We marvel at this because, at age 23, I’m pretty sure I was still sucking my thumb: Lucy Schwartz’s third full-length album, “Timekeeper,” will be out Aug. 6, the latest chapter in an artistic growth spurt that started when she was at Palisades Charter High (her debut came out in ’07) and then wrote songs […]
On her “Daughter in the Choir” EP, as well as the first single she released after signing to Atlantic, Meg Myers exhibited a feral intensity, whether she was venting in a straight-ahead rock song or in her producer Doctor Rosen Rosen’s electro-addled world. Her new song “Cold,” however, takes Myers back to her singer-songwriter […]
On the surface, there’s not very much folk about Grizfolk, the L.A. trio that for a time was going by the name Griz Adams until, one imagines, they got a threatening note carved in tree bark from a mountain man. There is, however, a whole lot that’s familiar about the first two songs from Adam […]
There’s a new rock quartet in town whose sophisticated pop may include your next breezy summer melody. You can go ahead and thank Northern American for songs like the shimmering “Record Forever” to go with your ice-cold beer beside the pool and the bluesy “Don’t Be a Star” to go down with that warm whiskey […]
Songwriter Robert Fleming’s now-out-of-the-bedroom project Victory made its full-length debut in April with “Victory Is Music,” a declarative that rings true over the album’s 10 tracks of groove-laden, electro-tinged blues. All kinds of influences come to mind – Spoon, Beck, the Dandy Warhols – but what Victory has done is mind its songs, keeping them […]
Since they appeared on the landscape in 2011, L.A. quintet Y LUV have embraced a so-romantic-it’s-almost-squishy take on synth-rock, with diminutive frontman Freddy Janney’s boyish, pleading vocals leading the way over saccharine melodies and danceable rhythms. Their new EP “Take the Ride” (released this week) aims high – lead single “All I Wanna Do” seems […]
Bloody Death Skull makes music that doesn’t quite match up with their very metal-sounding name, but in no way does that imply Daiana Feuer, Gerard Olson, Beth Breen, Donna Suppipat (also of Tommy Santee Klaws) and Andres Renteria are shy with the subject matters on their latest EP “Oh My Gosh.” From “Girls Like You” […]
There’s a certain anxiety in composer Julia Holter’s electronic experimentations – the feeling that, at any turn, a pop song could break out. And, probably, ruin the vibe. Holter, the Cal Arts product who came on the radar two years ago with the Euripides-inspired “Tragedy” and last year followed it with the mystical, devastating (in […]
“Semi-Sweet” … Well, that’s about right. “Semi-Tart” would be acceptable too. And, perhaps, “Semi-Tough,” although Tijuana Panthers’ new album doesn’t quite pack the punch that the Long Beach trio’s off-the-chain live shows have wielded. The new album, out today via Innovative Leisure Records, mixes beach bunny-inspired surf pop with tallboy-propelled garage rock. It seems forever […]
L.A.’s dark electro duo MYPET may have a familiar face. Comprised of singer-songwriter Amy Kuney and producer Ray Brady, MYPET is on the complete opposite end of the musical spectrum for Kuney, whose songs (especially the notable 2008 album “Bird’s Eye View”) have been rooted in mostly folk-pop. Not unlike Meg Myers’ musical transformation after […]
