L.A. RECORD ISSUE 130

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WINTER 2018 ISSUE 130 • FREE PHOEBE BRIDGERS SHANNON LAY G PERICO BLACK MAMBAS MIYA FOLICK PRETTIEST EYES DIMBER VAGABON D33J

AND MORE

6 VAGABON BENNETT KOGON

28 DIMBER EMILY TWOMBLY

8 ALEX LAHEY MADISON DESLER

34 MIYA FOLICK MADISON DESLER

14 SHANNON LAY CHRIS ZIEGLER

38 G PERICO SENAY KENFE

18 JOHN MAUS BENNETT KOGON

42 D33J ZACH BILSON

20 PRETTIEST EYES EMILY TWOMBLY

44 PHOEBE BRIDGERS BEN SALMON

24 BLACK MAMBAS GABRIEL HART

PRETTIEST EYES p 20 PHOTO: ALEX THE BROWN

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VAGABON Interview by Bennett kogon illustration by MAKAN NEGAHBAN

The music industry needs more people like Laetitia Tamko. After moving from Cameroon to New York City when she was just a teenager, she left behind her engineering diploma and her full-time job to explore a completely different path and to create something genuine on her own terms. At twenty-five, she built on the encouragement she’d received from the city’s DIY community and began performing as Vagabon in 2014. Her recent debut Infinite Worlds is one of the most heartfelt releases of the year, and speaking with her was a breath of fresh air during an otherwise painful and soul-searching time in music history.

You played every instrument on this new record—that makes it feel even more personal.

This record is a healing thing for me and I really needed it to be my own. I previously released a cassette of demos in 2014 where I wrote all these songs, but I let a lot of people’s hands touch it. By the end of it, I didn’t really identify with it that much. For this new record, it was important for me to do it all by myself. It was also a way for me to turn revenge into a productive thing because there have been those people who have discouraged me. I know I just said all those great things about community, but there’s always that one guy who’s like, ‘You can’t play guitar.’ But then I’m like, ‘Fucking watch me—I’ll play everything on the record.’ I don’t really like being told I can’t do something.

That’s something many people encounter in their lifetime: that feeling of turning your back on something that you’re ‘supposed’ to be doing. You were ‘supposed’ to be an engineer, weren’t you?

It was always apparent to me that I wouldn’t live my life as a career engineer, despite going to school and then working an engineering job full time. Growing up, everyone around me always told me that education was your ‘way out.’ And that’s like, out of poverty, out of Cameroon, out of suffering, all these things. Sure, a lot of people may think that’s a capitalistic mindset, but it’s also survival. I didn’t come from the family where you went away to college. Engineering school started with, ‘You have to be academic. It has to give you a job immediately that will pay for your life because no one else is going to.’ I taught myself to be good at math and science almost simultaneously because in STEM there are still hardly any women. These were some of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.

Learning something so labor intensive while not having a passion for it is one thing, but INTERVIEW

there’s also being good at something that you don’t have a passion for. I got a lot of stress from that. With Infinite Worlds and starting to realize that my life was taking another direction, there was no way I wasn’t going to just be an engineer because this is what I wanted to do my entire life. My parents used to scold me a lot about being stubborn and I’d get so mad. It’s like I am constantly searching for something in this fucking shitty world. If I can find something that helps me and can help heal other people, I’m good.

You’ve created something very heartfelt, something we need right now in music.

The DIY scene that you became part of in New York seems to have really helped facilitate that kind of growth and openness. How can a community benefit those who are part of it?

It can be so encouraging and inspiring to be around a bunch of musicians who are supportive of one another. Most of my records are demos from my bedroom which is the most real performance that I was able to capture. That’s mostly because I’d only ever been singing in my room. I think ‘community’ was even just someone telling me I should put my songs up online. I’ve been touring for a couple of years without a record and being a part of it all has made me feel so much better about releasing music that is vulnerable and emotional. The encouragement I’ve received has allowed me to put something out no matter what it sounds like, even if I feel it didn’t sound great. There’s so much fear with sharing something so personal and my friends and community of musicians have given me— and also get from me—this encouragement that’s like, ‘It’s OK. It’s hard, but share it.’ It’s a point of healing for me. And like any group of people, there is critique to it and I want to be really explicit about that. We’ve all been reading the news and I can easily go down the same path of critique for it.

This has been a tough year for a lot of creative communities. What do you think we need to change about the music industry as a whole?

I want to preface this with like … ‘What the fuck do I know,’ you know? I think we are all still processing since this is all happening very much in real time. I don’t want to put myself out there as someone with the answer, but for me personally, I think a lot of things navigate from a place of ego. I think it’s important to not idolize our idols.

This is obviously not a resolve for people that we support that are disappointing us with their inappropriate actions and gross behavior. When we like someone’s music or someone’s comedy or someone’s art, I think it is important that we remember that there is a human being that is not on a different level than the listener, observer, or the person consuming this art. I’m sure fame, popularity, and all that stuff is fucking nice … but it always trips me up that there are all these huge leaks of power and then people get taken down from this pedestal.

Maybe it’s just a cautious thought of who is on this pedestal.

You’re from two unique cultural environments. How has each shaped you?

Being born in Cameroon and that being my culture but also growing up in New York and being exposed to everything here—it’s been kind of insane for me. It informs so much of the person that I am, my world view and my outlook on certain things. I’ve only started to realize that the way that I see the world also means how I view things like failure, money, or poverty—it’s so different than a lot of my peers that I have been around and have been inspired by. Having been in New York for so long, I finally feel so grateful for growing up the way that I did and having a different perspective of the world. It makes me really equipped for some of the things that I have dealt with.

I was reluctant to ask about your background because it seems like media outlets have grabbed the opportunity to say things like ‘Look at this girl from Cameroon!’ when you have more than just one story to tell. How do you want to see yourself represented?

I want to be a part of artists having control again. That has kind of manifested into somewhat of a career path in my head.

Apart from all these things that I have opinions on, I am mostly trying to achieve artistry in a way that feels good to me. I just want to keep making things for people who are open to whatever I decide to put out. I believe there should be some sort of trust between me and the people who listen to my music that allows me to be an artist in the purest form. I want it to feel like there is a community between me and the people at my shows, or between me and the people who listen to me online because they can’t get to a show. I want it to feel like the community that I started up on that made me love performing so much. People should feel as invested in this as I am, but they should also understand that I am a person and I can make music that evolves in different ways. That’s something that’s number one for me. I just want the freedom to make things as I want them with room to grow, and I hope that people will follow along with it.

VAGABON WITH CHERRY GLAZERR AND SHANNON LAY ON FRI., DEC. 29, AT THE FONDA THEATRE, 6126 HOLLYWOOD BLVD., HOLLYWOOD. 9 PM / $21 / ALL AGES. VAGABON’S INFINITE WORLDS IS AVAILABLE NOW FROM FATHER/DAUGHTER / HOUSE ANXIETY / BARELY DRESSED. VISIT VAGABON AT VAGABON.BANDCAMP.COM OR VAGABONVAGABON.COM. 7

alex lahey Interview by madison desler illustration by Juliette Toma

The word ‘relatable’ gets used a lot when people talk about Melbourne indie rocker Alex Lahey. With her diary-style songwriting, her wry observations about her real-life relationships and her irresistibly down-to-earth demeanor, it’s difficult not to relate. Her sunny accent, flannel and ability to reveal the profound in the everyday also makes it difficult to avoid comparisons to fellow Aussie Courtney Barnett, but with the recent release of her debut I Love You Like A Brother, Lahey isn’t worried about anything else but being herself. With anthemic guitars, hook after hook, and relentlessly introspective honesty, Brother won Lahey a new legion of fans—fans who see their own lives in songs like ‘Lotto In Reverse,’ ‘I Haven’t Been Taking Care Of Myself’ and ‘There’s No Money.’

On Brother, Lahey feels like one of your best friends—an approachable, unpretentious everyperson for every person. Or as Lahey puts it, ‘The schtick is, there’s no schtick.’ In the midst of her most extensive tour to date, Lahey speaks with the same precise detail and humor in her songs—songs you’re about to start hearing everywhere.

I’m sure that you’re sick of people using the word ‘relatable’ to talk about your music, but the first song of yours that I ever heard was ‘Lotto In Reverse.’

Uh oh. Who fucked you over? [laughs] I heard it literally days after I ended a situation that was so similar to what you describe in that song—I got chills. How autobiographical is that song? Was there a bedroom you sat in that actually had a Barbarella poster?

You bet. It’s all legit. The story is … I was dating someone from this city in Australia that I wasn’t from. It was such a short-term thing. It wasn’t like I was madly in love and my future was in tatters. It wasn’t anything like that. It was just we went out, I got dumped, and my ego was shattered. [laughs] I remember I went over to the city and was hanging out, and I kind of asked, ‘How do you think things are going?’ And they were like, ‘Yeah I’m not into it.’ So I was stuck in this place and I couldn’t go home! It was a massive ‘Fuck you!’ moment. Much more of a ‘Fuck you!’ than ‘Oh, what have you done to me?!’ There was a Barbarella poster on the wall, and I remember sitting in that bedroom and it was such an interesting image. You think of Jane Fonda and you INTERVIEW

think of this Barbarella character … she’s a huge activist, but then you think of the 5-minute abs or whatever the thing is she does. She’s a funny figure—and also a heartthrob. But yeah, that song is highly, highly autobiographical.

That song talks about a relationship—or almost relationship—where you know you’re not being treated well but you hang around anyways. Why do so many of us do that?

That’s an interesting conversation. I’m in a really happy relationship now, so the idea of being in anything otherwise—or putting up with anything otherwise—is like, yeah, why would you do that? There’s a line in that song that says, ‘Am I scared of losing you / Or am I scared to be alone.’ I think that that’s it.

And it has to reach a point where it’s better to be alone before you finally end it.

Totally. You’ve got to tough it out, don’t ya?

I think it takes a lot of self-awareness and maturity to call it like that. I mean … this conversation could go on forever. I mean, why do you think? I’m curious now.

It can be tied up in not knowing your own value. You’re willing to be put up with being treated poorly if you don’t have the highest opinion of yourself.

I totally agree. In the context of that part of my life, yeah—I wasn’t feeling great about myself. I didn’t have that self-confidence or self-worth. I was allowing someone to not treat me very well.

I read something about this that was really eye opening. You know how it’s a common thing where the people that are super into you right of the bat, you’re kind of put off by? If they’re playing hard to get, we’re like ‘Oh, I’m into this. I’m going to chase them.’ That’s all rooted in self-esteem. If someone likes you so much right away, you’re like, ‘What’s wrong with this person?’ Because you don’t think they should like you that much because you don’t like yourself that much. That’s so self-sabotaging!

I want to read this article! I’ve had this same kind of conversation with my best friend. She was seeing a guy and he was a real dickhead to her. It didn’t last very long and we both came out of these experiences around the same time as kind of broken women. We were talking about it and we realized it just comes down to ego. There’s a big difference between getting the rug pulled out from under you versus a longer-term relationship that has run it’s course, where by the end of

it you’re like, ‘That was great, and it’s done, let’s move on, and leave it in that period of time.’ Your ego is less shattered than when you’re involved with someone who isn’t a good fit for you.

Your songwriting style is very diary-entry, very autobiographical—you’re writing about your actual relationships. Have you ever tried to write in a style that’s more fictionalized and made-up?

Not really. Even when I was a kid and first writing songs, I never made up a fake boyfriend for the sake of pretending I was in love with someone or experienced love at the age of 14. I didn’t even know what I was into. I’m a pretty honest and direct person.

I feel like that’s someone else’s thing, and not what I’m doing at the moment. I’ve still got a lot more baggage. [laughs] I’m still growing up and experiencing different things and processing that in the way that I do—which is writing songs about it. The things that I really want to explore are the things that are happening around me or to me.

So it’s helping you process things, and—I can speak from experience—you also help other people process things that they’ve been through.

9

Thank you! That’s what I see in my favorite writers and musicians. When I listen to a song that really moves me, it’s because it makes you look at yourself. You consider your shit. Hearing that I’ve done that for you … that’s my job! Done. If everything stopped today and you got something out of the song that I wrote, I’m stoked.

You project this very laid-back, effortless kind of cool, like you’re just a very normal, regular person. As you’ve gotten more and more attention and become more well-known, have people tried to get you to change?

My tour manager the other day told me that I should start wearing sneakers instead of boots, but I think that was more of a practical suggestion for the tour. No, I haven’t. And I feel really fortunate that I haven’t. I don’t know if it’s because everyone’s just like, ‘Let her be herself. We can’t fuck with that.’ Or if my manager is literally sending people away who are saying I need to cut my hair or whatever. My mom would definitely like for me to dress nicer, but that’s been a lifelong thing. It has nothing to do with my career.

I think I’ve been really lucky in that way. As much as it’s all come out of nowhere, I think the amount of preparation—as in, there have been a lot of times in my life where nothing is happening, and me being really sure about who I am, and why I make music and what I want to get out of it … I think because that was so consolidated before anything happened, I can’t change. When things started happening, it was like, ‘We’ll take it or leave it. This is the schtick.’ The schtick is that there’s no schtick. In a way, I feel really lucky that my break happened when I was 23 or 24. I have a much better grasp on my identity than when I was 18.

I’m more confident as an individual, and more open about who I am. I don’t even think about how I want to present myself.

If we’re going to get into the enigma of Alex Lahey [laughs] Alex Lahey is more about values, and how you treat other people, and how you treat yourself, and express yourself, and about honesty. It’s more about that than looking a certain way, or hanging out with certain people or anything like that.

So we’re not going to see any photoshoots of you in ball gowns any time soon?

Yeah—my Vanity Fair shoot? Fuck. I don’t think so. You’re probably more likely to see me in a fucking tux. I’ve never had a stylist involved in anything I do, but I’m open to it.

I’d love to have fucking free clothes. I’m not going to be anyone other than myself, and I feel very lucky that I have a team around me who believe the same thing. Even with the record. I didn’t have any A&R on the record. I delivered it when it was done, and the label was like, ‘Cool.’ I feel lucky that I’ve played the game—for lack of a better phrase—in a way that it allows me to be uncompromising.

You were in the group Animaux prior to releasing your own stuff—what led you to go solo?

It was never a one or the other thing until the solo stuff took over all my time.

It was never like a, ‘I’m leaving!’ It was more, ‘I want to explore songwriting in a 10

different way,’ and my other project was so collaborative. It was a lot of creative compromise—which is great. But it got to the point where I was like, ‘Actually I want to try some other stuff,’ and not have the outcome diluted by other people’s input.

That’s an awesome thing, but I just wanted the challenge of doing it myself. So I’ve got a bit of momentum, and here we are! There was definitely self-doubt for a long time.

There always is. But in relation to the two projects, I think I put off starting this for a long time because I didn’t think that I could do it on my own. And it was only when a couple people, one of whom is now my manager, encouraged me—and my mom.

They said, ‘Why don’t you try it? Just give it a go? See what happens?’ It took a couple of people that I respected to give me the confidence to throw my hat in the ring.

Did you grow up in a musical household?

What were your parents playing around the house?

I’m the only person in my family who plays an instrument, funnily enough.

But my mom is a wonderful listener and consumer of music. She has really varied taste in music and art in general. I was really surrounded by a bunch of stuff as a kid because of her. Opera, classical music, jazz, rock ‘n’ roll, so much stuff. I think that in itself is a skill, and I was really lucky I was exposed to all those things at a young age. The first concert I ever went to was when I was thirteen—my friend and I went and saw this band in Melbourne—this very quintessentially Australian band called The Living End—in St. Kilda, which is where they’re from. I remember thinking it was so loud. [laughs] They’re a cool three-piece, kinda punky, rockabilly band, like Stray Cats or something like that.

You’re a real student of music—you read biographies and watch documentaries and gobble up info about musicians.

I’m a massive nerd. What have I watched recently? You know what I really enjoyed?

There’s a four-hour-long documentary on The Eagles on Netflix [History Of The Eagles (2013)]. It’s fucking awesome. It’s so good.

It encompasses this entire era of culture. It’s really worth watching. I loved it. I’m also slowly making my way through the Meet Me In The Bathroom [by Lizzy Goodman] book. That’s really cool as well. But the Eagles doc is definitely the hot pick.

I remember watching that thinking, ‘You would never guess from how their music sounds that they had so much drama.’

They fucking hated each other! How funny that their manager was like, ‘I feel like my job was just making sure the band didn’t break up.’

I read reviews that said you sounded like Katy Perry falling over a stack of Joy Division albums, which is strange.

Alright! I’m into that!

But what artists or albums do you think actually had the most influence on your debut?

The first album I ever heard that I remember consciously thinking—you know when you get to that age where you actually have opinions? You can form opinions about

things that are presented to you and engage with it critically. The first time I critically engaged with an album and was like, ‘Ah fuck, this is great!’ was Hot Fuss by the Killers. I remember being like, ‘Wow every song is awesome, there’s a flow, this is a listening experience.’ I’ve returned to that album quite a bit recently, going into my next one. You know what—whether you like it or not—one of the bands in the world that you can’t deny are a great band—and you can’t deny that every album’s a ripper— is Paramore. Regardless of opinion. They’re so good, they completely bypass opinion.

I’ve been listening to their discography on this tour, and the development and growth.

Their sound changes but there’s still so much consistency. Now that I’m entering this cycle that I’ll probably be in for the rest of my career, it’s really inspiring. I aspire to be an artist that can do it. My favorite band as a teenager who also have done that throughout their career is the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Every record is so different but so them, and the songs are wonderful. I think that’s what it’s about. Just having great songs. That’s what connects with people and will speak to people.

When every record is so different—is that something you want to do? Are your next albums going to be a departure from what you’ve done so far?

There’s always going to be a consistency.

I don’t want to give you same thing every time, and I don’t want to be doing that.

With any luck, I’m going to be touring records for decades. I’m 25. I have a long life ahead of me, I hope. I want to give different parts of myself and my mind and my feelings to this audience that’s all of a sudden presented itself to me. At the same time, I want to have fun, and I want to be engaged, and I don’t want to be doing the same shit over and over again. I’m not really a massive creature of comfort in that way. As much as I miss my cats [laughs] I want to be innovative in different ways and process my own life through these songs, and hopefully it will continue to be as interesting an experience as it has been for me up until now.

How much touring have you done here before this?

We came here for SXSW in March. This is our first official tour here, though. I think the one great thing about playing here is the diversity—who’s in the crowd at a given show but also across different shows. There’s such a broad spread of demographics that come to see music, especially in age. There’s older people that come to the shows which is something that we don’t get to see at home.

It’s really nice and refreshing. Also you really don’t have to go far here to find a completely different culture and a completely different group of people who are engaged with what you do. It’s really nice.

When you get home after tour, what’s the first thing you want to do?

Eat at my house! [laughs] The food thing, when you tour, is hard. It’s hard to not be tempted by eating out and having a drink every night. Eating right … even making yourself a really basic meal, it’s such a homely

thing to do after you get in. Also just having a consistent environment. Like, the most time that we spent anywhere this entire tour is three days. When you’re constantly changing places on a nightly basis, it gets pretty exhausting. Feeling uprooted—it’s not within human nature in a way.

You made your TV debut on this tour as well—very exciting. What is Seth Meyers like? Did you hang out with him at all?

He came and said hi before we went on set, and was chatting to us after the show as well. We very briefly got to speak to him, but he’s a really friendly guy and— surprisingly—is a genuine fan of my music.

I remember when we got there I said to him, ‘Thanks for having us on, blah, blah blah,’ you know. It’s a big deal for someone who’s not a big deal, you know? I’m no one!

And they said, ‘Seth wanted you on.’ So that was pretty cool. It’s really cool to have a fan in someone who I’m a big fan of myself.

I’m a huge SNL fan—I love Seth and his writing, I think it’s awesome that he has his own show now. I’m really stoked that we got to do that on this tour.

I was looking on your twitter, and the day you guys played in Toronto you tweeted about the show Degrassi. I also watched a lot of Degrassi when I was younger—I mean, some of those episodes still haunt me to this day.

Did you watch Next Generation?

Yes—Next Generation.

Yeah, me too. Degrassi is so good because, it’s a whole universe of it’s own. It transcends generations. It deals with significant things.

It’s so ridiculous but at the same time—I still watch it. It’s criminal, it’s so good. [laughs] There’s a character on the new version … he’s bisexual, and no one questions it. It’s so progressive. To be honest with you, the reason it had such a massive impact on me is because it helped me come to terms with my sexuality when I was 11 or 12.

Pretending like shit doesn’t exist doesn’t get anyone anywhere. To be open with that stuff and give a face to these things that a lot things that kids experience when they’re growing up, or maybe don’t even realize is happening, is so important. Silence is really dangerous. I think that Degrassi, as much as there’s all the crazy shit that happens, I think it really does shine a light on things that kids don’t feel like they can talk about with their parents. It’s a really important show, and also Drake’s in it! [laughs] I know! And then he ends up in a wheelchair in one of the most iconic episodes!

Yes! What a fucking storyline! It’s amazing.

Ah, Jimmy! It’s so underrated! It’s an important show! It’s really important.

Anyway, I’m so glad it’s still going. If I ever make it big and Degrassi gets in trouble, I will singlehandedly save it. [laughs] That’s my pledge. That’s the scoop. My pledge to you.

‘Degrassi: Presented by Alex Lahey.’

Yes—oh my God, that’s my new life goal.

ALEX LAHEY’S I LOVE YOU LIKE A BROTHER IS OUT NOW ON DEAD OCEANS. ALEXLAHEY.COM.AU. INTERVIEW

SHANNON LAY Interview by CHRIS ZIEGLER photography by STEFANO GALLI POster by stefano galli and jun ohnuki

Living Water isn’t the first solo album by Feels guitarist Shannon Lay, but it feels like it—it’s an album and an announcement at once by a musician who’s discovered new clarity of sound and purpose. And strangely—happily!—even with her most complex arrangements yet, she sounds more free than ever. (Water magnifies the power of Lay’s prior releases, with reverent production and less-is-more accompaniment by top-flight guests: violin from Feels bandmate Laena Geronimo, cello from Sonus Quartet’s Vanessa Freebairn-Smith, bass by Julia Holter/Tara Jane ONeil collaborator Devin Hoff and the Cairo Gang’s Emmett Kelly on bass/drums/ very deliberate synth.)

On Water, she’s obviously drawing from a 60s British folk tradition that reveres a green and pleasant land, but she adds character and definition all her own. There’s something in Water that recalls the spirit of proud but lonesome private-press folk albums that stole a few days of deluxe studio time, or of writers like Terry Allen and John Prine whose best songs were lit from within by a stubborn sense of hope. (See also: classic Lisa Simpson, back when she believed in things.) She’s still a shredder and a half when she goes electric, but on Water, Lay switches to another kind of electricity—like lightning and thunder at night, hers is a sound that comes right out of the sky.

You’re from Redondo—do the words ‘Fire Chief ’ mean anything special to you?

Oh boy do they! You go to Old Tony’s on the pier and you get yourself a Fire Chief! I myself prefer that classic Mai Tai. But you get to keep the glass for either. I think I have at least six, and many more in the cutlery graveyard.

I have seen naked on that beach twice.

How many times have you seen naked people on that beach?

I have never seen a naked person on that beach! I must be going at the wrong time.

Every once in a while I’ll see some dolphins.

There’s definitely always seagulls. There used to be this great gift shop there—kind of halfway past Tony’s_and they had this huge fake Great White shark. It was super scary: ‘Pay $4 and see the beast from the sea!’ It was such a big deal to go see it as a kid. I gotta ask someone if it was real—it was so long ago it feels like dream. I’m pretty sure 14

it was real? It was in this glass case and the room was all black. I’m gonna go there and ask about it.

Who exactly would you ask if the scary fake shark in a black room was real?

Whoever’s workin’ there now! They’ll know, man! Growing up in Redondo Beach was the best. I left when I was 17, right out of high school, and I hated it when I left—‘Get me away from this!’ I almost moved to Chicago or San Francisco. I was trying to run from my childhood. But it’s been ten years since I left and it’s the best place in the world. I love going there so much. I’m so glad I grew up there. It created an environment that was stimulating but you were still struggling— the perfect combination for inspiration and energy that needed a home. A beautiful amazing place to spend my girlish youth!

Struggle and stimulation—did you just figure out the scientific components of inspiration?

