Heavy power trio Terry Gross celebrates new album at the Bottom of the Hill
SF heavy experimental power trio Terry Gross plays songs off its latest album Huge Improvement when it headlines the Bottom of the Hill Friday night.
Contrary to what one might expect from a band named after the unflappably calm NPR interviewer, the threesome bashes out a bruising, kinetic style of krautrock-influenced groove displayed on their debut recording Shameless Imposter, a two-song 10" vinyl EP released on Valley King Records in 2018.
Featuring the six-string heroics of the Champs and Trans Am guitarist Phil Manley, Terry Gross came together three years earlier when he started playing with his El Studio co-owner, bassist Donny Newenhouse (Film School, Hot Fog, Buffalo Tooth). The split of Newenhouse's band Peace Creep with talented drummer Phil Becker (Pins of Light, ex-Triclops! and Lower Forty-Eight) and Triclops!/Anywhere guitarist Christian Eric Beaulieu led to some informal jam sessions with Manley and the rhythm section at the studio, sparking the new project.
Digitally recording their freewheeling improvisations at El Studio, the trio began developing its unique chemistry that found the musicians exploring hypnotic extended grooves that at times recalled the droning motorik workouts of German rock experimentalists Can and Neu, but with the added heft of modern rock titans like the Melvins. Terry Gross started playing live shows on both sides of the Bay, sharing stages with the likes of Big Business, reunited Oakland favorites Drunk Horse and Hot Lunch and establishing a reputation for dealing out their unusual style heady, muscular extended tunes.
The band released a number of tunes via its Bandcamp page during the pandemic, drawing from rehearsal recordings and finding a number of extended pieces to offer fans in order to tide them over until their next official effort. Manley's connection with indie label Thrill Jockey -- which had released albums by Trans Am and Life Coach -- led the trio to a record deal. Using their studio as an editing tool much in the same way Can would piece together its songs by drawing from raw recorded material, Terry Gross distilled its best sonic exploration into the three sprawling tunes heard on it first full-length album for Thrill Jockey, Soft Opening, in 2021.
The group continued to track live sessions at El Studio as it pieced together material for a follow-up while playing a steady string of local shows (most notably supporting a reunited Steel Pole Bath Tub at the Great American Music Hall last February) as well as appearing at Stumpfest in Portland and playing the band's first East Coast dates with British noise-rock band Part Chimp.
In September, the group unleashed its latest effort, Huge Improvement. Featuring a trio of propulsive prog-punk tunes clocking in at over seven minutes that bookend the extended droning menace of "Full Disclosure" that captures one of the threesome's instant compositions as it happened live in the studio without overdubs or editing, Terry Gross continues to refine its unique sonic chemistry. For this record release party celebrating the album at the Bottom of the Hill, the group is joined by regular stage partners Mammatus. Founded going on two decades ago in the Santa Cruz Mountains, heavy psych band Mammatus has evolved dramatically from its riff-rocking, robe-sporting early days playing house parties and dive bars.
The group's founders -- Emmert brothers Nicky (guitar) and Aaron (drums) -- had played together in earlier projects before teaming with bassist Chris Freels and second guitarist Mike Donofrio. It was the influence of Freels that led Mammatus to start adding elements of Bay Area experimental punk and doom acts like Neurosis and Sleep to their already lumbering Sabbath/Zeppelin riffage.
Quickly embraced as part of an established Santa Cruz neo-psych scene that included such notables as Six Organs of Admittance, Comets on Fire and Residual Echoes, Mammatus recorded a demo that soon had the band signed to deals with San Francisco-based Holy Mountain Records and British imprint the Rocket Record Company.
The band's eponymous debut and follow-up effort The Coast Explodes both showed off a sludgy, bludgeoning approach to epic psychedelia that was augmented live by the band's wizard costumes, incense burning and an auxiliary staff-wielding member/mascot. The band toured the states with like-minded groups such as the aforementioned Residual Echoes and Japan's exploratory psych legends Acid Mothers Temple. But before long, Mammatus would go on an extended hiatus as band members settled into having jobs and families.
Finally returning as a trio with the departure of Donofrio, in 2013 Mammatus released Heady Mental through the Spiritual Pajamas label. The experimental album introduced new aspects to their sound, building songs around Emmert's extended finger-tapped arpeggios (think Eddie Van Halen guitar pyrotechnics meets minimalist composers Terry Riley and Phillip Glass) and adding Tangerine Dream style drone to the mix.
The band's new ambient/prog approach was hailed by critics and the band would be invited to perform at festivals like 2015's stoner/doom celebration Psycho California. Mammatus would issue its third record, Sparkling Waters, that year. Recorded with noted guitarist/producer Phil Manley (Golden, Trans Am, Life Coach, Terry Gross), the album continues the group's exploration of shimmering drones and extended progressive psych on its four 15-20 minute plus tracks, this time echoing Brian Eno's ambient work while still delivering plenty of head-nodding rock grooves.
While the group went through another period of inactivity, they eventually returned to the stage and the studio. In 2018, guitarist Emmert released Eminent Blade, a collection of languid solo guitar recordings that mirrored the ambient approach of the band's latter era. More recently, Mammatus issued a number of archival demos and other unreleased material from throughout its career leading up to their latest effort, the epic 69-minute double album Expanding Majesty.
Put out on Silver Current Records, the artist-focused imprint run by renowned Bay Area musician Ethan Miller (Comets on Fire, Howlin Rain, Feral Ohms and psych supergroup Heron Oblivion), the expansive effort further refines the band's combination of blissed-out ambient synth drones and hypnotic guitar figures with crushing riffs on four 15+ minute tracks. Opening the show is all-female San Francisco noise-punk band Wife, whose angular, aggressive songs at times resemble the caustic attack of Canadian legends NoMeansNo.
Terry Gross with Mammatus and Wife
Friday, Nov. 15, 8:30 p.m. $15-$18
Bottom of the Hill
