“You wanna know me, well, what’s to know?” asked Jack Tatum, otherwise know as Wild Nothing, the indie pop musical project he started recording under in 2009, releasing promising demos which turned into EPs and then albums, the most recent of which, Indigo, attempts...
Rap duo Kids See Ghosts, made up of longtime collaborators Kanye West and Kid Cudi, headlined the main stage at this year’s Camp Flog Gnaw music festival. They reunited onstage for their first untelevised live show in over two years. Their performance wasn’t just a...
“This isn’t Hip Hop, this is an experience,” said Alexander Anyaegbunam, otherwise known as Rejjie Snow, to a handful of audience members on a Wednesday night at the Santa Ana Observatory. Wearing a blue jumpsuit and a black beanie, the Irish rapper’s mellow attitude...
There’s a certain look that consumes Samuel T Herring’s face after performing a song, as the lights fade and the audience stops dancing. Somewhere between gratefulness and exuberance, a momentary pause from the euphoric nature of performance, a welcoming of reality,...
An intimidating line of teenagers in streetwear, sporting tracksuits and rare sneakers, curved around Santa Ana’s The Observatory, slowly moving through security as they removed cellphones and forgotten chains from their pockets, staring at a group of teens in...
It starts with a screen. But before that, a bedroom. Scotch-taped posters plastered on the walls and a thumbtacked string of lights; the familiar objects of Claire Cottril’s space which would soon be recorded and uploaded online as the minimal setting for her...
“There’s a place I know where we can go,” whispered David Portner, otherwise known as Avey Tare, into two conjoined microphones, strumming alongside childhood friend and bandmate, Noah Lennox, nicknamed Panda Bear, and along with Tare, one-half of Animal Collective. ...
Out of the darkness, Unknown Mortal Orchestra emerged as silhouettes, backlit by pillars of purple light, concealed rather than illuminated, hiding from the hundreds of eyes staring up at them. Yet loneliness found its way onto stage as frontman Ruban Nielson’s voice...
Baltimore-based indie rock band Snail Mail has become one of the most buzzed about bands of 2018, with singer/guitarist Lindsey Jordan putting forth some of the most passionate and wise music I’ve heard in years, and all at the age of 19. They are in the middle of a...
“Let’s dance,” said Lydia Night, frontwoman of The Regrettes, facing an audience eager to embrace everything the punk rock band represents: unapologetic teenage energy. The 17-year-old tipped her cowboy hat and joined the audience in singing the first few lyrics of...