Who needs hallucinogens when you’ve got Jeffertitti’s Nile? The band – the cosmic conveyances of singer-guitarist Jeff Ramuno – this week releases its second full-length, “The Electric Hour.” Ramuno, who plays bass for Josh Tillman in Father John Misty, calls his music “transcendental space-punk doo-wop,” which uses a lot of words and hyphens where “psychedelia” […]
Jessy Lanza is a winner if you’re into Chet Faker, Rhye and Aaliyah. The dub chanteuse recently released her stunningly seductive debut “Pull My Hair Back,” a collection of R&B songs sparkling in disco and wonderfully warped in shrouded beats. The Hamilton, Ontario-based singer coos in songs like “Keep On Moving” and hypnotizes with sweet […]
I’m not sure I miss feathered mullets or Prefab Sprout enough to totally buy into Tower, but with all the other parts of 1980s New Wave music having been mined for goodies, why not the squishier parts too? Tower is the collaboration between Derek Coburn and Darin Green, and the very vibey “Can’t Vibe” was […]
Power-pop stalwarts Ozma have had a mercurial career: Branded as Weezer acolytes early on, they culivated a fervent fanbase before parting ways in 2004 after three albums – only to return strong in 2007 with “Pasadena,” which established their own crunchy sound. In March, a stint on the Weezer Cruise in their rear-view mirror, the […]
Dustin Krapes, doing business as Habits, put out one of the better under-the-radar albums of the year back in March. Now he’s taking to studio alchemy, remixing songs from five of the artists playing this Saturday’s Desert Daze festival at Sunset Ranch Oasis near Mecca. Habits does a ghost-in-the-machine number on songs from Deap Vally, […]
There’s an unvarnished beauty and riveting intimacy in the songs of Gold Star, the solo project of the Sister Ruby Band’s Marlon Rabenreither. Gold Star debuted last year with a five-song EP of gently spaced-out Americana, and now Rabenreither has completed work on a full-length. It’s titled “Dark Days” (release date TBA), with production from […]
Torches has gone through several changes throughout the years; everything from their band name to their soundscape has evolved. New experiments and realizations, however, have been favorable for the L.A. duo. The band is currently preparing for the release of their new EP and each tune, so far, has wonderfully been inching toward luxuriously full […]
And the award for Best Opening Line of a Press Release goes to: “We’re horny. And we’re sad.” So goes the introduction to Los Angeles quintet Babes, who are only half-joking. The band – siblings Sarah, Aaron and Zach Rayne along with Bryan Jeffrey and Jeffrey John – hold that almost all art springs from […]
When Computer Magic, aka Danielle “Danz” Johnson, popped up on our local radar back in 2011, we noted how the spacey electro-pop tunes on her “Electric Fences” EP were chock-full of hooks and whimsically still on the rock edge. Johnson is now 11 releases deep (a combination of single and EPs) and her songs still have […]
Everybody loves a good comeback story. So here’s the abridged version of Indian School’s: Arturo Barrios, Justo Gonzalez and Gabriel Camacho spent the early part of last decade making dyed-in-the-mosh-pit punk rock as Audio Karate before parting ways. Fast-forward a few years, and frontman Barrios got something in the way of a reality check – […]
