Kevin Bronson on August 30th, 2024

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Slide into your Labor Day Weekend with Greatest Hits … This Week (Vol. 305), the latest mix from Buzz Bands LA.

Here, we feature new songs from Mondo Cozmo, Adriana McCassim, Kate Bollinger, Tangerine, Dummy, The Airborne Toxic Event, Forever Never Changes, Bondo, Temme Scott, Sad Park, Blondestandard, Mediocre, Caroline Kingsbury, Easy Sleeper, The Active Set and more.

If you’ve got a long drive ahead this weekend and want something adventurous in your ears, check out all our recent playlists on Spotify. Info on these tracks can be found beneath the player.

Note: Anita Wills contributed to today’s roundup.

■ Mondo Cozmo, “It’s Principle!” — Here’s the title track to the “It’s Principle!,” the fourth full-length from the Joshua Ostrander-helmed project Mondo Cozmo. (And the video for the single.) It’s out today via Last Gang Records, a biting yet tender melding of Heartland rock and rave-esque Madchester. Featuring the singles “Killing Floor,” “Wild Horses” and “Angels” … let it blare.

■ Dummy, “Blue Dada” — The hits keeping from L.A. experimental/post-punk/ambient/shoegaze quartet Dummy, and by “hits” we mean mind-blowing compositions that don’t sound anything like what anybody calls hits these days. Dummy’s album “Free Energy” is out next week. Their new video pairs “Blue Dada” with preceding album track “Opaline Bubbletear” and stars performance artist Camirin Farmer. Live Sept. 7 at the Lodge Room.

■ Forever Never Changes, “The Past May Not Be Through With You” — Forever Never Changes, the latest project from Justin Warfield (of She Wants Revenge), will release their debut album in September. He explains the dearth of usual publicity and surrounding hoopla here, as he introduced the deliciously ’80s, politically charged new single “The Past May Not Be Through With You.” FNC seems ideal for a down-bill slot at the Cruel World festival, right?

■ Adriana McCassim, “Pretend” — “Pretend” is the powerful lead track on “See It Fades,” the new album from from Asheville, N.C., native Adriana McCassim. Her confessional garage-folk, as told in high-strung vocals and conversational phrasing, is the stuff that makes spines tingle. After moving to L.A., she found a collaborator in Ryan Pollie, who produced the record. Live Sept. 5 at Gold-Diggers.

■ The Airborne Toxic Event, “Note to Self” — “Note to Self” is the latest single from “Glory” (out Sept. 6), the seventh album from the Airborne Toxic Event. The band released the title track in mid-July, and they perform Oct. 18 at the Ford and Oct. 19 at the Wiltern.

■ Blondestandard, “Arms of Another” — The fourth single from Carolina Grace Vein, aka Blondstandard, “Arms of Another” speaks to a longing for genuine connection — one of many existential matters the L.A. native confronted after she was diagnosed with cancer shortly after releasing her first two singles in 2022.

■ Mediocre, “Litterbug!” — Mediocre (the duo of Piper Torrison Keely Martin), release their debut album, “Growth Eater,” on Sept. 27 via Dangerbird Records. The follow-up to “Fun Time Fix (We Go Go),” second single “Litterbug!” is a slab of turn-of-the-millenium indie-rock serving as a PSA. “It’s about an awareness of littering your environment with your own clutter and your own racing thoughts with endless chatter, perpetually disorganized and entrapped by chaos,” the band says. “Knowing that these issues are self constructed is what makes the wound sting the most, and coming to terms with your own trash, your own litter, is the only way to actually find the guts to start picking it up.”

■ Tangerine, “Timeless” —  With gentle yet angsty vocals and a catchy alt-’90s guitar hook, “Timeless”, the new single from indie duo Tangerine (Marika Justad and Toby Kuhn) is about “… wanting to feel connected to the organic world, the good and the bad, the blood, the guts, the romance, the sex, the fruit, the rot, the seeds … everything.” Tangerine’s debut LP, “You’re Still The Only One,” drops Oct. 25.

■ The Active Set, “Skeptical” — Long-running indie-rockers the Active Set return with the propulsive “Skeptical,” their fifth single (“In Between Lovers,” for instance) since rebooting in 2020 following a four-year hiatus. They’re building toward the release next spring of a new album, “Death of a Friend,” which only hints at the life changes the band has navigated since their last album, 2015’s “Lights.”

■ Kate Bollinger, “Lonely” — Kate Bollinger shows she can wear many hats with her newest single “Lonely,” a bittersweet piano ballad, drastically different from her previous single, the short-and-sweet, guitar-driven “What’s This About (La La La La).” Her new album “Songs From A Thousand Frames of Mind” is due Sept. 27 on Ghostly International. Live Nov. 22 at the Teragram Ballroom.

■ Red Ribbon, “Crying My Car” — Produced by Rob Schnapf, “Crying My Car” is the first single off Red Ribbon’s self-titled album (out Nov. 1 via Danger Collective Records). Here, songwriter Emma Danner means to reshape herself artistically: “I’ve always censored myself, but on ‘Red Ribbon,’ I let myself be more free,” she says. 

■ Bondo, “Triple Double” — Post-rock/slowcore quartet Bondo (the quartet Cook Lee-Chobanian, Andrew “Gerry” Dykes, Brian Bartus and Nikolas Escudero) commingle atonal guitars, contorted melodies and spare rhythms into a contemplative, even immersive, experience. Their sophomore album, “Harmonica” (the follow-up to the quietly beguiling 2023 release “Print Selections”), will be out Oct. 18. This week brought the first taste of the album, “Triple Double” (curiously, the album’s closing track). Live Oct. 18 at Zebulon.

