I’m sorry I didn’t pass along this gem prior to the BJM’s L.A. show—the last of their tour—at the Music Box in Hollywood June 22. I could have saved some ears, and saved some lovely ephemeral sonic art from overmodulating washout purgatory—a real shame when you consider how tight and nuanced this version of the BJM (which includes Matt and Joel and over a half-dozen stringed instruments going rather constantly, half-turned-away Anton subtly conducting the whole thing).

Playing a set that seemed shorter than its nearly 2 hours (maybe just ’cause they’ve got such a great body of work at this point), the band treated the sellout (in the good way) audience to nice versions of “Nevertheless,” “Super-Sonic,” and a couple newbies from 2010′s Who Killed Sgt. Pepper?; “Servo,” may be the coolest song on Earth that never comes off right live; and a smattering from a list of albums not including My Bloody Underground (alas).

But it was the three-song sequence “Sue,” “Oh Lord,” and “That Girl Suicide” where the band got transcendent. The latter two were the night’s premiere dance moments (even if the refrain of “That Girl Suicide” dragged a bit).

But “Sue” stole the show. Situating themselves between Velvet Underground and The Cure during the verses, just as on the original recording they brought on the distorted lo-fi jam. But what came next is wholly a product of the BJM of 2010, as the jam sped up, evolved, morphed sonically into a pulsing hi-fi swirl that was the longest climax you’ve ever had. Glorious.

And then a Music Box employee began shutting off the three PA speakers out where I was on the smoking patio (indoor/outdoor seating, a big-screen projection of the stage, a beautiful SoCal summer-solsticetime evening, a stringy blond guy you think you saw in DiG! (i.e., “Creepy Dave,” who they say is not creepy and indeed did not seem so), and the most pristine sound in the whole place). “This area is closed!” the gal called to us, and she seemed genuinely surprised that several of us told her she was rude, annoyed as we were at being unceremoniously taken out of the show’s best moment. You couldn’t wait 30 seconds? Oblivious.

—Greggory Moore

Download: The Warlocks “Red Camera”

(from The Mirror Explodes out now on Tee Pee)

As Charlie Brown might say, good grief! So many reviewers for so many publications NOT based in L.A. have slammed the Warlocks time after time, treating them like pompous golden idols who needed to be melted with cruel words into the fire of TRUTH, the truth being that no one who dresses like the Velvet Underground that much can possibly be authentic. Even in the Warlocks’ golden age in, say, 2002, half their reviews were praise pieces, and the other half were “shit sandwich.” And when the band took an experimental misstep with 2005’s Surgery, critics forked them with epithets such as “monochromatic,” “the Snorelocks,” and even “un-magical ass clowns.” The Warlocks have been panned for both self-similarity and for trying different sounds, for taking drugs and not taking drugs, for their chaos and careerism. At this point in their career, if they made a fantastic album, would anyone stop coming up with memes long enough to notice?

Of course, the Warlocks have certainly encouraged meme queens with their own awkward attempts at self-branding. For their last album, they attempted to go “evil,” calling their album Heavy Deavy Skull Lover, putting a Kenneth Anger-esque red-tinted naked gypsy on the cover, and even releasing their album on Halloween. It didn’t work—the album was more dull than dark, much of its echoey guitar picking sounding like the incidental music from Twin Peaks.

But the past is the past, and like with Batman movies, you’ll enjoy the franchise a whole lot more if you employ some selective memory loss. If Surgery was the Warlocks’ End of the Century, and the last album was their Subterranean Jungle, then their new album The Mirror Explodes is at least Animal Boy, if not an out-and-out Brain Drain. It’s as if the last two albums never happened, yet all the best bits from that bizarro world got crystallized into good things. The Mirror Explodes has the concise, no-time-for-bullshit manner of Surgery, with all the shoe-gazey stuff Heavy Deavy Skull Lover was accused of, and yet says more and evokes more, all the while somehow being more true to the best parts of what has made the classic Warlocks a cut above their black-clad brethren.

By the way, if you’re listening for all this in the track that L.A. RECORD has been permitted to provide above, just stop—that’s the shittiest song on the album. Let’s start with track three: “Slowly Disappearing.” Predictably there’s a helluva lot of Spaceman 3 on this track, but so too is there some Sonic Youth-iness, the first direct influence I’ve ever seen from that band upon this band. And it works. I can’t make out who’s singing this song, but he/she’s doing one hell of a Kim Gordon imitation, straight off one of the moody songs on Goo. It’s Youth-y but toothy and droney in a way Thurston’s gang never really captured. In fact, this song’s shakers and booming drums and vision-invoking repetition make the new lineup of the Warlocks sound more than a bit like Indian Jewelry! Perhaps here is the tribalism that membership on Tee Pee Records promised.

