Santa Cruz space-rock favorites play Bay Area shows

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) — Founded going on two decades ago in the Santa Cruz Mountains, heavy psych band Mammatus has evolved dramatically from its riff-rocking, robe-sporting early days playing house parties and dive bars.

The group’s founders — Emmert brothers Nicky (guitar) and Aaron (drums) — had played together in earlier projects before teaming with bassist Chris Freels and second guitarist Mike Donofrio. It was the influence of Freels that led Mammatus to start adding elements of Bay Area experimental punk and doom acts like Neurosis and Sleep to their already lumbering Sabbath/Zeppelin riffage.

Quickly embraced as part of an established Santa Cruz neo-psych scene that included such notables as Six Organs of Admittance, Comets on Fire and Residual Echoes, Mammatus recorded a demo that soon had the band signed to deals with San Francisco-based Holy Mountain Records and British imprint the Rocket Record Company.

The band’s eponymous debut and follow-up effort The Coast Explodes both showed off a sludgy, bludgeoning approach to epic psychedelia that was augmented live by the band’s wizard costumes, incense burning and an auxiliary staff-wielding member/mascot. The band toured the states with like-minded groups such as the aforementioned Residual Echoes and Japan’s exploratory psych legends Acid Mothers Temple. But before long, Mammatus would go on an extended hiatus as band members settled into having jobs and families.

Finally returning as a trio with the departure of Donofrio, in 2013 Mammatus released Heady Mental through the Spiritual Pajamas label. The experimental album introduced new aspects to their sound, building songs around Emmert’s extended finger-tapped arpeggios (think Eddie Van Halen guitar pyrotechnics meets minimalist composers Terry Riley and Phillip Glass) and adding Tangerine Dream style drone to the mix.

The band’s new ambient/prog approach was hailed by critics and the band would be invited to perform at festivals like 2015’s stoner/doom celebration Psycho California. Mammatus would issue its most recent effort, Sparkling Waters, that year. Recorded with noted guitarist/producer Phil Manley (Golden,  Trans Am, Life Coach, Terry Gross), the album continues the group’s exploration of shimmering drones and extended progressive psych on its four 15-20 minute plus tracks, this time echoing Brian Eno’s ambient work while still delivering plenty of head-nodding rock grooves.

While the group went through another period of inactivity, there has been some activity between live shows and new music. In 2018, guitarist Emmert released Eminent Blade, a collection of languid solo guitar recordings that mirrors the ambient approach of the band’s latter era. More recently, Mammatus has been releasing archival demos and unreleased material from throughout its career in addition to playing some Bay Area shows with rootsy psych band Howlin Rain and fellow travelers of the sonic spaceways Terry Gross, who will also be playing these two shows at Urbani Bocci’s Cellar in Santa Cruz on Friday night and the Bottom of the Hill in SF Saturday. 

Contrary to what one might expect from a band named after the unflappably calm NPR interviewer, the threesome bashes out a bruising, kinetic style of krautrock-influenced groove displayed on their debut recording Shameless Imposter, a two-song 10″ vinyl EP released on Valley King Records in 2018.

Featuring the six-string heroics of Manley, Terry Gross came together three years earlier when he started playing with his El Studio co-owner, bassist Donny Newenhouse (Film School, Hot Fog, Buffalo Tooth). The split of Newenhouse’s band Peace Creep with talented drummer Phil Becker (Pins of Light, ex-Triclops! and Lower Forty-Eight) and Triclops!/Anywhere guitarist Christian Eric Beaulieu led to some informal jam sessions with Manley and the rhythm section at the studio, sparking the new project.

Digitally recording their freewheeling improvisations at El Studio, the trio began developing its unique chemistry that found the musicians exploring hypnotic extended grooves that at times recalled the droning motorik workouts of German rock experimentalists Can and Neu, but with the added heft of modern rock titans like the Melvins.

Terry Gross started playing live shows on both sides of the Bay, sharing stages with the likes of Big Business, reunited Oakland favorites Drunk Horse and Hot Lunch and establishing a reputation for dealing out their unusual style heady, muscular extended tunes.

The band released a number of tunes via its Bandcamp page during the pandemic, drawing from rehearsal recordings and finding a number of extended pieces to offer fans in order to tide them over until their next official effort. Manley’s connection with indie label Thrill Jockey — which had released albums by Trans Am and Life Coach — led the trio to a record deal. Using their studio as an editing tool much in the same way Can would piece together its songs by drawing from raw recorded material, Terry Gross distilled its best sonic exploration into the three sprawling tunes heard on it first full-length album for Thrill Jockey, Soft Opening, last year. 

Opening power trio Carlton Melton has been putting out its guitar-heavy soundscapes since the band’s first self-released live debut in 2008. Made up of guitarist/synth player Rich Millman, drummer/guitarist Andy Duvall (both former members of late, lamented SF blues-punk greats Zen Guerilla) and bassist/drummer Clint Golden, the instrumental threesome has put out a steady stream of albums, split efforts with similarly psychedelic acts and EPs with a variety of labels, mostly Welsh imprint Agitated Records. However, Carlton Melton’s latest recording Microwavelengths came out through SF-based indie Broken Clover Records just this last February. The band kicks off these shows with a set of freewheeling improvisational jams. Phoenix-based Was Ist Das? Soundsystem plays music before and between bands.

Mammatus with Terry Gross and Carlton Melton

Friday, Oct. 14, 8 p.m. $8
Urbani Bocci’s Cellar  

Saturday, Oct. 15, 8:30 p.m. $15
The Bottom of the Hill