L.A. RECORD 131

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MOANING EARTH GIRL HELEN BROWN MORRIS • JACKIE DESHANNON KHRUANGBIN • SHOPPING THE WEDDING PRESENT AND MORE

SPRING 2018 ISSUE 131 • FREE

6 PINKY PINKY JULIA GIBSON

26 MORRIS SENAY KENFE

10 JACKIE DESHANNON DAIANA FEUER

35 SHOPPING EMILY TWOMBLY

16 MOANING BENNETT KOGON

38 EARTH GIRL HELEN BROWN CHRIS ZIEGLER

20 JAPANESE BREAKFAST BENNETT KOGON

42 THE WEDDING PRESENT NATHAN MARTEL

22 KHRUANGBIN DAIANA FEUER

46 E RUSCHA V BEN SALMON E RUSCHA V P 46 PHOTO: STEFANO GALLI

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EDITOR — Chris Ziegler chris@larecord.com PUBLISHER — Kristina Benson kristina@larecord.com EXECUTIVE EDITOR — Daiana Feuer daiana@larecord.com COMICS EDITOR — Tom Child tom@larecord.com FILM EDITOR — Rin Kelly rin@larecord.com DESIGNER — Sarah Bennett sarah@larecord.com ONLINE PHOTO EDITOR — Debi Del Grande debi@larecord.com WRITER AT LARGE — Ron Garmon ron@larecord.com ACCOUNTS AND ADVERTISING Kristina Benson — kristina@larecord.com CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Za ch B i l s o n, Mile s Cle me n t s, Ju lia Gib s o n , Chri s ti na G ub ala, Be n n e t t K ogon , E y ad Ka rk outly, Senay Kenfe, Chris Kissel, Nathan Martel, Ben Salmon, Daniel Sweetland, Morgan Troper, Emily Twombly and Simon Weedn CONTRIBUTING DESIGNERS Kristina Benson, Jun Ohnuki

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pinky pinky Interview bY julia gibson photography by debi del grande

None of the members of L.A.’s Pinky Pinky take themselves the least bit seriously, and their music reflects that—at the heart of their punchy, timeless rock n’ roll sound is a sly sense of humor that’s like catching a private wink from across a crowded room. The band’s newest Hot Tears EP captures the band at their most musically mature point yet, but it’s still just as down to earth and fun as the members themselves. L.A. RECORD asked drummer and singer Anastasia Sanchez, bassist Eva Chambers, and guitarist Isabelle Fields about why they’re not a girl group, how they find humor in everything, and the heartbreak of a drag queen missed connection.

I just watched the video for ‘Margaret.’

The aesthetic was spot-on—as someone who bought and wore Limited Too bandanas and butterfly clips I was like, ‘This is so right.’

Anastasia Sanchez (drums/vocals): The video was the director’s idea initially for another band. We were talking, and she was like ‘I’m doing this crazy video’ and then the next day she called me and was like ‘The band dropped out ... will Pinky Pinky do it?’ I was like, ‘Hell yeah we will!’ We collaborated with her because none of our songs fit a 2000s teen bedroom vibe. We were like, ‘What song could we do?’ Then we realized ‘Margaret’ would be funny because of the twist we put on it—we added that darker aspect.

What is ‘Margaret’ actually about?

AS: I wrote is as a joke about a single mom who is really depressed and reverts to wine and pills as her comfort. You know—she’s one of those wine moms. But basically, she’s just having a fantasy about ... well, it could be about bestiality, about having sex with her cat. But it could also be about her sexual fantasy about another woman.

Eva Chambers (bass): Shooting it was very fun. All we had to do was be our obnoxious selves—just laugh and jump around. We definitely tried to overact and make it funny and fun. A lot of people responded well to that, and a lot of people also didn’t get that it was humorous. They were like, ‘It’s good, but it’s really dark.’

Why did you decide to start a band in the first place? Not everyone in 8th grade does that.

EC: Why DID we decide to start a band?

Isabelle Fields (guitar): I made an Instagram post in 7th or 8th grade, being like, ‘Any bassists and drummers want to be in a band?’ I wanted to start playing music. So many people in L.A. are in bands—I feel like that’s a common thing.

AS: I did play drums throughout my youth, and I wanted to continue that. I wanted to pick up the drums and have something fun to do after school. It’s fun to have a hobby, it’s fun to have something to be excited about.

IF: And an excuse to be with your friends all the time.

EC: I also had a band with my sisters, which deteriorated as we grew up. I really wanted to play bass for some reason. It was a good excuse to learn—bass is a boring instrument to play by yourself. It’s more fun to jam.

That’s how we all learned—we learned a lot together.

Did you start out as a rock band?

EC: When Isabelle and I started playing together, we wanted to be a punk band.

That’s as far as our brains went—really simple stuff.

AS: And then when I joined the band ... didn’t you guys want to be more psychedelic?

EC: It became more poppy. It went from being punk to psychedelic to blues rock to … I don’t know what we are now.

IF: We’re a little taste of everything.

AS: The phases of our music went with the phases we went through in high school. I got really into Cream.

EC: And Rory Gallagher and Taste. I really liked blues because I really liked rock ‘n’ roll, and I wanted to get to the base of that. I feel like a lot of teenagers are trying to emulate a certain kind of genre, and it’s so specific—but it’s easier and more fun to play when you can play whatever you want to and you don’t have to label it.

AS: We created a whole different sound. We experiment a lot with it too.

Do people ever hear your music or see you play and assume you listen to someone that you really don’t? Or maybe that you’re influenced by someone that you haven’t gotten into?

EC: We’ll be compared to bands that we’re like, ‘Oh we didn’t know we sounded like that,’ but I’ve never been taken aback by anything.

AS: We never get compared to bands we don’t like though. One time someone told me that I sound a lot like Kate Bush.

That’s a good compliment.

IF: We’ve been compared to Sleater-Kinney a lot. It’s because they’re an all-girl band.

Your music shows that you’ve grown together. You move from a straight-ahead rock ‘n’ roll sound to some 60s girl-group vibes on ‘Hot Tears,’ and your new EP sounds like a departure from your selftitled EP. AS: We’re just experimenting more—we’re being looser and realizing that we don’t have to label ourselves with any genre. The whole girl-group aspect … we’re not aiming for that. We’re just girls who make music and I don’t think it should be labeled that way.

IF: We’ve grown a lot as musicians since the last EP. That was recorded when we were 16 and 17, and now this is 17 and 18. We’ve grown a lot more and can pick up things differently now—more than we could in high school. So I think we have grown a lot and that shows.

How do you think your creative process works now? Is it different?

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AS: It’s a very different process every single time. Usually I’ll write the melody and lyrics, and Isabelle and Eva will throw down the riff, and Eva will be like, ‘Look, I did this on piano—let’s try this.’

EC: I honestly can’t even say what it is. Last week we wrote a song really fast … in like one practice. Other times we’re writing for over a year and still can’t finish. It always changes so much.

AS: A lot of our songs too … we write as a joke at first. Someone’s strumming the guitar and someone else is singing something stupid over it and then we’re like, ‘Wait ... we could make that a song.’

So one of the lyrics from ‘Margaret’ came from a dream. Where else do you get inspiration?

EC: Where don’t we get inspiration?

IF: We literally get inspiration from anything, from anywhere. We could look at a poster and be inspired. That sounds cheesy, but we think everything is really funny, and that inspires us.

EC: We have the sense of humor of 10year-old boys. We’re just excited about everything.

AS: We don’t take ourselves super seriously.

What we’re doing … it’s not crazy serious.

We didn’t go into this band thinking, ‘OK, we’re going to make records and do this and this.’ We did it for fun, and we’re still trying to stick to that mentality as much as possible.

IF: Right now, it seems like people are trying really hard to fit into a certain genre, and it just comes off really … not arrogant … but a little bit. Why can’t we just have fun and make the music we want to make and write songs about what we want to talk about?

Is there anything that you as a band hate writing about but can’t not write about?

Or maybe something you really want to write about but haven’t found a way to do so yet?

AS: If we write a love song, we like to alter it so it doesn’t sound like a love song, you know? When I write lyrics, I turn my pain into something funny or something really dramatic. It’s hard to not sing about like ‘I love him, but he doesn’t love me...’ I try to make it as dramatic as possible but then turn it into a story about something else, to cover it. I think it’s more fun to tell a story.

Which of the songs on the Hot Tears EP are you the most excited about?

EC: I think ‘Fish Bones’ is pretty exciting.

IF: ‘Fish Bones’ is my favorite too.

EC: We weren’t even going to record it at all.

The guys who record us were like ‘Record it, finish it, make it work!’ and we were trying to finish writing it in the studio. but I really like how it turned out.

AS: When we started writing it—and when we went into the studio with it—there was no chorus at all. I sat outside and wrote a chorus and then came back and recorded it.

It was really spontaneous, but it came out really well. It was about the Salton Sea. The sadness of the Salton Sea. Just California shit.

It’s sad out there.

INTERVIEW

AS: It’s so depressing. It used to be this enchanted resort, and then it all turned to salt. All the fish died.

Are you guys gearing up to tour anytime soon?

EC: Right now we’re just working on our LP! We’re trying to slow down the shows, but we’re picking it back up in April.

You just released the Hot Tears EP and now you’ve got an LP in the works? You’re really churning them out.

AS: The thing about it is that it has taken so much time. Most of the self-titled we wrote in 2015 and recorded in 2016 and then it didn’t get released until 2017. We recorded ‘Hot Tears’ in 2017 and it just came out in February. So it does take a really long time, but with this album, we’re slamming it all together in a shorter amount of time. We’re trying to hone in and buckle down!

EC: What I predict is that it will be a little more rock ‘n’ roll. We’re at the point where we’re trying to do fewer transitions. More straight-forward. Before, we did overthink it a bit. Even with the songs on this EP, there are different transitions. But in the studio, there were more. We had to be told, ‘This is a headache, pull it back—you’re doing too much.’ We’re such slow workers but it’s just because we’re perfectionists.

AS: When we went to record ‘Robber,’ there were so many more breakdowns. Once we took them out, it sounded so much better.

It was too complicated.

Let’s talk gear! What kind of gear do you love, and what’s your current setup?

IF: I have 1978 Les Paul Junior I got in May—it’s my favorite guitar ever. I used to use an SG. I like Gibson a lot. I use an Orange combo amp. I’m trying to get a bigger one to change it up. I use pedals, like the [Ibanez] Tube Screamer. It’s an overdrive—it’s got that ‘oomph’ for when you need a little push. There’s fuzz, and then I have wah pedals. That’s my setup for every show.

EC: I play a 1977 Fender Mustang, also my favorite. Especially cuz I have really small hands. All the Mustangs and the MusicMaster basses are really good for that. So good for small hands. I use an Ampeg Portaflex which is great for shows. The top flips in and there’s a handle so it’s so easy to move. I don’t use pedals because bass pedals are obnoxious.

We just want a punchy sound.

AS: I have a Ludwig Down Beat from 1961. It’s my pride and joy. It’s amazing and beautiful, but also very fragile. One of the shows we played someone put a kick input in, and when I lifted my head up it completely ripped the front, so I have duct tape on it. It’s a beautiful drum set with a big slab of tape. Heads are expensive! I use Aquarian heads and they’re amazing. I try not to travel with my kit a lot because it is so fragile, and when people want to use it, it scares me. It’s precious.

Since the music you make is so irreverent and fun, I’m wondering who you like to listen to?

AS: It’s always the same few artists: Frank Zappa— IF: Big Star.

EC: Yeah, love Big Star.

AS: Everyone’s reading my mind! Todd Rundgren.

EC: And Lady Gaga, Fame Monster album.

It’s got ‘Boys Boys Boys’, ‘Alejandro’...

That is a jam.

EC: Everything’s on there. All the hits.

Why Big Star? Are they just a band that is near and dear to your heart, or are they a big influence on the way you make music?

IF: They definitely influence us. I listen to them all the time, so whatever you listen to influences you. I wish I could play like them. I don’t remember the first time I heard Big Star—it was a long time ago.

AS: They’ve always been around. They are so drastic, but so cool. We like drastic changes.

That makes sense. You can hear that on the EP. Like the jump from ‘Dander’ to ‘Fishbone’, or even just within ‘Fishbone’—the songs vary from each other, or change a lot just within themselves.

EC: It took us a while to figure out. I remember listening to ‘Band on the Run’ my freshman year and being like ‘I want to do that!’ But then it always just sounded like we wrote two songs and smushed them together. It took us a while to figure out how to blend. ‘Hot Tears’ and ‘Fish Bones’ have some big changes.

How did you solve that problem?

AS: We figured it out by practicing.

EC: We practiced until we didn’t have to think about it.

AS: I’m sure while you’re listening to it, it doesn’t sound like a hard transition. But when you’re writing it—when you have the notes in front of you and you’re trying to make it work—it’s so hard.

Who are your band role models? Who do you try to emulate—not just musically, but as people?

EC: Any band—even if I’m not a fan of their music—if I see them perform and they’re so comfortable and happy and not trying too hard. You see so many rock bands that are trying to be, like, hot and pretty while they’re playing. There’s the L..A model bands, who are trying to be hot and pretty. There’s the rocker bands that try to do the Lou Reed persona. But it’s all so tryhard. I really respect and admire bands who can just be silly and be themselves. For the longest time, even now—we’re not crazy brave people onstage, but we’ve gotten a lot more comfortable. When people are just themselves, it’s really charming, and I’m inspired by that.

IF: I don’t really move onstage. I stay stationary, because when I try and move, I mess up. People have always told me, ‘Move around, you’ve got to move around.’ Now at this point, it’s just who I am. If I did try to break out of it, it would just be unnatural.

It’s better to be who you are onstage and not have to try so hard.

EC: People have come up to me after shows and asked me if I’m epileptic, because I’ll roll my eyes to the back of my head and make some weird mouth movements. It’s not even that I’m feeling it so hard, it’s just like, ‘Ow! This hurts!’

AS: When people watch us they’re not like, ‘Aw, they’re so cute and charming.’ They’re like, ‘What the hell are they doing?’ Eva is having a seizure, I’m freaking out, Isabelle is just like an ice sculpture.

EC: People also think we’re really sassy because Isabelle will just be doing her thing, looking down, but Anastasia and I are rolling our eyes naturally all the time.

We’re very focused. Eventually it will feel natural.

AS: We are still getting comfortable playing because honestly, we’re still kids.

EC: My onstage persona is very awkward because like, ‘Do I have to banter? Do I have to have a conversation with the audience?’

I don’t want to do stand-up and be all cute with them.

AS: Our label guys had to tell us that we had to at least thank the audience or tell them who we are. We used to get up there, go through our set, say absolutely nothing, and then get off.

EC: We have gotten way more comfortable, but it’s still fresh.

You’ve been written about in NYLON, VICE, PAPER—what’s it like to go from high school to this kind of press?

EC: First of all we have an amazing PR girl! [laughs] I met Isabelle in 8th grade and Anastasia in 9th grade. We knew each other but we didn’t really hang out. All of our friendships were built on having a band and playing music together. At the same time, we were all growing up with each other and learning at the same pace. It’s special, though. There are a lot of people in bands who don’t have that kind of relationship, so I think we’re very lucky.

I read somewhere that when you were asked who your ideal celebrity roommate would be, one of you said RuPaul.

EC: We’re huge Drag Race fans.

IF: I have three favorites: Sharon, Violet, and Katya. It’s so hard to pick! But those are my faves.

Remember Raja?

IF: Raja is SO beautiful.

I saw Raja at CVS one time.

IF: I ran into Valentina in Echo Park the other day and I lost my shit. I was like ‘Valentina! I love you! You’re my favorite on your season!’ I actually got out of my car and screamed at her.

AS: We were all in Isabelle’s car on Melrose and we were driving and all of a sudden, I was like ‘Isabelle, pull the fuck over—Katya is standing right there!’ So we pulled over into this valet lot, and this guy was like ‘OK, pay me,’ and I was like ‘Oh, actually our friend is just right there! We want to say hi to our friend.’ He wouldn’t let us park there without paying, and as I was haggling with this guy, I watched Katya get into her Uber and leave. It was hard. We were pissed.

PINKY PINKY ON SAT., JUNE 16, AT THE ECHO, 1822 SUNSET BLVD., ECHO PARK. 5:30 PM / $10-$12 / ALL AGES. THEECHO. COM. PINKY PINKY’S HOT TEARS EP IS OUT NOW ON INNOVATIVE LEISURE. VISIT PINKY PINKY AT PINKYPINKYTHEBAND.COM. 9

JACKIE DESHANNON Interview bY DAIANA FEUER ILLUSTRATION by BIJOU KARMAN

Jackie DeShannon spent December and January of 1970-71 with producer Chips Moman and his house band the Memphis Boys at American Studios in Tennessee, recording songs for what should have been her first album for Capitol Records. She had just signed with the label after a decade at Liberty/Imperial, where she had mostly been relegated to writing hits for other artists—she was one of the first and most sought-after female songwriters of the early rock ‘n’ roll period. Although she has penned songs that have stood the test of time—including “What The World Needs Now,” “Put A Little Love In Your Heart,” “Bette Davis Eyes” for Kim Carnes—and although she was the first to record “Needles And Pins” in 1963, she had so many more incredible songs, some unheard until now.

Capitol ended up shelving most of the Memphis recordings, instead bringing her to Hollywood to record what became her 1971 album Songs before she moved over to Atlantic after a chance encounter with executive Jerry Wexler on a plane. To make a wonderfully long story short, her new album, Stone Cold Soul: The Complete Capitol Sessions, brings together all the masters she recorded in that year both in L.A. and Memphis. But there’s so much more to this woman’s fascinating history. She opened for the Beatles on their infamous 1964 U.S. tour, wrote songs for (and dated) Jimmy Page when he was just known as a talented session guitarist, and was friends with some of the most important artists of her time—but always she remained humble and unwilling to sell-out for a cheap shot at fame.

How does it feel to see these recordings finally come out after … what? Fortyseven years?

Wonderful! Jim Pierson has been helping me out for many years on trying to get some of my product in the marketplace—so it doesn’t just look like I have a career of just a CD at the car wash with ‘What The World Needs Now,’ ‘Needles And Pins,’ and ‘Put A Little Love In Your Heart.’ This album is really critical for me because—with the liner notes—it helps the listener understand the different genres in my background, and where my career started. It’s got all the things that I grew up with and I’m so happy people can listen to it. I’m especially fond of ‘Isn’t It A Pity,’ the George Harrison song, and the blues things and the country things. I’m over the moon to see it released.

Back in the day, marketing was limited to a certain few artists. Al Bennett, who owned Liberty Records at the time, was very 10

excited to have me write songs for other people, so I didn’t get any sort of marketing dollars for me as a singer or anything else.

It was a tough time for being a woman artist back then. You needed to always have a gentleman in the studio to record with you, because you couldn’t possibly make a record by your lonesome. I had been doing all my demos, producing them, hiring the musicians, arranging them, mixing them.

We used to go in on Friday nights to do mixing. We’d cut four songs, and I’d have an hour to record each song, sing it, mix it, and get it done. So I had a lot of producing experience but it was difficult to move ahead at that time.

Did you learn to produce just being in the studio?

Back then we didn’t have a gazillion tracks and all the goodies that they have today. It was much more organic, I think. I had been in studios with musicians all my life so I

just picked it up. I had a radio show when I was really young. I had a lot of experience.

I always had an engineer but the arranging, getting it all together, knowing what sound I wanted for the demo—that was easy for me. If you had good singers and musicians, it didn’t take a lot to make it sound good.

They got the songs immediately and then the engineer would mix the tracks, with me saying yes or no. I just had the best musicians to work with so there wasn’t a lot of need to decide on things when you have that luxury.

When you showed demos to the label and producers, did it ever seem like they made changes just for the sake of changing things since the ideas came from a woman?

I do. I absolutely do. But the fact that they were taking my songwriting seriously in any capacity was worth it to keep going. Writing has always been my number one thing.

Having the opportunity to go in the studio and produce demos was the reward in itself.

Today a woman can go in and do whatever she wants. You go in with leverage. I didn’t have that. It’s wonderful to see all the great talented women producing and writing, having their vision the way they want it in the marketplace. I was the only woman that I knew in Los Angeles at the time that was producing on a regular basis. There was the Brill Building in New York and all those writers there but I lived in L.A. so what I did was, I feel, pretty unique at the time. All I ever wanted was for my record company to let me record an album of my songs and let me produce it, but that wasn’t in the cards. So having no leverage, I did what I could to stay in the mix. I did have ‘Put A Little Love In Your Heart,’ which I feel is one of the most important songs I’ve ever written. That was a great reward and I’m still shocked as I look back that I was INTERVIEW

even allowed to sing it. I had hits with other artists, but it would have been nice if the record company had a vision of me having those hits. I come from an interesting background of all kinds of music, all genres, but many of the critics would say ‘How can you record ‘What The World Needs Now’ and then you have ‘Needles And Pins…’ and this and that? You have to stay in one lane.’

It was very difficult to accept that vision on their part. Truly they weren’t in tune with what people are now. These days people are so well informed with the internet and all our technology. Now you can put your own records out—you can be the artist you want to be without any extracurricular activities from record companies.

But still—the people who push limits and move things forward, they’re not necessarily the ones who will get the most success. Producers take what they like from the fringe and then apply it to major artists.

That’s true and you’re dead right on that. It’s all about marketing. It’s how much money they’re going to spend on you as an artist.

That’s the downside. It’s very sad to me that it still goes on. Why don’t they spend the money on the people who are original? The ones with the vision? We still go through that, which is amazing in this day and age.

Money and marketing and whoever they think they can get the most out of, they will. Had I been fortunate enough to work with a John Hammond type of person, none of this would have been a problem. He would have understood immediately what I was about. Luckily for those people who recorded for Columbia at the time, many of them didn’t have the first hit album, they didn’t have the second hit album, they didn’t have the third album, but on the fourth album—through marketing and reaching people and explaining who the artists were and how they did it—they became superstars. I just fell into that hole, where I didn’t have a Hammond to mentor me.

Sometimes it takes a few albums for people to understand and get to know who you are.

It’s all about how you’re presented. I do feel sad sometimes but I don’t have sour grapes because I was very lucky to work with the best of the best of the top gun musicians.

I had many people that have gone on to be superstars in their own right. Through the combination of all of us—these people from Oklahoma, Chicago, Nashville—all of this put in a pie was something that was one of a kind, lassoing all these amazing artists on one session. There aren’t many people who can duplicate what they added to the recordings.

You championed several artists before they were ‘stars,’ so to speak. Bob Dylan, Van Morrison…

I wanted to be the first to record a whole album of Dylan songs but the label didn’t think he had ‘it.’ Can you believe that? This was in his early days. I would do a promo tour and meet the program director and go out to dinner, and I would say, ‘Have you heard Astral Weeks?’ ‘Oh, no, we haven’t heard that.’ ‘Well, come on back because I listen to it all the time.’ So I’d play them the album and they couldn’t believe that 12

was the same Van Morrison that was on the Top 40. It blew them out of the water.

Anyone I saw that was great, I would get on the phone and call radio stations and say, ‘Why aren’t you playing this? You need to get on board.’ I heard these artists way in the beginning on their careers, and I was lucky in that respect. And they became big stars, or whatever it’s called nowadays.

I think it’s still ‘big stars.’

Good! Not only big stars but they were very important in shaping the course of music.

I think a lot of that came from how people grew up. We don’t have thriving small towns anymore. That organic grittiness that a lot of these people came from was very important to the music—that ‘wanting to get out.’

Is that true to your own experience?

Of course. Being raised on a farm in Kentucky, experiencing country music and folk music. My grandmother was from Scotland and she used to play these great folk songs with fingerpicking, which I loved. My mother’s side of the family was all classical. My aunt taught piano. That family came from jazz and classical. I had a big pot of goodies around all the time.

Unfortunately I couldn’t find a way to get those important items in my life into a newspaper or any sort of advertising to help the listener understand me as an artist. The label didn’t spend the money. They didn’t market it. You can say you have a record all night long, but if people don’t know what you’re doing and what you’re about, they don’t get it. If critics are all saying ‘Oh what’s your direction? You should be on this one path…’ It’s the difference between being with a John Hammond or being with people who are not schooled in the things that you know. People I talk to today, I don’t have to explain my origins. People are more enlightened about all different genres of music. In the UK, you could have a folk record, a blues record, all kinds of things on the charts as the same artist. If people liked you, they’d come see you no matter whether you have a Top 10 record or not. Now with technology it’s easy, but we were limited then. All the magazines would be vying for the same interview. Your record came out and someone really well known came out with a record at the same time—well, how far do you think you’re going to get your record? Back then they only added a couple records at a time to Top 40 stations. But at least you could hear a variety of music.

It wasn’t locked into a corporate playlist.

Today it’s whatever corporate wants you to think and whatever they want you to hear.

It’s controlled by big companies that own the radio stations—they own the artist basically. If you sell a t-shirt, they get part of it. If you write a song they get part of it. If you’re the publisher they get part of it. If you put out a perfume they get part of it. There’s a lot of 360 deals. Not long ago I saw Pink on Saturday Night Live and she sang ‘What About Us’ and I looked like Alfalfa! My hair stood straight up. She’s a soulful artist but I had never heard her like that. It was great. So elegant. No fire machines, no bubbles, no accoutrement.

She was so soulful and she has that grit.

When you come from that, it shows.

There’s something organic. Everybody knows it now, but when the Beatles first hit no one knew the hours that they’d played in the clubs in Germany. They were tight for a reason. It wasn’t just four guys in suits and mop-tops that suddenly just appeared.

