When it comes to volume, Sarah Tudzin likes to keep listeners on their toes. “Kiss Yr Frenemies”, was her debut album as Illuminati Hotties, playfully leaps between a variety of decibel-dictated sonic moods from the indie-pop canon. Hushed acoustic reveries give way to knife-sharp stabs of guitar; contemplative, finger-picked tranquility crescendos to giant slabs of post-rock feedback and trumpet fanfare. “You only like me when I’m sad,” she sweetly sings during a quiet interlude on “Pressed 2 Death,” an otherwise boisterous rambler that’s dotted with kiss-offs.
Tudzin—who is technically Illuminati Hotties’ sole permanent member, although she records with a full band—is a veteran studio rat, and it shows in the album’s dynamic sounds. In addition to working as a production and engineering assistant to big-time indie producer Chris Coady (Beach House, TV on the Radio), she’s logged studio time with acts ranging from Porches to Macklemore and worked on the sound design for the original Broadway cast recording of Hamilton.
Her expertise gives her own tracks a funhouse-like quality, with an eruption of noise, six-stringed squeal, or purposely lo-fi effect around every corner. Even without knowing that additional vocals on the album are credited to “Everyone at Jesse’s Party,” you get the sense that she had fun making this record. Tudzin describes the sound of Illuminati Hotties as “tenderpunk,” and that feels right. Every emotional abrasion and pang of longing on Kiss Yr Frenemies is conveyed with just the right mix of sadness and acerbity. On the single “(You’re Better) Than Ever,” she confesses, “All the baddest words I knew came pouring out/When I heard you feel better/Better than ever.” Along with stylistic forebears Los Campesinos!,
Tudzin’s sound sometimes recalls indie-pop lifer Rose Melberg’s many projects, as well as 1990s Vancouver punks Cub—all acts that have regularly challenged the common notion that indie pop is all cloying sentiments and bookishly restrained instrumentation.
Mike Krol is a band/idea out of Los Angeles, with additional members in Minneapolis, Madison, and Seattle. This Thursday at 9pm ET, the one and only Mike Krol will premiere his “Halloween Deadstream” concert on NoonChorus this week. Fans both old and new can expect all the hallmarks of a Mike Krol live performance: his full band in costume, strobe lights, smoke machine, distortion, and more! With a 72-hour rebroadcast of the performance.
Krol has also announced a CD reissue of the seasonally appropriate Mike Krol Is Never Dead: The First Two Records, out January 29th, 2021. The 3-CD box set includes Krol’s first two albums—I Hate Jazz and Trust Fund—housed in miniature-sized reproductions of the original album tri-fold wallets, and an additional disc filled with a comprehensive selection of outtakes, demos, and B-sides from that era.
Most listeners were introduced to Mike Krol in 2015 with the release of his Merge Records debut, Turkey. Few knew at the time that Turkey was actually Chapter 3 of the Krol saga, and that he had self-released two records years earlier. To the delight of his new legion of fans, Merge reissued those early albums as the 2017 collection “Mike Krol Is Never Dead”. With that release, “I Hate Jazz” and “Trust Fund” found new life, and the inclusion of digital-only rarities led to fresh demand for this CD reissue.
Self-released on LP in 2011, “I Hate Jazz” was the opening salvo of World War Krol. Only 500 copies were pressed; they were given away to anyone who showed interest (and many who showed none whatsoever). Including Krol classics like “Fifteen Minutes” and “Like a Star,” the record had long been unavailable. Trust Fund followed in 2013; its 500 LPs sold out on the ensuing tour, fuelling a mini-mania that would elevate it to cult status.
Here’s Krol take on the new CD edition: One of the most frequent questions I get on tour is “Where can I get your first album on CD?” (second only to “So… do you actually hate jazz?”). As a Compact Disc lover myself, I always assumed we were a dying breed, and that manufacturing this music on plastic would only fulfill the personal satisfaction I’d get from having my full discography lined up on a shelf. But over time, the fans have spoken and demanded I make these albums available on CD. So here they are, with the rarely-seen-in-person full album art intact. Completists, rejoice!
originally released July 14th, 2017.
All songs written and performed by Mike Krol With the help of
Phil Mahlstadt – Bass on all tracks Michael Sienkowski – Keyboard, Tambourine, Whistling Elliott Kozel – Lead Guitar, Organs, chord changes for “Locker” Erik Duerr – Heavy Metal Guitar, Janitor Andy Brawner – Nothing
From the album Mike Krol Is Never Dead: The First Two Records, out July 14th, 2017 on Merge Records.
