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Sonic Sound Fest at Teragram Ballroom

by Guest Contributor on October 4, 2024

On September 6th 2024 Sonic Sound Entertainment took over the Teragram Ballroom in Los Angeles for their first ever half day festival. The group brought out some of the best bands they work with (as well as some special guests) spanning the genres of emo, shoegaze, dreampop, and other adjacent genres to put on a night that was one for the books. Check out this photo reel and linked songs below to get a taste of some of the hottest up and coming bands in LA right now.

^{The Divines – Photo by Michael Arroyo}

^{Home View – Photo by Israel Hernandez}

^{Israel’s Arcade – Photo by Michael Arroyo}

israel hernandez is a photographer and student at CSULB. Besides music he is interested in art, books, cool jackets and the color red. he is local to Montebello but is often in long beach as well.

Michael Arroyo is a concert photographer, who recently began using a camera last year after enduring hardships. Seeking an outlet, finding that photography was that for him. Finding his way doing live photography for concerts due to the authentic nature of concerts.

Book Review

What Happened Was By Katharine Haake

by Anahita Safarzadeh on October 2, 2024

Katherine Haake’s What Happened Was captures the unsettling atmosphere of a post-apocalyptic world, a feeling that resonates profoundly in the aftermath of the 2019 pandemic. While Americans may have experienced the crisis with the comforts of modern living, Haake’s narrative reminds us that our version of the pandemic may have dulled our awareness of the true horrors felt globally.

“Someone turned the television news on to drown out the sounds of their whining, but no calamity on earth could compare now to our own.”

In her signature style, Haake delves into the mundane, transforming everyday moments into scenes of profound disturbance, reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. The book, set in what I imagine in the present or leading up to it, immerses readers in the grim reality of growing up and aging in America, namely Los Angeles. Through a blend of science fiction and literary chaos, Haake’s “accounts” in the first part of the book leave readers with the haunting sense that, despite glimpsing a harsh truth, we are left knowing very little.

“That was the first thing we learned, but not the last, after they sent us away removed of everything, all the way down to our numbers.”

Haake also plays with language, questioning the very structure of communication. The narrator’s rediscovery of lost words feels less like forgetting and more like losing a vital organ. This loss of linguistic depression underscores the broader disconnection that Haake explores with depth and nuance.

“It’s a flower, she said, the italics all hers, as if otherwise it might have been a railroad or rhinoceros.”

A powerful undercurrent of loss permeates the book, particularly around themes of motherhood and aging. Though I have not experienced parenthood, Haake’s exploration of the void left by children leaving home — and the simultaneous aging of parents — struck a deeply emotional chord. Despite not being a parent, I felt the void left by the departure of “the boys” and the subsequent ennui that Haake portrays. Her exploration of the human condition is both relatable and thought-provoking.

“We want it to be known that we did everything we could. We were vigilant and thorough. We tried home remedies and discipline, a regular routine, counseling, prayer. We watched over as she slept. And while it could be said we loved her — she was our very own — when the vapors started trialing on the whistling of her dreambreath and the barking never stopped the whole night through, we knew — we just knew — what we had to do.”

Nostalgia is a prominent theme throughout What Happened Was. Haake deftly captures the ordinary moments we take for granted, from a simple text message to milk in our morning coffee, and makes them feel distant and unreachable by the book’s end. The hints of metaphorical aliens emphasize a profound sense of disconnection to parts of our world.

“If we still believed in writing, that’s what we would write. We would write about the aliens inside. That’s what hope is like. It’s like writing.”

Structurally, the book accelerated like a fever dream, leaving the reader disoriented yet captivated. The pacing intensifies as the stories spiral into chaos, and “interregnum” becomes a recurring motif, symbolizing the gaps in history and time that are more terrifying for what is left unsaid.

“There wasn’t so much that remained, but all that remained was there, where we were, and by the time we convened we had begun to understand this. The portals had all been so efficient, everything gone down them — gone, gone.”

“A child — the last child — spoke first. Now what are we going to do?”

In a broader historical context, the stories seem to emerge from the void between the pandemic and the present. The “interregnum” itself becomes a character, shaping the narrative and highlighting the small, often overlooked aspects of life that can have lasting impacts.

“Of all the times to go off on a cruise, right at the height of the interregnum. And really, at their age, we think.”

