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  • First Impressions of Madonna Confessions II + Club Underground Set List 7/03/26

    Madonna Confessions II album cover

    After the algorithm decided that I wanted to see little more than Madonna clips for virtually an entire weekend, I lost some of the enthusiasm for Confessions II. It was overkill and I resent feeling like I’m being manipulated by my fucking phone. On Friday morning, though, I gave the whole album a listen. Then I bought it and listened a second time and a third. I think I’m on the fourth listen as I start to write this. It’s good. Really good, but maybe not in the way the album’s title to leads you to believe. 

    Confessions II is a real sequel to Confessions on a Dance Floor. It’s not a rehash of the 2005 hit album, but rather a continuation of the work that Madonna and Stuart Price began some twenty-odd years ago. So, it’s an album of club music that’s about the club and about life. It’s incredibly smart and thoughtfully made, the opposite of the slop that overwhelms us on the daily. That might be part of the point. (Speaking of slop, ignore all the hype clips and watch the full video of Madonna’s tour of her London home in Vogue Italia. It’s worth 10 minutes of your time.)

    Back to Confessions II. It’s a heavily referential album, both to Madonna’s back catalogue and to other dance music artists. It’s also an album-as-a-memoir, with Madonna delving into stories from her early years in New York, her romances and her relationship with eldest daughter, Lourdes Leon. The music history and personal history come together on “Danceteria,” which is the song that I played at Club Underground last night. It’s an important song because all the song’s musical references, as well as the names she drops throughout the song, are foundational to what we know as alternative and club culture now. This is the album’s, “Listen to Mother” moment. 

    I’ll probably have more to say about Confessions II in time, but, my first impression is that this is an incredibly strong Madonna album, easily up there with Confessions on a Dance Floor, Ray of Light and Music in the hierarchy of Madonna albums. Get it. Listen to all one hour and four minutes of it. No skips.

    And now onto last night’s set list from Club Underground. New-ish songs (released in 2025/26) are in bold and link back to previous mentions here on Beatique.

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  • What’s Happening This Fourth of July Weekend in L.A.

    Fourth of July at Gloria Molina Grand Park 2024 (Photo: Liz Ohanesian)
    Gloria Molina Grand Park’s Summer Block Party, 7/04/24 (Pic: Liz O.)

    There are a few big events happening over Fourth of July weekend in Los Angeles, including Anime Expo and the America 250 Concert with Smashing Pumpkins and Chaka Khan. But, there are a lot of smaller events happening around town this weekend too and I wanted to highlight a few of those. Keep reading for the details.

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  • Obex Is a Different Kind of Video Game Adventure Film

    It’s not until Obex nears its conclusion that the films theme, or really one of its thee, is expressly stated: “Someday we’ll all live in computers because life outside is too sad.” The 2025 DIY fantasy film from Albert Birney, which recently made its streaming premiere on Night Flight Plus, uses old school video game tropes and retro setting to tell a story that’s all-to-relevant to the contemporary film audience. 

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  • Julez and the Rollerz Channel Glam Power Pop on Dirty Little Rock N Roller

    Julez and the Rollerz press photo by Zach Adams
    Photo: Zach Adams

    Jules Batterman recalls driving along a dark desert highway with her now-husband on a cross-country move to California. “It felt like it was going on forever,” she says on a recent video call. 

    Years later, Batterman, who fronts the L.A. band Julez and the Rollerz, referenced that drive in “Time,” the opening track on debut album Dirty Little Rock N Roller. It’s a song about the passage of time and disconnecting from the world, including our phones. “We don’t need these distractions,” says Batterman. “Experience life for what it is because there is so much going on.”

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  • Pulp x Blur Night at Underground, Dum Dum Fest and More Happening This Weekend

    I have two DJ gigs coming up this weekend and hope to see some of you at one, or maybe both, of them. On Friday, June 26, I’m back at Club Underground *and* it’s a Pulp x Blur 2 Room Dance party, so you’ll get one room with Pulp, Blur and the indie, Britpop and ‘90s bangers, plus another room with post-punk, indie, electro, dance, etc. Larry G. And I are DJing all night. Party starts at 9:30 p.m. at Grand Star Jazz Club in Chinatown and it’s 21+. Tickets are available now. 

    Saturday, June 27, is Dum Dum Fest at The Echo with Past Self, Drag Talk, Taleen Kali, Lord Friday the 13th, Sunder and Kit Major. I’m playing in between bands for the first half of the night, so get there early. Doors open at 6 p.m. and it’s all ages. Tickets are available now. 

    As for the rest of the weekend and early next week, here are my recommendations. 

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  • Apocalyptic Solstice Dance

    Spirits summer solstice with Richie Hawtin at LACMA (Photo: Liz Ohanesian)
    Spirits Summer Solstice Dance at LACMA (Pic: Liz O.)

