STRFKR is coming to the Sierra Nevada Big Room Wednesday, Oct 25th! Ruth Radelet will be kicking the night off!
*Combination of standing/seating room. Seats available on a first come first serve basis. Food available for purchase*
Since forming in 2007, STRFKR have been perfecting a style that hides emotional complexities and existential searching in hyper-catchy, melody-forward pop music. The band’s spiritual and philosophical undercurrents never outshine their highly danceable sounds, but both are integral parts of what they do. Over the years and through the course of a discography that includes not just multiple studio albums but a wealth of fan-focused auxiliary releases, STRFKR’s combination of thoughtful lyricism and party starting hooks have made them a consistent success with critical music listeners and show-goers. They’ve played festivals like Cochella and Outside Lands, wowed audiences on impressive stages the size of Red Rocks, toured through Asia, Europe and Mexico and stacked up hundreds of millions in streaming numbers, all while continuing to grow as artists.
STRFKR was started as a solo project by Joshua Hodges but quickly grew into a fully realized band with Keil Corcoran, Shawn Glassford, and Arian Jalali. Beginning with the mission of creating engaging, thought-provoking songs that people could dance to, the band released one full length and one EP before signing on with Polyvinyl in 2010. At that point they’d already made a name for themselves with worldwide touring, but momentum really picked up from there. The band grew commercially and creatively with every new album, with 2011’s Reptilians, 2013’s Miracle Mile, and 2016’s Being No One, Going Nowhere all performing strongly enough to crack various Billboard charts, while multiple STRFKR songs were used in highly visible film, television, and streaming productions. The band started out in a time when a co-sign from blogs and music outlets of note were all but mandatory for new music to be heard and accepted. STRFKR bypassed the hype machine almost completely, focusing instead on making their shows more exciting and pushing their music to new places. In addition to a live album and several remix collections, the band’s extensive Vault Series has offered fans three volumes worth of unreleased demos and outtakes from every point in their evolution. Instead of making the same record over and over again, they embraced experimentalism and gentler textures in 2020 on fifth album Future Past Life, and switched gears completely the same year on Ambient 1, an entirely instrumental album of meditative and healing electronic synthesis. With a diverse catalog that reaches back almost 15 years, STRFKR’s live show is still where a good amount of the magic happens, as each of their albums has no shortage of crowd favorites and verifiable hits. The band’s work ethic both in the studio and on the road has kept them on a steady climb, consistently playing venues on the level of legendary rooms like Terminal 5, Stubbs’, and the 9:30 Club while using any available downtime to work towards the next recording. An announcement of new tour dates or new music is never too far off on the horizon, as STRFKR continues taking new forms.
Los Angeles-based artist Ruth Radelet announces her debut EP, The Other Side, out October 7th. Best known for fronting the influential and beloved group Chromatics, Ruth solidifies her next chapter as a solo artist with The Other Side. Written over the course of two years and recorded with friend and producer Filip Nikolic (formerly of Poolside), The Other Side showcases Radelet’s timeless voice and classic take on songwriting. Following the single “Crimes,” “her ethereal and poignant debut” (Gorilla vs. Bear), “Stranger” is a love letter to LA. The stark black-and-white video, directed by James Manson and shot on 16mm Kodak film by Freddie Whitman, features Ruth exploring the city alone. “Stranger” is about a specific kind of loneliness that I have only felt in Los Angeles. Although the song is very much about longing, it’s more about a place than a person,” she elaborates. “The lyric ‘I could never hold you in my hands’ is about the feeling of always being on the outside looking in, of the city never fully opening its doors to me.”
Exploring themes of love, death, and rebirth, “The Other Side represents a side of my personality as an artist that most people haven’t seen until now,” explains Radelet. “It also represents my coming out the other side of a traumatic experience, gathering what I could from ‘Before’ and figuring out how to exist ‘After.’ This record was forged in the fire of a transformative two-year period during which I lost almost everything, including my father who was a huge influence on me. Most of the songs were written just before I was caught up in a storm of big changes, and they were all finished just as life started to feel sweet again. It feels right to share some of the last chapter before moving into the next, and though it’s a melancholy record, for me The Other Side is a step into a bigger and brighter future.”
Radelet is a singer, songwriter, and musician with diverse influences ranging from Joni Mitchell to Frank Ocean. She has been performing and releasing music for over a decade since joining Chromatics in 2006 for their acclaimed album Night Drive released the following year. Chromatics’ music and aesthetic has notably been used in numerous films, television series, and fashion shows. The band appeared on screen in multiple episodes of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks: The Return while Radelet was recently featured on a Chromatics’ 2020 remix of the Weeknd’s #1 hit single, “Blinding Lights.”