“But we don’t really mean it.”

“Here’s what we really mean: Well: here we are, two hapless orphans all alone on the planet. Now what are we going to do?”

What Happened Was is a challenging yet rewarding read, urging readers to question whether to view these moments with lightness or through a lens of trauma. In the wake of the pandemic, Haake’s work resonates with a sense of “after-ness” that I for one, am still grappling with as we navigate this new reality.

What Happened Was is available now through 11:11 Press

Live Photos Music Music Review

Julie – My Anti-Aircraft Friend Release Show

by Guest Contributor on September 30, 2024

A plain white house in East Hollywood would normally not draw the attention of a passerby, but with a narrow and crowded driveway full of haphazardly parked cars and a long line of chattering young adults, it is now bound to pique curiosity. Lively conversations and cigarette smoke wafted into the air as the setting sun cast a subtle golden hour glow. The distorted cacophony of sound checks blared from within the house as fans waited right outside the door. They were here to have a chance to witness Blimp – a frenetic and at times explosive four-piece act – open for the loud and sonically unbound trio out of Orange County, Julie who would be celebrating the release of their debut album my anti-aircraft friend.

As nighttime arrived by 7:30, people were now given entry into the unassuming house. Inside was a light wooden floor, posters of Linkin Park and The Fader hanging on cream colored walls, and an array of bright lights illuminating the space where the bands would perform. A drum kit with a kick drum that seems to have been scrawled with dark colored crayons was set up in front of a rack of electric guitars while tall and dark Sunn cabinet speakers stood menacingly in both corners. Photographers and videographers made their way to the very front as the house rapidly filled to capacity. Soon enough, Blimp took to the stage and played songs from their album Egg. A gritty energy replete with frantic drumming, furious strumming, a three string Ibanez bass, and harsh screaming coupled with a wonderfully chaotic dynamic set the tone for the audience, which they took very well. Blimp’s assault would have been enough for a final headlining act, but this certainly was not the end of the night’s performances.

Julie quietly set up their instruments as the house cheered upon their arrival. After a quick microphone check, guitarist Keyan Pourzand played one chord and everyone instantly knew what was coming. A dramatic shift in energy could be felt as fans braced themselves for the song that would bellow out of the monstrous Sunn cabinets. Alexandria Elizabeth slowly played the song’s distinctive bassline to create even more tension as the crowd anxiously moved in excitement. The guitar suddenly let out a sustained cry, waiting to be led into what was coming. Dillon Lee then hit the kick and snare drum, and with that, Julie unleashed their first single “flutter.” The crowd jumped and became a joyously writhing mass, freed from the inhibitions of daily life by the sounds of heavy distortion and thick low end. Despite the growing heat and humidity, the band would keep the momentum going as they played new songs from their album without letting up, finishing their set with an encore: an unreleased song titled “twee.” Julie’s performance is a confident step forward into their future as they continue to push their creative boundaries – and the durability of their amplifiers.

Jeremy Ruiz is an independent photographer based in the San Fernando Valley specializing in portraiture and live music photography. He spent three years training as a student photojournalist and photo editor for the Valley Star, the independent student newspaper of Los Angeles Valley College, and has gone on to win multiple awards from the Journalism Association of Community Colleges. In his spare time, he likes to brew coffee and practice bass. IG @itzalku_sfv

Book Review

Show Me The Bells by Xochiquetzal Candelaria

by John Venegas on August 21, 2024

We live in a time in which women’s autonomy, especially bodily autonomy, is the subject of debate and conflict. An optimistic perspective would point out that real progress has been made, and that women probably have more autonomy now than at any point in American history. A more pragmatic perspective would, I think, point out that all of that progress has been made with the shedding of blood, sweat, and tears, fighting against systems and individuals who are more than happy to torture and kill to see their myopic hierarchies enforced, and is so long overdue that its lack of fulfillment is an ongoing insult to all of us. And one consistent facet of that insult is the simple refusal to not only listen to women on an issue like this but to get out of the way and allow them to control the conversation. It is in this context that I have read Show Me The Bells, a collection of poetry by Xochiquetzal Candelaria. And it brings me no small amount of joy to report that this book is not only a wonderful read but a brilliant exploration of change, autonomy, expectations, and love.

