Before the Noise Pop Music Festival takes over Bay Area venues at the end of the month, there are plenty of other great shows hitting the Bay Area. Here are a few pre-Noise Pop picks:
St. Vincent‘s latest cross-country tour lands Annie Clark at the Great American Music Hall on February 8th. Released last year, Actor is Clark’s second album as St. Vincent, and it frequently channels a bombastic theatricality befitting the album’s title. In its loud and quiet moments, the record showcases Clark bending the traditional rules of pop songwriting while constructing some stunning baroque arrangements. Equally intriguing is opening act Wildbirds & Peacedrums, a Swedish duo who construct avant-garde pop principally from just drums and vocals. Not just, actually, as songs from the band’s 2009 album, The Snake show that both singer Mariam Wallentin and percussionist Andreas Werliin are capable of appropriately dramatic swells, the kind Annie Clark also does so well.
Two of the Bay Area’s best rock bands, Ty Segall and The Mantles team up for a Hemlock Tavern show on February 13th. Segall has delivered incendiary one-man-band performances and fronted a trio, but his most recent (and well-received) LP, Reverse Shark Attack, finds him in a psych-garage duo with Mikal Cronin (Okie Dokie, Charlie and the Moonhearts). The Mantles, meanwhile, released a self-titled LP and pair of singles last year for esteemed labels like Siltbreeze and Slumberland that were full of jangly-catchy rock gems. The band is already heading back into the studio this month to work on more music. Show up early to catch the fuzzed out sounds of Sacramento’s Ggreen, while SF’s Peter Grimm kicks things off at 9:30pm.
Ben Van Houten is the Programming Director of The Bay Bridged.
