The new single from Kisses – the collaboration between Princeton’s Jess Kivel and his girlfriend Zinzi Edmundson – is even better than the first (which we took a shine to back in March). “People Can Do the Most Amazing Things” (out next week digitally and on 7-inch vinyl on IAMSOUND Records) is a sleek, simmering […]
With too much music for the incredible shrinking record industry to nurture, artists are increasingly turning to fan-funded strategies to help get their work manufactured and marketed.. Add disco-funk quartet Casxio, indie-rockers the Deadly Syndrome [that’s their new Aurelien Levitan-directed video for “Armrest,” above”] and singer-songwriter Bleu to the list of artists trying to finance […]
[Raising a glass to Juliana Hatfield on her birthday …] Five mp3s, with tonight’s corresponding shows: ‣ Polls, “Executive Toys.” The L.A. noise-pop trio celebrates its EP release at the Bootleg Theater. [See last week’s feature for more.] ‣ Jesca Hoop, “Feast of the Heart” (e-mail required). The songstress and former Tom Waits nanny celebrates […]
It’s been two-plus years since I happily stumbled upon Funeral Party at the Echo, and more than a year since I talked to James Torres about how fast the L.A. quintet was growing up. Since then, they’ve been busy – polishing their previously DIY sound, preparing their debut album “Golden Age of Nowhere” (which won’t […]
To say that I am not much of a dance-music guy would be an understatement. But the opening of the Robyn/Kelis “All Hearts” tour on Friday night at the Music Box – which old pal Lina Lecaro tells me was attended by a lot of gay men – was one impressive display of disco dynamite. […]
[Re-posting this because some gremlins seem to have invaded the original – sorry.] Top 3 reasons tonight is like Friday: ‣ Local dance-punks Funeral Party (album coming in early ’11; background here), on tour with Danish rockers New Politics, play the Viper Room. And if New Politics singer David Boyd has half the moves he […]
The 2010 edition of the Also I Like to Rock series at the Hammer Museum ended in typically raucous fashion on Thursday night, with energetic sets from local indie-rockers Voxhaul Broadcast (who soldiered through a broken guitar string and a busted effects pedal) and Chasing Kings (who were accompanied by live painter Norton Wisdom) and […]
Villagers is the nom de musique of Dun Laoghaire poet and songwriter Conor O’Brien. His debut album “Becoming A Jackal” (out now on Domino) is on the shortlist for this year’s Mercury Prize, garnering rave reviews from heavyweight press and topping the charts in his native Ireland. O’Brien stilled a garrulous media audience at the Mercury nomination […]
Adding more feel-good entries to this summer’s retro-pop parade is New Jersey’s Slow Animal, whose theFUNsun 7” was just released on L.A.’s own JAXART label. Full of jangly, surf-style guitars, fuzzed-out vocals and a smattering of vintage-sounding oohs and ahs, Slow Animal’s blissed-out tunes feel right at home with the likes of Surfer Blood and […]
This just in: The music lineup for the 2010 Port of Los Angeles Lobster Festival – Lobsterfest to everybody who got buttery fingers in past years – is its most impressive yet, featuring John Doe & Exene Cervenka anchoring a roster of some of SoCal’s most promising up-and-comers and genre-diverse indie artists. The three-day shindig […]
