“It feels like the apocalypse,” Mary Ocher said on stage at 2220 Arts + Archives. “But,” the Berlin-based artist added, “it feels like the apocalypse everywhere.”
It’s Thursday night, one week and one day after the wildfires began, and we’re in a small, indie theater on Beverly Blvd., just outside of downtown Los Angeles. In all honesty, the city looks better than it did a week ago. Last week, the downtown sky was orange-gray, casting a haze over streets, still littered with the debris from the windstorms, that made everything look like a 1970s photograph. Even with a mask, it was hard to walk around those first few days without feeling ill. Headaches, sore throats, coughs— the sort of things you might expect when wildfires loom in the distance— came and went with open windows and errand runs.
This week, though, the sky was visibly clearer, but we’re finding out that the air quality could be more hazardous than it appears. Even if you, like me, aren’t directly impacted by the fires, you probably know people who are, so the mood has been heavy here. And, ultimately, the disaster is one more, dark turn of events in a timeline that’s already overloaded with them. So, yeah, I can’t speak to any other city, but it does feel like the apocalypse in L.A.
And that’s part of why I’m out on this Thursday night. Even though I had planned to see the show before any of this happened, it felt more important now to get out of the house now, when the alternative was to get lost in the endless scroll of fire and RIP David Lynch posts. There are people— probably a lot of people— who think that the arts and nightlife should only be enjoyed during good times. I’m of the belief that both are absolutely crucial to getting through the band ones and not because they can be a form of escape. They’re also ways for us to process whatever is happening in the world at a given moment, connect with other people and maybe figure out a response. You can either let the gloom and doom overwhelm you or figure out a way to move through the world with it and, on this night, I chose the latter.
Ocher’s music is suited for this moment. Like she said onstage, she writes about the apocalypse. While incorporating elements of everything from psych to jazz to electronic music, Ocher’s songs and essays address the big issues of today. Her most recent album, Your Guide to Revolution, made my list of favorite albums from 2024, and it’s accompanied by an essay about living a sustainable life as an artist. The prior year, she dropped Approaching Singularity: Music for the End of Time, an album so appropriately titled for this moment that I had to buy it at the merch booth. All that said, though, this was not a dreary show. Far from it.
To start, 2220 Arts + Archives is the kind of venue that even locals might be surprised to find in rapidly gentrifying Los Angeles. It’s a volunteer-run arts center with a vibe that’s a cross between a DIY show space and a small theater. The lobby is large, filled with seating and has its own stage performances, plus a bar/concessions stand that is adorned with an assemblage of kitchy, whimsical art, including Keane-eyed figures that made me briefly flashback to the long-gone ‘90s indie spot Jabberjaw. Then there’s the main theater, which seated— there is ample film programming at 2220 Arts too— and has a spacious performance area. It’s an optimistic space, a reminder that music and art can still function outside of the mainstream here.
Isaac Sherman, an L.A.-based synthesist, opened in the night with a soothing set of instrumental and vocal tracks. I particularly enjoyed the vocal tracks, which had a retro-futurist flare to them, but have not been able to figure out if they’ve been released or not.
Ocher played all the instruments herself in a raw and energetic set. She bounced between synths, a guitar and a piano while performing from her eclectic body of work. At one point, she removed a shoe, slid a tambourine on her foot and tapped out the rhythm. Her voice is strong with the range handle the variety of songs that appear on her albums. When she sings in a lower register, particularly with her guitar-based songs, Ocher’s voice is a bit reminiscent of Mariska Veres of Shocking Blue.
There’s humor in Ocher’s work too. “Is Life Possible?,” made in collaboration with German duo Les Trucs, is an example of that. An electronic track with ominous, robotic vocals, the song, which appears on Approaching Singularity, the song is accompanied by a video wherein two ‘90s skaters find a VHS marked 2020. They watch the glimpse into the future, growing more frustrated with every real news clip from that year. The video was part of Thursday night’s performance of the song and added to the context of the song in the live setting.
For a few songs where pre-recorded elements were necessary, Ocher, who mentioned that she’s no fan of playback or seeing computers on stage, performed karaoke-style. Videos for “Arms,” “Sympathize” and “Is Life Possible?” played on the screen behind her as she sang along. At points, particular during the moving “Arms,” the crowd joined in song.
Overall, Ocher brought a kind of intimacy that you might find otherwise find at a show in the living room of a punk communal house to the stage. She was candid with the crowd about the exorbitant cost of securing a visa to play in the U.S. and how much buying merch and sharing info about the rest of the tour helps with that. So, I’ll end this post with the rest of Ocher’s tour dates. If you’re in any of the cities below, do go check her out and maybe buy a record or a t-shirt while you’re there.
Mary Ocher’s 2025 U.S./Canada Tour
Sunday, January 19
Phoenix, AZ
My Space
Tuesday, January 21
San Francisco, CA
The Lab
Thursday, January 23
Portland, OR
The Fixin’ To
Saturday, January 25
Seattle, WA
Fremont Abbey Arts Center
Sunday, January 26
Vancouver, BC
Green Auto Body
Tuesday, January 28
Calgary, AB
Palomino Smokehouse and Social Club
Liz O. is an L.A.-based writer and DJ. Read her recently published work and check out her upcoming gigs. Follow on Instagram for more updates.
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