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Wand next EP release titled “Golem”
When’s it out? April 6th
LA’s Wand impressed with their debut album ‘Ganglion Reef’, which was inspired by a make-believe island. On ‘Golem’ they mix sludgy Black Sabbath-riffs with howling psych vocals to surpass that first record with flying colours.
Ganglion Reef (2014) is by los Angeles Psych garage rock band Wand this is their debut album, released on Ty Segall’s record label, “God?”
please also check out the Wands from Copenhagen
In August 2014, Los Angeles trio Wand released debut ‘Ganglion Reef’, a psychedelic record inspired by a make-believe island. They’ve maintained that imaginative approach for follow-up ‘Golem’, which is full of brain-bending riffs, effects and abstract lyrics. ‘Self Hypnosis In 3 Days’ mixes Pond’s wackiness with the power and weight of Black Sabbath, and ‘Flesh Tour’ noodles through dark psychedelia as Cory Hanson – who has played in fellow LA bands Meatbodies and Together Pangea – sings in riddles: “Sticks and stones, nobody knows/Life on the body, flesh tour around”. ‘Golem’’s highlight, though, comes in closer ‘Planet Golem’, a march through blacker-than-black sludgy riffs that melts into a puddle of noise.
LA’s Wand impressed with their debut album ‘Ganglion Reef’, which was inspired by a make-believe island. On ‘Golem’ they mix sludgy Black Sabbath-riffs with howling psych vocals to surpass that first record with flying colours.
Add Wand to the list of bands best realized as a live act. Not to disrespect their two most recent albums, this year’s Golem and last year’s Ganglion Reef, both fine efforts in the lazily-named “garage-psych” canon that add the band’s wizards-and-warlocks imagery to the mix of guitar pyrotechnics and punk urgency that characterize, to some degree, the efforts of regular tourmate Ty Segall and others. Heard in the vacuum of headphones or home speakers, alone, it’s too easy to lump them in with the other bands whose names you know and move on.
But live, there are clearer nods to the band’s actual influences: Rainbow, T. Rex, Bowie, early period Zeppelin — some of the bands that influenced the much-derided L.A. “glam” scene of the 1980s. Wand owe a very much larger debt to these bands than their contemporaries, and that’s not a bad thing. In fact, the glammy sensibility Wand brings to the table serves as a reminder that the wholesale death of the L.A. scene at the hands of grunge was a bit of a throwing out of the baby with the bathwater. If those seventies touchstones can be blamed for giving us Poison and Warrant, it’s worth remembering that the better attitudes they embodied were being unafraid to have style or show off how well you can play, and to make each performance a true performance. Wand may not wear makeup or tight clothing, but their show brings with it some of that theatrical feel that makes them stand out.
Sometimes it’s best to just shrug everything off and say, “things happen” (or words to that effect).It’s the driving notion behind a new ear-worm and video from the Los Angeles-based rock group Dawes. “Things Happen” from the band’s just-announced album “All Your Favorite Bands”, follows a Beatles impersonator as he slogs through the city, beaten down and repeatedly rebuffed as he tries to find a street corner to perform on. “Let’s make a list of all the things the world has put you through,” sings Dawes front man Taylor Goldsmith. “Let’s raise a glass to all the people you’re not speaking to. … Things happen. That’s all they ever do.””Change, hardship and general bullshit is an inevitability,” Goldsmith tells us via email. “But by shifting the ways in which we acknowledge these realities, [we] can hopefully deprive them of at least some of their power over us.”I think by making the video about street performers, which is a pastime that’s at once fascinating and mysterious but also can be perceived as unglamorous or dismal, it really helps to illustrate the shifting sentiments of the song. How one guy can seem truly miserable in dealing with his current lot in life while others can take that same situation and figure out a way to find joy and acceptance in it?”The video was conceived and directed by Kevin Hayes. “All Your Favorite Bands” is due out June 2nd on HUB Records.
Jacob Dillan Summers is not your average indie artist. Raised in a sheltered Christian household, the creative force behind Avid Dancer dropped out of the University of Tennessee when he was a freshman to enlist in the Marines on precisely September 12th, 2001 (though he says that he’d “planned on doing it anyway”). During his service, he was a drummer in the United States Marine Drum & Bugle Corps, playing up to 300 performances a year, in addition to winning top honors for rudimental snare at the annual bugle-and-drum competition.
