.m., 21-and-over. Visit Facebook.com/DLRNmusic for more info.

Sacramento Electronic Music Festival 2012
Day 1: Thursday, May 3, 2012

Friday, May 4 was the official Northern California monthly installment for the alt-electronica club night Low End Theory in San Francisco, but an unofficial preview tested the booming systems of Harlow’s on Thursday, May 3 for the opening of the Sacramento Electronic Music Festival. Lorn, Dibia$e, Jonwayne and DJ Nobody are proven low end theorists, earning their stripes at the Los Angeles weekly event held at The Airliner. The four beat masters sent heady vibrations through onlookers’ sternums and the venue’s foundation, but like every year at the SEMF, local electronica talent is in grandiose display.

It felt as though we were on the move at the third annual SEMF. The round robin of sets in Harlow’s, upstairs at MoMo’s, and DJ sets on the patio had me hesitant to settle in. Decisions had to be made, compromises even, but the careful selection of performers this year almost guaranteed no disappointing sets. Whatever room you occupied was the place to be at the SEMF.

Jonwayne took the stage for Dibia$e’s set, to streamline raps, while Dibia$e played selector, mutating his beats with glitch takes, warping from track to track without throwing off his rapping amigo in flip-flops. The set bled into Jonwayne’s slot, as he returned the mic to the stand, plugged in his beat machine and rattled the walls with menacing cuts that blended Southern trap rap bravado like Rick Ross’ proclaiming, “I’m treated like a king when I’m dining,” with boss level 8-bit beats and the baritone keys of a grand piano.

The Low Enders are the genuine article, but I found great pleasure in the discoveries, particularly Satellites. The presence of the wooden Pandora’s Box known as the Monome was a rare sight to behold, since I can only think of two other beat makers (Daedalus and Galapagoose) who are masters of its magical properties. He’s impossible to Google, so I still know jack shit about him. But Satellites’ push-button magic set an introductory tone for the L.A. vibes that followed.

Local performers like Paper Pistols, Doom Bird and Dusty Brown instilled the 916 pride in our festival. My hope is that the out-of-towners lurked around for the Dusty Brown set and that word will spread regarding our secret weapon. Dusty Brown opened with the unveiling of two new songs before delivering cuts from his concise and captivating This City Is Killing Me EP, which is destined to be a local classic. Opening with unfamiliar material reeled me in. It’s a dangerous move, but the group is justified in its confidence in their new music. I’m more than ready for a new Dusty Brown album.

Who Cares Teenage Ego Trip

(Independent release)

When I was introduced to Who Cares, I heard a group with the purest of intentions struggling to craft music beyond the traditional hip-hop realm, while not betraying its beloved culture. I’ve always admired the courage in a group that was willing to make a song as heavy as “Heaven Ain’t That Hard” and follow it up with a Bambaataa-esque throwback like “They Killed the Radio” with Egyptian Lover.

Despite my admiration, there was a glaring struggle in identity that I always perceived as heavy-handed and off-putting. It was as though Who Cares might function better as two entities, one that loves trans-European electro-party jams and one that is meant to be heard during a rainy-day self-reflection session. Who Cares’ third record, Teenage Ego Trip, released last month, is its finest to date. With the help of an engineer and studio guidance, the album also serves as the resolution of the aforementioned identity crisis.

Easily the wisest move Who Cares made in crafting Teenage Ego Trip was pulling Dusty Brown into the project as its engineer, contributing producer and co-writer. His fingerprints leave evidence throughout the long player as he employs the same trademarks that made his This City Is Killing Me EP an instant classic. With Dusty behind the boards, Who Cares resolved its clash in styles found on the previous CD-R the group peddled at shows. Teenage Ego Trip is rich in texture, featuring a studio band intent on boastfully marauding for abstract sound pieces typically reserved for the likes of Damon Albarn and his Gorillaz project. This makes previous Who Cares efforts sound like skeletal demos; it’s as though the past years of songs were written in order to achieve this sort of breakthrough.

Subtle and lush, no song is without nuance in style that is not only rewarding, but adequate in placement–no tricks for the sake of flare–nor are the instrumental affairs exaggerated or embellished. In the past you could have made a case that Who Cares was wanking off a bit, or that a different perspective was relying too heavily on its virtuosity–take your pick. The choicest amount of care is given to production. Take, for example, the snare drum intro on “Cherry Boy” that’s run through filters, muting the percussion to a pitter-patter that, once refashioned, creates a pop to the instrumentation as Ernie Upton, aka Fernie Fresh, comes in with the vocals. The Who Cares style of old haunts the record in small doses: grandiose sax solos are fed as distant radio transmissions. Young Aundee’s falsetto crooning is employed sparingly, not to suggest it should be, but “These Three Words” is given room to breathe and earn its electro-outro that features an Aundee refrain, instead of forcing a vocalist into a boom-bap production or customizing the boom-bap and running the risk of the cursed “crossover” scarlet letter.

Who Cares is well past its juvenile days of rewriting Pete Rock and C.L. Smooth’s “T.R.O.Y.” a dozen times over. The transformation is strictly from a sonic perspective as Fernie Fresh maintains a deep connection with the disenfranchised and half-broken in his lyrics. Teenage Ego Trip is a well-constructed teddy bear for the latchkey kids and survivors of broken homes that took to the seedier side of life and are seeking to do better with their days and weeks. Perhaps it’s time to heal the gloomy demeanor of the Who Cares bear cartoon, give it a congratulatory pat on the back and put a crooked smile on its worried mug.

Who Cares’ Teenage Ego Trip is available for free download online at www.forhiphop.com.

