Recent blog posts tagged with "losangelesbands" from music blog aggregator, Elbo.ws http://elbo.ws/tag/losangelesbands/ 2013-06-19T00:15:07+01:00 text/html 2013-06-18T21:44:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/5013076/video-warships-heater/


Weird things may happen if you ignore those "No Trespassing" signs. At least that's what SoCal quintet Warships learn in theirFrederik Boll- and Jon Shoer-directed video for "Heater." It all starts with a box (everything mystical always starts with mysterious box) and a cloud of smoke. Ladies appear out of thin air and the band wanders through a magic funhouse making it a trippy clip for Warhips' most psychedelic song in comparison to bright gems such as "Sleeper Hold" and "Flash Flood" off of their debut EP, "Shadows." A Warships full-length is slated for a release in 2014. [...]]]> text/html 2013-06-18T21:12:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/5013024/ears-wide-open-dignitary/


As the band name has gotten shorter, the legend of L.A. quintet Dignitary grows incrementally longer. Originally known as The Dignitary Loss of Richard Roe, and then just Dignitary Loss, the five-piece makes mortality-obsessed rock noir that pairs the splendidly imperfect boy/girl vocals of guitarist Michael Cuence (ex-The Lips) and keyboardist Amberlie Bankoff, last spotted in the bewitching (but, alas, dearly departed) Black Flamingo. They are joined by guitarist Joseph Halter, bassist Carolyn Schoenburg and drummer Nick Liberatore. Their initial single "Demon, Beside Me" is a thematically and sonically apt introduction, echoing Gothic folk that hints at the [...]]]> text/html 2013-06-18T20:33:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/5012971/stream-crash-kings-hot-fire/


Much has been made of the distinctive manner in which Crash Kings make their music: The Los Angeles trio goes guitar-less, using an array of synthesizers, keyboards and effects that gives the aural impression there's shredding going on when there's nary a six-string in sight. It's heavy-duty blues either way, and it was Crash Kings' songwriting especially their monster single "Mountain Man" that put Tony and Mike Beliveau and Jason Morris on the map some six years ago, when Linda Perry signed them to her Custard Records and, in 2009, when Universal Motown released their debut. [...]]]> text/html 2013-06-18T18:47:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/5012777/video-local-natives-you-and-i/
We're pretty much suckers for anything related to man's best friend, so the video for Local Natives' "You & I" had us on the edge of our seats rooting for a miracle of veterinary medicine to save the Last Dog Earth. The poignant video, directed by Daniel Portrait with Kamp Grizzly, casts the whole concept of "You & I" in a different light. Stay to the end. The song is off the L.A. band's sophomore album "Hummingbird," which came out in January.]]> text/html 2013-06-17T23:35:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/5010895/stream-irontom-what-will-happen-to-all-the-indie-stars/


Don't be deceived by the band photo: Irontom is as serious as a sledgehammer, and its riffs land like one. The quintet of singer Harry Hayes, guitarist Zach Irons, bassist Dane Sandborg, keyboardist Daniel Saslow and drummer Dylan Williams returned last week with their second EP in a five-month span. The band calls their sound "a direct repudiation of lo-fi skuzz littering the indie scene," which, if you're drowning in skuzz or want to imagine what Zep would sound like as a really good 90s indie-rock band, could be a breath of fresh air. When Irontom first [...]]]> text/html 2013-06-17T22:07:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/5010807/ears-wide-open-carousel/


Jackson Phillips and Kevin Friedman may have only recently graduated from Berklee College of Music, but the Brooklyn by way of Boston duo, who have now relocated to L.A. and call themselves Carousel, has the formula for summery, 80s-leaning synth-pop down. Add these boys to your pool party playlists, everyone. With songs like "Let's Go Home" to "Where Have You Gone," Carousel's feather-light falsettos and sparkling electro-pop were meant to float and push out the smog for a little more sunshine in the City of Angels. Yes, the lyrics "Oh you got me feeling/ I wanna stay" in [...]]]> text/html 2013-06-17T21:33:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/5010751/stream-baths-ironworks/


