Ethan Goodman The vibrant sounds of a party echo around the lower level of Grand Avenue as you approach The Broad Museum, Downtown LA’s trendiest new addition to the modern art scene. The sound of filtered kick drums and the hum of a hundred conversations greet you as the building comes into view, surreal, like an oblong
Following the release of Lost Themes II, John Carpenter’s second non-soundtrack album, the horror auteur has embarked on his first concert tour, selling out LA’s historic Orpheum Theatre at Saturday’s killer show. The setlist was varied, balanced and cohesive — the main themes of his classic films interspersed with selections from his recent records. The venue
Radiohead needs no introduction as enigmatic experimentalists, evolving with each album while maintaining an unmistakable sonic thumbprint. What’s more, each release is felt through the music world as a landmark cultural event, which is why 2011’s opaque The King of Limbs came as a bit of a shock after 2007’s beautifully user-friendly In Rainbows. After
Ah, Death Grips. A band you blast because your parents hate it, your friend’s cool friend rants endlessly about their brilliance and the critic’s love ‘em, going so far as to question if they are “the most important band to arrive this century.” They’re highbrow for the underground–huge walls of noise, abrasive beats, vicious lyrics
John Carpenter, the horror auteur responsible for classics including Halloween, The Thing, They Live and Escape From New York has always had a hand in the sound of his films, often gracing them with haunting, minimal synthscape soundtracks that in and of themselves have become as iconic as the films they belong to. But how
If this was anyone but Weezer it would be universally derided as summertime pop schlock, desperately grabbing at vague, feel-good boy/girl set-ups and KROQ cliche’s to move units, but this is Weezer, so of course, it’s a concept record. The ripping guitars, live drums and Rivers Cuomo’s “nerd” voice, complete with off-the-wall references from Darwin,
For years, the palindrome Tacocat has been circulating the internet as a meme and similarly the Pacific-Northwest band has been a reflection of that. Fun, young, colorful, a mishmash of culture with simple snippets of feminism, summer anthems and guitars that can’t decide if they want to be Green Day or Buddy Holly on a
Thursday night at the Echo in LA and the crowd is buzzing, lined up and ready for the one-two punch of Seattle label Hardly Art’s Chastity Belt and Protomartyr. Shortly after homegrown opener Shark Toys’ loud, fast set, Chastity Belt take the stage and immediately drop into woozy, washed out grooves that send the audience swaying.
What happens when Yoshi and Adventure Time’s Jake the Dog take mushrooms in Mario’s Mushroom Kingdom? Apparently, the answer is a new video from Animal Collective. Featuring bouncing houses, bad weather and a brightly colored girl swinging double-dutch jump rope, Golden Gal is just as trippy as you’d expect. Laid back and layered, “Golden
Inspired by the minimal techno explosion of the early 90s, Immersion debuted in ’94 with Oscillations. The duo, made up of Wire’s Colin Newman and Minimal Compact’s Malka Spigel went on to make another two albums under the Immersion moniker before taking an almost two-decade hiatus. Inspired by an impromptu synth purchase towards the end