Steven Borth’s CHLLNGR takes dub to the next level

Jet setting around the world to collaborate and tour, studio sessions with music’s most renowned creators, and splitting living time in Sacramento and Copenhagen with a beautiful girlfriend would seem to make for a full life for most musicians, yet Steven Borth II seeks more from his endeavors. The well-traveled musician is exploding back onto the scene with his new project, CHLLNGR, a dub revolution that takes some history-digging to get to its source.

Borth was born and raised in Sacramento, but found his niche as a musician in the Bay Area. Remember ska? More specifically, remember third-wave ska punk? It had a good run in the ’80s and ’90s and Steven Borth II was a part of that as a member of the East Bay’s Link 80. He joined the group in the latter years of its existence, but his involvement is integral in shaping CHLLNGR.

Link 80 frequently toured Europe, enjoying the fruits of the punk rock circuit in the United Kingdom. It was on these tours that Borth acquired a taste for dub music. “I would help load in the gear, do a sound check with just enough to time to go outside and ask someone where the nearest record shop was,” he said. “I would make it just in time before they closed, and I would pick up what I thought may be good. How I really got started was collecting the Trojan box sets.”

The dissolution of ska was far from pretty. Link 80 suffered traumatic losses and its surviving members found new outlets. For Borth it was joining Rx Bandits, another Bay Area ska revival band. He’d been in Link 80 for four years, but when Steve Choi offered him a spot, he joined up because, he said, Rx Bandits’ sound shared the direction of his interests musically and politically. Those Trojan box sets he scored while on tour with Link 80 introduced him to dub originator King Tubby, which inspired him to continue his exploration of dub while on European tours with Rx Bandits.

Borth started a side band called Satori while playing in Rx Bandits. He described that band as homage to Jamaican music, which served as a foundation for CHLLNGR—his foray into the next era of dub.

Borth first graced our radar as the bearded, almost Teen Wolf look-a-like saxophonist in Purple Girl. The all-too-short-lived funk band could have been Sacramento’s answer to Hall & Oates, but it was not meant to be. Months later, Borth’s three-piece project Dub Defender emerged at The Press Club. Dub Defender’s first run of shows featured Borth on keys, vocals and sax, with Purple Girl/Who Cares keyboardist Young Aundee contributing falsetto vox and DJ Whores cutting up club-friendly hip-hop samples into the dubbed-out fold.

That night featured hip-hop and indie rock bands, yet wedging a dub set into the mix was far from an uncomfortable juxtaposition. Borth’s willingness to let his projects breathe and grow makes Dub Defender an intriguing plot. There is no blueprint for Dub Defender. Borth opts to let his instincts and interests amalgamate until he’s satisfied with the results. “One of the most important things for me in music and in life is to always be open to new ideas,” he said. “I try to make open roads for myself and anyone that is involved in my projects.”

Borth and company leaked a single, “Change Is Great,” as Dub Defender before changing the name. The project is now called CHLLNGR, which is pronounced “Challenger”—he just dropped those useless vowels. Borth explained that the new name is meant to express the boundless nature of the project. “I felt the name Dub Defender could be restricting stylistically,” he said. “I really want to explore this project and take it as far as it can go.”

CHLLNGR began on a TASCAM 388 reel-to-reel machine made in 1985, which Borth purchase in San Jose, Calif. He enjoyed the dusty aged sound of the quarter-inch tape. “[The seller] tried to say it worked, but I knew that it didn’t,” he said. “It cost me $800 to fix, but in ’85 it was retailed at $5,000. Using it made me think a lot about studios, and if you’re looking for a vintage sound, it’s better to be limited, because that’s technically how it was.”

The recording sessions were structured as a game for the collaborators to play. Borth invited his friends to add their touch to the simple chord changes he’d laid down, until each musician was satisfied with their bit. Once the structure was settled, he recorded on the TASCAM until the proper vibe filled the room.

“I wasn’t looking for perfection as much as I was listening for the take where everyone’s own style came out the most,” Borth said. “What I really captured in doing it like this was that once we got it, there was a certain freshness to the sound since we were really learning and creating the songs while in the process of recording them.”

Those sessions will be CHLLNGR’s debut EP, which is scheduled for a spring release on Green Owl. The EP’s release has been pushed back several times, but the delay has not phased Borth. He said, “When the project gets debuted we want it to be perfect. The people I’m working with on this record have been making music for a long time, so we know how to do it wrong. We’re taking the necessary measures to be certain that the timing is right.”

The live set, since we last heard it, focused primarily on dub vibes; but when Borth mentions collaborating with Zach Hill, Brooklyn’s Ninjasonik, former The Defendants member Dr. Echo and London’s Afrikan Boy, the direction of CHLLNGR becomes puzzling. It’s not surprising his session with Hill in the Bay Area involved noise nuisance disputes. Borth invited Hill over to lay down drums and even took the necessary steps to warn his landlord and neighbors of the impending noise. “I knew it was going to be loud, but I had no idea how loud.”

“[The landlord] said it would be fine but to try to get done by a certain time since they had their grandparents coming over,” Borth said. “Once we were done we walked outside and my landlord looked like he wanted to kill me. He said it shook the whole house. Needless to say, we were done in time and no heart attacks occurred.”

Living the life of a nomad, but keeping an apartment in Copenhagen, Borth said it’s been a taxing process to continue recording CHLLNGR on his beloved TASCAM. “I have been creating a lot more of my music utilizing modern technology, i.e my laptop, micro-Korg and an Mbox, which I think will be reflected in the sound,” he said. “I will most likely use the TASCAM again for this project, but at this point since I am traveling quite a bit, and it is easier for me to put everything in a duffle bag, travel around and capture sounds.”

CHLLNGR played the Submerge 50th Issue Party/second anniversary on Saturday, Jan. 9 at Marilyn’s on K with TAIS and DJ Mike Diamond.
To see when and where CHLLNGR will play next you can check out www.myspace.com/chllngr