I might have! I love that instead of us being bored and doing heroin or something we went to the beach! This beautiful outlet for all the energy you have as a teenager. The natural thing is to surf and skate. Teenage angst is inevitable and you go through that but maybe you don’t waste five years in rehab and then do something productive—it’s very efficient!

‘Coast’ is the only song on the album where you curse—you say you’ll ‘die in a wave of fucking mystery.’ What about that mystery deserves that rare ‘fucking’? And it comes right at the very end, too.

I’ve tried that song without that word—it doesn’t feel the same. The whole song is about … kind of how bullshit everything is. How you grow up and have to unlearn everything you’ve been told and figure it out yourself. And the way so many people we admire, the shit goes down—the same way as history, your life, the street you walk on. At that point in the song, I’m tired, I’m

weary and it’s all gonna end one day anyway!

So I’m putting in my two cents. Crawling up to the counter, put down my two cents, might be a little pissed off! I’ve been thinking of how immensely small we are. Looking at something like the ocean, it’s amazing. And you remember that and feel safe in that. It’s amazing to put that in perspective—my favorite way to do that by far.

So if the ocean in ‘Coast’ symbolizes infinity, is ‘fucking’ the only way for a person to truly capture infinity’s character?

I guess! What do you do? You can’t control that thing—there’s no way!

Water starts with ‘Home,’ but the home in the song seems very small. Maybe it’s a person, or the space between two people. Then ‘Coast’ ends the album with something colossal: the ocean, infinity, death … The album starts with one person and then gets bigger and bigger in scope.

INTERVIEW

100%. I’ve just been learning an insane amount about how nothing at all matters.

Is that comforting?

I’m trying to shift my perspective that way.

It’s like it inhibits the dream. There’s a way that’s possible to be where you’re … in control of the matrix! I strongly believe that you really do get what you put out. For, shifting my thinking to all the wonderful enlightening terrifying things in my way, it call just becomes a big bright situation that you’re walking into. Inevitably, you begin your life worrying about people—your mom and dad, your first kiss. And then you’re worrying about everything—worry about paying rent, eating, getting a job. And then there’s everything else! It’s so big and we’re so small. The amount of control you have over life is overestimated. It’s about that shift. I’d love to help people realize how much power they have. It’s the easiest and hardest decision to make. To me there was this everpresent feeling of incompleteness. I was looking for the answer in other people, in music … and it came down to facing all the darkest parts of myself. This moment where you either want to do it or you don’t. And you have to feel it. I still struggle every day. The awareness that has developed behind my emotions has grown immensely and it’s amazing to feel it grow. But it’s definitely not for everybody. I’m sitting in traffic right now and it’s moments like this I think, ‘All these people … they probably have people they love, people they hate, people who love them.’ It’s bizarre!

Is that ‘sonder’? When you realize everyone else is a living feeling person too?

I just heard about that! A really beautiful thing to think about. I think empathy is highly lacking in the world we live in. Sonder is a wonderful start.

Should I ask you if total empathy is incompatible with the values of our society?

Definitely—a psychopath is a better businessman than a monk.

But can a monk make better beer than a business man?

Definitely.

If someone listened to your older albums, could they hear this change in your perspective starting?

‘Starting’ is the key word. To me it never stops. Music or any art form—it’s amazing to watch yourself grow. An extreme example would be Bowie. It’s that feeling of your soul in your body and so many different views you’re gonna experience. For Living Water, I heard it—I heard myself shifting gears. I hope every record is like that. This year was crazy. I was able to quit my job—I kinda realized the insane amount of purpose I felt toward this responsibility that I initially didn’t accept. A lot of people have the ability to create but maybe don’t wanna accept the challenge and responsibility of it. It’s not easy and not always satisfying. It’s crazy to me the lack of assistance for people who wanna do that. It’s much better in Europe and Australia. You get crazy grants. But there aren’t many great bands. It’s a trade off—the struggle breeds some genuine creativity.

It’s amazing when you come to terms with that—settle into that.

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Water seems like an encouraging album— like someone telling you to stay hopeful.

But it’s not glibly hopeful. ‘Give It Up’ and ‘Recording 15’ are right next to each other, and it seems ‘Give It Up’ is an answer to ‘Recording.’ In ‘Recording’ you’re sad and saying you’ll always hold on, but in ‘Give It Up’ you talk about having to let go or it’ll destroy you. So is that the kind of hope here? Hard-won learned-the-hardway hope.

You nailed it! ‘Recording 15’ is an older song.

I brought it back because … I don’t know, for so many people that scenario rings true.

I typically try not to write about boys. I hate being stereotypical when there are so many other things to talk about, but you can’t deny the the subject resonates. People come up to me after shows: ‘What is that song about “…far away”?’ ‘Recording 15.’ It fills a very specific moment. It’s a very deep feeling. I wanted it to be hopeful at the end. And ‘Give It Up’ is the song that’s a conversation I’ve had with myself in my head countless times.

When I sing this song, I picture myself on a talk show with myself: ‘So how many times are we gonna do this? Figure it out—lighten up!’ It’s important to develop a dialogue with yourself—separate yourself from your ego.

It’s a different thing—a different person.

With your inner talk show host.

Yeah! The muse—whatever you wanna call it. It feels like something whispering in my ear. Maybe you won’t feel it for months, and then there’s a week where you can’t stop writing. I always try and stay open to it— stay attuned. Part of the responsibility I have is listening to that voice. I have countless moments I’ve been in the car and had to pull over—something couldn’t wait! It’s a funny thing with writing. My favorite songs I’ve ever written, I don’t think I wrote them.

They’re something I was lucky enough to pass by in this dimension.

Now that you know the sound of that voice, can you recognize moments when you’d heard it but didn’t listen to it?

Yeah—everybody has to learn what it even is.

I didn’t have a way to record until I was like 15 and I got my first laptop. Until then—and pretty much until I started playing solo—the songs that would come about just within me were put to the side. It didn’t feel urgent.

Then something happened when I saw … the person who inspired me to start playing solo was Jessica Pratt. I saw her at the Echo and I was like, ‘Oh my God—people are so responsive to this! Maybe I do have a place in the scene for this stuff I’ve kept secret.!’

It’s awesome to feel you have a place. A lot of times, you feel what you do creatively is something no one is gonna like. ‘I don’t wanna try, I’m scared of failing …’ You come up with every excuse in the book to not accept what is coming. But it’s the best feeling—anything that scares the shit out of you, you should just walk right into it.

That’s such a surfer/skater thing!

Totally! ‘It’s gnarly out there sometimes!’ The only thing I look for in live music is that genuine need to do it. You can tell when someone needs to be out there. I felt that watching Jessica Pratt, Kevin Morby, King Tuff, Ty Segall, Aldous Harding.

Are there differences between the kind of music you listen to when you feel lost or sad or upset, and the kind of music you make when you feel lost or sad or upset?

They’re symbiotic. With anything—comedy, painting, music. We’re all looking for a way to relate. Musicians are lucky in the sense we have beautiful therapy in which we put our emotions and they can help someone maybe going through the same thing. I’ve been learning a lot about finding inspiration in a happy place the last couple of years. Which is new territory for me. It’s always been a self-deprecating dark place I pull inspiration from. You get into habits like that and then you feel you have to be that way. Creating a healthy happy environment has been really enriching. It’s possible and you can share that with people. You gotta make music that makes you feel what you feel. You can wallow for a bit, but get yourself out of it.

You gotta sometimes listen to a song that’s like, ‘Get up and go outside and dance!’

I’d love to hear you make that song with a vocoder.

2020—Shannon Lay disco record!

You’re a Virgo—Virgo is associated with Astraea, the Greek goddess who stayed longest with the humans before leaving because they were too horrible. She was the last person to give humanity a chance.

How does your patience with humanity compare to Astraea?

That’s incredible! I have to say … I don’t like most people. But I can honestly say that going into social situations, I will give anybody a chance! You can come to talk to me and I’ll talk to you. But at the same time I have an inherent gut feeling with people, especially in L.A. … you gotta find your crew. I do believe this whole ‘end of the world’ thing.

But I always thought instead of everyone dying, it’d be like shifting consciouness. Like we can become more enlightened people. It’s really all so amazing here! Zoom out, look at this fucking world we’re living in, asshole!

Go look at a tree! It’s so crazy the way we treat it. We’re fighting against nature. Man’s contempt for nature, oh my God. Water is album with almost nothing manmade appearing in the lyrics—really only a kitchen visited in one song. Why isn’t any of the actual world around you— the streets and freeways and traffic lights of L.A.—on the album? I can see how some reviewers don’t understand where you’re from because nothing on this album signals ‘L.A.’ or even ‘city.’

This record was totally a love song to the ocean and the earth. I write most when I’m traveling. I write a lot of poetry—it’s where I get most of my lyrics. I think I’ll write an L.A. record one day. L.A. is the best! But at the same time it’s a moment, sitting in my backyard and thinking about all the things happening and all the places to go—it’s all so new and intriguing. I’m still so curious about it all. I don’t want nature to not be there when I go. It’s important for people to realize how important nature is in our daily lives.

The color green can change peoples’ world.

It’s been proven by science! If anything, I just wanna be another nagging voice: ‘Remember where we came from and remember what

keeps us alive.’ Just because Mr. Burns is in the White House doesn’t mean shit’s gonna end. Something like Trump happening is creating so much fire in people. You can make a big difference in your little corner— don’t feel small in the sense of being alone.

So many people share this vision for a better future—a future that makes any kind of sense at all. We’re all just crazy stardust. Like what is money? What’s money gonna do for anything? It’s just a means to an end. I’ve never been a billionaire, though.

And if you were?

I just read about this guy who bought 400,000 acres of forest that was about to be demolished—just so they couldn’t. I’d probably do shit like that.

You could put seeds in your albums.

I love that! And the whole thing can be compostable.

Have you ever performed for something that wasn’t a person?

Dogs and cats for sure—I love playing for them! I’d sing to a tree any day!

That’s so elven.

We’re getting there!

In ‘Caterpillar’ you sing, ‘I’ll be by your side / In dreams or in physical reality / Whichever funds allow.’ That’s more real and practical than a lot of songs, and also one of the few limits to life this album talks about—or limits that aren’t in one’s own mind. That line is very … realistic.

That song is for my friends Josh and Amy. They had a baby and it’s name is Caterpillar and that song is my advice for her. That line specifically is like ‘I will come and travel with you and be with you always, and if the money is there I’ll be there physically, too. I’ll come with you.’ It’s my reminder she’ll never be alone—she’ll always have buds around her.

When people talk about your music, they also talk about Nick Drake and Vashti Bunyan—both British. When I listen to you, I also thought of Iris DeMent, John Prine, Loudon Wainwright—all American. One difference I’d say is Nick and Vashti don’t have a country influence, but those Americans do, sometimes super explicitly—and you don’t, really. Why is that? It’s like your music is coming out 5000 miles away from where you’re standing in some ways.

I have a real appreciation for country music— And you cover Kris Kristofferson!

Yeah! I love it so much! It’s heart and soul. It’s the best! But the British folk … you can feel the crisp air when you listen to it. You can hear the rain. See the green hills. Something about it puts you in that place. If I had to choose between a campfire in the desert or a little cottage in a rolling green pasture, I’d go with the cottage. But I’m so new to folk.

It blows my mind because people say names like, ‘You remind me of this…’ ‘I’ve never heard that!’ And I’m stoked to discover. I try to listen to a lot of new folk, explore older artists … it’s all really eye-opening. I’m also Irish, so I think I really connect with the old world style of storytelling and song. I love Arthur Russell when he does like acoustic folk songs—I always love a story about hearing the corn grow. The simplest things!

INTERVIEW

You could do a wild Thin Lizzy cover with guitar and violin.

You got it—I’m on it! I love that. Everybody’s saying the same thing. I always compare ‘Town Without Pity’ to a Wu Tang song.

‘Man, this town … this life … how are we gonna get through it?’

That’s Thin Lizzy exactly.

One of my favorites by them is ‘Do Anything You Wanna Do.’ That never fails to pick me up out of a dark place.

‘How we gonna get through this?’ has to be one of music’s great questions. Tell me another.

‘WHYYYYYYYY’D SHE LEAVE ME!?’

I learned a lot about lyrics listening to Pavement. I love when you can say something when it’s poetic—not really obvious. You give it some nuance. I’m a huge fan of that.

Really obvious stuff has never really done it for me. I like it when you say something in a roundabout way.

What’s a lyric you always carry with you?

I thought of Bjork—she has so many good ones. ‘I’m only in this to enjoy.’ I got into Bjork a long time ago—since high school.

She’s so awesome—like writing songs, being more creative with melodies. Writing with the left part and not so much the right.

Her song ‘Immature’ rings really true. She does the same thing as Malkmus—maybe it comes from English being her second language. How poetic she is—it’s incredible.

It’s funny what stays with you. I get that with a lot of horror movies—like you can’t unsee things! Certain things never get out of your head. There are songs I associate with seeing something in a movie, a lot of music I’d rather never hear again because I associate such a dark feeling with it. It’s not really a horror movie but that scene in Almost Famous where Penny Lane gets her stomach pumped and Stevie Wonder is playing. So classic—but every time I hear it I just see her feet slip over the side of the tub! So brutal.

Great song, though!

If you’re the kind of person who listens mostly to reissues and not new music, are you missing something?

Yeah, especially right now. I’ll admit I’m really behind on new band and being in L.A. especially it can be overwhelming. You blink and ten shows have happened! But there’s so much incredible music happening now. All it takes … it’s like any other discovery. Go to the show, see the band, if it affects you, listen to them, find something related to them … it grows from there. Especially if you play music in L.A. you have to go to shows, you gotta listen to new stuff … and it’s brilliant! That’s how I found my favorite artists. I played with them by chance, or I’ve gone and seen them and developed a relationshop—that’s a really important facet of this time. I think people will talk about this time. We’re really lucky to live now—it feels electric, unstoppable, now more than ever get out there and support the people trying to be tomorrow’s Bowies and Danzigs and Nick Drakes! I just did a solo trip to New York City and it was the first time I’d really gone out by myself. I didn’t have a car— Were you on the subway with your guitar?

I think I did that a couple times! A guitar in a shopping bag—classic! It’s really amazing INTERVIEW

how music can be comforting. I had a really good time. I took the Amtrak from Boston to New York City and one record that really stayed with me was the new OCS record, Memory Of A Cut Off Head. The most amazing stuff is being created right now and it’s really cool to sit on a train and have it resonate so deeply, and be like, ‘I’m gonna play a show with them!’ Cool music keeps you company—it reminds you’re not alone.

What feels most vital to you as a listener —music that makes you think, music makes you feel, or music makes you act?

Music that makes you feel—that’s what it’s all about. My favorite comment I get when I play a show is someone comes up and says, ‘I needed that.’ It’s all about being more comfortable with expressing emotion, and having a healthy way to do so. It’s therapeutic—very healing. The next record I’m going to focus on that a lot. Bringing people’s attention to how much power we have over our well being—facing monsters.

Realize they don’t control you—the past doesn’t dictate who you need to be. You can heal emotional wounds—you can face the darkness!

It’s interesting you talk about how you have this need to make music—but the music you make is very much directed at other people. It’s less about you yourself and more like trying to help people and bring them with you.

I’m all about that! No part of this is satisfying my desire to feel loved. It’s all about giving more than I have, and giving more after that.

It’s really a need to help people in that way.

If you can even affect one person in life in a positive way—in your whole lifetime, one person positively—then you’ve done a good job. There’s no point in pointing out something other than … I’m gonna be a hippie again and say, ‘Plant a tree!’ Don’t set off a pipe bomb in a shopping center! There are options in life, and I’ve chosen to help people feel better.

Lisa Simpson said, ‘I’m wailing out for the homeless family living out of its car.

The Iowa farmer, whose land has been taken away by unfeeling bureaucrats. The West Virginia coal miner, coughing up his lungs …’ That was twenty years ago and if anything it’s worse. So now—who are you wailing for, Shannon Lay? Man—I’m wailing for everybody! I want everyone to feel loved and reassured and sad if they need to. I wanna be that embrace that’s there when you need it. Early Lisa Simpson is the deepest shit ever. It’s so thick and rich with satire and beautiful commentary on such a real scenario. That quote brought a tear to my eye—incredible. Fucking epic. I love that.

THE ECHO AND FOMO WEEK 2018 PRESENT SHANNON LAY WITH GUN OUTFIT, WARM DRAG, THE PESOS AND NECTARINES ON TUE., JAN. 2, AT THE ECHO, 1822 SUNSET BLVD., ECHO PARK. 8 PM / FREE WITH RSVP AT DOLA.COM IF 21+ / $5 IF 18+. THEECHO.COM. SHANNON LAY’S LIVING WATER IS OUT NOW ON MARE. VISIT SHANNON LAY AT SHANNONLAY.BANDCAMP.COM.

with resident DJs Kayla, Caitlin, Erica, Victoria, and Christina

john maus Interview by bennett kogon illustration by abraham jay torres

It had been over six years since we last heard from John Maus. Following the release of 2011’s magnum opus We Must Become Pitiless Censors of Ourselves, the Minnesota-born musician and previous Haunted Graffiti collaborator quickly disappeared from the public eye. Many believed that he was somewhere in Hawaii, where it was rumored Maus was teaching philosophy and pursuing his PhD. Others predicted this mythical creature had returned to whatever planet—or cavern—he’d come from, hopefully to create more wonderfully powerful synth-pop. In the meanwhile, devotion to his experimental majesty magnified in his absence as eager followers waited for his eventual reemergence. In October, Ribbon Music released Screen Memories, the latest effort by the wizard himself. At last, John Maus has returned. This interview originally aired on KXLU. Where have you been this whole time?

I moved out to a small town where I’m originally from—like right on the border of Iowa and Minnesota, about two hours from the Twin Cities. I finished up some school stuff that I was doing at the time and that took about two years. Then I built all the synthesizers and stuff for the record which took about two years. Finishing it all took another two years. It seemed like a month to me, but it’s been … a long time. I was freaked about it. I can’t believe anyone is still paying attention.

Oh, we’ve been paying attention.

I woke up in a terror, you know? Like one morning I was like ‘God, it’s been five years.

What the hell.’

Has your upbringing and time spent in Southern Minnesota impacted your outlook and work as a creative thinker?

I’m sure it has in the sense that during the winter, we get four hours of light a day and it’s twenty below outside. Then there’s the wide-open spaces and the whole romance of solitude. I’m sure wherever you are, it comes out in your music a little bit. My first few years back in Minnesota were great, but the winters have caught up with me. It’s just too much. And the lack of the fresh air socially I feel made my work on the new album suffer a little bit. The grass is always greener.

Were there any major highlights of your life from your time away?

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The whole thing has been a major highlight for me, I guess. Just been trudging away… getting something ready. Or at least I’m trying to.

And now you’ve got something ready.

I read online that your last record was in part inspired by the work of French philosopher Alain Badiou, and sonically you’ve referenced music from the medieval period. Would you say there are any primary influences on this new record?

In general, I think it’s pretty apocalyptic. I’m a little worried about that because people in the past have told me that their response to my music is that of grace—more of an assumption of lightness or pop music.

Screen Memories is definitely one of my heavier releases. Most of it was done before the whole election happened and I was kind of hoping to release it right around then. It was in the air. But every time I would talk to someone about it they would respond ‘Well, it’s only getting worse.’ I guess that’s what it’s inspired by. The whole sense of standing at the edge of forever. And then the coming final triumph of the techno crash in Silicon Valley. It seems like that’s all but an accomplished past.

What kind of energy do you feel that you channel into each set that you perform?

I don’t know what it originally was years ago, or even what it meant. It was something else, even though it may look exactly the

same today. The idea was really just to put as much as I could into each performance, and not lie about it. Whatever that meant, I just wanted to be totally honest. Now I feel it’s almost like an exorcism or something.

And not of myself, either. I just want to draw on that sort of energy to drive some of the obscenity out of this situation. It seems to me that everything is getting ever more pornographic and obscene … not in a provocative way, either. In a totally sanctioned and irregulated way. I just want to be like in that scene in Little Nicky where Adam Sandler is like ‘Release the Good!’

And all those butterflies and rainbows come out of his hands.

Release the Awesome! That said, do you feel that someone must see John Maus live in order to get a greater understanding of the music?

I don’t think it is necessary one way or the other. It’s different now because I’ve got a band playing with me for the first time.

That gives me more possibilities sonically that I didn’t have before. And I am less likely to be confused as a performance artist or something. I’m only really trying to play punk rock or whatever.

Last year you appeared on an episode of the television show Million Dollar Extreme, which was later cancelled due to its affiliation with the alt-right. Were you aware of that connection when you got the offer?

Was it an alt-right show? Like Richard Spencer and the cult of race and blood, that alt-right? It’s all an obscenity—it isn’t just one evil among many, but a very grave evil that divides human beings toward some other end and above all, under some sort of white identity. It’s lower than low. It’s unfortunate, but it speaks to the worth of the situation in general. Like it wants you to say something about it and will only give you 140 characters to do it. I’m like ‘No way, man—that’s not going to happen. Give me two-hundred pages to talk about it, especially something as complicated as that.’ But as far as the show …

I never saw it as any sort of alt-right planned thing. I’ll curse any sort of cult of blood, in any form of obscenity that it is. I just didn’t see the horror of a group of comedians, and one comedian in particular, as being directly equivocal to hate crimes. I mean it’s all very complicated. There is politics of music and of aesthetics, but it’s almost like a secondary affect. By making good music, maybe we are already imagining a better world. Not John Lennon’s one either. That sounds like hell to me.

JOHN MAUS ON TUE., JAN. 30, AT THE TERAGRAM BALLROOM, 1234 W 7 ST., DOWNTOWN. 7 PM / $18-$20 / ALL AGES. TERAGRAMBALLROOM.COM. JOHN MAUS’ SCREEN MEMORIES IS OUT NOW ON RIBBON MUSIC. VISIT JOHN MAUS AT JOHNMA.US. TH

INTERVIEW

prettiest eyes Interview by Emily twombly photography by alex the brown

Originally from Puerto Rico and Juarez, Mexico, Prettiest Eyes—Pachy, Marcos and Paco—are something different from most L.A. bands right now.

They fit into the garage world but are meant for broader scenes. They can cross genre with ease, fitting in with cumbia, post-punk, electro-pop and more. But what really shines through is their sincerity and their genuinely positive outlook on the L.A. music scene and our ability to create a diverse community in a time of such social unrest. Their new album Pools is out now on Castle Face.

It’s funny how you have been grouped into this garage rock scene—you have songs that reminds me of the Hives and Suicide and one that I was like, ‘This is like a Nine Inch Nails song!’ I find it funny you’re in this garage band world—do you feel you fit there?

Pachy Garcia (drums/vocals): Because the scene we participated in was kinda lumped into the garage scene, we kinda of just got that.

Paco Casanova (keyboards): And the punk thing—the vibe of punk, like ‘Don’t give us crap about anything!’—merges pretty well.

Marcos Rodriguez (bass): But definitely lumped in to the garage thing—it’s a thing we love, but obviously we started out one way and we wanna continue to do it more and in different ways. Even melding the influences of garage and more sync stuff … like you say, Nine Inch Nails and 80s industrial and let’s say 90s garage? There’s so much influence in all we do—we wanna strive to be more than just a garage band? But it’s not a thing that bothers me when we’re lumped into it. I love garage.

PG: When we started the band it was like we wanted to explore, and at the moment that was what we were doing. In the beginning we always wanted to keep discovering what we were about, and work on the sound— MR: —exactly. Like we’re trying to do keyboards as a guitar, and that with garage … it worked out perfectly! I dunno—the origins fit into it well, the distorted keys fit into it well, and the way you would do a guitar works with keyboard and that’s transferred into whatever it is we’re trying to do.

PG: We practice a lot and we like different kinds of music so we’re always trying new things to see what works and what doesn’t work. That’s how the whole thing evolved— based on what we’re feeling at the moment and like oh, this kinda works? Maybe it doesn’t work in the context of a set right now but it will eventually—we can fit it somewhere.

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MR: It’s a huge influence with industrial stuff, too. We also have played with some bands that are more into electronic and DJ-based or sample-based stuff, and we love it too. We actually played Desert Daze with just drum machines because Pachy was injured.

