Today’s unsettling news: One major label buys another major label. Ugh. Black Sabbath to reunite. Ugh. People are still excited about Childish Gambino. Ugh. Doesn’t anybody here have an item that will make me smile? Actually, yes. Imperial Teen is coming back with a new album, its fifth and first since 2007. “Feel the Sound” […]
Join me on Moheak Radio at 11 a.m. Pacific time today for this week’s edition of the Buzz Bands LA show. I’ll have an armload of new music from SoCal artists – including NO, Wires in the Walls, Bikos, League, Nightmare & the Cat and Kiev – and a few special selections in honor of […]
[Happy 11/11/11 …] ‣ Canadian trio Austra plays a sold-out show at the Echo, with Grimes and Baron Von Luxxury supporting. That’s Austra’s video for “Lose It,” above. And Baron Von Luxxury has remixed Austra’s song “Spellwork” – it’s worth checkout out here. ‣ Brooklyn duo Holy Ghost rocks the Music Box. They’ve just released […]
Living Things have never lacked for strong messages in their music, whether it’s their early, unhinged glam-rock or recent forays into Afrobeat and noirish psychedelia. Even so, the Berlin brothers’ video for “Har Megiddo” (Hebrew for armageddon and the title track of their new EP) is a jaw-dropper. Basic storyline: Man likes his machine. Man […]
League’s bio make for a nice story. The project is the transatlantic collaboration between Jorge Ribeiro and José Tornada, whose decided to forgo their college studies in journalism and architecture, live on the beach and, ostensibly with the help of some guitars, effects pedals, keyboards and recording devices, share their blissful pop vision. And “How […]
Two big shows in Los Angeles tonight have been scotched at the last minute. Citing “complications with visas” in an announcement on its website, French dance-pop trio Yelle (pictured at left) posted its date at the Wiltern and rescheduled it for Monday. The band’s date Saturday in San Francisco is unaffected. Tonight’s show was to […]
Sometimes all the knobs, switches, levers and keys collectively yield a sound just as complicated as the set-up. Not so with Oakland-based band James & Evander, who transform typically staccato keys and pedals into a warm, shimmering melodicism that’s a little reminiscent of Dntel/the Postal Service or the One AM Radio without being as twitchy. […]
Thursday touts [updated at 2 p.m.]: ‣ Electric Flower, the new duo that pairs guitarist Imaad Wasif with Secret Machines drummer Josh Garza, makes its live debut at Harvard & Stone. Their debut EP is just out on Narnack Records. [Check out “Four16” here.] ‣ Dance-pop en francais is on the menu when Yelle kick […]
Music videos have a long history of demanding you suspend your disbelief as artists “sing” while dancing, prancing, falling, fighting and various other manners of play-acting. Pollyn frontwoman Genevieve Artadi takes the art of lip-synching to, er, new heights in the trios’ video for “Sometimes You Just Know.” Directed by Adam Jay Weissman and filmed […]
Bikos sounds like the most fun you can have without getting sponsored at happy hour, or without selling your soul to the synth devil. The Los Angeles art-punks new album “Make Your Sound Sound” binges on the pummeling rhythms and ecstatic licks of the B-52’s, Talking Heads and other bands who made the clamorous glamorous. […]
