Considering their reputation as folksy, down home and altogether analog, some might be surprised to learn that Dr. Dog got their start composing electronic tunes.

To be clear, the very first tracks that the Philadelphia indie rockers ever recorded weren’t club bangers, or even chilly IDM. Still, the founding trio of Toby Leaman, Scott McMicken and Doug O’Donnell constructed most of the songs on Psychedelic Swamp using the lo-fi synth patches and tinny drum loops of a cheap keyboard.

With the exception of the vocals and the guitars, Leaman says that just about every tone and tom-tom on the record came from a Casio sound bank. “There’s certainly no live drums on it,” the singer and songwriter says of the 2001 album, which the fledgling group stitched together with a pair of cassette four-tracks and then dubbed to even more cassettes and some CD-Rs.

They managed to sell a few copies of the album at some of their earliest gigs, Leaman recalls. However, Dr. Dog only kept one song from the sessions in regular rotation at shows. The sour mash of chintzy keys, the odd effects created by manually synching the two four-tracks during the mixing process and many other idiosyncrasies meant that most of the collection didn’t make sense in a live setting, he explains over the phone from his home—pausing occasionally to assure his young daughter that he’ll pay attention to her very soon.

“The original thing is not what I’d call the most accessible piece of music ever recorded,” he says with a laugh.

For a little over a decade Psychedelic Swamp remained a rarity—lurking in the bootleg collections of Dr. Dog super fans. A few copies remained with the band, as well.

Then, in 2015, the Philly-based Pig Iron Theatre Company teamed with Dr. Dog on a live stage and music production for a local arts festival. Pig Iron asked the band to dig up some material that few had heard, and so Leaman and McMicken dusted off Psychedelic Swamp.

The play, titled Swamp is On, provided the impetus for the band to do what it had always intended: re-record their debut—this time in a real studio, with “a billion more pieces of gear and a billion more years of experience.” The new album is out now under the same name.

The result is something both old and new. “It felt like we were just doing cover songs,” he says, describing the experience of revisiting the old material. “It’s liberating in a way, for sure, but it’s weird too.”

Leaman says he is excited to see how audiences react to the new-old material. At their upcoming show in Santa Cruz he says the band will still very much be working it out.

“It’s going to be pretty raw still,” he says. “They’re not road tested at all. It will be interesting to see what catches and what doesn’t.”

Dr. Dog plays on Jan. 31, 7pm, $25 at The Catalyst, Santa Cruz.

Musicians draw inspiration from so many different places-other musicians, major events in their personal lives, political movements, drugs and spiritual experiences. Barrett Richards, who makes murky and experimental electronic music under the moniker Kastle, says one of his earliest inspirations came in the form of Herbie Hancock performing “Rockit” on Sesame Street, using an early synthesizer, the Fairlight CMI.

“Oh, man. His ‘Rockit’ video is crazy to this day!” Richards says. He remembers being particularly drawn to Hancock’s use of electronic elements in his tunes. His interest in keyboards and samples was stoked by his older brother, who taught the young Richards the basics of programming and introduced him to the Internet at a young age.

“I lived in a really small town outside of Pittsburgh,” he says, remembering that the web was his only source for the truly obscure electronic music he craved. “I would use an Internet radio channel, called ‘X Stream,’ run a cable from my computer to my cassette recorder and make my own mixtapes. I was a real big computer nerd back then.”

His early interest in computers and music has paid off. The DJ and producer is regularly name-dropped by some of the most respected left-field electronic artists making music today. He runs a tastemaking label, Symbols Recordings, and regularly tours the world-performing at festivals as large as Coachella and Burning man, and in smaller clubs, as he will do this weekend at the Back Bar SoFa.

His latest album, 2015’s Polytopia, is a collection of 6 spacey, yet danceable, tracks. The album blends the U.K.-centric genres of garage and grime, with sparse, glitch-riddled hip-hop rhythms. Tracks move along languidly, as moody synth patches burble and pop-recalling acts like Actress, a way-slowed-down Machinedrum, and, at his most-experimental, Oneohtrix Point Never. Polytopia has been called “dark” by some-and it is indeed more brooding than some of his previous work.