    The colors flashing across a screen in LACMA’s courtyard were hypnotic and unsettling. A pink Croc morphed into a glossy shade of black. Other sandals shifted between liquid shades of iridescent blue, lavender and bronze, as if vintage Urban Decay bottles had spilled across the art, leaving globs of Oil Slick, Smog and Asphyxia nail polish to ripple across the screen. So prismatic! So toxic! I couldn’t turn away. 

    Spirits is a series of digital sculptures mades by the Irish artist john gerrard using photoscans of 96 plastic sandals that he collected along beaches across the globe and a gaussian splatting technique that allows viewers to stream the images onto their devices and alter them with the touch of a finger. Batches of Spirits have been dropped via LACMA’s website since last December, their release dates coinciding solstices and equinoxes. The third installment of Spirits, all tied to the Mediterranean Sea, was unveiled on June 22, with an in-person component, the Spirits Summer Solstice Dance, headlined by Richie Hawtin.

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  • Replaced By Robots’ Retro-Futurist Theme For the End of the World

    Press photo courtesy of Replaced by Robots
    Photo courtesy of Replaced by Robots

    Replaced By Robots sounds like it could be anything from the title of a 1950s B-movie to a 2026 news headline. It’s actually the name of a band, albeit it one that embodies the terror and absurdity of both mid-20th century horror and modern life. That’s all embodied in Replaced by Robots’ video for their song of the same name, a stop motion romp through a Hollywood bot invasion where no one and nothing, not the musicians or the Angelyne-pink sports car, are safe. 

    “We were talking about how fun it would be if we had a Monkees-style TV show around the hijinks of the band,” says singer and keyboardist Heather Morgan. “Then, we thought, we should make a theme song.”

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  • The Furious + Summer Solstice Events, Heavenly at The Regent and More Happening in LA

    If anyone reading this is into martial arts flicks, go see The Furious, which is in theaters right now. I caught it last night at Alamo Drafthouse and it’s a wild ride. The basic premise is that a mute handyman is chasing after the men who kidnapped his daughter and joins forces with a guy who is trying to find his wife, a journalist who went missing while reporting on a local kidnapping ring. The two vigilantes fight their way through clubs and warehouses, revealing a conspiracy involving, nefarious local elites along the way. The fight choreography is tremendous, the gore is artful and the few jump-scare moments make sense with the plot. And, just when you think the movie is about to end, an epic final boss battle unfolds. Plus, the score, a mix of instrumental metal and Prodigy-style hard electronic compositions, is an excellent complement to the action. (There’s also a new Captain Murphy/Flying Lotus track on the soundtrack that is out now.)

    As for DJ gigs, my next one is coming up on Wednesday, June 24. I’ll be playing Green Galactic’s 33rd anniversary party, which is happening at LP Vinyl Bar in Hollywood from 8 p.m. until midnight. Yes, I’ll be playing records. No, I don’t know which ones yet. Stop by and find out. 

    For this weekend and early next week, here are my recommendations. 

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  • Rare DM Attention Review + Last Night’s Underground Set List

    Cover of Attention by Rare DM
    Attention by Rare DM is out now.

    “Compliment” by Rare DM has been sitting around on my laptop, waiting to be played, since the album, Attention, came out a couple weeks ago. Last night, it finally turned up in between Depeche Mode and Boy Harsher earlier in the night at Underground. 

    You might have seen Rare DM, the analog synth project of New York-based Erin Hoagg, before, as she played Substance LA a few years ago. Attention is her second full-length. It’s a poppier sort of darkwave, sounding somewhere in between Boy Harsher and “Bad Guy” Billie Eilish, but with a stronger techno influence. My actual favorite track on the album is “Significant Other,” a killer minimal synth/techno instrumental that reminds me of a cross between Soft Cell’s “A Man Could Get Lost” and early Matthew Dear. It’s a solid album, so check it out on Bandcamp when you have the chance.

    Full set list from last night at Underground is below. New-ish songs (less than two years old) are linked back to previous mentions on this site. As always, thank you for dancing.  

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  • How Yoko Ono and Vintage Sounds Influenced Memorials on All Clouds Bring Not Rain

    Memorials Press Photo David Masters
    Photo: David Masters

    There’s a well-known photo of Yoko Ono from 1967 where the artist is holding a glass hammer. If you live in Los Angeles, you’ve probably seen the image recently in connection with the Music of the Mind exhibition that’s currently at The Broad. English duo Memorials caught sight of that photo when the Yoko Ono retrospective showed at London’s Tate Modern and it ended up inspiring their song, “Cut Glass Hammer,” from the recently-released album All Clouds Bring Not Rain. 

    “We went to that exhibition and on the posters they have the picture of her with the glass hammer,” Verity Susman recalls on a recent video call. “They don’t have it in the actual exhibition, but that concept really stuck out in our minds.” In fact, Susman says, there was a lot about the Yoko Ono exhibition that seeped into the subconscious as she and Matthew Simms worked on the album- like the artist’s instructions and her references to nature- and may have manifested as subtle influences that they didn’t realize until looking back at photos from the Tate Modern after finishing the album. 

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