Premiere: Blacks&, ‘The Race Is On’
Kevin Bronson on
2
Their name is not a typo – you pronounce Blacks& “black sand” – but the music from the new four-headed collaboration seems better suited for white sand, as in tropical beaches. Featuring bassist Donald Eley and guitarist Craig “Tiger” Smith (both of whom played with lamentably overlooked indie rockers the Sea of Cortez) along with singer Justin Taylor and drummer Julian Bellin (Polls), Blacks& dispenses warm, minimalist pop with a touch of tropical funk and a dusting of romanticism. Their first EP “A Ghost That Follows Me,” which hits digital retailers April 3, tastes like something colorful, on the rocks. With a squeeze, please.
||| Download: “The Race Is On”
||| Live: Blacks& plays March 21 at the Bootleg Bar.
[…] bliss. Eley and Smith made music — very different music — when they played together in Black& (Black Sand) and the Sea of Cortez, but here they’ve taken 1970s-80s cocktails and spiked […]
[…] has been at the center of several notable (if underappreciated) Los Angeles musical ventures: Black& (say “black sand”), Jutty Ranx and Greyface. Jutty Ranx, a trio whose dance-pop proved […]