San Jose Jazz and Needle to the Groove collaborate for First Friday presenting Valley Wolf. Opening set from Invisible Light Agency and DJ sets from Looming Daisies and Albert Jenkins.

Made up of ex-mariachi charros, the up-and-coming Latinx troupe Valley Wolf surfaced with fuzzy soul and Mexican garage psych with a drizzle of cumbias by way of Modesto, California. Swirling organs, heavy drums and guitar underscore Valley Wolf’s songs. Vocally, Jairo Lomeli’s lyrics address socio-political currents of modern Chicanx culture. Songs like “La Perdida” and “Mordidas” resonate of any Latin mother’s Saturday morning cleaning playlist along with other energetic tracks like “Electric Melon” and the cumbia-esque “Bananana,” which will make your peers wonder if you’re a rocker foo or a cumbiero. In October of 2018, Valley Wolf released their self-titled EP engineered by Eduardo Arenas of Chicano Batman.

ILA (Invisible Light Agency) is James Vernon (San Jose, California) and Eldita Tarani (Pristina, Kosovo). The group started in 2015 when a mutual friend and musician, Millhouse Villanueva introduced the duo who quickly bonded over their love for the band Stereolab. During Eldita’s stay in California, the group formed with Alek Duggan, Dennis Galway of Li Xi, and Tomek Mackowiak. ILA now has a rotating lineup of musicians who collaborate with Vernon and Tarani. Tarani sings in both English and Albanian. Lyrically, ILA is like a lucid dream. Visual textures intertwine with glimpses of personal narrative and stream of conscious-style lyrics enabling the listener to interpret the words to create their own narrative.