[They Left L.A. for the Other Coast, but We Still Listen, Part I:] Steve Cooper made music in L.A. as the Gray Kid before segueing into his electro-funk project Spirit Animal. Now based in New York City, Spirit Animal’s new single “I’m Around” (premiered Thursday on Spinner) finds him collaborating with a couple of his […]
You could compile quite a list of world events that have transpired since Los Angeles trio 400 Blows last released an album in 2005. What hasn’t happened, thankfully, is that 400 Blows have gone soft. Their searing new album “Sickness and Health” is as uncompromising as ever, another notch in the belt for the hardcore […]
Artistic growth is one thing, but the sonic left turn on Family of the Year’s new “St. Croix” EP smacks of something else. Their 2009 full-length “Songbook” revealed the band as purveyors of earnest, harmony-rich folk-pop, but the new EP (four new songs and a Hooray for Earth remix of the title track) seems bent […]
Originally hailing from the East coast, the Moor have officially become Angelenos as they released their self-titled debut this week via Dilattante. Not unlike local bands such as Robotanists and Thurlow, the duo of Erica Daking and Josiah Steinbrick make lush, romantic sounds that sound sophisticated both in the headphones and to the heart. Daking’s […]
Those ellipses L.A. songstress Arrica Rose has tacked onto her band name represent tacit acknowledgment to the many contributors who worked on her third release, “Let Alone Sea.” But the punctuation in Arrica Rose & the …’s (say: “dot dot dots”) could also be a metaphor for her songwriting skins. Rose takes her pointed confessionals […]
Nik Freitas, the singer-songwriter and sideman extraordinaire (he’s played with Conor Oberst and Broken Bells and on records by Miles Kurosky of Beulah, Jason Boesel and All Smiles, among others), added a healthy dose of keyboard shimmer to the warm folk-pop on his fifth full-length, “Saturday Night Underwater.” The album came out in June on […]
Sometimes paths in life just change no matter where you plant yourself, and composer and and singer-songwriter Keegan DeWitt can testify for unexpected outcomes. Originally from Portland, Ore., DeWitt moved to New York and set his sights on theater and film while studying under key figures such as Phillip Seymour Hoffman, but after making a […]
Papa’s groove-laden take on retro indie-rock carries a sweet scent of soul, not to mention a whiff of wryness. The band – the project helmed by Girls drummer Darren Weiss (that’s his big voice up front) and boyhood pal Daniel Presant – is off to a good start. Their debut EP, “A Good Woman Is […]
Oh, Sunset Strip, you conflict me so. On one hand you are an interactive museum of rock clichés, Madame Tussauds with a pulse and a Flying V, a vast portion of your denizens seeking to inhabit the tattooed skin of GnR/Jane’s/Van Halen. On the other you inspire a certain sense of wonderment, because the fabric […]
At a recent backyard acoustic set in Silver Lake, Jim Ward explained the evolution of his new solo work: “I’ve always made loud music,” he said. “I started At the Drive-In with Cedric [Bixler-Zavala] when I was 17, then I spent years with Sparta and Sleepercar. This is me, not being loud.” Ward’s new album, […]