According to Richards, he never set out to make a dark Kastle record. Though perhaps the fog had something to do with it.

“I was living in San Francisco around that time, and I wanted to make something that was accessible to my club music and something you could listen to in the car,” he says, explaining the time leading up to his recording of Polytopia. “I wanted to do something timeless. I don’t do things dark to be dark but I’m a big advocate of duality in life. Duality was a major theme on that album.”

Richards, who is now based in L.A., is also a believer in following his gut. Intuition, he says, plays a major role in how he picks the artists he wants for his label. “If I feel a certain way about it, doesn’t matter what the genre is,” he says. “If you’re feeling it and if the feeling is good I will get behind it.”

Recently, Richards has gotten behind Kid Smpl from New York; French producer My.Head; WWWings, a trio of grime-inspired producers with a penchant for black metal iconography and the Amsterdam-based Moth.

If his sound and taste in label additions have become more diverse and avant garde, Richards says it is likely due to his fear of being grouped with mainstream electronic producers.

“I was being lumped into a bigger group of house music out there and it made me feel uncomfortable, like I was not being as imaginative as I wanted to be,” he says. “I definitely consider myself a left-field artist in the U.S. now and I plan on doing so going forward.”

Both as a label head and an artist, presentation is important for Richards. Like many of the albums on the gloomy indie imprint, Sacred Bones-Amen Dune, Jenny Hval, Blanck Mass-the cover art on many Symbols releases is somewhat standardized. In the same vein, Richards maintains SoundCloud and a BandCamp pages for Kastle, but says he plans to begin streaming his music through his own website, using his own media player soon.

“I don’t understand why no one has started going back to that,” he says. “It’s been really fun to be able to create a layout of what you want people to see-and you’re not limited to just SoundCloud. People forgot about presentation.”

Kastle plays Fri, 9pm, $10-$15 at BackBar SoFa, San Jose.

All throughout the ’90s, Gustaf Fjelstrom kept his head down—playing bass in the background of local power trio Maximum Indifference. It was a role he was used to. Most of his musical life he has acted in supporting roles, playing less popular instruments. He played bass for his high school jazz band and got his start in music on the accordion, which he started learning in 1st grade.

These days, however, Fjelstrom, is taking the lead—as the sole songwriter, producer and frontman of his very own solo project. He will release his first full-length, full-band solo LP, Intention, on June 1.

Fjelstrom (the J is silent), describes his music as a cross between Tycho and Hammock. It’s an apt comparison. Texturally, the album sounds very much like the reverb-soaked, instrumental electronica of the San Francisco-based Tycho. While the volume pedal guitar swells and ambient, breathy non-verbal vocals definitely recall the work of the Nashville ambient/post rock duo.

And it’s not just that the tones Fjelstrom has selected mirror those used by Tycho and Hammock. The South San Jose-based songwriter says he quite literally imagined “what it would sound like if Hammock and Tycho were in a band together and I was on bass.”

Take one look at the album’s artwork—an orb composed of interlocking half-shells floating in a pink-magenta-blue haze—and you’ll get an idea of what his music sounds like. If the shape on the record’s cover calls to mind the massive wormhole generator from the 1997 film Contact, the songs within sound a lot like what you’d expect to hear while floating in the orbit of the faraway heavenly universe Jody Foster’s character is sent away to.

Every instrument and synth patch on Intention is wrapped in a dense, aural gauze. Ethereal incantations smear into one another, while live drums and glitch electronic samples form hypnotic rhythms.

Fjelstrom says it has been nice to indulge his mellower side. Maximum Indifference was a much higher energy band—influenced primarily by Rush and other ’70s and ’80s progressive rock.

“This latest album is really something I’ve been wanting to do for a while,” Fjelstrom says. “It’s been nice to chill out a little bit. Get a little spacey.”

But Intention isn’t just a diversion from his work with Maximum Indifference. With his new album, he is expanding upon the extremely minimalist work he did immediately following his departure from his former group.

So far, he is happy with the result. “I accomplished what I set out to do, so now it’s about getting it out there and getting it into as many hands as possible,” he says.