From the release of Love’s March 1966 debut single, “My Little Red Book” b/w “A Message to Pretty,” it was clear the Los Angeles Group was a breed apart from its contemporaries. The group, led by Arthur Lee, built much of its music upon a snarling, sneering proto-punk aesthetic not completely removed from the style of bands like the Seeds. But just under the surface, there lurked a deeper complexity and nuance.
There had been multi-racial bands before Love: though they never achieved any kind of commercial success, the short-lived Rising Sons were led by Taj Mahal and Ry Cooder. But Love had a black man as its primary writer and front man, and enjoyed the higher profile and accompanying marketing boost that came with having signed to Elektra, home of (among others) the Doors.
Still, Love would manage only one Top 40 single in its time together, 1966’s “7 and & 7 Is,” a track off of the band’s second album, “Da Capo”. That album also displayed Love and Lee’s musical ambitions: a side-long track, “Revelation,” ran nearly 19 minutes. This was a full 18 months before Iron Butterfly released its own opus, “In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida.”
A House is Not a Motel” continues with the use of acoustic guitar as a central instrument. An insistent drum pattern and a subtle yet busy bass line part support Lee, who once again begins singing in a lilting manner. But as the song progresses, he builds in intensity, eventually reaching a rock ’n’ roll roar. Against an emphatic series of chords, Echols takes a pair of lean, sinewy electric guitar solos. For most of its first two minutes, the overall feel of “A House is Not A Motel” is one of restraint. But after a propulsive drum fill from Michael Stuart, multiple overdubbed distorted lead guitars explode into the mix; amid whoops and hollers from the band, those solos take the song to its fadeout.
The melancholy “Andmoreagain” plays up the album’s baroque character. Strings and acoustic guitars are the central instruments, and Lee’s vocal channels Mathis more overtly than anywhere else on the record. “The Daily Planet” is built around a vigorously strummed acoustic guitar, with deft stabs of chiming guitar and a beefy bass line. The mid-tempo rocker has a feel closer to the Byrds; though he’s not credited on the album, Buffalo Springfield guitarist Neil Young oversaw the track’s arrangement.
But on both “Andmoreagain” and “The Daily Planet,” it’s not really Love; instead Lee is backed by session musicians. Co-producer Bruce Botnick brought in the Wrecking Crew players when he found the band unable to play what was required. Apparently, the shock of being sidelined would eventually lead the band members to get their collective act together; the remaining tracks on Forever Changes would feature the band (plus the string and brass players as needed).
That said, the band members take a back seat on the subtle “Old Man.” Cellos and violins are at the centre of the fragile arrangement, based upon an idiosyncratic melody from Lee. Brass and tinkling piano are added to the mix in the song’s second half. And “The Red Telephone” is almost a continuation “Old Man.” With a similar arrangement and a (different) odd melody, it features a stronger beat and an insistent harpsichord part. The seamless interplay between acoustic guitar leads and the string players underscores the fact that the fiddles and cellos were part of Lee’s arrangement ideas from the beginning of the project. Lee’s spoken lines at the song’s end give “The Red Telephone” a vaguely psychedelic feel, but that is punctured by Lee’s “All o’ god’s chillen gots to have their freedom,” delivered in a kind of self-parody of black American dialect.
Near unanimous in their praise for Forever Changes, critics often point to MacLean’s “Alone Again Or” as the strongest track on the record. But a strong case can be made that Arthur Lee’s “Maybe the People Would Be the Times or Between Clark and Hilldale” deserves consideration as well. The brass arrangement in particular fits the song perfectly, helping provide an air of mystery and suspense. It helps, too, that for this track Lee had written a more straightforward melody. The instrumental break features a series of musical dialogues, first between acoustic guitar and the brass, then between electric guitar and the horns, and finally between Lee’s vocalizing and the auxiliary players.
The baroque arrangement that opens “Live and Let Live” is jarring when set against Lee’s lyrics about snot on his pants and threatening a bluebird with a gun. The song soon segues into a harder, rock-flavored feel; throughout its five-plus minutes, “Live and Let Live” shifts between the two styles; the bridges rock even harder, and toward the song’s end, stinging lead electric guitar makes one of its rare appearances on Forever Changes. By the hard-charging final moment of the tune, its bears no resemblance to the manner in which it began.
