Stream: Waxahatchee, ‘Fire’
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Katie Crutchfield has announced that the new Waxhatchee album “Saint Cloud” will arrive in March. The lead single “Fire” is one of the newly sober artist’s moments of self-reckoning.
Stream: Mikal Cronin, ‘Shelter’
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Mikal Cronin’s new album “Seeker” arrives Oct. 25 via Merge Records. Opening track “Shelter” suggests Cronin has done a excellent job seeking — it’s not quite like anything he’s done previously.
Apex Manor: Ross Flournoy, on pimento cheese, CNN and his first album in 8 years, ‘Heartbreak City’
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Singer-songwriter Ross Flournoy’s first Apex Manor album in eight years, “Heartbreak City,” is out May 31. In the Buzz Bands LA interview, he talks about getting scared sober, the merits of pimento cheese, his favorite CNN show and cutting loose with producer Rob Barbato.
Video: Ibibio Sound Machine, ‘Give Me a Reason’
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Afro-pop meets the ’80s in the music of Ibibio Sound Machine, who make their L.A. debut next week at the Skirball Center.
Stream: Coco Hames, ‘I Do Love You’
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After five albums fronting the Ettes, Coco Hames steps out with her solo debut, a self-titled affair coming March 31 on Merge Records.
Video: William Tyler, ‘Highway Anxiety’
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This country is vast and complicated. Follow composer William Tyler as he joins those who’ve all come to look for America.
Ears Wide Open: Vertical Scratchers
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[Part 1 of 2] John Schmersal played in two beloved indie bands, Brainiac in the 1990s and Enon, which he co-founded in ’99 and helmed through 2011. Now based in L.A., he’s been busy. Besides indulging his experiemental pop side as part of the trio Crooks on Tape [see Part 2], Schmersal has teamed up […]
Download: Archers of Loaf, ‘What Did you Expect’
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Despite their critical plaudits, I never figured Archers of Loaf to be anything more than ’90s middleweights whose intentionally skewered guitars (er, “cognitive dissonance”) and lyrical abstractions (wink, wink) were at best a welcome relief from the mainstream. Then rap-rock happened, and the Aughts came, and then indie rock turned to soul-sucking genre fashion statements, […]
SXSW: 25 L.A. bands to see in Austin (Nos. 1-5)
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The South by Southwest Music Festival, our favorite annual music orgy, kicks off Wednesday in Austin, and Los Angeles will be well-repped. Besides a lot of the familiar names – Queens of the Stone Age, She Wants Revenge, Cold War Kids, the Airborne Toxic Event, Ariel Pink, Fitz & the Tantrums and, yes, even the […]
Video: Apex Manor, ‘My My Mind’
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As evidenced on “The Year of Magical Drinking,” the new album by Apex Manor released today on Merge, songwriter Ross Flournoy doesn’t turn pop music into brain surgery. It can be hard on the heart, though, and Flournoy’s first post-Broken West outing effectively tugs those strings with effortless melodies and a plain-spoken sincerity that’ll settle […]
