Mirror Talk’s steeped-in-sentimentality synth-pop comes star-dated from some time in the mid-1980s, although the Los Angeles quartet’s sophomore EP is titled “1997.” It’s true that the the band — singer Court Alexander along with synth-wielding multi-instrumentalists Steven Lopez, Sean Krell and Dave Lewis — are in many ways moving forward, refining the next-wave new wave […]
JJAMZ are back, minus a J, and with a new all-caps moniker, PHASES. And as passing fancies go, the L.A. quartet have now entered the currently commercially thriving dance-pop phase, having unveiled three lightweight wafers of sleek synths and tuned-up vocals. The band harnesses the talents of four musicians well-known on the L.A. scene — Z […]
Singer-songwriter Moses Sumney spent better than a year captivating L.A. audiences with his soulful folk music and club performances built around his heavenly voice and live-looping skills. He released just a trickle of songs, including last summer’s bedroom EP “Mid-City Island,” made on a 4-track cassette loaned to him by TV on the Radio’s Dave […]
Is there an app yet that pings you every time Open Mike Eagle opens his mouth? Because the L.A. rapper does not disappoint. His new jam is a broadside at idol worship titled “Celebrity Reduction Prayer” [I got to this late, I know, but think of it as a great companion piece to yesterday’s […]
Albert is a new band fronted by singer-songwriter Nolan Bryan, who you imagine spent the better part of his youth rooting around in his family’s vinyl collection to find classic roots-rock, soul and California country. The debut album “Businessman” follows up a solo EP that Bryan released in 2013 backed by some of the same […]
The best thing about the debut album from L.A. quartet Talk in Tongues is how it doesn’t drown in its own sound. In connecting the dots between ’60s and ’70s psychedelia and the Creation Records bands and their U.K. offspring, “Alone With a Friend” keeps its above water, just the right amount of fuzz, jangle, […]
Kylie, Kardashian and all the rest of the fakes out there: You’ve been called out by Sophie and the Bom Boms. The duo of singer-songwriter Sophie Stern and Grammy-winning producer/engineer David Greenbaum have unveiled the new single “All Mine (Real Bitches),” a rave-up in which Stern gets a few things off her (presumably all-natural) chest, […]
“You have no idea what I do during the day,” singer Inara George told a rather giddy crowd Tuesday night at the Masonic Lodge at Hollywood Forever Cemetery. If you didn’t know any better — or if you’d seen the promo photos for the Bird and the Bee’s forthcoming album “Recreational Love” — you’d think it […]
Singer-songwriter Caitlin Notey possesses a big, evocative voice and broad tastes in classic soul and Americana to go along with it. The L.A. native, reared in Topanga Canyon and schooled at USC where she assembled her band Huxlee, puts her vocals and influences to good use on “22,” the new single from the sextet’s forthcoming […]
Singer-songwriter Tyler Lyle released his debut “The Golden Age & the Silver Girl” in 2011, right before he packed his bags and moved from Georgia to Los Angeles. Neither his nimble melodic sense nor his sophisticated lyricism deserted him in the ensuing time, as he swam around in L.A.’s murky waters working on his own […]