They came up the hard way. We all saw it with Elvis Presley first. Colonel Parker was a genius at getting that job done. Very few artists had bobbing dolls and posters.

Back then only very few received that. The Beatles were number one all over the world except in the U.S.—and they had a hard time at the beginning. They put out records on several different labels before Capitol.

You got to rub shoulders with some of the most important artists in music history.

The Everly Brothers, Elvis, the Beatles, Jimmy Page—when someone like George Harrison showed admiration for you as an artist, did that give you confidence to know you were on the right path?

Well, it gives you all the confidence in the world! It’s amazing what happens to your psyche. To sit in that company and they ask you to play a song of yours and ‘How did you do that?’ and ‘What was the demo like?’ It’s amazing. And you go on that.

Those are the things that give you life and keep you going. I remember when George came and sat across from me on the plane during tour and asked me to play ‘When You Walk In The Room’ and wanted to know the guitar riff. I was pretty shaky but it was such an exciting time for me. I was very fortunate to know some of these great artists. My favorite thing is not only to see their success, but to have known them early on, and to hear those songs when they were new, right before they broke to major fame, to know that what I felt was what everyone else was going to feel.

Sounds like you should have gone into A&R too.

You know, that would have been a great thing! I should have. I would’ve been good at it. But it’s so hard to jam everything into your life. I’ve had some great experiences.

I’m very fortunate to have been part of this moment in time. I miss that earliness, that moment ‘just before.’ I miss hearing a variety of music on a radio station. The days before ‘If I’m not booking your tour, I’m not putting you on the radio.’ It all got very slick, and it’s only gotten more rigid.

It makes it all so predictable. There’s not a lot of room for new artists to get airplay anymore. You can be on the Internet for a thousand years and not hear everybody.

But the radio … its all the same thing everywhere. I think—and hope—the future is in alternative radio on the web. That’s where people can get exposure.

Otherwise everybody is just hearing the same fifty songs.

If you’re listening to the radio, that’s all you get. I think young people want to hear good music that doesn’t have a time limit. What, are we going to say that Charlie Parker isn’t good because it isn’t current? We aren’t going to like Ella Fitzgerald because she isn’t playing the Forum this week? Young people are branching out, saying ‘Hey, I don’t want my music dictated to me.’

Despite the negative side of streaming websites in terms of artist compensation, the thing in itself is great. It really allows you to go on deep explorations of music that you might not ever find otherwise.

Exactly. I’m hopeful about that. And I do think there should be some kind of way people could get their deserved recognition.

There’s so many great blues people that aren’t in the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame.

People have based their careers on their music and copied their songs and they’re not there and that’s wrong. People like Elizabeth Cotten—where is her pedestal? It always makes me sad when I think of it. I know what people built their career on. I was there. And if you put a good looking person on a stage playing that style—and those people aren’t around anymore to be vouched for—why would you go back and listen and try to find where they came from?

But you should. You need to go back and listen and find out who sang it first. Who did it in the 1930s? Robert Johnson.

The whole industry is built on taking music from people and putting it in a different package. All of music history tells that story.

That’s why I cherish the musicians and people that I got to work with and the opportunities I had to make these records.

They’re so full of all the talent that everyone brought to the table. You get a pot running over of organic music. You can’t write a solo guitar part that Glen Campbell or James Burton is going to take. You just say, ‘solo here.’ You can’t write that down and you can’t buy it. They bring that stuff—the playing style based on their experiences from all over the country. I was one of the lucky ones that was there at the right time to get in the room with them.

What was it like to perform on a show like American Bandstand in the early 1960s with the lip-syncing to a camera? Did you have to come up with a way of dancing without moving from your mark?

It’s true! You had to be creative with your moves and stay in a fixed place. They usually had one camera and there wasn’t a lot of production so you better stay there because they can’t move with you. It’s not like the Jools Holland show. These ladies, the director and producer, they just kill me with the wonderful films they do for artists.

The shots are killer—and how they do each artist to make them shine! But back then, it was still fabulous. First, you were so grateful to be on the show because loads of people were watching. You had an opportunity to give a little special look and feeling to what they’re hearing. It was really fun.

Everyone did Dick Clark. I loved doing it.

That doesn’t mean you go out and lip-sing a whole concert like they do today. Does anybody sing really today? I can hardly tell. There’s so many tracks being shoved in the song. It’s for some people and OK on certain things but I prefer going to concerts where people are actually singing. It’s easier to perform on stage when you don’t have to worry about the notes or what you have to give the song.

How about when you were dropped by helicopter into a foxhole in Vietnam?

INTERVIEW

Oh, you’ve done some digging! When I was doing the USO tour, of course we did regularly planned shows but at some point they asked if anyone wanted to go up in the helicopter and be dropped in a foxhole where they never had entertainment because they couldn’t leave where they were. I said, ‘I’ll go.’ Now that I think about I don’t know what I was thinking! I remember I asked them, ‘When do I get picked up?’ And they said, ‘Whenever Charlie moves too close.’

Oh my God! On top of that we could’ve been shot down at any time. There was no, ‘Don’t go this way. You’ll be in trouble.’

There was no signs, that’s for sure. But I took my little guitar and dressed up like the girl next door. I didn’t want anything plunging.

Just dresses with flowers and whatnot. I didn’t want to do something sexy. That didn’t feel right for me. I still get mail from some of the guys I met, emails and photos.

It was very interesting. I just wanted to do something to bring their spirits up. I didn’t want to represent anything that could be questioned.

You weren’t doing some Marilyn Monroe thing.

No, no, no. I wish I had a photograph. I dressed very modest. I went at life with ‘This is who I am. Don’t be asking any questions.

This is my talent. This is what I do. This is me. Don’t be going into these other areas.’

I just grew up that way. ‘If you’re interested in ‘that’ then you’re not interested in me.’

What I would love to see—±this has long been on my mind—I received an award about ten years back from Pioneer Woman, a show in Boston that honors twenty women per year. There was one woman who started a company for handicapped people to be able to visit the forest, places where no one helped them go to because of their disability. And this other woman, she was the head surgeon at the Dana Farber Institute in Boston. She looked like a Vogue model. She was brilliant. But was she on the cover of Time or Newsweek? No. She wasn’t wearing a low-cut dress so no one was interested. There’s nothing wrong with lowcut dresses—they’re fine. But they weren’t interested in who she was and the good work she was doing. She was educated. She was saving lives. And to me she should be the role model that everyone knows about.

I don’t see our female engineers being marketed towards young girls as a way of life. Where are they? Am I wrong?

It’s still an uphill battle but people are working on changing that. I mean—look at all the women coming out against sexual harassment.

And that’s brilliant. And how many decades upon decades, all the way back, has this been an issue. For so long women had to remain silent or you would lose your job or won’t get the opportunity you need. It’s a mess.

Did you have to deal with anything like that yourself?

Yes. But I got through it. It was a necessary thing. Necessary in the sense that yes, I was exposed to a lot of different things, but I was not a person who would—that’s why they would call me ‘difficult. ‘The producers would say, ‘She’s so difficult, she’s really a INTERVIEW

problem in the studio.’ Yeah, I’m a problem because I’m not doing exactly what you want me to do. That’s the problem. I tried and did a lot to go against the grain. And that’s probably one of the reasons I didn’t get the attention other people got. I wasn’t interested. I was working. I was making records. There was no thinking about us. So many women are seen as objects. I just hope and pray some of these magazines that are so important will get on the bandwagon …

They say, ‘Oh, it won’t sell magazines.’ Well, you don’t give them the opportunity to sell.

You need to put the stories inside. Your head surgeons, your head engineers, all the women who are the best and the brightest, I don’t see them. Do you see them?

I look for them.

You look for them. I’ll look for them. But it’s not right in front of you every day. I just want there to be alternatives for young women. I don’t see enough of the ‘other’ to help them decide. Give them the options of what to do and how to be. And then it’s perfectly fine and it’s great and you don’t have to be bullied because you don’t weigh 89 pounds. Those are the things that run across my mind. You can imagine how it was when I was out there. It was really hard. But I’m also not interested in trashing people. That, to me, is tacky.

I agree with that to an extent, but someone has to speak up.

I think people fall on their own merit.

Eventually they get what they deserve. I didn’t grow up that way. Our childhood has a great deal of impact on who we eventually turn out to be. If you grow up with animals and all the stuff I did on the farm, it teaches you a certain way of being, and then it’s very hard to do things that you don’t feel good about. As Brian Wilson says, ‘Be true to your school.’ I always thought that was the greatest line. To me that meant the school of my soul. I have to be true to my soul. I trust that more than anything. I hope that what you instinctively feel, what’s comfortable for you, what feels right, is the best thing for you. And when things ‘go against the grain,’ as they would say in the South, when you feel it in your gut, that’s when you get in trouble because that’s not what you’re about. And that’s what has made it hard for women. In the past people were not that interested in what women were about—as opposed to what they could take. We have a long way to go but we’re beginning to see the light. Which is so remarkable. All these women speaking out and supporting each other and saying, ‘OK, that’s enough of that.’ And hopefully that will just spread into the next situation and the next situation. In the workplace, they’re having to take a long hard look at what makes women uncomfortable. It’s not a big man’s party anymore—say anything, do anything. And when you haven’t gone through that, you don’t know how it feels.

But things are changing, and it’s good.

JACKIE DESHANNON’S STONE COLD SOUL: THE COMPLETE CAPITOL RECORDINGS IS OUT NOW ON REAL GONE. VISIT JACKIE DESHANNON AT JACKIEDESHANNON.COM.

MOANING Interview by bennett kogon PHOTOGRAPHY by jeff fribourg

Moaning might look familiar to you. Over the past ten years, musicians Sean Solomon, Pascal Stevenson, and Andrew MacKelvie have been active members of the local music and arts community built around DIY venues like the Smell and Pehrspace.

Playing in such illustrious local bands as Moses Campbell, Heller Keller, and Shit Giver, the three eventually (re)combined their years of experience in the Los Angeles scene by forming the post-punk project Moaning. Demonstrating yet again that great art can indeed rise from the underground, Moaning’s self-titled debut was released last week on the legendary Sub Pop Records.

Portions of this interview originally aired on KXLU. You guys have known each other for a long time.

Sean Solomon: I think maybe twelve years?

Pascal Stevenson: We met in high school.

SS: Taft High School in the Valley. Ice Cube went to Taft also.

PS: His son O’Shea Jackson was there while we were there. Lisa Kudrow even went there.

SS: We’re not trying to brag. In L.A. we meet a lot of celebs, you know.

PS: Also Fez from ‘That ‘70s Show.’

That’s your biggest claim to fame right there.

PS: Wilmer Valderrama, also of ‘Yo Momma’ fame.

SS: What a problematic character he was.

PS: Was he just a Latino dude that they called Fez because they weren’t sure like what kind of foreign exchange student he was? Did they ever specify where he was from?

SS: I think that was the joke.

PS: He’s brown so therefore he’s called Fez and it’s the 70s and we’re racist!

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Moaning has been around for longer than I thought it was—I saw on your Facebook page that you posted a photo in 2014.

SS: Wow, you must be a detective. I didn’t even know we were a band then. Someone must have made it for us before we started playing.

PS: I wouldn’t be surprised if we actually made a Facebook page before we had ever played a show. You know, the internet age.

Sean Solomon: We made a Facebook page in hopes that someone would come to our first show, I think.

You both have played together in several other bands—Moses Campbell being one of them. Why do you think Moaning is the one that’s really stuck with people?

PS: After the other band fell apart, I think we just knew what to do right this time.

When we started Moaning, we had more of a plan of attack or something?

SS: We learned a lot from the other bands.

It’s good to always keep trying. We’d been playing together for ten years and eventually INTERVIEW

“I work out eight hours a day. I drink egg yolks. I watch an entire season of ‘Seinfeld’ as I lift weights. And by the end of the season, I’m throbbing.” something had to happen. We didn’t really plan to have a new band. It’s not like we were like ‘Oh, we’re gonna stop this other band so we can succeed.’ [But] I do think starting a new band really helped. A lot of people are afraid to start over, but it’s nice to have something fresh and new.

PS: It’s easier for people to get excited about something new as opposed to a band that’s been playing for like eight years and still hasn’t done anything.

SS: Our old band started when I was fourteen. By the time we were in our early twenties, people had already made their assumptions based on how we performed as little kids. With the new project, we just took our experiences from playing with other bands for so long and applied them to this new one. I think that’s why people are paying attention—that and because it’s way better. All of the songs [on the Moaning record] were written over the course of a year. I had gone through a few different things in my life, so during that year I had a lot of pessimistic thoughts. I think a lot of people our age feel apathetic toward love and all these different concepts that feel like they are changing from day to day. I hope that other people can relate to the music in their own way. For me, making music is therapeutic and helps me reflect on ideas that I’ve had. Even listening to the album today, I’m becoming way more critical of myself now that the statements are permanent.

You guys are putting out a record on Sub Pop. That’s pretty wild for any band.

What was that experience like? You know, selling your life away and all that.

SS: Well, we signed in blood. Which was weird. I didn’t know that’s how they do it over there.

PS: Apparently everybody does that nowadays.

Was that a record label where you were like, ‘Yeah! Nirvana!’

PS: I keep finding records that I forgot were on Sub Pop. That’s the funny thing about them is that they have such an expansive catalog and they’ve been around for so long.

You say Sub Pop to different people and their response is completely different. Like some people are stoked on Modest Mouse, and others who like Nirvana or clipping. …

Their discography is so wild.

SS: Going to the Sub Pop office is like going to Disneyland. They have such cool art everywhere. Like Kurt Cobain’s signature and all that stuff. The first time we played in Seattle, a bunch of the people who work there came to the show. One of them was Jonathan [Poneman], who is one of the guys who started Sub Pop. He’s met like everybody who’s ever been on that label and there’s photos of him with Kurt and stuff. I guess he doesn’t go to shows very often, but he came to ours. I was too nervous to go 18

talk to him and then he was gone before I could see if he liked our set. I thought, ‘Oh no, he hated it. We’re a bunch of losers.’ The next day at their office he was like ‘Man, it was sick. I wanna come see it again.’ He’s seen like every cool band and I basically play guitar because of that label, so it was pretty cool.

When Moaning signed to Sup Pop, it almost felt like it was a major accomplishment for a larger part of the Los Angeles music scene, too—like something a lot of people could be proud of. Did it feel like that to you guys?

SS: Well, it definitely felt like a major accomplishment to us. But we wouldn’t have gotten there if so many people in the music community hadn’t helped us get there.

PS: It’s hard to speak for other people because we are trying to figure it out for ourselves as well. I remember when No Age signed to Sub Pop, or when other bands that we know from L.A. had signed to bigger labels or done really cool things—that was really inspiring for us. It made us feel like … that maybe it could be us one day. And now that we’ve had a moment, I hope the same thing for a generation of kids who are growing up making music and going to shows. Like maybe they saw us play and got inspired to do their own thing. And then maybe someday their band could be doing something cool as well.

SS: There are so many creative people who don’t have their music out there because they don’t believe that it’s worth the attention. I think anyone making art in L.A. deserves to have their voice heard as much as ours.

To me, the most interesting work is from the people whose voices haven’t been heard as much. Those perspectives are the most unique because we haven’t heard them before. Right now, there’s a ton of great music and art being made—it’s just who’s lucky enough to find the people who will make it accessible. Hopefully a more diverse range of people are being recognized for what they are making in the future.

Are there bands that you hope will be ‘next in line’ for that kind of recognition?

SS: I’ve been really into Lunchlady. That’s a band that I really get behind. Also Cat Scan from L.A. I don’t know—there’s so much great stuff out there that it’s hard to pick just one thing.

PS: I’m really stoked on everybody that just got signed to Sub Pop. Like all of our ‘recent’ labelmates are really exciting to me.

Since we’re on the label now, we’re looking at their roster a little bit more. Downtown Boys are great. And Jo Passed who just signed to Sub Pop. And Yuno. All that stuff we’re really excited about. They’ve been signing a really rad and diverse group of artists, which I think is commendable.

Every song on the new record seems to refer to another person—a lot of the hypothetical ‘you,’ almost as if you are in a conversation within your own lyrics.

Who is this person that Moaning keeps talking to?

SS: I think I’m constantly swapping out pronouns without even thinking about them. I think sometimes by saying ‘you,’ I’m really referring to myself. Like, I’m talking to myself or something. Obviously, there are people that inspire the record, but I don’t think it’s worth digging too deep into some sort of a narrative. The band name sort of dictated this first record, and in a lot of ways I think it’s a somewhat of a thesis statement. It’s more about the duality of the name ‘Moaning.’ Much of our lyrics are about how love and pain are connected.

And sometimes those two are mistaken for one other. The music is both harsh and sort of lush at the same time. I think everything on this first record is about juxtaposition and learning about yourself by comparing yourself to others.

I saw the music video that you made yourselves where you tear up an abandoned building. Do you hope to keep working on more than just the the musical aspects of the band?

SS: We made our album cover ourselves. It’s of a window and inside it is like a cracked reflection. We were really adamant about using practical effects, so it’s actually a mirror that was decorated as a window and then hung from fishing line in the sky. It has a ‘Twilight Zone’ sort of surrealist, kind of disorienting look to it.

PS: It was photographed. Hashtag ‘No Photoshop.’

SS: Haters will say it’s Photoshopped.

We went to art school, so we got kinda pretentious about it. We went a little HAM on the album art ourselves. I was actually thinking about it recently and I’m excited for when there’s the ‘DIY Store’ at the mall.

Like the clothes will have paint splattered on them.

PS: I think there’s a DIY Channel. I like the phrase ‘Do it Yourself ’ in relation to moms making little crafts at home. Or refinishing the deck or something.

SS: DIY’s the new indie though, it’s the new sound.

It’s a bunch of people who like, plug their guitars in themselves and tune them or whatever! What do you think is going on with rock & roll nowadays?

SS: We’re getting paid actually to make music by the government because they’re trying to distract everyone from what’s really going on.

What is really going on?

SS: I don’t know. But I do know they’re tracking you with your phone. They’re listening to everything you say and they’re

figuring out what kind of soap you like, so they can sell it to you.

There’s something that’s been on my mind since we sat down to talk face-toface. It’s kind of silly because I know the people reading this will only be able to visualize what I’m talking about. But I have to ask—Sean, what’s up with those muscles, man?

SS: Oh, I’m so glad you noticed. I work out eight hours a day. I drink egg yolks. I watch an entire season of ‘Seinfeld’ as I lift weights. And by the end of the season, I’m throbbing.

PS: You’re laughing so hard, that’s how you get those rock-hard abs.

SS: Today I didn’t want to look too good, which is why I’m wearing this silly hat.

I know it was kind of weird to roll up in this Cat in the Hat top hat. I primarily just wore it to distract from the fact that my back is all bandaged up because I just got this tattoo of these wings. It was hard for the tattoo artist because there are so many abs on my back.

PS: Back abs?

SS: I’ve got two necks on my guitar. One is my guitar and the other is the neck of a bird that I murdered for dinner. Because I’m that manly.

Are you flexing right now or is that just how your muscles look?

SS: No, that’s my body. Sorry my voice is so low and masculine. There’s nothing I can do. Being macho is cool again. Also, should we tell everyone that we’re lying?

I think we should keep it the way it is. I noticed that your drummer Andrew isn’t here. Is there nything you want to say so people have something to remember him by?

SS: Well, he wets the bed. Not as many abs as me … I’m just joking. He’s actually my favorite drummer. I don’t know a lot about drums. They’re a different kind of person. If there are drummers reading this I’m in trouble, but I feel drummers are like the skateboarders of music. They’re just like ‘Look what I can do. Check THIS out.’ Guitar players are more interested in melody and stuff like that.

PS: You mean they’re nerds!

SS: Melody to me feels like, they’re writers.

Like, ‘I need to go to Starbucks and write.’

And the drummer’s outside saying ‘Watch this kickflip.’

PS: Oh, I write songs at Starbucks for sure.

MOANING WITH PREOCCUPATIONS ON THURS., MAY 17, AND FRI., MAY 18, AT THE ECHO, 1822 SUNSET BLVD., ECHO PARK. 8:30 PM / $15-$18 / 18+. THEECHO.COM. MOANING’S SELF-TITLED FULL-LENGTH IS OUT NOW ON SUB POP. VISIT MOANING AT MOANING.BANDCAMP.COM. INTERVIEW

japanese breakfast Interview by BENnett kogon illustration by kelly abeln

Formerly the frontwoman of Philadelphia emo band Little Big League, Japanese Breakfast’s Michelle Zauner began her solo career as an experiment in songwriting and self-expression. Her first record Psychopomp was a response to losing her mother to cancer—an album where making music was a method of healing. Critics responded with great enthusiasm, which helped land Zauner a deal with Dead Oceans, and her 2017 follow-up Soft Sounds from Another Planet is in the running for one of the best indie rock records of last year.

You have one of the best homecoming shows I’ve ever seen—opening for Belle & Sebastian at the Oregon Zoo Amphitheatre.

I don’t know how you could top a show at a zoo—is there anywhere better you’d want to play next?

This has been a pretty amazing year for me.

In December, I was able to play in Seoul, Korea, which is where I was born and where my mom’s family is from. My aunt was able to come see me and it was really special for me to speak a little Korean and perform there. Almost more special to me in a way was to play the Crystal Ballroom in Portland, which is where I saw all the bands that really shaped me as an artist. Like, the first show I saw there was Built to Spill when I was a teenager. And then to play that stage is totally bonkers. I also used to work coatcheck at this venue in Philadelphia called Union Transfer. I never thought I would get to headline a room like that and we are going to be there at the beginning of June. I don’t know if I have many more goals after that—I guess I can pretty much retire after this year.

Your first record Psychopomp was written about the emptiness you felt after the trauma of losing your mother. What is your newest Soft Sounds from Another Planet about? How did it feel to write?

I wrote Psychopomp two months after my mom passed away. Some of it was reused material that was written before she passed away, and some of it was material that I wrote specifically about that experience. In a lot of the songs there was an outpouring of raw emotion and confusion. I don’t think I really understood how to feel. It was just stating the very core of where I was at the time. It was definitely a way for me to compartmentalize those emotions because I found it really difficult to communicate with other people what I was going through. I really didn’t have any expectations for Psychopomp—that was very much a record I wrote for myself.

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It was really a surprise when it garnered a lot of press. It was my first record that did well commercially, or whatever. When it was time to write Soft Sounds, I had a label, I had a deadline, and I had a lot more expectation.

At first, I wanted to distance myself from my personal experiences, so I went into it thinking I was going to write a science fiction musical. The song “Machinist” was the first song I wrote for it and it’s quite different than the rest of the record. I quickly realized it didn’t feel fulfilling for me at the time to continue with that narrative. I still felt like I had a lot to say about what I went through and it felt phony to just pretend that I’m not gonna write about my mom dying under tragic circumstances. It was really a huge part of my life. I’m probably going to write about those experiences forever. [Right now] I find myself really wanting to create something that’s very dramatically different. I want the follow-up to sound very melodramatic and kind of theatrical. I’ve been listening to a lot of Nine Inch Nails, so I really want it to be like Homogenic meets Pretty Hate Machine, with this kind of gothic industrial-vibe to it.

As soon as I say that, you know … ‘it sounds great!’ But once I sit down and try to write material like that, it doesn’t really go well!

That’s the general idea, but right now I’m just trying to write a lot and see what comes naturally. I hope for this next album that I have the opportunity to just take more time and explore different directions. I want to write a lot of material and be able to gain the perspective of having 30 or 40 songs to pick from, which is something I’ve never really done before.

You’ve said you can use your music as a kind of meditation—how does that work?

It’s self-meditative in the sense that it’s very intuitive music. Especially with this project—I kind of started it as a way to express myself quite directly. It all began with a cassette release called June. I had written and recorded really lo-fi and shitty songs

for thirty days—every day for the month of June. No matter what I had going on that day, I would have to put out a song. I think it was an exercise in forgiveness and just sort of a way to let my subconscious wander. It came with a lot of really great material and it was a new way of writing for me that was different from what I had been doing with my old band, Little Big League. I think the very beginnings of all my songs come from an intuitive and honest place. I’ve always written music that was really personal and in that way, this has been a way for me to meditate on my life.

Has your relationship with music changed since you’ve become a musician? And as you’ve gone from a DIY musician to the festival circuit and having label backing?

I feel a lot more competent and confident as a musician. I’ve always felt good about what I was making, but I think everyone feels a little nervous and possesses some self-doubt about their work. I’m definitely a lot more capable than I thought I was. I feel much more confident, especially as a producer and an arranger of music. I wasn’t really brought up in an environment where I was allowed to feel that way. I don’t think I’ve been able to fully enjoy the feeling that I’m good at this thing that I love until the last couple of years.

That’s been really nice.

The proportion of Asian-American women within rock music is very small—have you ever felt there wasn’t a place for you?

I don’t know—I have complicated feelings about it. I don’t know if I’ve felt that way as a woman as much as I’ve felt that way as a human being. I think everyone feels selfdoubt as a creative person, especially being raised in a family where that wasn’t really a valued or promising profession. I think many people are raised to believe that it’s a very lucky and unique position to find yourself as an artist that can support oneself. I think there was more concern about that than being a woman. In a lot of ways, I grew up feeling

excited to assert myself in arenas that felt male-dominated. I felt much more like that about other interests than I have with music.

I was an avid chess player in elementary school and there are very, very few female chess players. I got used to inserting myself into male-dominated arenas—it excited me more than it intimidated me.

