A big honking deal in the great white north

Jazzy psychedelic rockers Le Ra features members based in Tijuana, San Diego, and L.A. The lineup includes Mónica Mendoza (lead vocals, guitar, keys), who founded the group in 2010, alongside Milka Luna (drums, vocals) and Luis Lopez (percussion), recently joined by Pumphouse bassist Ida Naughton. Citing influences such as Blur, Oasis, the Cardigans, the Smiths, and the Stone Roses, “Our sound has progressed with major influences spanning from Brit-pop to rock en español and bossa nova,” says Mendoza. They released EPs in 2011 and 2012, and then concentrated on gigging until their 2018 full-length Limbs, which was promoted with an elaborate video production for the track “Sin Nombre.” They have a new EP in progress, and you can listen their recently released cover of Portishead’s “Glory Box,” which was actually recorded awhile back with previous bassist Eunice Paz. Their YouTube channel features both live videos that highlight their penchant for open-ended improvisation and behind-the-scenes documentary style footage. Also appearing will be Moans, Fistfights with Wolves, and Belladon.

Canadian indie rock band Wolf Parade released three albums between 2003 and 2011 before taking a five-year hiatus. Initially an underground ensemble, getting signed to Sub Pop brought them almost instant mainstream success, including a 2006 Polaris Music Prize nomination, which may not mean much to anyone in the U.S. other than Rush fans but is a big honking deal in the great white north. They marked their reformation in 2016 with a self-titled EP and then another studio album the following year. Their newest dropped this month via Sub Pop, Thin Mind, their fifth full-length, and their second to be produced by John Goodmanson (Bikini Kill). Having gone through a couple of lineup shifts over the years, it appears their current configuration is a trio featuring founders Spencer Krug (vocals, keys), Dan Boeckner (guitar, vocals), and Arlen Thompson (drums). The bill includes Canadian indie rockers Land Of Talk, whose frontwoman used to be a solo recording artist known as ELE_K, touring in advance of their upcoming album Indistinct Conversations.

Founded last year, Tanae teams local singer-songwriter Andy Gallagher (Trains Across the Sea) with singer Thana Fayad, “a woman I’ve been collaborating with for nearly a year now, and we’re ready to start releasing music,” says Gallagher. “We’ve been using my band in the studio and live so far. We’ve got gigs and two singles coming out in February…I’m not singing in this project, but I do play guitar and piano.” Gallagher relocated in August 2017 from Columbus, OH to San Diego, where he put together the seventh Trains Across the Sea lineup and began recording their sixth album, released the following year. Last year’s Semi Fame EP collects five songs from a trucker musical that Gallagher wrote and produced, set in 1984 along the open highway and starring a long-haul trucker with a voice of gold who dreams of the Broadway stage. Singer Fayad is best known as a Canadian volleyball phenom who relocated to San Diego to attend college, play ball and, as it turns out, form a musical duo with Gallagher. They’ll debut their first single at this gig, and will play the same venue on February 22.

Running February 2 through 8, the Festival of New Trumpet Music (FONT) West celebrates emerging and established trumpeters at UCSD Extension La Jolla. The festival begins with a free afternoon concert at the Quartyard featuring bands led by two area trumpeters, San Diego-based Curtis Taylor and Ensenada’s Ivan Trujillo. The Grammy Award-winning Taylor relocated to San Diego from NYC/New Jersey in late 2013, after visiting the city to record singer Mimi Klein’s debut album with UCSD professor Kamau Kenyatta (who also recruited Taylor for singer Gregory Porter’s Grammy-winning album Liquid Spirits). Taylor and his quartet will play the music from his 2019 release Snapshot, a collection of jazz standards and Taylor’s own compositions recorded live at the World Stage in L.A and featuring San Diego pianist Hugo Suarez alongside L.A. bassist Ben Shepherd and drummer Gene Coye. Ivan Trujillo’s La Covacha Big Band, founded in 2013, makes its U.S. debut in this concert. The 11-piece group’s repertoire spans a wide spectrum of jazz, sampling everything from Ellington and Basie to electronica and contemporary music. The program will focus on the original compositions of trumpeter Trujillo.

It’s a good time to be named after a Star Wars character, even one who got killed off several clone wars ago, and Poland’s Vader milks the sonic sci-fi angle like Luke Skywalker yanking nutritious green goo from the teats of the thala-sirens on the planet Ahch-To. They’ve also been known to pinch inspiration from horror authors like HP Lovecraft, and it was listening to one of Vader’s storytelling concept albums that first inspired Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme to describe them as “The Eagles of death metal,” a phrase so catchy that he later used it as a band name. Vader has been around since the early ‘80s, though nearly a decade passed before they got around to releasing their first album, and their sound back then was more straightforward heavy metal ala Judas Priest than the screaming death metallers they eventually evolved into. Their most recent EP, Thy Messenger, was released last year, and a new studio full-length is due soon, so expect a setlist heavy on representative tracks. The night’s roster includes more groups with identically indecipherable band logos like L.A.’s Abysmal Dawn and Italian-Norwegian project Hideous Divinity.