Booker Stardrum and Evan Shornstein, who also records as Photay, have shared HUH, the latest single from OOPS!, their first full-length album as a duo. The track arrives with a video shot by multi-instrumentalist Spencer Zahn and cleverly edited and colour-graded by Audrey Melton. OOPS! is out this Friday, June 5th, on Sudden Quarterly, recently launched by Zahn.
Stardrum is the groove drummer in LA quintet SML, and has earned a reputation across the experimental jazz scene for a melodic touch that treats the kit as a tuned instrument rather than a timekeeper. Shornstein, who also records as Photay, has spent the past decade working both sides of the electronic divide, as fluent on synthesizers as he is behind a drum kit. Put the two in a room and you get something built from beats, electronics and melody in equal measure.
The pair have played and recorded together for several years, splitting their time between Los Angeles and the Hudson Valley. After a largely improvised LA show in the summer of 2025, Zahn invited them to make an album for Sudden Quarterly. They cut the record in November.
HUH was the last piece to fall into place. As Stardrum tells it:
“‘HUH’ was the last song to come together on the final evening of a marathon, three-day recording session in which Evan, Spencer, and I recorded the entire album. Perhaps it was due to exhaustion, or the cooler Los Angeles evening, but the song unfurled organically and with a relaxed energy. The title says it all here… we are musicians that would prefer to ask the question rather than give the answer.”
That spirit runs through the album. The title track, watch the video below, opens with bubbling synth sequences and a deep drum groove, framed by piano and electronics — Shornstein sketching bright synth spaces while Stardrum supplies the acoustic muscle on kit and percussion.
Pre-Order OOPS! – https://suddenquarterly.bandcamp.com/album/oops