As frontman of the San Diego quintet Dynamite Walls, Tom Pritchard traded in radio-friendly rock that fell somewhere between the Strokes and U2. Some amount of label turmoil later, Dynamite Walls is no more, and Pritchard, now ensconced in L.A., has aligned with Jason Burkhart (most recently spotted with rapper Kenan Bell) as Western Scene. […]
“Four years. Never again!” Meiko says. Yes, it’s taken that much time for her sophomore album, “The Bright Side,” to arrive. The former Hotel Cafe waitress-turned-singing sensation was the first artist signed to then-booming MySpace Records back in the day, shooting up the songwriter charts on iTunes and finding her songs in hit TV shows. […]
So much talent, so little time. That’s kind of the story behind supergroup Digital Noise Academy, a long-in-the-works studio project helmed, more or less, by rocker/producer Ken Andrews (Failure, On, Year of the Rabbit). When Andrews first told me about DNA, it was late 2008, and he and his collaborators already had a substantial batch […]
With January’s “Looking Through” EP, L.A.-based trio Warm Weather – Justin Lerman, Brendan Lynch-Salamon and Ryan Pollie – placed itself in league with harmony-driven pop acts such as Local Natives, Lady Danville and Milo Greene. Their video for “So Far/Vertigo” (off 2011’s “Dances” EP) takes the trio’s vocal calisthenics on the road. The Cocoon Central […]
The first single off Torches’ debut album “Heads Full of Rust” sounds like a mantra as much as anything: “I Want Something.” It’s clear from the first propulsive beat that the L.A. trio of guitarist Azad Cheikosman, bassist Bridgette Moody and drummer Eric Fabbro aren’t settling for the hazy psychedelia of the two EPs they […]
Only recently making the move from Ventura to L.A., shoegaze quartet Captions sounds like they’re also making the right moves when it comes to their music. With guitar-pop hooks and sunny vocals drenched in reverb, Adam Gangi, John Figueroa, Marcus Paquini and Josh Zacarias finally have an EP titled “Think Thunk Thought” on its way […]
Noah & the MegaFauna haven’t had any issues coming out of the gate with an unusual but sophisticated flair. The brainchild of Noah Lit (formerly of indie-rock band Oliver Future), the 10-piece band’s debut “Anthems for a Stateless Nation” offers a palette that swings from jazz to gypsy-rock to carnival sounds, and their latest single […]
Was it the summer of 2010 we first heard from Superhumanoids? Yes. Even though it always feels like some kind of summer when the L.A. dream-pop outfit anchored by Cameron Parkins, Sarah Chernoff and Max St. John unveils new music. No overnight sensations they, Superhumanoids still continue to flirt with the sensational every time they […]
To say that Amanda Jo Williams is the Joanna Newsom of the freak-folk scene would be giving the singer-songwriter a label that merely scratches the surface, and a lazy comparison at that. When last year’s “Mary’s Big Feet” introduced us to Williams’s occult world, we knew the avant-garde scatting in the midst of swampy arrangements […]
Foster the People‘s sugary yet fist-pumping electro-pop has brought a different sound to the mainstream world of dance music, and they just keep churning out the singles and accompanying quirky videos from their album “Torches.” The music video for “Houdini,” one of the tracks off that 3-song self-titled EP which landed them a late slot […]
