{"id":3221,"date":"2022-01-08T00:21:30","date_gmt":"2022-01-08T08:21:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/billchapin.net\/allthecitylights\/?p=3221"},"modified":"2022-01-18T22:50:59","modified_gmt":"2022-01-19T06:50:59","slug":"rankstravaganza-five-great-2021-albums-two-eps-by-oakland-east-bay-musicians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/billchapin.net\/allthecitylights\/2022\/01\/rankstravaganza-five-great-2021-albums-two-eps-by-oakland-east-bay-musicians\/","title":{"rendered":"Rankstravaganza: Five Great 2021 Albums (+ Two EPs) by Oakland\/East Bay Musicians"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I miiiiight have mentioned<\/a> it<\/a> before<\/a>, but Bandcamp Fridays<\/a> have been a great excuse for me to reconnect with local music over the last 22 months. (And, frankly, kudos to the engineers and developers at Bandcamp, who designed the website to be super useful and functional when it comes to drilling down into a local scene, and were even thoughtful enough to include Oakland among the 35 cities worldwide featured in the main location filter.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout 2021, I sampled songs by dozens of Oakland-based bands and musicians. In fact, there was so much music to explore, I didn’t really even have time to delve into whatever is going on over in the West Bay, if they even have any musicians who can still afford to live over there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each of the recordings featured below had one track featured among my 30 Favorite Songs<\/a> of the year, but these full-length albums and EPs were strong all around, with multiple standout tracks. I thought they deserved a little more recognition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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5. Weightless, <\/em>The Kilbanes<\/a><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Photo by Pamela Gentile, via kilbanes.com<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

This was the first recording from the Oakland husband-and-wife team in five years. I was a big fan of 2012’s Medea Cycle<\/a><\/em>, and they once again turned to Classical Mythology. I read up on Procne & Philomela<\/a>, and yikes that’s a ghastly tale. Rape, mutilation, infanticide, cannibalism. Somehow the band turns it into an uplifting rock opera about the bonds of family and moving beyond trauma. The work debuted as a live theater production at San Francisco’s Z Space<\/a> in 2018. The album version was released three years later in advance of a concert film<\/a> directed by Tamilla Woodard<\/a> for New York City’s WP Theater<\/a> and recorded at Cal Shakes’ Bruns Amphitheater<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n