photo by nicole vail "start getting the coffee pot / a little watch and the dark liquid fall / about you I think a lot / I oughta just give you a call..."
The psychedelic indie rock brew of "Coffee Pot", by Los Angeles 6 piece indie rock musical collective badsoma, feels somehow dark around the edges, an untwisting knot of folk, of swamp blues, of the hippie side of grunge. For some reason I thought of both Nirvana covering the Meat Puppet's 'Lake Of Fire' on 1993's MTV Unplugged and Neil Young & Crazy Horse's 'Be The Rain' while listening. It could have been a kind of adjacent vibe or maybe the melodic hints brought on by the haunting violins and there is a kind of chanting quality to the vocal countenance, 70's Laurel Canyon folk rock psychedelia meets a 90's post grunge thing happening or maybe it is just in my head like daydreams of Drug Cabin at Aladdin Jr.
Anyway, I really like what I am hearing and what I am feeling as I listen. I truly look forward to diving into more badsoma.
-Robb Donker Curtius
LINER NOTES (excerpted / bracketed):
[badsoma began as the solo project of Iranian-American multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Armin Fard transformed into a dynamic collective defined by a shared vision and diverse voices.]
[With their forthcoming self-titled EP (due November 14), badsoma continue to expand their sound. The record, with writing contributions from every member, embodies the band’s ethos: collaborative to its core, politically and environmentally conscious in its content, and unafraid to blur boundaries between the personal and the collective.]
[While songs like “Coffee Pot,” “On a Brazen Day,” and A Little Goes” were written before the current lineup came together, each track was reconstructed, and reimagined in the context of the band. With Armin and Braden Rose, the band’s percussionist, as producers, songs written by various members of the band were transformed into live pieces, mostly recorded in studio at MooseCat Recording in Los Angeles. Additional production and overdubs were done in Long Beach in Armin’s home studio, where the band experimented with various mixing strategies to capture the drama of their live sound.]
[Starlit, who like Braden had attended the Conservatory for Recording Arts and Sciences (CRAS) in Arizona, and whose appetite for blues was only outmatched by her newly discovered inclination as a guitarist, found herself a musical home in a strange new town she had only just moved to. The trio enlisted the help of their friend, and local mixology legend, Donald Segien on bass. Later in 2024, after months of local gigs around LA, the band recruited Lindsey Hamilton on strings, and Ana Léon on second guitar to complete their current lineup.]
[Their self-titled EP arrives on the heels of the band’s previous release, Kicking and Screaming]
The Chicken Wheel will take you to the AP Go Fund Me- and any amount is so appreciated!
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM
https://badsoma.bandcamp.com/track/heat-and-disorder
https://www.instagram.com/badsomamusic/
https://badsoma.com/
https://soundcloud.com/badsoma
Formed from the nascent tremors in LA’s post-pandemic underground scene, badsoma is a 6-piece indie rock outfit. What began as the personal project of Iranian-American multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Armin Fard transformed into a dynamic collective defined by a shared vision and diverse voices. Armin’s early work — informed by his background in classical music composition, and literature, as well as the dissonances of migration and identity — first appeared in the form of two singles, “Heat and Disorder “ and “Honey Locust Trees.”
A partnership with collaborator Sarrah Wolfe followed, resulting in the raw, turbulent Kicking and Screaming EP before the project went quiet. Months later, in the fall of ‘23, badsoma was reimagined not as a vehicle for one artist, but as a band in the truest sense: each member contributing not only to songwriting, but to the group’s evolving sonic identity. In that spirit of live performance, Armin met Kenzie Starlit Alvarado and Braden Rose while attending a benefit show put together by various climate activist groups in LA county.
Starlit, whose appetite for blues music and hard rock sets her apart from her bandmates, has been fixated on performing live since a “wild evening in Rocky Point, Mexico, when she was invited to play a song onstage with The Stone band.” The trio enlisted the help of their friend, and local mixology legend, Donald Segien on bass. Later in 2024, after months of local gigs around LA, the band recruited Lindsey Hamilton on strings, and Ana Léon on second guitar to complete their current lineup.
Their shared vision for collaborative songwriting quickly set them apart. Where many projects orbit around a single figure, badsoma thrives on interplay, weaving together threads of classical training with self-taught guitar work and electronic experimentation, all filtered through a collective sense of pervasive, post-pandemic anxiety. Their songs channel both urgency and nuance, balancing lyrical introspection with moments of cathartic release.
Since their debut as a band, badsoma’s trajectory has been striking. Their singles, broke onto the NACC Top 200 (#134 debut), while the song “burn out” climbed to #2 on KCSB’s Hit List within weeks.
Their music has found a home on college and community radio stations across the country, underscoring both their immediate resonance and their staying power.
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