Those were heady times, 1978. Punk rock had encroached on Los Angeles’ power-pop scene; bands who would come be known as New Wave appeared; and in Chinatown the stage was being set for a venue rivalry between Madame Wong’s and the Hong Kong Cafe. It was then that a five-piece out of Orange County, the […]
Nate Miller in a L.A.-based, Washington, D.C. ex-pat whose late 2012 release “Fall Is Meant for Falling to the Ground” is an amiable mix of up-tempo folk-rock and lovelorn Americana adorned with piano, organ, horns, pedal steel and strings. It was produced by Nate Vaughan, who plays on the album along with more than 15 […]
The news bulletin here is that No Age has made an album. No, not just recordings of guitar, bass, drums and vocals – the actual physical product. For their fourth full-length “An Object,” L.A. noisemeisters Randy Randall and Dean Spunt have taken the mission of making an album literally, right down to designing, manufacturing and […]
After the demise of Just An Animal (f/k/a Red Cortez, the Weather Underground), Harley Prechtel-Cortez lay low for a while to focus on his art and film-making career, but it didn’t take too long for Prechtel-Cortez to get back to music. Recruiting the likes of Amiee Lay (The Lost & Found), Curt Barlage (The Bixby […]
Fresh off a sun-splashed performance two weeks ago at Make Music Pasadena, the Peach Kings are returning with a new dose of shadowy blues. At least, Texas-bred Paige Wood sounds as if she’s in the shadows on the new single “Mojo Thunder,” the title track to the L.A. duo’s forthcoming third EP in as many […]
L.A.-based singer-songwriter-bassist Thundercat’s 2011 solo debut “The Golden Age of Apocalypse” was an inventive synthesis, co-produced by Flying Lotus on his Brainfeeder label, that blended jazz, pop, soul and experimental electronica. His sophomore effort, “Apocalypse,” out now digitally and July 9 on CD/LP, once again teams with FlyLo and further distorts genre lines with its […]
[Our Auckland correspondent updates us on Saturday’s visitors:] The much-loved Bats are often taken for granted in their native New Zealand: They’ve been part of the musical furniture in this country for nigh on 30 years, playing their idiosyncratic brand of electric folk-rock over the course of eight quietly influential albums. Away from home, that […]
Moses Sumney is a soulful one-man show with vocal percussion, handclaps and harmonies on loop, and his guitar strumming is intricate and heartfelt as the riffs he sings. After purchasing an old guitar from a friend, Sumney began to make a name for himself with a charismatic take on R&B-influenced folk-rock. Songs like “Alchemy” and […]
When we last heard from young L.A. quartet Dreamers Dose, they had just ditched their old band name and begun working with producer Alain Johannes (Arctic Monkeys, Queens of the Stone Age, Jimmy Eat World, Them Crooked Vultures and more). File under wise and wiser. Oh, and they were just getting a handle on their […]
Last year, pop artist Skyler Stonestreet teamed up with new friend singer-songwriter Jeremy Silver to become a new duo called One Two. The two released a perfectly sweet “Best Friends” EP, but they’re back with a single that leaps from the innocent folk-pop to a sexier, electro-stomping sound palette. “Sleep Talk” still maintains the back and forth […]
