Smoke Season, the duo comprised of L.A. musicians Gabrielle Wortman (TEMP3ST) and Jason Rosen (Honor Society), returns with a new single to follow up their “Signals” EP. “Badlands,” a track that still teases with their smoky Americana ambience, is a lush arrangement that lingers just 10 seconds over four minutes. Wortman’s soulful wails and Rosen’s […]
Raw Fabrics are an L.A.-based trio of 21-year-olds with an armload of anthemic songs that mix the driving bass lines of modern dance-punk bands with production sheen of modern radio bands. The new single “Down the Drain” sounds like something Franz Ferdinand might’ve tried in another life, with its insistent chorus and hook. Raw Fabrics […]
“BST FRNDS,” the new single from NYC’s Spirit Animal, is a three-minute rager with a shout-along chorus and shots-and-beer guitar licks. It’s the latest testoserone-charged volley from the quartet led by onetime L.A. denizen Steve Cooper, who’s taken his love for funk, hip-hop and rock – and penchant for wryly funny haranguing – to the next […]
L.A.’s Washing Machines return with their sophomore EP “Quick Fix,” and the title rings true as it is only three songs but gets the job done if you’re in the mood for angsty punk that pleases the likes of Kurt Cobain fans. They may have parted ways with Chris Hansen, but as a quartet Washing Machine […]
Psych-pop agitators White Arrows have toured their kaleidoscopic duds off since releasing “Dry Land Is Not a Myth” in 2012. The debut couched various existential crises in danceable electro-rock and reverb, and perhaps still unsure whether they are “Coming or Going,” the L.A. quintet has embarked on making “In Bardo,” the follow-up album that is […]
Having used the same escape hatch from Utah as fellow Provo natives the Moth & the Flame, Spencer Petersen and Thomas Carroll have played in L.A. bands such as Eyes Lips Eyes and SWIMM. Now singer-guitarist Petersen is debuting his own project, Sego, and judging from the first single “20 Years Tall,” it ought to […]
Morgan Kibby’s knack of weaving ethereal vocals and tingling electro-pop has always been a thread in her work with M83, but her voice is finally showcased on “In Cold Blood” (out now via Crush Music). On her first full-length under the solo moniker White Sea – she released a 2011 EP titled “This Frontier” and […]
There’s a band called Desperate Journalist, and if they adopted that name to get the attention of the likes of me … Well done, kids. Maybe my band Disconsolate Artrocker can open for you? Certainly my last five years of underemployment would have enjoyed a better soundtrack had songs like “Happening” dominated the public domain […]
To Silver Lake regulars of last decade, there was no coulda-woulda-shoulda rock ’n’ roll story more heartbreaking than the Movies. Blessed with a distinctive post-punk/New Wave sound, deliciously subversive songs and an incendiary live show, the Movies were also cursed with band drama, much of it revolving around enigmatic, volatile frontman Timothy James. They did […]
Liam Gowing – ex-L.A. Times scribe, full-time biker and audacious titler of albums – has this house in West L.A. It’s not palatial, but he likes to entertain. And his occasionally legendary house parties became the theme for the song “Purdizzy (On Saturday),” a weekend-in-the-shade kind of number that appeared on last year’s album “Drunk Sluts […]
