Whatever shape her solo music ended up taking, Morgan Kibby was determined not to play to expectations. “I’m a woman who plays keyboards, and there’s the whole Tori Amos sensibility,” says Kibby, the singer-keyboardist who joined French popgazers M83 for their last album “Saturdays = Youth.” “I know I could have written the girl-at-a-piano record, […]
Before Beck was a platinum record-selling superstar, he was a DIY folk singer, whose sense of whimsy and experimentation shone through on indie albums he released both before and after he signed his major-label contract. This is the Beck to whom fledgling songwriter Joel Morales was drawn. “He was so insouciant and carefree, and, maybe […]
It’s harder to keep track of Ferraby Lionheart’s movements than his music. Born in L.A. and reared in Nashville, the singer-songwriter spent his formative music-making years back in Los Angeles before retreating, after his 2007 Nettwerk debut “Catch the Brass Ring,” to Nashville. He’s spent some time in Sweden, cleared his head on a beach […]
[Health’s sold-out show at the Echoplex on Tuesday night was, by all accounts, a smash. Buzz Bands LA contributor Rich Thomas posted an interview today on his Mining the Landfill:] By Rich Thomas A while back, I had the pleasure of spending an entire afternoon with the dudes in Health for a self-titled cover story. […]
Hot Hot Heat, whose new album “Future Breeds” is coming out June 8 (on Dangerbird Records), is returning to its roots as the indie-rock band that frontman Steve Bays now wishes it would have been all along. “Future Breeds” is more like HHH’s breakout album “Make Up the Breakdown” than the two-major label albums that […]
Eef Barzelay gets more out of a couplet than most novelists get out of 300 pages. On his band Clem Snide’s new album, “The Meat of Life,” Barzelay – coming off two strong solo outings – achieves moments of uncommon tenderness and beauty, his warbly tenor inhabiting his characters’ fractured lives and emotional fissures. “The […]
Oh, you say, another actor’s musical tangent. Indeed, on the surface that’s what actor-director-producer Adam Goldberg’s debut as LANDy is – even if, as he points out, he is merely an “occasionally famous actor.” I interviewed Goldberg for a piece in the Los Angeles Times, and, not to steal from that piece, suffice to say […]
Castledoor’s first album is titled “Shouting at Mountains,” but members of the Los Angeles sextet had to feel as if they were climbing them the past three years. After they arrived on the scene with a winsome tune and a smile, Castledoor’s career has proceeded by fits and starts, with two EPs (“‘Til We Sink” […]
