You should be excited about new albums from Tame Impala, Frank Ocean, Grimes, Lorde, AJJ, Yves Tumor, The 1975, The Cure, Tierra Whack and IDLES in 2020, writes Kyle J. Kohner. Now that another phenomenal year and decade in music has passed, it’s time to look forward at what…

Tame Impala performs at Treasure Island Music Festival at Middle Harbor Shoreline Park in Oakland on Oct. 14, 2018. Photos: Chloe Catajan OAKLAND — Everything was a haze. Tame Impala closed out 2018’s Treasure Island Music Festival in what felt like a dream state. A hypnotic swirl on the “The…

Photo: Diana Cordero A day after announcing the return of the Treasure Island Music Festival, its producers revealed the lineup for the 11th incarnation of the festival. Tame Impala and A$AP Rocky will headline the two-day event, which will be held Oct. 13 and 14 in a new location: Middle…

Not only is Jay Watson an accomplished musician, but he’s also the type of person to become distracted by a daddy long-legs mid-conversation and embark on a rescue mission, scooping it up with an empty tissue box and freeing it outside. That’s what Watson was up to early in…

Every week there’s a plethora of new music at our fingertips. Artists on platforms like Spotify and Bandcamp are plentiful, and the radio offers a steady deluge of new singles, but who has time to sort through all that? RIFF does! We’ve pooled our resources to find some of…

Pond has always been the spacier, looser offshoot to Australia’s tight, psych-band juggernaut, Tame Impala. Its last six albums imbibed a goofy spirit as the band members shape-shifted through rock, minimalism and garage pop; all within the limitless expanse of psychedelia. Pond’s upcoming seventh album, The Weather, bucks that trend. It is…

Photo: Zachery Michael He’s a bassist in Tame Impala and drummer in its fuzzier, psych offshoot Pond, so some may be surprised to learn that Cameron Avery is an old-fashioned crooner with a great voice. Avery’s mom listened to Dean Martin, Aretha Franklin, Johnny Hartman and a lot of Elvis Presley. Cameron Avery,…

Photos: Diana Cordero BERKELEY — This is what Tame Impala looks like at the height of its powers: Glorious, swirling psychedelia via video screen, round, thudding bass mooring the beat and Kevin Parker singing in glorious falsetto underneath a blizzard of confetti. Tame Impala’s themes are often about self-doubt,…

Make sure to check out ALL of my previous coverage of the Flaming Lips, which includes interviews, videos and photos. Access them all through THIS link.