tropicalia

Suzanna Choffel: “Get Out”

Austin-based singer-songwriter Suzanna Choffel brings relateable emotion and vibrant energy to her latest single, “Get Out,” off her upcoming album Bird By Bird. Known for her genre-blending sound and raw lyricism, Choffel uses this track to dive into the pressures of her modern life—parenthood, relationships, and career struggles—all while trying to maintain a sense of self.

But, “Get Out” doesn’t stray away from what Suzanna Choffel has always aimed to emulate. In fact, like any insightfully charged musician, her journey as an artist has always been tied to her personal life. Since her last album, Hello Goodbye, recorded while she was pregnant with her first daughter, Choffel’s experiences now as a mother of two have reshaped her perspective on songwriting. Balancing family, a music career, and hosting her own radio show on Sun Radio in Austin, she brings a matured yet still playful sound to Bird By Bird.

And often with big changes like these, sometimes a break from routine is needed. Knowing this, Choffel reached out to longtime collaborator Davíd Garza to help produce the record, who recruited a dynamic rhythm section featuring drummer Amy Wood and bassist Sebastian Steinberg, known for his work on Fiona Apple’s GRAMMY award-winning album, Fetch the Bolt Cutters.  Not to mention, the album also features a dash of Austin with guest performances from local friends Adrian Quesada, Carrie Rodriguez, and Elias Haslanger.

The collaboration brings a driving, percussive intensity to “Get Out” while somehow still maintaining a graceful balance with her folksy highs and lows. To bring more of a personal touch to the album, Garza, who’s also a new father, suggested turning the song’s final chorus into more of a celebratory moment capturing the cathartic release that “Get Out” represents.

Killer Kaya: “Seasons of Unrest”

When California comes to mind, it’s easy to imagine three hundred and sixty sunny days a year. But between earthquakes, floods, mudslides, wildfires, and other natural disasters (we’ll even throw in this global pandemic for posterity)…it’s not just a coastal breeze over there. Whatever the weather, Cali can always rely on some really cool cross-cultural sounds; think about the psychedelia of Haight-Ashbury, surf rock, ’70s Chicano soul, Latin-introduced tropicalia, or the unique jazz style of West Coast swing.

If you’re looking for a contemporary combination of all those genres that collides like tectonic plates and never phones in a half-baked pastiche, check out Killer Kaya. This Santa Barbara five-piece has already opened for the likes of Shuggie Otis, Cat Power, and even Nuggets legends The Strawberry Alarm Clock. Killer Kaya’s first two albums 29 Lives (2017) and Persimmon Perspective (2018) both leaned on a commanding horn section, but once their 2020 tour got cancelled amidst COVID, the band stripped themselves of brass and broached a fresh approach.

It’s been two years…but Killer Kaya is finally back. Their already-rich psych-rock sound is now complemented by an incorporation of synths as well as the addition of die-hard, adrenaline-drenched drummer Justin Kass. These changes’ll come into play on Killer Kaya’s upcoming LP Tunnel at the End of the Light (out October 7th) as heard on one of Tunnel‘s most exciting singles, “Seasons of Unrest”. Like the effects-heavy, falsetto-fueled wrath of an angry God, “Seasons of Unrest” paints a dramatic picture of existential dread over California climate patterns in an operatic prog-rock original that lands somewhere between Santana, Mars Volta, and The Doors.