Longtime Mill Valley-based indie record label Bright Antenna, founded by novelist and filmmaker Tiffanie DeBartolo in 2007, has been curating and spotlighting fantastic bands in the Bay Area and well beyond the region.
DeBartolo is set to collaborate with another Mill Valley music dynamo with a showcase of two Bright Antenna bands – Windser and Akira Galaxy – at the Sweetwater Music Hall on Dec. 11th.
As the early-morning sun melts its way through the verdant forests and out over the cresting waves of the Pacific, the rest of the world fades away. Jordan Topf aka Windser grew up in that golden landscape, and that home of Santa Cruz has always lingered in the back of his mind even as he traveled the world with a variety of bands and writing and producing for other artists. So when he decided to utilize the isolation of the pandemic by moving into a house in Northern California to write solo material, the subject matter came rushing back to him.
“I wasn’t inspired to write about where the world was currently at, so I went back in time,” he says. “I hadn’t ever written about the place where I grew up, the early memories that shaped who I am today, and I realized there was so much I’d left unsaid, so much nostalgia, so many stories I’d never shared until now.” After crafting the songs that would become his debut release, Topf decided to name the project Windser, in honor of the street he grew up on. Delving deeper into memory, he named the EP after the way his dad described Santa Cruz: ‘Where the Redwoods Meet the Sea.’
Akira Galaxy was born Akira Galaxy Ament. She’s a 23-year-old singer who cut her teeth as a musician while fronting high school bands in Seattle, having been steeped in eclectic music by her family since she was a toddler.