Sholi

Sholi is a San Francisco Bay Area alternative/experimental group consisting of songwriter/guitarist Payam Bavafa, drummer Jonathon Bafus, and bassist Eric Ruud. Sholi have finished recording their debut LP with Greg Saunier of Deerhoof producing. It will be released in early 2009. They have released a 3-song demo EP, a 7" split with the Dead Science on KDVS Recordings, a 7" of lovingly-crafted covers (Googoosh, Joanna Newsom) on Holocene Music, and most recently, a tour-EP entitled "Dreams Before People". They have shared the stage with: Iron and Wine, Dirty Projectors, USAISAMONSTER, Fleet Foxes, Marnie Stern, The Dead Science, Blitzen Trapper, El Olio Wolof, The Castanets, The Gris Gris, Imaad Wasif (alaska!, YYY's), Erase Errata, Experimental Dental School, Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, Carla Bozulich, Xiu Xiu, and The Advantage. "Attention-getting musicianship, with a drummer that knows when to hold back and when to unleash a busy, all-encompassing percussive racket, a strong and versatile singer in guitarist Payam Bavafa, and overall, the taste to discern what to do and when...indie rock truisms, a la the Walkmen, and a traditional side to handle the ethnic material like Morricone might have, with a lot of instrumental flash and a noble, heads-up presence." -DUSTED "All That We Can See", the debut release from the promising Bay Area quartet Sholi, kicks off with moody, arpeggiated chords rippling downward while frenetic drums kick and sputter like the floor's giving way. It then pieces itself back together, only to slip apart once more. Tumult, peace, tumult, peace; ... A bit like the Microphones at their existential best, it's a six-minute journey that rattles the spirit and the psyche." -PITCHFORK "sweet melodies over a chaotic and often dissonant maelstrom of guitars and cacophonous, jazz-inspired drumming...At a time when many percussion-heavy bands are coming out of the Bay Area, it is good to see one that shares that focus with strong, emotive melodies."-PERFORMER "Qawwali-influenced melisma... and it's damn impressive"-PORTLAND MERCURY "Blonde Redhead met the Dirty Three, had a fight, then had a baby with King Crimson contributing ancillary sperm. The bundle of noise was named Sholi and was greeted with oohs and aahs from psych-heads, prog-maniacs, and cut-the-BS rock and rollers, all frozen in unison to take in the babe's darkly romantic and roomy wails... What meets your ear should be mathematically ethereal and strangely danceable - the group hides its pop-imp self under a trench coat festooned with knives and chain saws, like that of the woman in the Far Side who told her date she was going to slip into something more comfortable." -SAN FRANCISCO BAY GUARDIAN "For those of you unfamiliar with Sholi, you will know them soon. They are immensely talented musicians who consistently and visibly wow onlookers at their shows... Fueled by their lead drummer Jonathon Bafus�s free jazz inclinations, which inspire me to revisit Ed Blackwell fills in 1959 Ornette Coleman-era recordings, and at moments coming around to heavy hitting minor-chord-fueled choruses that epitomize the so-called �indie� aesthetic, Sholi is doing something really quite refreshing. While Sonic Youth�s Thurston Moore has often been heralded for cross-breeding Indie Rock with Free Jazz, his experiments were more of the No-Wave variety and were not as heavily undertaken in the context of his own group...On the other hand, Sholi is incorporating many of the inflections of jazz and good ol� indie rock, simultaneously" -THE BAY BRIDGED