14 Rising Bay Area Artists You Should Know

Intellitronica. Few can pull it off as seamlessly as Giraffage who’s making waves internationally. He recently finished touring with Porter Robinson and followed up 2013’s magnificent Needs with his No Reason EP on Fool’s Gold Records. The latter is a five-pack of sticky tracks that are nothing short of a journey into galactic bliss, a true representation of his undeniable talent.

Seldom has a producer crafted a record as well-rounded and aware of the condition of atmospheric electronic music as Brogan Bentley’s The Snake. Bentley is one of a Stones Throw-affiliated Leaving Records’ recent signees and traverses the seas of drum and bass, trippy R&B grooves and hushed vocals. The Snake is akin to the beautiful sounds of Shlohmo and Caribou; comparisons that are not to be taken lightly, but will eerily confuse your brain in wonderful ways.

“I make music best when I’m alone,” Bentley says and the carefully constructed tracks resonate with their precision and introspection.

Oakland’s Jay Stone comes across like he’s the next rapper you’re going to hear on Adult Swim. Part of that comes from the whimsically tropical beats of LA-based producer Monster Rally, with whom he dropped the collaborative Foreign Pedestrians EP on Gold Robot Records. Stone fills the bars on Rally’s often jazzy rhythms with quips like, “Look good on paper like Malone and Shaq/Do me a favor, leave me alone, I’m tryna relax.”

“Jay is complex, a mile a minute on the track,” Monster Rally, who comes from the Madlib school of beat conducting, boasts of his creative foil. Stone is the type of rapper that makes you hang on every word and notice a different nuance on every spin. He pokes fun at Bay area tech-boom delicacies and spits, “Eatin’ cannabis soufflé/ sippin on an IPA/ I’m the pharaoh of the Bay," on “Cognac” and shows that he’s got a lot more flows in the bank on just about every bar on Foreign Pedestrians.

Blackbird Blackbird is the solo project of producer Mikey Maramag, who first splashed onto the scene with 2012’s memorable single “It’s A War.” He soon signed to legendary San Francisco electronic music label OM Records and released his next-level 2014 LP Tangerine Sky. On the record, Maramag creates a world of deep digital layers and nostalgic vocals that’ll quickly rap you up in their comfortable beauty. Hear the stunning title track below.

Oakland’s Waterstrider comes with a coastal yet earthy vibe that defines California. Song titles like “Redwood” and “Constellation” seemingly imply exploration and singer Nate Salman’s vibrant voice takes us on a trip with every composition. They infuse tribal instruments along with dashing strings as they navigate through various styles. Their newest single, “White Light” is quickly becoming a favorite, perfect for the warm weather.

Psych-rock duo Painted Palms are part of Polyvinyl Record’s fast-growing San Francisco line-up. There are times when they come off like Panda Bear, on happy-go-trippy jams like “Here It Comes,” and others when they have a Tame Impala vibe on the absolutely stunning “Spinning Signs.”

The once bustling garage rock scene in San Francisco has now migrated south, but hybrid-psych acts like Painted Palms are part of the recent rebirth of the SF music scene. Please direct all further questions to “Spinning Signs” below, and even though it might make you want to drive down the coast in a convertible, instead enjoy the wormhole of their tracks that you'll be sucked into.

Five-piece indie-power-pop outfit The Tropics hit you like a storm and stay buzzing in your head long after the music stops. Led by radiant singer Claire George, they command attention with a slew of vital elements. Hard cymbal crashes, big basslines and perfectly placed solos—it’s the kind of music that makes you want to not just dance, but move uncontrollably every-which-way.

Their visual components are also on-point, like the video for “Fireproof,” (directed by fellow-SFer, Frank Door) which is a spot-on recreation of Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch’s “Good Vibrations.”

Berkeley’s Caleborate lets raw emotion pour through his lyrics and he’s about as honest and real as a young rapper can be. His recently released Winter Break EP was written and recorded entirely on his last winter break from college and you just get the feeling that dude had so much to say bottled up, that he couldn’t wait any longer to let it out on an album.

Winter Break was released on his own label, TBKTR, and Cal explains how the name came about. “People who didn’t know my name would just refer to me as ‘that black kid that raps’ so i just ran with it. TBKTR.” His rhymes are confident and relaxed, dropping smooth and conscious gems like, “Nigga know yo craft/ nigga know yo worth/ nigga know you Godly, but stay down to Earth,” on “Vibes.”

He’s the son of a Broadway playwright and his brother is an R&B songwriter, but he stays humble when asked what makes his style different: “I’m never afraid to expose myself to art that I haven’t seen or haven’t done.”

Trails and Ways are a trilingual indie-pop four-piece with two guys and two girls, where “everybody sings.” The Oakland band met in stints living in Spain and Brazil and those experiences are at the core of their music. Appropriately titled, their Trilingual EP made waves that are just now starting to settle as they prepare for the release of their first full-length LP, due out before this summer.

Their vocal harmonies are simply sublime and the male and female vocals take turns telling their sweet stories. Driving bass lines and bossa nova vibes abound as they traverse from English to Spanish to Portuguese, yet it feels as if there are no language barriers through their extravagant arrangements. The video for “Nunca” depicts the wonderfully functional culture clash that is mirrored in their music.

A composer, musician and manipulator of sound, Holly Herndon is one of the most important current artists that you don’t know about yet. We wrote about Herndon in our Best Videos of 2014, specifically "Home," where she explores the perils of our connection to a computer screen. What’s happening around us and what’s left of our privacy as we navigate through links and web pages? “I know that, you know me, better than I know me,” she coos in one of the headiest lyrics of the year.

The San Franciscan boasts a Masters degree in electronic music and is now pushing towards her PhD in composition at Stanford. In her music and art, she’s the new age voice of the voiceless generation; a generation comprised of all of us that live a large part of our lives on the internet.

Rey Ressureccion bleeds the Bay area. In fact, the San Jose rapper’s new LP is aptly titled Heart of the City. He represents a side of the rich Filipino-American hip-hop culture born in the Bay with the likes of DJ QBert and the Invisbl Skrtch Piklz. His lyrics tell the story of his rise in Bay area hip-hop and he is even collaborating with members of Oakland’s timeless Hieroglyphics crew.

Where the brunt of Bay area hip-hop is about keeping a rep, Res doesn’t feel the need to overtly show how smooth his flow is. He flexes his knowledge and respect of the Bay, with beats that feel like he’s dropping all his rhymes from the front seat of a ‘64 Impala.

As the first notes of a Bilinda Butchers song come in, it’s clear that this San Francisco trio is fluent in the art of shoegaze. Their name is, in fact, a homage to My Bloody Valentine’s guitarist, Bilinda Butcher. But don’t let the fanboy name fool you, this is a forward-thinking band that churns out atypical dreamscape sounds.

Their ambitious 2014 debut LP, HEAVEN, is a concept album about a love story set in 19th century Japan. The ambient guest vocals throughout the album from Juri Nakashima sound like something out of an M83 song and tracks like “Edo Method” are a spectacularly rejuvenating take on classic shoegaze.

An exciting recent discovery, Julia Lewis is the moniker of electronic producer Ben Falik. “The name is a joke,” he explains, “It sounds to me like the name of a mousey Oregon chick and I wanted the music to stand for itself.” On productions like “Talk To Me” it does just that. Rhythmic bass music with a new school electronica twist and a silky female vocal.

Falik recently dropped The Space Between Us EP and is even working on side project Saint Tiimbre, alongside Amp Live of Bay area staple Zion I and vocalist Natasha Adorlee. Put this dude on your radar now.