PG: Yeah, I was injured! It was like the quintessential garage-psych festival and we were like, ‘Sorry, can’t do this because I’m fucked up!’ So I had to play like gnarly electronics—but it was pretty amazing.

MR: And now that we tried it, we can implement it into the set.

I feel like the garage scene in L.A. is very white—you play with a lot of white bands.

How might we diversify the scene, or what would you like to see happen? And not even in just the garage scene but in general?

MR: The first thing is what we all like to do— listen. Listen to music! All the music you can!

Don’t just divide yourself like, ‘I just listen to rock ‘n’ roll’ or ‘I just listen to hip-hop.’ There’s a lot of like … L.A. right now is the place where most of the best music is coming out!

All the trap scene and rap scene and hip-hop and all that is great as well! There’s so many artists now that are doing what the world is listening to! So listen to that and listen to underground stuff—listen to all the cultures that make it this mix of things that happen!

PG: Also—embrace community. Community aspect is what really brings everything together.

And we’re living in a society right now that … especially in the west coast, having Hispanic or any other background present in your family is there, it exists. Everybody wants to embrace that, in a way— PC: And there’s nothing wrong with that!

PG: Everybody thinks about something I caught off the bat about living in L.A.—the community was kind of lacking. It’s better now but at the beginning when we started playing out, nobody wanted to give us a chance. We played and played. We played shows that didn’t make sense because those people were willing to give us a chance. Now we’re getting better and people are noticing us, we’re being accepted. We’re trying to like … infiltrate the whole community!

PC: Infiltrate more as like expand—influence!

The thing of L.A. is the mixture of food here, of culture, of everything that’s going on.

That makes it good! That’s what influences everything around. I’d love to see mass integration of everybody! And everybody accepting everybody’s culture and where they come from and music!

MR: I feel like it’s getting better now— PC: —on the west coast!

PG: At that release show, Neza [Alexander] opened up that show, and that was something I wasn’t expecting and that was great! It’s a hip-hop band opening for [Dimber] which is a different kind of punk rock queer-punk thing. That’s what it’s about, you know?

Yeah—you had a cumbia band open— PG: Yeah—I want to make a diverse line-up and try something we’ve never tried before because we are Hispanic and we want to embrace that. We play a lot with white people and that’s cool but I want everybody to play with everybody!

Pachy, you were telling me how you came from Puerto Rico to L.A.—why don’t you tell me how you all got to L.A.?

INTERVIEW

PG: You were here first, right, Paco?

PC: Yeah, yeah—I came in 2009 with another project called Corima—it’s like progressive rock. So I came with a drummer and we just situated here and loved the city and then Pachy I met him at work. That’s how we hit it off. We had similar interests in music and we became super good friends from the getgo—he’d see my band and I saw his band and he was like, ‘Yo, wanna join my band?’ when the keyboard player left. And I was like, ‘Hell yeah I wanna join your band!’

PG: Going back in time … I got here in 2012.

Me and Marcos used to play in a bunch of bands back home in Puerto Rico, and we had one particular band we were really … really committed to it. We had thoughts about leaving Puerto Rico to relocate the band for years and L.A. was kinda the unspoken place to go to in a way? Then my girlfriend started going to college in L.A. and I was like, ‘Well, she’s there—I’m just gonna go ahead.’ Then Marcos was like, ‘OK, sweet.’ And he bought his tickets two weeks after I did, to arrive like four months before … this was in 2012.

MR: It was just to try out and see what we could do here, really. And play somewhere else. Puerto Rico was a great scene, but there was only two or three clubs—we wanted to play more! Explore different places!

PG: The original plan was to relocate the band … but the relocation didn’t work. Me and Marcos came and the other two stayed and a year later we decided to part ways and continue what we were doing. I mean—we decided to start something else.

So they just changed their minds?

MR: They tried it. One of them tried it. But L.A.’s not for everyone, obviously. Coming from Puerto Rico’s a very different thing, and L.A. is huge! Puerto Rico is tiny and everybody know’s everybody. It’s starting from zero in a way … We have community there, but to try to build something here … it was hard.

PG: The culture shock coming from a tropical island in the Carribbean to Los Angeles— MR: I love L.A.! I think we fit in in a weird way. It works.

Has Los Angeles changed—or influenced— your music at all?

MR: Yes! Throughout my life, completely.

PG: I was really into Black Flag and Rage Against The Machine so I’m assuming Black Flag is something to me. We were like really big Tool fans when we were younger, too.

MR: And back in the day the Doors—so many cultures that come from L.A. I dunno for you guys, but all my life L.A. was in my mind. It’s a big city, it’s a hub of a lot of things happening.

PG: Definitely in this moment, it was the place to be musically because everybody is no-holds-barred exploring what they wanna do. Everybody just gets here knowing that everybody just DOES it, in a way. I guess … dramatically L.A. has changed our music.

When we got here ... I dunno if it’s because Los Angeles or the time we got here, but we got really into 60s garage. That’s the spark of the band in particular. That and we started listening a lot to that first Suicide record. The combination of both things— MR: And the things that were going on at the same time and all the bands that were playing here—we started seeing what was going on

here, and that influenced what we wanna do.

Because we felt it too. We just saw it differently and came from other backgrounds. I mean, we played punk when I was a kid, and it just translated into whatever was hitting now.

Your record Pools is out on Castle Face and John Dwyer’s a very influential person in some parts of the L.A. music scene— PG: And in general!

Does being on Castle Face define you in any way? Or change how an audience might perceive you—or how you want to be perceived?

MR: Definitely. I would say that it helps us out in a way, and at the point where we are right now, it’s definitely—yeah, it helps us out to solidify our scene. There are so many other great bands on Castle Face.

PC: Yeah, if people see that someone has been signed to a label that is more recognized, they’re gonna give the band a chance and listen—that’s just how it works. I think it will influence the audience to listen to our music maybe differently than they were before? Or to actually take a chance and listen to it?

PG: Especially if you follow that label in particular, you notice that they give a chance and they give an open canvas for bands that are … weird! And uncomfortable at a certain point! They give you access to the world in a way because they have a cult following that really is about the bands that they put out.

MR: We wouldn’t change out sound if we were doing it or not doing it with them.

That’s why we were so honored—right now it’s gonna help us out.

PG: And it gives the bands who might not be accessible to other labels a chance to appear in the spotlight.

It’s an interesting label because people will buy anything that’s on the label even though the bands sound so different.

PG: Exactly. Which is great. Because we have people now listening all over the world, and we’ve technically just been on their web page for a day!

Your band pays a lot of attention to its visuals—what film and art inspire you?

PG: We’ve been working with Christine Fraguela—she’s my girlfriend and she’s an amazing visual artist I’ve respected for a long time, not just because she’s my girlfriend.

Since the beginning, I started asking her, ‘Can you do this flyer? Can you do this art?’ And we started like a relationship working from the ground up. She grew with us. There’s definitely a psychedelic … I guess kinda ‘garage’ thing going into our influence, but she’s seen us pass through the whole process and evolved with us. At least the visual aesthetic of the band.

It all comes from just looking other art, and other great design. Which is another thing about Los Angeles—it has amazing designers.

You’re flooded by great visual aesthetics.

MR: You go to LACMA, you go to the Broad, you just walk around like, ‘Oh man—yeah!’

You take in a lot. Or any other small exhibition that’s going on … I can’t think of any … actually, the guy who did the visuals …

PG: Shane—Snake Chime Zen. MR: That was really organic. He’s worked with us at Desert Daze.

PG: I’ve been following his shit for a while—I was super-stoked that it makes so much sense with what we do.

MR: It goes off of VHS and he’s trying to do like … we do kind of an old school vibe but have it new school, so he glitched it out.

PG: And we used a bunch of art we already had and it gave it another dimension.

It looked really cool and there was a cohesive theme—from your merch to the video to your sound.

MR: That’s honestly the first time we’ve done that—we’ve done projection before. We love crowd interaction and I don’t know if it’s like a moving forward thing we might keep on doing but …

PG: The Echo gave us the OK to do whatever we wanted, so that was really cool of them.

What’s next? You’re going on tour?

PG: Yeah. We’re direct supporting No Parents at the Teragram again on January 5. After that we’re gonna play a tour kick-off show in late January, and we’re leaving—doing our first national U.S.A. tour—for six weeks.

Which you booked ourselves.

PG: Every single show on that damn tour!

Self-booked! Which is another way of saying it’s possible, you guys. You can do it!

MR: You don’t need anybody!

PG: When help is not getting to you, you can do it—you can do it!

PC: But if it comes, it’s good!

PG: Since we’ve been … we basically recorded another record, too, and we’re finishing that to follow-up this record with a quicker turnaround time. Hopefully! We practice a lot so we put a lot of shit together and we can … we got music to put out!

You’re gonna be like thee Oh Sees—five records a year!

MR: That production mode is great but …

PG: That’s beast mode level five!

MR: But we got some material to put out.

What’s your advice for bands starting out or people who just moved here?

MR: Play.

PC: Practice.

PG: Practice and don’t get disheartened. We’ve been disheartened many times.

MR: You’re gonna get a lot of ‘no’s. It’s OK. PG: You just have to power through.

Everybody tells you that. It might sound cliché as fuck.

MR: But go wild and watch the shows you like and meet people and have fun!

PC: You can’t just go out there thinking like, ‘I gotta make contacts! Oh, meet people!’

Like—no! It should come naturally. If you love it, then go and do it. And keep doing it—don’t stop if it’s good to you and your music is successful as what you want, then keep playing it. And just keep going.

MR: Use your tools wisely, though.

PC: You’ll meet people normally and if you wanna play a gig, start doing it! Wherever it is!

Whichever gig! Whatever—take it!

PG: And little by little you’ll find your place.

DIRTY LAUNDRY TV PRESENTS PRETTIEST EYES WITH NO PARENTS, JURASSIC SHARK AND BEACH GOONS ON FRI., JAN 5., AT THE TERAGRAM BALLROOM, 1234 W. 7 ST., DOWNTOWN. 8 PM / $12 / ALL AGES. TERAGRAMBALLROOM.COM. PRETTIEST EYES’ POOLS IS OUT NOW ON CASTLEFACE. INSTAGRAM. COM/PRETTIESTEYESSS. 23 TH

black mambas Interview by Gabriel hart photography by funaki

I heard whispers about Black Mambas for years before I got to witness them—people mentioning their name and then shaking their head as they kinda blew out of their mouth like they just got punched in the stomach.

When I finally saw Black Mambas at the Redwood in 2015, it all made sense. It wasn’t JUST like watching a punk band for the first time—it was like watching the first punk rock bands, with the slash-and-burn power of the Saints and the Chuck Berrystyle riffs of early pub rock, dripping with mic-swinging swagger and played by four streetwise Latinos in leather jackets. Their 25-minute attack on crowd complacency made everyone immediately stand to attention and made me forget about pretty much every punk rock band I’d seen before. Their new album Moderation (on Disconnected) was masterfully produced by Johnny Witmer (of the Stitches and Crazy Squeeze) and is about to cement their place in sonicdelinquent history. Originally from Bell Gardens, Black Mambas have long since graduated from backyard parties. They’re already leaving scorch marks across Europe, and I managed to track them down just before they left to make Japan go wild.

25

“I don’t play for any money—just food, booze and smokes.”

Alright, so there’s that theory—I think its an Illuminati theory or something ridiculous—that the CIA created rock ‘n’ roll as a form of mind control that with sex and drugs rounding out the trifecta would eventually numb the youth of America into falling victim to their own dead-end anti-ambitions, much like their rock ‘n’ roll heroes who died of nasty habits far too young. If this was true … how would the Black Mambas fit into this plan to overdose society on rock ‘n’ roll mind control?

Leroy Martinez (drums): Fuckin’ spearheading the movement this fucking century!

Biggs DC (guitar): Fucking shit up! We are definitely on that track…

LM: World domination!

BDC: We are the main train up front, and we are here to show everyone that it IS possible.

So you actually DO see rock n’ roll as a form of mind control?

LM: Well yeah—who’s as fuckin’ dangerous as us, man? We’ll fuckin’ do anything. [laughter] I was listening to your new record Moderation the other night, and I swear it made me want to just … go out and do crimes. Like, it was the first thing I felt—a very primal, losing control-type feeling. Could you give me a kind of ‘Best of ’ Black Mambas police blotter, as if it was written in print?

BDC: Well, we can’t provide that cuz we’ve never actually been convicted.

Michael Price (vocals): Never been caught!

LM: We’re not criminals! [laughter] BDC: Just sneaky bastards.

Police blotters aren’t always convictions, you know? They can also just be documentation of something that happened in the middle of the night.

LM: Fuck, OK—all the backyard shows that they’ve found out about first?

BDC: The cops know about our shows before we even play! They get there before we do! All the shows we play in like Compton…

LM: Parties getting too big!

BDC: Parties getting too big, noise complaints, all that stuff.

MP: All the young kids are gonna be here, buying the bad drugs… [laughs] LM: Fucking Bell Gardens…

MP: Listen, we bring the party, people hurt themselves! [laughs] LM: Providing rock ‘n’ roll parties, man!

BDC: We get the party going, people take it from there. Maybe we should start handing out waivers at our shows? [laughs] You can start providing chaperones?

BDC: The kids don’t know how to handle themselves. See, this is mind control. We got ‘em good!

26

What’s the deal—is there three of you or four of you? You don’t have a bass player or you have several?

BDC: Originally there were three of us…

LM: We have a bass player!

MP: Here and there… [mischievous giggles] Why only here and there?

LM: Alright, check it out—we got a session player, one for live shows, one for touring… their circumstances, they’re all fucked. So we see them when we can. When they have time.

Like conjugal visits? Why not just have one bass player?

BDC: Well, like… at our pace, people just can’t keep up.

You guys were the only proper punk rock band on Wild Records, which we all know as a rockabilly-dominant label. How did such a ‘wild card’ band end up on that label? What led to your departure?

BDC: The way it came about … we started getting real serious about having a record, so we did the Witmer Sessions [with Johnny Witmer of The Stitches/Crazy Squeeze as producer] and shopped it and Wild was very interested. We did a 45 and we did a full-length, and in the end it was about production. Basically, we wanted sex and drugs and rock ‘n’ roll and our delinquency to reflect on the album …

Well, mission accomplished. Like I said, I felt that right away.

LM: Well, yeah, you know the ethos of the record. It was a big difference of opinion of how the record should be produced.

We did the 45 and the album—we though it was good but we needed to set our own standards. Up the ante—something that would really reflect what we are trying to do. Our character. We gave [Wild Records’ owner Reb[ the first refusal for Moderation, but he just wasn’t interested since it wasn’t done in his studio with his team. Gabe Lowry and Johnny Witmer are just the perfect team for getting the sound that we wanted, you know? There’s no bad blood.

You just want to take those steps forward.

I’ve been on labels before where we didn’t sound like anyone else—that can either help or hinder a band. You could be a shining light or a sore thumb. I can see a similar thing maybe happening with you.

BDC: No—I mean, we stayed, we had fun, we supported all the bands on the label and everything.

LM: Yeah, it was good being on Wild—don’t get us wrong! We were just different, you know? We just wanted our music to sound like us. Full throttle. Really get your fuckin’ emotions going.

BDC: We couldn’t really play in that particular studio. That’s not what we’re about.

MP: I couldn’t beat the shit out of my own drumset!

BDC: We couldn’t be at our best—at our fullest.

All right, guys—lets talk about fashion! [laughs] Biggs, Leroy—do you think Michael dresses too fancy to be in a punk rock band?

BDC: Nah, this is a rock n’ roll band so … he could even be fancier!

Biggs, you wear Nikes. Have you ever thought about approaching Nike for an endorsement deal since you’re also a killer ping-pong athlete?

BDC: Yeah—well, nearly professional. I don’t play for any money—just food, booze and smokes.

What’s the most consecutive rounds you’ve gone in a night?

BDC: Oh man, I’ll go ALL night! I’ve done 24 rounds back to back. I’ve beat the Swedes, I’ve beat the British, I’ve gotten down with the Germans one-handed holding a stein…

And you’re going to Japan! They usually wipe the floor with us in the Olympics!

Are you going to teach them a lesson in table tennis?

BDC: I am! Nah, I mean they’re all right, they’re decent. I’d say they’re as good as the Swedes. It’s the old land of Jackie Chan that we gotta worry about—China! But the Japanese? I’ve got them down.

How do you see Japanese kids responding to you guys?

BDC: I think everyone’s gonna go apeshit!

LM: Black Mambas Mania!

BDC: Its gonna pick up real quick— hopefully we’ll be on all the game shows.

LM: Japanese commercials!

Maybe some Japanese whiskey commercials? Are you guys hip to Japanese whiskey yet?

LM: Oh yeah—like Santori! They’ve just recently gotten really into whiskey making.

They’re making primo-ass whiskeys.

It’s the best stuff out there right now.

Once again, they’ve taken an American invention and they’re doing it way better than us. It’s almost infuriating. All right, so since we’re globetrotting here—I wanna know what happened with your ill-fated show in Ireland?

MP: I think nothing happened there cuz we never even got there! [laughter and extreme cursing] BDC: Fuuuuck. Fuck that airport. Airport security sucks.

LM: Yeeeeeah man—you can’t even get INTO the airport.

BDC: We were there! We were there!

LM: We even left on time to get there— you’d think three hours is enough cushion time to get to fuckin’ Ireland. I don’t know what happened, to be honest. You gotta take a train, then take a ferry, so you gotta wait

for that shit, then we get there and there’s all these motherfuckers … its an old-ass airport. We just didn’t know it was gonna be such a fucking hassle.

BDC: It made us miss LAX. Think about that! We just had to sleep at the airport once we got there.

LM: I don’t even think we’re allowed in Ireland anymore! [laughs]. You laugh but I think its true! Can’t show our faces. [makes a ‘that’s it, no more!’ whistle.]

Michael, you work at the Five Star Bar. Have you ever seen the old 60s Native American greaser docu-drama The Exiles?

MP: No, I have not!

It all takes place around the previous incarnation of that bar—it was a hardcore Native American dive back then, a pretty intense scene of these Natives that left their reservation and came to L.A. to adopt the American greaser lifestyle—racing cars, getting drunk, brawling and so on. Have you felt any presence from that era there?

MP: You know what, dude? There’s been a couple fuckin’ occasions where I’ve been closing up alone, and I’ll hear doors slam or chairs tip over, and I’ll run over and they’ll be nobody there. And then the locks on the doors—they’ll sometimes swivel. I don’t know anything, but I know the cleaning guy—he’s like ‘The ghost upstairs, his name is Arthur.’ The first week I started there, there was actually a paranormal investigative team interviewing everyone that worked there. I was just all, ‘What the fuck is going on?’ I was pretty creeped out. It’s a little bit like … you say goodbye to the bar, you say hello to the bar, you try to stay on the spirit’s good side, you know? Shit can get crazy. It was a pretty gnarly hotel upstairs too, at the turn of the century. There was a brothel and shit like that.

What do you say when these guys come in to get free drinks?

MP: Ah, you know, I’ll charge them a convenience fee…

BDC: Yeah, isn’t it convenient that we know you? [laughs] Tell us about the night you stayed up till 8 AM spinning records at Jeff Turpin’s [of Dr. Boogie] pad.

BDC: Ah man… shit. All I know is that it was 8 AM, and the last record I put on was some Little Richard gospel album cuz man, we needed to, like…

Confess some sins? Repent?

BDC: That’s what it was, yeah. Us heathens, that whole night. Drinking warm beer obsessing on ultra-violence, and I was all, ‘Guys, we need this shit.’ [laughs] BLACK MAMBA’S MODERATION IS OUT NOW ON DISCONNECTED. VISIT BLACK MAMBAS AT BLACKMAMBAS.BANDCAMP.COM. INTERVIEW

dimber Interview AND PHOTOGRAPHY by EMILY TWOMBLY

dimber is the L.A. quartet that’s supremely proud of making “upbeat music for downbeat people,” and they do! And it’s demonstrated perfectly by the Hüsker Dü/Dinosaur Jr-style pop rippers on their recent damber EP—their vinyl debut, which includes a special dimber zine, too!—out now on Chain Letter Collective. They met with L.A. RECORD‘s Emily Twombly to talk about where they come from, how they got to L.A. and how they’re already working on changing the world around them. (And to explain just a little bit about a little something called D-TV, too.)

You cover a song from the Josie & The Pussycats movie and Kelly Kapowski and Cher Horowitz are all over your merch.

You’re seemingly obsessed with the 90’s—why?

Caleb (guitar/vocals): I don’t think obsessed is the right word. Those were formative years for us and we pull a lot from pop culture stuff. It wasn’t really something we all decided though, like, ‘We’re gonna be a band that worships Clueless.’ It just kind of happened.

Matt “M-Dog” Walsh (bass/vocals): It IS a fantastic movie.

C: We all are maybe actually obsessed with Clueless.

Andy (guitar/vocals): Get ready for 90210 merch! We’ve only just scraped the surface.

C: I think these are all female characters that are strong cool women. It’s of a time period where it feels like our music kind of fits in.

We all make the joke that our music sounds like a blender of the Clueless soundtrack— like all the songs into one song. Like that would come out sounding like dimber.

How has living in L.A. shaped your sound and who dimber is?

Matt Raminick (drums/vocals): A lot of my favorite bands are from the region. C: Yeah! We have a lot of love for Los Angeles and Southern California punk bands. The Descendents, the Gun Club, Minutemen.

The city also finds its way into our lyrical subject matter. The way it shapes the way INTERVIEW

we think and the way it moves us. We sing about the militarized police state we’re reminded of so often in L.A. with the constant helicopter noise.

As a new band, what do you hope to bring to the world? What are your goals and what do you want to offer to your local community?

C: I think we would like people to talk about issues and things about themselves that we all feel uncomfortable about in general. And strive to make each other a little bit better people, in terms of holding everyone accountable.

MD: Everyone can do better.

C: Everyone can do better and be more questioning of everything around them.

For me, that’s what I hope people take away from our music—just to be like a little bit more critical of everything around them, including questioning why you don’t have enough love for yourself. Just figuring it out together.

Currently, in the film and music industry, we’re seeing a rash of men being called out for sexually abusing and assaulting women—and some other men—and generally just treating women poorly. I haven’t seen much in the line of solutions on how to prevent these things from happening. What are your thoughts on potential preventative measures so that the future of music is safe for people who are not just straight cis men?

C: I think it’s great that a lot of individuals are being held accountable for these things and it’s being exposed. It seems like there’s additional cultural focus on it. For me, I think that’s great. But I would like to see more of a discussion openly on the systemic problem that’s allowed for these things to exist so far, which is a bigger conversation and one that I think people shy away from because it’s a total redistribution of the power system that allows people take advantage of people this way—in terms of a lot of gender inequality and also the hierarchy set up. At least for the sexual harassment thing … the only thing I can think of as a society if we had some sort of funding for some sort of HR bureau? A lot of times people come forward and they get suppressed within the organization. It’s the power distribution thing. You have a production company and the heads of the production company are abusing these people that are interns or lower level people and they try to talk about it and they just get swept under the rug and it’s no big deal and it happens time and time again. The next person that it happens to is like, ‘Oh, I saw this person—they had their whole career ruined.’ There’s a fear and intimidation thing, I think.

A: It comes down to the institution or the workplace or the college—especially colleges —that just don’t want there to be a problem. So they dismiss it as not being a problem. It might be wishful thinking but if

everyone held themselves and their friends accountable and think about the problem and how you may have made a mistake in the past and how it was wrong … just do some inward reflection on the whole thing.

If that could actually take place, I think that would help a lot.

C: From day one, we need to teach people that these things aren’t allowed. It’s culturally acceptable for men to catcall a woman and that’s not OK. But we allow that to exist.

MD: People are suddenly paying attention because a lot of these are high profile people in the entertainment industry, but this behavior has existed in every industry. It goes back to the distribution of power. And like we were saying earlier though: we all just need to be better.

It feels like things are really shitty right now and hard in our country and a lot of people keep saying it has to get better, but … do you think there’s a breaking point? What can we do in the meantime to just ride it out?

C: Like when we see that it’s getting better?

