You don’t dream dances like this – or if you do, they’re called nightmares. Director Ethan Berger tackles the intense piano pop of Harriet in the video for the new single “Ten Steps.” The song follows up the single “Burbank” and is the latest from the quartet fronted by singer/multi-instrumentalist Alex Casnoff. Harriet’s main man reports […]
When Buddy refers to his music as “wimpycore,” we think he’s talking in the past tense. Maybe his long-ago EP of sparse singer-songwriter fare qualifies, or “Alterations & Repairs,” the 2007 release that saw Buddy become a band. But certainly not “Last Call for the Quiet Life,” the long-awaited, long-fretted-over follow-up. Conceived and recorded with […]
As opposed to the brisk first single “Just One of the Guys,” the title track to Jenny Lewis’ forthcoming album “The Voyager” is a string-soaked paean to self-realization with a NASA theme. “The Voyager’s in every boy and girl / If you wanna get to heaven, get out of this world,” Lewis sings, perfectly and […]
In his solo guise as Gold Star, Marlon Rabenreither’s woozy, melancholic songs have the feel of instant classics, reminiscent of any number of writers who had dicey relationships with their Muse. The former art-schooler and frontman of the Sister Ruby Band seems to operate from the premise that the best way to achieve clarity is […]
With an full-length in 2012 and an EP in ’13 under the name Soft Swells, Tim Williams found more expansive territory for his music that on his three “singer-songwriter” albums. His growth spurt must’ve felt good – Soft Swells’ relentlessly upbeat songs are the ocean breeze to cynicism’s summer heat. And, as it turns out, Williams […]
“Famous or we’ll die trying / Everybody ends up in California,” Freedom Fry sing in “Home,” an ode to their adopted southern California home. The duo’s new single is a beautifully languid acknowledgement of the seductive powers of L.A. – and the latest pop gem from New York-bred Bruce Driscoll and Paris-born Marie Seyrat. After […]
I’ve always thought that somehow it might not be a concidence that the acronym for Los Angeles quartet Patrolled By Radar is PBR. Theirs is working-class roots-rock that finds nuggets of meaning in seemingly workaday scenarios. PBR’s new album “Cool Your Jets,” their third, finds singer-guitarist Jay Souza and mates Bosco Sheff, Ben Johnsen and […]
The Bixby Knolls have long repped the dark underbelly of rock in L.A. – although not the costumed bombast of the city’s metal history, nor the practiced indie cool of bands that have made downtown-adjacent neighborhoods their home. No, they’ve been like having a Primal Scream in the neighborhood, a quartet whose gritty but hopeful […]
The cinematic rock of Jonathan Haskell flourished on last year’s Seven Saturdays self-titled album, a mix of ambient instrumental music and richly textured compositions featuring guest vocalists such as Jim Evens (Helen Stellar) Jacqueline Santillan (Wait. Think. Fast.), Rain Phoenix, Rachel Stolte (Great Northern) and Vanessa Fernandez (Octover, Vandetta). “Fields” appeared as a gorgeous six-minute instrumental […]
“You’re so hip it makes me sick,” singer-guitarist Isaiah Silva complains in the suddenly hot single by the Eeries, “Cool Kid” – a relatable sentiment considering the preponderance of fashion-statement pop and production-heavy navel-gazing that has taken over the marketplace. So what do the Eeries (Silva, along with guitarist Brandon Sweeney, bassist Eliot Lorango and drummer […]
