Young Prisms

Young Prisms formed at tiny Mills College before moving to San Francisco in the late 2000s. The five-piece group plays a fiercely loud and sneakily melodic brand of retro-shoegaze that also shows traces of noise pop scrappiness and neo-psych dreaminess. Early on, the band’s lineup consisted of Jason Hendardy on guitar and vocals, Jordan Silbert on drums, Matt Allen on guitar and vocals, Stefanie Hodapp on vocals, and Giovanni Betteo on bass and vocals. After garnering some notice around town for their live set, bloggers and small labels began noticing them, too. Their first records were a split cassette with Worldwide Computer God and a CD EP on Weedza Records. Soon after, in late 2009, white-hot label Mexican Summer put out a self-titled 12” single by the band. This led to a batch of split 7" singles in 2010 with Small Black (on Big Love Records from Japan), Weekend (on Transparent from the U.K.), and Mathemagic (on Atelier Ciseaux from France). In 2010 Young Prisms made a deal with U.S. label Kanine to release their first full-length album. Friends for Now came out in January of 2011. Sometime after the album's release, the band parted ways with Hendardy and added Ashley Thomas on guitar and vocals. The group's second album, In Between, was produced by Monte Vallier (who worked with fellow noise poppers Weekend) and released by Kanine in March of 2012.