The experimental pop act Liphemra just dropped the title track to their upcoming EP "did u cry", and it is so lit. Gradients of fuzz drone, sliced loops, synth pads, and bass licks kick up the turbulence as singer/percussionist Liv Marsico lets loose a torrent of reverb between the verses. Guitarist Trey Findley conjures abrasive wails and honeyed cries as bassist Miles Gray and drummer Chris Parise play off the groove with dead accuracy. This interplay of hip hop and noise builds into a massive sonic whirlwind, receding as Marsico brazenly asks the question: "Did you even cry? / Did you even try?"

The simple verse recalls the sheer emotional weight of post-breakup feels, as crushing as the instrumental monument built and razed before it.

"You break up… Never talk again. You just want to know if they cried," says Marsico of the song.

The team has been holed up in their Mid City rehearsal space for the better part of the year, painstakingly recording and producing the EP after a brilliant string of performances with Algiers, Young Fathers, HOLY CHILD, and appearances at Lolipalooza and Echo Park Rising. Liphemra is at the final stretch, honing their live sound to reflect the EP’s brilliance — there likely won’t be any further shows until early next year, says Marsico.

Expect the drop of "did u cry" next March through LA-based Future Gods. – Ryan Mo, photo credit Arvida Bystrom

Culture Collide Festival, the brainchild of Alan Miller (co-founder of FILTER Magazine), returns for its sixth year of international music discovery. The festival partners with record labels like 100% Silk, Stones Throw, Sargent House, IHeartComix, and more to introduce over 40 fresh faces and nationally renowned acts to connoisseurs of the West Coast, spanning three days in several venues dotted across Echo Park: TAIX, The Champagne Room, The Echo/Echoplex, Echo Park’s United Methodist Church, and Lot 1 Café.

Bands travel from their homes in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, Korea, France, Ecuador, Peru, and more to perform in the musical melting pot of Los Angeles. This year, Culture Collide has also teamed up with the Modern Sky record label to feature a special Chinese Indie Night at the Regent Theatre (10/9) with acoustic folk performer Song Dongye (宋冬野), synthpunk New Pants, and Miserable Faith (痛苦的信仰乐队). Purchase tickets or learn more about the bands here.

Not quite sure about going to Culture Collide? Here are six good reasons to make your mind up:

 

 

Nick Diamonds: The Canadian musician has fronted dozesn of bands including the notable Islands, collab’d with notables like Alpha Pup’s Daddy Kev and Honus Honus (Man Man), even helping to pioneer a genre of music called Doom-wop. Now situated in Los Angeles, Nicholas Thornton reveals the great follow-up to his 2011 debut: the bedroom bummer, electro-noir full-length City Of Quartz. 

Cruising back from his recent tour through SF and Santa Cruz, Nick Diamonds will perform at the Echoplex on 10/9. Check out the single to City Of Quartz, "The Sting", below.

 

 

The Album Leaf: The solo project of Tristeza’s original member James LaValle is among the most respected in post-rock circles, invigorated with glitch and ambient spirits that diverged from his guitar-centric peers. Since the release of A Chorus of Storytellers in 2010, LaValle has spent the last two years working on a new album, and he’s bound to play some unreleased tracks at Culture Collide.

The Album Leaf plays at The Church on Friday 10/9. Heads up: a video for his newest single "New Soul" drops the same day. Listen to his last single featuring folk solo artist Peter Broderick, titled "Never Held a Baby".

 

 

The Grounders: Toronto’s psych-y krautrockers celebrate the release of their self-titled debut LP, a sonic poptart with lo-fi noise crust enveloping a gooey synth filling. Following their 2013 EP "Wreck of a Smile", bandmates Andrew Davis, Daniel Busheikin, Mike Searle, and Evan Lewis got together to explore Zombies and David Bowie with a self-help guide by David Lynch and Meditation for Dummies. The result: a blissful and cogent series of recordings laid out in Davis’ Toronto bedroom and a studio-converted garage stacked with vintage equipment. 

Listen to the single "Bloor Street And Pressure" and watch them twice at Culture Collide: 10/8 at Lot 1 Café and 10/9 at TAIX.

