Last year, I saw Miki Berenyi Trio live at the Fonda in Hollywood and, since then, have been waiting for the British indie group’s debut full-length. Tripla came out on Friday, April 4, and was well worth the wait. The tl;dr version is it’s fantastic. Get it, but don’t expect a rehash of the 1990s. Keep reading if you want more details.
MB3 is named for Miki Berenyi, former guitarist and singer for Lush and author of the must-read memoir Fingers Crossed, but it isn’t a solo project. The trio is rounded out by KJ “Moose” McKillop, and Oliver Cherer. All three musicians share songwriting duties and that’s reflected in the album’s title, which is Hungarian for triple. Still, Berenyi is the most recognizable member of MB3.
About two-thirds of the way into Music Can Hear Us, DJ Koze drops a secret weapon on listeners in the form of an exceptionally short and spooky cover of “Vamos a la Playa.” With German artist Soap&Skin on vocals, Koze strips away everything that makes the 1983 song from Righeira an Italo disco classic. The beat is gone. The “oh-oh-oh-oh-oh“ is replaced with a faint breath in the background. What remains are the lyrics, a story about going to a radioactive beach. It’s creepy af. I love it.
The problem with the 21st century’s persistent ‘80s nostalgia is that most people miss the point of a whole decade’s worth of pop culture. They’re like, “the music was so much better.” But, the music was good because people were making perfect pop songs about nuclear annihilation and the evils of capitalism. It’s protest music for the Reagan-Thatcher era that, tbh, probably went over people’s heads back in the day too. (There’s a similar argument to be made about movies here too, but we’ll save that for another day.) Koze and Soap&Skin bring the point to the forefront of this cover version.
The 110 freeway in L.A. as seen from a Metro J Line stop (Pic: Liz O.)
It’s time for another Beatique Mix. The April 2025 edition of this mix series includes new music from Mark Lane, Night Ritualz, Marie Davidson, Model/Actriz, The Horrors, French Police and more. It also includes a few classic cuts from the likes of Kittin and the Hacker, Joy Division and others.
One thing that I want to stress is that these aren’t club mixes, even if they partially sound very clubby. The Beatique Mix series is a reflection of the music that’s been in my head for the past month, regardless of genre or vibe or whatever. For the April mix, specifically, I had transportation in mind, which explains the first three songs, as well as the last one. The photo for this mix is of the 110 freeway as seen from an L.A. Metro J Line stop.
If you want to hear my club sets, then you have to go to the gigs. Click this link to see where I’m playing next.
The view from the DJ booth at Midnight Cities. (Pic: Liz O.)
This is just a super quick update with last night’s set list from Midnight Cities at Catch One. It was a super fun night and, for everyone who was there, I hope you had a good time on the dance floor.
Is there an album title better suited for 2025 than City of Clowns, the latest from Marie Davidson? Just this week, Meta dropped some Instagram users into a new level of doomscroll hell, Jeff Bezos decided that WaPo’s opinion page would push “personal liberties and free markets,” and I can’t even keep up with the New Adventures of Trump and Musk. These dudes are a bunch of fucking clowns with far too much power over our daily lives.
But, enough about politics, let’s get the music, right? Sorry, that’s not going to happen with City of Clowns. Influenced by Shoshana Zuboff’s book, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, the not-so-subtle theme throughout Marie Davidson’s new album is the control that Big Tech wields over us. Take “Demolition” as an example, when Davidson whispers, “I want your data” in a flirtatious voice, like the platform that’s going to seduce you into handing over the details of your life that you don’t even share with your closest confidantes.
Lemuria, the sophomore album from Optometry, has the best closer I’ve heard in a long time, so we’re going to start this review at the end. “Never Coming Back” is in the vein of what’s considered post-punk right now. It has a running-for-your-life tempo (over 160 bpm for those of you who keep track of these things), a gloomy synth and a “Ceremony” sad guitar. It’s dark— really, it sounds like the cliff-hanger ending of a TV show— but also danceable and it’s become my favorite track on the album, which is out today on Palette Recordings.
This Sunday, February 23, I’m back at The Mermaid in Little Tokyo for Splash! Catch me in the DJ booth from 8 p.m. until close, playing a little bit of everything. Seriously. Check out my previous playlists to see what has made it into my sets for this night without genres. The Mermaid is located at 428 E. 2nd Street in Little Tokyo. There’s street and lot parking, plus the venue is just a block or so away from Metro’s A/E station in Little Tokyo. There’s no cover, but The Mermaid is 21+.
