Upstart L.A. trio Death Kit trades in synth-pop with a chewy caramel center. The band’s debut single, “I Can Make You Love Me” (out next week), toots its smudgy synths like the bedroom answer to Friendly Fires, and singer-drummer August Brown’s quaver sounds straight off the 7-inch singles by Sarah Records staples Brighter and the […]
We don’t process a lot of hip-hop here at Buzz Bands HQ [go here if you don’t already], but with a big show headlined by fast-rising U-N-I coming up this weekend, I figure it’d be a nice time to introduce Audible Mainframe. The Boston expatriates’ rock- and soul-infused rap has gone down like a happy […]
Brooklyn shoegazers Zaza sound like thunder that rolls in atop fog. The mix of big rhythms and ambient fuzz on duo Jennifer Fraser (ex-Warlocks) and Danny Taylor’s “Cameo” EP, released in August, has drawn comparisons to heavyweights Ride and Slowdive, and while I might not put them in that lofty company, their big, haunting (and […]
[One in a series on notable new music from SoCal artists …] Long Beach quartet Parade of Lights – first heard here back in April – has released its debut EP, full of gorgeously crafted anthems that float somewhere between the youthful, earnest pop of artists such as Jack’s Mannequin and the expansive, Anglophile-leaning romanticism […]
Let’s embrace the winter season with a little panache, shall we? You’re invited to Buzz Bands LA’s Holidaze – a party and show all wrapped into one. It kicks off at 8 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 13, at Spaceland, and it’s free. Headlining will be L.A. quartet Letting Up Despite Great Faults, with support from Death […]
Singer-songwriter Jason Karaban caught my ear with April’s “Mayfly” EP, and now the L.A.-based artist is readying the follow-up, “Just Enough, Just In Case.” His roster of guests has been pretty impressive – including the likes of Dave Pirner, Glen Philips, Ani DiFranco and Pete Thomas – and this brassy, bouncy single shows he can […]
Yorkshire chanteuse Laura Groves, better known as Blue Roses, lilts onto our shores this week to support her new EP “Does Anyone Love Me Now.” Her magical voice and delicate arrangements recall the likes of Joanna Newsom and St. Vincent, and fans of haunting bedroom folk won’t be disappointed. Blue Roses released her self-titled debut […]
Music doesn’t feel so much like a business to Evan Slamka these days, and the Los Angeles singer-songwriter likes it just fine. With his new quintet Square on Square, Slamka has emerged from three-plus years of personal reflection and creative regeneration that followed the dissolution of Majorie Fair, which released one excellent album (“Self Help […]
Kavin Sandhu’s music might be all volleys and daggers, booze and swagger, but take him out of his native England and station him in Los Angeles for a year, and he’s more than a little bit wonder-struck. “It really does inspire me on a day-to-day basis,” the singer-guitarist and architect of the rock band KAV […]
Only a couple of years ago, Michael Bauer was making music to feed his twentysomething angst. Now, fronting the L.A. quartet Useless Keys, he’s making music that mirrors our unsettling times. “John Lennon said art should be a reflection of the time period you live in, and I think what we’re doing now does,” Bauer […]
