WILTLW: Jul 6, 2025
Two by Two @ Scribble
Always exciting to see new ways of presenting and contextualizing live music. Beck Pete played across Dana McCoy and Nikole played across Anderson Hao. Each pair went back and forth playing three songs from their catalogue and then one from the other’s. The format created space for the artists to talk about the music in a very off-the-cuff manner, the venue felt like a house show. Even though they only played four songs each, I came away feeling like I understood the artists better than I would have if it were a full set. Highly recommend catching one of these.
Kevin Morby - A Night At The Little Los Angeles (Sundowner 4-Track Demos)
Reminds me of Here in the Pitch , old 60s, 70s LA songwriter vibes. The demos have so much more soul and mystique than the produced cuts, I’m a sucker for unpolished stuff like this, sometimes you can shine the stone a little too hard. Shoutout to the homie Chris for putting me on to the title track, which is undoubtedly my favorite here. A great Sunday record.
La Real Academia - Distracciones
Garage goth punk from Buenos Aires, in my estimation at least. Dry drums, staccato riffs, fuzzy vocals, it’s fast but understated music with catchy melodies and hypnotic grooves. Popped up in my autoplay queue after listening to Breakup Song , YouTube’s algorithm can still dig up good stuff.
three performances and three conversations on the technique and practice of live computer music
Two great shows this week, both featuring a lot of banter about artistic practice and concept. This one was more explicit about the talking part, three performances each followed by a moderated Q&A. At the end one of the artists said that events like these are nice because smaller artists rarely get an opportunity to talk for an audience about what they make. I agree, we need more of this, sharing knowledge laterally instead of just vertically.
SOTW: Nicholas - "Superlove"
A lot of contenders for Song Of The Week last week but the winner is definitely this euphoric pop track from Nicholas. According to him, “Superlove” is an attempt at making “a Max Martin 2010s style banger.” What I like about that era is you have all these very talented producers & songwriters interacting extensively with the internet for the first time, so things are a little fresh and naive. “Superlove” captures the same sentiment and applies it to a powerful ballad about the transcendent nature of love, well done.