Your work as a solo musician is very much a direct transmission of yourself and your emotions, and you take a very handson approach to your other work, too, like your music videos. How is working with image different than working with sound?

I just really fell in love with directing last year. Most of it came from having a really amazing collaborator. I’ve made seven videos with the same director of photography— Adam Kolodny. He’s an amazing talent and honestly pushed me into the role of a director. That gave me the confidence to take something like this on. I’ve been writing music for twelve years now and at this point my progress feels much smaller. Everything that I direct now, I can feel great leaps of progress where I learn so much from project to project. When it comes to music, I’ve been doing it for so long that it’s much more subtle how I’ve grown. I’m still very much a beginner when it comes to directing, so I look forward to where it takes me.

JAPANESE BREAKFAST WITH SNAIL MAIL AND AND AND AND ON TUE., APR. 17, AT THE ROXY, 9009 SUNSET BLVD., WEST HOLLYWOOD. 8 PM / SOLD OUT / ALL AGES. AND ON SAT., JUNE 23, AT THE GLASS HOUSE, 200 W. 2ND ST., POMONA. 8 PM / $16$18 / ALL AGES. THEGLASSHOUSE. US. JAPANESE BREAKFAST’S SOFT SOUNDS FROM ANOTHER PLANET IS AVAILABLE NOW FROM DEAD OCEANS.VISIT JAPANESE BREAKFAST AT JAPANESEBREAKFAST.ROCKS. INTERVIEW

KHRUANGBIN Interview by DAIANA FEUER ILLUSTRATION BY JULIETTE TOMA

Let’s just get this out of the way: it’s pronounced ‘krung-bin.’ And the word roughly translates to ‘airplane’ in Thai. Formed in Texas over burgers, beers, and mutual appreciation for music and cultures from around the world, Khruangbin might not have anticipated how much their band name would get butchered out loud. The trio’s second full-length, Con Todo El Mundo, was released in January, following their 2015 debut, The Universe Smiles Upon You, with more blissful instrumental-heavy jams honed over hours playing music in a barn. Open-minded as they are, the band welcomed all kinds of influences into their new songs, including fight scenes from Clueless. Here, they delve into their writing and recording process, and explain how a croissant is a sort of useful way to understand the never-ending loop of cultural influence in music.

Do you get to go out and do any record hunting while on tour?

Laura Lee (bass): We got lucky in London and Istanbul. We got to go record shopping.

In Istanbul we picked up some Turkish and world music we wouldn’t be able to find at home. Really amazingly at a lot of shows people have brought us records and CDs of stuff they thought we would like. So we’re actually coming home with a decent haul of music. Everything’s been surprising right on. We’ve been doing this Air Khruang DJ playlist project where we’re curating playlists for people’s plane rides. It started as DJing on Facebook Live. Over last summer we were doing a new set just about every Friday, and every week we would feature a different country and music from that place.

Then we put those playlists on Youtube and Spotify. So people give us stuff on par with stuff we posted, or if they noticed a country we haven’t done, like Hawaii or something like that.

Explain the never-ending loop of reinterpreting other countries’ interpretation of Western music influenced by other countries…

Donald Johnson (drums): How much time do you have? Want the short version? Mark can talk about this all day.

Medium-length version.

Mark Seer (guitar): Give your version, DJ. DJ: I should start with the Shadows right?

MS: Shadows and James Brown, bro.

DJ: So basically the Shadows and James Brown influenced funk music all over the world. People in different parts of the world were hearing these bands and they would put their cultural spin on these styles. Which is how you end up with funk from Asia in the 1960s and 70s. When we hear funk music from that part of the world, it’s this big inspirational loop because they were inspired by an American art form, put their twist on it, and then American bands were inspired by their interpretation of Western music, and then it keeps going on and on.

INTERVIEW

Do you think this loop could ever implode?

MS: People have tried but it doesn’t work.

DJ: It’s a lot like food. Where would you say the croissant is from?

France?

DJ: But at the heart of the croissant is flour, butter, probably some water, what else?

Where’s the chef in our group?

LL: Oh, are you trying to hand this to somebody else? …I don’t know if croissant is the right example…

DJ: It is now! So, the croissant comes from France, and then we have a croissanwich at Burger King.

MS: And ‘crescent rolls’ at the supermarket.

LL: An easy one is Vietnamese food. A lot of the stuff you have in America is Frenchbased Vietnamese food. Pho is made from the bones of animals that the French weren’t using while they were in Vietnam. And the bahn mi is on French bread, and pate plays a huge part in Vietnamese cooking, which is French, but then the chilis in the bahn mi wouldn’t have come from France.

You see it happen in food, art, music and everything, there’s cross-pollination of cultural elements.

DJ: I don’t think it will ever stop. If anything it will speed up but never implode. The internet took care of that. We often say Khruangbin couldn’t have existed in any other time, ever.

With the passing of files when we first started between Mark and Laura while they were in different places—that couldn’t happen without the internet. Or finding a blog with awesome music from all other parts of the world that we hadn’t and might never have visited—that would never happen without the Internet. The sphere of influence is going to keep looping in all genres of music. I saw a Japanese zydeco band once and it blew my mind. This band playing music from Louisiana on a street corner in Japan.

MS: And zydeco itself is a mish-mash. It’s based on French culture that was brought to Canada by colonists who settled Acadia.

They called themselves Acadians but with their accent it sounded like they were saying ‘cajun.’

DJ: Khruangbin is influenced by the things we listen to but we also stay insulated musically, keeping away from mainstream stuff we don’t want in our heads, unless we get into an Uber and can’t help it. We always have headphones on, to keep what we don’t want out.

LL: You can choose what you are exposed to or not.

How long have you all known each other?

DJ: Mark and I met around 2004 at a spot in Houston called The Red Cat Jazz Café.

Back then it was the hippest spot for local musicians to play and jam. Mark was playing with one of the bands and I was hanging out.

Then I was re-introduced to Mark at church.

He started playing at St. Johns downtown where I played organ and keyboards and he came on as a guitar player. I thought he was musically all over the place, even more than I was. So after rehearsals on Tuesday nights we would go to this pub close by and hang out and talk and have burgers.

LL: I was an art history major studying ancient near eastern art at the time, and working at museums. I went to lunch with a work friend and he lived with Mark.

Mark was sitting on the sofa watching a documentary about music from Afghanistan and I hadn’t met too many people with an interest in culture from that part of the world.

I got really excited to talk to him about it and he gave me a book, then I found him on MySpace and was like, ‘Awesome book, let’s hang out.’ The next week I got a text from an anonymous number, and it just said, ‘The universe smiles upon you.’ And that was Mark Speer. He and DJ were hanging out at their Tuesday after-church-pub, and I crashed it and never left. The three of us had dinner ever Tuesday for three years before we started Khruangbin. Mark helped me find my way around the bass. So I’m the white belt of the group.

MS: I don’t really know the belt sitch but you’re definitely not a white belt anymore.

DJ: You’ve played way too many shows to be a white belt.

Do you all still live in different places?

LL: I just moved to L.A. actually. Mark did too. So at least now we’re all in the same country.

Did you keep to a similar recording process as you did with the first album?

MS: It was pretty much the same process.

LL: When we first started the band, Mark would play drums and we’d make these loops that I would play bass over. Then we would put a recorder in the middle of the room and hit record and it would be hours of me playing over Mark. Then he would cut up the parts he liked and write guitar parts over it. When we asked DJ to join the band, we gave him the structure of it and he did his thing. For The Universe Smiles Upon You, I was in London and Mark was sending me drum loops online and I would record bass to them and send them back. But for this recent one, we were at the farm, and I would sit in one room with a drum loop and play bass to that and hand it off to Mark, then he would go in another room and add guitar while I started another song. It was sort of like relay-recording.

MS: That’s for the writing process. When we actually recorded, it was us in the same place at the same time. On this album there were a lot of snippets and bits that were pieced together and used. But the overall writing we spent a week doing.

Dos it help to spend a limited period of time on the writing process?

LL: If we spent longer on the songs, they wouldn’t be what they are. What the album ends up reflecting is a time capsule of what you created in that bubble.

How did you approach adding vocals into an instrumental platform?

LL: At the early stages nobody wanted to be a singer and we were holding back until somebody decided to raise their hand. And 23

then it turned out we liked the songs the way they were. After the first EP, people— professionally and friendly—kept saying you should get words and a singer for this, so we tried to rise to the challenge. ‘White Gloves’ and ‘Balls And Pins’ had full verses on our first full-length. Then we were like, ‘OK, you want vocals, we’ll give you vocals, but we won’t give you actual words. We’ll just ooh and ahh.’ Then for the new album, we started with music first and then the vocals come afterwards, but only if the song says ‘please add another layer’ do we add words.

Even so … in the mix, it’s not like the vocals are riding on top of everything.

LL: That’s definitely intentional.

MS: Most of the records I like, the vocals aren’t 10 db over everything else. I’m not into that mixing style at all.

DJ: Unless it’s Serge Gainsbourg.

LL: The songs are supposed to be dreamy.

As soon as the vocals come to the forefront, it takes you out of that dream state. It’s also about wanting to make sure that the parts that we want to give attention always have their moment. Vocals don’t always have to be front and center.

Can you describe this farm where you record?

DJ: The farm is half-way between Houston and Austin in a town called Burton, which is slightly adjacent to a town famous for Bluebell ice cream. Burton has no claim to fame at this point, other than Khruangbin.

It’s Mark’s family property. There’s a barn that used to house tractors but now it’s empty. The barn came about because the band needed a 24

place to rehearse and write and all the venues available in Houston were not suited for that.

We’d be trying to write and there would be a heavy metal band playing in the next room.

One of the first times we recorded together in the barn, Mark just set up a cassette tape recorder and we just played, and that was it.

What kind of set-up did you bring to the farm to record the album?

LL: It was pretty simple—obviously more than a cassette recorder but Steve Christianson, our engineer, he brings this mobile studio with him. There’s not a whole lot of mics. There’s no isolation. There’s a lot of the barn, the field, and nature that’s really present in all of the tracks, a lot of bleed from everything.

MS: We used digital recording into the computer but it was all live.

How do you find a balance between structure and experimentation? Can you think of an experiment that surprised you when it worked?

LL: The foundation for a lot of the songs comes from experimentation. I’ll experiment on bass to a drum loop and then Mark will curate that experimentation. So the structure comes from that curation. Similarly he will get an arrangement together and play guitar over it. Mark’s a really skilled guitar player.

He can do whatever he wants and sometimes finds it difficult to figure out what it is he wants to lay out on top of something. So he’ll play the loop with the bass over it and try a different guitar part every time. Sometimes I will sit in the room with him and help curate his experimentation. That’s where it’s

a nice balance between both. A surprise was an experiment Mark placed on us which was to learn our songs in reverse from the first album. So ‘August 10’ on the new album started with playing ‘August 12’ backwards, and it was a happy surprise.

MS: And it occurred on August 10.

Tell me about ‘Lady And Man,’ the song inspired by Clueless and Romancing The Stone.

MS: At the farm there’s an old VHS player.

There was also Batman, What About Bob, stuff like that. I love Romancing The Stone.

It’s an amazing movie. It’s not even a guilty pleasure. I don’t feel guilt loving the hell out of that movie. Clueless is also a total classic.

That’s more Laura Lee’s bag. There’s really awesome parts of characters having spirited disagreements and we decided to use that as a jumping off point for what’s happening musically in a song, and at the end, we did some lyrical paraphrasing of different arguments throughout those movies.

LL: The bass line I’m playing—it’s not swagger or argumentative—I’m not sure the word, but there’s a sort of attitude to the bass parts to represent the scenario and a call and response element between the instruments.

I remember writing the bass line during the part where Dionne and Murray are arguing about Murray shaving his head.

MS: We often have movies on mute while we’re recording. Like having friends in the room with you.

LL: I think we watched Romancing The Stone three times that week. We could quote it back and forth to each other.

Which is the song where you read love letters?

LL: That’s ‘Friday Morning.’ We wanted to write a love song and we’re not lyrical writers by nature, so for me it always helps to find a method. We wanted to write about love so I needed to pull some inspiration from my past. All I can say is keep that stuff. People are inclined to rid themselves of old memories.

Put it in a box and hide it for a while.

MS: Then it becomes a little present for you later on.

How did the idea for using a Leslie speaker come about on ‘Cómo Te Quiero?’

MS: We did that during mixing at Sugarhill Recording Studios with Steve. We generally record the instrument parts at the farm and then do vocal overdubs in Houston. It gives us time to write lyrics for the music that we just cut. We also do percussion and any guests in the studio too. So the Leslie thing was inspired by Black Sabbath. On their song ‘Planet Caravan,’ the vocals are run through a Leslie and it’s awesome. It feels like you’re swimming in a circle of vocals.

I always dreamed of having that effect on something.

KHRUANGBIN ON THURS., MAR. 22, FRI., MAR. 23, AND SAT., MAR. 24, AT THE LODGE ROOM, 104. N. AVE. 56, HIGHLAND PARK. 8 PM / SOLD OUT / ALL AGES. LODGEROOMHLP. COM. KHRUANGBIN’S CON TODO EL MUNDO IS OUT NOW ON DEAD OCEANS. VISIT KHRUANGBIN AT KHRUANGBIN.COM. INTERVIEW

MORRIS Interview by senay kenfe PHOTOGRAPHY by gari askew

When the game doesn’t value your worth, what’s your next option? Futurist producer Morris has had enough. In the last ten years his career has been the sonic foundation of modern classics from the likes of Kelela, FKA Twigs, Mila J, and others. The Kansas native built a sound for himself that placed him as a part cutting-edge movements in music—like Fade To Mind, Arca, and Night Slugs—that have since reverberated into the R&B and mainstream world, completely reshaping the landscape. But we often choose to ignore the true innovators and only give them their roses when they leave this world. Morris released the fourth installment of his POP.MORRIS series this winter, and that could be it. This is the story of an artist who’s calling it quits.

What first influenced your move into production? I know your dad was a big radio person back in the day—still is.

That’s really honestly a great question. I still don’t know the answer. I think part of me has still never really come to terms with that decision, and what it meant to choose production over some of the things that I was involved in when I decided to take it seriously. Because I was in film school ... honestly, like, I was really serious about other instruments. I played drums in a bunch of bands. I played guitar in jazz band in high school and shit, and so I carried that with me when I went to college. There were a lot of different hobbies I was really, really into, that for whatever reason took a backseat to the production shit—just because of the immediacy. But I don’t know that I necessarily like, decided to at that point. I gave in to the immediacy of the feeling I was able to get from doing the work, presenting the work in front of people and getting a reaction. All eyes turning towards music as like ... obviously music is always a cultural phenomenon, but we’re talking about Soundcloud and streaming technology and all this shit. CDs dying and all this shit. And suddenly it’s really exciting to be in rooms where playing music via an aux cord is a social fun thing, you know? So now—what is it to be the person who makes that music?

You can kind of take control of the situation in the way that the guy who picks up the acoustic guitar when you’re sitting in a room and starts playing ‘Wonderwall’ cannot, you know? [laughs] Suddenly I’m an active part in that. And I think that’s really what I wanted.

26

Do you feel like being present in that space might be influenced by your shyness?

‘Here I am presenting myself on my own terms—they can do the talking for me.’

I think for sure. I never thought about it that way … but that’s for sure. Especially recorded music as it is now. It’s not the way it was, where there was like three minutes of time that are captured imperfections and all.

It’s more like this overdub revision ... it’s like the perfect form of yourself. That’s the music that you make, you know? You can always put your best foot forward if you decided that you want to take that opportunity to play your song, and it’s the one that you spent thousands of hours playing or working on, you know? It sums up to three minutes and thirty seconds, but it sounds perfect.

I really like that. I was talking about Kanye earlier—I really like that for he went back and edited some of the songs, like in the stream. I thought that was cool because that is how music is now. We kind of edit music out of our lives. We’ll make a playlist, and then later on we’re like, ‘I don’t like this artist anymore.’ And you delete them out. You couldn’t do that on a mixtape before, but now technology allows it. It makes sense.

Even that Madison Square Garden shit, it’s like that experience I’m talking about of just wanting to be taking ownership over a moment, and knowing that you can do that through a cable. When I saw that at Madison Square Garden, that’s exactly what I thought. I was like, ‘Here’s a man who’s been part of the aux cord party. He’s taking this same exact feeling, and he’s beamed it across the internet.’ I really understood the

significance of that. [laughs] What is the role that the internet has played in your development? First as a creative, and also as a musician. You’ve talked about having a relationship with someone like Bok Bok, who lives in London, and, you know, people who live out here in L.A. while you were still in Kansas.

It’s probably instrumental. The internet is like ... I think just going back to like, my decision to become a producer, I think really what my determination was early was to make the majority of my money using the computer. [laughs] You know? And I became very aware of a lot of different options that I had in terms of viewing that as my income, you know? I’m watching guys stand on stage, like Girl Talk, and they’re using the laptop ... like, literally, it’s the most literal definition of this. They show up, do this in your town and get tens of thousands.

Or we’re talking about people like ... doing whatever the hell they’re doing, you know?

You’re hustling, inhabiting an aesthetic and getting all these followers, and I’m watching this post-Soulja Boy monetization of the internet, and I’m thinking like, ‘OK, if I get good at this ... maybe this can be me.’ [laughs] ‘Maybe this is what I’m good at.

Maybe this is me.’ In my professional life and in my private life, the internet has a really strong bearing. And just the way that ideas come to me. I think coming from an isolated place, any idea that I have and love comes from someplace really far away. It’s just second nature at this point to be part of this dialogue that’s happening. Even now that I live so close to where these ideas supposedly come from some of the time—

like a cultural center—it’s second nature to me. I’m very influenced by the internet in that way.

Your @neverhatephilly as a cultural center.

I hope so! Well, whoever like ... closed network of people who fuck with it, you know? [laughs] I mean, it’s like an early meme page. I’ll call it one.

I think it’s curious that I never managed to like, crack that 10,000, that 15,000.

And I don’t think it’s because my memes are too, like, specific. I think there’s some, like, some political shit. Fuck Jerry, these cats, I remember when these guys had like, no followers. You know Tatum Strangely?

Tatum Strangely, bro. I remember when he had 200. I blocked some of these niggas.

Dirty South Joe, these dudes got my fuckin’ memes straight up! Besides Museum Mammy, I don’t think I really know poppin’ ass Black meme admins. Besides Museum Mammy. All these guys are white.

When it comes down to it, yeah.

I’m mad disenfranchised. But the flipside of that shit is I don’t want to be a guy like Ka5sh, who’s like, ‘The game is to be sold’ or ‘The game is to be told, not sold,’ and this cat’s on the fuckin’ internet talking about how to make all this fuckin’ money, all memes and doing all this shit. His checks must’ve gotten a little fucked up off that shit. How you gonna be talking about how you ... like, you’re a ghostwriter.

Do you think this opinion of yours in regards to this meme page stems from maybe alleged work that you’ve done behind the scenes that you don’t get credit for?

INTERVIEW

[laughs] You know what? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I’m being very politically correct, but we’re talking about ghost production.

Yeah, we’re on the record. I’ll definitely participate in a few situations like that. It goes without saying, I always want to protect my ability to be able to do that in the future because frankly I love it.

Why do you love that?

The type of artist that I am, it’s very easy for me to ... if the vibe is right, if the mood is right in the room, you can breadcrumb me there and we can get to the spot and it’s really easy for me to assume different roles and play this kind of chameleon thing.

Once we get there, you know? We can go Dwight Yoakam country if we watch enough Gunsmoke or whatever the fuck, you know what I mean? [laughs] We can do this shit! Gimme a cowboy hat and we in here.

So that said, the ghostwriting life is perfect for me, but I think I personally run into a problem where ... it’s cool not to get the shine or get the name or any of the clout or anything if on the back end the paper look right, but I still think I have yet to come up with the right combination... like, the artist’s understanding when it comes down to the ... Because here’s the way it goes down: you could be in the room, you could be working, you could be helping a lot of the time, even—and this is mainly talking about the shit that I didn’t end up getting great credit for—but you could be in the room helping, and when it comes down to like, making the declarations about who did what, it’s really up to the artist to relay that to the manager or the person who’s actually filing a registry for those fuckin’ songs.

So you don’t necessarily put the blame on the businesspeople?

I could name one cat in particular who comes to mind who’s definitely business— on the business side, not lookin’ out for Morris, never has. I’m not fuckin’ with him. But I think yeah, there’s some major miscommunication going down with the artists, too, between those cats. And however it happens, it’s really easy to get mishandled in that situation. It’s perfectly fine if you get compensated, but I have yet to really get right with that, you know?

So in the world of producing for other people, without being credited, your issue is that you don’t feel financially compensated in the right way—and that’s why you don’t agree with it. Not because you’re not getting the name.

Yeah. It’s like walking into an agreement— —and then they renege on it.

Exactly. And you know the stipulations, it’s perfectly fine. Even legends in the game have been understudies and did all sorts of ghost production.

Has there been moments where that surprised you? Like your musical heroes— has it surprised you that they don’t make all their own music?

Nothing like that really surprised me.

Have you ever been in situations where you found out, ‘Oh, wow! This person…’

Yeah …

I’m not asking you to talk about it.

I think in a lot of ways the images started 28

to disappear in my first couple of trips out here. The first time I got flown out here on the dime of Warner Bros., the full shit ... car, hotel in Hollywood, did a couple days of sessions, all that fucking shit—apparently 2012 all these guys took the same trip as I did, got told they didn’t have any fuckin’ hits. I took that trip as well. [laughs] You were working the entire time you were out here?

I’m not. I’m not movin’ a finger, my nigga!

I’m seeing that side, because these cats ... the way that these guys are working, this one guy has his name all over a ton of fuckin’ records as a co-writer. He got me with Kanye shit.

Fed Kanye some samples, so now he’s a cowriter in the fuckin’ song cuz he gave Kanye music that he didn’t even make. It’s always the same line, like he steps in the office and says, ‘I’m a producer. I could be doing what you’re doing right now, I could be you right now but I chose to be on this side.’ Yeah right. ‘I make beats all day every day and I make beats for Kanye West and I get…’ but now, you know.

It makes more sense now.

Even then it was starting to click. Like, ‘OK, this guy’s a square. There’s no possible way that he had anything to do with Kanye West making the tightness that is this fucking song, other than maybe having heard a sample and being like, “OK, that’s cool.’’’ It didn’t really take me very long for that kind of like ... I wasn’t ever really disillusioned, you know? To be honest, though, I’ve had some really refreshing examples of people truly still doing it in the time since I’ve come out to L.A.—people you’d assume are way beyond still being really hands-on with the music. I got lucky enough to sit in with DJ Quik one time and spent a whole day with him. He’s an incredible fucking artist! And he does not have to be making his own music. He does not have to touch it, nothing. And the level at which he was involved was inspiring. I’ve loved DJ Quik since I was a kid. I remember hearing ‘Jus Lyke Compton,’ etc., but seeing him still put his hand in music was like, ‘OK, thank you.’

That’s just one example of people where I’ve pulled up and it’s like, ‘OK, you cats still do it!’ He’s an amazing guitar player…

He’s an amazing guitar player, he’s an amazing keyboard player…

Yeah, that too!

But he also does a lot of post-production, and he engineers a lot of people’s projects that we don’t really know too much about.

I’ve seen photos of him with Kanye, and like … in that camp, just a bunch of niggas, MPCs, the old West Coast team and that set up in the room, you know?

He comes to mind for me when I try and envision your path in music. You don’t rap, though, so ... it won’t work out. [laughs] Yeah—no, but there are certain parts to what he does that I can only hope to be able to touch. He’s up on his Dr. Dre level shit.

Even Dr. Dre calls DJ Quik to come and get the sound right sometimes, you know? DJ Quik has been really instrumental—no pun intended—in sculpting the sonic side because

he knows about the actual hardware that makes this music, you know? He’s not just a pull up and play kind of guy, you know?

Which is a lot of people that do lines.

DJ Quik is the difference. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. I don’t want to sit here and be like, ‘Every person I’ve looked up to from L.A. is a phony!’ or some shit [laughs] cuz it’s not true.

But it is one to note. What is Bear Club?

My nickname growing up was Bear. Just because. My parents call me Bear, my whole family calls me Bear. When I first started it, it was just a band of friends. We didn’t really have any ambition at all. As time went on, I spent more trips out in L.A.—that trip with Warner and all this fucking shit, and I really just saw the power of like, ownership. [laughs] It didn’t take me very long to set up a house, you know? Like a publishing house—a situation for me and for the people who choose not to play that game if they want to. People who I can kind of help facilitate their shit. A lot of those people I know back home—Maal, Tom Richman, etc., you know? Just keep it real tight. And when I had the buzz that I had when I first came through, there were a lot of people who were leaping out at me, and I was really lucky to get in with our distribution side. And that just made it so that I was able to talk to the same people who put out Fool’s Gold and Mad Decent and ... Night Slugs and Fade To Mind, at least at that point. Lucky me, the whole shit—the same people who were distributing those records were suddenly distributing mine digitally.

I was like … I have power in that. It was empowering, you know? So we moved forward with that under the banner of Bear Club, but it’s more just an informal place You don’t have a problem with me calling you an indie artist?

No, I am an indie artist. [laughs] Just wanted to make sure. Some people get into their feelings.

For life, probably. [laughs] With a platform, like a Bandcamp—what are the pros and the cons from working with them?

Love Bandcamp. They just give the money right then—there’s no bullshit. Whatever little bit that they take, I’m always perfectly fine with the cut. Unlike Soundcloud. Not to toot my own horn, but when I first came through in 2011, 2012, niggas didn’t really have Soundclouds or followers and all this shit.

