Pitchfork

Photo by Jonathan Snyder

San Francisco's Mi Ami are carrying the same calling card that a lot of bands are liable to wave in 2009: drum-centric punk with Afro-pop leanings, punched up with noise and lo-fi experimentalism for good measure. And that's not a slight, for this band who caught our attention with an excellent remix of Telepathe's "Devil's Trident". Two years after the dissolution of their D.C. punk outfit Black Eyes in 2004, guitarist and vocalist Daniel Martin-McCormick and drummer Damon Palermo started Mi Ami, adding bassist Jacob Long in 2007 to round out the trio. "Echononecho" comes from the A-side their new 12" of the same name, and dares to make sense of their MySpace's awesome-yet-dubious name-checking (Minutemen and Don Cherry both get shout-outs). The track is no doubt jammy, sounding something like Ponytail tripping out on last year's Nigerian Special compilation complete with dubby bass grooves, banshee yowls (yes, that is apparently Martin-McCormick on high-pitched vocals), and squealing guitars rising from a primordial soup of polyrhythms. As for the debut full-length Watersports, consider our interest piqued.

[from the "Echononecho" 12"; out now; also from Watersports; due 02/19/09; both on Quarterstick]