XLR8R

For the first installment of this exclusive mix series profiling cities around the world, XLR8R explores its hometown of San Francisco and pulls up its favorite music currently in the clubs and on the streets.

San Francisco isn't an easy place to describe. Travel guides like to talk about riding the cable cars and watching sea lions fight; your parents might reminisce about conceiving your brother in the park near Haight-Ashbury; your queer sibling might tell outlandish stories about nights out in the Castro; and your sketchy uncle might uncomfortably brag about the strip clubs in North Beach. All of that is here, sure, but San Francisco is somehow larger than the sum of its small neighborhoods and played stereotypes. Listening to conversations on a street corner, you're sure to hear multiple languages and a lot of different opinions. Listening to music from San Francisco is the same story, we have a lot of different voices and styles but no single one of them can claim to represent the city more than any other anyone else.

We tried to mix some of those voices together here in our podcast of local San Francisco artists, and the result is as unlikely as it is coherent. The tech-house of the dirtybird himself Claude VonStroke meets the industrial electro of upcoming local hero Ghosts On Tape. Indie-rap personality Aesop Rock contributes some recognizable lyrical prowess while Lazer Sword twists and chops some abstract rap darkness on "Gucci Sweatshirt." Wooden Shjips' psychedelic rock might conjure the San Francisco of years past, but Lemonade takes a futuristic twist with their own sort of psychedelic jam. We couldn't fit in any field recordings of sea lions fighting, but we can assure you that San Francisco still has that, too. Wyatt Williams

Tracklisting
1. Claude VonStroke & Christian Martin "Groundhog Day"
2. C.L.A.W.S. "Radiance"
3. Eats Tapes "NOS"
4. White Girl Lust "Tail Light Bump"
5. Ghosts On Tape "Ice Blood"
6. Lemonade "Sunchips"
7. Lazer Sword "Gucci Sweatshirt"
8. DJ G & Antiserum "The Tide"
9. Aesop Rock "39 Theives"
10. Nick Andre & E Da Boss "Trunk Slumpin feat. Nebulus & Jern Eye"
11. Arp "Potentialities"
12. Hey Willpower "Uh-Uh-Uh"
13. Wooden Shjips "Shrinking Moon for You"

Photo of Ghosts On Tape by Kelly N. Koehler.

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