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Category: Interview

  • “You could pop on the internet right this second and find people road-raging”: Mark Lane on New EP, Yelling at Cars

    Black and white photo of minimal synth artist Mark Lane
    Mark Lane (photo courtesy of the artist)

    “You could pop on the internet right this second and find people road-raging,” says Mark Lane. “It’s so ubiquitous, such a part of the culture.”

    That unabashed anger so often on display online and in the streets is what Lane is referencing in “Yelling at Cars,” the title track from his latest EP, released last November. “I saw you standing in the street/Yelling at cars,” he sings over a beat that’s a little electro, a little EBM, a clubby sound that still conveys the shock and dismay of his observations.

    “It’s really hostile now,” he says. “The record touches on this psychosis of imagined road ownership. These people really believe, the road is mine. You see it over and over.”

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  • Agender: “Some Songs Need to Be Fast and Furious”

    Photo of Agender by Lindsey Byrnes
    Agender (Photo: Lindsey Byrnes)

    It was the night before the inauguration and, somewhere in the distance, the Eaton and Palisades fires continued to burn. Needless to say, the mood was grim on the streets of L.A. that Sunday. Inside The Regent, though, at a little after 7:30 p.m., the vibe was dynamic. Agender was in the midst of their opening set for CSS. The floor level of the venue was already packed wall-to-wall. The balcony, where I stood, was quite full as well. Looking down, a mass of people bopped around the floor as the L.A. punk band ripped through one fierce song after the next. 

    “I think it was a moment of the city coming together and it felt special,” says  Romy Hoffman, who is the singer, guitarist and songwriter for Agender. “I know I needed that outlet.” Hoffman, who has known CSS since a previous project of hers toured Australia with them in the mid-‘00s, notes that the Brazilian indie band has a “positive, infectious energy” that lent itself to the “catharsis” inside the venue that night. “It was the perfect band to play at that time just because of their energy,” she says. “We had a great time and the crowd was really responsive. It was wonderful.”

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  • Fear is the Mind Killer: Inside the World of Optometry

    Optometry press photo of John Tejada and March Adstrum
    Photo courtesy of Optometry

    Imagine you’re trapped inside a machine, looking for a way out. You feel a cold beat and tense rhythm, hear bleeps lurking in the background. It’s unsettling. Then, in the distance, a voice repeats the phrase you know from Dune. “Fear is the mind killer.” You see Timothée Chalamet or Kyle MacLachlan or some other Paul Atreides who lives in your head survive the box of pain. You feel relief. 

    That’s what it’s like to hear “Fear (is the Mind Killer),” the Optometry song, for the first time. From Lemuria, the L.A.-based duo’s sophomore album, the song is an homage to Dune as much as it is a reflection on life in the 2020s. 

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