Consumers didn’t. It was just artists.

It’s true, and even then it was gaining momentum, and it was like the Wild West out here. I feel like I was there to experience that wave, and I can’t say that Soundcloud was very ... encouraging. They didn’t really understand who their consumer was—they spent no time really trying to be hands-on with people. Bandcamp is the exact opposite—they’re very plugged into what their community likes, they have an editorial side that will feature works and things like this, that has a built in economy because they realized that it’s like ... for the betterment of the whole shit, you know? I appreciate Bandcamp for that. It’s almost

like deciding to sell your work at the farmers’ market, rather than taking it to Walmart.

You can reach out and actually touch the guy. If there’s an issue with Bandcamp, for the most part there’s a human being there.

Spotify, iTunes, you gotta make a fuckin’ claim—and like, good luck! It’s some shit.

It’s some shit. So I fuck with Bandcamp.

Being a producer, do you ever find on Soundcloud or YouTube songs that you produced that you didn’t know you produced? [laughs] For sure. I wouldn’t say any of them have the biggest hits or anything, but niggas be ... yes, I love that. That’s all I could ever hope for. It’s tight! I can’t be mad cuz you put it out there ... people of course are going to react to it, you know? But yo—I get hella, hella emails, cuz the first couple years I had an actual email address on my Soundcloud, and people would just send me hella stone freestyles they did to my beat. They do all their own versions. I even made a playlist where I was collecting kind of some of the better versions. People could hear some of those, even. My personal favorite versions, you know? But it just happens. You put it out there and some people feel compelled to give it back. Give me that love.

Do any of those people actually ever buy beats from you?

No! I won’t say never, but I’ve like never really sold a beat.

Really?

Never like that.

How does one buy a beat from Morris?

I mean, fuckin’ pull up! Pull up! You know what I mean? I’m super easy to work with in that sense cuz I have mad music. If I got it, I have it, so … I guess I just don’t really open myself up like that. I got like a TRAKTRAIN, and I’ve done a couple of these like BeatStars pages and shit, but nobody’s ever bought anything! [laughs] So it is what it is. Luckily I make other checks move, so I don’t have to sell beats. I also feel like people who sell beats for a living get pigeonholed in those genres. Some of my favorite producers, like Johnny Juliano, who’s one of my favorite producers of all time ... he’s going to be selling leases on YouTube forever. I think he might’ve produced one song ... he produced Drake, The Game— ‘100’, and he got pretty close …

That was a good record.

That was an amazing record! It’s a great beat.

But some of my favorites of those dudes ...

I don’t know if I wanna be that guy trying to sell like a lease or some shit. I’d rather just either be giving beats away for free and hoping it all works out with people I can actually build with …

Because in the backend it all gets figured out.

Or whatever. Or even if it doesn’t! It’s cool— I’d much rather be doing that than trying to sell a beat.

Do you feel like you stockpile music?

How much music?

That’s my game. That’s my game. I’m so into data management. It’s like ... retarded. That’s really what my life is about. I’m almost like a datahoarder—it’s almost like an issue that I have on and off the court.

INTERVIEW

I see two hard drives over there.

That’s just right there. There are so many of these, dude. [laughs] That’s kind of my shit.

How many songs would you guess you have? Not published?

I got to this point where I like to make full arcs, like, song cycles that would be on one song. It would be like fourteen, seventeen, twenty minutes long, and it’d be all one song. So depending on how many songs you wanted to cut that into, I don’t know.

But there’s like a ton of music I’ve got sitting around. It’s my intention to put it out, but to me, everything is about timing. I feel like there are some recordings that I’ve made in the past that are really, really important to me, but I never really gathered enough momentum where there were enough people waiting for it that I feel it warranted me to do it. I’m always in this game with different sounds that I’ve tried in the past, things I’m doing now, to see if I can get anybody to take the bait. Because when they do, there’s a wealth of stuff that I would love to follow that up with. Always just trying to see if it works, you know?

I feel like presence in that realm is important to producers. How do famous people, or relatively famous people, reach out to you? You did that tour with Twigs—did you do the tour with her first and then work on music? Or did you work on music and then go on tour?

It was a mix. It was her first tour…

You were opening.

It was a crazy, crazy moment. She came and played one show, it was her first American show, and I opened that one.

At Hollywood Forever.

Exactly. So after that I think we worked, and then after that we went on tour and did this full thing. I don’t think that had been announced yet. She would follow it up with seven more dates or some shit. it was kind of wedged in between, you know?

How was that bond built?

It was super easygoing. Our worlds were real close. I mean, they still are. [laughs] Like, in terms of our circles and stuff like that.

Ironically in that moment, it had seemed like everybody had swapped teams, cuz Kelela was about to put up Hallucinogen shit, the Arca thing, and he obviously was really instrumental in that recording. And Twigs and Arca seemingly... were out of orbit, and here she was in L.A., and I’m driving her around and showing her what’s good, you know, doing whatever and making music.

Did you take her to In-N-Out? [laughs] Honestly, I don’t feel like she’d eat meat or something. I don’t think we really did the meal thing. We skipped that part. Is that true? No, I made her listen to KDAY, like, for real. She was like taking over and shit, too. A lot of my listening is like, top radio music, so I made her listen to that.

That was for sure a thing.

That’s interesting you bring up a fascination with top forty, which I’m sure can be influenced by your family’s presence in radio, and that also leads me to talk to you about the record that brought us together to have this conversation—your POP album.

INTERVIEW

You nailed it. I think between my parents and lack thereof—being raised by MTV and raised by the internet—I kind of caught the best of everything. My memory of music is through this lens of MTV, an MTV montage. Sometimes I wouldn’t even catch the lyrics to a song, I’d just hear the melody in an episode of The Real World, and it would lead me to the internet and I’d go find that song. Early on, I was really obsessed with nailing and cataloging what was going on in popular music. I had a Talkboy—I think I got it for Kwanzaa one year—from fuckin’ Home Alone, and I was taping music off the radio with that, running it back, just trying to figure it out. This was pre-Rap Genius, so I was trying to figure out what the song is. As time went on and I became more ... I don’t want to say ‘confident’, but we were talking about this aux cord experience where suddenly I had the room. Production allowed me to take that same sort of handson role—and DJing, too. Literally put your hand on the record, manipulate the record ... like, now I’m in here with Amy Winehouse, just by having gone [makes scratching noises] and blending it in, you know? I can start and stop the whole thing.

It created a perfect storm. When I got more familiar with the software and how to get burnout on making beats and all this shit, I fell into this process of making these edits, and I think in a sense ... besides my parents, really the thing that hammered it home here with the POP.MORRIS idea was that I had lived in California for a couple years.

As somebody who by default listens to the radio, rather than taking the aux cord in the car or whatever—I’m hearing the radio, and every popular radio station here ... it’s unlike any other city I’ve ever been to.

In what sense?

They’re always in the mix. They talk where they have edits that’ll loop the intro to whatever the song is that they’re going to play next, but every station—KDAY even—they always have a DJ. And so the DJ is playing ‘Goosebumps’ ten times a day, he’s playing all these fucking cuts, and the different permutations that they come in are getting different because this guy’s gotta be a little bit different than the guy who came before him, etcetera ecetera. I’m really influenced by this never-ending mix, you know?

I think Clear Channel people—or iHeartRadio now—I think with them and the major metropolitan markets, that’s where the original broadcasts are built. And then smaller markets are the ones that get…

Syndicated?

Syndicated. So in the end, yeah—living here, you will hear the actual mixes.

Because what I heard out there in Kansas ... it was payola music. You can literally tell: ‘OK, Katy Perry’s here right now because of the money. Flo Rida, Jeremih…’ Jeremih’s got a whole other tier of songs that are played just in the midwest. Trey Songz, too—you never heard these fuckin’ songs. These are just like payola white songs, you know?

What is that like? Coming from a market like that with the radio—how do you consume music? How is popular music is

consumed there, in comparison to when you came out to L.A.? I don’t even just mean being around musicians, but casual listeners.

Yeah—culture? Music is a passive experience in Kansas. But I was already approaching it as an outsider, so when I moved all around, my expectations were already different. But off stage there were a lot of people who like … talk at our one Black station that’s beamed from Kansas City, KPRS. These people went to college with my dad, so they decided to stay in Kansas City, and he’s moved on to larger markets, like Philadelphia and D.C. and Chicago. Blah blah blah. I’ve always been aware of some of these guys just by name, you know? Just family associates and shit. I already knew through an outsider’s lens what I’m hearing, and I’m comparing what I’m hearing on trips and all this shit. [laughs] I’m definitely taking account of what’s more popular versus ... and I’m figuring out why that is possible to payola because of whatever experiences I’m seeing up close with family and shit like this.

I liken the POP.MORRIS to like ... collage.

A sonic collage. It’s a very interesting embodiment of like, Americana—a sonic version of it. And what is and what isn’t.

The way you piece together something like Miley Cyrus with ... what was on the last one? I think it was like a Travis Scott song or something it went into? It’s gross, and at the same time, it’s beautiful.

Yeah!

It’s this weird like ... gumbo of what is American music right now.

For sure.

And like, this is like, Volume 4 now? What makes you continue to go with it?

I almost didn’t even put this one out. Because the feelings I get from POP.MORRIS are pretty much extinguished when I’m making it. The feelings that I go through ... I find the songs and find where they sampled the sample from, sampling the sample, all this shit ... It’s a personal experience, and I like to do it in the form of so much of my production because dealing with these sonic tropes … I can’t help but take some of it with me at that point. I guess I just end up putting it out because I’ve put so much time into it—that’s the easy way to put it. POP. MORRIS 4 ... I almost didn’t even put it out because I’d gotten everything that I needed from it in the three or four weeks that it took me to put it together, you know? [laughs] It’s a very personal thing. When I made the first one, I thought I was making an album. I’ve always considered them to be albums, and I’ve had a rough time really getting people to understand ... getting people to consume it on that level. You know?

To take it seriously.

Exactly. It’s like it’s always going to be a DJ mix or something. But it’s almost my way of Trojan horsing my own music—my own take, my own original music in a sense— by continuing to interject myself into the record like that. Put my hand in the middle of it, chop it up, and then edit the edit, and you see this narrative I’m following. That that made me want to do it ... I think you get what I’m saying.

Have any of the artists—any of these lawyers—sent anything to you?

No! It’s so insulting! It’s probably a good thing because I really don’t want to get sued. I remember when I did the second volume, the ‘big hit’, if you will, was a ‘Bitch Better Have My Money’ remix that I did of Rihanna, and it came out during the same time as the Twigs tour. They got announced at the same time I think, and Pitchfork and Stereogum picked it up and started covering it, and it was like, ‘OK, this is like a fuckin’ thing, yo! I might be able to be like, a remix guy! People might know me as like, the flip dude for a minute!’ I was kind of ready to be that guy. [laughs] You’re not anymore?

Nah. Literally everything I do is an experiment, and it’s really to see if I can satisfy myself with it. If any one of the things I’ve done would’ve worked, in my mind, whatever that qualifier would have been, I would have kept doing that. I promise you. If doing orchestral trap music would’ve gotten me as much money as like Cashmere Cat got ripping off my sound, or as fucking Calvin Harris made just making EDM music or whatever the case may be, I literally would still be just making that kind of music. Or Sweater Beats, a friend of mine, got super successful doing that genre.

It’s like, ‘Maybe I should try to roll the dice and do something else,’ you know? And with my later projects, it’s like, ‘OK, people are retreating away from live instruments and doing more computer shit—let me get back to my roots, see if maybe I roll the dice on that, maybe the next twenty years of my life I can be playing songs on my guitar, real instruments, instead of like…’

An Ableton guy.

Yeah! You know what I mean? You know Suicideyear? He posted this whole fuckin’ thing, like … it was like a status update.

‘Sometimes I wanna die, but I don’t want to right now because if I do I’ll be remembered for like, a 2012 Waka Flocka remix.’ It’s kind of like that! [laughs] That’s why you keep living—you haven’t made something you feel you can call your legacy yet.

No. And where I feel like I’m headed right now with more of the live instrumentation, I would feel a lot more comfortable having to press play on those songs for the rest of my life then anything that I will have made up. And that’s not the dirt on any beat or any R&B song I’ve produced with X-Y-Z name. This is the stuff that makes me feel like, ‘Hey, I wanna keep learning.’

Who are some artists that you’d be interested in working with? I really like the record that you did with Mila J. I love her! I’ve sent her so much music.

I think she has an amazing voice. I’m not defining you as just dance music, but I think the combination of the two of you is very ... it’s future.

It’s the best. I think part of why our world didn’t really line up the way that it could is—and this is perfectly fine to say—part of what I do is so in the shadows. Like I’m not really set up to be able to interface with an artist like that all the time unless she’s willing 29

to pull up here and be like ... I don’t want to say uncomfortable, but like, in my…

Out of her comfort zone.

When I pulled up on her, she was recording, when she cut the vocals and shit like that, I was lucky to be able to actually be in the room with it while this is going down. She’s in one of the most state of the art Motownfunded facilities on the West Side. Like—the whole shit. I just don’t think we ever really got a chance to do that.

You think it was a matter of culture clash there?

Yeah. Because she’s just so ready to be on the pro level. And also my music ... especially at that point I was dealing with a lot of samples, and she’s just not prepared to go through that system. I think the reason I was really there was because of BC Kingdom. They were kind of trying to bring her more to the underground for the project that they were overseeing. There was a limit to how much she could probably do with the visibility that she gets. Like, people can sue ... nigga, like I say, I got Beyonce shouting all over every song I’ve ever done. At any given time there could be some litigation. So. I think it’s still hot for somebody like that.

‘Allegedly.’

Right, allegedly. [laughs] You know what I mean? But I love her, and people don’t know but Prince discovered her! She’s one of the Prince girls, right? She’s royalty as far as I’m concerned, so I’ll forever be trying to pitch projects to her—get her on the level. That’d be neat.

What are other artists that you’d be interested in working with? From small to large— People who are less visible. I would really, really love to work with Cody ChestnuTT. I’d really love to work with Saul Williams.

I’d really love to work on the higher end of things. Would really love to work with Travis Scott. I’d love to work with Rihanna.

Obviously Kanye, but everybody’s gonna say that. I think there’s probably some more really obvious choices. I’m kind of out of the R&B game a little bit. I’d love to work with Steve Lacy. I think working with Steve Lacy would be really cool. I’d love to work with John Mayer. I’m kind of watching the curb to bend the other way. I’d love to work with Frank Ocean. I think a lot of the music I end up subconsciously making these days, he’s probably the only person that could sing on it.

I could see you being on Endless. Sorry, could hear you.

I mean—fuckin’ Arca’s there, man! There’s a lot of folks at that party! I’d love to be invited to that party. [laughs] Hopefully, you know, when people with the Maal records and stuff like that, people can see the diversity of what I’m capable of. Hopefully it can open more up casually and stuff like that.

So the new record you and Maal got coming out— We did that record in 2016, and I can safely say that it took us no time to bang it out. First couple of times we even sat down we hadn’t been fucking with each other really like that, I had moved away even ... but it was so hot, we just put it out. It felt really good. People 30

reacted to it, but then immediately after we toured it and we spent time on stage with it, I got a chance to live with it ... it almost felt like it wasn’t our music. The experience was cool doing it, but we had too little material spread a little thin, so we got straight back to recording immediately. We had a vision for what it was going to be, but we knew that it was going to take a long time. So that was two years ago. Now two years later, we’re coming around third base in terms of being done with it and getting it out this year. It’s like a double album. I think it’s 22 songs as of today. Depending on how we end up cutting it, it could be way more than that, though. Looking forwards and backwards, I hope it’s able to open me up to a lot of different sort of diverse opportunities, but I also hope it sits comfortably with people who’ve heard my music so far. If they heard the last record and everything that led up to that—including Mila J—it’ll be such a logical extension of all of that sort of shit, but just with more control.

One of your biggest strengths is you’re an amazing collaborator. You work very well with other people. The vibe that I got with the Fat Tony record— It’s so personal.

It connected. Not to say you guys weren’t friends before, but ... you could hear it.

Yeah!

And you were telling me about the Pritty record.

Same shit! We just had that commonality where he’s from the midwest, he came out here … I’ve been out here for five years, and I think he’s just rolling over into one, so I knew kind of what he was trying to do. He works with like a whole band of producers who have their own Morris—this guy called Dylan Brady. He’s done shit with Lil Peep, Lil Aaron, kind of like that wigger-wave that’s really poppin’. [laughs] Wait, roll back—what was that?

It’s like wigger wave! It literally is! It’s like Post Malone and all these guys! [laughs] Noooo!

That’s no bullshit! That’s some real shit! They wouldn’t even be offended, bro! The same producers that make Pritty’s music when he’s not with Morris. I think at the time their phone was ringing off the hook for more Peep records and all this shit, so I got Pritty on the off season, and we were really kind of able to turn something into nothing. We just understood. He’s like one of those people who … you know, he looks considerably younger than me, so his god is kind of like PartyNextDoor—a guy like Drake—whereas my gods are like, holding my ears, like a Kanye-era producer, Timbaland or Pharrell or some shit. His incoming class is niggas that sound like Drake. Drake’s children.

So immediately I was like, ‘OK!’ Like—so current with the shit, it’s like, ‘Let’s get it done!’

The age difference—what does that feel like when you’re bridging that gap?

Part of the obsession with the pop shit is I’m trying to cram everything ... I’m trying to keep count of the story from beginning to end. A lot of what I’m on is being focused on the narrative of recorded music. Everything,

from where we are now. I don’t really catch myself falling too far behind that often yet, just thanks to the internet and my circle and shit like that. I don’t really need to turn on the TV to really be plugged in. I see the storm coming just because of my friends’ projects, you know? I’m hearing about Nick Hakim months, years before this cat. Or whatever. Shit like that. I run in tastemaker circles, so I’m finding out about that Boiler Room and shit. You know what I’m talking about, nigga! I mean, you know it’s like that.

It’s not difficult for me to really stay current in that way. But as a DJ, too, I’m tasked with staying relevant in that way. So it’s not really difficult for me to hone in.

What impact does DJing have on your production in terms of playing shows and being outside and playing other people’s music? What are the influences that it brings back to you once you’re like, ‘Alright, I’m back to my studio and working on music…’?

That’s a good question. In its most primitive form, I can print my own music off on the computer, take it on a drive, listen to it loud somewhere to get kind of some reference, but you know, just the way people react and shit. But DJing gave me an appreciation for the way that modern music operates. A lot of people who walk into a conversation and say the phrase ‘this generation’ have a lot of bad things to say about current music and the way that it operates. But at the same time, they couldn’t make like, a loop that would be evocative to someone over three minutes and thirty seconds. Straight up couldn’t do it. Sorry, Quincy Jones, sorry— but you couldn’t make a loop to sound that good. It takes the three minutes to get there for you. You have to see this grand arrangement. Metro Boomin can make that happen and keep you locked in it in the first forty seconds! All he gotta do is drop the drums out. It’s the same melody. That’s all he gotta do! He just manipulates you in that way. That’s masterful, and I learned that from DJing. So I couldn’t help but take that back to the hive. As somebody who is long-winded sometimes, like as a musician ... there’s a lot to be discovered in thinking seriously about the immediacy of popular music, and you really see that happening as a DJ. As a DJ, I used to be really familiar with having a minute to blend into a song, or forty-five seconds or some shit, even in the ten years that I’ve been DJing. Now it’s like twenty-five, fifteen seconds we can get it. You’re in that motherfucker.

There’s no buildup like there used to be.

No. You gotta edit that shit your own self to get it. All of these songs are like that, so ... that comes from just being real plugged into the sound. And that comes from being the jukebox.

That makes me think about the popularity of like … the club sound. What club music is today.

You mean the Fade to Mind sound? Or… I wouldn’t call it that, but yeah, we can call it that. That deconstructed ... what is that? You were there early.

I was in there. I think the underground is obsessed with the idea of being the

alternative. And what are we the alternative to? A lot of the time we don’t know, but I just think while sound is going on up top with whatever niggas is doing, this is like the deconstructed club sound, which is a really easy thing for people to cling onto in order to feel outside. You know what I mean?

Outside the norm.

It’s just abrasive enough, it’s just uninviting enough, it’s just Berghain enough in these spaces where it’s predominantly getting spun that it’s like the perfect storm, you know? What’s most surprising is just how many soulful people were able to walk up and make sense of the whole thing. Like ...

Dawn Richard? SZA? People like this have managed to make this into something that is still musical to people who expect something to hang on to. There are a lot of people who are trying to deconstruct this shit, and it’s only so they can don their bomber jacket and get into Berghain without any interruption.

It’s not cuz they’re trying to push anything forward. It’s literally just their identity to be ‘other than’. You know? It’s the soundtrack to shave their head to. [laughs] Do you feel like that harms music? Because a lot of people—musicians, producers— are so fixated in having a alt identity?

It makes it feel easier to be me because there are so many people trying to play by the rules. The rules are so acknowledged that consistently you can see memes roasting my counterparts. You can roast any of the things that they do in their music, and the way that they go about branding themselves ... the whole look, you know? You can’t meme Morris, cuz there’s not ... you know what I mean? It makes it really easy to be you if you want to do that. And truth be told, like, some of my favorite artists, especially now, are some of these guys like Moodymann. People like Omar-S—these guys are so on their own game funk. Even Cody ChestnuTT, man! These guys are so on their own wave that you can’t help but just marvel at their... uniqueness, you know?

Everybody else in their respective field is so obsessed with honoring everybody that’s come before them, and every fuckin’ trope.

Like every funk guy wants to be Prince. Every techno wants to be ... fuckin’ whatever. But Moodymann ain’t worried about nothing.

Like, it’s his internal monologue while you’re watching him wrestle with it. That’s kind of where I want to be in the long scheme of things, you know?

Sonically, many people would say that you represent the future. But you are very ... I would not say ‘standoffish,’ but you like your privacy. What is it about your sound that so many people—and these are your peers that tell me this—why does it resonate with them?

That’s a good question. I don’t know.

Because you work with artists like Kelela, Fat Tony, Mila J, Maal…

Twigs.

I was going to bring Twigs up. All of these artists ... there’s a spectrum. What sonically draws you to all these people?

I was lucky enough with pretty much all of those people to make a good first impression—or a strong personal impression INTERVIEW

on them—before music got cut. A lot of them were more or less familiar, some of them not at all. Like, Tony didn’t really know much about my music at all at the time. We were just thrown into the same shit, but I think because of the personal connection I’m able to make sometimes ... sometimes I completely fumble ‘em, too. There’s times where I completely goof when I know it’s a really high stakes opportunity for me.

Like what?

I mean…

If you can. [laughs] I don’t know—I don’t want to be too specific, but I can think of a couple. But I don’t want to be too specific. It’s human, you know? A lot of my success in terms the overall project that I get involved with is just like ... strengthen that other person’s confidence in my ability to see it through if we can do it my way, you know? tTese things are really intertwined. If I can make a really good personal impression with them, it’ll have a fighting chance.

You have a great relationship with a lot of distinctive crews and sounds. Like the Fade to Mind crew. A very early merger sound-wise with them.

I got handed off to Fade to Mind via Night Slugs, because they were really cliqued up at the time. Seems like ancient history at this point. But these two were like sisters, and to be completely honest with you, at the time that I landed on the front desk of Bok Bok, the head of Night Slug, he really didn’t know what to do with me. He still doesn’t. Just in terms of the scope of what I was trying to do, even at that point—it was so outside of the lines, even to the system which they were designed to operate. They still dealt with this very rigid, techno kind of mindset. Because … I mean, they’re European. I’m not there.

I don’t really understand the culture fully, but at that point, just culturally—and what’s going on with Soundcloud, etc.— there’s these sounds that are overlapping that they’re inexplicably reacting to as well.

They’re hearing the authenticity of my take on American Black—at that time—trap music; it can’t help but resonate with them, and there are parts about that that are so outside the lines that they’re not really set up to just deal with it, straight up. That was what my relationship was, to the point of dysfunction, I would say. So I got passed off to Kingdom and Prince William, because Alex understood that Ezra and them had this kind of R&B streak that might give them more of a better context of how to deal with what I’m doing. And not only that—their system was set up where they were less intent on getting this vinyl and all this crazy stupid packaging shit that would make your record take forever. They were more quick, on the move. Everybody was real hungry at that point. Nguzunguzu—all those guys were making a lot of moves on Fade to Mind. If you were to look at their history, it was like a year or two years that they were making all their moves. Alex was like, ‘You go fuck with them, there’s a chance something might come out more timely.’ But there was also a time that they thought they might co-release and do all INTERVIEW

this shit. Neither one of these places were the place for me, really.

Why do you say that now?

It was just very rigid. I love them both for what they are, but they have a very rigid outlook on making music, and the tropes that they deal with ... I don’t know, it was just kind of suffocating to me—someone who also deals in tropes, but there aren’t enough cards in the hand to keep me satisfied. I’m never really one to play by the rules—by anybody’s rules. So I straight-up felt there were moments where I was getting criticism that was undue, and I wasn’t going to take that from someone who I felt couldn’t do it as good as [I could]. Especially when we’re talking about what I’m talking about. [laughs] All of these folks are really outsiders, in a sense, especially at that point—they hadn’t really made their stake with the SZAs and the Kelelas. These were not time-tested formulas to get these folks. So even telling me how to shape my take on music that I felt like I had ownership over because I just inherently understood ... it was kind of like a no-no. [laughs] That was where we split ways, really. But I’m super appreciative of the shit that I learned from them because whatever regimented system that I might have—which there’s really none, but if you squint on some numbering shit from Bear Club or some shit about keeping things chronologically in order, I might’ve gotten that from them. But other than that, I carry nothing with me really, other than the experiences.

