In the 10th installment of their Lucky Cloud concert series, Tiny Telephone Oakland welcomes Lomelda, Madeline Kenney, and Judith Horn this Friday, May 24. Dead-set on making analog recording affordable or at least achievable for smaller acts, Tiny Telephone is well-known in the Bay as a mainstay of the indie scene. It’s an intimate venue, and the three performing acts are all the type to benefit from that kind of environment.

Judith Horn is a local act, hailing from Oakland and playing minimalist singer-songwriter type indie rock. Her lyrics take center stage in her music, floating over the top of a slightly fuzzed-out guitar and dancing in unpredictable melodies. Breaking from the traditional mold of a singer songwriter, there’s little pretense to her persona outside of her music — her album cover for her latest release 12 Shorties is a low-res iPhone photo of Horn wearing the 1980s equivalent of clout goggles, and her bandcamp tags include “angsty” and “sad white girl.”

Next to Horn’s rougher, distorted tracks, Madeline Kenney’s tunes are slick and refined in keeping with modern art-pop like Lorde or Lana Del Rey. Kenney, however, comes through with more experimental production choices. In her track “Helpless,” a singing saw-like synth plays a discordant melody that subverts the expectations created by the first half of the song, throwing Kenney’s layered, dreamy vocals in sharp contrast with the more aggressive and frenetic synthesizer.

Lomelda has toured the Bay several times, supporting acts like Pinegrove and Phoebe Bridgers. Her voice is quiet but not subdued on her records, wandering through chords in strange yet perfectly precise melodies. Lyrically, she does not stay long in the realm of the concrete, preferring metaphor and short vignettes. She captures moments without spoiling them through over-explanation, evoking memories of empty California highways and road trips with no destinations.

In their Facebook post, Tiny Telephone includes some house rules. Should you attend please remember: “No racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, hateful language or unwanted physical behavior of any kind.”

Lomelda, Madeline Kenney, Judith horn
Tiny Telephone
May 24, 2019
Doors: 8pm, $10-15 NOTAFLOF