I can say … I don’t have a lot of confidence for it actually getting very better. There’s a lot of external constraints besides just the systemic abuse of women and all these awful idelogical things—the way people who have inhibited mobility are treated in the world, people with like mental illnesses, all that and even beyond that just human beings running out of water and everyone 29

fucking with abandon and producing babies and not being held accountable for overpopulation issues, resources, stuff like that … I think that sort of thing is gonna implode on itself. So while we maybe can make some progression in terms of social justice and making things a little bit better in terms of leveling the hierarchy a little bit … I still think we have a lot of bigger concerns. Maybe ‘bigger’ is the wrong word? But other concerns that will eventually supersede these other problems.

When no one has water to drink and food to eat … society as we know it devolves into something else which I don’t think is gonna be super great or fun for anyone. [everyone laughs … bitterly] MD: This is us not crying! I’m also pretty pessismistic about anything getting fixed in the short term. I feel like in the big picture there’s not much I can do to fix the world or all the world’s problems, but at least we can try and make things a little better for our social circle, our loved ones, our family and friends. That’s all I have the power to do on a daily basis. It’s pretty rough out there, guys!

C: I think you could start on a really microcosmic level of trying to make your community better and then obviously try to help people outside of your community as much as you can also. Like just by making other peoples’ lives better that you are directly involved with in your city or state or country—I think that’s a good way to start. I’m certainly not saying we should all give up because everything’s gonna just go to hell. We should definitely try and make things better and work hard as much as we can to … break the system down and get away from this de-evolution thing.

A: I think if everybody looks at themselves and takes a hard look at themselves and their close friends—their social circle like M-dog was saying. You start small and take one step at a time and as time goes by, you’ll look back and realize we did make a lot more progess than we thought we could have. But you gotta start somewhere and you gotta start with yourself.

We talk a lot about creating ‘safe spaces’ at shows. What does that term mean to all of you? How do we go about creating spaces like that? Do you feel that the impetus is on the band to create that atmosphere at their shows?

A: Personally dimber is my safe space.

Seriously—hanging out with us as a group is very calm and fun and inviting. I find it to be very healthy for me personally for my state of mind.

MR: I think us playing and us doing what we’re doing … it sort of naturally bleeds into the people watching us. And it sort of naturally happens where we try to just connect with people through what we’re doing and not overly make it about a thing.

It’s not something that’s spoken.

MD: One of our band mottos is ‘upbeat music for downbeat people.’ There’s something there … I have a boring office job and I rage all week and then we go to practice and it’s catharsis. We just let it all out. One of the first shows we played was 30

a year ago right after the election and that was a primal scream of a show.

C: I think the impetus is definitely on the band for creating a safe space at a show.

It’s up to everyone involved in the show, including the people running the space and the audience as well. If you see someone having a bad time—someone accosting someone else in any capacity—it’s on us to call it out and be there as a support for each other so people feel comfortable voicing these things. And not feeling ashamed about it. I’ve been to so many shows when the band is playing and it’s aggressive music and things are getting out of control and almost … some bands thrive on that sort of violence and chaos.

Bands need to allow for space for people to be comfortable and be ok there. Bikini Kill said ‘girls to the front’ because at the time in the scene, women didn’t feel OK being at the front of a show because men were harassing them and pushing them. That goes for everyone regardless of their gender … but [it’s about] creating a space where everyone feels comfortable to be there and to be together. I think a band can be a big thing for setting the tone. We want that for our shows.

Let’s talk about your EP! MR: These are some of the first songs that we wrote together and we’re really happy with them and proud of them.

C: We had a really good track record of making songs that we were proud of right awa as far as a sound and a message. We have a cool zine that we worked hard on all together that’s going to be a part of it that hopefully is representative of our band and what we would like to say. Our friends Ben and Heather—who run a really great label called Chainletter and are an integral part of our community—are putting it out.

They’re really great human beings.

MD: We did this record with a really cool dude named Andrew Schubert. If you’re a young indie band, call him up! He’ll record you and make you sound real good.

C: He’s also in a great band called Marriage Material. We’re really excited about it!

What are some other local bands you like?

C: We have to mention even already in our short existence we have a sister band who even if they weren’t actual literal family— my sister being in the band!—they would be my favorite band in L.A., and they’re called Object As Subject. They’re this really amazing amalgamation of agitated political performance art and goth music and punk.

Incredible performers and incredible human beings and we’ve had to honor to play with them a few times and we have plans to do some recording together. They’re a constant inspiration to me. I also really like Prettiest Eyes—this amazing noise-punk-synth band, and also again filled with really amazing human beings. I feel lucky we have rad people who are not only amazing musicians but really good friends and family. It feels nice in L.A. right now in some respects. For a long time I bemoaned that there aren’t any good bands in L.A. and I feel better about it these days!

The 7” comes with a zine—what do zines mean to you and what does it mean to make one?

C: A lot of my fondest memories of going to like really special shows that sort of galvanized me for really falling in love with the punk community were shows at really rad DIY spots—like when I had the opportunity to travel to Gilman, or the Smell and it’s hidden little crowd. And there was often people with zines or just people with information or tables … that’s where I first learned about Animal Liberation Front and there’d be like abuse counseling for women and just … resources. And kids having made cool weird punk zines, too. I always thought that was a cool special thing, and something that isn’t super as present as we’ve gotten older or the scene that we inhabit has come along. Zines have always been something special for me—things I’ve sought out and feel really engaged by—and I thought it’d be a good way for our band … and especially as a new band, a way to have our ideas come across a little bit more cohesively. So many bands come out and you know nothing about them and not necessarily even where their politics lie but just them as people and so … Matt is heavily involved in the zine world cuz his partner Bianca helps run the L.A. Zine Fest.

MD: When I was a lot younger, I really didn’t have all that much exposure to zines.

But in the last five or six years, I’ve been helping with the L.A. Zine Fest every year and it’s a really incredible community of DIY creators. For our record, we wanted to find a way to also include recommendations, reading lists …

C: Some music lessons, some health and psychology resources … and a maze! And some activities! We thought it was a neat way to get some ideas across as a band beyond just the music which can be a little oblique and not necessarily the best way to get a grasp on a band.

How did you guys all meet? Andy, Matt, and M-Dog, I know you all grew up in Florida.

A: I met Matt Raminick when I moved to Florida from Portland and we were in marching band together. The following summer I met Matt Walsh at driver’s ed during summer school and we drank a lot of Mountain Dew. MD: The driver’s ed instructors sold Mountain Dew to students for $1 a can. It was like a bootleg side hustle they had.

A: So I cover M-Dog one day and he covered me another day for our Mountain Dew fix out in the 100 degree Florida heat and eventually we figured out with lived close together. And I was hanging out with Raminick at the time. Turns out Matt Walsh played bass and me and Matt were jamming in Matt’s bedroom with a couple different people but as soon as we met Matt Walsh, we started playing together and continued to do so for the next five or so years.

MD: Can I just add that this all happened in the summer of 1997? Twenty years ago … MR: I moved to California first because I was coming back and forth already and ultimately decided to move here because

I was tired of flying back and forth. I was working with a bunch of bands and touring with whatever band wanted to take me. I had just moved out here and these guys— not even planned—ended up moving out here right after me around 2004 or 5.

MD: I was living in Japan and while I was there, pretty much everyone I knew in Florida moved to L.A. by the time I came back to the U.S. I love my family but it was cool to come to L.A. MR: Then we all sort of just met Caleb …

A: No. That’s not how it happened at all!

I lived right down the street from where Caleb was working and would casually see her working at the beer store. And then I ran into Caleb at a Masked Intruder show … or was it the Queers and Teenage Bottlerocket? We kind of hit it off and started talking and I started telling Caleb what a great bass player I was. And Caleb had a really awesome band going at the time called Spooks and kept insisting the band needed no bass player—but definitely appreciated my inquiries! Eventually Caleb decided maybe Spooks could handle a bass player or … tolerate a bass player. So Caleb asked me to join Spooks and I did.

C: We just started seeing each other at shows. We were at the bar and then I’d see you at shows and I was like ‘Oh. You’re like … of my community.’

A: Then in Spooks Caleb and I started talking about, ‘Oh, what if we started a fun pop punk band?’ And Caleb said, ‘Hey, I have some cool songs.’ And I was like, ‘Hey, I have some cool songs.’ And I was like alright … I know M-Dog. What’s next for Dimber?

MD: We’re also going to have a follow up 7th on the way on Chainletter.

C: Maybe a puppet show? We’re gonna play Awesome Fest, a really great DIY punk festival that happens in San Diego every year in February—we’re stoked they asked us to play. We’re trying to record a full-length record and trying to record a big quiver of songs to make something cohesive and nice. We have a single coming in a couple months and then we have also talked about a split with Object As Subject—two sister bands doing something special together.

And we’d like to make some weird videos … and expand on the D-TV thing that Matt has developed!

MD: D-TV! It’s like MTV but … D! For the Ds! Sometimes I have a lot of free time in the afternoon at my job and I just fire up AfterEffects and see what happens! That’s D-TV! It’d be good to get some music videos out there—maybe someone who is not in the band which would be really cool too?

C: If anyone reads this and has a cool idea for a music video and wants to come help us out—for zero to no money—that’d be really cool. Andy’s a really good editor. He’ll help you and give you some friendship and life lessons. dimber’s damber EP IS OUT NOW ON CHAINLETTER COLLECTIVE. VISIT dimber AT DIMBER.BANDCAMP. COM. INTERVIEW

MIYA FOLICK Interview by madison desler illustration by elza burkart

With her earthshaking voice and bracing honesty, the intensely cool Miya Folick has earned a spot on countless music biz hip-lists since the release of her Strange Darling EP in 2015—but it wasn’t long ago that Folick considered herself a total outsider. Raised in Orange County, Folick studied acting in New York before moving to L.A. to pursue a new obsession for making music. Ethereal, fierce, and freakishly gifted, it wasn’t long before she found friends, a band, and adoring fans, but it’s this lonely start-up period she explores on her stunning recent EP, Give It To Me, where she backs sharp social observations with grunge-y guitars and raw nervy power. She shares something special with her heroes Joni Mitchell and Laura Nyro, but Folick’s sound continues to evolve, making her an artist to watch—no matter how ‘in’ she gets. On a rare morning off, we caught up with Folick to talk first concerts, walking in L.A., and her upcoming LP. Tell me why you wanted to include a cover of Joni Mitchell’s ‘Woodstock’ on the EP. We recorded all the other songs, and there was a different one that was supposed to be the fifth song. We were mixing while I was on the road. While we were in Europe, I got this idea that I really wanted to play that song. I asked the guitarist who was touring with us if he would learn it. We played it somewhere and we liked it, so we kept on playing it, and every time we did some new horrible news event that it seemed to be related to would happen. It just felt so relevant. The last verse—when Joni sings, ‘And I dreamed I saw the bombers riding shotgun in the sky / And they were turning into butterflies above our nation’—it feels like a parable to me. I’ve always loved it just so much. I don’t even listen to it any more. I just know it, and sing it to myself.

We came back to L.A. and we ended a show there with ‘Woodstock,’ and then we went back into the studio and recorded it.

I didn’t intend for it to be on there, but I’m really glad it is. I never cover anything—but honestly I just really love singing that song and it felt really relevant. We have a video coming out for it really soon.

I found a quote of Joni Mitchell’s where she said, ‘In New York, the street adventures are incredible. There are a thousand stories in a single block. You see the stories in the people’s faces. You hear the songs immediately. Here in Los Angeles, there are less characters because they’re all inside automobiles.’ You’ve spent a chunk of your creative life in New York and a chunk here in L.A. Do you agree with that?

I wasn’t writing songs when I was in New York, but I was writing a lot. I felt very inspired there, but I was also 18 so everything feels intense. It’s hard to say whether New York City was an incredible inspiration, or if I was just on hormones. [laughs] I remember being really inspired by walking around INTERVIEW

the city, but I walk around L.A. too. Most people don’t really, but if you walk around downtown or walk around Koreatown, there’s people all over the place. If you live in Laurel Canyon, you’re not going to see anybody on the street. I think L.A. has a lot to explore. There’s endless, endless places and culture to explore.

There’s this stereotype that Los Angeles is kind of devoid of culture, or that it’s a shallow, less valid culture.

Yeah, if you only explore one stretch of Hollywood Boulevard or you only explore the Intelligentsia in Silverlake, that’s what you think. There’s so much culture in L.A. and a lot of it is very traditional. There are a lot of different ethnic communities in L.A. that have very rich culture. I think people are still comparing New York’s reputation to L.A.’s reputation, and not comparing how the cities actually are right now. At all. Of course if you visit a city, you’re not going to see everything that you would if you live there. When I visit New York now, I think, ‘Oh God, it’s so gentrified, it’s so boring here.’ But people who live there, they don’t feel that. They know where their community lies and where the culture is. I would hate to visit L.A. if I was just going to the places that are in the movies. You’re going to be disappointed. When I moved to L.A. I was so isolated, and I hated it here because I didn’t know where to go. You have to be shown.

It’s definitely a place that heightens loneliness.

Yeah—because it feels so vast and everything is spread out. I really like L.A. a lot. I don’t think I could ever know L.A. completely— there’s too many pockets—but I’ve figured out how I like to live my life here. I like my little life and the places I go.

The chorus of ‘Aging’ from your Give It To Me EP—’You fuse ambition with impatience / You won’t start from the bottom you only want the top / You think you’re better than them / You think you’re the cream of the crop’—reminds me of the

stereotypes that have been built up about millennials. That we’re lazy and entitled, and don’t want to work for anything.

What are you really referencing?

I’m referencing a specific person. I’m referencing an … ex. [laughs] I’m sure I have those feelings too.

Do you consider yourself ambitious?

What is the extent of your ambition for your music?

I consider myself ambitious in that I have certain standards for myself and for my music. And I would like to play for a lot of people—I really enjoy performing. My ambition really isn’t what drives me though.

My ambition is not always there. Sometimes I really want something, and other times it’s, ‘Fuck it, I don’t care.’ If I was relying on my ambition to get me through every day it wouldn’t work. I compulsively make songs, and I want them to sound good. That’s what gets me through the day. I want to make good things. I don’t want to conquer the world. I don’t even know what that means.

The drive is to create, and to create things that you’re proud of. If that gets you to these other places than that’s just a bonus.

Yeah! I’m reading the Joni Mitchell biography right now, and there’s a moment where she’s talking about her first husband, Chuck Mitchell. She went back to visit him after they split up, and her career had an upward trajectory at that point. She was looking out the window and she said, ‘Chuck, I’m gonna be a star. I just know it.

I’m scared, but I just know it.’ That’s not how I think, but it was interesting to me that she knew she was going to be a star, even though what she was making was so left-field at that time. Nobody else was doing what she was doing, but she knew she was great at it. There’s this idea—especially with female artists—that they just don’t know that what they’re doing is great. It just comes out of them, like vomit. But no, she knew. She was calculated. She knew she

was great. She knew she was making great music. She wasn’t just some idiot who just jumbled some words together. There’s this idea that she was just a goddess and had no idea. That’s part of me not wanting to say I’m ambitious.

That ties in to the whole socialization and double standards for women and men. Women aren’t supposed to know that they’re good at anything, but men can say it as much as they want.

Oh yeah. It’s interesting to me all the time the way people talk about their music. It’s not even always based on gender. Some people, if they like their song and they think it’s good, they just say it. I don’t know why there’s anything wrong with that.

You would hope they think it’s good if they’re going to release it.

I think that’s the checks and balances in our brain. Obviously, you don’t want to hate yourself—but you want to make sure you don’t think you’re a genius all the time.

Before your EP had even come out, you’d already received write-ups from Rolling Stone, from NME, the New York Times, Vogue—does that mean a lot to you? Osr not so much?

Having positive feedback makes working easier in some ways, and harder in some ways. I try to ignore it, but I also feel like because I didn’t grow up reading Rolling Stone, and dreaming about being in it, it’s a different experience for me. For me, it was just like, ‘Oh cool.’ Some people … that might have been their Bible. I’m sure it’s a great publication. [laughs] I didn’t really consume music and pop-culture journalism when I was a kid. I was just talking about this with one of my friends.

There are people who never get that kind of recognition and make amazing music for years and years and years just because they want to. I really admire that. I think there is part of me that—I have to admit—does seek recognition. I don’t know if I really like that part of me, but it’s in there.

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That’s a very human desire. I think we all have a bit of that.

Whether it’s human or it’s trained in us, it’s there. I liked to get good grades. There’s that good girl inside of me. Even when you don’t give a fuck, you still like it. [laughs] Even if you don’t ask for it, it still feels good.

You’ve said before that the press has sometimes made it harder for you to make music. How? In the long run, it didn’t really matter.

But there were a few periods where I was judging myself too much—when I was trying to write material for the full-length album, but I got past it.

Like writing with the opinion of other people in mind? More than your own opinion?

Right. That’s not useful for the music that I like to make—music that’s personal and feels honest. It’s not helpful at all to think about what people expect or want.

You said once that the inspiration for the EP came from being a newcomer to the L.A. music scene and observing a lot because you felt like an outsider.

That’s certainly something that you reference lyrically. Do you still feel like an outsider?

I know I’m not, but I still feel like I am. [laughs] I think I’m just one of those people who—even if I know a bunch of people, I’ll always feel like an outsider. I know I’m not, but then sometimes I feel like I am.

There definitely is a certain L.A. sound, and I don’t think I really have that. Sonically, I may be an outsider. When I go to shows, I know people there, so I guess I’m not a total loner. I forget sometimes how hard I tried in the beginning to get to know people.

I was going to shows all the time. I guess the fact that I don’t really go to shows right now … I guess I feel like enough of a part of the community that I don’t have to do that anymore—but I still like to support my friends.

On Give It To Me, there’s a complex mix of genres and sounds, but definitely a strong strain of grunge and 90s alt-rock. Is that something you grew up listening to?

No. I wasn’t really into grunge. I mean, I’ve listened to some of those bands from the 90’s. I know my band has been compared to the Cranberries, and I’ve listened to them. But I was never really into grunge.

I don’t know how to explain it. I think I’ve been influenced by things that were influenced by grunge. Or influenced by the same things that grunge was influenced by. Somehow I arrived at that place, but it wasn’t by listening to grunge. I listened to a lot of Joni Mitchell and Laura Nyro and Jeff Buckley. It’s possible that we were either influenced by the same people or—influence is an amorphous blob that spreads out everywhere. I don’t really know where this comes from. I think it also may just be an attitude—an attitude that can manifest itself in a sound that’s similar to what people recognize as grunge. The way I listen to music is also very immediate. I think it only takes one song to influence me. I probably heard one song that I really liked the sound of, and then it made it’s way into my music.

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We’re constantly hearing music all the time that we’re probably not even fully processing, and that’s sinking in.

Yeah. It’s kind of cool … and it’s really annoying. [laughs] I just wish I didn’t have to listen to music everywhere. It is interesting— and so impossible to say what you’re influenced by—because we’re bombarded with music in the grocery store—in coffee shops—that you can’t unlisten to. Influence is always an interesting question for me because I can’t always pinpoint.

What can you tell us about your first LP? Do you know when it’s coming out?

Uh, we don’t. [laughs] I’m working on it right now. The end is in sight. I’m not sure how long it will take to actually get released.

It’s going to be a different sound, but I think it’s a natural progression, and not a big shift out of nowhere. I’m making it with a producer-partner, which is the first time I’ve ever really worked and written with someone else and I’m really enjoying it. I like the songs a lot. This is an album that I did consider the audience—even with Give It To Me I did consider the listener. Not in a way where I’m thinking about their judgment, but more with … what do I want to give to them in a recorded format and in a live format? What kind of experience do I want the live show to be? I think for the Give It To Me EP I wanted to have a heavy live experience with moments of light. For the album, I wanted to have a full emotional spectrum with grooves that you can move to. That’s what I aimed for.

I wanted that sadness with moments of joy, and for people to able to move to the music.

You grew up in Santa Ana, you’re a local gal, I know you play shows—did you grow up being super into music?

You know, I didn’t. I knew nothing about music. Everything I knew was just what I heard in my friends’ cars. I was very, very not a part of the Orange County music scene. I was in choir and studied classical voice. I had friends, but I was a bit of an introvert in my extracurricular activities. I didn’t go to shows.

I wouldn’t have known where to go. [laughs] I was not cool or part of a band ever.

What’s the first concert you went to?

The first concert I can remember going to—this is embarrassing either way—it’s either the Eagles at the Pond, or it was seeing N*Sync at the Irvine Amphitheater.

I don’t know—both of those are pretty awesome.

I don’t think I really appreciated them at the time. I went to see the Eagles with my parents but N*Sync was with my best friend. I was invited. I didn’t seek either of them out.

Did you dress up for Halloween?

I…didn’t. Well, I dressed up as a Dodger fan.

I went to the Dodger game that night and, it was my costume. Because I know nothing about baseball. I went with my dad and I accidentally cheered when Houston scored the first home run because I wasn’t paying attention. My dad was really embarrassed.

MIYA FOLICK’S GIVE IT TO ME EP IS OUT NOW ON TERRIBLE RECORDS. VISIT MIYA FOLICK AT MIYA. BANDCAMP.COM.

G PERICO Interview by senay kenfE photography by alex the brown

Since Greg Mack dropped a young Crenshaw rapper named Ice-T’s street anthem “6 In The Mornin’” on his seminal radio program the Mack Attack, gangsta rap has grown into the propaganda vehicle for street life here in Los Angeles. During the last 30 years, the sound has epitomized what it means to come out of the West Coast, as well as changed the sonic landscape of what was previously a genre dominated by New York. But as with anything authentic and real, there also comes the biters and imitators.

Market saturation by fakers and major label stooges (as well as industry politics) clogged the path of many young black men—think King Tee, or Mausberg—trying to transition out of their dangerous environments into the music business world. Or think O.C.’s “Time’s Up” on repeat times a million. Mass culture moved on and forgot about the streets. But now young rapper G Perico— popularly characterized as The Hero of Broadway—represents a resurgence that’s been quietly creeping into the scene over the last 5 years. While music critics have fallen over themselves showering a spotlight on L.A.’s burgeoning neo-jazz moment (facilitated by the griots and living ancestors in Leimert Park), many have slept on this modern revival in the streets. L.A. has been birthing a new generation of street rappers from neighborhoods across South Central and West L.A.—RJ, AD, Teecee4800—showing that no matter the amount of attention we deliver or deny, “The Streets Is Watching.” (As a young Shawn Carter put it.) A reserved and deliberate figure, G has quietly spent three years building a place for himself amongst the ranks of the New West. His work ethic is unmatched—three releases on his own label So Way Out dropped this year alone, including his new 2 Tha Left. And while his look and intonations recall past classics, his lyrics and delivery are very much rooted in the present. He’s been able to successfully connect a nostalgic reverence for g-funk with the streets of today.

Just a year ago I was doing that show off of Pico at Union and I remember that they asked us not to put your name on the marquee because there were potential interactions with people out and about— Those motherfuckers! [laughs] I could walk through it now. But yeah, people didn’t believe—they thought it was all trouble still. I’ve really been working hard trying to get that perception up offa me. And it’s so fucking hard like trying to—like in a professional setting—getting that dark cloud from over your head. Even though it wasn’t that bad for me. I caught it early.

Motherfuckers in the street—they get you fucked up fast.

So now you feel like your footing is in order—what’s the next step?

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The next step is getting them roots deeper.

Planting them on solid ground. Just expanding my reach, and expanding the brand, and just—I’m like a different type of artist. There’s a gang of different steps I gotta take, and different shit I gotta do. I can’t think like the average, for sure. I got 2 Tha Left coming out, and I’m gonna try to get that to more listeners—grow the audience, grow the brand, just get people on a deeper understanding with me outside of just the obvious. ‘He’s a Crip.’ Outside of that, you know what I mean? Really just build that audience and gear up for the longevity so I can be here for longer than five years because there’s a lot of people banking on me to just do five years. And shit—I’m already in my first year, so I don’t got time to waste.

Does that worry you? A lot of people come and go—flash in the pan.

It should worry anybody. But it’s a good thing to know what you up against so you know how to position yourself—so you know what to do. You won’t just be sitting in la-la land waiting. It’s important to know the consequences: what’s going on if you do this, or if you do that. The likelihood … all that shit. I wouldn’t say it worries me, but it motivates me not to be falling into that.

What kinds of things do you want of your listeners to take away from your new album 2 Tha Left?