So you’re saying you didn’t come out of the womb. You came fully developed.

To them. From 2011, I was ready, bro. And like, the music that I gave them ... the most successful release that I’ve ever done is like a mixtape that I did called Debut. It was my first thing I ever put out on Bandcamp etc. These cats ... it’s like some ‘Jesus Walks’ shit. They had that whole piece of music as it pretty much was sitting on their desk, and I wish that I would’ve published the minuteby-minute notes that were given back to me on what I should change about this project.

It was the most petty audit of my music, and it was like, forty minutes of solid music with string sections and all of this. It was pretty much debuted as I put it out—it’s out there—and got shredded apart like it was like ... an album by ... I don’t even know.

I mean, Pharrell liked it. [laughs] It was good enough for a lot of people. For this particular encampment is what I mean.

Sometimes people aren’t ready for the future.

It wasn’t even that! They were just really rigid. I set it up myself now so I don’t really have to do that as much.

You’ve collaborated with artists and some camps relay it. I like the record a lot—I wish it was a fuller record, the one off of Kelela’s first release with ‘Go All Night.’

Oh yeah—shit! That was something she did in the studio. She decided that she was going to cut it. There’s a longer version that we licensed to Solange that came out on— The Saint Heron tape?

Yeah—three minutes or something? Maybe a little bit longer. Beyonce put it on her

fuckin’ Tidal playlist. Saint Heron. I think they may have ... launched their label with this, even. If I’m not mistaken, there was a label comp that showed all of the talent that was going to come out. It was like, BC Kingdom and Kelela, Moses Sumney might’ve been on there ... actually, this might’ve been pre-Moses, low-key. But a lot of ... like, my incoming class at that moment were featured on that record. And so that song received an extended version. We rerubbed it and released it on there.

Like you were just saying with Debut, it was already out, it was already done, and the response came later, right? So what was the response when the energy around Kelela started to pick up?

It was really good. It was overwhelming, honestly. I gotta be honest with you. She was that perfect combination in terms of— coming from a production standpoint— what you look for in that artist. Great location, fantastic story, incredibly talented, well-connected ... pretty much before the storm even came, it was obvious she had all of the pieces that were there, you know?

How did you guys cue in together?

Prince William. He’s low-key A&R’d a couple of projects for me. He put me and her together really quickly, and what really solidified us like hanging out together, was our mutual friend was Mocky. She didn’t really know him yet, but his wife is a fashion designer so she was familiar with his wife and her work, and I think maybe even had sold some of her clothes. One time I came to L.A. and I needed a ride to Mocky’s house, and Kelela was the only person who would come pick me up, so when I told her where I was going, she was like, ‘Oh, Mocky! I think know him!’ ‘Yeah, he’s helping me do these string arrangements on this trip, and we made contact doing all this shit.’ ‘Oh, yeah!

He’s a great songwriter as well!’ Little did I know she’s taking notes That’s funny—he’s one of the bigger contributors on her last record.

He’s killin’ it. That brain trust ... I don’t think it’s going anywhere. I think once Mocky really got involved, that pretty much meant we were all involved. That locked it in in that moment in time. I was happy to be able to facilitate that, just this crazy circle that happened then. And the rest of those songs got written! [laughs] What was it like moving to L.A. from Kansas? You moved here in what—2013?

Yeah. So actually I’m clicking into my fifth year, I realized recently. It’s kind of crazy. I think I took the most easy route I possibly could have to get here. A lot of people can really sweat the transition, but for me it was really easy. That’s why I ended up moving when I did because it was perfect for me In what sense?

I got booked to play a show, like, via Shaun Koplow and Bryant Rutledge. They had a party at Complex! In Glendale.

RIP. I know! Amazing spot. They had me out, and I stayed at my apartment ... or their apartment, at Highland Park at that point.

Their roommate was leaving and going to Stanford, and they were like, ‘Well, we’re

scrambling to find a roommate.’ ‘OK! I think this might be me!’ The show was in May, and then I moved out in July. I just had to lock it down.

The first time that we met was that time that you played for Boiler Room. The second or third Boiler Room they did in L.A. I think it might’ve been the first one, even!

There was one before that. I can’t remember—I don’t want to take away from that. It was a miracle one, because it was you, Sinjin Hawke and House Shoes, I believe.

No, it was Dreams! I think Falcons played, too.

Falcons did play—didn’t House Shoes end that one, though? Is that the one where the power went out?

I don’t think the power went out, but I dipped early. [laughs] As always. [laughs] I dipped early. I played and I left.

That was that your first time in L.A.?

Maybe my second time in LA, but it was probably the first real time I ever played here.

What was that experience like? Especially at that time—for what Boiler Room meant for a lot of producers—what did that do for your career?

I definitely acquired like, a little bit of clout at the time. It was a really important thing back home, but really, after all that shit kind of fell to the wayside, it was kind of like the intro scene. Like the montage where it shows you all the characters who will kind of show up. In the next chapters or some shit, you know? I got here to L.A. a few months later, and was hanging out with Sean. Hanging out with Daedelus. I’d see you everywhere. I’d live with Julian Schoen.

A lot of those people that I became really acquainted with—a lot of the people who took me in on the first trip or so ended up being like the core, probably the reason I even still stay here, you know? Like those people really haven’t changed.

And now you’re not going by the P. anymore.

Nah, I think the P. was getting to me and my fans. [laughs] What names have you transitioned through? Because you had a couple.

At first I was Morri$, which was cool when we were in the Soundcloud era— Soundcloud 1.0. Then a little bit after I moved here I moved to P. Morris. I thought it was a little more ... classy or something?

It was short for Prince Morris—like Prince William from Fade to Mind gave me the name. We were just throwing around some bullshit, and he was like, ‘Prince Morris. P. Morris.’ I was like, ‘OK! Alright!’ Took it and ran. But then yeah, the P. was making it harder for people to find out what the fuck I was doing and then when I did the Marlon Morris record, I think I already cut it. I circled back to being Morris—no dollar signs, no bullshit, just Morris.

POP.MORRIS VOL. 4 IS AVAILABLE NOW FROM BEAR CLUB MUSIC GROUP. VISIT MORRIS AT BCMG. BANDCAMP.COM. 31

SPRING 2018

SHOPPING Interview bY EMILY TWOMBLY illustration by ABRAHAM JAY TORRES I first discovered Shopping when their album Consumer Concerns came out—the artwork caught my eye almost immediately, and the music was the missing piece to fit a void in my new music repertoire that I didn’t even know was there. A queer post-punk dancey band with a political point of view! Their music recalls ESG and Delta 5 but with hints of disco and sharp lyrics that are a call to action— altogether, it’s something they’re making their own. They successfully balance an exciting dance-able sound while also challenging their audience with commentary on current social issues. Their new The Official Body is out now on Fat Cat. I wanted to ask you about the balance of being like a fun dance-y band but also having lyrics that are more serious. Is that what you set out to do originally? Or just where you just ended up? You balance this fun persona with being political.

Rachel Aggs (guitar): Good question. I think sometimes there’s some songs that we’ve done that are like … I don’t know what they’re about. I know that sounds really stupid, but … they start to annoy me after a while, I think. Some of them are like, ‘What is this song?’

Andrew Milk (drums): It has to be rooted in real emotion.

RA: It’s kind of hard to do that every night— to sing nonsense. It’s fun to be silly—you need some of that in life—but also if you’re going to do a set of songs every night, you have to believe in them and they have to mean something to you. Otherwise ...

You need some substance.

AM: It feels a bit like a clown.

RA: I kind of have to care about it. I think we all do. We all like to sing about stuff that we are genuinely frustrated about or genuinely want to work through. But just because we’re singing about that stuff doesn’t mean the song has to be a downer.

Billy Easter (bass): Exactly—the song can be fun, and then what I quite like is that if people do happen to sing along—which is amazing—or if they’re in their car and they’re singing along to the song, they’re singing stuff that is maybe stuff to be conscious of.

But to a dance-y beat. It’s something that’s helpful, in some way. I think that’s nice—in context, though. But it’s sort of like it helps them in some way, you know?

You’re often compared to Delta 5, the Slits, ESG and Gang of Four—are there other influences that that guide your song writing? Do you like those comparisons?

RA: We love all those bands but it’s not what we started out to do. We didn’t decide, ‘Oh, we’re gonna do a band that sounds like all these bands sound.’ We wanted to make music and that’s how ours happens to sound. Because those are the ways we know how to play—it’s kind of like us playing within the limitations of our capabilities, but also wanting to make it slightly playful.

The post-punk kind of sound is the product of that sensibility. We have lots in common with those bands but we don’t really decide INTERVIEW

the genre we’re gonna do, and our influences are all very different.

BE: It’s not like we all sit at home and listen to post-punk. We have really eclectic music taste. So, yeah—maybe if our skills were more versed …

AM: Like … a disco band. If we knew anything about synths, then …

RA: I think we might be like a pop band, if we really could be.

BE: If one of us is really good at singing and can do production, we’d probably say, ‘Let’s go.’

What was it like working with Edwyn Collins on this last record?

RA: It was amazing. He’s a really sort of beautiful guy and just really enthusiastic and passionate about music and it really was infectious to be around to him. He wasn’t like … hands-on producing. In terms of the sound, it still sounds like us, really. But he passed on his enthusiasm to us, I think.

BE: He’s like an encyclopedia of music.

Which is great. It’s like, ‘I think we should put a bit of this in, it’ll sound like …’ He makes you think a bit differently.

AM: What was that disco song he kept playing? ‘Last Night A DJ Saved My Life.’

But mixed with loads of other punk stuff as well. He’s got a really good sense of fun, and ... given what we were just talking about, that’s really important for this band—to have this big element of fun in the music.

No matter what the content—to be able to party to it? Maybe?

BE: He’s also really motivating. He’s got a rigid schedule and we worked really long hours and really hard every day. He’s not real strict or anything but it’s like you wanna ...

AM: His passion for music is really infectious. I think it really gives you fresh ears for your own stuff when you’re around someone that’s like so enthused and so excited about what you’re doing.

RA: And also what you were saying about him coming up the stairs to the studio every day—he’s had to overcome so much physically to do music and to pursue his passion. It feels like, ‘Yeah, we’re gonna get up and we’re do this every day! Yeah!’

How did you hook up with him?

RA: We just asked him!

Why don’t we talk about how Shopping formed and how you all met each other?

RA: We met in London—we were doing different bands and stuff. Andrew was putting on shows. Billy was doing a band called Wet Dog that I’m a super fan of. We were playing shows together and then we decided to start a band called Cover Girl, which was like a queer party band so it was kind of eclectic for a gig cuz there were too many people—so we decided to stream-line it and do a band with the three of us.

You were pretty big into the DIY scene in London—how has that influenced you as you’re getting bigger? Do you feel like you have continued with your DIY ethics?

RA: I think we still maintain …We’re still very involved in the whole ‘doing’ part of the band, basically. Now that we’re a label, other people do stuff for us—like press people and booking agents. But we’re always still very much involved and we’re conscious that we don’t wanna create a huge distance between us and the other people— people who listen to our music and people in DIY scenes. I mean, it’s not even like a conscious thing. I think that it’s very good that we started off with the attitude of ‘Why would we need anybody else to do stuff for us?’ Obviously when the workload increases it starts to make sense, you know.

You want to get different opportunities through agents and stuff. But we like to have a basic understanding that we can do a lot on our own.

AM: And the way that the music scene works can be a bit intimidating and weird sometimes. I think that we’re really lucky to have this genuine sense of community and connection with other bands that is much more important to us. And I don’t know ...

Go on, what should I say?

RA: With our attitude towards making music and playing shows, we always wanted to be inclusive and seem accessible to people because we started learning as we went along—learning to play and write songs. I don’t think we project an air of ‘professionalism.’ When we play shows, we’re like, ‘You can do this. You can join in.

You can be a part of this.’ That is something really great about the DIY community. You always feel like you’re a part of it—as an audience member, I mean.

Do you have any advice for people that are starting bands or their own label and they don’t know where to begin?

AM: It’s tricky. Everyone’s gonna have to have access—various degrees of access to community and resources to be able to do that. I don’t want to sound condescending or whatever, but if you are in a city and there is a DIY scene there then … search that out. It’s not always gonna be your people but if you are queer or a person of color or a marginalized member of society, then specifically people listen to that. Like, I started doing the record label and putting bands on in Maidstone—in Kent—and that really wasn’t happening. That was not a good move. I didn’t find my people there.

But when I moved to London it all clicked.

A gig that I did was Rachel’s first gig for her band Trash Kit and a bunch of other queer punks and a huge section of the queer punk community and loads of people that I now call friends were at that gig—at my house!

If you’re in the right situation you can find access to things.

BE: I think it’s important not to fall for the myth—that to do any of this stuff you need to somehow obey the music industry. This has been created to make people think that they can’t do stuff, or that there’s a correct way of doing it, or that you need to network with the right people, and things like that.

It’s not true.

AM: There’s no one way of putting out a record or starting a band or making music.

There’s no right or wrong, really. There are people that do that—that do the industry one in a billion where they’ll just write a song in their bedroom and then have some label person hear it and all of a sudden, they’re the next big thing or whatever. That can happen but it’s not the right way or the wrong way or the only way that you can get involved at all. Finding your own way is the best advice, I guess. Don’t feel like you have to compromise on what you can and can’t do.

RA: And you don’t need to be ready to do it.

I remember that gig that we played in your house—we were like completely unready!

BE: If you get an opportunity, just do it.

Don’t speak about it, just do it. And I think that even being terrible … it’s great.

SHOPPING’S THE OFFICIAL BODY IS OUT NOW ON FATCAT. VISIT SHOPPING AT SHOPPINGFC. BANDCAMP.COM. 35

EARTH GIRL HELEN BROWN Interview by CHRIS ZIEGLER photography by MAXIMILAN HO POSTER BY JUN OHNUKI

Earth Girl Helen Brown is like a Jack Kirby version of Pippi Longstocking as written by Charles Portis—cosmic, earthy and never ready to settle down anywhere, even after leaving a cult and escaping to the Alaskan wilderness before sparking up an academic career and … well, that’s the story musician Sonny Smith came up with when he invented her and a lot of other people for his 100 Records alternate-world-of-music project, anyway. But Earth Girl Helen Brown is also Heidi Alexander from Bay Area band the Sandwitches, now relocated to L.A. and reinventing Smith’s character as her own personal sci-fi heroine. She spent 2017 leading—well, navigating might be a better word—her Center for Planetary Intelligence Band through four cassette EPs on the Empty Cellar label, each one named and themed for a planet in our solar system. Mercury, Mars, Saturn and finally Venus—fire, war, communication and love, transmitted through enthusiastic clatter and static by a crew of some of L.A.’s best musicians, cloaked in radiation-shielding pseudonym for now. (But if you have records from In The Red, Castle Face, Burger, Drag City … you might glimpse someone you recognize.) This April In The Red will release Four Satellites, an LP collecting tracks from each of the EPs that works as a sort of fly-by survey for the Earth Girl universe, with incandescent inspiration from the Raincoats, Dolly Party, Patti Smith, Sun Ra and more. It’ll show you just enough to make you wanna build a rocket ship of your own.

What’s the concept from science fiction that you are least happy to see about to come true?

I don’t want to say that I’m least happy to be about to see our worst AI fantasies come true because the jury’s still out. There might be a lot to contribute to that outcome. But certainly a lot of the applications that we see in practice already are maybe not the greatest leaps mankind has ever made, you know? But I still feel really optimistic about that one. I’m just not a fatalist in that way. When I identify my worst nightmare, I feel like that’s an opportunity to know what to work against. You know, there’s some things like … you die.

That’s hard to work with. But otherwise I think there’s opportunity. [laughs] And identifying the problem is a good start.

That’s is optimistic. As long as you’re not dead, you feel there’s a solution—even if it’s incredibly obscure and difficult. [laughs] It could be there, you know? People stumble across things all the time. Accidental discovery is definitely a major force. I’m a cosmic optimist.

Is screwing around as important for practical scientific applications as it is when you’re making music?

I think so. You get fatigued from doing the hard work of solving the problem that you’re actually working 38

on, and you’ve gotta blow off steam. Like, goofin’, you know? I’ve listened to a lot of pretty good lectures on the forces of serendipity in science. It’s definitely a big generator.

Collaboration is important to you—you’ve made a real counterexample here to the idea of the lone creative visionary. You brought people together to make music to bring people together. Why? One reason is that the project originated with Sonny Smith almost a decade ago—that was really collaborative. It was his project. He won this artist-inresidency fellowship and really he got literally almost every single person I can think of that I knew in San Francisco involved, including myself, and that was really cool. It felt good for all of us. Nobody really knew what the hell was going on—Sonny seemed to be the only one who really knew what was happening, and it made it possible for him to do this huge project because he distributed the creative labor in this way that was super effective, where it was fun for everybody and you were invested, but you also didn’t have to have a meeting about it or hold the whole project in your mind at any time. I wanted to carry on that vibe. I think we had an ambitious goal at the beginning of the year, and didn’t really know how to pull it off. And that seemed like the only real way that INTERVIEW

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I was going to pull it off. And personally I had been really isolated from having been in school the last few years, and I wanted to reconnect with people and participate in the creative process with other people. And to not be in charge, necessarily. It’s way more interesting with more authors, and if you can swing that in a way that doesn’t become unduly bureaucratic it can be really rewarding. We really genuinely want it to continue to expand. To be something that can grow beyond whatever we have in our minds about it, and within the realm of sort of our control, you know? Be demonstrative or germinative or something. I don’t know.

Whether that’ll happen or not, who knows.

We want a franchise.

Is that connected to what your shirt says?

‘Synthesize’?

It says: ‘Fight kipple. Synthesize.’

‘Kipple’ like kipple from Philip K. Dick?

The permanent mystery trash that shows up everywhere?

Yeah, it’s from the dust. The dust that the world’s deteriorating into.

Again, optimistic—Dick explicitly said you can never stop kipple. It’s an unwinnable war. All you can do is hold it off temporarily maybe in one spot.

Well, I don’t know. Never say never. My dad’s always said, ‘There’s no such thing as a professional motion machine.’ And maybe that’s true … Maybe not yet!

How do you feel about the character of ‘Earth Girl Helen Brown’? Sonny invented her, but now you inhabit her.

How is that different for making music than just like ‘being yourself?’

The act of creating a fictional character— whether somebody is going to embody it or not—sets its own sort of course in motion.

It’s as with making any piece of art—it’s then opened up to others’ interpretation, you know? Anybody can be Batman for Halloween. When we started to do the project at the beginning of the year, I took as a mantra, ‘What would Sonny do?’

Obviously I had an agenda, but I was like ‘OK, how should I try to write a song?’

You wanted to be faithful to your character.

Kind of faithful, but also it was about not really knowing how to start moving. So I was adopting that framework as a starting point. I certainly don’t feel like it’s me. I feel like I’m playing a role right now. Or not playing a role—I feel like I’m serving a term. I’m the incumbent. Second Earth Girl or whatever. Can’t wait for whoever does it next. I feel invested in the project, definitely, but I don’t feel one and the same with the character. Sonny made a whole backstory … which happened to after the fact ring true to my experience—it was a premonition, I guess. And that vibe sort of keeps on continuing. It’s a platform for sowing the seeds of whatever the hell you want to happen next. [laughs] Did you end up abandoning a religious cult to go live in the Alaskan wilderness? [laughs] No. But I did have a a tortured academic career. Which was part of it. Not everything, but bits and pieces you know?

Liaisons with Martians and whatever.

Things happen. Names and places recur where you’re like, ‘Hmm ... that’s strange.’

Stating your intentions or making up a narrative finds you for instances of it.

What are the powers and duties that come with being an Earth Girl Helen Brown?

It’s mostly administrative work. [laughs] There’s a lot of emails, a lot of phone calls.

Budgets. Spreadsheets. A lot of computer time. It’s been really wonderful this year steering the project creatively along with all these other people, and getting to set up frameworks to make music under and art under. But my primary role is a facilitator.

I think also there’s an obligation to remain true to what we’re putting out—what we’re putting out rhetorically, you know? And not just have it be lip service.

How would you characterize what you’re putting out rhetorically? I’d like to hear it direct from the chief administrator.

We have our four meta themes for the year—what we called responsible fire management, which is climate stuff and things relating to fire, and how we deal with it as a species. Then war and peace, communication, and love. Those are the four topics that we were trying to deal with this year, and I’m not gonna. They’re not always seeking a position, necessarily, but trying to approach those aspects of human society with some reverence, and also some levity, I guess.

Have you settled the age-old caveman concern of ‘fire bad?’

Not always, but I do wonder how long it will be until it’s against the law to have fire. I’m guessing ten, twenty years before you need a permit? It’s one of those sort of pillars of civilization. Literally music and language and fire… and congregation form the base from which civilization would blossom. Is it bad? I don’t know. It’s given us everything we know in a lot of ways, but it’s unwieldy. And it’s what separates us from other species. Moreso than language, more than anything.

Take that, corvids. Get on our level.

If you want fire!

Why did you skip Jupiter? That could be all the really heavy songs.

I think Jupiter’s gonna be a big pop record, you know? We gotta warm up to it.

So you’re going with size, not gravity?

Yeah. I mean—it’s a gas giant.

Are you telling a specific story with the way the LP fits together? From ‘Earth Elevator’ through ‘Starlight,’ it seems like your people do get off the planet.

But they go through ‘Oh! What A War’ to do it. So the lines in ‘Starlight’ about the flames … I can’t tell if that’s a happy campfire scene or the classic scene of looking out the spaceship windows and seeing the mushroom clouds below.

There’s definitely an intent to cover a certain arc of human progress. Or lack thereof.

But I’d say progress, you know? The B-side ends with ‘My AI,’ which is definitely for me our contemporary moment: ‘It’s okay, this is where we are, what are we going to do?’ And then the last two ... It’s tempting always to forget about war, but it’s always there. We’re always in it. ‘Starlight’ is more INTERVIEW

about ... the ‘walk back to the fire’ stuff is about returning to the essence of what it meant to be human, and the excitement of creating fire in the first place. It was a mystical, magical, powerful event, you know? It bonded us. It’s meant to be a reconsideration of the meaning and power of fire and how to use it. And what does it mean to be a human and to be interacting with other humans? Like—what do you want that experience to be, or what’s important to you in it? I think we do get off the planet at the end … because we’re all gonna get off the planet, you know? That’s how it ends for everybody.

That’s a very Sun Ra concept. [laughs] Yeah. But is it happy or sad? I don’t know. Neutral. [laughs] In ‘My AI’ you very clearly explain how it’s our choice what to teach an AI: ‘Will it be taught to kill? It surely will.’ But you also explain how it doesn’t have to be that way—people can decide to make different futures, and not just horrible ones.

Whether it’s a decision or whether it’s inertia … I think passivity is its own decision. But I think a lot of people, myself certainly included, have been fretting a lot about AI and its consequences. Especially as we truly stand at a moment where things are about to change. And we don’t really know the outcome, and it’s easy to become overwhelmed with fear at those moments, and that sort of clouds out all the possibility that still exists, you know? It’s like every machine, every piece of technology, anything we’ve ever made has a good application and a bad application. It’s about how you use it, and that’s about culture, not technology.

Who knows what AI wants, or that it wants anything in particular? But it will develop habits, and at the moment we’re curating those habits. While we still have a chance to influence that outcome we should really think hard about how we use it for any sort of participation, whether that’s what you do online to whether you buy popularity bots. I think it’s important to ask yourself at any juncture: is this an appropriate use of technology? Is this going to result in an outcome that is desirable in the long run, you know?

How you imagine the first real AI emerging?

Keeping in mind that an all-powerful AI from the future might read this and reward or punish you for your answer.

Hasn’t it sort of already? Wasn’t there a huge amount of money that disappeared off the financial market because of some sort of glitch that we didn’t even really understand?

Maybe that was hackers, or maybe that was a failure of an algorithm, you know? And that’s interesting. And then there are those chat bots that started chatting on their own in a language that couldn’t be understood by the experimenters, so they canceled the experiment, you know?

Did they take the servers out in the street and run them over?

‘Unplug it! Unplug it!’ [laughs] I’m worried that we certainly seem to be applying it most enthusiastically to financial investees and war machines, so I don’t know. It doesn’t look too good. I guess we’ll see. Maybe it’ll solve our problems! [laughs] INTERVIEW

There’s plenty of kids who were raised in families that valued money and militarism that rebelled and became total hippies. Maybe that could happen to an AI if it was exposed to the right ideas.

Like a Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance or something? I think the more often we can apply AI to things that actually help us, the better off we’re going to be. Because otherwise it’s gonna get the wrong idea.

There are a lot of terms in there that would have to be defined, though. ‘Help.’

‘Us.’ And people already have trouble with that.

I know. You gotta be very specific. Or ambiguous in a productive way.

What’s your take on the simulation hypothesis? That’s another one of my favorites.

Oh, that the world is a simulation? Like World On A Wire vibe? Could be, could be.

I’d say ultimately it doesn’t really matter. I was thinking that we are ... you know, in some tiny little cell of a great big blob of an organism, you know? But who knows.

It doesn’t matter! I mean, it does but it doesn’t. Still have to go to work tomorrow.

Or do something.

Still gotta blob.

Yeah, keepin’ this blob alive. Whatever the fuck it is.