“She looks down and lets / me marry her dilated pupils / with mine, even as explosions are / heard in the distance.”

I have no doubt that many reads of this book will focus on motherhood as a dominant thematic element of Candelaria’s poetry, and with good reason. There is a wealth of maternal expression on display here. But I also think that there is a deeper layer to the text, one that explores the idea of the feminine self and how other concepts (including motherhood) relate to and shape it. Candelaria wrestles with the very idea of self on the psychological and physical levels. Her poetic voice speaks of the pull in multiple directions, from the needs of her children to the desires of her partner to the expectations of society to what she envisions in the moment. Her poems dance freely through time, as if she is looking forward and backward through her own story without bothering to keep a finger on any page. There is an almost desperate sensory immersion running throughout the book, lending an intensity tinged with fear of impermanence. It is a deeply humanizing thing to read and relate to, this contradictory and simultaneous yearning for stillness and movement.

“She seems to be breaking through herself, / beyond her shell-like body; she is all becoming, all flash of explosion…”

This contradiction is reinforced by a consistent emphasis on the transitory nature of that feminine self. There is a visceral engrossment in how the body transforms under pressure from biological function, random chance, and psychological pressure (both external and internal). It highlights the body’s astonishing resilience and ability to adapt, but also tacitly acknowledges that such capacity requires irreversible change. This is intimately juxtaposed with the power of the mind, which is often free to, as mentioned above, dance through time. While undeniably part of that physical self, the mind is the means by which we revisit the past and the future, playing witness to the experience of the whole. It is the thing that allows us to understand the contradiction and, perhaps more importantly, the impossibility of “now”.

“Or if we had regularly looked / into the eyes of horses, / lived in their wetness for a while, / celebrated our desire to be still / just as much as our desire to move / up and down, in and out, / to move for the sake of it…”

But I also think there is an important distinction to be made here: Candelaria not only ignores dread, but often rejects it outright. In their back-of-the-book statement about Show Me The Bells, author Donna Masini describes the text as “a lyric cry of possibility for those of us who cannot afford the luxury of despair.” This is, in my opinion, an extremely appropriate description. The kinds of metamorphosis the poetry concerns itself with can be intimidating, dramatically at times, and the pressures that force those changes even more so. But the simple truth is that, in our allegedly progressive society, we do not allow women the “luxury of despair” in the face of the things that happen to them. We treat women as the means by which we achieve our goals, and no small part of the aforementioned resilience and capacity to adapt comes from resisting manipulation and constantly having to establish and protect independence. And, as the poetry lays out in full, the effort to dominate women is both self-destructive and futile.

“I want to be not Eurydice’s fox or snake but the darkness / she moved in, the great living darkness.”

Those of you reading this review can probably hear me describing sentiments that could be applied to the experiences of other disenfranchised groups, at least in the broad strokes, and by no means is Show Me The Bells unaware of these connections. A distinctly Latina heritage permeates the text. seemingly functioning as a source of both pride and humility; pride, in the unique cultural and geographical legacies that give the author such power in their voice, and humility in understanding that that very uniqueness inherently means the author’s experience cannot be universal in scope. When she writes of skylarks by Lago de Texcoco or bells on a paletero’s cart, she reminds us that the physical and psychological experiences she has been describing are happening all around us, constantly, by the Latinas you may have the good fortune of passing on the street.

“The Ma, Ma, Ma, my body uttered in a staccato / like the burbling of Vesuvius before lava and ash / burst out and covered the city in stillness.”

In case it wasn’t obvious by this point, I strongly recommend Show Me The Bells, and not just as a one time experience. The poetry is short but deliciously dense, demanding multiple reads in the best way. It is the kind of collection that can and should make it into your personal rotation, especially when we live in such a reactionary age. It is a book that reveals that all of these contradictions are not really contradictions at all; they are interconnected pieces of a whole, disfigured with arbitrary borders that have been raised to set us in opposition to each other.

