For years, Cecilia Della Peruti has been a familiar figure on the L.A. indie scene, but not necessarily because she wants to fit in. Since 2011 or so, her band Gothic Tropic has gigged and gigged and gigged and gigged some more, prompting a lot of next-big-thing chatter but offering little in the way of […]
“Our two hearts will never sleep alone,” Michael Escañuelas and Celese Hernandez sing on Their Wedding’s new song “Naked,” a squishy pillow-talker best enjoyed with the lights down low. The Inland Empire-bred quartet of singer-pianist Escañuelas, singer-percussionist Celese Hernandez, guitarist Al Hernandez and drummer Ryan Ohanessian has been refining such romanticism for two-plus years now, […]
Before he was imploring people to “Never Trust a Happy Song” as part of Grouplove, Christian Zucconi was playing out that distrust as part of the New York post-hardcore band ALOKE. Inspired, Zucconi says, by “grunge, hardcore and post-punk-like Fugazi,” he and bandmates Paul DeCourcey, Alex Walker and Alex Charpentier had a good thing going; […]
“Ooh, how I like the smell of West Coast pheromones,” Noah McBeth sings on the outro to his viral hit (as NoMBe) “California Girls,” which, if nothing else, answers the age-old question “What do pheromones sound like?” (In this case, drunken synths underpinned by pulsing electronic beats.) McBeth, a native of Heidelberg, Germany, and the […]
Boston-bred singer-songwriter Dave Munro served in the U.S. Navy as a real-life air traffic controller, sending out 4-track demos during his deployment. He returned home to discover a myriad of fans, as well as singer/songwriter Casey Sullivan. This prompted Munro to switch careers, but keep the name, with the birth of Air Traffic Controller. They […]
What is rock music? Is it something parents just don’t understand? Is it someone shaking their head back and forth over a guitar? Is it multiple persons shaking their heads over guitars? In all its varieties and applications, these days, describing something new simply as rock music doesn’t seem to suffice. But when the aliens […]
Wages’ cinematic art-rock began as a collaboration between East Coasters Nick Campbell and James DeDakis and, after establishing L.A. as a home base, grew to include bassist Dustin Robles. After releasing the at-moments-devastating EP “Shady Chamber” in 2013, the band set to work on a full-length, only to shelve it in favor of some “new […]
The new video from L.A. quartet Sun Drug is — like the one for “Easy in Your Attitude” — a feat of technology from director Brian Randall. The song, “Wildman,” the second to emerge from Sun Drug’s debut EP (out June 26), and the wild man in the video is the band’s frontman Steven Wilkin, whose […]
L.A. electro-pop trio Superhumanoids usher in their second act by titling their sophomore album this way: “Do You Feel OK?” If you don’t take the question for granted, the answer, quite possibly, is no, or at least complicated. And it’s one that the band — Sarah Chernoff, Cameron Parkins and Max St. John — probably asked of […]
Most of Spectacular Spectacular’s press clippings have revolved around Isley Reust’s rising profile in the transgender community. Reust, who blogged about her transition on YouTube, has appeared on “Glee” and Laura Jane Grace’s “True Trans” series, among other exploits (a film is in the works). None of which should obfuscate the lush, dreamy statement that […]
