Zoh Amba X Moondaddy | The Silo Room | Trip 12

Zoh Amba is a songwriter, composer and multi-instrumentalist from Tennessee residing in New York. She began her musical journey steeped in the musical traditions of the South and has taken it from coast to coast and is mainly known as a saxophonist who blends avant-garde, noise, and devotional hymns, though has not shied from incorporating folk melodies into that world. Over the past several years Amba has also been focusing on writing songs on guitar with lyrics that come from the heart and her love of nature and experiences. She has been performing her folk songs primarily in NYC both solo and with her band consisting of Adam Brisben (Buck Meek) also on guitar and Jeremy Gustin (Joan is Police Woman) on drums but also performs solo. Throughout the years Zoh has collaborated with a variety of high profile musicians such Glen Hansard, Tyshawn Sorey, Bill Orcutt, Brian Chase (Yeah Yeah Yeahs), Jim White (Dirty Three), etc. Amba has performed at well respected venues and festivals all over the world and has taught workshops and masterclasses at institutions such as New School (NY), Oberlin (OH), and various European festivals.

San Diego’s moondaddy is on a mission to find light amid the dark. The analog-obsessed dreampop project helmed by singer, songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Cara Potiker meets the haze of existence with a kaleidoscopic sound that provides peace even (especially) when all else feels like chaos. Deploying glistening guitar, gauzy synths, dulcet vocals, and poetic observations, moondaddy leans into the fuzziness between people, things, and sounds — even literally, as they eschew digitalia in favor of perfectly imperfect sonics. For 2024’s Lightwave Lightwave EP and the upcoming Dove Tapes LP, the band recorded live to tape with producer/engineer Manuel Calderon (Beach House, Animal Collective) at Sonic Ranch in Tornillo, Texas. The music was then mastered directly to lacquer by Paul Gold (Grizzly Bear, Songs: Ohia) at Salt Mastering.

That mix of attention to detail and organic connectivity is viscerally felt on Dove Tapes single “Bystander,” which sonically nods to Lush and likeminded ’90s acts while carrying the listener through musical moments of earthly ache and heavenly bliss. Through impressionistic verse, Cara illustrates a particular sort of love-derived pain: “Darling are you coming to me soon? / I wait like a dove on a live wire / Letting electricity form plumes that fall on the bystander.”

Born in the eerie quiet of the pandemic, moondaddy embraces the maxim that the only certainty in life is uncertainty — a welcome sentiment, it seems. Cara’s 2023 debut LP, Poet Lies, (Volar Records, with sold-out vinyl variants on Wax Mage), swirled shoegaze, dreampop, and trip-hop to entrancing effect and lifted the band to bigger stages. They’ve since headlined tastemaking SD venues like The Casbah, gone on a sold-out tour with DeVotchKa, and opened for acclaimed peers like Beabadoobee, Peel Dream Magazine, and King Hannah. Capturing their transcendent live energy, Lightwave Lightwave laid foundation for moondaddy’s most immersive and expressive work yet: Dove Tapes, coming out later this year.

The Silo Room, experimental music space, located at Bread & Salt in Logan Heights. Enter in Alley.

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