Photo by Ed Ng

San Francisco’s Animal Friend are definitely not the most skilled self-promoters I’ve encountered. They’ve been around for three years, but at the time of this writing, their Facebook page only has 14 likes (and one of those is me), the light grey text on the all-white background of their Bandcamp page is nearly impossible to read, and a true bio or list of band members is nowhere to be found on the web. It took about three months for Jasper of Animal Friend to reply to an email, and he gave me the following cryptic bio:

It has been three years and we have played some fun shows around town. We like wizards and crystals and profanity. There are four of us. We make bhangra for cuttlefish. We make most of our music at night. We are made mostly of recycled plant material and water. The human members of the band are Jasper Speicher, Jacob Van Putten, Kazuko Kimura, and Jake Frautschi. We are friends and believe in love.

ps. we are looking for a van.

That still may not give you a good sense of where these guys come from, but when you make kick ass music as funky and lively as Animal Friend does, none of that stuff matters. They recently released a single “Sunset” that will make it hard for you to sit still, with a driving beat topped with falsettos and synths all over the place. Their earlier release, an EP entitled Feelers Out, follows a similar formula that works perfectly. You can listen to “Sunset” below.

Animal Friend will be playing live this month on some vastly different bills. They will perform at the Boom Boom Room October 12th along with Jesús and the Rabbis and the JRo Project and at SUB-Mission on October 25th opening for SF band Swells. I’m sure both shows will be fun and just a bit strange in all the right ways.

Animal Friend’s members are also involved in other Bay Area musical projects, including New Spell, Animistic, For Love, and Water. The band plans to release their next EP in January 2013.

Jesús and the Rabbis (album release), Animal Friend, the JRO Project
Boom Boom Room
October 12, 2012
9:00pm, $8-$10

Swells, Animal Friend, NO NO!
SUB-Mission
October 25, 2012
8:00pm, TBA