 

  

The Vim Dicta: Channeling glorious garage-y psychgroove from the LA basin, The Vim Dicta’s Cori Elliot, Matt Tunney, and Chris Infusino were regarded by The Deli’s staff as one of the Best New LA Bands in 2012 with their live-recorded debut EP "Lucky Strike". The 2013 follow-up "Von Tango", a five-song collection of guitar scuzz, jazz growl, and noir grit, furthered the notion that Los Angeles hadn’t seen the last of devilishly soulful music — rock certainly is not dead, at least not for The Vim Dicta. With a new album in the works, the trio are currently performing a free spread-out residency at Harvard & Stone (next show on 10/21). 

The Vim Dicta plays Saturday 10/10 at TAIX. Listen to "Stallion" off the "Von Tango" EP below.

 

 

The Mynabirds: A previous Deli feature, The Mynabirds’ Laura Burhenn fronts a blend a garage rock, pop, R&B, and soul that has turned the heads of every tastemaker across the coasts. We waxed poetic about her summer release Lovers Know, which was featured on NPR and reviewed positively by Drowned in Sound and The Line of Best Fit — need we say more?

The Mynabirds wrap up their US tour for Lovers Know at The Echo on 10/9, and if you haven’t seen them perform yet, you can thank us later.

 

 

WYM: The solo project of modular synth artist Jun Hyung Byun, alias bjorn (뵤른) and one half of Seoul Disco’s electronic duo MDS, makes his LA debut at Culture Collide. WYM’s aesthetic is derived from careful manipulation of ’80s patches to create prismatic soundscapes that combine dreampop, chillwave, ambient, electronica, and synthpop like his peers YUKARI, Clazziquai, and House Rulez. This isn’t the K-pop that’s been taking over the states by storm; it’s a taste of Korea’s electronic underground that your ears have been deprived of for years. Better late than never.

He plays two shows at Culture Collide: one on Thursday 10/8 as part of SeoulSonic’s showcase, and another on Saturday 10/10 at Lot 1 Café. Listen to the title track off his debut album After Moon. – Ryan Mo

Musicans have always strived to capture the primacy of human experience — some using tried and true approaches while others play with the strange and eccentric. But for the chamber group Inner Ecstasy, communicating felt truths often involves balancing the classical with the experimental, harnessing the provocative spirits of music’s golden age and its avant-garde. Isaac Takeuchi, Vicki Scotto, and brothers Steve and Gabriel Armenta pull from influences spanning centuries apart — from Johann Sebastian Bach and Philip Glass to The Velvet Underground and Sonic Youth — wielding the harmonious and the dissonant to chronicle the voyage of raw emotion.

After a first show at the inaugural LAB•FEST in 2013, Inner Ecstasy signed to DIY label Noise Met Sound, where they released their first EP and went on to play with acts like Liphemra and Bür Gür. The group has been strong advocates of the DIY music/arts community, supporting venues like the LA Fort and LAST Projects in the past years.

Inner Ecstasy plays an all-ages show tomorrow at the Ave. 50 Studio in Highland Park with Sean Pineda, Voice on Tape, Austin’s dream pop noir duo Technicolor Hearts, and Los Angeles post-rock Young Lovers. Listen to the haunting "Ascension" below and come to the show tomorrow; doors open at 6 PM. – Ryan Mo

The beginning of October is sign for shorter days, chillier nights, and pumpkin spiced everythings, but down here it’s still hot as hell. And tonight it’s only gonna get hotter, louder, and chiller: turn up and get sweaty in the walls of vintage equipment store and supporting venue Timewarp Records as two recent Deli features, Hillary Chillton and Crescendo, welcome San Francisco’s summer-eyed Hot Flash Heat Wave. The Bay Area baes wrap up their West Coast tour this weekend, celebrating the release of the sunbathing Neapolitan LP with two back-to-back shows in Santa Monica and Fullerton (@ The Continental Room with BURGER RECORDS’ well-done lineup).

The event moved venues from The Heart of Art Gallery, after an incident of vandalism in late August prompted the space to shut down. SFV’s trillest emo-soul trio The Unending Thread unfortunately had to pull out as well — big ups to their guitarist/vocalist Cesar Alas, who co-organized the event! Listen to "Malibu" straight off HFHW’s Neapolitan below. Doors open 8:30 PM, $8 admission to help the music fam. – Ryan Mo

Santa Ana DIY venue Top Acid is hosting the OC Femme Fest this Saturday to show support for the local community with a multicultural, multiethnic celebration — October 3rd also happens to be the birthday of Swiss-born German feminist writer Verena Stefan, but that’s probably coincidental.