Following his time with the Marines, Summers moved to Los Angeles, where he began working on the music that would eventually develop into Avid Dancer—a graceful, guitar-led rock-and-roll project tinged with touches of The Byrds, Galaxie 500, and a little psychedelia
The opening crunch of Avid Dancer‘s “Not Far To Go” reminds me of Neil Young’s “Cinnamon Girl.” This is a good thing, because Neil Young’s “Cinnamon Girl” is awesome. This song from Jacob Dillan Summers, though, takes different shapes than Young’s straight-ahead crunch classic, heading into dreamy territory thanks to his floating vocals and some very pretty detours.
“I wrote the lyrics to this song while I was in the Marines while anticipating my move to Los Angeles,“I think it was a week before I left. Every day that went by before the trip felt like I was missing on opportunities to start a music career. “Missing everything” “watch days go by”. I left the snowy winter of DC went “through the trees” of Tennessee to “the valley in the sun”. A love song for LA before I ever knew what it was like to live there. So glad I made the trip.”
Avid Dancer’s new album, 1st Bath, is out on April 14th via Grand Jury Records.
You may have already heard new artist Yaarrohs on Glitch Mob’s single “Fly By Night Only,” but now the Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter is back with her impressive debut EP, Flesh & Blood (which is out on Glitch Mob’s Glass Air Records). Her sultry and unique vocals are what really make her stand out, as she often uses hypnotic layered vocal effects that serve as the back bone of many of her songs, along with haunting atmospherics and subtle electronic elements. Flesh & Blood is a simply gorgeous batch of songs that put an entirely new spin on the dream-pop genre.
Her single “Amber” will captivate you instantly with the amazing layered harmonized vocals that kick off the track and end up carrying it throughout its duration. Soon a tambourine, minimal electronic elements, and subtle percussion come in along with her airy lead vocals. It’s a super soothing and strong debut that will keep you coming back.
“Mountain” is a wonderfully calming track featuring soft atmospherics and a slowly thumping beat. Just after 1 minute in, a far-away sounding beat is added along with various echoey electronics that lay under her sugary sweet vocals beautifully. I love how she eases the listener out of the track with a hypnotic layered vocal effect that serves as the perfect ending.
“Atlas” is a blissful 4 minute experience packed with dizzying electronics, menacing drums, brooding atmospherics, and more of her stand-out vocal work. Her vocals really shine at the 1:36 mark, and the track continues to build and evolve throughout its duration making for a beautifully written track with a fantastic ending.
I have a feeling you will instantly fell in love with Yaarrohs, be sure to “like” her Facebook page and show her your support! And lastly,
From YAARROHS’s new Flesh & Blood EP – out now through Glass Air Records
Shelflife Records presents the debut EP from Los Angeles based The Turns, a band who looks and sounds like the product of Creation Records 1989, but apply their own twist and turns to make their music uniquely modern. This EP was originally planned for a mid-2015 release, but we are releasing it early in digital-only format in cooperation with Lollipop Records who are making the EP available on limited edition cassette.
The Turns are Michael Eng (Lead Vox/Guitar), Danny Winebarger (Vox/Guitar), Marco Cortes (Bass) and Johnny Toomey (Drums). They have been playing live relentlessly in Southern California and were invited to play the official 2014 Austin Psych Fest party at the request of the “Committee to Keep Music Evil”.
For fans of: The House of Love, Spacemen 3, Jesus & Mary Chain, Loop, Ride
Los Angeles quartet Talk in Tongues make lightly psychedelic guitar pop that will likely appeal to fans of Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Dungen , the new Toro Y Moi album, or even breezy ’70s stuff like Seals & Croft. (There are occasionally flutes.) Their debut album, “Alone with a Friend“, will be out May 19 via Fairfax Recordings.
Talk in Tongues just played SXSW in Austin Texas and will soon be heading out on a proper North American tour, including a stop in NYC at Baby’s All Right on April 12 with Kyp Malone’s band Ice Balloons and Odonis Odonis .
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