Sugar & Gold

Sugar & Gold blend disco, early-'80s R&B, electro, synth pop, and funk into dancefloor-ready tracks that suit both club nights and home listening. Childhood friends Nicolas Dobbratz and Philipp Minnig, who had previously played together in Dura-Delinquent and Connexion, launched the project in San Francisco as a more pop-oriented duo. Minnig took the alias PAM while Dobbratz used PAINLESS; the pair started writing and recording in 2005 and issued their debut 12-inch, "Work Out"/"Do It Well," on the Antenna Farm label in late 2006. Additional musicians joined over time, turning the act into a local live favorite that earned SF Magazine’s Best Local Dance Band honor in 2007 and SF Weekly’s Best Party Band award in 2008. The full-length Creme appeared in summer 2007, featuring Fati Beloved (Fatima Fleming) on vocals, Robot (Robin MacMillan) on drums, and Jeromeo (Jerome Steegmans) handling synth bass and production alongside PAM and PAINLESS. The expanded group toured the U.S., U.K., and Europe, with a series of sold-out SXSW performances in 2009 raising their visibility. They headed back into the studio to cut the AYA EP, issued in October 2009, then completed a six-week U.S. run that included stops at the Monolith Festival and CMJ before beginning work on a follow-up album. Antenna Farm released that album, Get Wet!, in April 2010, marking the band’s most polished effort to date.