Everything in Gemma Castro‘s new “Quiero Saber de Ti”—the idea, the lyrics, the music, the production and the video—was made as a counterattack against confinement both physical and psychic as she quarantined in her abuela‘s “strict Catholic house” in Guadalajara. Castro’s almost dubby production always sets her songs at a distance—there’s always a feeling of loss and lostness somewhere deep within, and an extra sense of gravity from words left unsaid or sounds unheard. She’s always created her own space, and in some ways quarantine just gave her more possibilities to work with. Her video and ..read more

This smoldering new track from Spain’s Mohama Saz—out Dec. 11 on L.A.’s iconoclastic Mock label—is a slow-motion spin through several waves of psychedelia and the musical heritage of at several subcontinental cultural regions. Described to us as “Mediterranean Psychedelia,” “Quemar Las Naves” is swimming in the east-meets-west-meets-analog-high-tech sound familiar to fans of Sublime Frequencies, Finders Keepers and those awesome-but-legally-iffy comps of rare 45s from Turkey, Lebanon, Africa and beyond. There’s a particular mindscape where an endless desert meets a bottomless sea, and where ..read more

Slaughterhouse What we wouldn’t give to attend a safe, live concert right now. The sheer euphoria of connection that only live music can bring. And boy, do we need it more than ever. One day we will. It will happen. Although not possible right now, our music community is trying it’s best to come together. Echo Park Rising had a great lineup of local bands this past weekend. Photographer Bailey McDaniel caught the Sunday lineup with Chase Petra, Slaughterhouse, Mod Pods, Fart Bart, Skullcrack, and Trap Girl. While there may not have been a physical audience this year, eleven local bands played ..read more

Exotica is a bizarre and sometimes uncomfortably … complicated genre-slash-phenomenon, but the sensation of being somewhere else is more than welcome right now, and nobody makes a living room seem like a distant lagoon more than L.A.’s Healing Gems. They make songs that sound like Moon Gas meets Ennio Morricone with happily saturated production dripping with cinematic effects and unpredictable instrumentation, often soundtracking deadpan lyrics about ancient curses, legendary ruins and dreams so real they override waking life. There’s a pulp-y spaghetti western-style affection for misadventur ..read more

You already know Ten-Headed Skeleton even if you don’t think you know Ten-Headed Skeleton—that’s the recent alias-slash-identity-reinvention of L.A.’s Michael Nhat, the ferociously independent outsider artist/rapper/producer/and probably more, with recent musical output including the “Suffocate On Honey” 7″ and his earlier full-length Evil Doing. But City of Reptiles is everything Skeleton can do happening at once. It’s the first installment of a black-and-white arthouse horror comedy trilogy, written and directed and produced and scored by the Skeleton with a cast of local musicians and nota ..read more

Sometimes listening to a song is like walking in on someone in the bathroom. It feels too intimate—something for an audience of one. That’s the energy of every song on Yung Student Loans‘ new album, I Stay Lonely (A True Romance), but never more present than on “GMSIL (Get My Life),” a slow-burn somber-trap jam for hard hearts. Loans is serving production for your nerve in this video: glitzy RED-camera lookin shots that pull back to reveal a production team making it all happen. The emperor has no clothes, but like, in a cheeky way. His lyrics are curious: he’s spilling his guts, but thinks i ..read more

  Jesse Schuster is the kind of musician who moves in every direction at once—he performs, he produces, he makes sure the video is treated just as reverently as the song and when he finds both inspiration and the opportunity, he turns a genre inside out with his project Safe Jazz. His new single “Good Vibes” is like jazz in schematic—instruments and melodies bisected and disconnected to expose their inner mechanisms and space and clarity enough to see how everything fits together. (And of course sample snippets to remind you what we’re building here: good vibes!) Schuster’s previous L.A ..read more

There’s no magic in getting by. You get up, put on the slippers, scramble the eggs, wash the body, call the parents, kiss the cat. You take one step, and then the next. Then Abracadabra—another sunrise. Jerry Paper’s latest album is first an achievement of sound. What an absolutely gorgeous set of recordings—agile grooves and intrepid chord choices in an adventurous funk/retro-pop oeurve, punctuated by sanguine lyrics delivered in a matter-of-factly mellifluous baritone. Focusing on the feeling the record gives you, however, brings even more pleasure. These songs are melancholy—they’re searc ..read more

As Lionmilk, Moki Kawaguchi creates lush and flowing jazz compositions juxtaposed against gritty textures and raw rap beats. He first made waves as a member of the L.A. beat scene’s progressive jazz combo the Breathing Effect, but now with his solo work Kawaguchi is sketching his own musical world. In Los Angeles, hip-hop and jazz often exist side by side but Kawaguchi melds them into one. He’s inverting the hip-hop tradition of sampling jazz by playing licks and beats by hand and spinning them into collages of his own creation. Kawaguchi sat down with L.A. RECORD to discuss his journey thro ..read more

Sleep really is the cousin of death, turns out. Jeshua is the auntie, watching them bicker and trying to reign them both in before they ruin the function for everyone.  Contrary to the moribund titles of these singles, the versatile, luxuriant-haired L.A. born-and-bred vocalist and songwriter is thriving, blessed and booked during these trying times. These songs, however, highlight a malaise simmering beneath the surface threatening to swallow them whole. ‘Sleepless’ / ‘Decay’ are two sides of one malevolent coin, a documentary that bathes in the light and writhes in the dark—visually sp ..read more