Local psych favorites the Spiral Electric headline Bottom of the Hill
Local psychedelic-rock outfit the Spiral Electric top the bill Saturday night at the Bottom of the Hill, sharing the stage with Austin, TX band Lord Buffalo and Oakland crew Niveles.
The roots of the band date back over a decade to when singer/guitarist/keyboard player Clay Andrews and lead guitarist Nicolas Percey first met while attending a concert at the Fillmore featuring Primal Scream and the Brian Jonestown Massacre in 2009.
The new friends struck up a creative partnership, writing songs that mixed modern and classic psychedelia with Britpop hooks, shoegaze drone and propulsive surf guitars. The pair teamed with a rhythm section and traveled to Los Angeles to record their first EPs -- 2015's Upon Your Shore -- that showcased the band's expansive sound.
The group would follow up with a second EP late in 2016 entitled Ask the Sky that further refined the Spiral Electric's approach to creating neo-psych anthems in the studio. The band built on it's local following, touring and sharing Bay Area stages with like-minded artists from here and abroad including Dead Meadow, Spindrift, the Kills, Swervedriver, Black Mountain, Lumerians, the Dandy Warhols, Cat Power, Jjuu-Jjuu and Turn Me On Dead Man.
Starting in 2018, the band (now filled out by bassist Michael Summers and drummer Matias Dragos) worked on compiling and recording the material that would make up its first proper full-length album. Released in the spring of 2019, the sprawling, hour-plus eponymous effort spotlights a heavier guitar attack without sacrificing the band's knack for crafting swirling, psychedelic ear candy. Recorded with Dead Meadow bassist Steve Kile and mastered by noted engineer Howie Weinberg (Nirvana, the Mars Volta, ), the album marked a significant leap forward in the Spiral Electric's sound.
Later that year, the band appeared at several California music festivals including Desert Stars (Joshua Tree), SubZero Festival (San Jose) and Oakland's Holiday on the Moon that Andrews helped organize. Since the addition of current bassist Ryan McKnight in 2021, the band has been hard at work recording music for their forthcoming next album during multiple visits to Southern California. The crew released the moody first single from the effort "Shadow in the Dark" last summer.
Last April, the band drew a sizeable crowd for a free outdoor show at the Golden Gate Park Bandshell. For this headlining show at the Bottom of the Hill Saturday, they will be joined by touring Austin, TX heavy psych outfit Lord Buffalo. Founded in by guitarists Daniel Pruitt and Garrett Hellman -- who grew up in the Oklahoma town of Stillwater and played in various bands together during high school and while attending Oklahoma State University -- the self-described "mud folk" band weaves together elements of windswept Americana, psychedelic rock and ominous spaghetti-western atmospheres courtesy the haunting electric violin of Patrick Patterson.
The band issued several recordings independently starting with their debut EP in 2012 leading up to their eponymous first album on Clerestory AV in 2017. The band has since signed to noted doom/psych imprint Blues Funeral Recordings, which released the group's sophomore effort Tohu Wa Bohu in 2020 to wide praise that earned them comparisons to swamp-psych favorites All Them Witches, Woven Hand and Chelsea Wolfe. Lord Buffalo have since become a popular festival attraction -- appearing at Psycho Las Vegas, Ripplefest and the inaugural edition of Monolith on the Mesa -- and toured with such high-powered acts as Elder and Church of the Cosmic Skull. The band recently released its latest transporting effort Holus Bolus in July. Opening the show will be Oakland experimentalists Niveles, who play a like-minded combination of krautrock, post-punk and psychedelia.
The Spiral Electric with Lord Buffalo and Niveles
Saturday, Aug. 3, 8:30 p.m. $15-$18
Bottom of the Hill
