San Francisco indie quartet Hot Flash Heat Wave is a good example of a band birthed by social media. Their 2015 video for “Gutter Girl,” from their debut album Neapolitan, turned up on the front page at Reddit, and away they went. Originally a duo featuring Nick Duffy and Adam Abildgaard, they expanded both their ranks and their song catalog with the addition of fellow songwriters Ted Davis and Nathaniel Blum, with all four sharing lead vocals at various times. A sophomore album in 2017, Soaked, became a college radio fave, and the set of related music videos have racked up hundreds of thousands of YouTube spins.

The album’s lead single “Bye Bye Baby” turned up on Canada’s Viral 50 Spotify playlist, around the same time that they embarked on their first North American headline tour, including local dates at Soda Bar, Soma, HOB, and most recently, the Che Café. A bubbly new single just dropped, “Sky So Blue,” which kicks off with a lilting flute run before some new wave synth sets the beat for a track that wouldn’t sound out of place on 91X circa 1991, snaking its way between sets by the Cure and New Order. And there’s an entertaining newish video on their website for a single called “Glo Ride” that gives a fair indication of what you’re likely to see when they play the Irenic on March 23. The bill includes experimental pop soloist Temporex, aka Joseph Flores, and rock-n-pop band Diners.