Damn, there’s a lot of shit. I want them to understand that my life’s been raw as fuck in real actual real time—and about my life being raw as fuck, I don’t sit here and dwell on it. I don’t do that. I like what I

like. I done what I done. I’m just like one of them niggas that’s blessed to articulate the lifestyle in a cool way that people like, and it’s not too many cats like that. A lot of people like me wouldn’t be able to sit in a room like this or even think about taking the time out, because you so caught up in the lifestyle. I’m blessed to even be right here and be able to get a story to the people, I just feel like I’m a spokesman—in some forms—like a mascot, or a star player. Let’s just say the star player—fuck the mascot!— for the street dudes that’s looking to win, and have some, and been through some shit, and still be standing tall.

I think there’s obviously a lot of gang politics that go into any music being made. But over the last four or five years, we’ve seen the pendulum shift in terms INTERVIEW

of the representation of Blood rappers.

A decade ago, it was maybe a lot of Crip rappers. So it’s interesting to see moments like your album All Blue—is that what you mean when you [talk about] your roots?

And in the reverse, on your project, you have the same kind of record with some artist that aren’t from the same hood.

I see what you mean, but no—I didn’t mean that. I mean as far as my roots, when I said that I mean as far as my reach and expanding.

Naturally the All Blue shit is who I am. It’s just in this one spot right now, so I need to spread it in all different aspects. Branding, different business interests. Music. Touring.

The whole shit needs to work right, not just grow like with fluff. I don’t want my tree falling down when it get windy. I need to be planted in the soil.

The cover of 2 Tha Left—I’m assuming that’s you?

Yeah, that’s me.

With your flag in the left pocket. What’s the significance for the uninitiated?

That’s pretty much part of the uniform. You won’t see too many people walking around with flags, but I keep one with me. That’s part of the uniform, the most identifiable thing, to let motherfuckers know your affiliation. To have a blue rag.

Because of hip-hop, there’s a lot of L.A. gang culture that becomes a national thing. As more people pop up with it, do you find that there are many rules and regulations and codes that you have to live by due to the fact that you are in L.A.?

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Yeah of course. Man, no man is bigger than what’s going on. Nobody. I don’t give a fuck who it is. I seen the biggest niggas that thought they was bigger than the program get chopped down. There’s rules to everything. This is one case where these rules is kind of severe. And then you got a whole other side of rules just by it being like some outlaw type shit. So you got the rules of the outlaw shit, and you got the rules of America, which is ‘Fuck niggas.’ So there’s rules everywhere. Shit don’t stop.

I feel like your roll-out … it’s not necessarily in the realm of the Southern artists, where they just dump a lot of records out, but it’s also not necessarily like more traditional West Coast rappers who put out a record between one and three years.

That’s out for me. I take a page out of the Southern artists, and I definitely want to drop consistent. It’s just building like … just think if I got one fucking CD, right? In two or three years, I got one fucking CD. Anybody who’s just as good—maybe better, maybe not even as good, but he got outta my one—he got eight. He got a longer playlist so he can entertain longer. More people is with that, you know what I mean?

It’s gambling, too—you got more a chance of hitting— —and that’s really to me the reason why the South got the fucking headline right now because they got so much shit to entertain you with. Nigga coming one time every couple years, you know what I mean? It’s

about that consistency and having content.

And that’s what’s missing out here, but we about to bring that to life.

You have a lot of features on this one.

You have your typical collaborators like TeeCee4800 and AD on there. But then you have—who’s done a really great record I like—Mozzy?

‘What’s Real.’

You have Curren$y— Ray Wright from Warm Brew.

And he did that record with Polyester— Polyester. Nef [the Pharoah]. That’s it.

That’s a lot for me.

That’s a lot for you. Why the change in direction?

Naturally I like tried to stay away from features because I feel like if your verse not better than mine—or equal—I don’t want you on my song. ‘Nigga, what are you on here for if you not gonna gas it and chill it?

You just wasting space on good music!’

And time too.

Right. So that was my reasoning for staying away from features. This time, you know, I’m actually starting to get my feet wet in the game. Other artists are fucking with me now. Niggas didn’t even believe I was a rapper yet. They were like, ‘Nigga, you’re a gangster.’ You know what I’m saying? ‘You might end up back in jail.’ So I did a lot of mingling and shit during this process— meeting with people, vibing with a lot of different motherfuckers. And that’s how that came about—just having them on records.

There’s a song by Mobb Deep—it’s called ‘Trife Life.’ And it’s kind of about smashing girls from other hoods, and you got a song like that with Nef. ‘Other Side.’

Yeah—‘Other Side.’ What was the inspiration behind that?

Just natural shit. I think he came up with the hook—he came up with the hook, and it’s just like, my verse was done in like five minutes because it was so natural. That’s the lifestyle. I mean—I fucked a lot of bitches from the other side. For real. And then in a couple situations also … creeping and shit.

Where do you usually meet them?

A lot of the time when I was younger, school. And like going out to different events. Mall. Just driving through the city.

You know. Because when you get a new car, you go through nigga’s hoods just to be seen. You know what I’m saying? And when you see cute little rats and shit, you stop and holler. Say the first thing that come to your mind.

I think that’s one of the most promising singles off the record coming out.

I think it’s dope. But I move so fast—I did the project and I’m working on the next wave already, know what I mean? So I’ll just wait and see how the people take to it. I definitely had a good time recording it and shit.

On one of the records, you’re saying that there’s a woman who wanted you to keep your hair braided.

‘She said she like a nigga better with my braided hair / Shit look’—yeah, a lot of girls INTERVIEW

like braids. A lot of girls like the curl. And at that time, when I said that, it was somebody telling me to get my hair braided.

Like an image thing.

Naturally I went in the studio and said she was fine as a motherfucker too.

Do your day-to-day experiences find their way into your rhymes?

Yeah—my music ain’t like shit where they just spitting fucking metaphors and fucking crazy Batman verses Hercules—I heard a nigga in New York say he’s slapping squirrels and shit. Like no, my music isn’t that. It is the lifestyle, the day to day. I’m going to get up, go brush my teeth … or I may not brush my teeth. Go to the refrigerator or might not. I might go straight outside. It’s just depicting that, and the reason why it’s gangster because you know, I come from a gangster area—a gangster scenario. If I was in the ‘burbs, I’d probably be talking about fucking taking some over the counter shit.

But it’s pretty much my environment.

I hear that a lot within the music. There’s a couple records—Amerikkka, ‘Fuck the Police,’ I hope it doesn’t impact your career in the same way it has other peoples.

I mean—this is a good thing that I’m kind of like clean as a whistle right now because I’m pretty sure they would like to do something to be about that. I mean, the truth is the truth. And that it’s just like … I said this earlier, I went and saw Detroit. And that movie happened in the 60s or some shit like that. And the only thing different now is really the technology. That’s really it.

Because you can catch it on video.

That’s really it. The police do you the same way, but probably not as severe and openly because … you know, motherfuckers could see it now. So that was just basically me saying, um, you know, this was then and now. You know what I mean? There’s no love, no respect. They don’t respect Black life.

With the past that you have, do vice cops mess with you in terms of shows?

Not recently. Before, when I was doing Tha Innerprize 2 shit and doing all my shows then—like I was putting together all my own shows, and probably like 500 people would come. And yeah, they’d be at front or at the door sweating motherfuckers, or telling people ‘Don’t let them in.’ But now, my crowd is kind of shifting from all the street crowd to any of my folks from the street, they backstage with me now. And it’s the fanbase that enjoys what I do.

Because the demographic is changing in terms of the fan base, do you feel like … in another song, you talk about how people in your hood are calling you Hollywood now.

Yeah, somebody said that shit. They didn’t say that to me though—they said it to someone, and I’m like ‘Nigga, you probably the one that said that,’ you know what I’m saying? But yeah, motherfuckers—they been calling me Hollywood since the beginning, before I was rapping and shit, because it’s in me to make moves.

Like a light-skinned thing.

It’s definitely a light-skinned thing.

Motherfucker, I remember when I was about like 14, and we was going to a picnic INTERVIEW

and all the homies getting in cars and shit, everybody—all the older homies and shit who I liked, their cars already filled up and shit. So I go down the line and it’s the homie … I’m not even gonna say his name, but he’s an ugly motherfucker, fucked up, you know what I’m saying? And I come to find out, he wasn’t even gangster! You know what I mean? I’m way more gangster than him.

But anyway, they like ‘Oh man, this pretty motherfucker’s gonna ride with me?’ And he was dead serious though. He wasn’t joking.

‘Yeah nigga, get in this motherfucker.’

Naturally, yeah. Motherfuckers always have some shit to say about me. It’s not really a bad thing, depending on how you take it.

For me it’s motivation. You got something to say, OK. You’re going to have something to say about this, when I do this or when I do that. And people only really say it from afar. Like motherfucking in the crowd, in the audience. In the nosebleeds.

In the music you reference what listeners might perceive as a lack of trust of a lot of people who you’d call friends of family.

How do you know when to weed out people around you and how to maintain distance while you’re coming up?

It’s just all in the power of navigation—and just being able to analyze certain shit. Not over-analyze shit like a crazy motherfucker, you know what I’m saying? Just really understand shit for what it is. It is what it is. Once you can look at shit like that—you know how to navigate like ‘This dude is not good for me right now. I’m doing this, he not good for that, let me get over here.’ Or ‘She need to get out the way, she not good for nothing,’ or ‘Oh my partner, he good for this.’ It’s just really just understanding your environment and who you’re dealing with. A lot of people really tell you who they are in their conversation. I’m the type of person who will laugh about it and take a mental note.

It does make you paranoid, though.

Oh yeah! Street life—shit. I’m just barely getting out of that shit. All the way fully involved. I never did shit else. I ain’t had no job or tried to do nothing else, you know what I mean? And I just seen how fucking—I was really just raised around a lot of OG gangster niggas and I just see how treacherous they were, like even with their own friends and family and even my family. And you get that natural like … ‘Let me see what’s going on.’ Which is a good thing, and a bad thing. It’s a good thing— your chances of some bad shit happening to you is slim. But your chances of good shit happening to you suffer too.

When do you find the time to relax?

When I’m doing music right now. Or when I got my daughter. That’s really about it. I do a lot of music, so there’s a lot of time to relax. But this last twelve months been so cool for me, but I know that I got a lot more shit—like a long road to go, so my whole shit right now is just getting myself to the next level but not getting comfortable there.

Not getting comfortable here. Relax time is like … I’m trying to keep myself in an uncomfortable state so I can keep grinding, and not just overly fucking celebrating certain shit because it’s a lot to conquer.

How has it been opening up into markets outside L.A.?

That’s a process right now. We working on it and it’s growing. It’s doing pretty well.

And it’s under construction, and it’s going good.

Tone-wise, you connect with a lot of people— The Bay loves it. The Bay loves it.

There’s always been that kindred spirit between a lot of L.A. artists and Bay area rappers. But would you hop on like a Southern beat with a Southern artist?

Yeah! I rap on a Southern beat, I rap on a trap beat—it’s just not necessarily something I would pick for my project.

Soundwise, you’ve had a lot of the established producers—like Polyester— really help you build up. Who is it that you want to help you next?’

Shit. Cardo is definitely one of them right now—he’s made a contribution to the sound. Like off the top of my head. Just me expanding with my in-house production team so my music grows. So like whoever we get with, I want my team in there with them. But there’s so many fucking producers, man. If I start naming them, I don’t want to leave nobody out. There’s a lot of people I want to work with.

I wanted to ask you about the Curren$y record. This is from the outside looking in, but I feel he’s been able to finesse sustaining himself over the last decade.

Curren$y definitely got a dope career. The only thing, as far as Curren$y—a lot of people from the outside looking in—a lot of people may be like, ‘Shit, he probably doesn’t got a gang of hit records.’ But he’s got a hit situation. His situation is a hit! The last time I seen him was August. He had three shows. He [sold out] of all three. He’s been touring since then. That’s definitely something that I would like to model myself at, at the lowest point of whatever I land. And he been around for a long time.

Curren$y been around for fifteen years. And that’s definitely a great example. It don’t seem like it’s going nowhere soon. That shit not old, it’s not whack, it’s not played out.

I’d love to be in a position like that.

Do you feel like that’s an issue of branding?

Not an issue, but like, figuring out, ‘This is going to be my niche. I just gotta be consistent with it.’ It’s all about decision making. And patience. It’s about decision making, patience, and then not being patient because you could like over-wait certain shit, you know what I mean? It’s about having a good team, and pushing your line while you being patient. That’s what I think it’s about. I haven’t got there yet, so I can’t really give you a blueprint of it, but as far as me from the outside looking in—and me being in it as well—you definitely gotta press but you gotta be patient and you gotta make the right decisions. So it’s pretty much three things, and two of them could cross they self. Like pressing and being patient.

That’s the tricky one.

Speaking about content—what is like learning about streaming and the numbers and the stuff like that? What does that mean to you?

Streams is pretty much like the new metric.

The new way to evaluate what’s tight, what’s not, what’s going on, or how your career is going. Streams. Streams is everything. You know? In order to have streams, which you gotta have, you gotta have content. And with that being like the most important shit in the game, you can’t have one without the other. You can’t have streams without content, so it’s necessary for me to stay fresh and do new dope shit. It’s like the fucking law right now if you want to survive in 2018, 2019.

Why are you still independent? What factors went into that decision?

It’s a few different reasons. One reason was just me like … when I first came into the music shit, and honestly there’s still not too many people telling me the ins and outs of certain shit on how the music business works because a lot of people don’t even know how certain shit operates. My lack of knowledge is one reason, staying independent—I don’t wanna get involved in some shit that I know nothing about and be upset, especially when I could still be moving forward at a decent pace.

So basically learning the ins and outs and certain things about the game. I’m not mad if I get with a major and team up, and it’s me making a few hundred thousand a year, making millions a year. I mean, who wouldn’t want to do that? But a lot of people’s independence comes from really not understanding or really not knowing nobody that make fucking big moves. If all you see is a few thousand here and a few thousand there, you don’t even understand that shit. By us being niggas, what you do with the shit you don’t understand? You bash it. Ignore it. Make motherfuckers feel dumb just talking about it because you don’t get it, shit like that. That’s part of the reason why I’m independent. And then now another part is I like to do whatever the fuck I wanna do, you know what I’m saying? I like to be able to be like ‘If I want to, I’m dropping a project next week, I don’t give a fuck. We putting this shit out.’ ‘I’m dropping some shit tonight, nigga.’ Know what I’m saying? And I don’t gotta wait and go through a whole list of long shit, know what I mean? So that’s a perk of it. And also the right situation hasn’t presented itself— my thinking has evolved.

I would agree. I think that a lot of rappers are wise now to the idea of choosing to build equity within themselves, so when the time does come around, that label that didn’t really acknowledge you, or give you the right— —it’s all about cuts. You gotta do a lot of shit, and have a lot of leverage just to be like a 50/50 partner with a fucking major label.

Know what I’m saying? And with streams being a big part of the money now, outside of shows and merchandise, you do want to own or be receiving a good amount of that shit. You want to be taking in more than you give out.

G PERICO’S 2 THA LEFT IS AVAILABLE NOW FROM SO WAY OUT / PRIORITY. INSTAGRAM.COM/ BGPERICO. 41

D33J Interview by zach bilson illustration by angie samblotte In a musical climate that rewards oversaturation and flagrant self-promotion, patience and humility become even greater virtues.

Beat scene stalwart D33J has spent more than half a decade making emotive, neck-cracking electronica, although he’s kept a relatively low profile—a gorgeous EP or remix here, a genre-hopping DJ set there. Luckily for us, 2017 nearly doubled his discography with his debut full-length Death Valley Oasis and goth’n’b crooner Corbin’s full-length Mourn—which he produced alongside Wedidit bud Shlohmo—dropping within days of each other. An emotive streak runs through his tunes, but over the phone Djavan Santos is laid-back and gregarious, musing on everything from the state of the world and egoless creativity to tacos and Built To Spill with distinctly Angeleno enthusiasm.

‘Death Valley Oasis’ is a really powerful image. It almost makes your eyes water, feeling how refreshing that is.

It’s kind of reflecting the mood of the last few years … It’s just Earth in general, man. It’s a very tectonic name. There’s no oasis in Death Valley. Those are two very distinct things. I was attracted to the push and pull of them, and the way those words sat together felt really powerful to me. There’s an inherent energy in that phrase that had that yin-yang to it that I was really attracted to.

I feel like that reflects in the music— you’ve got this very synthy, 808-driven stuff with very pretty guitar and your own vocals. There’s a dichotomy.

Definitely. It’s really drowned-out, with very low bass notes and very high sparse melodies. It’s this feeling where it’s almost like wading through mud, but it’s a very beautiful feeling. Muddy and dirty but blissful at the same time.

The guitar parts were interesting— what’ve you been listening to that’s not lo-fi house?

Title Fight’s probably my favorite band. I’m all about shit like that. I draw inspiration from the emo/rock world all the time, and I have for my whole musical career. In my head, I’m just making something similar to that in the way I know how. That’s my articulation of it—it doesn’t have to translate to anyone else because it’s for me.

I always wanted to do that kind of vibe and be in bands like that, and this is kind of my way of doing it.

I can see ‘Spark’ as a Title Fight song.

Yeah—moments of very blissed-out shit, contrasted with very loud, aggressive, dark, bassy drop-outs and drop-ins. But what else have I been listening to? I listen to Bibio all the time, Built to Spill … Alex G. I remember hearing his stuff on Bandcamp and just being blown away.

You studied guitar and electronic music at Hamilton. Which did you start with? How did the other come into the picture?

I started on guitar, but I was always too shitty so I had to figure something else out. So I started learning electronic music 42

pretty soon after I got into guitar. I took an electronic music class and I started gravitating towards that a lot more.

You were going there with a lot of other musicians like Groundislava and Baths.

I’m a few years younger than you, and at my school we revered the ‘scene’ you guys had—we were talking about it in hushed whispers. While you were there, was there a sense that you were in this special movement?

Wow, that’s funny. I wouldn’t say that we knew it at the time or anything like that.

But I think I recognized the talent of everyone. I was a big fan of all my peers, and we definitely had a good-ass group of music coming out. There were bands like Nephews, and Hank May, Post-Foetus, all these iterations of peoples’ early projects that have now evolved. Everyone’s still involved in music in some capacity. This drummer Luke Silas drums in Anamanaguchi, and drummed for all the bands at the time that we were doing house shows. There was really a special energy during that time and musical community.

Are your parents supportive of what you’re doing now?

Yeah, they’re super stoked—always posting little press things. Very supportive, and they’ve always been.

Have they heard the albums?

Yeah, they like them! I don’t know if it’s exactly their cup of tea, but they tell me they like it—and I think they do. I think they’re being honest.

You were working on your own record for over three years while you were working on other projects, too. What were some of your favorite random bits you were working on in those years?

A lot of other projects came through, you know. This last year and a half, me and Shlohmo were also producing the debut album for Corbin. So that was definitely a lot of our time. And there have been little moments of working on rap albums here and there. I produced a project for Tory Lanez, I was producing for [Lil] Yachty … and throughout that whole time, we were on tour, so I was on the road a lot of the time.

So it was pretty fast and crazy, definitely all over the place.

Were you working on all this stuff while you were on the road?

Either I was touring or I was producing. But when I would start, there would be times where… like I spent a month in Germany and just worked from there. There were lots of these little mini-bursts of working on it.

You and Shlohmo did all of Corbin’s record. Was the plan from the jump for the three of you to do a full record?

We had started making this song called ‘Worn’ like two years ago, and that was our first meeting. We had a session where we all came together and produced that track.

Then Corbin was back in L.A. and we ended up making ‘Mourn.’ Corbin really liked the vibe and was like, ‘Hey, we should try making a record.’ ‘Yeah, that’s a great idea.’ So we sat and pulled some inspiration together—I was sending Corbin a bunch of 80s stuff I was into, a bunch of new wave, just looking for a vibe of how we wanted to come at it. And it ended up coming together. In that first initial month, we made most of the record, and the rest of the time was spent fine-tuning.

I was listening to it yesterday—it’s really cohesive. The whole thing feels like one environment. And it’s a different environment than Death Valley Oasis.

When I’m working on music, it’s very exploratory. I’m less caught up in genres, and my influences change all the time. What I’m listening to changes all the time. So naturally I’m very responsive to the environment around me. And given that I worked on this project for many years, I definitely grew and changed as a person. I think it reflects that—when I started making the record, I was listening to a lot of four-on-the-floor, a lot of lo-fi house, so there are moments in the record that reflect that. And I’m also a big fan of indie, a big fan of soundscape work—there are moments of that, too. I’m less concerned about genres. For me, it’s more about the intuitive ‘making’ process, and what it sounds like is what it sounds like.

The process of making it is it for me when I’m working on my own records.

It’s your job to do it, and other peoples’ job to categorize it.

Yeah, a hundred percent. When I’m working for other people like Corbin, I’m also trying to get it to be the best it can be. It’s not always about making every record sound as ‘D33J’ as possible, but about bringing out the best in the artist that I’m working with at the time. A song I make for Yachty isn’t gonna necessarily sound the same as one I do for Corbin. There are times where it might, but it’s more that I’m trying to service the artist.

So with two albums out, it’s probably pretty crazy on your end. Are you getting time to do anything not work related?

It’s been a little crazy because we’ve been working on my record, we’ve been working on the Corbin record … we do a lot of stuff in-house. We produce our own clothes, do all the graphics, do all the social media, so it’s just been … yeah, it’s definitely been a little wild. I don’t sleep more than, like, five hours a night, every night, so … I haven’t lost my mind just yet.

I could only find a couple of interviews with you, but one was about taco trucks.

You were shouting out Leo’s and El Chato—what are others you’ve found?

Damn, I’m gonna give you all my spots.

There’s this spot Cilantro Lime in the Santee Alley food court, that’s one of my favorites now. That’s a fuckin’ hidden gem, for sure.

There’s another spot called Los Anaya in Mid-City, that spot is so good.

I’ve seen you tweet and retweet stuff about being a Scorpio more than a few times. How do you relate to that?

I think scorpions look sick! I don’t really know shit about astrology. But every time a girl retweets some shit about it, I’m like ‘Whoa, that’s very on-point!’ It’ll be a daily horoscope and I’ll think ‘Damn, all that happened today.’ So maybe there’s something to it! I don’t really give a shit about it, but it’s pretty much always right.

Who am I to say what’s right or wrong?

D33J’S DEATH VALLEY OASIS IS AVAILABLE NOW FROM ANTICON. D33J.NET. INTERVIEW

PHOEBE BRIDGERS Interview by BEN SALMON photography by GARI ASKEW

Everyone knew Phoebe Bridgers was headed for big things. Well before she released her debut album, the L.A. folk singer was touring with Julien Baker and recording with Conor Oberst and releasing a 7” through Ryan Adams’ label. These people didn’t work with Bridgers because they owed someone a favor—they did it because this 23-year-old is one of the brightest young songwriting lights to come out of Los Angeles in recent memory. Even with all that buildup, however, Bridgers’ debut, Stranger in the Alps, is a revelation. It’s mostly sad folk songs, dressed up with pop and electronic touches, pop-culture references and the occasional flash of Bridgers’ wry sense of humor. (That sense of humor surfaces far more often in 30 minutes of conversation than in 30 minutes of her music.) After a whirlwind fall (including a Twitter shout-out from John Mayer), Bridgers will play her official hometown albumrelease show on Sat., Dec. 16 at Lodge Room in Highland Park. It’s already sold out.

You’ve been on the road a lot this year. It must be nice to be home for a bit.

Dude, it’s so nice. But I feel like I have no life.

I think a bunch of people just assume that I’m out of town, and I’m like, ‘What do I do all day?’

Are you close enough to your family to go hang out with your mom?

Embarrassingly enough, she has a couple loads of my laundry right now because there are holes in my functioning adulthood.

Is she musically inclined? Or is your dad?

Both? Neither?

My parents were both music fans, and I feel like my mom’s music fandom got translated to me. She really exposed me to a lot of stuff. So I saw Patti Smith really early and was listening to all these records. Mom was almost overly supportive, I’m almost positive. She always used to tell me, ‘Oh my god, you sound like Bonnie Raitt!’ when I was like 6 years old.

Which, of course, I believed. And then I got older and I was like, ‘Ehhh, maybe she was being a little too supportive.’ But it definitely helped make me want to be a musician.

When did you realize you could put a song together?

My delusion started before I was actually good.

So I was probably like 10 years old when I was first like, ‘This song is awesome.’ Then when I was a teenager, probably like 14, I wrote a song and I thought, ‘Oh, this is maybe good.