As for the rest of this week, and early next week, some highlights include Kool Keith at The Paramount on Thursday, David Longstreth and Dirty Projectors on Friday and Saturday, DIIV in Ventura on Monday and Bon Entendeur at The Fonda next Wednesday.
Not surprisingly, there are loads of great movies back in the theaters this week, including screenings of Chungking Express at multiple theaters, The Juniper Tree at Philosophical Research Society on Saturday night and much more, so keep scrolling to get the list.
I was on the treadmill the first time I listened to 3 AM (La La La), the latest album from Confidence Man, walking at 3.5 miles an hour, a brisk pace, but not quite enough to keep up with the strobelight pulse of songs like “I Can’t Lose You” and “Control.” Maybe I could have stepped up my own speed to a run, or at least a jog, but I didn’t feel like it, so I kept walking off beat, waiting to see if the vibe would shift somewhere over the course of an album that, four songs in, was starting to sound a little too much like a late ‘90s Eurodance throwback.
Confidence Man is the Australian four-piece fronted by Janet Planet and Suga Bones and backed by the veiled and cloaked individuals Reggie Goodchild and Clarence McGuffie. I first heard them during lockdown when someone DMed me Yuksek’s track “Gorgeous,” which features Confidence Man. Two years later, the band released Tilt, their second full-length, which quickly became a personal favorite. “Angry Girl” is the song that has appeared most often in my sets since 2022 because it has a dance punk vibe that works very well at L.A. clubs and it mixes seamlessly with The Rapture’s “House of Jealous Lovers.” But, the thing that made Tilt one of my favorite albums of that year was that it was super cheeky and the music was all over the place, kind of like a cross between Bis and Chicks on Speed back at the turn of the millennium. Given the new album’s title, which definitely alludes to both KLF (“3 AM Eternal”) and maybe also references ATC (“Around the World (La La La La La)”), it seemed like Confidence Man would continue that vibe. Fifteen minutes into 3 AM (La La La), though, I started to think that the spirit driving TILT was lacking on this album.
If I were tuned into Spotify, I would have just skipped through tracks or moved on to another album, but I actually purchased 3 AM (La La La) and downloaded it without hearing more than a couple preview Reels on Instagram. I had to stick it out for the whole album.
Future Islands live at The Shrine on September 18, 2024 (pic: Liz O.)
I saw the first Future Islands fan rush the stage at the end of “Corner of My Eye,” which closed out the band’s main set at The Shrine on Wednesday night. The way I remember it, which may or may not be 100% accurate, Samuel T. Herring was singing “thank you, thank you.” Someone in a plaid shirt ran up from audience’s right hand side and embraced the singer. Security appeared. Herring said something along the lines of, it’s okay. Later on, when Future Islands and openers Oh, Rose were in the midst of a “Vireo’s Eye” dance party during the encore, I saw two more people hop on to the stage, where they were promptly chased off by security. It was a déjà vu-inducing scene for me, and maybe for anyone else in the crowd who has been to a Morrissey show.
It was a fitting end to the night because, nearly two hours earlier, when Future Islands kicked off the show with “King of Sweden,” I thought, this vibe is so Morrissey. Herring has a different style of performance than Moz— there’s a good amount of HIIT-level cardio happening during a Future Islands show— but he also taps into a similar level of intensity that is infectious. The teenage girls in front of me bopped up and down excitedly. The totally ordinary looking dudes a few rows in front morphed into dancing machines. I wondered if anyone would rush the stage. It took a while, but they did.
This Friday, I’m back at Club Underground with Larry G. for Yeah Yeah Yeahs x Siouxsie Nite. Both floors of Grand Star Jazz Club will be open and tickets are available now. Party starts at 9:30 p.m. and it’s 21+. Find the Grand Star at 943 N. Broadway inside Chinatown’s Central Plaza next to the Bruce Lee statue.
As for the rest of the weekend and into next week, your options include Pearl and the Oysters’s free show at Levitt Pavilion on Saturday. Also happening Saturday is Razorcake’s annual chili cook-off at Footsies and Décadanse’s tribute to Francoise Hardy at the Grand Star. On Monday, Ed Harcourt is playing at The Stowaway, which is a very intimate venue. Tuesday night, my favorite Schwarzenegger movie, The Running Man, screens at Vidiots in Eagle Rock. There’s plenty more happening in L.A. too. Check out the list below.
