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  • Devlin and the Harm on the Sopranos Needle Drop That Inspired Debut Album

    Devlin and the Harm press photo by Natali Hopkins
    Photo: Natali Hopkins

    Devlin McCluskey had been on a Sopranos kick that sent him down a music rabbit hole. Remember the episode where Christopher relapses, with carnival lights twinkling and Fred Neil’s song “The Dolphins” playing in the background? “That set off me obsessively listening to that song and then trying to find more songs that sounded like that,” McCluskey says on a recent video call from Cathedral City, where the formerly L.A.-based musician now lives. 

    That Sopranos needle drop prompted McCluskey, previously of The Dead Ships and now of Devlin and the Harm, to dig into more sounds of the 1960s and 1970s that were unfamiliar to him. There was “Something on Your Mind” from the bluesy singer Karen Dalton and Scott Walker’s “The Old Man Is Back Again” and playlists loaded with Donovan tunes. “I’m the kind of person who will listen to one song over and over and over or start my morning listening to one song every morning for months and months,” says McCluskey. That was the case here.

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  • Holy Sun Opera House Turned Recurrent Dreams Into a Gothic Tale

    The Holy Sun Opera House press photo by Andres Herrera
    The Holy Sun Opera House (Photo: Andres Herrera)

    For years, Krissy Barker has been dreaming about houses. Some of the dreams are frightening. Others are not. All feature very specific dwellings that only exist in her dreams. “I’ll visit the same ones over and over and over again, sometimes multiple times in the same night,” the L.A.-based singer and drummer says on a video call. After so many somnial visits, Barker started turning those mysterious spaces into songs and, after forming Holy Sun Opera House with composer dl Salo, they became the basis for the project’s self-titled debut album, out now via Hologram Opera. 

    Holy Sun Opera House is gothic music in a way you wouldn’t expect for 2026. Barker and Salo- both classically trained musicians who met playing pinball and share a wide variety of non-classical influences- have made the kind of music you want to hear while you’re reading Rebecca or marathoning episodes of Dark Shadows. The album The Holy Sun Opera House is gothic in the sense that it gives you the impression of wandering through an old mansion on a stormy night, guided only by candlelight and unsure of what lies behind the doors you find. 

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  • Minoru “Hoodoo” Fushimi, XL Middleton and Milk Talk Appear on Tokyo Love Song’s First 7″ Release

    "In Praise of Mitochondria" "Funkin' Me Up" 7" on display at Salt Box Records
    Tokyo Love Song’s first 7″ release features Minoru”Hoodoo” Fushimi on the A-Side and a collab between XL Middleton and Milk Talk on the B-Side. Seen here at Salt Box Records. (Pic: Liz O.)

    Tokyo Love Song, the L.A.-based party that focuses on Japanese funk and city pop, dropped their first vinyl release earlier this month and it’s a good one. The 7” split single features “In Praise of Mitochondria,” the cult classic cut from Minoru “Hoodoo” Fushimi, on the A-side. For the B-side, modern funk musician and producer XL Middleton joins forces with Japan-based duo Milk Talk for their take on Fushimi’s song, which they’ve titled “Funkin’ Me Up.” I bought a copy of the single last time I stopped by Salt Box Records, Middleton’s shop in Little Tokyo, and was instantly smitten with it. 

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  • How Making a Documentary on Scottish Girl Bands Influenced Carla J. Easton on Her New Album

    Press photo of Carla J. Easton by Craig McIntosh
    Carla J. Easton’s new album, I Think That I Might Love You, is out now. (Photo: Craig McIntosh)

    Throughout her career, Carla J. Easton wrote and played with piano and synthesizers. That changed, though, after spending eight years working on the documentary Since Yesterday: The Untold Story of Scotland’s Girl Bands. “I would just interview and spend time with these incredible, powerful, independent women,” says Glasgow-based Easton on a recent video call. “None of them ever waited for an invitation. A lot of them are just like, I’ll pick up a guitar, fuck it.”

    So Easton, too, picked up a guitar too. The result is her latest solo album, I Think That I Might Love You, out on May 8.

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  • Mignon Looks Towards Utopias in Dystopian Times

    Mignon Fist in a Honeypot video selfie
    (Photo courtesy of Mignon)

    In her video for “Fist in a Honeypot,” Mignon cuts a regal figure, decked out like a Marie Antoinette for late stage capitalism. With Benjamins dripping from her cage skirt, and more bills doubling as a fan, she sips tea and spits out lines like, “money to cheat for/they rob you.” Both the costume, made by the singer herself, and the song are a commentary on today’s “let them eat cake” elite. 

