Chis Cohen’s 2024 album, Paint a Room (out via the venerable indie label Hardly Art), feels fitting for these dark January nights. It’s a cozy record that pairs well with a hot mug of tea by candlelight. A prolific producer and sideman who was a member of Deerhoof in the mid-aughts, Cohen pens thoughtful lyrics and quiet melodies for sensitive souls.
A soft woodwind section arranged by Josh Johnson — who won a Grammy for his work with Meshell Ndegeocello — accompanies Cohen’s gently sung reflections on the strife of our world, and how laughter and care for one another can get us through. Lead single “Damage,” featuring horn arrangements by prolific jazz multi-instrumentalist Jeff Parker, is particularly striking in its meditation on abuses of power, from the U.S. to Gaza. (Cohen recorded the album in a rental house in Altadena, which has been devastated by the Eaton Fire — here’s how to help.)
Back from a European tour, the Chris Cohen Band (with Davin Givhan on bass, Josh da Costa on drums and Jay Israelson on keys) is set to play on Friday, Jan. 17 at San Francisco’s Bottom of the Hill. The intimate venue — whose graffitied bathroom nods to its three decades as an underground music haven — will host a night of vibey spiritual jazz and psychedelia that’s the right level of low-key for our collective post-holiday hermetic mood.
The lineup also features Cheflee, a standout artist from the jazz-adjacent, experimental beat scene that’s coalesced around the performance platform Smart Bomb. Cheflee, too, released a solid album in 2024: Fescue June, a collection of 22 wiggly, synth-heavy lo-fi tracks that meander through a pleasant post-nap haze of samples and lyrics about self actualization.