And when he says “hands,” he means it. Fjelstrom plans to release the album as a download through his BandCamp page on June 1, but he will also be issuing the work as a deluxe vinyl set.

The limited edition 12-inch LP set will be pressed on 200-gram black and purple vinyl, heavy stock, full-color jackets and inner sleeve, along with a CD version of the album and a free download. The deluxe package can be ordered now; it will ship around July 1.

As a collector of vinyl himself, Fjelstrom is hopeful that ambient music fans will be drawn to the attractive set. “I really like that feeling of having something tangible in my hand to hold and collect,” he says.

The complex backdrop of Mexico City—a town full of ancient architecture and modern technology—is a fittingly the home for Camilo Lara, the man behind the Mexican Institute of Sound, a leading act in the budding Mexican electronic scene. His music epitomizes the crossroads of old and new, organic and synthetic, traditions and progress.

Unlike American electronic music, Lara—and contemporaries Nortec Collective, Turbo Sonidero Futuristico and Kinky—mixes a lot of the older folk music of Mexico (Mariachi, Cumbia and Cha cha cha.) Lara, in particular tends to sample mostly from Mexican music from the 1920s to the 1960s, homaging his heritage, yet redefining it. His songs can be instrumental, feature an MC or just contain little spurts of spoken word.

Mexico Institute has been creeping into the homes of mainstream American via the television. His songs have been featured on such shows as Californiacation, Ugly Betty, Pride and Glory and even as part of a Dos Equis ad campaign. People may not realize it, but they are already acquainted with Lara’s innovative approach to electronic music.

Mexico Institute of Sound plays on Saturday September 15th at 10pm at the Pagoda @ the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose. Tickets are $5.

Since 2009, four San Jose women, known at the Like-Me’s, have been at the forefront of modernizing Khmer (Cambodian) music. The fact that only two of them are Cambodian makes the story that much more interesting.

The Like Me’s take folk, rock, soul and classic Khmer music—singing in both English and Khmer—and fuse the genres into one. Their newest song, “Behdong Khmean Kongval,” adds electronic dance-pop to that list.

The key to the Like Me’s success, or at least how they’ve garnered so much exposure in Cambodian communities worldwide, is their videos on Youtube. While always on a shoestring budget, their videos are well-produced thanks to so much donated assistance from friends and admirers in San Jose. One of their previous videos, “Sva Rom Monkiss,” a remake of a classic 1960s Khmer song by by Pan Ron, is basically a period piece set in 1960s Cambodia.

The video for “Behdong Khmean Kongval” opens in a drab office where singer Laura Mam presumably works. She walks in and decides she’s had enough and throws all her papers in the air. She grabs the other members of the Like Me’s and starts to dance. As the music changes, so does the setting. They sing and dance in a low-lit dance club, perform on stage at a large rock venue and do synchronized dance moves in what looks like an 80s hip-hop video. At the end, it’s all just a fantasy in Mam’s head one day before work. Watch the last 30 seconds of the video. The punch line at the end is priceless.

It’s not always easy mentoring a DJ. John Fowler, a respected turntablist in the South Bay for two decades, got lucky, as his understudy learns fast. But there are certain technological changes that have created a generation gap—for instance, the way computer programs like Virtual DJ have created a reliance on eyes over ears among young DJs.

“One of the difficult things I’m finding is teaching him to beatmatch aurally, as opposed to visually,” says Fowler. “It’s a visual beatmatch now.”

Did I say young? They don’t come any younger—Fowler’s understudy is 11 years old. He’s also Fowler’s son. In fact, he was named after Fowler’s DJ handle, “Justin Hale.” The younger Fowler now goes by Lil Justin. Both father and son will be spinning at the second annual South Bay Electronic Music Festival in Los Gatos on July 15. Justin Hale will be spinning on one stage, along with headliner Rick Preston, and a slew of other mostly local DJs, including DFunkt, Robbie Durham, Alonso Ordonez, J-Funk and Wona. Lil Justin will spin his own 30-minute set on another stage, which will also feature headliner Ernesto Cruz, Smizzle, Gabriel Black, Audio Dru, DJ Peak, B Rich and D Leikam.

