Indian Summer was a punk/hardcore band from Oakland, California, constituted of brothers Adam Nanaa (guitar, vocals) and Seth Nanaa (bass, vocals), Eyad Kaileh (drums), and Marc Bianchi (guitar). The quartet was active for only one year, between 1993 and 1994; a brief existence, surely, but long enough for the band to create some of the most original and influential music of its time to come out of the DIY community.

Independent archivalists Numero Group were hip to this, and in 2019 they released Giving Birth To Thunder, an LP version of the band's ten-song discography. The collection introduces listeners anew to the band's impassioned and beautiful slow-burn sound, one cultivated in the early-90s Bay Area DIY scene but also uniquely jazz-oriented. (In fact, Seth went on to play in a free-jazz outfit influenced by John Coltrane's improvisational 1966 record Meditations.)

I was lucky to pick up a copy of the band's self-titled 7", of which only a few hundred copies were pressed, at a show in 1994. The music on that piece of vinyl was unforgettable from the first spin. Not only was it the first time I heard Bessie Smith — whose brokenhearted pleadings, sampled from an old, crackling recording, aptly prefix the record's first and third songs, “Aren't You, Angel?” and “Angry Son” (titled “Woolworm” on Giving Birth To Thunder) — it also forever broadened the scope of what music could express, and changed my perception of what music — specifically, music in the punk/hardcore genre — could sound like.

Attempting to characterize the music he made with Indian Summer for episode 101 of the Washed Up Emo podcast, Seth Nanaa remarked, "We didn't sound like anybody." A quarter-century later, and after countless attempts by lesser indie bands to emulate their formula, Giving Birth To Thunder proves that they still don't.