You'd think the hills of Silver Lake and Echo Park were Appalachia judging from the amount of big-hearted folk music coming from the scene. The tunes of Count Fleet are exemplary — earnest and winsome, they feel like a hedge against high-tech city life, illusory social media friendships and button-pushing marketing campaigns. The duo of Elliot Glass and Caitlin Dwyer are following up their February EP — made with the help of a lot of familiar faces from the Eastside, including members (or ex-members) of the Belle Brigade, the Henry Clay People, the Parson Red Heads and Races [...]
The Parson Red Heads are back. No, not in Los Angeles — their base for five years and home to some of their most devout fans — but back on the musical landscape. Less than a year after relocating to Portland, Ore., Evan Way and bandmates today announced they have signed with indie imprint Arena Rock Recording Co. , which will release their new album "Yearling" on Aug. 16. "Yearling," recorded with Raymond Richards at L.A. Red Rockets Glare studio and with the dB's legendary Chris Stamey in Chapel Hill, N.C., represents "a big step for [...]
Angel Correa says it's just evolution. But for the songwriter and compelling voice behind the L.A. quartet Correatown , her new musical direction — which finds her winsome, Americana-oriented folk-pop suddenly elevated to the cumulus of dream-pop — represents education as much as anything. "This has the sound and textures and soundscape-y elements that I was always pushing for," Correa says of the music on the "Etch the Line" EP, which will be out May 31 as a prelude to her second full-length "Pleaides" in September. "I never quite knew how to get there until I met [...]
At one moment during Local Natives' gleeful turn Saturday night at Walt Disney Concert Hall, singer-keyboardist Kelcey Ayer gazed longingly at the grand piano in front of him, which seemed not much smaller than a lot of clubs the Los Angeles quintet played during its two-year ascent into the indie-pop limelight. "This is the first time I get to play a real piano live," Ayer said, giving the grand a big man-hug as the capacity crowd laughed. Then he turned to the modest electronic keyboard at the front of the stage and added, "I [...]
You won't find the slightest trace of indie tricks — no fuzzy reverb, glitchy beats or laptop wizardry — on "I Want Us to Be Remembered," the first EP from Los Angeles quartet A House for Lions . "That's not who we are," singer-songwriter Daniel Norman says. "It would come off as false." Instead, Norman's partnership with guitarist Mike Nissen, keyboardist/bassist Eric McCann and drummer Felipe Ceballos favors classic songwriting, with the frontman's crystalline vocals prevailing sweetly over arrangements bearing a faint hint of Southern-fried pop. Think Ryan Adams meets Snow Patrol. [...]
It'd be a compliment to call the Fling derivative, and it'd have nothing to do with the Long Beach band's ’60s-flavored folk rock. The band — brothers Dustin and Graham Lovelis, along with Justin Ivey and Justin Roeland — derives its name from an early-’80s SoCal band called the Fling. It was founded by the Lovelises' father, Mark. "It was the name of my dad's band," Dustin says. "He got my mom pregnant, they had me, he had to give up music and raise a family, so I figured I should carry on the legacy." [...]
As sure as the seasons change, L.A. quintet Seasons has a new EP, it seems. The latest from the scrappy Highland Park band is the forthcoming "Winter" — named for when it was made, not when it will be released (June 22). Recorded at Raymond Richards' Red Rockets Glare studio and mastered by Mark Chalecki, "Winter" furthers Seasons' psych-pop explorations; the single "...Of Our Discontent" is a gorgeous meditation-cum-catharsis that I imagine could have been inspired by cabin fever. ||| Download: "... Of Our Discontent" [...]
Raymond Richards has been something of a two-headed beast the past few years, his burgeoning duties as an up-and-coming producer at his humble garage studio forcing his singer-songwriter side to the back burner. But now Richards (whose Red Rockets Glare Studio has birthed albums by Local Natives , the Broken West and Ferraby Lionheart , among others) has kick-started his own band, the Idaho Falls . And the man who wears two hats has fashioned a beautiful triptych of an album. "The Spark," the Idaho Falls' third full-length and first in [...]
Their name is barely known outside of a few small clubs, but already Local Natives are telling us all the places they've been — and, in doing so, all the places they intend to go. The L.A. quintet makes music that crackles with frenetic beats, agile melodies and cascading harmonies, tightly assembled in songs that advocate, in varying degrees of exuberance and wonderment, the notion that to embrace change is to nourish growth. "Most of our songs have to do with traveling, or moving on, or some kind of change," bassist Andy Hamm says, and, yes, [...]
Buzz Bands
Akabu feat. Alex Mills – Everybody Wants Something (Joey Negro Strip Mix) [New Release]
MP3: Daft Punk – “Horizons” (RAM Japanese Bonus Track)
Seven Lions: Fevers (Feat. Minnesota and Mimi Page)
Listen to producer Jacques Greene’s “On Your Side,” featuring How To Dress Well