As effective as those rocking moments may be, it’s on the album’s gentler tracks where Love truly shines. “The Good Humour Man He Sees Everything Like This” is a case in point. The tune sports another odd melody from Lee; his vocals twist and turn amid an intricate pizzicato string and brass arrangement that rivals “Alone Again Or” in its understated brilliance.
“Bummer in the Summer” is Forever Changes’ outlier track; Lee adopts a sneering, spitting vocal demeanor that’s closer in style and character to “7 and 7 Is” and “My Little Red Book” than it is to anything else on the album. The arrangement is similar to the Leaves’ reading of “Hey Joe” mixed with a bit of Buddy Holly’s “Not Fade Away.” Other than session player Don Randi’s piano, the track doesn’t feature any auxiliary musicians.
Forever Changes was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2008
Forever Changes concludes with “You Set the Scene,” a track built upon crystalline acoustic guitar picking, an insistent bass line and some sawing cellos. Lee’s double-tracked harmony lead vocal is among his best work on the record. In the place customarily occupied by a guitar solo, a soaring string ensemble arrangement, punctuated by brass, provides a stirring conclusion to the album. As the song winds toward its end, the majestic brass and string parts build to a crescendo, and then fade to silence.
Notably, outside of music critics, few recognized the specialness of Forever Changes upon its November 1967 release. The album reached a lowly #154 on the Billboard album chart, and the single “Alone Again Or” b/w “A House is Not A Motel” made it only as far as #123. But as had been the case with fellow Los Angelinos the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds, Forever Changes fared far better in Great Britain.
The lineup that made Forever Changes soon fractured, though Love would go on to make four more albums in the decade to follow. Each of those has its high points, but all are flawed, and none succeeds in doing more than hinting at the once-in-a-lifetime brilliance of Forever Changes.
As a happier postscript, in the later years of his life—as previously-overlooked albums began to earn their due—Arthur Lee, who died in 2006 at age 61, was able to capitalize on the belated recognition of the record’s importance. With members of L.A.’s Baby Lemonade, he would tour, presenting the complete Forever Changes in concert. Those shows would often feature auxiliary musicians playing the album’s brass and string arrangements, resulting in a live reading that successfully captured the nuance and excitement of the 1967 studio recording.
Earlier this summer, Etta Friedman was visiting her family in Yerington, Nevada, when she crashed her cousin’s motorcycle and broke both wrists. “I let go of the clutch on the bike and popped a wheelie,” the 21-year-old musician says. “And then immediately went and went into the front of my aunt’s trailer and crashed directly into it.” Friedman was taken to the local hospital, where she was wrapped in splints. “They gave me this really old-school-looking baggie full of Percocet,” she adds. “I was like, ‘Very cool.’” With a sound that stems from the duo’s love of Veruca Salt and the Breeders, is a welcome throwback to the Nineties, built on Friedman and Weingarten’s syrupy vocals that fuse together on each track.
The core of LA indie/alt band Momma is dual guitarist/vocalists Etta Friedman and Allegra Weingarten. With super catchy and fun verse-chorus-verse reminiscent of some of our favourite 90’s act, the band’s new music picks up where their previous album (which we loved here at BTR today!) left off and makes it bigger, brighter, and even hookier.
The highlight is the three-track sequence of “Stringer,” “Double Dare,” and “Carny,” which tell the dark tale of a news stringer on the margins of society. “If you’ve ever seen or on Netflix, it’s about people that chase car crashes and film them and then sell it to news stations,” Weingarten says. The character encounters a fight at a fair (“Double Dare”) and then abandons his lover (“Carny”). “Said goodbye to my sweetheart, or he might’ve been,” they lament on the latter song. “Warping his portrait, he’s a sideshow kid.”
“Two of Me” is an ambitious concept album by the budding grunge four-piece, Momma, made up of fictional vignettes dealing with morality, youth, and punishment, that songwriters Etta Friedman and Allegra Weingarten have populated with tragic heroes from their imagination. “The Bug House represents this sort of underground purgatory or hell that people are sent to as punishment,” Weingarten explains. “Two of Me’s songs are about coming to terms with the side of you within yourself that is maybe capable of darker things.” Momma’s second full length unfolds like a small town drama, where characters like video stringers and young lovers experience poetic justice in carnivalesque settings, detailed through Friedman and Weingarten’s illustrative lyrics.
