The phrase the "LA sound" has meant a lot of things over the past six decades. Some people associate it with all sorts of things, but to me it will always be the sound of The Beach Boys, Phil Spector, Jan & Dean, The Byrds, Love, and Kim Fowley. After a few decades of sedated trends, Los Angeles hasn't felt more alive and diversified than it does right now (see the sights of Uni Boys, Dorothy Fuzz, Billy Tibbals, Alley Girl, Quad Super Six, Tim Presley, etc.). And somehow, a

Few artists embody the home-brewed pop spirit quite like Riddle M. Over the last few years, Harrison Riddle has carved out a universe of his own built on lo-fi psychedelia, tape-warped surrealism, and an unfiltered sense of imagination. Now based in Chicago and surrounded by likeminded peers (e.g. Alga, Sharp Pins, Answering Machines), Harrison's fragmentary pop wonders stretch wider than they first appear. Wherever you start, whether it's Aurora or his latest album Lo Stere

Pure pop innocence is sweeping the Midwest (i.e. Mod Lang, Sharp Pins, Soup Activists) and direct from Indy, it's the Good Flying Birds, perhaps the most beloved group of the latest jingle-jangle boom. Good Flying Birds initially began as a recording project for guitarist-vocalist Kellen Baker, but has since evolved into a group over the last year with the current lineup including Susie Slaughter (tambourine, vox), Ari Bales (drums), Luke Corvette (guitar), and Jake Kelly (ba

When we last caught up with Maraudeur, they'd just dropped  Puissance 4 , a jagged, kitchen-sink post-punk record that proved the Swiss-French group had no interest in playing it straight. Three years later, they're back with its follow-up Flaschenträger  (Feel It Records), a live-wired batch of tunes tracked in a Geneva basement and played with the precision that still goes against the current. What started as a solo 4-track experiment has morphed into a six-piece collective