Erase Errata

• Bianca Sparta - drums
• Ellie Erickson - bass
• Sara Jaffe - guitar (left 2004)
• Jenny Hoyston - vocals, keyboard, trumpet

When you think of music being "catchy," you usually think of melodic stuff like choruses and hooks, but this talented all-female San Francisco quartet changes things around you by more or less dispensing with melody and drawing you in with some seriously kick-ass rhythms.

Taking a page from seminal British post-punk outfits like The Fall and The Au Pairs and their American no wave counterparts DNA and The Contortions, Erase Errata sets off spastic, clattering rhythmic explosions with stridently barked vocals, wonderfully thin razor-edged guitar, a nervous low-end, rattling machine-gun percussion, and occasional keyboard flourishes and trumpet blasts. Sudden time changes and not-quite-linear song structures help make this abrasive din all the more intriguing.

All the twitchy rhythmic force is not without lyrical teeth, as vocalist Jenny Hoysten offers declamatory commentary on the relationship between the personal and political from a decidedly feminist, anti-capitalist perspective.

That said, the music comes first with this band, and the pleasure Erase Errata takes in creating these strange skeletal sounds is a big part of what makes those sounds so fun to listen to.