On Momma’s sophomore album, the band explores some of their heaviest sounds to date, creating dense arrangements to match their complex storytelling. Two Of Me’s opener “Bug House” sets the stage for the record, with its expressive guitar tones and brooding mood. The album’s more abrasive moments like “Derby,” which alludes to the anxiety of a Jockey in a fixed horse race, are balanced by melodic ballads like “Double Dare,” which follows a romantic pair pining for a world away from their violent hometown. Inspired by songwriters like Kim Deal and Elliott Smith and bands like Ovlov and Throwing Muses, Momma has mastered their own dynamic song writing and gripping lyrics on Two of Me, creating a record that feels both familiar and intriguing.
Yerington is a small town with a population of roughly 3,000 people. Friedman, who grew up outside of Los Angeles, has been visiting her relatives there for the last few years, along with her bandmate, Allegra Weingarten; the isolated locale helped inspire Two of Me, the recently released album from their band, Momma. “[It’s about] the glorification of a small town and all the secrets and gossip that happen
The band: Guitar and Vocals Performed by Etta Friedman and Allegra Weingarten Drums by Zach Capitti Fenton Bass on all tracks besides “Biohazard” Performed by Sebastian Jones Bass on “Biohazard” Performed by Yarden Erez
“Two of Me” is out June 5th, 2020, on Danger Collective Records.
Milly is a rock band from Los Angeles fronted by songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Brendan Dyer. Their sound melds together elements of classic shoegaze, slowcore, and lo-fi indie rock, coalescing into an intense, singular musical impression. Milly began as Dyer’s home recording project in his hometown of Bristol, Connecticut before finally taking its current form as a band in Los Angeles. “Star Thistle Blossom,” from MILLY’s new EP ‘Wish Goes On’ coming 2021.
The band is fresh out of the gate, running at a fast pace with two singles being released from their contribution to the Microdose series via Dangerbird Records.
Milly also recently announced that they have been picked to support shoegaze/dream-rock veterans Swervedriver on tour. In support of this exciting news, Milly are releasing a cassette comprised of their two Microdose singles, the sonically shape-shifting “Talking Secret” (with entrancing B-side “Crazy Horse”), and their first-ever two songs, including the hypnotically droning “People Are Forever”.
This cassette EP will come out on November 6th, and in the meantime we are pleased for the premiere of the video for “People Are Forever”, a track that showcases the budding potential of this young group.
The video (and the song as well!) is a dreamily yearning, slowcore treat, focusing at the start on Dyer and a girl he seems to be interested in. He moves through a market, gazing at a plethora of items for sale while she picks out a particularly yummy-looking ice cream cone to munch on. The video lens soon fades on those scenes and shifts its attention to the band performing in someone’s living room, conjuring up laid-back ’90s indie rock vibes. The footage then alternates between these two environments, spotlighting the music life of the outfit/Dyer, as well as life outside the sometimes insular world of being in a band.
released October 9th, 2020
Written and performed by Brendan Dyer, Spencer Light, Yarden Erez, and Zach Capitti Fenton
Starcrawler’s remarkable sophomore album “Devour You” is a record that dynamically captures the essence and aggression of their gloriously unhinged live shows. Produced by Nick Launay (Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, L7) at Sunset Studios, “Devour You” takes the feral intensity of their 2018 self-titled debut and twists it into something grander and more gracefully composed. With its more elaborate and nuanced yet harder-hitting sonic palette, the result is a selection of songs radiating both raw sensitivity and untamable power, and a record that the band’s Arrow de Wilde says, “encapsulates all the blood, sweat, bruised knees, and broken fingers of a Starcrawler show.”
Born on the streets of Los Angeles, Starcrawler is a band possessed by the spirit of its own hometown, every movement charged with a manic electricity. Since forming in 2015, vocalist Arrow de Wilde, guitarist/vocalist Henri Cash, bassist Tim Franco, and drummer Austin Smith have gone from bashing out classic-punk covers in the garage to winning the love of such legendary artists as Shirley Manson and Elton John. They’ve also opened for the likes of Beck, Foo Fighters, Spoon, The Distillers, and MC5, bringing their unhinged energy to an already-fabled live show—a spectacle that’s simultaneously lurid and glorious and elegant as ballet. On their sophomore full-length Devour You, Starcrawler captures that dynamic with a whole new precision, revealing their rare ability to find a fragile beauty in even the greatest chaos.
