Director Rebecca Thomas found the perfect protagonist for the music video for The Moth & The Flame’s “Young & Unafraid” — 58-year-old Neal Unger, something of a hero for coming to skateboarding late in life and embracing it as if he were, well, young and unafraid. A funny thing happened en route to the video […]
The arty, airy new EP from L.A.-based Quigley comes sprinkled with a fairy dust and a little existential angst, emblematic, its creator says, to there being “no end to what one person and their laptop can create.” Titled “Initium,” it fits in the kaleidoscopic world inhabited by artists such as Imogen Heap, Ellie Goulding and […]
Leading up to the release of his next project, La Habra’s Wes Period has already dropped a pair of smooth new tracks this year. “Lilac Rose” was crafted by frequent collaborator Colin Baylen, chopping up soul samples over a boom-bap beat, while Wes trades verses with Houston’s Fat Tony about respective playful seductions, rapping with […]
L.A. quartet Parade of Lights felt as if they were standing atop the medal stand a little over a year ago, when their single “Golden” was splashed all over television during NBC’s broadcast of the Winter Olympics, as well as infiltrating ESPN’s Super Bowl promos and “The Voice.” The band — singer-guitarist Ryan Daly, drummer Anthony […]
Ever feel like, in today’s oppressively digital age, you’re just shadow-boxing with your own paranoia? That’s what’s conveyed in “Revolutionary Interface,” the buzzing first single from fledgling Los Angeles quintet New Technology (who, perhaps in a statement about new technology, have no website or Facebook page). The band is the brainchild of Miles Marsico, bassist […]
Much of Nic Hessler’s debut album “Soft Connections” was informed by his battle with an autoimmune disorder that sidelined him in 2012 just as his music (then made under the name Catwalk) was gaining some steam. That makes “I Feel Again” feel all the more triumphant. In director Adam Neustadter’s video for the song, the […]
Transplanted Austinites Erik Flores and Amelia Rose Logan debuted their collaboration Fairbanks — now Fairbanks & the Lonesome Light — a couple of years ago, weaving the elements of traditional Americana into life-affirming songs that, as the chorus to their new single goes, make you “feel lucky to be here at all.” The Echo Park couple […]
Like a lot of would-be “songs of the summer,” Golden Coast’s synth-spiked ditties have the staying power of a Sno-Cone. (Note to self: Try to recall 2014’s “songs of the summer.”) But damned if they aren’t catchy — full of mood-elevating hooks and falsetto that are completely of the moment, as long your moment lasts 3 […]
L.A.-based quartet Monarch debuted in January with the bursting-with-bombast single “Stay.” The second volley from the band — singer Brennan Strawn, guitarist Taylor Johnson, keyboardist Brian Willett and drummer Joel Plotnik — is “Snow White,” a down-tempo meditation articulating a heart full of regrets. It’s produced by Brent Kutzle (the OneRepublic bassist) and appears on the foursome’s […]
Roots-rockers Infantree are making their new album … in the most literal sense. The Valley-bred quartet, now independent after releasing a couple of full-lengths on Neil Young’s Vapor Records, recorded their new album “Return to Zero” themselves. And now the band — Alex Vojdani, Donald Fisher, Matt Kronish and Jordan Avesar — are hand-cutting their own […]
