A kaleidoscopic blend of jazz, rock-psychedelia and neo-soul makes for an off-kilter yet heartfelt debut
RICHMOND, CA (September 19, 2025) – Today, experimental rock quartet, Pateka, releases their self-titled debut album, "Pateka," a nine-track LP that blends jazz, rock-psychedelia and neo-soul experimentation with themes of friendship, grief and the esoteric.
Featuring a unique blend of synthesized sounds, samples, off-kilter grooves, and expansive jazz harmonies, the album represents a culmination of years of collaboration between Elihu Knowles (keys/vocals), Dylan Ransley (guitar), Quinn Girard (bass), Ryan Higley (drums), and Hayden Dekker (saxophone, flute, synthesizer*) lifelong friends who grew up making music, films and skate videos together in the East Bay.
Listening to "Pateka" feels like wandering through a dreamscape of the Bay Area’s avant-garde spirit. Neo-soul warmth and experimental rock collide in tracks that nod to Palm, Sweet Trip, Hiatus Kaiyote, and Standing on the Corner, while remaining wholly its own.
Front Cover art by Pateka
Living and working side by side in Richmond, CA, the band meticulously shaped the LP over months of revisions, balancing technical precision with their authentic, personal experiences. Throughout the album, snippets of real dialogue, layered samples, and shifting rhythms capture the humor, chaos, and intimacy of shared creative life, while also referencing important places and traditions from the band’s shared adolescence.
'Teni' came from when we were all working at this Burmese restaurant together. The song plays with the duality of the fast-paced jazz we'd play in the dining room when it was super busy, juxtaposed with whatever was on the radio in the kitchen. Walking between those two zones on a busy day always feels super disorienting, and we wanted to write something that captured that. Most of the dialogue is real stuff we heard from coworkers and customers.”
- Elihu Knowles
The album also represents a dedication to a close friend the band lost in 2021. "Cafe Chroma" explores the personal journey of grief and acceptance, reflecting on the process of losing someone and how to move forward. "Big Red" is a sentimental interlude and tribute, with the title being his nickname. “Loss,” a jazz standard-style track written shortly after his passing, captures the immediate emotions of that time. The band reworked it into a playful, almost drunken rendition, evoking the feeling of lamenting a lost friend.
Though the album isn’t centered on grief, it’s impossible to ignore the impact of their friend's passing on the band. For Knowles and bassist Quinn Girard, it was the turning point that brought them home after living abroad, and, in many ways, the catalyst for the band’s reformation.
In addition to the album, Pateka is releasing a series of increasingly bizarre music videos, centered around a mysterious chrome theme. The video for “Cafe Chroma” (out now) takes viewers on a surreal journey with a strange character wandering through the world, stealing objects and spray painting them chrome in his lair.
The video for “Night Stairs” dives deeper, following the protagonist as he’s visited by godlike chrome beings and spirals into a hallucinatory nightmare. It’s the kind of mind-bending, otherworldly experience that only Pateka could create.
The "Odwalla" video (coming soon) completes the narrative. The band has yet to reveal all the details, but expect more chrome, more fire, and the continuation of the unsettling desert journey that has come to define the visual world of the album.
Adding another layer of intrigue, the band’s website released as a fully interactive video game where users can explore Pateka's surreal desert world in first-person. The game invites players to uncover hidden Easter eggs in an unsettling, dreamlike landscape, inviting fans further into their immersive world.
Back Cover art by Pateka
Album Credits
Elihu Knowles (keyboards/vocals)
Dylan Ransley (guitar/vocals)
Quinn Girard (bass)
Ryan Higley (drums)
Hayden Dekker (saxophone, flute, synthesizer*)
Dylan Ransley (guitar/vocals)
Quinn Girard (bass)
Ryan Higley (drums)
Hayden Dekker (saxophone, flute, synthesizer*)
All songs written, performed, produced & mixed by Pateka, with contributions from: Jas Stade, Sara Vidal, Adam Pavel, Byron Hogan, Yuri Kye, Cameron Daly, Emmalee Johnson Kao, and Highland Residents.
Recorded & Mastered by Neil Godbole at Airship Laboratories.
*Hayden Dekker was a large contributor to the album, but no longer performs with Pateka regularly
About Pateka
A four-piece experimental rock group from the San Francisco Bay Area, Pateka’s genre-bending songwriting style draws on the close-knit bond of childhood friends Elihu Knowles (keyboards/vocals), Dylan Ransley (guitar), Quinn Girard (bass) and Ryan Higley (drums). The band, which is based in Richmond, CA, creates a unique blend of synthesized sounds, samples, off-kilter grooves, and expansive, jazz-influenced harmonies. Pateka’s sound has been compared to a variety of artists, including Palm, Badbadnotgood, Sweet Trip, Mid Air Thief, Jon Bap, Sun Ra, Pulgas, Os Mutantes and Standing on the Corner.
Prior to forming Pateka, frontman Elihu Knowles released music under the name Aaron Space & his Terrestrial Underlings, including the full-length album, "Fishland," and EP, "Grid," with the respected independent label Moon Glyph in 2020. That project helped shape the eclectic, expansive sound he brings into this new chapter, where improvisation, storytelling and sonic experimentation coexist.
Image by Mei Mei Mccomb