Even the band’s lyrics, never their strong suit, seem very much improved from the recent past. For all the posturing they’ve been accused of, classic Warlocks songs like “Shake the Dope Out” really did ring true to anyone who’s taken downers to undilate their eyes before work—and “There Is a Formula to Your Despair” off this record feels just as human, perhaps more so, because it’s clearly a post-drug song as pitiful as a Woody Allen caricature. There’s a pace and progression similar to Matt Hollywood-era Brian Jonestown Massacre, but with better little feedback noises and drum build-ups that evoke Maureen Tucker, and a lysergic tremolo set to the square-wave pattern on somebody’s effect pedal. If you have friends as annoyingly self-pitying as mine, you will immediately relate to this song, even as you’re weirded out by the prospect of getting hooked every time Bobby Hecksher talks to you like a friend.

It’s like this band found a whole new side of the kraut-glam-Floyd-Velvets era to appreciate. “Standing Between the Lovers of Hell” starts where a normal Velvets songs ends, screechy and sanguine, with a Tucker “thump-thump” so primitive, it’s almost in 1:1 time, until halfway through the song when it jumps to the standard 4:4, and then phases into a Stooges wah-wah thing. This almost could have become “We Will Fall” if they’d gotten John Cale to play viola over it. And those vocals! I think it’s Bobby, but it sounds like if Tom Waits and Robert Smith gave birth to a singer with a penchant for helium.

I could go on and on. From the Public Image Ltd. guitars on “Frequency Meltdown” to the warped Joy Division keys on “Static Eyes” to the millions of sounds throughout the album that just cannot be identified, there’s so much to learn on each relistening. Hecksher and the gang have succeeded at making a record that’s both true to form and different, one that definitely tears the “monochromatic” tag to shreds. Oddly enough, as I was in the throes of composing this review, I ran into Bobby at a party, and he told me that he considered this album a capstone to allow the band to go in a completely new musical direction. If so, then The Mirror Explodes is an easy-to-enjoy adieu to a sound that has always been deeper than the affectations of hip. Adios, amigos!

—Dan Collins

The Warlocks’ The Mirror Explodes is out now on Tee Pee.

(from Youth Novels out now on LL)

Soul-pop singer Lykke Li can be so cute and dark simultaneously, singing about heartbreak and insecurity while playing the kazoo around her neck and dancing better than Beyonce. She may one day surpass Sasha Fierce for Youtube videos of 300-pound men imitating the Swedish darling’s moves and clothing. Yes, she has great style, but please, world, stop comparing her to an Olsen twin. This interview by Daiana Feuer.

