Steve, Jeff and Ron—the piano/guitar/drums trio that can turn into Lavender Diamond when you put Becky Stark singing with them—plus Bedroom Walls’ Jeff Kwong planted ten Daylong songs in two days. It’ll be an album soon, but it’s a four-song demo now and you should download it over and over so you can have a copy on each of your various devices. Everyone is saying this sounds like Tiger Mountain Eno, but everyone is right so that’s a reason to be happy.

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“How Are You Doing?” is the Living Sisters song I want to hear twice. Living Sisters can make me feel like my last name is von Trapp and I’m tumbling playfully down a green hill wearing a dress made from window curtains. Eleni Mandell, Becky Stark, and Inara George take turns playing Maria, my badass [...]

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Something of a Los Angeles vocal supergroup, the Living Sisters are composed of the Bird and the Bee’s Inara George, Lavender Diamond’s Becky Stark and Eleni Mandell’s Eleni Mandell. This is a practiced tribute to the great harmonizers of jazz, early rock ‘n’ roll and country.

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It’s best when someone like Mia Doi Todd is in love, as it fuels the nurturing instinct, and she pours her sweet stuff into songs of earth, morning bed touches, and world peace—her voice round as sunshine in a window turning from dark to light or light to dark—it’s sitting in the window staring at birds or the mailbox, very peaceful-like.

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imaad wasif with adam garcia and bobb bruno as two part beast | dan monick Download: Imaad Wasif’s Mixtape [Audio clip: view full post to listen] L.A. RECORD alum Imaad Wasif is in residency three Thursdays this month at Spaceland, and each show is curated to reflect a different theme—tonight’s “Bad Vibes,” next week’s “Faith [...]

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Spaceland has got three exciting residencies in February. Mia Doi Todd will take us swimming in the river of life while Imaad Wasif channels the void and Princeton reveals they don’t play tennis, they’re a rock and roll band. Mia Doi Todd Tuesday nights in February with the Tapered Steel Band (Andres Renteria, Brian Akio-Martinez [...]

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When my friend invited me to The Decemberists show at UCLA’s Royce Hall, here’s what I agreed to (from the band’s website): “The debut of Here Come the Waves: The Hazards of Love Visualized, a collaboration between the band and four filmmakers, Guilherme Marcondes, Julia Pott, Peter Sluszka, and Santa Maria—each of whom have created animation to accompany a section of the album.” Sounds rad, right? It was.

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