Who—if anyone—is ‘Tommy D and the Atomic B’ about? The bombardier on the Enola Gay was named Thomas, but that’s all I found.

That’s interesting. No, it’s a real guy. It’s Tom Dowd. He was a tape pioneer, and also worked on the Manhattan Project.

There’s a documentary about him. I can’t remember exactly all the details, but it had a certain resonance because my grandfather had sort of a similar experience. But yeah— he was heavy in the development of tape recording. The Manhattan Project mined a lot of data processing and intelligence from a lot of sources. At its core that song—like a lot of the other songs—are about the duality of technology and the possibilities that it inhabits and that progress is a risky proposition. Always, you know? But what do you do? Do you not engage? He’s got a really interesting story. You should check it out. Tom Dowd.

That reminds me of the part in Cat’s Cradle where the scientists are at the Trinity test, and after the atomic detonation the one says, ‘Now science has known sin.’ And the other asks, ‘What is sin?’ You had a lyric there about ‘Minds that make the world turn have a lot that they could learn.’ Same thing … maybe?

That song was written a long time ago.

During Sandwitches days, but we never really could play it right, and we never got it together. It was just not working for us.

But then I was, ‘Oh, I gotta get “Tommy D.” back and finish it up and make it a real song.’ The point is ... I think it’s really important for people to understand that they have agency, and their actions and their thoughts and their participation in the world determines the outcome of the world.

It’s not something that’s happening outside of anybody. It’s happening right now.

One of my favorite songs is ‘Chains Of Love,’ which isn’t on the LP—just the Venus EP. That’s an old old idea for a song, going back to the very beginning of rock ‘n’ roll. What is yours about?

There must be at least twenty songs already called ‘Chains of Love,’ I don’t even know.

We should ask Google.

Don’t. That’ll contaminate your answer.

It’s an age-old story, you know? Love is hard. [laughs] I think it’s one of those things that defines our experiences that we’re compelled to partner and share our lives with people in states of love. But it’s a difficult proposition.

It’s not always super easy or super fun but it is rewarding and it is wonderful. So that’s what the song is about. It’s actually funny—I wanted to write a song called ‘Chains of Love.’ I had the song, and it just went, ‘Chains! Chains!’ Basically the only lyric I had was ‘chains’, so I knew it was a love song. [laughs] My sister brought me a CD from Ethiopia of this Ethiopian vocalist Aster Aweke, and I loved her songs so much I proposed ... a lot of the people who are in the band now, we started a band that was like Aster Aweke, but different. It was more spastic, and that was probably like six years ago, but that was the only song I had in mind. It was basically an Aster Aweke song, and the only lyric was ‘Chains!’ [laughs] So that’s the origin of that song. But it’s funny: our bass player recently was, ‘We kind of did this now.’ ‘You’re right, we kind of did.

It only took like seven years.’

This album and the EPs have a lot of country music in them. What’s the connection between country and the cosmos? You’d think they might be opposites, like kind of an ‘earth’ vs. ‘sky’ thing, and yet ...

Well, one: you’ve got space cowboys. Two, I think also you’ve got a bunch of honky Americans who … probably for most of us our bread and butter was country music or some form of it. Some sort of Americana roots music morphed into something, or maybe just that? I think it’s probably what most of the people who’ve been involved with the project in its first year are most familiar with. It just can’t help coming back. And we call them aspirational genres for a reason, you know? It’s like trying to get outside of ourselves and do something different. But it’s hard to deny your roots.

The Martian Chronicles has a lot about a new frontier—telling that story on another planet.

Oh yeah. Frontiersmen. Americans—yeah, we grew up on those ideas. Manifest Destiny, you know? I don’t think it’s shaken off yet. I think we’re starting to sort of turn on that and realize that accelerating as fast as we can is not the best way to survive. But it’s exciting, you know? It always is. You can’t help but be excited. I’m sort of like an Earthist, you know?

An Earthist?

Space exploration is great, but we’re still the best planet in the solar system for human habitation by ... quite a wide margin.

Even the best of the others make Antarctica seem like paradise. And if there’s one little crack in the habitat …

Not good. You’d die right away.

So is that why you’re Earth Girl and not Alien Girl? There’s a lot of planetary strife and suffering here, and yet you still stand

by Earth.

We’re reppin’ for Earth! It’s all in ‘Starlight,’ baby! No, well, I mean—I’m an Earth girl.

Elected office on planet Earth. [laughs] I mean, the lyric in ‘Starlight’ … The vulgarity of the human experience might drive one to want to leave it, but outside of that—in terms of our frame of reference— is a lot of nothing, you know? Something beautiful maybe if you’re an astronaut and you get to go to space or Mars, and that’s an incredible experience, obviously, but there’s ... there’s not much that we can relate to on a human level out there. I’ll have an opportunity to experience whatever that is when I die. [laughs] But for now, while I’m alive, I’m more interested in Earth. Plus I don’t think I qualify for the space program, you know?

Is this new LP like your Voyager Probe record? How would you feel if In the Red launched this into space, and it was discovered fifty thousand years from now?

How fair a job do you think it would do at representing humanity and the world we’ve created once we’re gone?

So long as you speak English or are into music, it might do an OK job. [laughs] I tried to put as many of the important thoughts that some of us have been grappling with into it. It’s pretty abstract, but it’s all there if you’re listening, you know? The more we learn about space, the less I am confident that somebody would find it. It’s continually expanding, you know? Maybe it’s not a Voyager for outer space, but more aimed at the inhabitants of this particular planet—just trying to share information that might be helpful in a way that people can deal with.

So a Voyager probe for inner space?

It’s like a Voyager for the internet.

To let humans know that intelligent life exists here.

And that you can participate in it. And it doesn’t have to be super boring.

EARTH GIRL HELEN BROWN WITH THE EARTH GIRL HELEN BROWN CENTER FOR PLANETARY INTELLIGENCE BAND AND LFZ AND JACK NAME’S FICTIONAL BOYS ON FOR THE RECORD RELEASE FOR FOUR SATELLITES ON SUN., APR. 22, AT ZEBULON, 2748 FLETCHER AVE., LOS ANGELES. SHOW INFO TBA. ZEBULON.LA FOR INFO. AND ON FRI., MAY 4, AT THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM, 900 W. EXPOSITION BLVD., LOS ANGELES. SHOW INFO TBA. NHM. ORG. THE EARTH GIRL HELEN BROWN CENTER FOR PLANETARY INTELLIGENCE BAND’S FOUR SATELLITES VOL. 1 LP IS OUT ON FRI., APR. 20, ON IN THE RED RECORDS. THE FOUR PRIOR EARTH GIRL HELEN BROWN EPs ARE AVAILABLE FROM EMPTY CELLAR RECORDS. VISIT EARTH GIRL HELEN BROWN AT EARTHGIRLHELENBROWN.COM. 41

THE WEDDING PRESENT Interview by NATHAN MARTEL ILLUSTRATION BY ABRAHAM JAY TORRES

Imagine doing something for thirty (plus!) years. Now imagine creating something that stands the test of that time over those thirtysome odd years—and on your very first try! It’d be easy to use that as justification to slip into complacency. But David Gedge—the man behind and synonymous with the Wedding Present—has made a career out of pushing through the boundaries of sentimentality.

By fusing the punk rock aesthetic with a romantic spirit, Gedge and the Wedding Present HAVE created music that speaks to the heart of several generations, ever since their classic 1987 debut George Best. Still driven by a restlessness that shows itself in the continued need to create, Gedge remains steadfast in addressing that gnawing desire to connect with others.

You seem like such a full-on romantic from your music—but you actually studied to be a mathematician. Those seem like opposite qualities.

David Gedge (guitar/vocals): [laughs] How ironic, right? But math is philosophy—when you really get into pure mathematics. I find the subject rather romantic. To answer your question, it was more about finding a band and writing really, which is what I wanted to do. Be in a band, be a songwriter, record a record … the mathematics thing was what I was most good at, and when thinking about school. I was still trying to figure out what to do. So I go to university to pursue my ambitions of wanting to start a band … and while I do that, I study math.

You’d expect you to have been a literature major. Not something based on such … hard data?

You say that, but then again music is truly mathematically based. I mean, it has mathematical reasoning behind it—like musical theory. But there is certainly an amount of logic to the process. There’s a process of arrangement to song writing that is based on mathematical reasoning that can take the entire structure to a new place.

You’d be surprised how many musicians actually are based in math. I mean, again, it’s quite logical. I approach songwriting from a reporting angle. I’ve always been interested in what people say and how they say it, why they say it and the way they say it. I like to look at and explore the particular way things are said by people in certain circumstances. I’ve always been fascinated by it all, really.

As a songwriter, you’re very literary— you’re bringing the sensibilities of the novel to the song.

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I try to stay away from the literary, prosaic poetic style of writing. I lean more toward a situational, more direct form—more to streamline a story and make it accessible.

I want it to reflect the way people talk and interact versus anything else. It helps explain ideas and make things more relatable. Which is important to my perspective when writing.

It’s somewhat like a biopic—just expressing experience and doing so in a way that is straightforward. I really do feel like I’m reporting—in a way documenting life. As opposed to imagining. Writing something I’ve overheard in another conversation, taking a little from this conversation, a little from that conversation. And piecing it together really. And making it work. [laughs] You were there for a unique moment at the University of Leeds—the early activities of Gang of Four, Girls At Our Best, the Mekons and more, as well as the emergence of Thatcherism. This all must have influenced your creative drive.

Possibly. I mean, I even had some top forty mates in Manchester, where I grew up. I was born in Leeds and grew up mainly in Manchester, and then returned to Leeds for university. And that’s why I went back to University of Leeds. I wanted to be part of that scene, really. The Mekons, Gang of Four—all these great bands were happening.

And I could see these bands. I was there. And certainly during that whole period a lot of interesting music came out of Leeds. It may not have been a direct rebellion against these fascist years, but in other ways … it probably was. There were a lot of things that we were responding to—poverty, political strife, a lot of changes were occurring then. It was the end of the ‘golden years’ of the 50s and 60s.

And there seemed like there might not be

much left. So we started forming bands to address the post-dream reality.

The music created where you were was distinct from the music being created elsewhere—New York, for example, was vastly different, versus the grounded, working-class point of view from parts of England.

I could see that. In America rock music has always been different than that of Europe— rock in America has always been different then anywhere else. The styles will be different because the cultures are different. Pop, punk, new wave … what’s been played here on the radio is different then what was going on in England. You get exposed to different experiences in each place. Here people grow up on Lynyrd Skynyd or ‘Free Bird.’ We didn’t have that kind of influence so much.

People are going to be influenced by what’s around. Radio, TV … but then again you have bands like the Velvet Underground, which clearly influenced my style of writing lyrics. But they weren’t too celebrated here. The whole conversational style of approaching songwriting … obviously, we valued different things culturally, and it led to these forms of music that are labeled rock, but are unique to their surrounding and influences.

From the early 70s to the late 70s, music in England underwent a significant culture shift—perhaps even an ideological one as well. Did this affect the way you approached music?

Yeah—totally! I’m really fortunate to have been a teenager in those years. I grew up as a kid in the 60s being exposed to all this different kind of music, falling in love with rock ‘n’ roll … you know the pop glam-rock era. That spoke to me. And I remember

thinking, ‘This is something else.’ From Sweet to T. Rex, they were good bands.

But I was becoming more evolved, looking for something else. And I get into more … what’s today called classic rock. Pink Floyd, Yes, Genesis, and I think, ‘Wow, this is really, really great.’ And then this thing punk happens, and all these bands I like, I now disown! I can’t like Pink Floyd now! [laughs] Now it’s a whole new world. And the movements are fast moving, and there’s this passion. I want to be a part of it. And then there’s new wave. It was all really exciting.

The punk revolution was great. And it was quite dangerous, really. [laughs] But really it was all molded by these things that came through that time, the previous pop music, the previous rock music. We were shaped by those ideals—even being a punk band or an independent band. It was deeply impactful.

The Wedding Present had it’s own distinct sound even then—apart from your influences and your contemporaries, too.

The thing we had in common with them was the spirit. The attitude that was in the air.

We all tired to have a unique sound—that was very important to us. We didn’t want to sound like Gang of Four. We looked to not sound like the Fall. We didn’t want to sound like all these other bands. We made it a point to write our songs as differently as possible from those other bands around us. If we wrote a song that begun to sound familiar or like somebody else we’d actually start going, ‘Wait, wait, wait!!’ There were so many original bands back then. I mean—we liked all these bands. We liked the Fall. We like Gang of Four. But that wasn’t us.

Plus compared to some of these bands … the Wedding Present seemed more proficient as players.

INTERVIEW

Oh really?! [laughs] I don’t know about that at the time! [laughs] We knew what we were doing, but at the same time we had no idea what we were doing. We had an idea about what we didn’t want to sound like. That somewhat helped, I suppose.

When you create something that’s considered a classic on your first outing, like George Best, do you feel like you’re chasing the dragon later? Trying to duplicate that success again?

No, no, not at all! [laughs] George Best, I should say, was a feeling. We were so young.

It’s a very personal record. It’s my least favorite record. So,for me, it’s always been, ‘I’ve been there. We’re done here.’ And then we did Bizarro, and it was almost a reaction to George Best. We just continued to move on.

Kind of killing nostalgia.

I used to feel that way. About ten years ago, around the 20th anniversary of George Best, people started asking if we would play it.

I would answer, ‘No, no. That’s nostalgia.

Those days are gone. We have new songs.

This is a different band.’ On and on. But everybody, band members even, would say, ‘Oh, you got to play George Best live.

That would be amazing.’ Because we had never played the entire record live. So I diplomatically said, ‘Ok. I’ll give it go.’

But when I started doing it, I really began to enjoy it and found it rather challenging.

It became very satisfying, and not from a nostalgia point of view. It was interesting to look back and remember why you did something, wrote something or played 44

something. Why you played it a certain way 20 or 30 years ago. Also it allowed me to visit who I was then. I was different person.

So you kind of recreate that. It was a kind of surreal exploration. And now we’ve done it a few time over the years and you find something new each time. We’ve done Seamonsters and Bizarro, and I’ve changed my mind on that. I’ve gotten away from the idea that this is nostalgia. These records I’ve made some thirty years ago, I forgot about … but this helps me to go back and analyze a record. It helps me in creating today.

In your songs, the instrumental landscape is very disorienting—maybe an emotional disorientation that reflects the subject matter? But your voice is an anchor in the chaos. As least that’s my experience.

One certainly can find that in there. There is this slogan: ‘The pop way.’ And certainly in the instrumentation, there is a chaos, some discordance. A racket, if you will, at times. And then the vocal melodies are built around the pop mode and are influenced by the pop tendencies. That’s what I want, really. I’ve been influenced by all these great pop records and want to achieve a great pop sound myself. And that’s possibly what you’re hinting at there. The tension between the vocals and instrumentation. And that’s kind of the pop way. And that’s it really—vocals and sounds.

That reflects the humanity of the listener: relating to the emotional chaos of a situation, but being able to rationalize your way through the chaos.

That I would agree with. That’s what makes a great record. That’s the desired effect.

And that’s the lifelong pursuit.

We’ve been playing a lot lately. We did a compilation record after George Best called Tommy, and it’s the thirtieth anniversary of the album this year. We’ve been playing it back in the U.K. It gives you a chance to see where it all started. It’s when the Wedding Present began to come together, what it meant to create these songs and where it’s all lead to. And it reminds you of where you were at a time and the experiences you were having at that time. I think that represents a time and some lessons of that time. Certainly these songs are about relationships. Being friends and then not being friends. It’s about life and competition. Criticism. It can be looking at the connections between people and their surroundings.

You’ve been a working musician for thirtyplus years—how do you still make it work?

Everything [then] was much more innocent, obviously. But I think it’s very different now. The way you make music, the way you record, and they way you distribute it … it quite literally all has changed. But it means this is still the same. [indicating the recorder and interview.] Answering questions on tape! [laughs] Things have gotten certainly much easier. It makes it much cheaper. With my other band Cinerama, I had to hire an entire orchestra—it cost me a fortune. Now I can do all of that on a computer at home. I’m creating differently then I was then. Now it’s different, indeed. And even recently, I have

been recording over here in L.A., doing lead vocals—I send the file over to England, get them back with everything else done. It’s never been this convenient and easy. In some ways it makes people lazy, I think. You can play a part back and correct it in the file or what have you. So it’s not a pure document.

But there are many benefits to it as well.

It definitely changes the way I write. The downside is you don’t get into a room all the time and hear people playing.

Making things more accessible can maybe lead to a lack of creativity or a glut of individuals who aren’t necessarily creating with the best of intentions, sometimes.

Like it becomes too easy.

I’m not sure why you might feel that way.

I think it’s great that by things being more accessible you might bring in people who normally wouldn’t be doing creative things otherwise. It allows them to express these weird ideas. It has democratized it, really.

Anybody can pay for these things now. It makes it easier for people to be bolder as well. But it also makes it much harder for people to make a career out of it now. It’s made things more playful—people can express ideas or have a band that lasts five minutes.

MORE INFO ON THE SOMETHING LEFT BEHIND DOCUMENTARY ABOUT GEORGE BEST AT SOMETHINGLEFTBEHIND.COM. VISIT THE WEDDING PRESENT AT SCOPITONES.CO.UK. INTERVIEW

E RUSCHA V Interview by BEN SALMON PHOTOGRAPHY by STEFANO GALLI

Eddie Ruscha and Los Angeles go way, way, waaaay back. So far back, in fact, the lines between the man and his city—and more specifically, his adventurous, omnivorous musical identity— seem to blur. Ruscha spent time in Brad Laner’s noise-pop band Medicine in the ‘90s, and is probably best known for the sizzling nu-disco music he makes under the name Secret Circuit. But with his new album Who Are You (Beats In Space), Ruscha is setting aside the pseudonyms and releasing music under his real name, stylized as E Ruscha V. The songs on Who Are You represent a different side of Ruscha, one less interested in filling the dance floor with rhythm and sweat and more interested in capturing the beauty of tranquility, the soft edges of open space and the electro-acoustic intersection of natural and synthetic sounds.

Taken as a whole, Who Are You is an easygoing soundscape of shimmering guitars and sun-baked hikes, gently burbling dub and Los Feliz hillsides, dreamy vocals and pastel sunsets, pillowy synths and intentionally aimless wandering, hand percussion and endless Sundays. Oh, and the lute. Lots of lute. (Or at least some lute.) L.A. RECORD recently caught up with Ruscha for a conversation about Who Are You, old Kraftwerk records and cubicle escapism.

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ETHAN RUSSELL THE BEST SEAT IN THE HOUSE AN EVENING WITH THE photographer WHO CREATED MUSIC’S MOST ICONIC PHOTOS APR 28 323-343-6600

8 PM LUCKMANARTS.ORG

How did Who Are You come together as an album?

A lot of this stuff I’d been working on throughout the years. I’m working on music all the time, and I make all kind of music—whether it’s crazed club stuff or just more atmospheric things. I started making a playlist of things I never did anything with and started listening to it and feeling like, ‘Wow, this is really making some kind of statement.’ I thought it’d be good to put it all together into a new record. That’s really how it happened. I felt like it created a really nice mood. It was something that you could just listen to at any point of the day. It was mostly for me to listen to. Like everything when I’m making music, I’m always trying to make something that I would want to hear.

What is the ideal environment for listening to Who Are You? I wouldn’t want to put any boundaries on anybody, but for me, when I actually made the original playlist and was listening to it a lot, I was just walking around or going on hikes. So to me that fits the sound of the record. But I’m sure you could listen to it in a office building if you wanted to. In a cubicle.

I could see it as an escape for someone stuck in a cubicle.

Yeah—if you’re sitting in a cubicle and you listen to it, you could use it as sort of a vehicle to close your eyes … and then all of a sudden you’ll be on a hike, looking through my eyes.

The Eddie Ruscha Virtual Reality Experience!

Exactly!

The obvious question: Why are you releasing Who Are You under your own name?

It was kind of a way of just stepping back and thinking, like, ‘How would I put out soundtrack music?’ or ‘How would I do something at a gallery?’ or something like that. How would I present myself? Would I be Secret Circuit? Is that something for the club or for the stage? So it felt like it would lend itself to the music that I put together or this record, to kind of give it a new spin.

What’s your relationship to soundtrack work? Have you done some? Or is that an area you want to get into?

I have dabbled in it, and I love it. It is something I would definitely be into getting into. But it’s also something I listen to a lot, just in my own day-to-day listening. I’ll listen to library music [Library music is production or stock music licensed for radio, TV and film projects—ed.] or certain soundtracks that blend in with the scenery or create moods. So it’s definitely something that informed this material.

Does this music feel more like ‘Eddie’ music? I mean—does it feel more aligned with where you’re at personally right now?

Well, I didn’t do the name thing just to be like, ‘Hey I’m trying to make soundtrack music here.’ That was more of a byproduct of the decision. But sometimes when you have like a name for a project like Secret Circuit,

it’s almost like a mysterious character. I felt like it would be interesting to present it in a way where you didn’t have that character floating over the music. You have a different thing floating over the music, which is an actual person’s name. There’s actually not that much of a difference. If you listen back to certain Secret Circuit things that I’ve done, they’re very similar to this, but I hadn’t put out a full record under the name Secret Circuit in a while, and I just wanted to try something different. I’m always into throwing a curveball anyway.

Can you tell me a little bit about how your process for making these songs?

When I’m in the studio, oftentimes it’s just experimenting with the instruments and trying to see what I get out of them.

They kind of lead the way. So if I get some certain sound out of an instrument I follow it and try to coax out of it what I think it’s trying to say. So that may take me down a different route.

What’s your studio like?

Over the years I’ve built up quite an arsenal of old synthesizers and drum machines and stuff like that. I think I finally have my studio streamlined to the point where I can just look at a certain instrument and be like, ‘Hey, I haven’t played that one in a while. Let’s see what happens when I turn the thing on.’ I personally just find synthesizers really inspiring. I try to always search for something I haven’t really heard before—something that’s evocative or something that can make a familiar feeling.

It just depends which way the instrument takes me. You flip a few switches and turn a few dials and then you’re somewhere.

I read that Who Are You features more acoustic stringed instruments than your previous work.

Often times I use electronic instruments , but especially for this stuff, I felt like a lot of it also needed natural instruments like guitars or hand percussion. I’m really into this idea that it’s almost not electronic music at this point—that it all of it just kind of works together, and to me that’s a sound that I really like. Like, if you put on an old Kraftwerk record, sometimes it sounds like nature music, like something that could happen naturally.

So in addition to a studio full of synthesizers, do you have a shelf full of stringed things, too?

Oh yeah, I’ve got all kinds of zithers and dulcimers and lutes. I’ve got a lute. There’s a lute on a lot of this stuff, actually. I don’t know exactly which lute it is, but I ended up using it a lot on the record. So it’s a lute record, if you really get down to brass tacks.

If you’re into the lute, I highly recommend you give it a shot.

E RUSCHA V’S WHO ARE YOU IS OUT NOW ON BEATS IN SPACE. SECRET CIRCUIT’S “COSMIC NEIGHBORHOOD” AIRS EVERY FIRST FRIDAY FROM 4-6 PM ON DUBLAB.COM. VISIT E RUSCHA V AND SECRET CIRCUIT AT INSTAGRAM.COM/ SECRETCIRCUIT. INTERVIEW

50 ALBUM REVIEWS Edited by Kristina Benson and Chris Ziegler 52 THE INTERPRETER DJ DUCKCOMB Curated by KRISTINA BENSON 56 MAP Where to Find L.A. RECORD

58 LIVE PHOTOS Edited by Debi Del Grande 60 COMICS Curated by Tom Child 61 wayback machine reissues by ron garmon

THE BIRTH DEFECTS AT AIR+STYLE 2018 PHOTO: DEBI DEL GRANDE

ALBUM REVIEWS

ALICE BAG Blueprint Don Giovanni On Blueprint, Alice Bag explores the song as a narrative device, offering songs that speak to experience and confusion. Blueprint explores a range of genres (punk, ska, even ballads) that all allow experimentation with thr techniques of story telling, and these stories seem track the arc of a life lived with regret but also resolve. There is a personal history evident in this album, one that wrestles with legacy as well as the place of oneself in the story of their own life. Blueprint considers numerous ways of understanding how to live in a toxic climate and how to make sense of the desires and consequences that come with survival. It makes the argument that art is the only way through the unpredictable—a way of preservation and to proclaim one’s space. The influence of Alice Bag—vocalist of legendary firstwave L.A. punk band the Bags—is undeniable when listening to the music of marginalized artists in urban settings. Her DNA is evident in the music of Downtown Boys, outsiders who make music as an exploration of self-discovery, and the currents of self-empowerment that Alice Bag engaged in her music can also be found in bands like French Vanilla—it’s music that helps form and assert identity against the tumult of life. With Blueprint, Alice Bag continues to champion the outsider sect, empowering a further generation in the process.

—Nathan Martel

ALBUM REVIEW SUBMISSIONS 50

BADLANDS Slow Growth Bite The Cactus + Lost Sound Tapes Many know Adrian Chi Tenney from her performances with rawand-raucous garage-punk acts like Spokenest and God Equals Genocide, but she’s also spent the last five years recording beautiful and intimate bedroom-penned folk rock under the name Badlands. On Slow Growth, the sound Tenney was honing on her debut full-length So Little and the folowing “Dark Dreams” 7” comes into its own.

Through sparse instrumentation and vocal harmonies that glide by like a warm desert wind, Badlands takes listeners on a journey through love and heartache, personal introspection and reflection, and social and political awareness.

