Pixel Grip’s third album, Percepticide: The Death of Reality is out now.
Chicago-based trio Pixel Grip released their third album, Percepticide: The Death of Reality on June 12. Three years in the making, Percepticide is also the band’s first fully independent release and the end result is a collection of a dozen songs that are rooted in the clubs, but defy expectations of what one might consider club music. It’s as punk as it is pop, as raw as it is slick and as menacing as it is euphoric.
In 2023, Sally Shapiro released a gorgeous cover of the Pet Shop Boys song “Rent.” I came across the song a few months after its release and it quickly became a favorite. It turned up in a lot of my DJ sets beginning in early ’24 and people would often ask, “Who does this cover?” I’m mentioning this now because Sally Shapiro just released their fifth full-length album, Ready to Live a Lie. Yes, “Rent” is on it, but so are ten equally compelling songs.
On Pirouette, the latest album from New York-based Model/Actriz, there’s a lineage that runs from the funkier, Gang of Four side of post-punk to the noisy, late 1990s aftermath of hardcore that led to indie dance bands like The Rapture, The Faint and !!! to the L.A. DIY scene of the ‘00s and early ‘10s that spawned bands like Health and clipping. It’s noisy, driven by an urgent energy and will probably scare off those who like nice pop songs. It’s music for people who like to keep things weird, but still need structured songs and a good dance beat.
Sextile kicks off Yes, Please with one hell of an “Intro.” It’s all alarms, distorted vocals and squelching electronics that make you think the L.A.-based duo have plans to drop you back into a 1992 Prodigy jam. They don’t. Instead, Sextile diverts you to the sweat-drenched warehouse of right now with “Women Respond to Bass,” a banger for the afters where the subs send the low-end pulsing through the soles of your Docs, and the previously released single “Freak Eyes.”
Lost Records: Bloom and Rage is a new video game from French developer Don’t Nod. Since I’m not much of a gamer, I can’t tell you anything about that, aside from that it’s narrative-driven and about grown women in 2022 reconnecting with a secret from their 1990s teenage past. What I can tell you about, though, is the soundtrack, which, like the game was released in two parts, the second of which dropped this week. And, really, the reason I’m telling you about the soundtrack is because 3/4 of Chromatics— Ruth Radelet, Nat Walker and Adam Miller— reunited to contribute five songs to the Lost Records soundtrack album.
Last year, I saw Miki Berenyi Trio live at the Fonda in Hollywood and, since then, have been waiting for the British indie group’s debut full-length. Tripla came out on Friday, April 4, and was well worth the wait. The tl;dr version is it’s fantastic. Get it, but don’t expect a rehash of the 1990s. Keep reading if you want more details.
MB3 is named for Miki Berenyi, former guitarist and singer for Lush and author of the must-read memoir Fingers Crossed, but it isn’t a solo project. The trio is rounded out by KJ “Moose” McKillop, and Oliver Cherer. All three musicians share songwriting duties and that’s reflected in the album’s title, which is Hungarian for triple. Still, Berenyi is the most recognizable member of MB3.
About two-thirds of the way into Music Can Hear Us, DJ Koze drops a secret weapon on listeners in the form of an exceptionally short and spooky cover of “Vamos a la Playa.” With German artist Soap&Skin on vocals, Koze strips away everything that makes the 1983 song from Righeira an Italo disco classic. The beat is gone. The “oh-oh-oh-oh-oh“ is replaced with a faint breath in the background. What remains are the lyrics, a story about going to a radioactive beach. It’s creepy af. I love it.
The problem with the 21st century’s persistent ‘80s nostalgia is that most people miss the point of a whole decade’s worth of pop culture. They’re like, “the music was so much better.” But, the music was good because people were making perfect pop songs about nuclear annihilation and the evils of capitalism. It’s protest music for the Reagan-Thatcher era that, tbh, probably went over people’s heads back in the day too. (There’s a similar argument to be made about movies here too, but we’ll save that for another day.) Koze and Soap&Skin bring the point to the forefront of this cover version.
The 110 freeway in L.A. as seen from a Metro J Line stop (Pic: Liz O.)
It’s time for another Beatique Mix. The April 2025 edition of this mix series includes new music from Mark Lane, Night Ritualz, Marie Davidson, Model/Actriz, The Horrors, French Police and more. It also includes a few classic cuts from the likes of Kittin and the Hacker, Joy Division and others.
One thing that I want to stress is that these aren’t club mixes, even if they partially sound very clubby. The Beatique Mix series is a reflection of the music that’s been in my head for the past month, regardless of genre or vibe or whatever. For the April mix, specifically, I had transportation in mind, which explains the first three songs, as well as the last one. The photo for this mix is of the 110 freeway as seen from an L.A. Metro J Line stop.
If you want to hear my club sets, then you have to go to the gigs. Click this link to see where I’m playing next.
The view from the DJ booth at Midnight Cities. (Pic: Liz O.)
This is just a super quick update with last night’s set list from Midnight Cities at Catch One. It was a super fun night and, for everyone who was there, I hope you had a good time on the dance floor.
Is there an album title better suited for 2025 than City of Clowns, the latest from Marie Davidson? Just this week, Meta dropped some Instagram users into a new level of doomscroll hell, Jeff Bezos decided that WaPo’s opinion page would push “personal liberties and free markets,” and I can’t even keep up with the New Adventures of Trump and Musk. These dudes are a bunch of fucking clowns with far too much power over our daily lives.
But, enough about politics, let’s get the music, right? Sorry, that’s not going to happen with City of Clowns. Influenced by Shoshana Zuboff’s book, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, the not-so-subtle theme throughout Marie Davidson’s new album is the control that Big Tech wields over us. Take “Demolition” as an example, when Davidson whispers, “I want your data” in a flirtatious voice, like the platform that’s going to seduce you into handing over the details of your life that you don’t even share with your closest confidantes.