This is different than the ones before.’

What are the oldest songs on Stranger in the Alps?

‘Chelsea’ was a poem that I started writing when I was like 16, and I discovered it way later and was like, ‘Wow, this still works.’

‘Georgia’ is old too. I must’ve finished it when I was like 17.

INTERVIEW

You’re 23 now. Does playing those songs feel like playing songs written by someone else?

Totally. I mean, I can still kind of tap into relating to them when I play them live but the way I used to think about the world and people I feel like is different now than it was then. One of the weirdest thing about some of those earlier songs, though, is that my writing has gotten a lot more literal and personal. So it’s almost weirder with songs I wrote a year ago or two years ago. It’s basically like reading my diary to a room full of people.

Do you ever recoil from playing more personal songs?

I mean, I didn’t not intend for them to get heard. I just didn’t ever think about it, really.

Playing live, I feel like it’s like a weird social experiment … where I just experiment with not giving a shit, mostly. Like, if I want to talk about it, I talk about it. If I don’t want to, I don’t. Mostly, I just kind of have no problem playing really personal songs. Especially when people already know the record. The damage is done.

Why do you write songs?

Uhhh … I … [tails off] Fuck! [laughs] Um … I think probably I started because I romanticized singer-songwriters. I just thought it was cool. I wanted to be a singer but I thought it was cool to sing your own songs. This is like corny shit but I also feel like it is a little bit like therapy. Making something cool out of your shitty brain is really cathartic. I need to do it—on a lot of levels. And it’s fun when you have something cool to show for your time. It’s fun to be like, ‘This is what I did last night. I made something positive out of this horrifying mess of a torture chamber.’

I won’t pretend to know you personally, but I get the sense from your social media and from talking to you that the darkness and sadness in your songs doesn’t really bleed over into your non-music personality. In other words, you seem fun and nice and not tortured!

I feel like I have gotten better. I feel like I just learned how to function a little bit better, and I’ve been learning how to function better. So who knows? My second album might suck. I still write sad songs but a lot of [the songs on Alps] were written in a time when I was totally drowning in it. But then every time I pick up a guitar I feel like the stuff I want to write about is stuff I can’t talk about or don’t want to talk about. Maybe it’s just a vessel for all that shit. Which maybe isn’t fair to listeners.

Do you think the music you’ve made—and the feelings you’ve expressed through that music—has played a role in learning how to function better? Or is it more about other circumstances in your life changing?

The music is a big part of it because my whole life I’ve been saying that I wanted to do this thing that I now actually have started doing.

And by that I mean that people know I do it. [laughs] So I think that’s a big relief to me.

I’m excited about making a second record.

I’m excited about touring, even though it’s exhausting. I feel good about the way shit’s going which maybe has a lot to do with it. But also … it’s a separate level of cool to write this dark album that felt very solitary to me and have people relate. That’s fucking cool, too.

‘Motion Sickness,’ as far as I can tell, stops everyone in their tracks. I haven’t seen anyone have a lukewarm reaction to it.

Yeah, you know—I didn’t really try to make it like that. I didn’t try to be like, ‘The chorus

happens more times’ or whatever. Actually, it was kind of the opposite. I was writing that song and trying to find all these cool ways to say shit—trying to be really poetic—and then I was like, ‘What if I just said exactly what happened to me?’ It’s amazing that people relate to it because it’s so specific. Also, it’s the most chorus-y of the songs. I didn’t know that I was capable of writing choruses, so that feels good on another level. The rest of the record, I didn’t really do that.

You’ve toured with some big names and made some famous fans over the past couple of years, so I don’t think it’s a shock that Stranger in the Alps is getting killer reviews and landing on year-end lists. But how does it feel to you personally?

I feel like I have friends that are in bands, and they make a record and then they tour for half a second and then they’re like, ‘I’m gonna put out another one.’ I feel like I was expecting maybe to do something like that. For people to give a shit … but maybe for people in L.A. to give a shit or whatever. But it’s really cool to go to a place like London and have people singing back to me. That’s so fucking weird and I never thought about that happening to me ever. Especially songs from a debut album, and just sad, like, emo-folk songs. It’s cool.

SPACELAND PRESENTS PHOEBE BRIDGERS WITH JOHN DOE AND EXENE ON FRI., FEB. 2, AT THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM, 900 W. EXPOSITION BLVD., LOS ANGELES. MORE INFO TBA. NHMLA.COM. PHOEBE BRIDGERS’ A STRANGER IN THE ALPS IS AVAILABLE NOW FROM DEAD OCEANS. PHOEBEFUCKINGBRIDGERS.COM. 45

48 ALBUM REVIEWS Edited by Kristina Benson and Chris Ziegler 50 MAP Where to Find L.A. RECORD 54 THE INTERPRETER miss modular Curated by Daiana Feuer

58 LIVE PHOTOS Edited by Debi Del Grande 60 COMICS Curated by Tom Child 62 wayback machine reissues by ron garmon

BLEACHED at THe lodge room PHOTO: patrick do

ALBUM REVIEWS

ALLAH-LAS Covers #1 EP Mexican Summer In a track on his final album, George Harrison sang, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there”. Fitting, then, that Allah-Las would cover Harrison on their inaugural covers project. You know the drill: band heads into the woodshed to hammer out some inspired covers in between the recording of proper albums. (In this case, the band holed up in Topanga Canyon, so it may have been an actual woodshed.) The Harrison cover, “Fish On The Sand”, is the strongest take of the bunch, which also includes a Television sleeper cut, a track by Allah-Las’ spiritual forefathers Further and private-press folk singer Kathy Heideman’s “The Earth Won’t Hold Me.” The refrain in “Fish”— “I’m not so much of a man, I’m a fish on the sand”—is a fitting mantra for a guitar-based band playing rock ’n’ roll these days. But with this amuse-bouche of an album, Allah-Las remind us there’s magic in them hills, and that guitars carry through the canyons best when dusk is nearest.

—Kegan Pierce Simons

ALBUM REVIEW SUBMISSIONS 48

ANTWON Sunnyvale Gardens Nature World

BLACK MAMBAS Moderation Disconnected

Antwon’s not a punk rapper, he’s a punk who raps. There’s a distinct line between the recent wave of punk-influenced hiphop—Ho99o9, Injury Reserve, and Death Grips among the groups smashing earsplitting riffs into 808 drum machine beats—and Antwon‘s Sunnyvale Gardens, a self-aware but never self-serious threading of reference-heavy rap through hardcore’s themes and structures.

A Bay Area band-hopper for years before he started rapping, Antwon’s retained the basement scene’s no-frills ethos—half of the 14 tracks here are in and out in under 3 minutes, the longest just over 4. That relative epic is the joyous “Visine”, a Lil’ Peep + Shlohmo collab in celebration of not having to hide being baked.

Twon doesn’t luxuriate, just enjoys the simple pleasures. “I’m a cowboy, steel van I ride / We movin’ city to city ‘till every stage is fried” he barks on “Cowboy,” reveling in the electricity of DIY touring. But as he later admits, “I feel loneliest before I rock the set / so I remember when they’re tryna get to my head / they didn’t know me back then.”

It’s a surprisingly tender and clear-eyed side, one he shows again on “Airplane Mode,” an ode to the therapeutic escapism of shutting your phone off and letting the van carry you away.

That combo of heart-on-sleeve emotionalism and disregard for status quo might make his closest antecedent Lil’ B, the influential Berkeley weirdo who found a second wind as an NBA spellcaster. But rather than debating “real hip-hop” or getting banned from Facebook, you’re more likely to find Antwon at your local hardcore show picking up a shirt or 7”. And probably smoking weed with no Visine.

—Zach Bilson

While these savage young men may hail from Bell Gardens, their scope is absolutely international—you can hear the Kids from Belgium, the Saints from Australia, England’s Eddie and the Hot Rods and the Zero Boys from the USA as immediate touchstones, all on a high speed chase where any second wasted could mean crashing into a police roadblock. (And as these guys say in our adjacent interview: “We’ve never actually been caught!”) On their second full-length, Black Mambas themselves have turned up the heat instead of the heat turning up on them, supercharging their original vision of modern pub rock into an out-of-control needles-in-the-red wild ride— arguably even wilder than their classic Wild Records days. The first two tracks “Saturday Night Fist Fight” and “Up All Night” let you know their lifestyle has bled into the album, as producer Johnny Witmer (The Stitches, The Crazy Squeeze) masterfully distills the excitement of their live shows onto wax without sounding “contained”—instead, waves of guitar pressure-cook each explosive solo. The title track “Moderation” drips with defiant irony in the chorus— “DOING DRUGS! WITH NO MODERATION… NOW!!!”— and “End Game” chronicles rogue lovers en la noche: “Star-crossed lovers, meeting in the twilight / Making love in the middle of the night / I can’t be seen with you / You can’t be seen with me!”

The album’s closer is also its most explosive tune: “Vatican Prayer” is a take-no-prisoners commentary on religion and violence, proving these guys aren’t just nihilistic for selfish reasons. It’s merely a sane response to a world that has spun politically and spiritually off its goddamned axis.

—Gabriel Hart

ASHTREJINKINS Fruit In Failure Apron

BATHS Romaplasm anticon.

Compton’s AshTreJinkins has always had a taste for the abstract.

From his glitched-out Low End Theory-tested hip-hop to his recent forays into broken-down techno and house, there’s always been a grimy opacity that keeps his work at a distance, like a smudged porthole looking deep into the Pacific. But the fish on the other side are coming to say hi on Fruit In Failure, his first EP for FunkinEven’s Apron Records. “But I Got You This Haunted House Baby” is a genuine dancefloor filler, with squelching bass and shuffling kick drums fighting for survival over a lurching house rhythm. And “Paradise Quotes” loops a couple of comfort-food samples–one vocal, one piano– over light, playful percussion, like a sped-up take on his earlier busted beats. Rather than the ominous greyscale of previous EP Stretch, AshTre sounds like he’s having fun here, cramming each sketch with handfuls of bright sound before jumping to the next idea. It’s not all fun and games, though–Stretch was released over two years ago, when our society was a markedly different place, which AshTre acknowledges with the notably dark synth exercise “Alternative Facts”. It’s a jolt back to reality after a stretch of blissful abandon—something that practically begs you to lift the needle back to the edge of the record.

—Zach Bilson

Will Wiesenfeld—performing as Baths since his groundbreaking glitch-electronic record Cerulean in 2010—is a classically-trained musician and a vital component of L.A.’s substantial “beat” scene.

On his first release in over four years, Wiesenfeld presents his most animated and cohesive display of musicianship yet. With a mood that embraces the fantastical, this high-energy—even effervescent— album marks a transition from the somber sentiments of 2013’s Obsidian. Romaplasm is an intensely electric work of futuristic pop, with Wiesenfeld’s trademark falsetto and twitchy production style now developed enough to accommodate the expanded essence of this record, without damaging the idealism at its heart. Despite a newfound accessibility, Romaplasm’s reflective nature proves something sugarcoated doesn’t have to sacrifice any sincerity. Underneath these vibrant sounds and textures is the raw human emotion and sensibility of Will Wiesenfeld—just like always.

—Bennett Kogon

L.A. RECORD invites all local musicians to send music for review­—anything from unreleased MP3s and demos to finished full albums. Send digital to fortherecord@larecord.com and physical to L.A. RECORD, P.O. Box 21729, Long Beach, CA 90801. If you are in a band and would like to advertise your release in L.A. RECORD, email advertise@larecord.com ALBUM REVIEWS

BOYO Me, Again Danger Collective

BOY DUDE Cassette For You Hobo Camp Modern funk may be a thriving scene now with a lively cast of producers, DJs and labels churning out underground hits, but ultimately it’s still a subgenre defined by a somewhat limited sonic palette—a sound rooted in crate-digging, where new records approximate the old with a connoisseur’s ear. Boy Dude works with the vintage drum machines and electronic basslines of modern funk, but his new Cassette for You pushes the genre’s boundaries by working in other compatible styles of the 70s and 80s. As the title suggests, Cassette was recorded on a Tascam Portastudio, lending the recordings the lo-fi grit of a past era, but the production is clear enough that the songwriting shines through—which is what sets Boy Dude apart, with slick chords, detailed percussion and immediately catchy songs. Next to the signature synth bass and bumping drums of modern funk, soft rock seems to be the other touchstone for Boy Dude’s sound. At times Boy Dude might sound less than totally original—the bassline on “Mercury Satellite” sounds straight from Dam-Funk, and then there’s the Paul Hardcastle riffs of “Cyber Boogie”—but Boy Dude’s flare for songwriting helps make these homages his own. Opener “Funk on the Line” sounds like a 70s radio hit as covered by The Time, while the wistful vocals of “More Than Love” recall Ariel Pink. The best of the bunch might be the slow jams: “Cosmic Lines” and “Rainbow Waterfall” are effortlessly smooth blissed-out blue-eyed soul cuts.

—Joe Rihn

ALBUM REVIEWS

BOYO is Los Angeles’ own Robert Tilden, formerly the mastermind of local band Bobby T & the Slackers, as well as a member of the youth music collective Lost Dog, Tilden’s latest efforts reveal a newly polished approach to songwriting—although written just three months after the release of his 2016 debut Control, the twenty-something Tilden here unveils a robust new body of work reflecting momentous change and heartfelt introspection. Influenced

by Elliott Smith and Deerhunter— and often reminiscent of heavyhitting contemporaries Homeshake and (Sandy) Alex G—Me, Again elevates what might just have been a particularly thoughtful bedroom project with elements of emerging DIY “indie” rock and moments of psychedelia and garage-rock energy.

His make-it-sound-easy guitar work and deliberately affected high-register vocal melodies make for an album that’s more than enjoyable, and which ably sets him up for a powerhouse sequel.

Recommended tracks: “Waste,” “Cult of Personality,” “A Social Death by Proximity,” “Insomnia,” “Me, Again.”

—Bennett Kogon

THE CIGARETTE BUMS Sidewalkin’ Sick City/Lolipop With these further ten tracks of retro-fuzz whack, Silverlake’s own Bums bring the Summer of Love-era garage punk full into our own bleak Trumpwracked era. Every song sounds as if it was culled from a stack of psychedelic rock platters from the era’s 1966-69 heyday. Not clever pastiches in the manner of Neil Innes or note-perfect tributes like a half a dozen notable LPs of the Paisley Underground movement, either—what the Bums wheel out is closer to the Actual THC-soaked Nastyass Thing, minimally retooled for a

less optimistic era with stronger drugs. Songs like “Leather Luv” notch slightly toward Class of ‘77 punk, “Otherside” mines its own vein of remorse-snark in the manner of very early Frank Zappa and “Death in Texas” sounds like a cleverly arranged Mouse & the Traps pastiche. The finale “Mess Around” goes off in a blaze of glory worthy of a latter-day MC5. Nobody in L.A. right now is making better music than these guys.

—Ron Garmon

CUT CHEMIST Madman EP The Content Label Ahead of his slated 2018 fulllength, famed producer/DJ Cut Chemist (from Ozomatli, Jurassic 5 and many other collaborations) drops the needle on this shortbut-brutal four-track Madman EP: 18 minutes of sample-based bangers, as feverish and brainthumping as Kendrick Lamar’s gritty turn on this year’s DAMN. “BADLANDS” is the most nuanced selection, beginning with an ominous symphonic prelude of cello and timpani before disintegrating into a bruising Bonham-esque cacophany of stubborn kick drum and pastoral cymbal crash. “WAR IN PIECES” (featuring the crushing Deantoni Parks) is the most sample-heavy track on the album, announcing itself as a devotee of The Bomb Squad with a garbled record scratch and a Terminator X-worthy proclamation before dropping into an 808 beat and anthemic samples.

It all recalls a simpler time—when our music players needed batteries and the most inspired among us walked with panthers.

—Kegan Pierce Simons

DERDE VERDE Meander Belt EP Kursaal Named after the city Val Verde in Northwestern L.A. county, Derde Verde is three dudes making a uniquely space-y and soundscape-y kind of indie rock.

After four successful singles, Dylan McKenzie (lead vocals/ guitar) Jonathan Schwarz (bass/ vocals), and Matthias Wagner (drums) combine their earlier releases and add one new track for their debut EP Meander Belt. Derde Verde’s songs depict open skies and barren lands with a wide-open lonesome sound, something that might inspire familiar feelings for fans of the Shins and Grizzly Bear. Some tracks slip into psychedelic rock; others are more sparse and reflective. Opener “Days of Drought” is the most intense, invoking a dystopian scene as it unravels into a wailing lead guitar break. “Staring into Dying Light,” begins with stark strumming and reverbed vocals and drums as McKenzie’s lyrics warn, “It’s not gonna turn back time / staring into dying light / I don’t want to turn back time.” The echoes and deliberate percussion somehow evoke a particularly Midwestern isolation—flat lands, empty skies—but the song soon leaves the planet completely for something more cosmic, a direction evident to some extent in each track on the EP. “Turn” hums with energy—beautiful and nostalgic, it’s driven by powerful lead guitar and relentless drumming. “Fear is my favorite friend / she’s coming back again / I don’t know if I’m gonna get out of it / Want to run but I wouldn’t be proud of it,” sings McKenzie as the rhythm swells behind him. And then he delivers his last request: “Don’t make me turn,” he sings, as the song sinks into the somber sound of a beeping EKG machine.

—Geneva Trelease

DEVONWHO betaloops Leaving

Beatmaker Devonwho‘s most recent Leaving Records release is a 42-track audio diary, a seamless series of slices from day-to-day life between 2014 and 2017 chronicling his move from San Francisco to Los Angeles. From his DSI Prophet 08 and Roland GAIA, he conjures warped and wobbly ruminations and sunsetpurple moods, with streaks of shimmering G-funk portamentos and ghostly 8-bit allusions. With quotidian names like “jog,” “hikes,” and “nonsense” sprinkled between more ambiguously titled pieces like “sol5alt”, the tracklist itself implies a collection of private thoughts, feelings, and fleeting moments. betaloops is perhaps best consumed in one long continuous flow— ideally staring out a train window watching California pass—some of the more charming standout tracks are the “chlorophyll” variations, while the frontrunner for a lead single is “tradewinds_pt2.” He’s admitted none of the pieces are songs—instead, they’re vignettes, or snapshots of his developing artistic process-but the album still conveys a coherent thought process, like a precisely curated photo album where each image means something crucial and intimate to their assembler and vague—but beautiful—to the outsider.

—Christina Gubala

DIMBER damber EP Chain Letter Collective In this dystopian America, where fear, hate, and uncertainty seem to have metastasized into every life, punk rock has never felt so vital. One band setting the bar particularly high is Los Angeles’s own dimber, who hit the ground running on this debut 7” EP. Alive with all of the urgency, intensity, and confrontational righteousness of hardcore and delivered with the melodic sensibilities of the best pop punk bands, dimber erupts off of the wax on these four songs.

For those that heard the quartet’s ear-catching demo tape last year, the new EP finds the band tighter, sharper and enjoying the recording quality they deserve. Though 49

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their songs deal with frustration, anger, and disappointment with the world and the current state of society, none of them sound dejected or hopeless. In fact, these songs come across as lifelines, or hands outstretched to those suffering most in these times. They offer solidarity, support, or—at the very least—acknowledgement that we all deserve the opportunity to be our true selves without fear of persecution. dimber explores hardship in their music, but they do it with love, and as strong as the urge is to hate these days, ultimately love will be what gets us through.

—Simon Weedn

12” mix. Loelitah reveals a clear intention for seduction in the first stanza, making sure the object of her affection doesn’t have it in his head that she’ll be told what to do before cooing, “But I’ve had my eye on you.” Dominator replies, ready and willing, making for a salacious conversation in which both parties move closer and closer together, their hearts beating in double time.

Unlike the flip side’s celebration, there’s something smoldering about “Fast & Crazy”—it’s an ember that burns low but burns hot, and you’ll want to play it over and over.

—Christina Gubala

pressurizing their arctic ambience into a bedroom-floor loop jam.

Happy Omen started out as a series of demos intended as part of an LP, but a burst of experimental rerecordings resulted in a “common feeling” amongst the tunes—a “melancholy, longing, introspective vibe”. So far, Goon are two for two on crafting extraordinary, individual worlds, but their EPs’ shared hallmarks—earworm hooks, heartbroken lyrics, and charmingly homespun production—make up a universe that’s distinctly theirs.

—Zach Bilson

GREGG KOWALSKY GOON L’Orange L’Orange FUNK FREAKS Happy Omen Mexican Summer (FUNKY DRIVE BAND Unsatisfied and DOMINATOR F. L’Orange L’Orange is the first solo Goon’s Kenny Becker isn’t afraid work from sound sculptor Gregg LOELITAH) of his influences. The L.A. singer/ Kowalsky in nearly nine years, Street-Funk Vol. 1 7” guitarist’s debut EP Dusk of Punk and unlike the arrays of sine-wave was a snapshot of bristly teeth- oscillators and mutant cassette (Disc 2 of 3) gritting power-chord pop: “We tapes with which he constructed his Funk Freaks sound like Nirvana post-Pat Smear reputation, it’s an album sumptuous The limited edition Funk Freaks Street-Funk series is the spark with which one ignites a party, and it works especially well on this particular 7”. (It’s second of a planned three releases showcasing funk from around the world, curated by the unstoppable true believes of Funk Freaks.) On the A side, the adept combination of vibes—from disco to early hip hop—on the Funky Drive Band’s “Shake Your Body” feels particularly interactive, like on Soul Train where everyone gets a chance to shine in the groove Its medley of funky textures and smart references fit neatly into a welcoming 4/4 rhythm that invites the listener to let their imagination get involved as their hips start to move. “One Nation Under A Groove” sprung to mind—its essence was clearly a driving force.

This French band boasts more than a dozen members, essentially ensuring a party wherever they travel, and the recording captures the rich joy with which they play.

On the B side “Fast And Crazy” by Dominator and featuring Loelitah, the sweetness of requited love is perfectly articulated by an addictive hook that deserves a ten-minute 52

now”, he stated at the time, and after hearing bangers like “Dizzy” and “Merchant Hall”, you’d be hard-pressed to disagree. But in the same interview, he namechecked acts like Boards of Canada and Radiohead, which—surprisingly enough—foreshadowed just where Becker & co. were headed in 2017.

Released just before Halloween with an orange-hued cover, Happy Omen is, ironically, Goon’s softest and strangest work to date, like an earnestly carved pumpkin wilted after too long in the sun. Lead single “Chaka” is immediately cleaner, bolder, and more patient than anything they’ve done to date, Becker and Drew Eccleston’s chiming guitar work brings to mind their cover of R.E.M.’s “Let Me In.” It’s a nice treat, but the real tricks start when the band dissolves into backwards tape and, eventually, post-rock bliss, with 12-string arpeggios cascading around Becker’s reverbed crooning.

Their palette expands from there: “A Window Outside” is a dead ringer for vintage Four Tet, with a hissing drum machine, foundsound percussion, sub bass and marimba, while “Push Me” draws (as promised) on Boards of Canada,

with organic textures and gentle motion. Kowalsky acknowledged that the sunshine of his recently adopted home Los Angeles seeped into his mixing process, and that gives the album a feeling of sunbathing with one’s eyes closed.

His synths shift easily like breezes and shadows, lending texure to—rather than obscuring—the unending warmth that underpins L’Orange L’Orange. This album ebbs and flows with an natural kind of freedom, as paths softly unfold through playfully named tracks like “Maliblue Dream Sequence” and “Tonal Bath for Bubbles,” a shimmery exercise for his machinery.

For all the albums that have been predicated on the concept of Los Angeles, this one feels remarkably pure. It’s removed from the cultural darkness and in tune with the spiritual essence always pulsing through the hills and seas. Closing track, “Bling Contour Drawing for Piano,” follows his hand up and down a classic-sounding keyboard, ambling around major chords and finally evoking a satisfied smile.

Like giggling during a savasana, it closes with a subtle, hopeful sense of catharsis.

—Christina Gubala

JOHN CARROLL KIRBY Travel Outside Insight Travel is just that: moving, engaging, self-reflective.

It’s both diary and record, a sonic travelogue by L.A. keyboardist/ composer/producer John Carroll Kirby. You may not know Kirby by name, but you’ve heard him with Solange, Blood Orange, Connan Mockasin, Raphael Saadiq, and more. Kirby’s is a distinct sort of retro futurism, lush, nostalgic tones inspired in part by legendary synthesists like Haruomi Hosono.

