Kevin Bronson on February 28th, 2018

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Many Midwesterners grow up “Restless.” This we can vouch for from personal experience. From a perch in the country’s puffy midsection, you pass the days with one eye on one coast, one eye on the other. And like Columbus, Ohio, native Vug Arakas did, sometimes you pick a coast and go, if for no other reason than the naive pursuit of investigating whether what you’ve seen on TV and film screens remotely resembles reality. Of course, it doesn’t. And often you find yourself “Restless,” only in a place where people wear winter coats when it’s 55 degrees.

“Restless” is the title of Arakas’ new EP. It follows the Luther-Russell-produced “Smoke,” released in 2016 (and now mysteriously missing from the internet), and carves earnest, adult contemporary-styled anthems out of “the L.A. that lives inside the ones who spend their whole lives searching and never quite finding whatever it is the West had once promised.” Throughout Arakas’ EP, the video for Don Henley’s “The Boys of Summer,” with imagery that now seems ham-fisted (but didn’t at the time, seriously), comes to mind. Make what you will of that.

||| Stream: “Restless”

||| Also: Stream the whole EP via Bandcamp

||| Live: Vug Arakas celebrates his EP release with a show tonight at Resident, along with Bloodweiser and Los Angeles Police Department. Tickets.