When she filmed the music video for “OMG BRITT,” a trap anthem off of her new record, Natural Brown Prom Queen, Brittney Parks was determined to smash a violin on camera. Not just any violin, either: She wanted to destroy her very first instrument, the one on which she’d taught herself to play by ear […]
Tag: Los Angeles
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Arc Mountain is the underground-label collaboration you’ve been waiting for
Like doesn’t necessarily breed like—just ask all the friends for whom I’ve tried (and failed) to play cupid. But similarity is bliss for underground labels Deathbomb Arc and Hausu Mountain, which collaborated to release the compilation Arc Mountain on May 7. Based respectively in Los Angeles and Chicago, these eclectic, irreverent labels might be separated […]
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Guitarist Sunny War boils life down to its essence on Simple Syrup
The Nashville-born, Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter Sunny War is known for her clawhammer fingerstyle guitar playing, vivid autobiographical lyrics, and distinctive sound that starts at the crossroads of blues, country, folk, and punk, and only expands from there. She left home as a teenager to busk on Venice Beach and in San Francisco with friends she […]
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Frank Leone’s hip-hop experiments make for a beautifully bizarre debut album
Rapper-producer Frank Leone grew up in the town of Monticello, just southwest of Champaign, and began taking music seriously after a chance meeting with Vic Mensa at a downstate Lupe Fiasco show in 2011. Since dropping his debut mixtape in 2015, he’s reworked his sound, moved to Los Angeles, and scrubbed the Web of large […]
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Carlos Niño and Miguel Atwood-Ferguson showcase their telepathic collaboration on the hushed Chicago Waves
In 2005, Los Angeles percussionist, DJ, arranger, and producer Carlos Niño began collaborating with fellow Angeleno Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, a multi-instrumentalist, composer, and music director. That year, Atwood-Ferguson joined Niño’s expansive soul-jazz collective, Build an Ark, and helped record studio albums by two of Niño’s other projects: With Voices, the final full-length from progressive hip-hop production […]
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Tatiana Hazel knows she was meant to shine
Chicago native Tatiana Hazel has been on a journey that merges fashion, visual design, and music since she was 13 years old, when she began posting videos of herself singing and playing acoustic guitar on YouTube. Now in her early 20s, the Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter has developed a solid following while deepening her talent for […]
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Julianna Barwick builds a paradise of her own design with Healing Is a Miracle
While wounds can be stitched and broken bones may mend, other types of injuries never fully heal; perhaps they linger as phantom pain or burrow deep into the brain’s pathways. It’s these imperceptible traumas—and the impossibility of recovery—that consume Julianna Barwick on her new fourth solo album, Healing Is a Miracle. The Los Angeles-based composer […]
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Blu & Exile explore history, time, and influence on Miles: From an Interlude Called Life
Since 2007, Los Angeles rapper Blu has dispensed more than a dozen albums indebted to hip-hop’s golden age, and on his releases with producer Exile, his garrulous style finds a firm footing. The duo’s third effort, the double disc Miles: From an Interlude Called Life (Dirty Science), spans the globe and the history of the […]
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Goons be Gone is the most fleshed-out and lush No Age release yet
No Age have always been great at making very little sound like a whole lot. Since they began blending influences from hardcore punk and noise rock with indie-rock catchiness 15 years ago, the Los Angeles-based duo have been on the cutting edge of cool—they’ve always seemed a step ahead of their peers in the guitar-rock […]
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Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith creates a mosaic of electricity on The Mosaic of Transformation
It’s a struggle to define the purpose of most music—the answer is perpetually changing, based on time, place, and innumerable other factors. But Los Angeles-based synthesist Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith seems to have homed in on something specific on her new album, The Mosaic of Transformation (Ghostly). The joyous, drifting melody of “Remembering,” the album’s second […]
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Danzig Sings Elvis is a covers album we didn’t need
For Glenn Danzig, the past 15 years have been especially weird. Starting with the infamous 2004 backstage TKO punch delivered by North Side Kings singer Danny Marianino, the Misfits mastermind—in his heyday one of the most enigmatic and distinctive vocalists in punk history—has been on a downward spiral of unintentional self-parody and apparent madness. Every […]
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Kris Esfandiari of King Woman and producer Darcy Baylis combine forces in Sugar High
Kris Esfandiari is no stranger to side projects. Since cofounding doom-metal band King Woman in 2009, she’s released solo material under the names Miserable, Kris, Dalmatian, and Nghtcrwler. Her latest project, Sugar High, is a collaboration with Berlin-based songwriter and producer Darcy Baylis, whose credits include recordings by Wicca Phase Springs Eternal and Camp Cope […]
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Black Pumas create the music of true soul mates
Update: To help slow the spread of COVID-19, these shows have been postponed until August 27 and 28. Tickets already purchased will be honored at that time. Contact point of purchase for refund or exchange information. Black Pumas are an electrifying six-piece neosoul band led by Adrian Quesada and Eric Burton—a musical partnership made in […]
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Workaholic superstar DJ Steve Aoki exudes optimism at every turn
Is there any pop star with a career like Steve Aoki’s? How many other sons of business magnates got into hardcore in the 90s, wrote for radical punk zine Heartattack, led a screamo band that released a split with Japanese posthardcore legends Envy, and ran a DIY space that hosted the likes of Jimmy Eat […]
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Capital of the midwest
Is Chicago an island of cosmopolitanism in a sea of rural, inexpensive, stultifying friendliness?