Friday night’s show at Café du Nord was a homecoming for local act Papercuts, the four-piece led by guitarist and vocalist, Jason Quever. “I can’t remember the last time we played at home,” remarked Quever. The night also welcomed the release of the band’s new album, You Can Have What You Want, a ten-song medley put out by San Francisco label Gnomonsong.  The set was a forty-five minute trip through the new album peppered with hits from the band’s previous albums Can’t Go Back and Mockingbird. To pigeonhole the group as psychedelic, pop, folk, or alt-country wouldn’t be a fair shake, as the group breaks the rules of each sub-genre.

The show, similar to the tracking on the new album, meandered through major and minor progressions of vintage organ phrases coupled with the dreamy and easy voice of Quever.  The sold out crowd swayed from the start and picked up energy with “Future Primitive,” a solid single off the new album characterized by the bassist’s wet reverb, a distinct snare pop, and Quever’s candy voice.

“John Brown,” a single from Can’t Go Back was another cut the band used to move the crowd, most effectively at the two and a half mark when the song breaks down into a rhythmic interplay of drum and bass while Quever slowly strums his reverb-heavy double cutaway. The song builds back up into the chorus with Quever’s crescendoing wail, “Oooh John Brown where you gone now? Oooooooh, ooooooooh,” moving the crowd like marionettes.

In the past, Quever has collaborated with many local groups including Skygreen Leopards, Vetiver (who’s frontman Andy Cabic co-runs the Gnomonsong label along with Devendra Banhart), and The Finches, who also played during Friday’s du Nord show.  Papercuts will begin an east-of-the-Mississippi US tour with Vetiver beginning May 2nd in Arlington, Virginia.

Back to the Future
The evening was a throwback to 1960’s California rock pop.  Middle act The Finches are an evolving band created in SF around 2003 by Carolynn Pennypacker Riggs and Aaron Victor Morgan, reunited after a year long hiatus. From humble beginnings playing mostly in each other’s bedrooms, the band released a full-length album in 2007 called Human Like a House. That same year the group disbanded when Riggs moved to LA to pursue art and be closer to her “sweetheart.”

A year later, Riggs brought together a couple more people in a quest to have an “all-man choir,” eventually settling with Cameron Jones on drums and Gerry Saucedo (Red Pony Clock) on bass. The Finches released an album Friday night called Dear Milli, comprised of four previously released tracks and one unreleased, which is the title track.  Coincidentally, Papercuts’ Jason Quever plays the piano on a couple tracks.

Cryptacize, a four-piece group out of Oakland released their second album Mythomania last week, a catchy print recorded over the summer of 2008 in a cabin near Yosemite.  Nedelle Torissi, a clean toned vocalist provides solid juxtaposition to the oft-distorted sound of Chris Cohen’s guitar.  Torrisi’s falsetto voice draws comparisons to Satomi Matsuzaki of Deerhoof, a group that Cohen was a former guitarist with and Torissi has toured with, too.  The group is becoming known for its constant tour schedule, playing a show at Bottom of the Hill on May 12 with Battlehooch before hopping the Atlantic for a 21-show European tour through early June. They begin a North American tour with Casiotone soon after returning, a trip lasting through late July.