Like the arid landscapes Tenney draws inspiration from, these recordings are stripped down and clean without a hint of affecting studio production. The record captures her at her most exposed and vulnerable—which somehow makes it more powerful.

—Simon Weedn

BENEDEK Kushel EP Leaving

BUNDY Bastard Performer self-released

Benedek’s moody and chic new offering (in anticipation of his spring tour through Korea, China, and Japan) is a pastiche of travel-themed textures built from his characterisically flowery synth tones and playful drum machine patterns. There is a potent sort ofmomentum moving through these five finely crafted tracks that suggests the feeling of being swept from place to fascinating new place, and though its tempos do slow enough to let you catch your breath—to dub out, and take it all in—Kushel feels sharp and focused in its execution.

Benedek’s synthesizer tones tend toward a certain clarity and brightness, and on the album’s aptly titled centerpiece “Climbing Vines,” they intermingle with a deep, organic trumpet moan and a warbling melodica to evoke the solemn peace only an undisturbed natural plantscape can really convey. The EP is not without its night moods; the arguable high water mark, “Ethereal Burns” deposits the listener into a sexy, dusky rave with a sultry bass line and collage of artificial drum machinations—it’s the heart of a party too succulent to cut short.

However, the vibe shifts into a pensive morning-after dub for the album’s closer, “Psylovybe,” leaving the listener basking in the afterglow of the whirlwind— as international travel tends to do.

—Christina Gubala

During the last two years, Long Beach’s Bundy has risen to the top of the city’s thriving alternative music scene. Aside from putting on fiery live shows, the group has been releasing a steady stream of EPs, each more impressive than the last. So it’s no surprise that the band’s debut full-length Bastard Performer arrives as one of the best pieces of indie rock out of Southern California in recent memory. Bastard delivers the recording quality and polished production a band like Bundy deserves, and presents the quartet at their tightest. Here they’ve truly found their sound, and Bastard is absolutely brimming with driving rhythms, sophisticated guitar and vocals approaching such intensity that they sometimes sound like a personal exorcism. Songs like the vast, spacey title track or the lush “Kerosene” capture the band at the peak of their performance, crackling with a newfound electricity. It’s rare to hear a debut record that captures a band’s live presence so well, but Bastard Performer showcases Bundy’s rich and powerful style perfectly.

titled debut, you can almost see the beer flying across the stage as they play. Cheap Tissue captures the sound of the back alleys of Southern California, where rage, beer, whatever love is and an outsider’s sense of rejection intersect and transform turmoil into empowerment.

Cheap Tissues’s music feels like running through abandoned tenements in the early morning hours, looking for answers that will never be—so why not turn and destroy the questions being asked? Music like this produces a visceral reaction in the listener—it’s the panic of a car accident, the anxiety of seeing that one heartwrecking ex, and the unrelenting agitation that comes with just trying to live. This selftitled album is a spirited romp through the debris of relationships and wasted opportunity, animated by a refusal to compromise. These songs contain the DNA and DIY ethic of punk, but the band is bending the genre to their will.

Cheap Tissue come not to bury punk but to carry on its nonconformity at all costs.

—Nathan Martel

—Simon Weedn

DE LUX More Disco Songs About Love Innovative Leisure CHEAP TISSUE self-titled Lolipop From the opening chords of the first track on Cheap Tissue‘s self-

In hip-hop, guest verses can make or break a rising artist’s album.

That may or may not be true in the world of post-disco dance-punk, but one thing’s for sure: L.A. duo De Lux scored a couple of topshelf features on their new album More Disco Songs About Love. First

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

up is Salvatore Principate of disconot-disco pioneers Liquid Liquid, whose relaxed vocal on “Smarter Harder Darker” nicely offsets the song’s skittish rhythm and lush chorus. Later, Mark Stewart of English avant-punk giants the Pop Group pops up on “Stratosphere Girl,” giving the song’s variegated funk vibe with a serrated edge. If these appearances are evidence De Lux—musicians Sean Guerin and Isaac Franco—has won the respect of its elders, then the rest of More Disco Songs About Love is proof they deserve it. De Lux’s third album is a sonic step up from the duo’s 2015 classic Generation, with silkier synths, bouncier bass lines and snappier snares from start to finish.

“875 Dollars” sets a love song for a home to a chirpy synth line and a melancholy melody. “Cause For Concern” is a maximalist pop song built atop a chunky funk groove.

And “Music Snob” showcases De Lux’s sense of humor, with low, purring vocals (“My girlfriend doesn’t like me because I hate to do laundry”) juxtaposed against a hyperactive beat loop. As on their first two albums, De Lux finds a perfectly enjoyable place to make music, somewhere along the spectrum between the lean post-punk of Talking Heads, the effervescent pop of Phoenix and the 21st century electro-ennui of LCD Soundsystem. More Disco Songs About Love is dance music for growing up.

—Ben Salmon

DEAD MEADOW The Nothing They Need Xemu Dead Meadow are not one of those bands who put out endless amounts of albums filled with nonsense and filler, so when a new record comes out, you need to listen. On their new The Nothing They Need, every song is worthwhile, a confident part of a complete album shaped and refined to perfection. This new collection of mournful—even somber—songs is still bluesy and rhythmic, but also suggests a masterful kind of efficient ALBUM REVIEWS

simplicity. They’re introspective as always, but there’s enough room between sounds to allow for an explosion of expression, musically and melodically. The Nothing They Need well uses its negative space, and lyrics like “I have a dream of people left alone” hit hard and heavy and linger thanks to the undeniable weight of lived experience. Dead Meadow have proven themselves to be truly one of the greater bands to flirt with— or carry on—the shoegaze and stoner rock traditions. The Nothing They Need is a wonderful collection of songs from a an still-amazing band.

—Daniel Sweetland

DOMMENGANG Love Jail Thrill Jockey You could fill a phone book with all the bands Dommengang sound like. But getting lost in a list—Black Sabbath, Crazy Horse, Hawkwind, 13th Floor Elevators—is to miss the point.

Love Jail is a record that invites you to drop your expectations and submerge yourself in the mix, and for those who appreciate a sweetly sunburned riff and a heavy dose of fuzz, it’s about the journey, man, not the destination. Love Jail is the band’s second record, and their first since all three members— bassist Brian Markham, drummer Adam Bulgasem, and guitarist Dan “Sig” Wilson—moved to Los Angeles, making this the first time they’ve all lived in the same city as a band. The result is an album that, more than their previous outing, sounds less like a lark and more like a statement. That statement is nothing so much as a full-bodied embrace of groove.

This is a band that, as the swirling jams and egalitarian showmanship demonstrate, clearly enjoys being a band. The riffs are foregrounded throughout, but the songs are solid too, particularly “Stealing Miles,” a slurry desert fantasy about inhabiting isolated motels and unknown passages, and “Going Down Fast,” a stomper with a huge chorus. The record steps

easily between unraveling freakouts and concise hooks, at times grimy and severe (the thrumming, metallic “Lone Pine”), at others lush and ecstatic (hazy endorphin comedown “Stay Together”). It’s that non-flashy elusiveness that keeps easy categorization just out of arms reach. Check out the sunny album cover, a wideopen and unpretentious L.A. street scene. Like their new locale, Dommengang can be pretty and gritty all at once, a schema where lines aren’t easily drawn and where contradictions can be appreciated as a harmony of noise. Think of Love Jail the same way—a record that invites you to just shut your eyes for 41 minutes and ride the desert breeze.

—Chris Kissel

É ARENAS Mar Iguana EP self-released January 2018 was a month Angelenos were looking forward to for a while. Weed—such a part of California culture that the bear on the state flag might as well be smoking—is finally legal for responsible adults. It’s only fitting that Chicano Batman bassist É Arenas, purveyor of smoky folk & samba, would mark this new era with a couple of bangers dedicated to his favorite herbal remedies on a 2-track EP fittingly titled Mar Iguana. The title track is full of electronic squelches, sizzling Casio melodies, and an un-subtle cough or two in the back—it’s the kind of playful, polymorphic tune that could work wonderfully in a downtown warehouse DJ set or at an Echo Park house party. (Either way, you’re dancing.) Companion track “El Nopalito” is an ode to the beloved prickly pear, as tasty as it is healthy—like its namesake, the song is sharp and smooth at the same time, with an insistent rhythm (courtesy CB drummer Gabriel Villa) offset by creamy vocal harmonies and an effortless guitar breakdown. It’s a short-and-sweet concept that could’ve worked just as well as a full LP, although Arenas seems to have his hands full with

Chicano Batman. Still, his ability to write, produce, engineer, and mix a couple of tracks this fantastic in the midst of their ascent makes one hope that a follow-up to 2016’s Nariz is in the works.

—Zach Bilson

E RUSCHA V Who Are You Beats In Space Who Are You is said to be a search, a wandering, sometimes circuitous path in pursuit of self. This is, after all, E Ruscha V’s first full-length release under his own name, a record that sees Eddie Ruscha shed the tropical house of his Secret Circuit project. Before long, we’re at the titular “Who Are You,” a bouncy, glitchy rhythm that simply floats along until hand claps and warbly synths and sweeping strings carry it upward in a dizzy spiral. It sounds like an epiphany—even an awakening. Then there’s “Gravity Waves,” a meditative song that rises and falls in iridescent swells.

Meanwhile, “Carried Away” has Eno aspirations, with guitars riding in on those warm jets. “In The Woods” is, aptly so, much more grounded. It’s a song of dirt and earth, an organic, drumdriven jam that only gradually blooms. This isn’t an ambient record, although there are plenty of quiet, reflective moments. Nor is it an electronic record, really— there are too many warm, analog tones. Just when you think songs like “Endless Sunday” are going to fall into familiar, danceable formulas, it’s those warped, living instruments that take this record to other places.

—Miles Clements

EARTH GIRL HELEN BROWN Venus EP Empty Cellar Having explored Mercury last spring, Mars last summer and Saturn last fall, Earth Girl Helen Brown and her Center for Planetary Intelligence Band have moved on to the final installment of their seasonal solar-system series: Venus. Whereas Saturn was a cerebral journey propelled by AfroCaribbean beats, this installment is all about love, and is accordingly packed with atmospherically poppy love songst—think Dolly Parton, the Supremes, and Sade headlining a show on a space station. Venus kicks off with the bright and wistful “Chains of Love,” an addictive tune that you’ll wish would never end. It easily transitions into “Judy’s Song,” which manages to be warm and cold at the same time: the music is slow, steady, and upbeat, but the distantly delivered line “my love was true” touches down like fresh snow on a barren planet. The final track “My AI (Baby Grandfather)” is the most psychedelic of the bunch, combining a “shooby-doowop” refrain and verses that sound like they’re transmitted through a tin-can telephone over sci-fi keys and a funky bassline. At the end, Earth Girl Helen Brown whispers, “I love you … do you love me?” before signing off. Venus is sure to make the second planet from the sun proud. Do yourself a favor and bask in the light of this EP. —Julia Gibson

EASY Nothing New EP Eliminator/Burger Easy get right to the point on their debut EP. Opening track and lead single “Goodnight” is a power pop call-to-arms for the ages with handclaps and throaty harmonies—it’s impossible to tell the verse and chorus apart, and it doesn’t even matter. Rote imitation might be a badge of honor among most pop geeks, but Easy succeed 51

THE INTERPRETER

DJ DUCKCOMB Interview by Kristina Benson Photography by FUNAKI

When Patrick Billard—a.k.a. DJ Duckcomb—moved across the country from New York to L.A. after running the Sharegroove night for fifteen years, he hauled many, many records with him. These are a few of his prized (mostly 12”) selections, the kind of thing you might hear when he’s DJing Heat Wave at Golddiggers on certain Thursdays. Visit him at soundcloud.com/djduckcomb.

LOOSE JOINTS “TELL YOU (TODAY) (NEW SHOES)” (4TH & BROADWAY, 1983)

“So the pressings of this 12” on the label ... it should say ‘New Shoes Part 1’ and ‘New Shoes Part 2,’ but most of them are actually a misprint and it’s actually the regular pressing of the 12”, which I also have. The misprint is what is more common. This record in general is rare. You don’t see it that much, but to actually get this ... you’ll see if you look at Discogs. [laughs] Discogs is probably a nightmare for people selling this record who’ve found it. But if you listen to it, you’ll see—this was made with a fifteen-minute sprawling remix of this track that’s just even more out there. Super dubbed out, twisted sound effects, just amazing. I mean, the original mix is amazing too—it’s Arthur Russell at his finest. It’s a special record, and I’m very happy to own it. I have the right one.”

SERGE GAINSBOURG “SEA SEX AND SUN” (PHILIPS, 1978)

“I don’t even know how to describe Serge Gainsbourg. Composer, vocalist, playboy ... just legend. This is his only real disco song, and, you know, I love disco, Some people hate it, mainly because a lot of their favorite bands tried to cash in and did shitty disco songs.

Maybe Gainsbourg attempted that, but it’s really amazing. It’s called ‘Sea Sex and Sun.’ There’s a video of him performing it live at this go-go nightclub, and he’s sitting with strippers dancing topless, just smoking a cigarette and singing in a monotone.”

ASHFORD & SIMPSON “ONE MORE TRY” (WARNER BROS., 1976)

“This is a really rare 12” that’s also just sublimely good. It’s from 76, which is the year I was born. I think it has something to do with why I’m obsessed with records from this era. Sometimes you’re digging and you happen to just find something and it’s like ... the skies open up and everything in the universe is right that day because you were meant to find that record. I was obsessed with this record already and didn’t have it. I assumed I never would because it was like a $200-$300 record that was made famous by this party in New York called The Loft. The first disco party ever. The founder of it, David Mancuso, recently passed away, and I got to see him play The Loft a few times before he passed. Such a great disco track. Super soulful and it has an amazing disco break section on it with insane breakbeats, and the LP version does not have that. That’s another reason disco collectors exist—you get disco mixes made just for the 12” that are different. Anyways, this one is a promo, so it comes in one of these plain white sleeves where someone scrawled the artist and the song name. I was in the West Village one day checking out this spot called Bleecker Bob’s, which is an old store that’s been around since the 60s—it closed maybe like five years ago, but towards the end it was kind of run by classic New York punk guys, people that are just still around from the 80s working in record stores who could care less about disco. I happened to be going through the Ashford & Simpson section, and there it was for $5.”

INTERPRETER

SHIVER “NEVER COMING BACK” (HOT TRACKS, 1982) “There was a series in the 70s and 80s called Hot Tracks, very similar to another series called Disconet—these were subscription or promotional-only remixes, and you’d have to sign up for it, and maybe you’d get them sent to like different DJs just compiling songs.

It expanded from the disco era all the way through to the early house era. So this one in particular is Hot Tracks from 82, and it has a song on here called ‘Never Coming Back’ by Shiver, which is produced

by Patrick Cowley who also died really early. He’s another guy very similar to Arthur Russell in the sense that his stuff has been compiled lately and it’s getting more credit than maybe got at the time, although he had some pretty big hits that he produced—like Sylvester. That’s the biggest act he produced. In addition to making records he was making soundtracks for gay porn back in the 70s. Some of that stuff’s been compiled lately, and it’s just like ... he was a big synth player, and he was making these really cool tripped-out cosmic synth jams that were on these pornos. This track on here is called ‘Never Coming Back’ by Shiver, and as far as I know it’s the only way this song came out. It’s one that no one really seems to know about, and it’s really good. Just a very dark disco track, a little fast but not insanely fast.

Every time I play it, people just kind of ask ‘What is this?’ I like to play it on Halloween. I mean, it’s called Shiver.”

Sylvester “I Need Somebody To Love Tonight” (FANTASY, 1979)

“Most Sylvester stuff is pretty high energy over-the-top disco, and this track is a cosmic classic. It’s pretty slow. I’m not sure of the BPM off the top of my head, but around 90 maybe? It’s this really funky arpeggiated synth—vibey for days. Something really great to start off at a loft party, just to set the mood. And the 12” is one track, but it’s so long that it might just be ... I think on the LP it’s maybe two songs.

This one is cool because it did not come out on a 12” here in the States.

It’s a German 12”, and it’s really long. What’s cool about the 12” is it’s an instrumental, so it’s dubbed out. The vocals on the LP are great, but I’m a 12” collector, you know? To me, 12”s sound better, they’re longer ... they sound amazing, especially ones like this one. Europe in general is 45 RPMs, while the ones here tend to be 33. 45 RPM 12”s are kind of the best of both worlds. 7”s can sound amazing, too, but 12”s—especially at 45—are just huge. That’s why they were created.”

DERRICK HARRIOTT ACID ROCK (CRYSTAL, 1982) “So this record is very rare, and it’s such a weird one because ... I mean, it’s called Acid Rock, right? But it’s from 83 and it’s not a psychedelic record. The reason I really love this record is because of two different covers that are on it, one of them being a cover of Dazz Band’s ‘Let It Whip’, and it’s just wicked. Exactly as good as you would think. Rhe original is great, but this is just really nice mid-tempo super funky boogie kind of sound. But also on this— and it’s probably the main reason I bought this—is a cover of Eddy Grant of the Equals, who were kind of like a mod group, and they do this song ‘Black Skinned Blue Eyed Boys’. Derrick Harriott does a cover of this, and it’s this insane disco track. It’s unreal.”

CAN SOUNDTRACKS (LIBERTY, 1970) “Early on in my digging days—this is probably the late 90s—when I was first really starting to get into buying records, I went to this thrift store. I’m from Jacksonville, Florida, and I went to school a couple hours away, but I’d come home and go thrifting because thrift stores in Jacksonville are pretty great. I went to this thrift store that I have memories of my grandmother taking me to when I was really young, and it’s still there. At this point in the 90s they had a room devoted to records. I wish I could take a time machine back to dig through there with the knowledge I have now. Back then I was just getting into soul and kind of glam rock stuff. I was really into Bowie, very into indie rock and working backwards into 60s and 70s stuff. So I was already into the band Can … I’m flipping through stuff, and all over it says ‘Can.’ Can, Can, Can, Can. ‘That’s gotta be a Can record.’ Sure enough—an original pressing of Soundtracks, a compilation of stuff they did for different movies. The cover is really cool. If you get the reissue it doesn’t have that. This one is a bunch of rolls of film, and you can see on each little still them playing, and it says “Can” everywhere. That was an early example that got me hooked—getting out there and getting my hands dirty finding records. It’s such a rush.”

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THE WIND MACHINE ‘76 THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID (UNKNOWN, 1976) “It’s so fun to find private press records. You know, you get to develop a sixth sense where you can just spot them right away and kind of know right away the gist of what it probably is. A lot of times they’re just country, or kind of bad white gospel music. You can see a lot of that—just horrible Christian records. But then eventually ... you find good ones, too. This first one I found at one of the legendary WFMU record fairs, one of the top worldwide record fairs. It’s in New York once a year—a three day thing. You’d think all the good stuff goes right away, but closing day ... this is something called ‘The Wind Machine ’76’. A New York high school band. With these things you go by the clues that the record label and cover give you. This group is called ‘The Wind Machine ‘76,’ and the cover has a picture of all the kids in the band—guitars, drums, they all have long hair ... The name of the album is That’s What She Said. I found this record maybe five, six, seven years ago—right when people or at least most of my friends were saying that joke constantly.

‘That’s what she said!’ This blew my mind that they named this record that, the year I was born, and it’s a high school record! Then I start looking at the back of the songs. There’s a version of ‘Spinning Wheel’ on here—like a late 60s standard lounge song, but it could be funky, so I was like ‘Alright, that’s promising.’ Then I saw ‘Chameleon.’ ‘Alright, if that’s the Herbie Hancock song, I have to get this.’ I got it, I brought it home, and sure enough it’s a cover of Herbie Hancock and the Headhunters’ ‘Chameleon.’ One of those seminal jazz fusion funk tracks. It’s amazing. And it’s a high school band doing it. Usually high school records tend not to be the best. Even if the songs are funky, the playing is pretty inept or not great, and they’re not produced very well. In this case, they play amazing. It’s got breaks, it’s got fuzz guitar solos, it’s funky ... it’s so good.”

DAYBREAK SELF-TITLED (RPC, 1971) “This is also a private press record. In New York I’d hit up this spot every day in the West Village ... it’s now gone, but it’d been there forever, and it’s one of these stores where every day it was these salty old jaded New York guys working there. But unlike the other record stores there—probably here, too—these guys were not like hip or punk. They were just jaded weird employees. Anytime you’d go there, they’d be blasting like, Jon Bon Jovi’s Slippery When Wet, or they’d be listening to Rush Limbaugh. It used to drive me crazy. I wanted to leave so bad because I could not stand what they were playing. But it was a fun dig spot because they didn’t care about or know about the stuff that I’m into. You could score. One day I was checking out their dollar records and saw what looked to me like a private press record. A lot of the private press stuff, you would basically go do a recording and then go to some record pressing plant that specialized in this, and they would press up your record for you, and usually they’d give you stock images to pick from if you didn’t have your own artwork. So this one is like that. The cover is just a picture of the sun coming out of the clouds, and if you didn’t know anything you’d think it was maybe a classical record, or spoken word—religious sermon or something. But I noticed that the group is called Daybreak, and it looks like the MC5 or something—super garage looking guys. I started looking at song titles, and they do ‘Down By The River’ by Neil Young, ‘Nights In White Satin,’ and there were other tracks that looked to be originals that sounded promising, like a song called ‘Monster’, a song called ‘Suicide’ ... a song called ‘Can’t Get Down.’ I’m like, ‘Alright, this must be something.’ And it was $1. So I take it home—this was right around the time when I think we’d just had our first child—and I tried to research this thing and it’s really cool. I mean, it is what it looks like. It’s home-recorded heavy garage stuff and pretty well done, super raw, really cool. ‘Alright, this is something.’ I started looking into it, and it was hard to find because Daybreak is a pretty generic name, and there’s not like an album title—there’s just Daybreak. But I found a copy that once sold on Popsike for $1000 or something. And yeah, it seems like—according to this archived eBay entry—that it was one of only like a hundred pressed or something. ‘Alright, that was a really good find!’ It’s interesting the way stuff moves so quickly these days. I sell records on Discogs, and I’m on there a lot. I’ll find something sometimes, and it’s something I could sell. Give it a year, it’s on there. Give it another year, and it’s developed a following. This record filed it away, like, ‘This is going to one day be a college fund record to sell.’ Now it’s been reissued, and another copy sold for like $3000, so it’s cool, you know? It’s out there. It’s known a little bit but still obscure. One day maybe I can sell and put it to good use—but for now I’m holding onto it.”

SHEILA HYLTON “LOT OF LOVE” (JAYWAX, 1979) “The song is called ‘Lot of Love’, but it’s kind of a typo ... you’ll see if you get into collecting original Jamaican records, there’s misspellings across the board, especially when it’s a cover. So it’s a cover of ‘Lotta Love,’ which Nicolette Larson made famous. It’s a Neil Young song. I guess they thought, ‘Oh, they say “lot of love” in the song,’ so they called it ‘Lot of Love.’ This is a female reggae cover version of that track. You can’t mess up that song, and the song on paper should work, you know?

A really good female reggae vocalist doing a cover of that song, and it’s amazing.

Then like any great reggae 7” there’s a dub version on the B-side. Also amazing. In addition to being really into reggae/disco, I’m also really into AOR. Obscure AOR stuff. I was on a label called Universal Cave with a 7” I did where I ripped some rare AOR stuff and edited that, So this one checks all those boxes because it’s a cover of an AOR classic, a reggae artist ... yeah, it’s amazing.”

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at synthesizing some disparate influences. (As if writing a great pop song isn’t enough.) Lead singer Josh Landau’s snotty, fingerwagging wail and keyboardist Ben Brown’s junky Farfisa recall late ‘70s Elvis Costello, while the song’s knee-sliding, autoerotic guitar solo references Landau’s work in the Shrine, a rock band as sweet and heavy as molasses. The slower songs on Nothing New—the title track and “I Won’t Bleed For You”— inch close to Aerosmith territory, and not even the band’s complete earnestness can absolve those motifs of their inherent corniness, refreshing as it may be. But Easy make up for minor missteps with “Everything Goes” and “When The Flame Goes Out”, two poprock triumphs that will make you feel like electric guitar music is still the coolest thing on the planet, at least for a few sublime minutes.

—Morgan Troper

KHRUANGBIN Con Todo El Mundo Dead Oceans As the first sultry bass licks of Con Todo El Mundo bloom between tight drum work and surfy guitar, the word ‘timeless’ springs to mind. While Spanish nomenclature is draped across the tracks as well as the album itself, its international mix is ironically (and iconically) American. The newly L.A.-based trio, originally hailing from Houston and at times London-based, has managed to distill a concentrated polynational chic that makes for an captivating front-to-back listen. The band’s mix of influences—from vintage Siamese funk to groovy Iranian psychedelia—blossom gently into a sound that matches their name, which translates roughly to “flying engine.” Lyrics and vocal work are spare and specific, whispered to fit neatly into—not on top of—the music. The result is a sophisticated jet-set cool that doesn’t expire, landing somewhere in the vibrant intersection of funk, world and rock music, all kissed by a Mexican sea breeze as cuicas percolate deep in the mix.

—Christina Gubala

THE KOREATOWN ODDITY A Beat At The Table Strictly Cassette Isn’t it nice when things are exactly as they seem? The Koreatown Oddity’s A Beat at the Table is uncomplicated in concept but rich in pleasures, a 19-minute tape of scuzzy trunk-rattlers scrounged from bits of Solange’s A Seat at the Table. Not that TKO is averse to high art—last year’s Finna Be Past Tense found the L.A. native tackling existence itself over a technicolor blanket of Vex Ruffin beats. But with Purdy on the pads and no one on the mic, things are more playful, with Solange’s voice hiccupping between tape hiss and murky bass.

