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The Seshen is a San Francisco Bay Area six-piece band whose songs exist between the lines: in the space between waking and dreaming, ego and collective consciousness, at that blurred horizon where earth meets sea meets sky.

Anchored by Lalin St. Juste’s sly, silvery vocals (which draw frequent comparisons to Erykah Badu) and cerebral yet danceable rhythms from producer-bassist Akiyoshi Ehara, their music pulls from a deep well of electronic influences, R&B, and indie rock. Drummer Chris Thalmann, keyboard/synth player Mahesh Rao, percussionist Mirza Kopelman and sequencer Kumar Butler make the music three-dimensional, blending live and digital instrumentation for a mercurial, transportive sound. Since 2012, the Seshen’s live show has earned them critical acclaim and a dedicated fanbase on multiple continents, as they’ve shared stages with the likes of Hiatus Kaiyote, PetiteNoir Tune-Yards, and Thundercat.

CYAN (February 28, 2020 - Tru Thoughts) is the band’s most vulnerable, compelling work to date. Over a spacious, at times tumultuous sonic landscape that leans on live instrumentation, St. Juste sings of a reckoning: a hero’s journey through confusion and self-doubt, depression, and ultimately forging a way out toward the light. CYAN is a story about saving yourself. There’s death, rebirth, and a chance to look square in the mirror for the first time in a long while. To dive deep in search of a new life—one stripped of pretense or protective armor, for better or for worse.

Devotion to music has driven Spacemoth’s Maryam Qudus—a performer, composer, and now sought-after producer—for as long as she can remember. At age twelve, she traded chores for guitar lessons; at sixteen, she took on after school jobs to pay for voice lessons, learning to drive so she could take herself to both. As a first-generation Afghan-American child of working-class immigrant parents, finding a place in music has been nothing short of a challenge for Qudus. “Women are often discouraged from pursuing music in the Afghan & Muslim community, and those who follow that path receive a lot of heat,” she explains.
 
Qudus’ earliest creative pursuits began with her solo project Doe Eye, which found quick success with radio play, magazine features and blogosphere buzz after 2014’s T E L E V I S I O N—a lush collection of indie pop and spacey rock produced by John Vanderslice at his legendary San Francisco co-op-turned-studio Tiny Telephone. Working with Vanderslice opened new artistic avenues for Qudus: “Seeing the lit up VU meters on the console and multiple tape machines running really inspired me. I realized the studio is an instrument and if you know how to use it, you can take advantage of that in really cool ways.” She began studying at Bay Area recording arts non-profit Women’s Audio Mission, eventually interning both there and at Tiny Telephone before becoming a staff engineer at both. Studio tricks picked up from clients like Wax Nine’s Sad13, Toro Y Moi, Sasami & Tune-Yards gave new inspiration for her own arrangements. And in between sessions, she was able to toy with electronic ambience and tape experimentations for Spacemoth—her latest solo project.
 
Spacemoth’s debut album, No Past No Future, will be released July 22nd, 2022 on Wax Nine / Carpark Records. Rich in intergalactic, avant-pop, No Past No Future serves as a reckoning point between nostalgia and nihilism; it explores the struggle to hang on to a moment as it warps in time. The bulk of performance and production comes from Qudus herself, who favors vintage synths like the Yamaha CS-50 and Korg Polysix alongside fluttering tape manipulations; creating cosmic, lush soundbeds, drawing comparisons to beloved projects like Broadcast and Stereolab. Every track flows with Qudus’ low timbered vocals, in harmony with the watery, glowing synthesizers that anchor the album. The result is an album radiating in astonishment at the emotional landscape humans contain within ourselves, and in wonder at the preciousness of our time on earth.