    “It’s about people having too much money,” Mignon says with a laugh about what she describes as the most anti-capitalist of her new batch of songs. 

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  • Album Review: Kneecap Fenian

    Kneecap Fenian Album Cover

    The first time I heard Fenian, the new album from Kneecap, was at a listening party in January. It was a private thing- mainly press and industry, I think- in the back room of an LA pub where the album played once and I spent the bus ride home scribbling notes about the album’s clubby flow, its nods to ‘90s hip-hop- there’s definitely a Wu-Tang energy in there – and the killer drum ’n’ bass track in the middle of Fenian. This isn’t an overstatement or the result of a hype-buzz, but I was genuinely excited for the new album. 

    The second time I heard Fenian was roughly three months later, on the album’s May 1 release date. In between, I had amassed the digital singles- the album’s title track is now one of my current favorites to play when I DJ at Underground– and scrolled through enough posts that half my Instagram timeline would have me convinced that this is the most anticipated album of the year. TBH, I’m not sure if that’s the case for anyone but myself. But, whatever. Fenian is top-tier album.

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  • ADULT. Captures Real World Dystopian Tension on Kissing Luck Goodbye

    ADULT. Kissing Luck Goodbye Album cover

    Maybe the best place to start talking about Kissing Luck Goodbye is at the end of the latest album from ADULT. Just when you think “Destroyers” is done, an electronic swoosh gives way to what sounds like traffic noise. Then, Nicola Kuperus’ voice reappears, singing, “We pay the price for those in power/Exploiting you, exploiting me/Consuming you, consuming me.” 

    I’ve had an advance copy of Kissing Luck Goodbye for a good minute and have now listened to it enough times to be somewhat haunted by the album’s finale. Listening to “Destroyers,” I think about how we’re literally paying the price for those in power every time we go to a store or restaurant and notice how things are ever-so-slightly more expensive than they were the week prior. We are being exploited, by politicians, by Big Tech, by virtually every corporate entity. We know this and, yet, it seems like there’s no way to stop it. 

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  • Depeche Mode, Fontaines D.C. and War Child: The Wars Change, But the Protest Songs Remain the Same

    Photo of antiwar protestors in front of Los Angeles City Hall on March 7, 2026 (Photo: Liz Ohanesian)
    Protesting outside City Hall, March 7, 2026 (Pic: Liz O.)

    As the Santa Ana winds whipped through Los Angeles, downtown protestors clung to signs that read, “Invest in peace not the Pentagon” and “War crimes don’t hide sex crimes.” A string of activists spoke on the steps of City Hall. They led us in a run of chants all of which could be summarized in one point: end the wars. 

    Before walking to the Saturday afternoon protest, I listened toHelp (2), the War Child compilation album that came out on Friday, for the second or third time. On it, Depeche Mode covers “Universal Soldier,” written by Buffy Sainte-Marie in the early 1960s. It’s a striking condemnation of war made all the more ominous when performed as a dark, synthpop song. Listen closely and you might swear you hear jets in the background. Even if you’re only playing the song in the background, you can’t miss the resignation in Dave Gahan’s voice when he delivers the closing line, “this is not the way we put the end to war.” 

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  • Gorillaz Reach The Mountain + New Music from Heavenly, Voxtrot and Jupe Jupe

    Cover of Gorillaz The Mountain
    The Mountain, by Gorillaz is out now


    If your taste in music lives at the intersection of 1980s alternative, 1990s Britpop and 2000s indie- and if we know each other IRL, there’s a good chance it is- then this is your week for new music.  Heavenly just dropped their first full-length album in 30 years! Plus, Voxtrot has released their first new album since the MySpace era. And, of course, you know Gorillaz are back. Reviews for all three albums , plus the latest album from Jupe Jupe, a Seattle band who really gets why people still love the new wave bangers, are below.

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  • Peaches Proclaims “No Lube So Rude” + More New Music

    Apparat A Hum of Maybe album cover

    Not to date myself here, but I’ve been around long enough to remember the pre-Shazam days when “Fuck the Pain Away” was the new club jam that had people asking, “Who is this?” That said, in my timeline, a new Peaches album is cause for much celebration. No Lube So Rude, the first album from Peaches in over a decade, is out today. But, that’s not all. We also have new albums from Apparat, Mirah and Night Ritualz available now. Keep reading for my reviews.

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