■ Little Bit, “On The Mend” — Little Bit is Hannah Liuzzo, formerly of pop trio Lilith. Her new song “On The Mend” is the fourth single from Little Bit’s debut EP “Talk A Blue Streak” out Sept. 20 via Hit The North Records. You can listen to “Out to Dry” and “Lead You On” on our previous Greatest Hits playlists.

■ Easy Sleeper, “Ripper” — Today brought the release of “A Sacred Way of Living,” the debut album from Douglas Guttenberger, Alex Lubeck, David Poznansky and Michael Caddigan, aka Easy Sleeper. (See also: “Feeling Good All the Time” and “Pleasure Thrills.”) Live Sept. 6 at Permanent Records Roadhouse.

■ Purest Form, “Burn” —  After a well-received self-titled EP released this past March, hardcore industrial metal trio Purest Form (Madison Woodward, Riley Joyner and Story Beeson) return with “Burn,” a call to action. “We have a burning fantasy to set fire to a complacent retroactive society,” Beeson says. “Start new. Start present. See things for what they are and destroy corrupt and evil monoliths of war.” Live Oct. 19 at the Slipper Clutch in DTLA.

■ AWOLNATION, “Barbarian” — “I wrote this album with the intention that it could possibly be the final AWOLNATION album,” Aaron Bruno says of “The Phantom Five,” the project’s sixth full-length, released today. It’s pop and rock writ large, as AWOLNATION has always done.

■ Temme Scott, “Space” — “Space” is the latest single from Temme Scott’s sophomore album, “A Long Year,” out Sept. 13. Live Sept. 16 at El Cid.

■ Nick Flessa, “This One’s for the Watchers” — The follow-up to “Escape From Seven Hills,” the Austin Leonard Jones-penned “This One’s for the Watchers” is the second single from Flessa’s new album, “The Politics of Personal Destruction.” It’s produced by Neil Wogensen (Valley Queen) and out Oct. 4. Flessa is doing a residency at Healing Force in Pasadena on Aug. 29, Sept. 28 and Oct. 5.

■ HAHA, “How to Fall” — Longtime pals Maria Taylor and Mike Bloom debuted their duo project HAHA last year with a couple of singles. “How to Fall,” a sublime little slice of indie-pop, is then third single from their album “No Promises,” out Nov. 8.

■ Sad Park, “Good Luck” —  L.A. punk rockers Sad Park are back with “Good Luck,” their first single since 2023’s LP “No More Sound”. Sad Park is currently on a U.S. tour with Yungatita. Live Sept. 28 at the Glass House.

■ Caroline Kingsbury, “Alabama” — Florida native Caroline Kingsbury, who released her debut album in 2021, says her latest single “Alabama” is “about growing up in the south and coming out and family estrangement …” So imagine her delight when she was sent a video clip of queer people line-dancing to it in an L.A. club. Catch her Oct. 17 at the Moroccan Lounge.

■ Military Genius, “Darkest Hour” — Bryce Cloghesy is Military Genius, a genre-bending artist who took a “human-first” approach with his lead single, “Darkest Hour.” “I found excitement in creating something naturalistic and hand-made, flawed by its own humanity,” he says. His new album “Scarred For Life” drops Nov. 1 via Unheard of Hope.

■ Paper Citizen, “Car Stereo” — “Car Stereo” is the second single from Claire Gohst’s as-yet-untitled debut album as Paper Citizen. The native of Singapore who studied at Berklee before relocated to L.A. in 2019 finds a road trip-worthy groove for the follow-up to her June single, “American Song.”

■ Meija, “Ritual” — Jamie Sierota returns with a strong but lo-fi reflection, “Ritual,” the latest single from his second full-length, “There’s Always Something,” out Oct. 11. The new song follows collaborations with EELS, Hand Habits and Jawny on, respectively, “Possum,” “Seven” and “Magic.”

■ Marion Raw, “You Gotta” — Mexico City/L.A.-based musician and visual artist Marion Raw (formerly of Love La Femme) has unveiled the single “You Gotta,” which trots along in a cool, dark, Western kind of way paired with echoey low-fi vocals reminiscent of Cat Power. Watch the video for “You Gotta,” directed by Marion Raw and Isabelle Abbitt, shot in Mexico City.

■ Braden Lawrence, “You Walk Across The Room” —  “You Walk Across The Room,” the follow-up to “Gary,” is the second single from Braden Lawrence’s (The Districts) new concept EP “Gary” which comes out Nov. 15 via Anxiety Blanket Records.

■ Kit Major, “Garbage Planet” — Following the success of her standalone single “Let Me Be In Your Band,” Kit Major unveils “Garbage Planet,” off her upcoming EP  “Love.Sick.Major” (out Oct. 25). It’s about “owning the parts of yourself that aren’t perfect and learning to be OK with it,” she says.

■ Still Fade, “My View” — “My View” is the third single off Jared Hennessy’s debut album as Still Fade, out Nov. 16. Catch Still Fade on Sept. 6 at Venice Beach Bar.

■ Old Blood, “Midnight Climax” — “Midnight Climax” is a sexy cabaret-rock anthem from the dynamic rock group Old Blood, whose new album by the same name, “Midnight Climax”, will be out Oct. 3 via Glory or Death Records.

■ The Armoires, “Snake Island Thirteen” — L.A.’s the Armoires contribute the A-side to the split single “Songs for Ukrainian Independence Day,” released on that holiday (last Saturday), with proceeds donated to the humanitarian nonprofit United Help Ukraine.