First thing you need to know about His Orchestra is that “Field Guide to the Wilds,” the debut album that saw a quiet digital release back in February, is one of the most enchanting indie-pop albums you’ll hear this year. Its winsome mix of string-, glockenspiel- and keyboard-flavored confessionals reminds me of the likes of […]
L.A. noiseniks No Age have a new EP coming Oct. 6 – the four-song “Losing Feeling” will be released digitally and on 12-inch vinyl. (Sign up at the Sub Pop website to stream it.) Underground heroes Randy Randall and Dean Spunt seem to have lengthened their songwriting attention span here, to great effect. The guitar […]
[One in a series on new music from L.A. environs:] Mellowdrone has spent the past couple of years picking up the pieces – after its promising 2006 debut “Box,” the band was dropped by Columbia and a couple of members fell by the wayside, leaving the core duo of Jonathan Bates [pictured] and Tony DeMatteo […]
When I last checked in with End Roulette, the L.A. quartet was just getting comfortable with its new moniker, having decided not to fight the power after the Minnesota-based alcohol and drug treatment facility objected to their using the name Hazelden. Since then, the band appeared on MTV’s “Road to the VMAs” show, getting nominated […]
The first single from Imaad Wasif’s new album “The Voidist” has emerged, and, my, is it good. The guitar maestro, who has played with Lou Barlow’s Folk Implosion and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, fronted Alaska! and, most recently, collaborated on the score of the forthcoming Spike Jonze-directed movie “Where the Wild Things Are,” has crafted […]
Rumors of Light FM’s demise were not exaggerated – Josiah Mazzaschi had fully intended this spring to move on from the moniker under which he made music dating back to his Chicago days and the 2004 debut, “This Is the Beginning of My Golden Age.” Now, after aligning with the MySpace Friends & Family Network […]
Owing to their somewhat cut-and-paste aesthetic, I thought a lot of the songs on Fol Chen’s debut “Part I: John Shade Your Fortune’s Made” already sounded like remixes. But apparently there is more room to fidget in the L.A. avant-poppers’ sonic world. Now Fol Chen is releasing the super-single “The Longer U Wait” – a […]
The Postmarks cooed their way into my consciousness in ’07 with their self-titled debut, and the Miami three-piece followed it up with an album of cool covers, “By the Numbers,” last year. Not that I’m a sucker for for any old band that covers Ride’s “OX4,” but it gets my attention, and female singer Tim […]
Caught between rock and a hard place, Division Day chose rock. Obsidian, if I had to choose a particular stone. “Visitation,” the album that announces the return of the Los Angeles quartet from a year-plus period of travails and self-doubt, is dark, dense and polished. It’s so intense and claustrophobic that you’d think the guys […]
Tankfarm, the Orange County-based clothing company who used to partner with Future Sounds on their compilation CDs of music by breaking artists, have now hooked up with the MySpace Records Friends & Family program on a similar venture. The partnership’s first mix – featuring the likes of Sabrosa Purr [pictured], Jonneine Zapata, All Smiles, U-N-I, […]