Two years ago Baths , the nom de tune of the San Fernando Valleys Will Wiesenfeld, was busy being showered with praise for his debut album Cerulean," conceived and created in his Chatsworth home. Fresh off a year-long tour, he returned ready to begin the process of creating his full-length sophomore effort, when the young composers body betrayed him. The second LP from Baths, titled Obsidian arrived May 28 and is heavily influenced byWiesenfeld's horrifying battle with an E. Coli virus powerful enough to leave himincapacitated for months, void of any creative energy. With vivid memories of a bedridden [...]]]> text/html 2013-06-14T21:14:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/5006656/ears-wide-open-pink-mexico/


Robert Preston Collum moved from Brooklyn to Venice this spring "to live near the ocean, 'cause who doesn't want that," he says leaving behind his NYC duo Anything But Animals and bringing with a new nom de tune Pink Mexico . And a new album, the dyslexia-embracing "PNIK MXEICO," which at times sounds like the Brian Jonestown Massacre and the Dandy Warhols arriving at a truce negotiated by a bunch of young garage-rockers. Or Spiritualized doing grunge. The album was made in Brooklyn, where it was produced by Jonathan Granoff (Zebu) and mastered by Nuutti Kataja (Dead [...]]]> text/html 2013-06-14T19:54:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/5006509/video-dekades-you-and-him/


The gripping video for the new Dekades song "You & Him" can be interpreted a lot of different ways, but director Aaron Paustian finds a way to unveil some light at the end of the darkness. The clip stars Margot Dayan and Harwood Gordon, with Dekades' mastermind herself Arden Fisher materializing at the end. The song is the latest slice of dark electro from the band that emerged from the shadows last fall (with some cool songs and three videos from Paustian). ||| Download: "You & Him" free via [...]]]> text/html 2013-06-14T19:19:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/5006465/premiere-johnette-napolitano-riding-the-moon/


Ever since she stood in front of a mic three decades ago in the embryonic stages of Concrete Blonde, Johnette Napolitano has had one of those stop-you-in-your-tracks voices, a quaver that commands, or challenges, or suggests, or sometimes all three at once. Now ensconced in the desert, the songwriter/artist/author/provo cateur is culling years of songs, old and news. Ive known for years I would want to record an acoustic record, but that there would be a place in time to do it and I think it's a good time," she says. "So I'm looking through 30 years of songs, [...]]]> text/html 2013-06-14T18:37:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/5006414/stream-chris-schlarb-seventh-house-featuring-sarah-negahdari-of-the/


It's easy to imagine composer Chris Schlarb in a white lab coat, surrounded by Bunson burners, a glint in his eye. If not out-and-out magic, what Schlarb practices in his Long Beach studio is musical alchemy, a cerebral yet somehow sensual voyage to world unfettered by boundaries. Schlarb debuted his ambient experimentation "Psychic Temple" back in 2010 , but for the follow-up, "Psychic Temple II" (out July 16 via Sufjan's Stevens' Asthmatic Kitty label), he has outdone himself, again assembling a diverse collection of collaborators for his excursion into rock, prog, pop, jazz and a [...]]]> text/html 2013-06-13T19:24:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/5004432/video-kisses-huddle/
In Adrian Buitenhuis-directed video for Kisses dark synth-pop single Huddle, the duo turns into a trio when Jesse Kivel and Zinzi Edmundson are joined by a little drummer boy named Henry. Aside from the band, its not entirely clear why hes hanging out with two older kids who are about to go to college, but pint-sized Henry seems to be the glue holding together the band in this melodramatic coming-of-age narrative. But we have one more summer, he reminds Kivel and Edmundson as the waves recklessly crash in contrast to the somber tune. Kisses Kids in LA is [...]]]> text/html 2013-06-12T21:52:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/5002495/stream-the-furys-say-goodbye-to-the-black-sheep/


Those were heady times, 1978. Punk rock had encroached on Los Angeles' power-pop scene; bands who would come be known as New Wave appeared; and in Chinatown the stage was being set for a venue rivalry between Madame Wong's and the Hong Kong Cafe. It was then that a five-piece out of Orange County, the Furys , starting making the rounds. Fronted by songwriter Jeff Wolfe, the Furys cultivated a pop-punk sound that has been described as somewhere between the Weirdos and the Knack. ( Their ex-manager recalls a dust-up between the Fury and the Knack at the Troubadour [...]]]> text/html 2013-06-12T20:12:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/5002299/ears-wide-open-nate-miller/
Nate Miller in a L.A.-based, Washington, D.C. ex-pat whose late 2012 release "Fall Is Meant for Falling to the Ground" is an amiable mix of up-tempo folk-rock and lovelorn Americana adorned with piano, organ, horns, pedal steel and strings. It was produced by Nate Vaughan, who plays on the album along with more than 15 other contributors, including cellist Anna Su, who provides background vocals on "The Darkest Spaces." Speaking of strings, the video for that track takes the idea of I-feel-so-lost-it's-like-I'm-f loating to a Valencia pool. We don't know what's sadder, the song, or the fact that, [...]]]> text/html 2013-06-12T18:07:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/5002028/stream-no-age-cmon-stimmung/


