All posts by Liz O.

I'm a longtime, cross-genre DJ and writer living in Los Angeles.
The Playlist

French Police, Riki, Klub Nocturno @ The Novo 10/16/25

French Police live at The Novo in Los Angeles on Thursday, October 16, 2025 (Photo: Liz Ohanesian)
French Police live at The Novo on 10/16/25 (Pic: Liz O.)

I’ve seen French Police a few times this year and last night’s show at The Novo was the best of them. The energy was really high, both from the band and the crowd. I watched the show from stage left, where you’re looking at a diagonal past the band and into the crowd. L.A. has a rep for not dancing at shows, but, here, seemingly everyone was bouncing around, even in the balcony seats, maybe especially in the balcony seats. 

Riki does a terrific cover of “Porque Te Vas,” the Jeanette song, that’s on her second album, Gold and I was so excited to hear her play it live in the opening set that I can’t remember what else was in the set. Again, I watched from stage left and noticed how the crowd was vibing.

This isn’t a show review, btw, because I think it’s weird to review shows in which one is a participant and I was on DJ duty for Klub Nocturno’s support sets. I played the tunes for the first hour and then for the half-hour between Riki and French Police. So, all this is to say that it was a fantastic night. The set list is below. 

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Interview

HAAi Contemplates the Future of Humans and Machines on HUMANiSE

Haai Humanise press photo by Sophie Webster
Photo: Sophie Webster

It’s an unusually muggy September afternoon in Los Angeles and HAAi (aka Teneil Throssell) is in town for a brief stay in between gigs in Miami and Washington D.C. “This city has been really kind to me with support, with everything,” she says, mentioning that she was planning a free pop-up party in town with her friend, Warpaint drummer Stella Mozgawa, during her stay. At the moment, though, we’re talking about HUMANiSE, the album that HAAI was readying for release. By now, you might have heard it. HUMANiSE came out on October 10 via Mute.

For her sophomore full-length, HAAi considers the rapidly-evolving connection between humans and machines. She describes her relationship with technology as fickle. “It’s one of those things that I’m fascinated by and terrified by it at the same time, like, I think, most people,” the London-based DJ, producer and singer says as we chat in the lobby of a downtown hotel. 

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Happening in L.A.

French Police, Salt Box Sessions + More Happening in L.A., 10/15-10/22/25

French Police live at Glass House in Pomona, CA, on May 1, 2025 (Photo: Liz Ohanesian)
French Police live at the Glass House back in May. (Pic: Liz O.)

Are you going to see French Police at The Novo on Thursday? Not only is Riki playing, but I’ll be on hand DJing as part of Klub Nocturno’s support set. I got to play with Klub Nocturno for the French Police shows at the Glass House and El Rey earlier this year and they were fantastic, so I’m psyched to be doing it again. See you at the club this Thursday night. 

Then, on Sunday, October 19,  I’ll be playing and all-vinyl set with XL Middleton, Moniquea and more as part of Salt Box Sessions inside Hello Stranger. Come through between 1 p.m. and 7 p.m. to dig through the Salt Box’s vinyl selection, hang out and dance a bit. For the record, I have no idea what I’ll be playing. It could be Italo disco or minimal synth or norther soul or all of the above, so you really have to stop by to find out. 

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Adventures in L.A., Art, Books

R. Crumb Shares Tales of Paranoia in New Art Show and Forthcoming Comic Book

R. Crumb Tales of Paranoia cover original art at David Zwirner Gallery in Los Angeles (Photo: Liz Ohanesian)
The original cover art of Tales of Paranoia by R. Crumb on view at David Zwirner in Los Angeles (Photo: Liz O.)

Next month, Fantagraphics will release Tales of Paranoia, the first comic book from R. Crumb in 23 years. Right now, though, you can check out original art from the book, as well as other works from Crumb, at David Zwirner here in L.A. The gallery exhibition, which runs through December 20, is the first Crumb exhibition in the city since The Bible Illuminated: R. Crumb’s Book of Genesis ran at the Hammer in 2009/10. 

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New Music

Bob Vylan Rages About Our “Sick, Sad World” on New Single

Bob Vylan Sick Sad World single cover

I’m trying to tell my friends about Bob Vylan. 

It’s late. The club has ended and I’ve been in the DJ booth all night, so I’m both exhausted and loquacious. We’re talking music and the conversation jumps from Fontaines D.C. to Kneecap to Bob Vylan with a hundred different asides. My mind is a jumbled reflection of my Instagram feed, which is how the English duo came up in conversation. My friends don’t know too much about Bob Vylan, but they’ve been high on my timeline for months, so I get into the whole story about the Glastonbury incident and how they don’t have a tour visa for the U.S. now. It’s all documented in this story from The Guardian, but the details sound particularly absurd when you’re recounting them aloud. Then again, just about everything in the news sounds more absurd out loud these days. 

