Sad Eyed Beatniks

***San Francisco’s Sad Eyed Beatniks are back with their new album Ten Brocades. With the help of Mike Ramos (Tony Jay, Flowertown) and Karina Gill (Cindy, Flowertown), Kevin Linn creates a new passage into their incredible sound world. The songs on Ten Brocades explore encounters in short moments in time, fading memories, friendships, and relationships; all from personalities whose stories seem to interweave with one another. The title Ten Brocades is the literal translation of a Cantonese chop suey-like dish, subgum, which means “numerous and varied.” The merging of multiple identities and the image of many silken adorned fabrics helped guide which tracks ended up on the album. The songs on Ten Brocades explore encounters in short moments in time, fading memories, friendships, and relationships; all from personalities whose stories seem to interweave with one another. “When I was a kid, I would spend the summers with my father and stepmother at their apartment in a suburb just north of Stockholm. Most mornings, I would wake up to the smell of burning incense, the sounds of recorded shamisen & koto ensembles, and the sounds of my dad tending to his extensive orchid collection. One summer my dad gifted me a number of graphic novels that were translated and heavily adapted versions of classic Chinese novels for young readers; Journey To The West and Outlaws Of The Marsh were my favorites. The vast casts of characters, mythical adventures, and humorous situations that take place in these historical settings allowed me to connect to a culture of mine I always had a hard time accessing. Ten Brocades is like those comic books—but maybe these characters, adventures, and settings are a little more local.”—Kevin Linn aka Sad Eyed Beatniks.