The Mother Hips w/ The Coffis Brothers

THE MOTHER HIPS 

Hope. Warmth. Companionship. Few things in this world can conjure up such sensations quite like the sight of a glowing lantern in a darkened window.

“The glowing lantern is a universal symbol for sanctuary,” says Mother Hips co-founder Tim Bluhm. “That’s what we wanted this album to be: a warm safe place to get in out of the dark cold night.”

Written and recorded through the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic, Glowing Lantern is indeed a work of great comfort, even as it grapples with the profound anxiety of these troubling and uncertain times. The songs here are weighty, abstract ruminations wrapped in unflagging optimism, bittersweet streams of consciousness delivered with a jaunty confidence in better days to come. Bluhm and fellow co-founder Greg Loiacono produced the album themselves, and the juxtaposition of darkness and light in their stark lyrics and buoyant arrangements reflect a tension familiar to anyone who’s ever struggled to find their footing or make sense of the inexplicable. At the heart of it all, though, is a distinct sense of camaraderie, a feeling of closeness and brotherhood that the band has ironically only come to rediscover as a result of the past year of isolation and lockdowns. Glowing Lantern is as collaborative a record as The Mother Hips have ever made, and it’s impossible not to feel the joy, gratitude, and friendship radiating out of it like a beacon in the night.  

“In some ways, making this record brought us right back to the early days when Tim and I used to live together,” says Loiacono. “It brought us back to the roots of what this band was all about.”

THE COFFIS BROTHERS

With their newest record, Turn My Radio Up, The Coffis Brothers salute the glory days of the FM dial while planting their flag firmly in the present. Produced by Bay Area legend (and longtime Mother Hips frontman) Tim Bluhm, the album makes equal room for heartland rock & roll anthems, front-porch folk songs, and campfire-worthy Americana ballads.

Brothers Jamie and Kellen Coffis were raised in the Santa Cruz Mountains of northern California, an area whose woodsy imagery left a permanent mark on their sound. "It's all-American music," says Kellen, who shares frontman duties with Jamie. "There's rock, blues, acoustic folk, and country in there. As music fans, we go all the way back to the beginning — to pioneers like Buddy Holly and the Everly Brothers — but we also look to artists like the Eagles and Tom Petty for influence. That's our playbook."