Kevin Bronson on May 22nd, 2020

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Beth Arzy is a Palm Desert native who was the singer in the SoCal indie-pop Aberdeen (on the Sarah Records roster in the 1990s) and later part of the transatlantic collaboration the Luxembourg Signal.

Ensconced in the U.K. for almost two decades now, Arzy — whose non-California connections include Trembling Blue Stars, Lightning in a Twilight Hour and the Fireworks — has joined up with a group of musicians with similar indie bona fides in Jetstream Pony: Shaun Charman (The Wedding Present/Popguns/The Fireworks), Kerry Boettcher (Turbocat) and Hannes Mueller (The BV’s/Endlich Bluete). The band is based in Brighton and South London.

Their album “Jetstream Pony,” out today, captures the spirit of the true-blue “indie” aesthetic — palpable, plaintive melancholy delicately balanced on the serrated edges of post-punk, shoegaze and jangle-pop. As intoxicants, the sighing melodies and swirls of fuzz seal the deal. A whole lineage of indie bands — most of them British and starting with some C86 and Sarah Records luminaries — come to mind. While Jetstream Pony aren’t slavishly devoted to any one of them, they’ve found new soil to till and grown something beautiful.

||| Stream: “Outside,” “Trapped in Amber” and “Gone to Ground”

||| Also: Stream the album in full