Get to know the Southern California soul artists on the new Penrose Records

Riverside’s Gabriel Roth — who is perhaps better known to the musical world as Bosco Mann — has been hard at work bringing exposure to a blossoming Southern California “souldies” scene through his new label imprint Penrose Records.

Here’s a look at the area’s artists on the label who will be releasing 45 RPM singles, most of which will be released in June.

Thee Sacred Souls: The San Diego-based band, composed of members Alex Garcia, Sal Samano and Josh Lane, came to Penrose after a follower of theirs on Instagram sent their demos to Roth, who then saw the band perform live.

“He comes up to our show and after our set he’s like, ‘do you guys want to make a record together?,’” Garcia said. “And we were like, ‘hell yeah.’”

They ended up recording two tracks: “Can I Call You Rose” and “Weak For Your Love.”

“Can I Call You Rose” is a more upbeat tune with some classic soul elements while “Weak For Your Love” has a more haunting sound, but both show off Lane’s vocal abilities.

Thee Sinseers: The East Los Angeles group, led by singer-songwriter Joey Quinones, went viral for a video where they perform their song “Seems Like” at the Recordium in Los Angeles. The video got has gotten 1.4 million views on YouTube to date. Thee Sinseers helped out as the Penrose studio in Riverside was being built, helping with knocking down walls, construction and taking out trash.

“It was a big learning process of learning how and where to put things for a studio, which is something that I had always been interested in and was reaching for myself,” Quinones said.

When they started recording it was as a backing band to do vocals for a James Hunter record, but later they got to record their own 45 and they chose the song that had made them go viral in the first place — “Seems Like.”  They cut a version with lyrics and a strictly instrumental version.

The Altons: Bryan Ponce and Adriana Flores are both part of Thee Sinseers with Joey Quinones but another East Los Angeles band they are part of is The Altons, which they founded with drummer Caitlin Moss and bassist Gabriel Maldonado.

“It was interesting to see his methods to recording and how he handled recording songs,” Ponce said of Roth. “Usually when we’ve gone to record we’ve always had some sort of time limit or sense of urgency, but with him, he likes to take his time and we work the song out until we feel it’s ready. And then we start to record.”

Ponce supplied his vocals to two songs — on the A-side is a song that channels The Miracles, “When You Go That’s When You’ll know,” and gets to show off his vocal skills even more on the b-side track, “Over and Over.”

Jason Joshua: Joshua hails from Miami, but plans on moving to Southern California soon and his soul sound incorporates some Latin elements. He said some of his musical influences include Willie Colón, Billy Stewart, James Brown and Sonny Ozuna. Joshua met Roth while playing guitar for Adam Scone — a member of the Sugarman 3 and a longtime friend of Roth’s — as Scone went on tour. Joshua didn’t tell Roth he could also sing in addition to being able to play guitar, but Roth soon figured that out.

“It wasn’t until like two months later that he found that the local DJs around town were playing my record,” Joshua said. “And he called me up and was like ‘Dude, how come you didn’t tell me you could sing?””

The two songs that he recorded are “Language of Love,” an uptempo Latin soul song, and “La Vida Es Fría,” a more somber, bilingual tune set over the sounds of violin.

Los Yesterdays: Altadena-based songwriting duo and longtime-friends Gabe Rowland and Victor Benavides had only recently started making music as Los Yesterdays and recorded “Mr. Yesterday” when a mutual friend shared the song with Tommy Brenneck, a former member of the Dap-Kings, who then passed it along to Roth.

Benavides said that one of the things that he enjoyed about the experience is how receptive Roth and Brenneck were to their ideas.

“They listen to us,” Benavides said. “Two great songwriter/producers and they listen to us and say, ‘You know what, that’s a good idea.’”

All four musicians then got together and Brenneck and Roth offered to be the backing band for Los Yesterdays.

However, “Mr. Yesterday” didn’t make it to a 45. Instead the band did “Tell Me I’m Dreaming,” a souldie track with pop elements, and “Time,” a soul song that’s got psychedelic elements to it.

Vicky Tafoya and the Big Beat: Tafoya and bandmate Matt Beld first met Roth while they were DJing at area record swap meet the Inland Empire Record Collective and they bonded over their shared love of older records, but that’s not how they ended up recording for Roth. They met Roth again after a mutual friend told them Roth needed background singers for records at Penrose. Roth instantly recognized them.

“We came around the corner, and saw Gabe and he was just instantly like, ‘Ah, I know these guys!’,” Beld said.

The Riverside band recorded two songs that will be on 45 that will come out as part of a subsequent release. The two tracks are “Forever,” a song with ’50s edge and a slower, ballad-like doo wop sound and “My Vow To You,” a wedding song that incorporates vows in the lyrics and church bells.

Information: https://daptone.ffm.to/penrose