Arrica Rose straddles the line between wounded folk songstress and nostalgia-laden dream-popper, a dichotomy that served her music well on 2011’s “Let Alone Sea,” one of those long-players with enough sonic and emotional shifts to held your attention from front to back. On the newest effort from her band Arrica Rose & the …’s (say […]
The first two songs from new L.A. quintet DEBT are giving me fits trying to figure out exactly to whom they are indebted, but maybe the fake time stamp on their possibly fake band photograph will help me out … Husker Dü? “Slack Motherf*cker”-era Superchunk? Tsunami? Whatever the songs’ lineage, the Palisades-bred fivesome of Spencer […]
On last year’s “It’s Not You, It’s Us” EP, Daniel Ahearn & the Jones revealed the ability the capture a moment and crystallize emotions in a single verse. Ahearn and co-conspirator Mindy Jones deal in finely crafted Americana with harmonies pretty as a painting; their love-obsessed folk-pop is at once wry and open-hearted. The duo’s […]
Yellow Red Sparks sound like the folk band you’d invite home for a sit-down dinner (you know, as opposed to the ones you’d wanna slip out back and share a flask with). Which is OK; nothing sounds affected on their self-titled debut album, due Jan. 29 via Org Music. Songwriter Joshua Hanson, in concert with […]
Fol Chen, L.A.’s merry band of sound collagists led by producers (the men known as) Samuel Bing and Julian Wass, return in March with their third collection of wonky, effects-laden pop. The band announced today that “The False Alarms” would be out March 19 on Asthmatic Kitty, the label that gave us Fol Chen’s “Part […]
Mystery men Sir Sly appeared out of the ether last year with smoove slices of currently chic electro R&B titled “Ghost” and “Found You Out,” leaked on the Internet and widely embraced by the same fans who are bear-hugging bands like The Neighbourhood and Wildcat! Wildcat! It turns out Sir Sly (which was sometimes rendered as […]
Cold Wars Kids’ new album “Dear Miss Lonelyhearts” will be out April 2, the band announced today. Go here to check out one of those video teasers that everyone seems to be doing nowadays. There’s no music to share yet, except for a snippet of the first single (a very strong one at that), “Miracle […]
The enduring allure of “Would You Stay,” Steffaloo’s 2012 release on Mush Records, is its wide-eyed earnestness. As some might say, Steph Thompson is as real as real gets. And so it is with the video for “Can’t You See,” a simple black-and-white clip of an artist who’s unafraid to be up close and personal […]
The first song from the L.A. duo going by the name Bom Bom is a button-pusher that will play perfectly to fans of old-school soul and new-school pop. Melody and a tinkling piano straight outta Motown? Check. Wonky Bourbon Street horn? Check. A little electro wizardry to remind us it’s 2013? Sure. The production is […]
Yes, Fonda made the video for its single “Seeing Stars” at the Griffith Observatory. Why not? There’s something pretty astral about the L.A. quartet’s bliss-pop, a well-timed revival of the densely layered guitars of ’90s Britpop. The video even pays brief homage to actually gazing at one’s shoes (where the pedals lay, of course). The […]