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The Playlist

“My Favourite for a Long Time”: Fontaines D.C. and Everything Else You Heard at Underground 10/10/25

Fontaines D.C. Romance Album cover

The last song at Underground last night was “Favourite” by Fontaines D.C. and, when I saw people singing along, I thought finally. Romance has been out for over a year now. It was my favorite album of 2024. It was a lot of people’s favorite album of last year. Both Larry and I have been playing multiple tracks off the album since it came out, and we were both playing Fontaines D.C. before Romance, but it wasn’t until this past summer that I really started to see the band hit with the indie club crowd here in L.A. Back in the pre-algorithm days, that would have been really unusual, but now it’s kind of normal. A band can meet all the metrics by which it would be considered successful, like award nominations and sold-out shows, and people still don’t know who they are because their “personalized” feeds are really just regurgitating nostalgia content based on basic demographic info and passive likes, served with a dollop of hot takes on Taylor Swift and Sabrina Carpenter to make you feel like you know what’s happening in the world. 

What I’m saying is that the internet is making us sad and uncool, so go out to a real club and dance to the music that real people put together into sets that would baffle Spotify. Dance to the new stuff. If you don’t know it this week, you’ll know it next week. 

Anyhow, here’s last night’s set list, which includes new music The New Eves, Gorillaz (with Sparks), Alice Glass and more, plus a few oldies that I haven’t played in a really long time, like “Cupid Boy” from Kylie Minogue’s best album, the Scissor Sisters/Mylo mashup and probably some other tunes. All 2025 releases are in bold and link back to other references here on the blog. 

Oh, before we get to the set list, be sure to pick up tickets for Halloween at Club Underground. Both floors of Grand Star Jazz Club will be open on Friday, October 31, and there will be a costume contest. 

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Interview

Colin Newman and Malka Spigel Ask “WTF??” on New Immersion Album

Immersion Malka Spigel Colin Newman press photo
Malka Spigel and Colin Newman of Immersion (photo courtesy of the artists)

A funny thing happened last year for Colin Newman and Malka Spigel and their project Immersion. “We suddenly had a tour last autumn and we only had a half-hour set,” says Newman. “Instead of adding a few oldies and fleshing it out, we wrote a bunch of new material.”

Newman and Spigel have made a lot of music. Newman first gained acclaim with Wire in the late 1970s. Spigel co-founded the post-punk band Minimal Compact in the early 1980s. “If you try and sell Immersion as being somebody from Wire and somebody from Minimal Compact, they come with with a whole expectation that it’s going to be those things or both and it’s neither,” says Newman. “Immersion is Immersion. It’s its own thing and for us it makes much more sense to build that organically.”

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Happening in L.A.

Sextile, Wolf Alice and More Happening in L.A. 10/09 – 10/15

Sextile Yes, Please album cover

Trying to find something to do in Los Angeles this weekend? I know, it’s rough. I just spent too long combing through Instagram feeds and screencapping flyers that have yet to pop up on my feed. Still, there are places to go and bands to see. In fact, I’m a little surprised to see that some shows, like Sextile at The Novo on Saturday, October 11, and Wolf Alice at the Wiltern on Monday, October 13, still have tickets left. There are also loads of movies screenings, a few great dance nights, a comedy show for a really good cause and lots more, so keep reading and share this with any pals who might be interested. All the events here are happening in Los Angeles sometime between Thursday, October 9, and Wednesday, October 15. 

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New Music

Ultra Sunn Unleashes The Beast in You

Ultra Sunn The Beast in You album cover

Last week, Ultra Sunn released The Beast in You. While the Belgian duo’s sophomore album isn’t quite a departure from previous club hits like “Keep Your Eyes Peeled” and “Broken Monsters,” or last year’s debut full-length, US, it shows some welcome growth from the EBM outfit. 

Heavily influenced by European dance music of the late 1980s and early 1990s, Ultra Sunn excels at songs that bridge the old and the new. It’s no wonder that they’ve been one of the most requested artists I’ve seen while DJing. Most of their songs are around 124 or 125 BPM, which is solidly mid-tempo when you’re DJing a darkwave night, and they fit perfectly in between Front 242 and Nitzer Ebb classics and more recent bangers from Boy Harsher and Sextile. This kind of consistency makes Ultra Sunn songs ideal for club play, but it’s also what makes them less interesting for at home listening. That’s very common amongst artists who work in hyper-specific niches of dance music, but, nonetheless, I can’t help wondering what it would sound like if Ultra Sunn stepped outside of the comfort zone. 

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New Music

The New Molly Nilsson Album Will Make You Embrace Your Inner Amateur

Molly Nilsson Amateur album cover

On her latest album, Amateur, Molly Nilsson considers how a word that is derived from the Latin for “lover” or “admirer” came to mean a lack of experience or professionalism. “I see ‘amateurism’ as a delighted, even foolish, protest,” says Nilsson in a statement on the album’s Bandcamp page. “Protest against everything. Of what’s expected of someone, or expected of someone to desire or strive for. To be elite, to be expert, to be professional, to be a master, to excel and succeed. Where’s the joy in that?”

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