Kelley Stoltz

Born in New York in 1971, raised in Birmingham, Michigan, and settled in San Francisco in the late 1990s, Kelley Stoltz has developed since his beginnings a pop songwriting style he most often records alone. His work intersects psychedelia, garage rock, power pop and touches of folk rock. Stoltz emerged with The Past Was Faster in 1999 and Antique Glow in 2001 — the latter initially self-released — before continuing a path associated with labels such as Sub Pop, Third Man Records, Castle Face and Agitated. His approach remains marked by home recording and precise arrangements, with melodic songs often characterized by lo-fi textures, bright guitars and a fondness for pop forms of the 1960s and 1980s. Over the years he has released Below the Branches (2006), Circular Sounds (2008), To Dreamers (2010), Double Exposure (2013), In Triangle Time (2015), Que Aura (2017), Natural Causes (2018), My Regime (2019), The Stylist (2022) and La Fleur (2024). He also recorded Crockodials in 2006, a complete rendition of Echo & the Bunnymen’s Crocodiles; he later toured as their rhythm guitarist while collaborating with the San Francisco Bay Area indie scene and with Robyn Hitchcock.