Listen to the gothpunk flavors of SLO’s Loko Ono, Deadpanzies‘ dissonant splash of no wave, the satanic revivalist pop of Bellhaunts, and the bedroom folk of Bathroom Friends. An art gallery featuring local creatives Ratsy, Olyvia Ashley, Pam Serrano, Clit Or Crush, and Beverly Salas will also be up for viewing.

The vintage store/DIY space only recently changed its name in 2014, and has been grounded with local shows, with interviews, fashion lookbooks, and other great stuff by tastemaker Joellen Love and owner Christopher Gonzalez.

Show some love for Top Acid and check out Femme Fest on Saturday — it’s all-ages and free! – Ryan Mo

Cody Farwell’s music reminisces on Japanese RPGs while seemlessly blending elements from his extensive musical past. The multi-instrumentalist has been a part of numerous projects ranging from ’70s punk to reggae dub and Latin jazz, and his induction to the heady electronic collective TeamSupreme as Snorlax has produced countless Cypher mixes with the likes of Kenny Segal, JNTHN STEIN, Preston Walker (Virtual Boy), and Great Dane.

Now, Farwell is unveiled as Goodnight Cody in his label debut Wide as the Moonlight, Warm as the Sun: 16 levels of textured, contrapuntal melodies that perfectly evoke heroic NES adventures and bright-eyed fantasies. Gameboy atmospherics meets Sesame Street jams meets Steven Universe aesthetics — it’s like everything and nothing you’ve ever heard before. Goodnight Cody plays tonight in an 18+ show with Daedelus, Elusive, and Kodak to Graph along with the Low End Theory mainstays Daddy Kev, Nobody, D-Styles, and Nocando. Listen to the featured track "Alone on this Island" below and find his debut album on Daedelus’ label Magical Properties, out now. – Ryan Mo

Call it art pop, call it psych pop, call it experimental. Call it whatever you want, but the music that Joaquin Pastor aka James Supercave puts out is not only aurally phenomenal — it’s first-world metaculture commentary. 

The singer/songwriter has been active since 2012, reaching seminal fame for his acoustic collaboration with filmmaker and Erhu player Evita YuePu Zhou in "Chairman Gou", a character perspective of the 2012 Foxxcon factory suicides. It was covered by the Chinese-American newspaper World Journal, illuminating labor abuse in the world’s largest contract tech manufacturer. But prosodic quality isn’t the only mark of James Supercave — the group’s sensual musicality, playfully bridging unorthodox timbres and progressions, definitively separates them from the myriad of emerging acts in the city. James Supercave asks that you don’t think too hard, and that sentiment resounds in "The Afternoon" EP. Released last year, the debut skillyfully pours levity over profound subjects of apocalypse, voicemails, the constant of change, and the self versus the society.

Percy Shelley once remarked: "poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world." Well it’s 2015, and now’s as good a time as ever to start.

James Supercave performs on Saturday at the Non Plus Ultra as part of their Fall Tour. Acclaimed dreampop/shoegaze band Winter and So Many Wizards side-project Crown Plaza will support. Watch the new music video for "The Right Thing", directed by James Kim, below. – Ryan Mo

Brooklyn singer Sonia Kreitzer, formerly of Sonia’s Party, has recently moved to her new home in Los Angeles as Doe Paoro, her soul/R&B alter ego. It’s cause for celebration — Paoro has a new album that’s about to be released, and LA locals get an exclusive chance to hear it live first.

After (out September 25th via ANTI- Records) has been a three-year effort with producers Just Vernon (Bon Iver) and BJ Burton, a definite maturation of Paoro’s cabin-fevered opus, the sublime debut Slow to Love. Torch songs like the latest single "Nostalgia" embroiders synthwave textures with candid, disconsolate lyrics. With a voice that’s been compared to Lykke Li, Zola Jesus, and James Blake, Paoro connects memorable pop hooks to deeper musings on seasonality and the cyclical nature of time.

"The record is a meditation on time, and its illusions — the way each ending is simultaneously a beginning; its ability to speed up, drag or stand still; contract or expand a moment — and the only awareness of what it had been coming retrospectively, or After."

