Austin quartet the Octopus Project has quietly – well, maybe not so quietly – been making some of the most charmingly spaced-out instrumental music of this decade. I remember marveling at their Coachella-opening slot in 2006, which they followed up with a solid 2007 album “Hello, Avalanche.” Now husband-and-wife Josh and Yvonne Lambert and bandmates […]
Last week I posted three cover songs by L.A. artists, and the wave continues: On his forthcoming “Covers” EP (due Oct. 6 on Vanguard), SoCal singer-songwriter Greg Laswell covers Kristin Hersh’s “Your Ghost,” the gorgeous spectre of a song that led off her “Hips and Makers” album some 15 long years ago. Now, I like […]
Is it my imagination, or is there quite a bit of genre-hopping going on around town? When we last spotted Bodies of Water, they were flying the folk flag, parlaying their jangly, feel-good hymns into a deal with Secretly Canadian, the indie imprint on which they released two albums last year. Now husband-and-wife team David […]
Marcos Chloka cops to being something of a sonic fetishist – fond of “creating soundscapes and music that just surrounds you,” he says – but how that has played out in the L.A. quartet Lower Heaven is a little bit different. Chloka has incorporated the autoharp into the band’s reverb-soaked compositions, adding a little shimmer […]
File under synchronicity: Over the course of a 24-hour period this week, I was e-mailed, or stumbled upon, three cover songs performed by Los Angeles bands. All are interesting takes on the originals, so I thought I’d share. First, indie-pop quintet You Me & Iowa [pictured] delivering a surprisingly harmonic version of the Troggs’ hit […]
Four vocalists, four songwriters and a total of six veteran hands who know their way around a song – the conflagration of talent in Truth & Salvage Co. seems to make the L.A.-based outfit immediate contenders in the roots-rock world. Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes, for one, thinks so. He’s signed them to his […]
Kissing Cousins’ name sounds cute, sure, but the Los Angeles quintet’s debut album “Pillar of Salt” [recommended] is serious stuff – brooding, yearning music that, in a stealthy way, is about as punk-rock as you can get with a flutist (Karo Haro). Songwriter Heather B. Heywood and bandmates Melissa Pleckham, Beth Zeigler, Alexis Woodall and […]
The Black Heart Procession’s haunting, wry chamber pop has the feel of watching dark scenarios through a keyhole. Hard to believe San Diegans Pall Jenkins and Tobias Nathaniel have been doing this for more than a decade now, but their aesthetic never gets tiring, or repeats itself. The band’s new album, “Six,” comes out in […]
It occurred to me Wednesday night at the Viper Room that there ought to be a club in Los Angeles called the Major Label Refugees. Card-carrying members could get a discount at Guitar Center, or half off breakfast at Mel’s, or something. We could mount an annual Major Label Refugees Festival. “You’d have enough bands […]
On their self-titled debut album, Heavy Young Heathens, the musical bonding of brothers Aron and Robert Mardo, keep it raw and unvarnished – a straight-outta-the-garage Anglophilia that does its damnedest not to hide behind the fuzz. It’s not a huge leap from the dirty glam the L.A.-based brothers did on two albums as Mardo, but […]
