The Lovely Bad Things are so much fun that you’ll want to bottle your sweat for the next time. The young quartet, straight outta La Mirada, fashions undeniably hooky, unfailingly cathartic proto-punk that abides all traditions of garage rock – biting guitar riffs, furious rhythms, shout-sung lyrics and more than enough ’tude go with their […]
Omniflux arrived on our radar with a bang in October with the brooding “Boy Caught in a Dress,” and the solo incarnation of Mahsa Zargaran figures to stay there if she keeps churning out singles like her new “She and Him.” Zargaran, a classically trained pianist known in local rock circles as the drummer for […]
Edson Choi and Dre Babinksi were bandmates in the defunct Dusty Rhodes & the River Band, but both have moved on to new adventures. Choi has gone on to play a key part in Warships, and Babinski has taken her talents as a violinist on tour with Jarrod Gorbel and the Elected, as well as […]
Youth Lagoon’s just-add-reverb pop is a study in the stultifying (and we recognize ours is a minority opinion), but it sure does make for good cinema. Director Tyler T Williams’ video for “July” – off young songwriter Trevor Powers’ debut album “The Year of Hibernation” – is bloody good. Williams had previously captured Youth Lagoon’s […]
Every time Busdriver makes an album, you feel like you’re in the movie “Speed” – the L.A. rapper can’t let up on the accelerator, things fly by and you’re left waiting for a big explosion. It’s doesn’t sound any different on “Beaus$Eros,” the veteran’s seventh album, due Feb. 14 via Fake Four Inc. The L.A. […]
“Paint a Rocket” is the new song from Pisces, the experimental folk-pop explorations of Happy Hollows frontwoman Sarah Negahdari. A shredder in her indie-rock trio, Negahdari takes on a whole new persona as Pisces. Both in her initial video “Voodoo” [see our post from October] and in “Paint a Rocket,” Pisces takes a spacious, dreamy […]
Disco is not dead, as Blake Robin, aka Baron von Luxxury, reminds us with his shimmering and witty synth-pop. As the newest addition to the Manimal Vinyl family, (a label that is home to bands with a darker edge – Warpaint, Sister Crayon, Bat For Lashes), Robin’s persona as Baron von Luxxury blissfully bumps into […]
Olin & the Moon have brought back their “Beer and Bingo” Tuesday nights to the Echo this month, but there’s better news for fans of the sweet-soundin’, PBR-swillin’ folk-rock quintet: They have a new album written. Brothers David and Travis LaBrel, along with bandmates Marshall Vore, Brian McGinnis and Kyle Vicioso, are currently just looking […]
Partied out from the holidays? “Liberty St.,” the gorgeous meditation from Ben Heywood, Dan Rossiter and Summer Darling, will help you take inventory. The new tune from the indie-rockers whose self-titled 2010 album offered an uncompromising look at Heywood’s own battle to keep his life on the rails, is, he says, “dedicated to all our […]
Everybody aspires to be a “nice guy,” but if you’re a musician, it’s anathema to hear the phrase – the implication being that your personality outstrips your art or, worse, “nice” is merely artifice. So Chasing Kings prove as adept in the social graces as they are with their instruments. “Nice Guys,” the title track […]
