I’m trying to catch up on new releases, so the following reviews are for music that came out in January, but not necessarily today and, not everything released on January 23, 2026 appears in this post. This week’s batch of reviews includes Robbie Williams Britpop, The Cribs Selling a Vibe, Maria Somerville Luster (Remixes) and Draag Miracle Drug. Keep reading for the details.
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This Friday, January 23, Underground and Synthwaves are back with a two-room party at Grand Star Jazz Club. I’ll be in the Synthwaves room, which is upstairs, playing darkwave and post-punk, think along the lines of Boy Harsher, Molchat Doma, French Police, etc. Tickets are available now and you should snap yours up because it’s basically two clubs for one very reasonable cover price. Head over to Dice or Eventbrite to do just that. We’re playing until 2 a.m., so if you already going to Austra at the Roxy or Dan Deacon at Teragram, stop by after the show to hit the dance floor.
Keep reading for my recommendations for the rest of this weekend and early next week.
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We’re walking back to the Metro station from the Santa Monica Pier and a news broadcast catches my ear. “A patent for AirPods that can read your brainwaves,” the voice says. I’m pretty sure that’s an old story, but it still prompts me to look to the side, where I see a cell phone strapped to a large speaker that’s propped up in a wheelchair. Standing next to the wheelchair is the person who I assume wants us all to know that Big Tech is out to read our minds. I think there’s a manifesto printed on the back of the person’s t-shirt, but I’m too far away to read it.
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Played the second half of the night in the Underground room for Club Underground x Synthwaves last night. Fantastic crowd, as always. Got in a nod to David Lynch with a remix of Chromatics’ song “Shadow.” Didn’t play anything extremely new, but did get in some of last year’s faves, like Sextile “Rearrange” and Confidence Man and Jade “Gossip.” Dropped in “Tubthumping” near the end for a reason. Heed the wisdom of Chumbawamba, friends. Set list is below. New-ish stuff links back to other mentions on this blog.
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Around the junction of the 1970s and 1980s, brothers Clive and Mark Ives met up about three times a week to experiment with synthesizers. “We were having a real journey working with each other,” Clive recalls on a video call from his home in Brighton, England. “He had taken control of the tape recorders and I had the synthesizers and we would sit opposite each other and we were able to produce hundreds of little bits of music.”
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There aren’t enough hours in the day to listen to all of this week’s new releases, but I managed to sit down with a few of them, including Xiu Xiu’s new cover album, Xiu Mutha Fuckin’ Xiu: Vol. 1, Sleaford Mods The Demise of Planet X, Sylvia Black Shadowtime and Tigra and SPNCR Black Rice. Scroll down for the reviews.
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There are a lot of David Lynch happenings across Los Angeles this month, but the calendar for this weekend and early next week are particularly packed, given that Friday, January 16, marks the first anniversary of the beloved director’s death and Tuesday, January 20, would have been his 80th birthday. With that in mind, the first section of this week’s event recommendations is all David Lynch-related and includes everything I could find that still has tickets available. After that, you’ll find more movie screenings, concerts and club nights happening between Thursday, January 15 and Wednesday, January 21. Amongst them: Shannon Shaw live, Los Angeles Record Fair, a John Carpenter double feature and a Selena museum exhibition. Keep reading for the details.
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The first piece that caught my eye inside Craft Contemporary was a rug. Really, it was a wall hanging— I can’t imagine anyone allowing feet to come in contact with it— but it was handhooked with the kind of thick wool yarn that you would imagine carpeting midcentury homes. Garden, designed by Evelyn Ackerman and produced by Toyo Rug Company in Osaka, Japan back in 1962, is art you want to touch. In it, a garden scene rises from a plush, sunny background where two children with cheery faces pick flowers and play with birds. It’s charming in the way that’s similar to Mary Blair’s It’s a Small World style, but it’s also tactile. Pictures don’t do it justice and, while you can’t actually touch museum pieces, you can lean in close to see how the yarn is hooked and sheared to create dimension and add textured details like windblown hair. You should see Garden, and so many other pieces Evelyn and Jerome Ackerman, in person and you can in the exhibition Material Curiosity By Design, which opened at Craft Contemporary in November and runs through May 10.
Yes, Please by Sextile was my favorite album of 2025 because it has bangers for days. Last year, I mostly played “Women Respond to Bass” and “Rearrange,” although “Freak Eyes” and “Push Ups” have gotten some love too. Last night, for the first Klub Nocturno of 2026, I finally had the chance to play “S Is For,” which I love because it has such a early ‘00s electro punk vibe. Also, who doesn’t just want to shout out “shit” over and over again while raging on the dance floor right now?
Full set list is below and the new-ish releases link back to previous mentions on this here blog. As always, thanks for dancing! To keep up on when and where I’m playing next, either check back here or sign up for the newsletter or follow me on Instagram.
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“Hit My Head All Day,” the first single and lead track from Secret Love, the latest album from Dry Cleaning, has been in DJ queue for months now. It’s a song that I keep meaning to drop into a set, but for some reason haven’t yet. It’s such a weird little jam, a slice of ‘80s-style post-disco for the 2020s doomscroller with echoes of Flying Lizards and Dominatrix and the title repeated throughout the song. It’s slow— languid, really— which is probably why I haven’t played it out yet, but the groove is tight. It actually feels like you’re dragging yourself through another day of bad news to the beat of a world that’s on the verge of collapse, which is a very fucked up way to describe a song that you like, but its also art. It’s not supposed to be all hands-in-the-air escapism all the time. And there’s a catharsis that comes with that.
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