Ears Wide Open: Vicky Cryer

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With his band Louis XIV in the deep freeze after three albums and thousands of miles of touring, singer-guitarist Jason Hill needed a change. The San Diegan moved to L.A., bought a house in Laurel Canyon, built a recording studio he calls “Ulysses” and retreated to “a life of staying at home and making records,” he says. As new tunes began to take shape – not unlike Louis XIV’s material, songs about love, sex and their related currency – Hill called upon friends old and new to help out with the project. And Vicky Cryer was born.

||| Stream: “Expensive Love”

“It’s basically me and my buddies making a record,” Hill told Moheak Radio last week. Some buddies: Vicky Cryer includes drummers Dominic Howard (Muse) and Alex Carapetis (Julian Casablancas, among others), Mark Stoermer (the Killers), Nick Fyffe (Jamiroquai) and saxophonist Sam Gendel. The band makes its live debut Friday in L.A. The music is an apoplectic amalgamation of glam, Euro pop and dance-rock, with Hill, sounding like he hasn’t had a date in years, at the fore.

It’ll sound big, Hill promises. “We’ll have two drummers, one left-handed and one right, mirroring each other onstage,” he says. “It’s like thunder. The power is ridiculous.”

||| Also: Stream the rest of the Vicky Cryer EP on Soundcloud.

||| Live: Vicky Cryer plays Friday night at the Satellite.