Stream: WARGIRL, ‘Arbolita’ EP

Kevin Bronson on January 10th, 2018

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It’s ironic, or at least telling, that one of Southern California’s most dynamic, relevant bands would need to look across the Atlantic Ocean to find a label home for their music. But that’s what happened in December, when WARGIRL’s debut EP, “Arbolita,” was released by Sweden’s Lab 259.

The release represents another powerful statement from the Long Beach-based sextet, who have been making them, albeit sporadically, since they emerged in 2016 with “People.” WARGIRL’s sound is organic and their beats danceable; it’s garage rock-meets-world music, the kind of stuff that soundtracks cultural revolutions. The band got its start when veteran musician and visual artist Matt Wignall met singer-artist Marika Dahlin while doing work on a charitable project for Water Wells for Africa. Tamara Raye came on to play bass, Enya Preston took over organ and keys, and the three-piece rhythm section of Ecuadorian Erick Nieto and Charis Ashcraft on percussion and Jeff Suri on drums joined up to give the music its tribal flavor.

The sextet works out of Wignall’s Tackyland studio in Long Beach, which is where those raw, early Cold War Kids songs were put to tape. Behind Dahlin’s powerful vocals, every snap, crackle and pop give you the feeling you’re hearing the real deal, whether during the relatively straight-ahead dance-funk track “Little Girl” or the dubby “Uptown Girls.”

||| Stream: “Little Girl”