I absolutely adore Sonny Smith. Sonny and the Sunsets was one of the first bands I started listening to and followed when I moved to San Francisco back in 2010. My first exposure to Sonny was his track from an incredible compilation titled In a Cloud, which featured other San Francisco bands as well. It was the perfect introduction to music from the City during that time period when so much cool stuff was going on during that time. I soon learned about the 100 records project a little later and loved the concept where Sonny invited 100 artists to create album covers for 100 fictional bands as a gallery show not only displaying the album covers but features 100 songs written and recorded by Sonny. I have Volume 2 and 3 on vinyl and they’re some of my favorite records.
But onto Anthology of Unknown Music Volume 1. This project is very similar to 100 records where made up musicians created by Sonny, each with their own persona and musical style which were then sent to participating artists to create an album cover based off the music recorded. It’s projects like these which make me love Sonny Smith even more.
The vinyl for the project was released January 22nd, along with an accompanying zine which goes into the backgrounds of the made up artists. Both can be found here from Sonny’s label, Rocks In Your Head
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