The news bulletin here is that No Age has made an album. No, not just recordings of guitar, bass, drums and vocals the actual physical product. For their fourth full-length "An Object," L.A. noisemeisters Randy Randall and Dean Spunt have taken the mission of making an album literally, right down to designing, manufacturing and assembling the physical product. "An Object," out Aug. 20 via Sub Pop , is the follow-up to "Everything In Between" and sees the duo fiddling with "amplified contact mics, 4-string bass guitars and prepared speakers" to return, Spunt told SPIN , [...]]]> text/html 2013-06-11T22:04:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/5000519/ears-wide-open-halfbluud/


After the demise of Just An Animal (f/k/a Red Cortez, the Weather Underground), Harley Prechtel-Cortez lay low for a while to focus on his art and film-making career, but it didn't take too long for Prechtel-Cortez to get back to music. Recruiting the likes of Amiee Lay (The Lost & Found), Curt Barlage (The Bixby Knolls), Diego Guerrero and James Rodriguez to flesh out a live band, new music under the moniker Halfbluud began to take form. Aside from the handful of live shows, Halfbluud has also already released a self-titled EP, a second one titled "Shibuya," and [...]]]> text/html 2013-06-11T19:57:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/5000267/stream-the-peach-kings-mojo-thunder/


Fresh off a sun-splashed performance two weeks ago at Make Music Pasadena, the Peach Kings are returning with a new dose of shadowy blues. At least, Texas-bred Paige Wood sounds as if she's in the shadows on the new single "Mojo Thunder," the title track to the L.A. duo's forthcoming third EP in as many years. While Steven Trezevant Dies throws down a thicket of guitar amid intoxicating bass lines and mixed-bag percussion, Wood whispers and wails as if torn between coming and going. The Peach Kings' brand of Americana noir gets headier with every EP, and if [...]]]> text/html 2013-06-11T18:06:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/5000009/stream-thundercat-lotus-and-the-jondy/


L.A.-based singer-songwriter-bassist Thundercats 2011 solo debut "The Golden Age of Apocalypse was an inventive synthesis, co-produced by Flying Lotus on his Brainfeeder label, that blended jazz, pop, soul and experimental electronica. His sophomore effort, "Apocalypse," out now digitally and July 9 on CD/LP, once again teams with FlyLo and further distorts genre lines with its falsetto, funk and complexities. The first single, Lotus and the Jondy, is a real treat of live, imaginative improvisation. Thundercat begins singing over a mix of analog warmth and soulful shimmer until a funky drum beat drops [...]]]> text/html 2013-06-10T21:10:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/4998041/ears-wide-open-moses-sumney/


Moses Sumney is a soulful one-man show with vocal percussion, handclaps and harmonies on loop, and his guitar strumming is intricate and heartfelt as the riffs he sings. After purchasing an old guitar from a friend, Sumney began to make a name for himself with a charismatic take on R&B-influenced folk-rock. Songs like Alchemy and the new Dwell in the Dark are introspective and wonderfully vulnerable, specialties that may have carried over from his time as a creative writing major at UCLA. Heck, even his cover of the Pussycat Dolls Dont Cha is sincere and positively smooth. But youll [...]]]> text/html 2013-06-10T20:45:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/4997982/stream-dreamers-dose-pray-for-me-fragile/


When we last heard from young L.A. quartet Dreamers Dose , they had just ditched their old band name and begun working with producer Alain Johannes (Arctic Monkeys, Queens of the Stone Age, Jimmy Eat World, Them Crooked Vultures and more). File under wise and wiser. Oh, and they were just getting a handle on their sound, a bristling neo-psychedelia that's a little bit Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and a little bit 90s alt-rock. The fruits of their labor the debut album "At Least We're Happy" is out this week, and it makes the fresh-faced foursome of [...]]]>