Show Me The Bells is available now through Tia Chucha’s Press

Live Photos Music

Sour Sun Fest Patio

by Guest Contributor on August 6, 2024

On July 20th, 2024 it was a Saturday summer day. It was another hot summer night when we hit ninety-degree weather. However, Pound Booking had something in store for us to do this Saturday. They were having a festival at the Echoplex, a music venue in Echo Park Los Angeles, California. Showcasing eleven bands in total and the headliner band was Slow Hollows. They had a two-stage system to make everything run smoothly where the main stage was inside the venue and the side stage was their outside patio. This patio is where I stayed most of my time since I appreciate a more intimate stage where I can be face-to-face with the band as they play their set. I just feel more connected with the band and feed off their energy as they play their set. These are the bands that played on the patio stage.

Dunk Pacino

An L.A.-based punk band fueled by donuts and rage!

Whoremones

Can’t tell from the smiles but this band makes angry music!

Trash Day

This is an indie/punk band from Santa Cruz, CA delivering unadulterated musical garbage in the best way possible!

Love letter

This band carried a lot of emotion in their set. Couldn’t help but scream along with them.

FLOATS

These tract suit-wearing Texas boys love to give a great show! I am always astonished at how they travel so much from Texas to LA just to play one night and then go home the next day! They gave one incredible performance leaving us wanting more.

Book Review

The Electric Love Song of Fleischl Berger

by Guest Contributor on August 2, 2024

Elusive Love, Loss, and Healing in the Electrifying Story of Psychiatric Treatment

As a writer who suffers from a mental disorder, I was immediately drawn to The Electric Love Song of Fleischl Berger, by David Rocklin, which tells us about the fictionalized life of a Jewish-German psychiatrist born under electrifying circumstances on the shores of the Baltic Sea.

A fascinating reading, The Electric Love Song of Fleischl Berger speaks about a man’s obsession with his own near-death experience, which led him to design the early versions of the Electroencephalogram (EEG). The novel also links EEG to the birth of the motion picture industry at the turn of the century.

Few historical novels can keep the weight of the facts as the backdrop of the story. David Rocklin masterfully develops an intriguing plot that takes place between the Great War and the rise of the Nazi Germany, while presenting the history of psychiatric treatment in an imaginative love story without overwhelming the reader with historical facts. Instead, the historic events depicted in the story function as catalyst for plot development.

The novel grabs the reader with suspense from the opening line,

“The first time Fleischl Berger almost died…”

With the word “almost” David Rocklin sets a tone of anticipation and commits the reader to the entire story, which delves into each stage of this man’s life his historical backdrop.

Fleischl Berger is raised by a grief ridden father and mentored by the men in his community: a rabbi, a merchant, and a psychiatrist all of whom influenced the young man’s devotion to service. Gifted with the power of attentive listening and empathy, Fleischl discovers that he can help others recover from their emotional wounds, if not actually heal them. In his mentor’s words,

“…in the end all men of psychiatry do is tend their wounds. We can’t heal anything.”

Eventually young Fleischl Berger falls in love with the merchant’s daughter, but as circumstances will have it, their love is interrupted by Fleischl’s decision to find his father, who is lost at sea. Shortly after, Fleischl nearly dies in an accident during a military exercise.

Fleischl Berger becomes obsessed with the experience in the aftermath of the explosion that almost killed him. Inspired by the creative spirit of his childhood friend and lover, he designs a machine to capture brain activity to explain what happened to him. Thus he creates a scientific instrument that will eventually revolutionize neurological research.

He carries out these extraordinary experiments as movie productions–and his justification to try to observe the human mind more closely.

“To the addled mind,” he said as the audience watched him closely, “illusions are real. They are the world left to them. To us, such people are lost in a world of their own. We try talking to them, but we can’t get through. We try showing them things they ought to know. Their wives, husbands, children, homes, even their own reflections. It’s as if they see something we can’t. Or else they see nothing at all. Our sounds and visions are no longer theirs. How can we reach them?

“I have a way. We give their minds something else. A piece of them that they’ve lost, only at undeniable levels to pry the window of their mind open. I’ve seen it happen – “

“… But this work will help those we think we’ve lost to injury, infirmity, to psychosis. I believe it with all my heart. And I’m here with your kind permission to show you. The louder and brighter the sounds and visions, the wider the window.”

As Fleischl explains his controversial and dramatic experiments with altruistic arguments, he paves the way to unprecedented progress in neuroscience.