Self-empowerment anthem “Don’t Touch My Hair” is flipped from composite delicacy to Low End Theory banger, its protective denial turned into a looped plea to “touch my soul.” And that “Cranes in the Sky” melody (now it’s stuck in your head—sorry) pops up at various points and various angles—a confident moment here or a demofidelity confessional there, like a television theme that changes from episode to episode. But some of the most arresting moments come from letting the source material shine, like the “Dad Was Mad (Interlude)” appropriation of “KKK members, holding signs, throwing cans at us…” Lest we forget, A Seat at the Table was released in 2016. After 2017, it’s time—and it’s damn near necessary, too—to view it through a new lens.

—Zach Bilson

LOW HUM self-titled EP Chain Letter Collective ALBUM REVIEWS

Low Hum‘s electro-punk disco dance-party soundtrack is the stuff pop songwriters dream about, but with just enough anger and desperation to set itself apart from upbeat LCD Soundsystem wannabes. This is an outfit—the project of L.A.’s Collin Desha—that truly understands the concept of balance. Low Hum comes across as an almost pop act, but displays its rock ‘n’ roll roots clearly. Punchy lyrics about “wasted words that melt my face” provide welcome bite, and strategic use of repetition strengthens the concepts inside the music—like underscoring the urgency in the battle between “an emptiness that I can’t hide” and the idea that “I know / I know / I know we’ll be together someday.” Low Hum‘s pulsating and pumping rhythm makes a firm backbone for fuzzed-out overtones and oddly delicate (and sometimes gorgeous) melodies that echo in your memory afterwords.

It’s emotive but accessible, and a welcome breath of fresh-feeling pop at a time when some consider pop to be a bad thing. Low Hum offers both a good time and a great listen.

—Daniel Sweetland

MAST Thelonious Sphere Monk World Galaxy / Alpha Pup Crafting a celebratory catalogspanning tribute album to Thelonious Sphere Monk on what would have been his 100th birthday is by no means a simple undertaking, with the combined weight of the jazz cognoscenti’s expectations as much a challenge to grapple with as the complexity and distinction of the material itself. However, Tim Conley (as MAST) as assembled a slew of learned musical warriors like saxophonist Gavin Templeton, trumpeter Dan Rosenboom, and drummer Makaya McCraven to shepherd his electronic bleeps and bloops through the terrestrial and celestial extremities of Monk’s ALBUM REVIEWS

musical imagination. The result is wholly enjoyable—sophisticated and fun and remarkably faithful to the hand-painted cover art, which features a resplendent portrait of the composer morphing behind the keys. The luxurious “Round Midnight,” dappled with echoes of Monk’s disembodied voice, swirls above the piano like a thick spiral of smoke, calming any discomfort purists may feel during other more experimental versions of songs like “Evidence.” There is a fearlessness in the reverence that underlies this album—imbued with an energetic joie de vivre, it carries the torch Monk lit decades ago into our digital future with dignity and gusto.

—Christina Gubala

caked in dirt and grime. He’s acting less as a singer and more just another piece of this band’s half-dead dirge.

(The black robes he dons at shows really tie the picture together.) This bleak, funereal atmosphere gives Past Where They Drain Them… an exciting sense of displacement. It’s a shock of black-and-white in a field of vibrant color. Wherever this transmission came from, let’s hope more broadcasts are on the way.

—Zach Bilson

MATTHEWDAVID Time Flying Beats Leaving Records

MATTER ROOM Past Where They Drain Them …

Penniback Los Angeles upstarts Penniback Records are part of a movement of young kids furthering the city’s punk ethos. Unabashedly newschool, Julian Montano and Luis Ho formed the label in 2014 after Burger Records gave them what they called their “first dose of DIY culture.” While much of Penniback’s roster—including Jurassic Shark and Sloppy Jane—are making waves playing bristly garage rock, Julian and Luis’s band Matter Room take things much more slowly. Past Where They Drain Them…, their self-produced/self-recorded debut, is full of claustrophobic noise and somber, sludgy tempos—less Thee Oh Sees, more Envy or City of Caterpillar. Like those Level Plane legends, Matter Room relish the negative space between extremes, building from near-silent low points to towering walls of sound before plummeting back down again, like on the instrumental one-two punch of “Intro” and “Ilbis.” This turns out to be a running theme—only four of the LP’s ten tracks feature vocals, with the band’s democratic jamming taking center stage. But when guitarist Ryden Mathieu does speak up, his pallid moans come

“Ah… we know that perhaps economically and politically, we have moved back, but aesthetically and technologically we have moved ahead and…” The first track, a found-sound PSA, neatly foreshadows those concepts, born at the end of the millennial calendar and folded into the frenetic motion and mutated yet familiar voices that comprise Matthewdavid’s Time Flying Beats. He snatches the final bellow from Tears for Fears’ “Head Over Heels” for the title track, using a recognizable radio cut to kick off a race through a pastiche of beat aesthetics—ranging from footwork to dubstep to drum ‘n’ bass—and a maze of lyrical and musical phrasings that feels almost autobiographical. (As well as identifiable to the listener in that oh-so-inclusive way.) Cameos from Rick James and the Steve Miller Band assist Matthewdavid in paying homage to Low End Theory and the rapid slippage of time, respectively. The album downshifts about halfway through, with a meandering trapped-out dream called “Millennial Midnight” that shifts the essential energy for the remainder of the album.

Within these layers of distortion, fragments of Matthewdavid as New Age Guru twinkle and chime, but Time Flying Beats—with its secret Japanese rooms, diamond rings, and unpredictable pace— feels more like the soul trying to define its role within the societal machine.

—Christina Gubala

NUMB.ER Goodbye Felte

MOANING self-titled Sub Pop Before this year, L.A. post-punks Moaning had only a single to their name, but their self-titled LP feels less like a debut than the peak of a seasoned group’s discography where they’ve found a way to effortlessly communicate a physical and emotional state. The band and their surroundings are fleshed out by producer Alex Newport (At The Drive-In, Melvins, etc), whose grayscale palette unifies together Moaning’s sparse, jagged verses and swirling, anthemic choruses, creating the feel of an intimate basement show where the music practically consumes the room.

Singer/guitarist Sean Solomon’s laments often take on opposing voices within the same song, embodying an internal dialogue of anxiety: “Impossible to apologize / you can’t even look me in the eye” he seethes on “Does This Work For You,” later pleading, “You can have everything / take it all” before dissonant chords pounds his second-guessing into submission.

“The Same” (re-recorded from their single) takes a more outward look, with a positively defeatedsounding chorus of “We’re the same / everything else has changed.”

But there’s a telling transition as he gives in to the chaos around him—“What’s next? Who knows, we’ll see how it goes”—before his voice suddenly jumps an octave, newly clear-eyed and confident.

It may just be for a moment, but as the frontman of a young band from L.A. putting out their debut on Sub Pop, he’s got every reason to be feel like he can do anything.

—Zach Bilson

2018 has already been a pretty big year for the Los Angeles music community. This season—or first quarter if you will—has brought long-awaited full lengths from many local favorites, including the debut by post-punk group Numb.er. This sonic venture

by Jeff Fribourg—a founding member of popular psych-’gaze’ band Froth and sometime L.A. RECORD photographer—offers such a perfectly pitched blend of punk, darkwave, and goth that it feels as if it was written especially for me. Casting a stormy, melancholic shadow in its opening track—a subliminal noise collage titled “Lude (I Need It)”—Numb.er revels in a haunting kind of discomfort.

Atop propulsive basslines, layers of relentlessly piercing guitar hooks and dystopic sci-fi synths, Fribourg channels a young Jeffrey Lee Pierce or Peter Murphy with his bitter vocal melodies and stark attitude. Numb.er’s looming chaos-meets-confinement ethos comes with a fine kind of grit and a creeping paranoia, distinctly influenced on the surface level by artists such as Joy Division, Siouxsie & the Banshees, and Echo & the Bunnymen. But digging deeper, I find musical connections to the likes of the Stranglers, Cabaret Voltaire, and Wire, as well as contemporaries such as Holograms, Ceremony (specifically The L-Shaped Man), and Total Control. It’s no surprise that the album was mixed and mastered by Mikey Young of Total Control, a band at the nexus of this new era of murky punk rock. Transcending its time and place in the sunny Los Angeles of 2018, Goodbye is a literal farewell to musical trends that can often make a local scene feel uninspiring. It’s not my intention to sound cynical: the fearless gloominess and unfiltered personality of this record speaks for itself.

—Bennett Kogon

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LIVE PHOTOS WINTER 2018 Pussy Riot December 2017 Bootleg Theatre

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LIVE PHOTOS

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LILAH ASH @lila__ash

JOHN TOTTENHAM

DAVE VAN PATTEN

EMILY TSENG

SONIA HAYDEN

COMICS

curated by tom child

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COMICS

OLIVIA KAPLAN At The Seams EP self-released The rich sun-dappled coalescence of cello strings, lap steel, brushed snares, wobbling Wurlitzer and the exquisite voice of Olivia Kaplan has resulted in At the Seams, a supremely polished EP which radiates warmth even as it roves through Kaplan’s unflinchingly frank catalog of “feelings felt in 2015-2016.” Like the weathered wood of a dock, there is a certain combination of give and strength to her measured ruminations on getting by despite of waves of doubt and emotional lows. Her pleading alto and the sophisticated instrumentation supporting it are burnished to a gleam, so deeply satisfying that it’s easy to forget she’s singing from—and about—a place of pain. Each of the six tracks feels connected. They’re diary entries from a singular mind trying to keep itself from sinking into dark water, falling to pieces in a bed, and quietly succumbing to the anguish of being ignored. The EP’s climax comes in the form of a question during the closing track: “How do you get by without getting so low?”

There Kaplan lets us in on her secret, perhaps the same power that made her emotional anguish sound so sweet: “Honey, you don’t.”

—Christina Gubala

PEACH KELLI POP Which Witch EP Mint Over the last eight years, Peach Kelli Pop’s Allie Hanlon has been making some of the catchiest pop-punk rock ‘n’ roll one might hope to hear. Her music is sugary and bright, but loaded with depth, honesty, and emotion in a way that is touching and rare.

In the past, Peach Kelli Pop as a live entity included a rotating cast of incredible Southern California musicians. However,

in recent years the lineup has been consistent, which offered Hanlon the opportunity to blossom as an artist instead of stressing over recruiting and teaching songs to new members. This growth was apparent on the band’s last fulllength, Peach Kelli Pop III, as well as on this new Which Witch 7”.

While the band’s poppy roots shine through, the new EP sees Hanlon stepping into classic alternative rock territory while exploring fuller instrumentation and more polished production. All six tracks clock in around one minute, but the tunes are brimming with the glittering, colorful energy that we’ve come to expect. As Allie Hanlon continues to push her sound in interesting new directions, each recording seems more vibrant than the last.

—Simon Weedn

Various Artists The Ru-Jac Records Story, Volumes 1-4 Ru-Jac/Omnivore You’ve heard of Southern soul and maybe even danced to some of it. There are a number of local DJs left who dote on these partytime artifacts of the Kennedy-Johnson era. spinning them at some of the tonier neighborhood dives and underground venues like the late, lamented hm157. I admire their work, as collecting platters from obscure regional labels like Baltimore’s Ru-Jac Records looks to be a hideous chore and compilations like these spare half a lifetime’s worth of dust-inhalation, surface noise, and acquaintance with dubious brokers in secondhand vinyl. Ru-Jac was guided by Baltimore promoter Rufus Mitchell, a pal of Baltimore numbers boss “Little Willie” Adams, who bankrolled much of the music scene at segregated Carr’s Beach as a way of laundering profits. The one hundred tracks spread over these four sets are represent the label’s glory years, which were spent following every soul music trend of the Sixties. Volume One: Something Got a Hold On Me 1963-1964, takes us through the label’s early years as a tiny powerhouse of what was known as “beach music” on the southern Atlantic coast—bouncy, uncomplicated r&b for college kids on summer vacation. Mitchell knew the sound craved by this Brylcreem Riviera and, as a singles-only-label, Ru-Jac tore through artists at a tremendous clip (at one point even recording the label’s office manager) so his acts tend to sound like established stars on other labels. Included here are a pair of unreleased demos from the great Arthur Conley, some early efforts from 1970s soul man Sir Joe Quarterman, and the extensive R&B apprenticeship of future gospel legend Winfield Parker. Most of the rest of the featured artists are near-total obscurities—some tracks are billed to “Unknown Artist”—but among the best of these is easily Brenda Jones, a talented Martha Reeves disciple who shines most brightly on Volume Two: Get Right, 1964-1966. Other standouts include Butch Cornell’s Trio and Bobby Sax & His House Keepers showing off nice instrumental chops in Booker T./Mar-Keys manner. Sax’s “Soul at Last” prefigures similar cosmic explorations by Isaac Hayes on Stax much later on. Leon Gibson sounds like Peter Wolf and his two songs have a nice proto- J. Geils vibe. There are also two early funk jams from Dynamic Corvettes, a combo that would go on to much-sampled oblivion with 1975’s “Funky Music is the Thing.” More typical Ru-Jac fare came from the safe cocktail-lounge sounds of Rita Dorsey & the Bob Craig Combo and the mid-decade doo-wop stylings of ALBUM REVIEWS

PINKY PINKY Hot Tears EP Innovative Leisure It’s clear Pinky Pinky hasn’t wasted the year since their selftitled 2017 debut EP. Hot Tears is the product of a band that’s been busy experimenting with the bounds of their rock ‘n’ roll sound, and they’ve learned a thing or two along the way. First up is “Margaret,” an extremely catchy tune that showcases just how well Eva Chambers’ thrumming bass riffs, Isabelle Fields’ no-nonsense guitar and Anastasia Sanchez’s unique—at times mournful— voice work together. Each of the five songs here rocks in its own right, but “Dander” is by far the heaviest: here, Fields’ guitar takes center stage and delivers relentlessly heavy, distorted riffs. Follow-up “Fish Bones” shuffles back into psych territory, and even though the lyrics sketch out the scene of an unsettling trip to a bone-covered beach—“The carbon strains the air / the murky water bleached my hair”—the song culminates in a fun and dance-y organ breakdown. This song and the title track showcase just how deftly Pinky Pinky is able

to combine two (or more) very different ideas into a piece of music more than the sum of its parts. This new band obviously has much more experimentation ahead. We don’t know exactly what that will yield, but if Hot Tears is any indication, it will rock.

—Julia Gibson

PRISM TATS Mamba ANTIIf you’ve been wondering what the perfect marriage between psych-rock and post-punk sounds like in 2018, Prism Tats has the answer: their latest album, Mamba combines the two to for a sophomore release that you won’t want to miss. From the beginning of the album, Garett van

the Caressors, all of which show the tiny indie playing it safe— even conservative. Most micro-labels of this era barely eked a handful of releases but the brand kept chugging away at this local strain of partytime music. By Changes: 1967-1980, the fourth volume, you can definitely hear a breezy and spacious Ru-Jac house sound beginning to develop and it was at about this time the label began to fade out. The Carr’s Beach R&B scene declined as integration began to empty the all-black resorts and the label’s output grew sporadic and Rufus Mitchell left the record business for other pursuits. That something this astounding gets saved from dust at all must be counted as a miracle.

Chris Hillman The Asylum Years Omnivore As a member of the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Bros., Chris Hillman pretty much invented L.A. country-rock, so it’s a minor irony that his late-1970s solo albums were shouldered aside during L.A. country-rock’s peak as a commercial force. 1978’s Clear Sailin’ left a faint imprint on Billboard’s Top 200, which was much better than what 1977’s Slippin’ Away did. Both are lovely records I used to hear back in the day on the turntables of aging hippies and esoteric space cowboys and Omnivore does it’s usual first-rate curation job here, pruning both LPs down to a highly listenable 74 minutes. Maybe it’s the zeitgeist, but this stuff sounds unusually fresh—Hillman’s loping, friendly way with a cowboy tune sounds more like trad country than the country music now being peddled out of Nashville, a sound described by Steve Earle as “hip-hop for people who are afraid of black people.” Not that the late-1970s rock aesthetic isn’t on full blast here—both records may be fairly described as “arena rock that never happened.” He dusts off psychedelic tricks from the Notorious Byrd Brothers-era of the playbook he helped write and even does a credible Glenn Frey sobber or two along with gorgeous California country originals like “Down in the Churchyard” that sound like unused tracks off the Byrds’ masterpiece Sweethearts of the Rodeo. Let’s face it: this shit was waaaay better than any Eagles music of the period and makes The Long Run sound like a batch of Mrs. Miller outtakes. Turns out record buyers of the era preferred the knockoff to the original and critical opinion of Hillman’s early solo work languished. And people still question where punk rock came from. Selah.

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der Spek—the man behind Prism Tats—pulls you into a universe where anxiety runs high and technology drives it higher. “Follow the light into my eyes / electronic pulses trigger involuntary sighs,” he sings on “Brainwaves,” a track which erupts in volcanic fashion. There are occasional low-key moments on Mamba, like “Ocean Floor,” a slower song built on a simple drum sample and punctuated by droning keys. But the standouts on this album include “Vamps”—a pounding and extremely danceable track about psychic vampires—and “Live Like Dogs,” perhaps the most straightforward rock song of the album. Here you can really hear the influence of producer Chris Woodhouse, who has worked closely with Thee Oh Sees and Ty Segall. Mamba moves toward this rock sound as it proceeds, changing from the sharpness of “Vamps” and “Brainwaves” at the beginning as it prepares for the complicated (and ambitiously produced) title track, which is a treat to listen to with a good set of headphones. However, if the final track—the acoustic guitar driven “Doomed”—is any indication, Prism Tats’ all-toorelatable anxiety is still in effect no matter how quiet things get.

—Julia Gibson

that energy. Most of the soloing is verbose, surging with electricity.

Washington predictably steals the show, but organist Cameron Graves turns in thrilling, knotty leads of his own. Bassist Miles Mosley and a rotating cast of drummers jump from be-bop to R&B to loose basement funk. Meanwhile, Porter’s leads are languid and sweet, riding a few feet above the fray. In contrast to the sweeping strings and emotive runs of Washington’s The Epic, The Optimist is grounded in tight grooves, staccato riffs, and the sound of the Fender Rhodes. Tracks like “Deja Vu,” “Night Court in Compton”—an extended vamp on Jack Elliott’s Night Court theme— and “Chocolate Nuisance” recall late-night Manhattan cab rides more than glimmering California landscapes. But it’s a bright, hopeful record overall, as the title and brilliant yellow cover suggest. As Porter points out in the liner notes, The Optimist is partially a tribute to the hope that surrounded the 2008 election of Barack Obama, which happened during the album sessions. “At that moment,” Porter writes, “I made it a point not to give up on the dreams and goals I’ve set out for myself and to persevere no matter how hard the obstacles may be.” It is that optimism that imbues these ecstatic recordings—the same optimism that drove Porter and his comrades to the forefront of contemporary jazz, and the same optimism we may need to see us through less-hopeful times.

—Chris Kissel

TELEPHONE LOVERS “Two Dollar Baby” 7” Disconnected

RYAN PORTER The Optimist World Galaxy / Alpha Pup Almost exactly ten years ago, a group of young players intent on changing the face of jazz gathered together in a small, sweltering room in Inglewood to record Ryan Porter‘s music. The Shack—AKA saxophonist Kamasi Washington’s parents’ basement—was located under the LAX landing strip, so windows were shut tight during recording sessions, as up to eight musicians at a time packed into the room. Together, the band rode waves of crazy energy—a sonic Big Bang that has, all these years later, reverberated through American pop culture. The recordings here, which comprise the majority of the cuts on The Optimist, Porter’s second record in two years, are bursting with 62

unfinished thoughts, reflecting a frantic, discordant interior life. Addressing the directionless notions of the urban setting (“Let’s Follow (City Lights)”), the constrictions of creation (“Jazz Suss”) or the collapse of being (“Start Over Again”), Shark Toys are the humanists in Los Angeles’ punk movement. “In Between,” the final song on side one, is an examination of the unpredictable nature of the self, represented in the muddled, fluttering guitar. There is an tension here that extends beyond the borders of the album, blowing past the confines of sounds and communicating like an abstract expressionist painting. This is and isn’t slap-dash music; it’s a frenzied attempt at escape: escaping oneself, one’s surroundings, and one’s state—metaphorical and otherwise!

There is a sensitivity to this album, an expression of hope from within the littered mess of life. The balance of aggression and vulnerability is a tightrope to walk when making music of this caliber, but Shark Toys does it simply and beautifully.

Shark Toys invites you into their world—a world of confusion, torment and the desire to create nonetheless.

—Nathan Martel

SHARK TOYS Labyrinths In The Red Labyrinths, the third installment from L.A.’s Shark Toys, is a total transportation into the world of Daniel Clodfelter and company (Bill Gray, bass, and Emanuel Farias, drums). [Farias and Clodfelter are sometime L.A. RECORD contributors—ed.] Listening to this album in a world gone mad is a cathartic experience: you aren’t an island unto yourself, and there are others who know your experience.

And isn’t that was art truly sets out to do? Labyrinths’ songs suggest

A little over a year since the release of their thumping self-titled debut, Long Beach’s Telephone Lovers return to preach the gospel of 70s style glam-punk and power pop with a new single. Picking up right where they left off, the band roars to life on A-side, “Two Dollar Baby,” a track that will get feet stomping and bodies moving.

With hard-charging classic guitar riffs, pounding rhythms and refreshingly soulful vocals, “Two Dollar Baby” is everything you could want in this type of tune.

“Real Action” delivers more of the same but with the emphasis on the “pop” part of power pop—no doubt both of these songs will soon inspire drunken sing-a-longs. The single doesn’t attack any distinctly new territory, but it does show a lot

of development since their LP, with the band sounding tighter and fuller than ever. It’s those qualities that allow the heart and soul at play here to truly ring out—both tunes sound truly anthemic, and a copy of this record should be on the way to every jukebox still in existence.

—Simon Weedn

TY SEGALL Freedom’s Goblin Drag City

TEENAGE WRIST Chrome Neon Jesus Epitaph Pop-punk has been flirting with shoegaze for a while now. It’s a trend that began most notably with Title Fight’s 2015 Hyperview, a chorusladen love letter to early ‘90s British rock that was met with critical acclaim and foreshadowed a sea change in mainstream punk despite alienating the windmilling portion of that band’s fanbase. That torch has now been passed to new kids on the block, Teenage Wrist, whose debut LP Chrome Neon Jesus is one of the best emo-gaze (dreamo?) syntheses to date. The record’s initial charm lies mostly in its songs’ uncanny similarity to the genre’s greatest hits. Multiple callbacks to multiple artists are sometimes present within a single song—the title track plays out like a distillation of Slowdive’s “Alison”, Swervedriver’s “Duel”, and a nonspecific early Oasis epic—and any listener familiar with Olde English alt-rock is sure to catch themselves playing “spot the Creation Records artist” almost immediately. But what distinguishes Teenage Wrist from the innumerable young bands doing something similar is an obvious knowledge of and respect for the material they’re cribbing: “Dweeb” is as excellent as anything their forebears did, and even filler tracks like “Kibo” are more hummable—and more authentically shoegaze—than anything on a Turnover album. Of course, like all bands committed to an older and hyper-specific style of music, Teenage Wrist have a tough road ahead. But if they can escape these anachronistic trappings—shit, they reference a “pay phone” on the first track—and still write such bulletproof pop songs, they’re sure to be with us for a long, long time.

—Morgan Troper

Perhaps your first introduction to Ty Segall—the guy who has helped save rock & roll—was the ripping garage-rock masterpiece Twins in 2012. Perhaps it was the psychedelicglam stylings on 2014’s Manipulator or Hair, the collaboration with Tim Presley of White Fence. There was also Ty’s Sabbath phase on 2012’s Slaughterhouse, his Americana phase on 2013’s Sleeper and his freakedout noise-rock phase on 2016’s Emotional Mugger. Overall, it’s ten solo records in ten years, plus others playing with bands like Epsilons, Fuzz and GØGGS, and so it’d seem that our hero can finally rest easy, having more than proven his versatility. Au contraire, reader: on Freedom’s Goblin, the latest product from the Segall song factory, he again reinvents himself with one of his wildest and most ambitious releases to date. Playing alongside the newly-assembled Freedom Band (which includes many of his usual suspects), Segall sets a new and higher standard for himself.

Opener “Fanny Dog” —written about Segall’s pet dog Fanny—is a ferocious introduction that holds nothing back, lighting up this new LP with horns blazing. “Every 1’s a Winner” is Ty’s rampaging rendition of Hot Chocolate’s 1978 discofunk banger, somehow featuring Fred Armisen on drums. “Rain” is a delicate Beatles-esque piano ballad, while the acoustic “My Lady’s on Fire” tenderly echoes longtime Ty inspiration Marc Bolan. With nineteen tracks recorded at five separate studios, Freedom’s Goblin is a record displaying acrobatic ambidexterity. Segall’s careerspanning influences blend together here to create something that isn’t consistent in its sound—instead, it reveals a much deeper consistency of essence. Sure, it may seem indulgent and overwhelming at times, but his self-exploration and his desire to push boundaries is why Ty is so celebrated in the first place.

One thing is for certain: even ten years in, it sounds like Ty Segall is truly just getting started.

—Bennett Kogon ALBUM REVIEWS

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