Doe Paoro is holding an exclusive free release party for her label debut After tomorrow night at the Dirty Laundry, touring North America soon after with Little May and Givers. RSVP to celebrate with Paoro, and listen to RAC’s remix of "Nostalgia" below. – Ryan Mo

For guitarist/vocalist Gregory Cole of Crescendo, summer’s been a windfall of great opportunities — his band went through a lineup change that has positively impacted their live sound, slayed the second night of Echo Park Rising, and threw down the third iteration of the DreamGaze Festival, playing out to Los Angeles and San Francisco crowds.

2015 is drawing to a close, and it’s still uncertain if we’ll see Crescendo’s sophomore album release this year. But for those of you who missed out this summer, you’re in luck: hear the five piece’s brand of cerulean dreamgaze at two back-to-back shows for free! Crescendo are up tonight at the local pub Lot 1 with Littlest Sister (acoustic instrumental), The Bees and Bones (garage blues), Wild Year (synthpop), and touring Seattle band Pitschouse (dreampop). They’ll also perform at Harvard & Stone’s on Wednesday with new talent Glasz and Nashville-blooded headliner Reno Bo. Get tight and dance with them: listen to "Gatsby" from Crescendo’s debut album Lost Thoughts. – Ryan Mo

On Tuesday Brooklyn-to-LA’s Ghost Pavilion is hosting a show at the La Cita in Downtown Los Angeles. The band’s synth-rich, lo-fi atmospheric sound started as the side project of James Higgs, multi-instrumentalist of Brooklyn’s cozy dreampop foursome Spanish Prisoners. Two previously earmarked bands will start the show off: Grave School and Last Canyon. Both have released new EPs over the summer — the "Grave School" EP hummed ’80s alt-rock cool, while "gold, sight and silver" featured a loftier sound than Last Canyon’s debut. Psych-pop duo Inspired & the Sleep drives up from Oceanside to support at 10:00pm, too.

Grave School is on at 8:30pm — the beer’s cheap and happy hour’s until nine so of course this is going to be a 21+ gig. With free admission. – Ryan Mo

(Technically we’re not supposed to talk about bands that aren’t local, but Courtaud and Bobtail were based in the OC for four years, and continually come down to perform — they’re currently on tour, and have played with some of the finest folks in the underground scenes: Shojo Winter, Cruelty Code, Media Jeweler, Young Lovers, Deep Fields, CTHTR. So they’re pretty tight in my book, and worthy of mention.)

Inspired by a mythical 15th century French wolfpack that killed 40 Parisians, the experimental outfit — Alana Cook, Emily Wasilewski, and Andrew Quinones — come up with some very unsettling and vesperous sounds. The accumulated recordings are placid, lo-fi scrawls of peaking feedback, acoustic hum, and calm verse that poeticize the dismal realities of life. Their newest LP "My Love Who Never Was Will Never Be" ventures into narratives of depression, ennui, trauma, and exploitation. It’s heavy with poignant use of reverb and sparse, minimalist arrangements — sadder than Hollywood sadcore, but less boxed into ambient soundscapes as Mojave 3 and Mazzy Star.

Thursday night, Courtaud and Bobtail joins Young Lovers (post-rock from the valley) and Tender Age (C86/noisepop from Portland) at the Ham & Eggs Tavern, DJ set by the lovely Izzy Sophia. Come out: you might cry, you might dance, and you just might find love. Listen to "Hanging Wall" below. – Ryan Mo

There’s a post-rock band in Aliso Viejo called Pedestrian, and you need to listen to them. A starchild of Mineral and Explosions in the Sky, or perhaps the younger sibling of Have A Nice Life, Pedestrian’s quicksand tones and sinking voices will pull you in deep and hold you like the monotony of Orange County. In late 2013 the four bandmates Luke, Logan, Lee, and Irfy put out their first EP "Everybody I Know Who Skis is Dead", five songs of dark lyricism juxtaposed with clear open-chords, harmonics, and nodding riffs. The band has since performed with DIY collectives like Bridgetown, OC DIY, VHLS, BoredToDeath, and more. Throughout the past year they’ve also introduced songs from their upcoming album, and recently shared a post about it last week — I’m gonna guess it means they’ve finished the album.

 

Pedestrian have an upcoming show on October 2nd at the San Clemente Art Supply with the recently-resurrected Fugue, Quali, Red Curtain, Little Heroine, and Colporteur. Check out their live set this past summer courtesy of Cavis Tapes and listen to "All’s Well That Ends Well" below. – Ryan Mo