“Sheepskin City was always a perplexing oddball place on a busy corner in San Francisco’s Mission district. They hung the same weathered ragged sheepskins out front daily. Was it a front for something else? Something about it just made you smile when you drove by it. If Sheepskin City is still there, things are alright. And then one day after decades of being there, it’s gone! Things are still alright, but they’re different.” — Phil Becker
Don’t you love when lovers of sound… make their own sounds? With their band name taken from one of NPR’s most important hosts and a Bandcamp profile picture riffing on album art by The Police, you get the idea that these guys don’t take themselves that seriously.
Huge Improvement is the second full-length album by Terry Gross, made up of guitarist Phil Manley (Trans Am), bassist Donny Newenhouse, and drummer Phil Becker. Owners and engineers at El Studio in SF, the three started a band after enjoying their times improvising in the studio back in 2021. Like the first album, Huge Improvement favors long, meandering space rock jams, smoothly careening from episodes of high-energy, fast-driving prog rock (“Sales Pitch”) into slow, plodding swamps of noise and distortion (“Full Disclosure”). It’s a feast for the ears, and a fun one too.
As Becker notes above, the album art and opening track are inspired by a Mission district business that raises interesting philosophical questions about life in the city and impermanence—themes that undergird the four songs here. They may not take themselves too seriously, but they’re serious about cranking out sounds worth blasting. Out now on Thrill Jockey Records.
See Terry Gross alongside Mammatus and Wife on Friday, November 15 at Bottom of the Hill.