What’s even more remarkable about Lil Justin’s story is that he already has two years of DJ experience under his belt. It started with dancing, popping and locking while his dad DJed. First he was into the electro-house sound.

“Then one day he found dubstep. He never looked back. It was bass music all the way,” says Fowler. “He was 9. That’s when he first wanted to DJ.”

Lil Justin made his public debut in 2010, at a party on a boat—not exactly how most grade-schoolers are spending their summer vacations. He picked and mixed all the tracks himself; the footage is on YouTube, and even then, he wasn’t too bad. It’s kind of ironic when Bassnectar’s “Bass Head” comes in three minutes or so in—to Lil Justin, Lorin Ashton is one of the most iconic DJs of his generation. To John Fowler, he’s a guy he used to bump into at the Cactus Club 15 years ago.

Apparently, Santa Cruz city officials are unwilling to deal with a little extra bass from San Jose-raised electronic music producer Bassnectar, a former UCSC student scheduled to play a sold-out at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium tomorrow. The show was cancelled today with a two-sentence explanation on the venue website.

“Due to the high volume and intense bass of a Bassnectar show it would be impossible for the show to comply with local sound ordinances. Thank you and please accept our sincerest apologies.” via CityofSantaCruz.com

Fortunately, the Event Center at San Jose State University is better equipped to deal with the extra decibels and the May 5th show there is still scheduled as planned. In fact, a few tickets are left via Ticketmaster for our coastal friends in Santa Cruz who want to make the trip over the hill to catch Bassnectar in his old stomping ground.

For more details on Bassnectar and his San Jose roots, read our feature interview from the latest issue of Metro.

For a year and a half after he started his one-man electronic band Seabright, San Jose’s Justin Morales was writing and recording in his bedroom, turning down every live gig offered to him. Finally, in 2007, he took the leap and played his first show at On the Corner Music in Campbell.

“It wasn’t a great show, but it was a start. I figured out what was possible,” Morales says. More specifically, he figured out what wasn’t possible. He’d overwhelmed himself during that first show trying to do live looping and re-creating his songs just as they were recorded. He decided he needed to scale back when playing live.

But still, it wasn’t until last year that he started to feel like his live shows were any good. The turning point was when he sat down and watched footage from his shows.

“I saw that my guitar playing was tame and a bit boring. I realized I could be more exciting. I was just trying to get through the shows and not make mistakes,” Morales says. “It’s such a weird thing to do a show with a laptop and a guitar and that’s it.”

He began to look for more creative ways to show off his skills. Since Morales is a proficient guitar player, unlike most laptop artists, he incorporated a lot more guitar solos in his songs. He also started utilizing more live filters and started live-mixing his music with different knobs and pedals. The audience began to respond to how he was transforming the music in real time, performing distinctly different renditions of his songs at each show, sort of like a rock band, and not simply pressing a button on the computer.
“That’s what you have to do as one person, put on a show and show something spectacular, show something that people have never seen before,” Morales says.

He’s still recording in his bedroom, though, at a remarkable pace. His goal has been to put out two albums every year, a feat he’s succeeded at since he released his first record in 2010.

If you’re like me, and have listened to a total of 12 minutes of FM radio since the advent of Pandora, here is a reason to tune back in: Live 105’s Wobble Wednesdays, hosted by Menace and Dallas. It features two glorious hours of the fast-rising dubstep genre, characterized by its quivering bass and popularized by DJ/producers like Grammy-nominated Skrillex and Santa Cruz native Bassnectar.

The show is even worth enduring those high-decibel, screaming-in-an-empty amphitheater furniture blowout sale commercials, and comes at a time when dubstep is gaining traction beyond the ecstasy-chomping, earplug-sporting crowd.

The lineup is a mix of artists the hosts have excavated from the underground scene by poring over YouTube videos and taking fan suggestions. If nothing else, at least we know we have a decent option if Pandora fails to invent a viable business model.

Tune into the weekly airing of Wobble Wednesday at 11:59pm on the FM radio station 105.3, or check out past lineups on their website.