Beginners are actually not … beginners, that is. Onetime bandmates in Malbec, Nick Ruth and Samantha Barbera reconnected at a concert headlined by Foster the People, for whom another ex-bandmate, Mark Pontius, drums. Since Malbec parted ways in 2010, Ruth and Barbera had taken divergent paths: Barbera was bassist-singer in the punk band Holy Fever; […]
Some of the new songs from L.A. quintet Vanaprasta are liable to make you come out of your shoes, if recent live performances are any indication. Promise. But “Flash Flood Warning” is not among them. Like the previously teased “NYF,” “Flash Flood Warning” is lush and dreamy, its meticulously layered psychedelia suggesting the band has […]
Following the release of a collaborative EP each of the last three years (“Shame,†“Thuggin’†and “Deeper,” chronologically), Freddie Gibbs and Madlib are set to put out their long-anticipated full-length album “Piñata†next week, with 17 tracks featuring guest verses from a plethora of talent, including Ab-Soul, BJ The Chicago Kid, Casey Veggies, Danny Brown, […]
If you’re in Austin for all the official South by Southwest Music Festival business, you’re invited to enjoy some unofficial fun Wednesday afternoon. Buzz Bands LA’s sixth annual day party – and the third year in a row with our “Dear Austin, Love L.A.” theme – goes off at the Chuggin’ Monkey, 219 E. 6th […]
Swedish singer-songwriter Lykke Li says every song on her forthcoming third album “is a power ballad. Like one of those old radio stations.” Which explains the slow-motion ache of “Love Me Like I’m Not Made of Stone.” Li’s album, titled “I Never Learn” (due May 6 via Atlantic), was largely recorded in L.A. and produced […]
With nods to Magritte and the Echo Park neighborhood that birthed the band, local sextet NO unveiled the video today for its dramatic single “Leave the Door Wide Open.” We begin at Origami Vinyl (happy fifth birthday to that record shop, by the way) and cross Sunset to El Prado, the craft beer and […]
“What came first, the sun or the summer” goes a verse of the Casket Girls’ single “Chemical Dizzy.” It’s one of several existential ticklers in the Georgia-based trio’s music, which counterposes Ryan Graveface’s buzzing synths against the saccharine vocals of sisters Phaedra and Elsa Greene. The trio’s second album “True Love Kills the Fairy Tale” […]
Alt-R&B, if that’s what we’re calling it these days – instead of alternative soul, Alt&B, Emo&B, indie R&B or the rather offensive and reductive PBR&B – seems to retain a few distinct qualities: electronic beats (exquisite and/or brooding), vocals (in the high-to-angelically high range) and echo (from mild to drowning in reverb). When that trifecta […]
Nicky Blitz is the nom de tune of San Fernando Valley-bred, Miami-based Nick Scapa, a songwriter/producer whose credits include Icona Pop’s “Light Me Up.” Like a lot of commercial songwriters, he can sound like just about anybody he wants to, and on his new single he’s a banjo player trapped in the software, building a […]
Dear Canada: Keep up the good work. Montreal two-piece Solids make the kind of vicious, delicious guitar squalor that recalls Torontonians Metz and F*cked Up, or Victoria’s Japandroids. The work of guitarist Xavier Germain-Poitras and Louis Guillemette, the duo’s debut “Blame Confusion” (out last month on Fat Possum) recalls the time when distortion and feedback […]
