The Lassie Foundation is a lot like that old flame you never quite give up on: You hear the name and you smile; a chance encounter on the street quickens your pulse; lasting romance seems only another full-length album away. In my mind — excuse me for being less dispassionate than usual here, because my […]
[Ears Wide Open = one in a series of quick heads-ups about compelling music from the L.A. scene:] The name might be a mouthful — Dalmacio Von Diamond & the Enochian Keys — but the newest batch of music from 27-year-old Dalmacio Posadas rolls off his tongue. Von Diamond, who’s played in such local bands […]
There’s a point about halfway through the first batch of songs to emerge from the Long Beach quartet Two Guns when a certain optimism surfaces. Everything’s gonna be all right. It’s the same vague sentience that set in after I heard Wilco’s “Summerteeth,” or, more recently, “Ghost Stories” by L.A.’s Everest: Just because your relationships […]
[Quickly catching up on some local album releases:] Le Switch, “And Now … Le Switch” (Autumn Tone) — Frontman Aaron Kyle’s boozy voice is the cannon (and sometimes a loose one) of this L.A. quintet, but trumpeter/violist/singer Maria DeLuca is its secret weapon. You imagine DeLuca leading a parade down Bourbon Street to “Pristine” or […]
[Consider these your pre-Palin listening party suggestions before the vice presidential debates:] The Crystal Method has long aligned itself with a party — mostly the Dance Party. Now the dangerous duo of Ken Jordan and Scott Kirkland has revisited an old song, “Now Is the Time,” and remixed it with a guest vocalist. Well, more […]