“Ooh, how I like the smell of West Coast pheromones,” Noah McBeth sings on the outro to his viral hit (as NoMBe) “California Girls,” which, if nothing else, answers the age-old question “What do pheromones sound like?” (In this case, drunken synths underpinned by pulsing electronic beats.) McBeth, a native of Heidelberg, Germany, and the […]
L.A. electro-pop trio Superhumanoids usher in their second act by titling their sophomore album this way: “Do You Feel OK?” If you don’t take the question for granted, the answer, quite possibly, is no, or at least complicated. And it’s one that the band — Sarah Chernoff, Cameron Parkins and Max St. John — probably asked of […]
After a couple of years of mostly DIY releases and entirely fun live shows, Tapioca & the Flea are no more. But principals Samuel Jacob-Lopez and Ronnie Watson have rebooted as Little Wolves, and fans who hungered for more of TATF’s trippy synth-pop won’t be disappointed. The duo’s first single, “Home,” finds Jacob-Lopez back in […]
The debut single from Ofelia K is not going to blow you away, unless you’re likely to be toppled by a warm, gentle breeze. But in a world of pop belters, chirpy yelpers and digitally modulated histrionics, that’s what makes “White T-Shirt” so engaging, with the L.A.-based artist’s vocals measured and earnest as she beckons […]
As anybody who’s witnessed one of Robert DeLong’s live performances can testify, it’s as much about how he does it as what he does. A multi-tasker extraordinaire, the L.A.-based singer-songwriter-drummer-producer-tornado plays Gamer Gone Giddy in re-creating his EDM in a live setting. And in the video for his new dance-floor jam “Don’t Wait Up,” DeLong […]
Ben Cassorla is known primarily as a guitarsmith, his talents having been utilized by the likes of Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, Slick Rick and Washed Out, among others. He’s found time to make three solo Cassorla EPs, although the last one, “Amigos,” was not-so-solo since it featured collaborations with amigos like Christopher Richard […]
Love it when side projects turn out like this. The debut EP from Teenage Wrist roars with the dense tenacity of ’90s shoegazers and their safer-for-radio alt-rock brethren. “Dazed,” which came out May 19, is the work of Colorado transplants Marshall Gallagher (Swing Hero, Solar Bear) and Kamtin Mohager (Chain Gang Of 1974), along with […]
Aspiring pop siren Molly Moore earns an “A” in both production value and self-delusion for her new single “Don’t Believe It,” which she introduces by saying “the best world to live in is the one that you create for yourself.” There’s some merit to that, of course; where the song goes off the rails is […]
In the first 22 seconds of his new power-pop nugget “Anyone Listening,” Nik Freitas articulates the recurring frustration of just about every songwriter we know: “I opened my mouth up to say how I felt / but all I heard was everyone else / talking about photos of themselves / the louder they get then […]
I’d bet the proverbial farm that L.A. trio Tashaki Miyaki has about 50 dreamy demos laying around somewhere gathering digitial dust, waiting for their moment to be properly captured in all their fuzzy glory. Last month, though, more than a year after their “Cool Runnings” 7-inch, the band released their second set of cover songs, […]