So much of Travel is transportive, songs designed to evoke times, places, and memories—even ones you’ve never experienced. “Poroy Station” is steamy and subtle, a funky synth lead bouncing atop the quiet, rhythmic pulse of a train barreling straight toward sunset.

“Essaouira,” we’re told, is the sound of water lapping at the shores of the Moroccan city of the same name. But it’s also otherworldly— synth-driven exotica that sounds like library music from some other hazy, fleeting reality. “Alexia” is a stunner, with swirling, fluid synths that buoy dreamy, barely-there vocals until it all erupts into a New Age boogie. There are moments of quiet elegance and others of overblown exotica, but this is a wonderful transformative record that must be taken whole. To do anything less would be to abandon your own journey.

—Miles Clements

On the surface, Josiah Steinbrick’s Meeting of Waters bears the marks of uncompromising avant-garde intellectualism. There are no vocals or traditional song structures, and the track titles are just lists of instruments in parentheses: “(Synthesizer, Two Idiophones, Rin Gong).” But the music itself is happily accessible. The record opens with “(Five Synthesizers),” a minimalist refrain with woody synth tones tip-toeing through a slow melody. Every so often a single note blooms into a chord and the sequence starts over. It’s a concept that reduces music to its elemental form, and the results sound almost catchy. Steinbrick doesn’t make you wait for a payoff—instead, the composition’s tension builds and resolves within the short repetitive patterns.

Some pieces, like “(Synthesizer, Two Idiophones, Rin Gong),” are built atop droning soundscapes, but Steinbrick’s best works merge rhythmic and melodic elements into one. On “(Two Bonangs, Coated Spheres, Piano, Two Synthesizers, Natural Objects),” for instance, a series of tuned percussive hits move loosely around a repeating theme. It might seem like the sort of sound-bed that could fade into the background, but the music here commands attention, delivering just the right amount of dissonance to stay unpredictable.

At times, the way Steinbrick’s fragments of sound ricochet before settling perfectly into place makes Meeting of Waters sound someone assembling a musical puzzle. And the way Steinbrick puts it all together satisfies the most obsessive compulsive desires—in the end, it’s a perfectly symmetrical pattern.

—Joe Rihn

LINE & CIRCLE Vicious Folly EP Grand Gallop JOSIAH STEINBRICK Meeting of Waters Leaving

Introducing yourself to the world with a near-perfect first song is inevitably both a blessing and a curse. That’s what Line & Circle did back in 2012: The A side to their first 7-inch was “Roman ALBUM REVIEWS

Ruins,” an elegant collision of guitar jangle and aching melody that earned the band well-deserved comparisons to R.E.M. and the Smiths. So that’s a blessing! But then came the curse of living up to heightened expectations. Line & Circle’s new EP Vicious Folly finds the L.A. band exploring the same general corner of the sonic universe, though they’ve darkened their sound and lyrical themes a bit. “Man Uncouth” moves at a quicker pace than most of the band’s stuff, contrasting Brian J. Cohen’s leisurely baritone and romantic hand-wringing. The title track’s low end bounces like a rubber ball and Eric Neujahr’s guitars shimmer into the sky as Cohen sings of virtue and passion and poison and guilt. As is often the case in Line & Circle songs, Cohen’s vocals juxtapose with the music to create a classically modern feel. “Who Runs Wild” rumbles at punk-rock pace, while “Progress & Pain”—a 45-second interlude of manipulated sounds and pulsing noise—is a cool interlude, but that’s all. On closing track “Mid Bloom,” however, Line & Circle again flashes their skyhigh potential, packing the verses with restless bass lines, sparkling guitars and a memorable melody, then launching straight into janglepop-rock heaven on the chorus. It’s a glorious moment that recalls the splendor of “Roman Ruins” and ends Vicious Folly on a strong note.

Line & Circle has another big breakout moment in them. Here’s hoping they find it.

—Ben Salmon

MASTON Tulips Phonoscope For a few years now, baroquepop/bedroom-pop maestro Frank Maston has been churning out stylish retro soundscapes designed to transport you back in time. Major touchstones for his earlier works Shadows and Opal Collection include Brian Wilson, Harry Nilsson, Van Dyke Parks and Burt Bacharach, but with Tulips, Maston—per his PR—was inspired by “the deep-grooving ALBUM REVIEWS

soundtracks of French and Italian cinema.” The result is equal parts film score and frothy 60s poprock—think Ennio Morricone composing songs for yé-yé queen Sylvie Vartan. The unbelievably lush and dreamy “Swans” straddles the line between an old-school soul ballad and score for a Truffaut film, while “New Danger” is as laid-back and cool as Jean-Paul Belmondo in a skinny suit. It’s a vibe quite comparable to fellow Angelenos Midnight Sister—their debut album displays similar filmic influences—but Maston operates in the sun, not the shadows.

He’s playing it straight instead of surreal, returning often to a distinctive balance of wiry organ, spacey keyboards, and loping 60s guitar. “Evening”’s subtle bossa nova beat sounds an awful lot like elevator music—not the usual tepid elevator music, but the something you’d expect to hear in a retrokitsch movie. But then the heatshimmer psychedelic guitars of “Rain Dance” suggest a particularly cool unreleased Byrds or Buffalo Springfield backing track. He’s at his most cinematic at the center of Tulips, when the sound of a car pulling out at the end of “Chase Theme I” gives way to “Infinite Bliss.” With its gauzy flutes and lovestruck vocalizing—the only time Maston’s voice is heard—it might as well be called “Love Theme.” It’s a natural descendant of Martial Solal’s dreamy Breathless track “L’amour, La Mort.” Tulips‘ aesthetic is foolproof—as cool today as it was back then. It’s the perfect thing to pop on when you feel like starring in your very own movie.

—Madison Desler

MERCH Amour Bohemian Sassafras Record Co. This is a sprawling, ultraambitious project by Joe Medina, the singer/songwriter/guitarist behind MERCH, who has combined contributions from 65 different artists to make Amour Bohemian—including the 30piece Prague FILMharmonic orchestra (same ensemble that

worked with Herzog, Tarantino, Arcade Fire and Adele), whom he flew to record with after cutting his basic tracks at Greg Ashley’s Creamery and L.A.’s Lolipop studios. The sound and scope of this project is nothing short of lofty, and it’s clear that Medina is going for a vibe that all of us aging rockers love: the churning arrangements of Leonard Cohen’s Death Of A Ladies Man, the avant-garde-meets-pop vocals of Scott Walker, the idiosyncratic time-signatures of Arthur Lee, the bleak but adventurous soundtrack work of Morricone and the like … but does it deliver? The answer is … kind of? It’s easy to be impressed by the auteurish slant to this whole project. In fact, such audacity should never be condemned, especially in an age of artists seeing just how little they can get away with, but Amour Bohemian is a hard listen.

It sounds disjointed, brassy, and not always cohesive, as if there are two records happening on at once—the lo-fi basic tracks with Medina’s deadpan vocals all the way up front, and another with an orchestra playing what clearly very beautiful fugues inside very studied baroque landscapes. These two sides of the project unfortunately distract from each other, rather than mix into a seamless work of art. One reason we love Cohen, Walker and Spector records is because all that labor was done in one room. Those records sounded grand—and coherent—because all the ingredients were simmering in the pot in real time, and as a result, the listener feels like he or she is right there with them. It’s an unfortunately more of an isolating ride with Amour Bohemian, and with such obvious time and effort involved, it pains me to say that—I’m someone that well knows the up-all-night obsession involved in fiending to create a sound and feeling inspired by my anti-heroes. But I also believe we need more confounding records like this—by people like Joe Medina who are attempting to raise the bar, and who refuse to settle for three-chord garage-rock songs about pizza. “I wanted to make the biggest, grandest album I could, with the widest dynamic range I could imagine, something that will sound new every time you listen to it and hopefully last beyond my years.” says Medina.

I can only speak for myself in the present, I’d still say ‘mission accomplished.’ However muted the shine, MERCH shot for the stars and crash-landed on a strange planet all its own.

—Gabriel Hart

Body” and “God Is A Woman”— and hits with the heft of a polished and powerful full-length-LP. —Madison Desler

MIYA FOLICK Give It To Me EP Terrible “This song is shit/They’ll listen anyway,” Miya Folick sings during “Trouble Adjusting,” the first track on her new EP, Give It To Me. It’s a brooding swirl of grunge, indie, and alt-rock, and it most definitely isn’t shit—and its weird, slashing guitars and left-field, major key chorus immediately let you know that Folick isn’t playing by the rules.

With a strong art-school vibe and overtly intellectual songwriting, Folick puta herself in the tradition of Joni Mitchell and Laura Nyro— something that lives on now with Björk and St. Vincent. Folick even ends the EP with an ominous cover of Mitchell’s “Woodstock,” swapping the keyboard and layered vocals of the original for sparse electric guitars and a cavernous kick drum. She’s the kind of hip, arty, aloof musician that first finds the spotlight by winning cool-points from fashionable taste-makers— but she’s got the talent to stay there, too. Her melodies are complex and unexpected, but still get stuck in your head. “Aging,” with its surfy guitars and propulsive drums explodes into a hurricane chorus that packed rooms full of people will soon be shouting back to her.

“Pretend” unfolds slowly, with an existential Folick asking questions like, “How do i know I’m anything other than dust?” over slide guitar and a soulful organ gently carrying her knockout melody. “Give It To Me” alternates between sleepy hazy verses and unbelievably wrenching choruses. Like St. Vincent or Mitchell, her voice is otherworldly—an instrument for delivering power and emotion more than simple beauty. Whether it’s the fragile vibrato in her upperregister, or the knock-down dragout guttural strength she displays at the peaks of “Aging” and “Give It To Me,” Folick gives it everything she’s got—it’s the kind of conviction that forces you to feel what she wants you to feel.

The result is an absolutely stunning five-song EP that delivers a heavy dose of the brilliance hinted at by last year’s stand-alone singles—“Pet

MOSES SUMNEY Aromanticism Jagjaguwar It sounds like it’s draped in the pastel robes of romance, but Moses Sumney’s debut full-length Aromanticism uses its lyrics to make a case against itself: in an angelic falsetto over a lovely satin cushion of strings, he sings, “Don’t bother calling / I’ll call you.” His tender admission that both he and his wings are made of plastic— imagery that calls to mind the decontextualized body parts that fill our Instagram feeds—makes its melismatic way between buttery guitar that sounds as ready for Etta James as it is for him. As you listen to Sumney’s 34 minute soliloquy on the existential implications of societally sanctioned love propaganda, you can’t help but marvel at the artful gap between the loneliness in his lyrics and the rich, emotive arrangements.

(Aromanticism‘s flutes flutter like butterflies in a nervous belly.) It’s a precious feeling that Sumney is able to conjure, with a blunt intimacy like making out in a car. He offers slivers of an origin story in exactingly enunciated interludes about his mother’s stoicism and society’s indoctrination of its youth, but he never breaks with the tragic Shakespearean character who weaves a complicated feeling of malaise into a rococo tapestry. The album concludes with “Self Help Tape,” a largely wordless prayer that post-ecstatically gives way to a shallow pool of swirling, pitchshifted ghost voices whispering, “Imagine being free.” While it feels lazy to flat out compare his work on tracks like “Doomed” and “Lonely World” to the A-and B-sides of Jeff Buckley’s Sketches For My Sweetheart, The Drunk, it’s worth noting that Buckley’s fans may experience a great catharsis through the similarities—it’s a bit like experiencing the finalized version of what was considered 53

THE INTERPRETER

MISS MODULAR Interview and Photography by Daiana Feuer

Sasha Ali started her Miss Modular radio show in 2015 at Radio Sombra in Boyle Heights, and a year ago moved over to NTS Radio.

David Gomez had started a radio station at Espacio 1839 with other members of the community. It was a radical-political POC-run platform, and he suggested she host a show but it sounded overwhelming and undoable to her, especially considering the responsibility of her day job as Manager of Exhibitions and Communications at the Craft & Folk Art Museum. But Gomez invited her to be a guest on his show, ‘Discos Imigrantes,’ and Ali was inspired by the experience. When the #WCW hashtag came about, it she got the idea to do a show all about womxn, mixing music and interviews. It was important to challenge herself to confront certain musical biases that she had and that exist institutionally. Ali owns very little vinyl but her music collection is huge, as she still holds on to every CD and cassette she’s ever purchased.

SOUAD MASSI DEB (ISLAND, 2003) “Again, David Gomez, who I guess has been very influential to me with his music knowledge—he gave me this as a birthday gift. She’s an Algerian singer that lives in France. She sings beautiful songs in Arabic. I’d only heard traditional folk Arabic or pop, but I hadn’t really heard indie singer-songwriter music in Arabic before, like a girl-with-guitar vibe. I don’t know what she’s saying. But the album is called ‘Heart Broken’ and the titles are translated so I get the feeling that it’s about the ups and downs of both romantic love and familial love. I listen to it when I’m driving or hanging around the house taking care of things, chillin’, taking care of dishes.”

DOROTHY ASHBY AFRO-HARPING (CADET, 1968) “This is one of those records that people are like, ‘Oh, you should have the vinyl’ but that’s not what I have—I have the fucking CD. I started listening to her on YouTube because part of my work is that I have to write press releases and exhibition texts for the galleries.

And Dorothy Ashby was just really good writing music. It’s entirely instrumental. It’s harmonic. I don’t write well to music that has lyrics and vocals because those words get in the way of my words.

I still put this on when I have to write for work—to get into a writing zone. It’s the strings, too. Strings really pull something out of you. Strings help you emote and express something correctly. I really love ‘Lonely Girl.’ That has vocals, but that one I really love.

‘Soul Vibrations’ is incredible. It’s such a strong introduction to an album.”

RITA INDIANA EL JUIDERO (SONY MUSIC LATIN, 2010) “She’s a Dominican artist. This album has a crazy electro-merengue Caribbean sound. My friend David Gomez—who used to tour with Beck and now works with Chicano Batman—he introduced me to this, with ‘La Hora De Volve.’ She looked amazing. Tall, androgynous … and the video was surreal. The music was thumpy but with a merengue foundation. The whole thing is not merengue but it has a unique sound that really speaks to the street culture of the Dominican Republic. She’s also a storyteller so each song had a story going on. I like listening to her music to break out of the monotony of the music out there right now—to get a different flavor. It takes me somewhere else.”

INTERPRETER

LUSH SPLIT (4AD, 1994) “I used to go shopping at Moby Disc or Tower Records. That’s when I was collecting CDs and that’s what I mostly have, aside from MP3s.

Lush has these lovely melodies. Their lyrics are so angsty and they spoke to me at that time in my life as a teenager. I haven’t listened to it in a long time but it stays with me because I remember how much this album and lyrics made me feel hopeful that I wouldn’t be stuck in an angsty place forever—that I would have my own agency to break out and do a bunch of wonderful things in my life.

It reminds me of siting in my room as a high school student, doing my homework, contemplating life, and making craft projects with nail polish and construction paper. Bedroom teenage angst.”

ERYKAH BADU MAMA’S GUN

(MOTOWN, 2000)

“I was listening to this when I was at UCLA. The first song I ever heard on this was ‘Didn’t You Know?’ Man, it’s a beautiful song.

Years later my boyfriend Te’Amir played for me the original track that song was sampled from and I was like, ‘Whoa! I didn’t even know!’ This album is incredible. Every song has a character and feels like a chapter to a story. I know the lyrics. I’ve sang along with it so much. We went to see her in concert in support of this album. She had a chaise lounge on stage with a little table. She would get up and do some dances and it was so beautiful. We were in the sixth row. I’ll never forget. The album goes through all the stages of love.

It talks about the strength of partnership, the break-up, terrible longing, the letting go.”

BAHAMADIA BB QUEEN (GOOD VIBE, 2000) “She has an amazing voice. I like her flow and the downtempo beat.

There’s something timeless about the album. ‘Good Rap Music’ makes its way into my head sometimes. Her voice stays with me. She’s someone I would love to interview actually. There’s a local quality to it—lots of Los Angeles people involved from the production to the artwork to where it was done. I know some of the people and the places mentioned so it makes me feel closer to it.”

LOW LEAF AKASHAALAY (FRESH SELECTS, 2014) “I first saw Low Leaf at a party that used to happen at Footsies called ‘Soul In The Park.’ It was an amazing gathering place for friends—always such a good vibe. When I saw her perform there, she was amazing. She had a harp, keyboard, she was singing and dancing—she was such a passionate sprite. I bought her music online but then last year at the Eagle Rock Music Festival she was playing and she was friends with people I know, and I got to meet her and she gifted me and my boyfriend this record. She’s a masterful instrumentalist and creates beautiful melodies. On this album she was going back to her Filipino heritage, examining the sounds. There are some Tagalog lyrics. It’s beautiful. Some songs are adventurous, others are lullaby-ish. There’s something very watery about the sound, like it’s underwater, and I associate water with femininity. Water pertains to creativity, fertility—I’ve had dreams where I feel underwater but then find out I can breathe underwater.

There’s something about that I associate with the divine feminine.

She also has a lilting feminine voice. I don’t know many—or any male—harpists. I’m sure they’re out there but I’ve never come across any. So in that way I associate harp with the feminine. I know this is gendered and so not cool to say, but it’s true.”

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KADHJA BONET THE VISITOR

BJORK “HUMAN BEHAVIOR” CS SINGLE

(HEADCOUNT/FAT POSSUM, 2016)

“Kadhja is a good friend of mine and this is her first release. When she was writing this record she would hit me up on Facebook and consult with me about lyrics. Not to say that I contributed anything to it, but it was interesting to be invited into her process.

She’d be like, ‘This lyric or this lyric?’ I’d say, ‘Huh, what are you trying to convey?’ Or she’d be like, ‘What’s another word for something?’ It was a look into the artist’s mind. These are incredible songs. She’s so talented. She’s a beautiful vocalist but she’s also a violinist, plays guitar, does flute, and she illustrated the cover as well. Low Leaf makes a harp appearance, too.”

JUANA MOLINA SEGUNDO (BLA BLA DISCO/DOMINO, 2003)

“She’s an Argentinean singer. I was interning at Astralwerks in 2002 and this came out in 2003. Caroline Records shared an office with Astralwerks and someone there gave me this copy and I was floored. ‘Martin Fiero,’ the first song, is such a journey. She has these hushed vocals and the songs builds into something so epic.

Each song really feels right—it belongs there. I love the childlike quality of her voice. It’s a nice mix of electronic arrangements, vocal harmonics, and live instrumentation. I can listen to this anytime. It’s very chill.”

PJ HARVEY TO BRING YOU MY LOVE (ISLAND, 1995)

“I’ve had this for over twenty years. The first song I heard was ‘Down By The Water’ on KROQ. It didn’t sound like anything else. I was floored. Even though it wasn’t electronic, it had that quality of sounds that I associate with electronic music—really dark and sinister. She has this growling vocal quality but also gets really melodic when she goes to this other register. It’s totally a rock album and yet it’s very much all about this woman’s obsessive love.”

an eternally unfinished sketch.

Sumney’s Aromanticism is a deep and powerful album, with perhaps the precise kind of tenderness to balance 2017’s post-apocalyptic feel.

—Christina Gubala

NO AGE Snares Like A Haircut Drag City We’ve all kind of come up with No Age, haven’t we? But snare rolls, four-on-the-floor drums and distorted guitars mean something different to us when we’re 25 than they do when we’re 40: one is the sound of revving up; the other the sound of peeling away.

Snares Like A Haircut is the most mature-sounding record (from a production standpoint) in the band’s discography. The frantic 56

dissonance remains, but the signal is clearer than ever. Art-punk is more satisfying when it’s seasoned (see: Lou Reed New York, Suicide, solo Alex Chilton) and No Age, like us, has been around. Lived some life. And is still punching at the wind. We should all aspire to remain as obstinate as our heroes who play guitars.

—Kegan Pierce Simons

OCS Memory Of A Cut Off Head Castle Face In these times of great uncertainty, this kind of confidence cannot be taken for granted: Memory of a Cut Off Head, the new record

by OCS (f.k.a. Thee Oh Sees) presents a rare and vulnerable side of John Dwyer, cleanly separate

from the chaotic garage punk his group has built its reputation on during the past twenty years.

Just months ago, that Oh Sees released arguably one of their heaviest records yet—Orc was a hard-charging barrage of sonic sludge and sci-fi annihilation.

For their 20th full length, however, OCS have decided on a much gentler approach to the band’s aesthetic, as well as an unexpected return to its earliest ideas. OCS was the project’s first name, and Memory—the title itself maybe another indication of this second look at personal history?—features the formal return of longtime vocalist and contributor Brigid Dawson, her first appearance since the band’s hiatus in 2013. Memory recalls a more hopeful era of folk rock, reminiscent of both the San Francisco and Laurel Canyon scenes in the 60s, almost rising from the ashes that left by the scorching Oh Sees. Warm and comforting (and sometimes carefully discordant) melodies replace Dwyer’s signature distortion, and harmony momentarily supersedes disarray.

Is there light at the end of the tunnel? For the next forty-five minutes, perhaps.

—Bennett Kogon

(ELEKTRA/ONE LITTLE INDIAN, 1993)

“I heard the song on the radio and I was floored. I had never heard anything like it. It was dark and sinister and she had this amazing voice. There’s something about the lyrics, about human behavior … I was thirteen or fourteen and I really felt like it was talking to certain philosophical concerns I had. She put it into words. I have this little cassette holder thing that has a bunch of tapes in it. A lot of them don’t even have covers anymore. I don’t even have a cassette player anymore—but I keep all the tapes anyway. It’s worn out now and she looks so cute on the cover. I can’t part with it. I don’t think I’ve parted with any music I’ve ever had. I have so much. It’s crazy. I have so many CDs. I’ve been collecting since 1994, when I was 15. That’s when I got my first CD. I don’t even want to tell you what my first CD was: Yanni, Live At The Acropolis. They were showing that special on PBS all the time. I loved it.”

TE’AMIR SWEENEY L.A. SOUL (SELF RELEASED, 2010)

“I’m going to bring one dude into this. He released this in 2010.

It was just a physical copy for a long time. It wasn’t anywhere online. He had this album reproduced in Germany while he was on tour with Aloe Blacc. He’s so talented as a musician, composer, and producer. This copy was the last of the German release. I love the song ‘Do What You Do.’ It’s very soulful and I like his singing voice. He doesn’t sing that much anymore. The whole album just flows very well—every song feels like it belongs where it is. He does his interpretation of Dilla’s ‘Fall In Love’ which is lovely. All the songs are expansive and emotional. There’s a loving energy in this album. And I like the title. He’s born and raised in L.A. and the sound feels very much like it comes from here. And it’s all local incredible musicians. And since he’s my boyfriend, it reminds me of the first year we were together.”

PEARL CHARLES Sleepless Dreamer Kanine Pearl Charles has been likened to Lana Del Rey and Jenny Lewis, but both comparisons miss the mark.

Charles, as she demonstrates on her full-length debut Sleepless Dreamer, represents something more elemental: a smooth voice, a familiar sound, and sturdy, wellconstructed songs. Unlike her more wry contemporaries, there’s little pretense and few ulterior motives here—just pleasant tunes bolstered by a smooth, gentlytwangy Southern California groove.

70s touchstones are obvious, from Fleetwood Mac to Jackson Browne, and the songs go down easy with few curveballs, though the album

doesn’t lack gently adventurous lyrical turns—for instance, the line “All the boys with your name / They all act the same as you.”

The record’s biggest risk, “Only in America,” however, falls a bit flat. It’s a political song that’s too vague to mean much, and “Not only in America,” the song’s repetitive rallying cry, is half an idea in need of a thesis. But the record’s strongest tune is “Night Tides,” which plays to Charles’ strengths in all the right ways. It’s a lament about lost love, strung with elegant little metaphors about receding tides and chasing ghosts. The song is centered on one of her most impressive hooks and, like much of the material here, it makes great use of her top-notch band, whose work particularly shines on this track’s dusky Malibu funk.

—Chris Kissel

ALBUM REVIEWS

PHOEBE BRIDGERS Stranger In The Alps Dead Oceans Phoebe Bridgers’ debut album Stranger in the Alps is a revelation.