Produced by Nick Launay (Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, L7), Devour You takes the feral intensity of their 2018 self-titled debut and twists it into something grander and more gracefully composed. With its more elaborate and nuanced yet harder-hitting sonic palette, the album came to life at the famed Sunset Sound, where the band spent their downtime playing H-O-R-S-E at the basketball hoop and drinking lots of Mexican Cokes. Adorned with so many unexpected flourishes—choir-like backing vocals from a local Girl Scouts troop, tuba and trombone riffs courtesy of Cash (the band’s 18-year-old musical polymath)—the result is a selection of songs radiating both raw sensitivity and untamable power.
Heavy and swinging and brutally catchy, “Bet My Brains” shows the psychic kinship at the heart of Starcrawler’s songwriting. “That song came from thinking about the mole people in New York and Vegas and the Catacombs in France, and the underground village of people who live in the sewers of the L.A. River,” says de Wilde. “I was fascinated with the fact that there’s whole other world happening right under our feet.” Cash adds: “Arrow and I hadn’t even talked about it yet, but I’d already written something about the same thing—about how these people’s eyes adapt to pitch-blackness, and they end up going crazy from never seeing the sunlight.”
Elsewhere on Devour You, Starcrawler drifts from the dreamy piano lilt of “No More Pennies” to the rock-and-roll disco of “You Dig Yours” to the pure punk vitriol of “Toy Teenager” (a song about de Wilde’s refusal to be abused the fashion industry, and about how “people look at my body and just want to put me on a platter”). And on “Born Asleep” the band lets their love for country music shine, slipping into a modern-day murder ballad spiked with pieces of hazy poetry (sample lyric: “I remember when you cut your lip, sippin’ on a soda can/And the time when you fell and tripped, screaming at the ice cream man”).
All throughout the album, Starcrawler taps into the kinetic chemistry they discovered soon after forming—a process Smith describes as a “slow-burning candle of finding the right people to play with.” In assembling the band, de Wilde first contacted Smith after seeing a Facebook photo of him playing drums (“I hit him up and he came to my birthday party, and then he turned out to be a really good drummer,” she recalls. “Right away it was like, ‘Jackpot!’”) In searching for a guitarist, de Wilde next approached Cash, a fellow student at her performing-arts high school in downtown L.A. “I saw him one day and thought, ‘That guy looks cool,’” she says. “‘He’s carrying a tuba, he’s got long hair, I’ve seen him wearing Cramps T-shirts: he’s gotta know at least something on guitar.’” But while Cash has since emerged as a monster guitarist, her instincts were only partly right. “When I was younger I didn’t want to play guitar, I wanted to play the drums because my dad played guitar—although sometimes I’d take a broomstick and jam along to AC/DC live footage,” says Cash. “It wasn’t until Arrow hit me up that I realized it was meant to be.”
Starcrawler then finalized their lineup with the addition of Franco—an old friend whom de Wilde reached out to after a moment of strange serendipity (“I was in the car with my mom and stressing out about finding the right bass player, and then Tim and his brother turned out to be on their bikes right in front of us,” she says). With their early band practices mostly consisting of Runaways covers, the band quickly bonded over a shared love for L.A.’s most unglamorous spaces. “I’ve been obsessed with Hollywood Boulevard ever since I was little,” notes de Wilde. “People travel so far and spend so much money to see it ’cause it makes them think of Marilyn Monroe—when in reality it’s so disgusting, which is why I love it. But really a lot of the L.A. that I grew up with and reminisce about is kind of fading now.”
As an antidote to the toxic mildness overtaking so much of the city, Starcrawler’s live show has only become more outrageous over the years, an element strengthened by their increasingly telepathic connection. “We all know each other in a much deeper way now,” says Smith. “Like, Arrow knows exactly when I’m going to hit the crash cymbals, so she moves to match up with that. It’s completely changed how we play together.” Prone to spitting fake blood and slapping phones from the hands of crowd members, de Wilde has proven to be a once-in-a-lifetime performer, captivating enough to command a room with just the widening of her eyes. “We want to put on a real show and give people some kind of escape from all the shit going on in the world,” she says. “And with the album, I want people to put it on and feel excited, and hopefully get goosebumps. I always want there to be a dramatic response.”
‘Bet My Brains’ is taken from Starcrawler’s second album “Devour You”, out now on Rough Trade.
As the world continues to literally burn, The Paranoyds return with a much-needed dose of musical levity. It’s been nearly a year since the Los Angeles-based outfit released Carnage Bargain, their debut full-length, and this their new release, is a two-song seven-inch, is a total embodiment of their every influence. Their identity — a band, fuelled by campy horror movies and garage rock — is more evident than ever on this seven-inch, beginning with the organ-fueled opening of A-side “Pet Cemetery” Featuring the sounds of off-kilter keys alongside a chugging guitar line, and expansive experiments, “Pet Cemetery” has become a staple of the band’s live performances, resulting in a sea of zombie-fied headbang every time it’s played.