You say your album is a diary of your life—if we attached a travel guide to Youth Novels, where would we go?
A lot of places in Stockholm. Dark, winter, nights, windy, nobody’s out. Quite depressing, actually. It’s not very glamorous at all. You could come into my bedroom as well. The walls are white. There’s a lot of old black and white pictures that my mom took. I have a black, old piano. I always write about quite sad things but I like to dance as well. I think that’s always going to be a big part of me—conflict within myself, contrast, two forces pulling on each other. I’m not sad all the time—definitely not. But when you’re happy, you’re happy. If you’re eating ice cream, there’s nothing to write about.
What’s the last happy thought you had walking down the street?
It’s been so cold in Sweden and today was the first day of spring. That’s major happiness because it’s so dark and cold here so everybody’s out. So I was very happy today walking down the street. It’s been a very late spring and in the winter it’s dark all the time. When spring comes, people go mad. I mean they’re normal again. In the summer, it’s great. People bike around. They love their alcohol here. It’s a small country but it’s still good.
You spent your childhood in Portugal—what’s your favorite word in Portuguese?
Coração [means ‘heart’]. I was speaking fluently when I lived there but since I don’t speak it here, I’ve forgotten a lot. I can still get by. I went to a Portuguese school so I could write and everything, but I’ve lost a lot.
How many languages do you know?
Swedish, Portuguese, English, I can get by in Norwegian. I think sometimes in English. When I write music, the words come to me in English. I am struggling still with the language so I’m a bit limited, but English is the language I’ve always written in and listened to. It’s a very poetic language and it’s really good if you want to write about love.
Can love be a tangible thing?
It already is—it’s love. It can never be one thing because love is different for everybody. That’s the one thing that will never be a thing. It’s a state of mind.
If you were only allowed to dance or to sing, which would you choose? You would not be allowed to move while singing.
You ask a hard question. Um, sing. I hope this doesn’t happen.
In the chorus of ‘Everybody But Me,’ what’s the third thing you mention?
[Sings:] ‘When everybody’s drinking…when everybody’s smoking…when everybody’s’…ugh, what the fuck do I say? It’s about everybody being high. Oh, [sings] ‘When everybody’s floating.’ Floating on ecstasy.
Do you not do those things?
Yeah, I do those things. Of course. But there was one particular night when I didn’t. When you’re out and everybody’s high and you’re not feeling it. It’s that night.
How did you and Bjorn Yttling [of Peter Bjorn and John] end up working together to produce your album?
We met at a French restaurant on a corner. We bumped into each other and started talking. We were talking about movies and then later on I called him up and begged him to work with me—because we both love All That Jazz.
What’s your favorite scene?
The one when everybody’s naked. I love the whole movie. I love the one in the bathroom when he takes all his pills.
Would you like to be in a movie?
Yeah! I’m in my movie every day.
Do you carry around a camera?
Yeah. I tape things, observations about life.
What’s a recent observation?
[Giggles] Me in the mirror. I was filming myself, and I put some African music on it.
Do you consider different forms of art as separate entities?
No. I just happen to get a bit of success in music, but my mind doesn’t have a limit. It goes sideways, both ways, everywhere. I’m not only thinking about music when I express myself. It’s not even art sometimes—it’s opinions about life. Everything I do has some weird thing to it. When I choose something to eat, that’s as much myself as when I sing.
Do you believe in chance or fate?
I believe in chance and choices and fate. You can definitely control your own destiny but you can’t control the circumstances. You can never set a time-scape to anything. You have fate, knowing things will come if it’s meant to be.
What do you want to do all day when you’re an old woman?
Smoke weed and hang out with my grandkids.
You seem to dig necklaces. What’s your most treasured one?
It’s a crystal my grandma gave me that bounces off bad energy. She passed away so it’s very treasured to me. I wear it all the time. I think grandmother giving a gift to her grandchild is such a powerful thing.
Is there a song that’s hard for you to sing because of what it’s about?
It depends on what kind of mood I am. Some songs or all songs can be hard. I like that feeling when it hurts. I sing better.
Is it weird experiencing a personal moment in front of an audience?
It’s completely natural for me. I took a ballet class when I was five, and I played a show at twelve in the night—because in Portugal we have late shows—and nobody gave me flowers. Then some girl got a flower and I pushed her off stage.

LYKKE LI WITH MY BLOODY VALENTINE, NO AGE, PUBLIC ENEMY, THROBBING GRISTLE, THE CURE, CLIPSE, BRIAN JONESTOWN MASSACRE AND MANY MORE ON SUN., APR. 19, AT COACHELLA AT THE EMPIRE POLO FIELD, 81-800 AVENUE 51, INDIO. 11 AM / $269 / ALL AGES. COACHELLA.COM. LYKKE LI’S YOUTH NOVELS IS OUT NOW ON LL. VISIT LYKKE LI AT LYKKELI.COM OR MYSPACE.COM/LYKKELI.

—Dan Collins

Here is a list of new releases (in alphabetical order) for April 15th.

1 Air Moon Safari (10th Anniversary)
2 Anna Nalick Shine
3 Apocalyptica Worlds Collide
4 Asia Phoenix
5 Black Francis Svn Fngrs
6 Brian Jonestown Massacre My Bloody Underground
7 Carole King Tapestry (Legacy Edition)
8 Children of Bodom Blooddrunk
9 Dianne Reeves When You Know
10 Everclear Vegas Years
11 For Against Shade Side Sunny Side
12 Frightened Rabbit Midnight Organ Fight
13 From First to Last From First to Last
14 Gossip Live in Liverpool
15 Hannah Montana Best of Both Worlds
16 Joseph Arthur Crazy Rain
17 Kooks Konk
18 M83 Saturdays=Youth
19 Mariah Carey E=MC2
20 Phantom Planet Raise the Dead
21 Robert Hood Fabric 39
22 Thrice Vol. 3 – 4 Alchemy Index
23 Tristan Prettyman Hello…X
24 Bad Dudes Eat Drugs
25 Trust Us…A Long Beach Comp