Which is kind of stunning, given how highly it was anticipated before it came out and how hyped it has been since its midSeptember release. But even if you knew Ryan Adams and Conor Oberst had hailed the L.A. singer-songwriter as a megatalent, and even if you’d seen the glowing reviews and “best of 2017” list-placements pouring in recently, Alps will still catch you off guard. It’s that good. At her core, Bridgers is a singer of sad folk songs, and she has a knack for communicating ennui and heartbreak and confusion and loneliness and defiance in ways that feel unmistakably relatable.

To wit: “I have emotional motion sickness,” she sings in “Motion Sickness,” a visceral document of the dizzying effects of a breakup and the Mt. Everest on an album of peaks. “Somebody roll the windows down.” You’ve been there, right? Right. The rest of Alps is one gut-punch after another, usually dressed up in some sort

of sonic accompaniment that lifts these songs and separates them from straight folk music. There’s the beautiful strings in “Smoke Signals,” the incandescent synth in “Demi Moore,” the noisy outro of “Scott Street,” Oberst’s startling guest vocals in “Would You Rather” and the mournful violin that ends “Funeral.” These are all vital pieces of the whole, but without question, they orbit around Bridgers, her spectral soprano and her gift for turning life’s challenges into tunes that demand repeat listens. Each time, you’ll find something new to take your breath away.

—Ben Salmon

PRETTIEST EYES Pools Castle Face

SPARKS Hippopotamus BMG

This marks the 23rd studio album from the world’s cleverest, most enduring pop duo—the 24th if you count their 2015 “FFS” collaboration with Franz Ferdinand, and you should because it got them back up on billboards and back in front of a younger audience. That rejuvenating boost, along with the previous year’s Kimono My House anniversary celebrations, lands the group at ALBUM REVIEWS

By now, I’m sure you’re familiar with Prettiest Eyes. The group became somewhat of a local legend back in 2013: “Oh, but have you seen them live?” I remember people often telling me. So finally I had to witness the mayhem for myself.

Lead vocalist and drummer Pachy possesses the kind of otherworldly and unrelenting intensity of punk’s forefathers, like a modern-day Nick Cave or Tomata du Plenty.

With the powerfully frantic synths and electro-manipulations of keyboardist Paco and bassist Marcos’ slamming waves of distortion—often delivered as he joins you in the crowd—the band will outperform itself at every show, time and time again. The trio’s newest Pools, released on John Dwyer’s Castle Face, happily captures the pulverizing energy and interstellar explosiveness at the very core of Prettiest Eyes. Truly the product of a band from a former era and from another different dimension, Pools summons the dystopic electropunk that will deliver terrifying nightmares to Siri’s Electric Sheep. Prepare yourself for this cosmic voyage directly into a meteor shower.

In the words of Dwyer himself: “There is electricity in this sound.”

—Bennett Kogon

RAENER Have You Been Here Before EP Danger Collective L.A. quartet Raener‘s debut EP Have You Been Here Before is a compact yet complex exercise in the manipulation of momentum.

Analog and synthetic sounds are interwoven to create a deep, topographically sophisticated space for Daniel Fox’s reserved tenor to navigate. Raener [which includes L.A. RECORD contributor Zach Bilson—ed.] alternates between caution and reckless abandon as digital bloops and spirals ricochet off hand claps, clattering drumsticks, horns and heavyweight piano, all of which coalesce into a soundscape darker and more lush than the sum of its parts. There is an

Hippopotamus, which matches the concise songs of FFS to a proper backing band for something of a triumphant return to their 70s mutant glam era. In other words, recent forays into the past and whatcould-be-considered-the-future have informed this record, and fans should be losing their minds over what seems to be an endless reservoir of creativity. The Mael brothers are nearly senior citizens now, but they don’t sound like it—save their acquired wisdom and world-weary wit.

The album begins with an almost false start: “Probably Nothing” is a stark overture, a tease where Russell taps you on the shoulder repeatedly, only to say nevermind as he marks various scenarios of incommunicado defeat. It’s clear commentary on a world muted by our own earbuds and a maddening way to begin a record, but we must squirm we are allowed to explode.

“Missionary Position” sounds like classic 70s Sparks, its build-up epic and buoyant until Russell’s chorus praises the more retro technique of love-making and Ron’s pounding keys mimic the rhythm of this relic exercise. “Edith Piaf Said It Better” sweeps in like a melancholic storm, harkening back to the dance-club days of 1994’s Gratuitous Sax ... before “Scandinavian Design” skewers the boring Ikea lifestyle, complete with a hyperactive Muzak breakdown. “Giddy Giddy” is one of the most hilarious songs I’ve ever heard, an satiric assault on big-city nightlife and disposable happiness brought/bought by modern trends.

Sparks initially make you feel like a fucking idiot—but you’ll feel like an genius once you get the joke.

anxious kind of chill—a breath held for a second—as the EP launches from the precipice of first track “No Sun” toward to the cavernous loneliness of closer “NYC,” making even the brightest moments—the shimmering chorus of “Howard County” or the faux harpsichord twinkles of “Look Up”—pregnant with unease. The production is slick and exacting: each track is stacked with strategically spotlit layers, crafted with love for the headphone generation. As a debut, it’s promising and dreamy, and it hints at the cosmic existential crises from—and through—which the band sprints, sneaks and wanders.

—Christina Gubala

SCOUT In Hell self-released

By now, we cannot contain ourselves—in fact, the Mael brothers have lost containment when they wake up to find their swimming pool has been taken over by a “Hippopotamus.” The Mael brothers—and only the Mael brothers could do this—successfully find six or so other words that rhyme with the title. One wonders if they see a bit of themselves in this nearly extinct creature that does whatever the hell it wants? God himself has also lost the ability to contain his Holy Wrath as he asks “What The Hell Is It This Time?” to the praying masses who won’t pick their battles.

“Bummer” is another anthem that sounds like an indictment, using the slang response to bad news as a sword for seppuku. “I Wish You Were Fun” is the best song Paul McCartney never wrote, and makes me actually enjoy that particular kind of whimsical show-tune bounce in ways I was never able with McCartney’s more self-indulgent moments. Sparks loves the contrast between playful and sinister, and so the show turns sadistic as they ask “So Tell Me Mrs. Lincoln, Aside From That, How Was The Play?” And that’s not Russell doing his best French impersonation on “When You’re A French Director”—that’s actual French director Leos Carax (Boy Meets Girl, Holy Motors) best known for his themes of love and alienation, perfectly cast in this sepia-toned street-busker funeral march. Sparks magnificent 24th album ends with the operatic “Life With The Macbeths,” letting us know that this album is really fifteen perfectly plotted acts of revenge from a group that will never die.

—Gabriel Hart 57

LIVE PHOTOS FALL 2017

ONLINE PHOTO EDITOR DEBI DEL GRANDE

Wand November 2017 The Hi Hat

Mondo Cozmo September 2017 The El Rey

Patrick Do

Stephanie Port

St. Vincent October 2017 Paramount Studios

Death Valley Girls October 2017 The Troubadour

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Danny Hernandez

Danny Hernandez

LIVE PHOTOS

Tyler, The Creator October 2017 Exposition Park

Maximilian Ho

The Wild Ones November 2017 The Fonda

David Fisch

LIVE PHOTOS

Ween September 2017 Music Tastes Good Fest

Stephanie Port

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COMICS

CURATED BY TOM CHILD

LILA ASH | @lila__ash

OHARA HALE

JOHN TOTTENHAM

EMILY TSENG 60

DAVE VAN PATTEN COMICS

The 11 songs on Scout’s In Hell are noir-ish tales of love gone wrong: set against a backdrop of blownout but nostalgic Americana, Scout tells stories of dark domestic dramas unfolding behind closed doors. Sultry female vocals take the lead, drifting through the void alongs warbling tremolo guitar lines while spare basslines etch out skeletal rhythms beneath. Aside from the plastic drum machine on “Boy Next Door” and the isolated tambourine of “Love Cry,” there is no percussion to speak of. Instead, moments of guitar devolve into noise and found sounds bubble to the surface, emphasizing the record’s ever-present sense of dread.

While Scout’s lyrics often zoom in on disturbed emotions and scenes of abuse, the vocals are eerily flat.

Instead of emotional release, these songs are chilling and detached, although the emotion in the cover of “He Hit Me (And It Felt Like A Kiss)” makes for a powerful and affecting contrast against a cutto-the-bone backing track. The album’s opener, “El Loteria,” rocks with a blues-y swagger, but the best parts of In Hell come later in its quieter, more intimate moments: On “Cerberus,” every hard syllable and fret noise rings clear, making it sound as if the music is coming from inside your head as the song collapses into a drunken slump.

“Bathtub,” the lone instrumental, is a surprise standout that feels like waking up from a nightmare and hearing a lonesome guitar in the next room. Really, In Hell is equal parts violence and romance. These are pretty songs made for ugly feelings.

—Joe Rihn

STARCRAWLER self-titled Rough Trade The long-awaited debut from Ozzy Osbourne-worshipping youngsters Starcrawler oscillates between proto-metal and classic punk as towering frontwoman Arrow de Wilde and company strut their stuff through ten grimy thrashers. Ryan Adams, who decided to produce the album after hearing the band on Instagram, claimed that it would ALBUM REVIEWS

“peel the paint off your brain.”

While it doesn’t quite do that—the riffs are ten-ton heavy but familiar, the songwriting respectable but a bit green—the moments where it comes closest are the stuff of headbanging dreams. The appropriately named “Train” has the force of a locomotive—it’s an shot of adrenaline and a punch in the face all at once. “I Love LA,” with its crunchy guitars and anthemic send-up of the band’s hometown feels like something from a dank club in 1978—a sludgier version of “Rockaway Beach” for westcoast punks. “Pussy Tower”—a song unmistakably about giving and getting head—recalls the gleeful filth of the New York Dolls.

Starcrawler gives us monstrous riffs and plenty of attitude, but don’t do justice to the shock and awe of the infamously fake-bloody shows that won de Wilde comparisons to the PJ Harvey, Lydia Lunch and Iggy Pop. Luckily, Starcrawler are just getting started. With members that range in age from 16-22, time is definitely on their side—which gives them plenty of chances to polish the raw talent that lets this LP kick you in the gut.

—Madison Desler

maiden-casket of a society, too.

Really, Death is autobiography in excruciating, unflinchingly personal detail—Kool Keith’s intensity (and density) of detail and vision, but as shockwave roar in all directions at once. Skeleton rap/chants about his childhood, his Vietnamese heritage and the war he was born in, his experience as a defiantly self-contained and self-sufficient musician slicing at (and through) scenes and genres and societal confinement, his experience with racism, with dishonesty, with identity, family, history, of a past and present and future in vicious opposition to each other … One thinks of a man and a mirror, and then of broken glass and a reflection in slices. At 30 tracks that refuse any chance to compromise—Death is a collection of sessions—it’s a hard listen by design. But that makes it a brutally human listen, too.

—Chris Ziegler

TRACY BRYANT A Place for Nothing And Everything In Its Place Burger TEN-HEADED SKELETON Death Doesn’t Care About Love self-released Ten-Headed Skeleton is the newest avatar of Michael Nhat, who commandeers certain fundamentals of hip-hop—voice, rhythm, personality—for his own darkly inspired purposes, much like Flipper did with punk when they out hardcored hardcore. And like Flipper, he’s built a sound that absorbs any damage it takes, with kiddy-toy synth spirals, hammering pixelated drums and brute-force rap/chant vocals. Think of outré electro pioneer Bruce Haack, who loved to camouflage subversive sonic intent as music for kids, maybe. But read-along-gone-wrong music aside, Death is not for kids.

About kids, yes, and often—and about the traumatic deformations inflicted on kids by America’s iron-

With his new A Place For Nothing And Everything In Its Place, singer-songwriter Tracy Bryant has officially joined the ranks of likeminded nü-pop auteurs Mikal Cronin and Devon Williams.

Bryant’s self-titled 2014 solo debut felt almost stubbornly lofi; its gorgeous pop morsels were submerged in a haze of hiss and miscellaneous tape-wear, like AM Gold transmitted from the lost city of Atlantis. Bryant’s 2016 followup, Subterranean—which included more realized renditions of songs off the first record—saw the exCorners singer reluctantly pushing his melodies closer to the spotlight.

A Place For Nothing … melds the wistful immediacy of Bryant’s first record with the less asphyxiated— though still slightly off-kilter— production on his second. This is clearly a self-conscious evolution, as evidenced by the fake-out intro to album opener “The Grave”: the audible “click” of a play button

on a tape recorder, followed by thirty seconds of fuzzy warble.

The button clicks again, and the song erupts into a wash of jangling guitars, with Bryant’s high-register voice front and center. 4-track fundamentalists might balk at this direction merely on principle, but it provides Bryant’s indelible vocal melodies with the breathing room they’ve long demanded.

“Forever Certain”—which revolves around a deceptively simple chord progression—is Bryant’s most explicitly catchy song to date, while the ornate, Ray Daviesfiltered-through-Flying Nun romp “Unlonely” sees a burgeoning pop maestro flexing his artistic muscles.

Hi(ish)-fi guitar pop seldom sounds this good.

—Morgan Troper

band breaks things up with some jittery rhythms on “My Brother’s Been Kissin’ My Girlfriend” and “Rootin’ Around” feels slightly more developed than the other tracks, with a bit of a surf-rock vibe surfacing here and there.

Wonder Years isn’t just a document of a bygone time in the life of a great band—it’s also proof that Unnatural Helpers could do a lot with very little.

—Ben Salmon

VENEER Yesterday’s Freshies Burger

UNNATURAL HELPERS Wonder Years (The Lost First Recordings) EP Famous Class Over a half-decade, three albums and a bunch of 7”s, Unnatural Helpers evolved into a rocksolid punk band capable of playing jagged, noisy Northwest rock with nuance and groove and pop sensibility. But in their early days, the band—formed among employees of Sub Pop Records, most of whom now live in L.A.—was a pure bludgeoning instrument, and a powerful one at that. Evidence abounds on Wonder Years, a long lost document of Unnatural Helpers’ raw-nerve roots. Its eight tracks fly by in a total of just over 12 minutes, with most clocking in at 1 minute and 45 seconds or less. Each is a bracing blast of lo-fi savagery built out of spastic guitars, desperate yelps, gnarled howls and machinegun drums that sound like they’re played by a hyperactive octopus.

The aim is the same each time: get in, destroy everything, get out. And the variations are relatively minor: the stomping swaggering “Long List of Complaints” runs more or less on one three-note guitar riff, while “Angst” is a lurching bundle of guitar blasts and stringbends and “I Out” is defiant and driven by the rumbling bass. The

There are times when being introduced to something new can rearrange your view of aesthetics, art and the like. There’s not enough room here to explore the idea of music being a more emotional or visceral experience—or whether the pop-ists or rockists are ultimately right about anything—but this Veneer record might be central to that debate. Yesterday’s Freshies is full of respect for its influences but never slides into being lazy or derivative—it’s a perfect blend of subtle connection and in your face charisma, and a prime example of the punk aesthetic commandeering the pop genre.Think perhaps the New York Dolls sharing a whiskey sour with Pulp, or even Dream Syndicate if they were sipping a deep port in the back alley. Freshies seems to examine the confusion that comes with being an artist in our current circumstances and advances a certain acceptance at being a perpetual outsider. It’s an albums worth of attempts at reconciliation, but the final verdict remains ambiguous at best. Every song seems to be a soul-searching exercise, each leading into the next set of story-of-my-life rock ‘n’ roll self-examination. These kind of literary exercises are what separate the average records from the potentially timeless, and Freshies aims to explores these kind of high-art narrative strains. Songs like “Dreamwalker” display a palpable tension between the inner landscape and the external rhythms of life, and excitement of living— and failure that sometimes comes 61

Piero Umiliani Grazie!

Nature Sounds

Inventive scorer of dozens of Italian-made westerns, sex farces and thrillers from the 1960s to the 80s, Umiliani might be best known for composing the nonsense ditty “Mah Nà Mah Nà,” which first appeared in a 1968 mondo documentary titled Sweden: Heaven and Hell. As single off the soundtrack, the tricksy tune became a minor international hit, but won immortality after being filched in turn by Red Skelton, Benny Hill, and the Muppets. What gets lost about Umiliani in this unforgettable (and inadvertent) contribution to TV sketch comedy is that in addition to being musically the peer of Nino Rota, Riz Ortolani and other better known film composers of this era, he was something of an electronic music pioneer too. Ahead of the transatlantic pop pack by several furlongs, he so influenced the post-rock likes of Stereolab and Mr. Bungle that fans of either and both will shriek a-ha at this expansive eighteen-track set.

“Le Ore Che Contano” (from the 1973 sex farce La Ragazza Fuori Strada) owes much to Isaac Hayes and a little to Miles Davis, while “Goodmorning Sun” is a pretty progrock prelude to itself and “Il Micione e La Gattina” is a loony trick noisemaker as nonsensically infectious as “Mah Nà Mah Nà.” Several tracks culled from 1971 LP To-day’s Sound astound as colorful motion sketches for which the listener provides the movie. Tacked on as a bonus is Mike Wallace’s adventurous 53-minute remix of everything you just heard. Action adventure for a month of weekends, this is.

Jan & Dean Filet of Soul Redux: The Rejected Master Recordings Omnivore

The slightest of contractual obligation albums, Filet of Soul would up being the renowned surf duo’s mutilated last whimper for Liberty Records. Home to Bobby Vee and Dave Seville & the Chipmunks, Liberty was by 1966 a chicken-scratch indie for which they’d grown far too big, so Our Boys tried to stiff it on the way out the door with a live album consisting of lengthy spoken-word segments, proto-Sgt. Pepper concept hijinx, Beatle covers, a Lou Christie cover, extended self-parody, and a handful of sub-prime J&D originals jazzed up with sound effects and other dada. Liberty rejected this proffered mishigas and released a blandly truncated version after Jan’s near-fatal car accident. As Dean observes in the liners, people have died waiting for this record to be reborn and so, after a gap of over a half-century, here it is. Fifty years is a long time to wait for an insubstantial self-lampoon and just about anyone may be forgiven for vouchsafing a WTF? in 2017. Then again, this has been such a King Kong bummer of an annus horribilis that we should take all the 62

Carmaig de Forest I Shall Be Re-Released Omnivore

mirth we can get and anyone attuned to the goofball humor of these clown princes of surf rock will certainly howl, if not laugh.

As limply screwy as this record is, it does preconfigure Sgt. Pepper and a fragment wound up on J&D’s bestselling Anthology set in 1971. The Wrecking Crew does full honors and gets intro’d with all manner of Pet Sounds fanfare. If this sounds like something the Bonzo Dogs might pull off in under five minutes, well, remember this slab goes on for over thirty-five.

Luther Russell Selective Memories: An Anthology Hanky Panky/Burger

This fellow’s been around seemingly forever and this two-disc CD retrospective serves as less a career summation than a thorough, even fussily made case for his peculiar genius. His career ranges from early recordings with Jakob Dylan as the Bootheels to a major-label shot helming the Freewheelers through two studio albums, then as an exceptionally long-lived, increasingly musically ambitious solo artist. The two Bootheels tracks are jejune stuff that situates the listener snugly within what was thought of as traditional rock in the very late 1980s.

This mildly punky roots-rock gave way to a more varied palette from the Freewheelers, though Russell’s voice maintains the same juicy raggedness. “Don’t Cry” and “Kill Me” are brilliantly scabrous and the rocker’s post-major label songwriting turned more intimate as his skill at producing became surer and more varied; check the phasing and psychedelic effects on “Seven” Grunge (“Smoke Signals”) eventually overtook him but he shook it off and kept going. “Lonely Planet Song” is a standout among the several instrumentals included, which range in mood from agitated Mar-Keysian to Can-like nirvanic. “Arthur Lee” is an unironic even corny but lovely and touching shout-out to one of his more obvious inspirations. “Tell Me If My Love’s Too Late” is a small jewel of ambered regret. “Empty Taxis” shows his sense of pop melody evolved to MouldingPartridge level of skill if not sensibility. His authorial voice, weary, yet hopeful and in the best way nostalgic; remains the same, though time has filed down the edges of his serrated vocals. Since over half these 41 songs are previously unreleased, this amounts to a fresh introduction to a legacy you maybe didn’t know existed.

Clever and observant L.A. songwriter with about the thousandth variation on the comic-ukulele shtick, Carmaig appeared on bills with the Ramones, Wall of Voodoo, Gang of Four, and They Might Be Giants, all legendary acts whose signature sounds appear as trace elements on this long-forgotten 1987 debut, originally titled I Shall Be Released. Carmaig’s brief renown doesn’t look to have spread too far outside the Los Angeles, Baltimore, and Vancouver undergrounds and this Alex Chilton-produced obscurity was likely the biggest noise he ever made. In the liners, the ukeman remembers Chilton as a courteous weedheaded Southern gentleman committed to the project enough to bury Carmaig’s uke imperceptibly deep in the mix.

The tunes are clipped, edgy, nervous, zany, brainy, angular, and probably too 1981 for 1987’s sake. Such stylistic lagtime was far lengthier during this era than many remember and it is a matter of little-known fact that no one really noticed once new wave actually did die. “Risks in Spring” sounds remarkably this-minute, “Big Business” and “Hey Judas” express a type of political consciousness that likely didn’t help in gaining industry acceptance then and certainly doesn’t now. “Crack’s No Worse Than the Fascist Threat” ought to have been at least a minor college radio staple, and the cover of “Secret Agent Man” is adroit and respectful. Twelve bonus tracks include the alt-rock Calvinism of “Dark Place” along with a 1987 New Rose EP helpfully titled Carmaig de Forest + Band Six Live Cuts.

Chilton cultists will swoon, partisans of Feudalist Tarts will plotz, and the Man Himself years later told Carmaig this album was the best work either of them ever did. Chilton’s production, arrangements and track order suggest a half-conscious desire to hand in the last great Big Star album. The original deal to put out this LP on Chilton’s label fell apart when his label did, so it was up to Mission District micro-indie Good Foot Records to chuck this into the same commercial black hole Big Star folded into. Measured praise from Roberts Palmer and Christgau didn’t help much. Carmaig released three more albums, the last in 2007. One of the pleasures of such an ultra-obscuro reissue as this one is imagining my response had I heard it new back in the day. Back in the Miami Vice era, I scorned rock criticism as frippery imposture, spending most of 1987 in a ganja stupor ablaze on 1960s Memphis and Muscle Shoals r&b. I lived a footloose Lucky Jim lifestyle then and confined myself musically to this retro-soul jones plus whatever contemporary my ears picked up in nightclubs and from the radios of girlfriends. Heard under those halcyon circs, this record could have been my life or at least kicked off a hipster rockist obsession I’d have hectored strangers over until this very vastly vindicating I-told-you-so moment. I’m just as happy to have discovered it this way. Selah.

with it—are everywhere on this album. See: “Growing Up,” with its wrestling between conception and perception, the surrender of one’s self into an accepted pose and the search nonetheless for a true identity and experience.

—Nathan Martel

ZIG ZAGS Live On KXLU 88.9 Nomad Eel Live albums: love ‘em/hate ‘em.

But when it’s done right—and those instances are few and far between—you end up with one of the handful of live records that are worth hearing and owning. Those each have one important thing in common—an unmistakable sense of charm and nuance—and this live recording of Zig Zags at KXLU possesses those essential components in abundance.

Getting a live sound that captures the compelling details of a life performance is no easy task, and engineers Hilary Russel and Robert Douglas do a masterful job here with limited resources. (If you’ve ever worked, volunteered or whatever-ed at a college radio station, you know how that goes!)

Zig Zags are already a fun bunch to see live, and this recording clearly conveys the chemistry of the band, both in their playing and Jed, Dane and Caleb’s banter.

They say it in the liners, but there was somethign special captured here: the band sounds somehow tight and loose at once, playing with tour-tested precision and (high) energy but without stiffness or self-consciousness. It’s music that grabs you by the collar and refuses to release you until you’re a bloody mess, limp in the wake of its onslaught. It’s kinda like being dragged around behind a motorboat after you’ve lost your waterskis. Here Zig Zags deliver a sound that reverberates through the skull, a faithful representation of a live Zig Zags gig with enough scorching acid energy to burn a hole in your throat. Knowing that this played out over the airwaves in Southern California is somehow very comforting.

—Nathan Martel ALBUM REVIEWS

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