It’s been six years since Dam-Funk, née Damon Riddick, released his debut solo album “Toeachizown,” a nearly 2-hour, 20-minute epic and sprawling odyssey that dabbled in boogie, disco, G-funk and R&B. In the years since, he has collaborated with Snoop, who traded in the Dogg for -zilla on the effort, 2013’s “7 Days of Funk,” […]
No Win, the solo venture ex-FIDLAR drummer Danny Nogueiras, rocks like its 1996, unleashing his inner Weezer on songs he made in his Echo Park studio along with Max Kuehn (current FIDLAR drummer) and bassist David Jerkovich (Kind of Like Spitting). No Win’s crunchy power-pop recalls another drummer who knows his pop hooks, Seattle’s Michael […]
Kisses have found “A Groove.” Not that the indie duo of Jesse Kivel and Zinzi Edmundson didn’t have one before, but nothing on their previous two albums (2013’s “Kids in LA” and 2010’s “The Heart of the Nightlife” was this deep, or bold. “A Groove” is the first song to emerge from Kisses’ forthcoming third […]
The first single from L.A. garage-rockers the Shelters recalls the swagger of the Replacements and the saw-toothed riffage of tragically overlooked power-poppers like the Velvet Crush. “Birdwatching” is the work of the new trio of Chase Simpson, Josh Jove and Sebastian Harris, who had played in the L.A. band Automatik Slim. The former two have […]
Tijuana Panthers have given you a little something to jam while cruising around the city this summer with the car windows open. “Front Window Down” is the breezy first single from “POSTER,” the fourth album from the Long Beach trio of Chad Wachtel, Daniel Michicoff and Phil Shaheen. The album, out Aug. 28 via Innovative […]
Released last month, the “Shift” EP found Toronto producer Deebs (aka Will Diebel) and L.A. crooner Jarell Perry teaming up for an intoxicating handful of songs marrying trip-hop and modern soul. “Shift’s” sleek, minimalist feel comes to life in the video for the lead track, “Driving Blind,” thanks to the surreal graphics created by animator […]
Dan Ballard of My Dead Air hunkered down in a basement of an old building off the Pacific Coast Highway for nine months to write and record his new album, “The Thief Who Knows My Name” (out Aug. 14), a groovy 10 songs in which each track tells a different story from his lifetime. Previously […]
If Isaac Rother & the Phantoms aren’t headlining a Halloween party in L.A. this October, somebody’s missing the boat. The Washington state-bred retro-rockers debuted their full-length “The Unspeakable Horror of …” last month, their collection of howling, growling throwback blues imagining the time Screamin’ Jay Hawkins got together with Sam the Sham for a collaboration […]
Emily Gold says the pop confessionals on her forthcoming debut album “Recluse” aren’t just love, lust or heartbreak songs but about “the in-between,” and that often-agonizing fluidity of emotions plays out in her new single “Love Moves.” Amid lush instrumentation and finger-snaps, and punctuated by a tasty guitar solo from David Burris, the British-born, California-bred […]
Pardon us for doing a double-take when we hopped on YouTube to check out the new Girlpool video — the ad leading into the “Magnifying Glass” was almost as long as the clip itself. The exercise in short attention span theater was directed by Craig Scheihing, and it finds the duo of Cleo Tucker and […]
