Akes, Love Jerks, Fleeting Trance

Thursday, August 16
8PM

Akes
Love Jerks
$8
21+ | wheelchair accessible

AKES
Consisting of an audio engineer, an author, a videographer, and a luthier, the four members of Bay Area ensemble Akes take their music into their own hands; Nick Cafiero (electric ukulele/vocals), Joe DeMars (bass), Jack Hogan (guitar), and Dominic Bergamini (drums)—handle nearly every aspect of their creative lives in house. They are dedicated students of their craft from the gear they play to the music that influences them.

That mindset is a fitting accompaniment to their heady sound. Taking inspiration from the post-punk scenes in the U.K. and U.S. where dozens of bands allowed themselves the freedom to mash up instrumentation and musical textures, Akes winds in the sounds of synthesizers, sequencers, and drum machines into already finely honed material cut from pop/rock cloth. These sounds are the beginnings of a new creative regime for a band that has already been wowing audiences in and around their Bay Area scene.

Although the idea of nostalgia is a constant theme in their music, the quartet doesn’t live in the past. Instead, each member has channeled their experiences into a melodic complexity and poetic openness that resonates with their local Sonoma County home and beyond. The fluid nature of each song and the assured delivery of every note and verse speaks to the solidity of four intertwined paths, years in the making.

LOVE JERKS
Love Jerks is a San Francisco duo who make future-sound New Wave anthems and dream-pop ballads that leave you no choice but to dance, or swoon, or both. The offspring of two longtime lead singers—Bryan & Rebecca.

FLEETING TRANCE
The creation of bay-area songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist, Manasseh (Ma’NASA) Bernal, Fleeting Trance is a project defying classification, category, and genre. It is instead a musical collage of approaches, influences, and instrumentation varying from song to song. The inclusion of multi-faceted musicians, Craig Koozer (bass), Daren Wilkerson (drums), Scott Robertson (guitar), John Howard (pedal/lap steel), and Mike Chase (keys) serve to further compliment Bernal, resulting in vastly unique and sensual soundscapes demonstrating widespread influences.