Despite the obvious heaviness that surrounds a track entirely centered on undead lovers partaking in PDA, there’s an undeniable undercurrent of fun. Previously recorded during sessions for the band’s full length-debut, this unofficial anthem for underworld romance was being saved for a special moment. On the record’s B-side is “Hotel Celebrity,” a single that’s darkness isn’t quite so overt. An examination of aging, and the fruitless celebrity pursuit of superficial perfection, The Paranoyds share in a not so sincere toast to Hollywood. The single was among the last sessions at the famed Tiny Telephone, a San Francisco-based recording studio.
The track is a sneak peek at the future, if there is a future beyond all this shit, of what musical direction The Paranoyds might be headed in next. Suicide Squeeze Records is proud to release the Pet Cemetery EP on a limited-edition, one-time pressing of 750 copies on coke bottle clear vinyl on November 27th, 2020.
Releases November 27th 2020. on Suicide Squeeze Records
I’ve talked about Helen Ballentine and her project Skullcrusher before right here and her latest single Farmis another great opportunity to highlight her wonderful music. Just like her self-titled debut EP which was released this summer, this new song feels like a warm summer breeze (or blanket, to stay in the current season) for your ears. Ballentine’s soft song writing is carried by a certain understatement and tenderness, almost like a brighter alternative to the gloomy ambient folk of Grouper. She keeps things simple and although the end of Farm gets a bit more epic than her previous material it’s still a pretty raw experience. It’s a reflection of childhood and family and that’s exactly the vibe this beautiful mellow song transports.
The name sill doesn’t suit the music but I couldn’t care less about that and I’m very much looking forward to more Skullcrusher action in the not so distant future.
“Farm” the new song by Skullcrusher, out October 19th on Secretly Canadian.
Mamalarky’s indie rock summons an easy and pure joy. Like stepping out from under a tree canopy and into the sun, or feeling the first kick of wind on a hot, sticky day. It’s that sort of gentle wonder that the Los Angeles-based quartet — comprised of ex-Cherry Glazer bassist Livvy Bennett, drummer Dylan Hill, keyboardist Michael Hunter, and bassist Noor Khan channels on their latest song, The song’s bright guitar licks and Bennet’s fuzzy vocals go down like the sweetest little package. As Bennet’s inquisitive lyrics wonder.
While “Schism Trek,” the first single from Mamalarky‘s self-titled debut album took on a more rocking edge, “You Make Me Smile” is a more laid-back affair. With light, precise instrumentation and dreamy vocals, it shows the versatility of the Atlanta quartet.
A new single from Mamalarky out October 14th on Fire Talk Records.
Dre Babinski is happy to be taking photos at the Edendale Branch Library. She’s not a stranger to the Echo Park spot; it’s near her home and a prime people-watching location. But she’s also happy that the location isn’t definitively Angeleno. We’re not shooting with the LA skyline in the background or at Urban Lights or one of the many other spots that place images firmly in a time and space. “I think of Steady Holiday as bigger than just a Los Angeles project,” she says, owning her ambition.
This isn’t the logical conclusion of years slaving away as an unappreciated songwriter. Babinski spent years not as a bandleader, but as a side-player in bands like Hunter Hunted, Dusty Rhodes &the River Band, and Miracle Days. Often projects would require her to play violin, the instrument she trained on in her school years, but Steady Holiday is a result of her picking up a guitar and writing on an instrument she was less experienced with, resulting in material that merges calm indie pop with gentle psychedelic intonations. Her songs sound like transmissions from an old soul, toeing the line between antique and contemporary.
“One of the things I’m trying to let go of as an artist is the ideas that prowess is important,” she says. “It is to a certain degree. I want to be able to play my songs. Beyond that, creation is so much more important than technicality or cleverness or all the heady, educational things that really haunt me.”
Babinski offered up her debut as Steady Holiday in June, being invited by Paul Tollett to play Coachella this year before the album had even dropped. And though she’s still very much supporting Under the Influence, including an upcoming tour opening for Islands and a local LA headline date at the Bootleg Theater on November 15th, she’s also looking forward to what’s next, ready to test the limits of where her creative endeavors can take her.
The Fat Angel Sings 