Meanwhile, hidden in Berlin’s theatrical scene of the early 1900s, the elusive lover observes Fleischl growing as a scientist and entering the most influential circles of Berlin’s society. As he finds financial support for his experiments, Fleischl gets entangled in social intrigue and power struggles foreign to his personal search, but that will be crucial in his survival.

First the reader must understand that for Fleischl survival means more than beating death. Fleischl’s actions are driven by a sense of loss: the mother who died at his birth, the father who disappeared at sea, the lover who left after he broke her heart,

“I miss home,” he said, because he wasn’t sure what he felt and had nothing else to say that might explain the hole where surely something ought to be.”

The novel carries this nostalgic tone, a longing for what does not exist anymore.

The setting helps create the nostalgic tone. This is particularly true at the beginning where the laconic landscape of a village on the shores of the Baltic Sea sets the tone with which the young Fleischl will grow. The sea appears first on view, dangerous, dark. It is followed by a row of small, rudimentary buildings, functional for a basic life where the merchants do business near the house where he grows. On top of a hill, sits the asylum that will inspire Fleischl’s vocation for healing. However, the setting also serves as a plot catalyst. Later in the story, the rough sea scenes set the tone for dramatic turns and plot twists. And when Fleischl moves to Berlin, the busy urban landscape of the turn of the century accelerates the action as the social scene moves between small theater venues, ball rooms, mansions, and academic lecture halls.

In The Electric Love Song of Fleischl Berger, David Rocklin gifts us with simple phrases filled with wisdom, like aphorisms,

“You will fail and fail, and with luck one day succeed. Go fail, Fleischl Berger.”

With these phrases, Rocklin offers the reader an opportunity for reflection, enriching the reading experience.

Fleischl Berger’s journey is the story of an extraordinary man, the history of the ECG, and historical fiction of a crucial moment in German history. But ultimately, what held me turning pages is David Rocklin’s ability to weave in the historical facts in fictional narrative using a love story as a thread. In his own words,

“Do you want to know a secret I learned, Ava? All stories are woven with love. Maybe when all the stories come to have their silences broken, when they come to be heard, they come to those who love them. Who listens just for them.”

Perhaps what I love more about The Electric Love Song of Fleischl Berger is the way this historical novel drew me to learn more about the man, and what is not in the story: the scientific research behind contemporary psychiatric treatment, and the creation of the instrument widely used today in the diagnosis of neurological conditions. By far, The Electric Love Song of Fleischl Berger is one of the best stories I have read in 2024.

The Electric Love Song of Fleischl Berger by David Rocklin is available now through Thane & Prose

Lisbeth Coiman is a bilingual author and an avid reader. Her debut book, I Asked the Blue Heron: A Memoir (2017) explores the intersection between immigration and mental health. Her poetry collection, Uprising / Alzamiento (Finishing Line Press, 2021) raises awareness of the humanitarian crisis in her homeland. Her book reviews have been published in the New York Journal of Books, in Citron Review and The Compulsive Reader, LibroMobile, and Cultural Daily to name a few. She lives in Los Angeles, where she works and hikes.

Issues

Issue Twelve

by Angel City Review on July 16, 2024

Featuring the work of:

Tauri Alonso
Chuan Webster
Javier Sandoval
Mette Meostrup (translated by Katrine Øgaard Jensen)
Sesshu Foster
Anthony Seidman
Briana Muñoz
Nicelle Davis
Pete Hsu
Dee Allen

Art by Sam Lopes

iBook/epub Interactive PDF

Live Photos Music

Mexican Slum Rats and En-Vitro at the Glass House 6-22-24

by Guest Contributor on July 3, 2024

^{Mexican Slum Rats – Photo by Oscar Celis}

Oscar Celis is a photographer and founder of First Class Studios based out of SoCal . Growing up in Southern California, he was always part of the music scene his sister use to be a music photographer he often went with her to local shows and concerts of his favorite bands.

Oscar used to think about how great it would have been to have those big shows documented better. That’s what drives him now to capture this era so future fans can appreciate it like he does. He leans towards music photography because, honestly, he’s terrible at making music himself, but he loves being part of the scene.

Music Music Review

Dávila 666 at Alex’s Bar

by Zachary Jensen on June 28, 2024

After a five-year absence, in part due to the pandemic causing disruptions in touring, Dávila 666 has returned to the west coast like a drug-addled bat out of hell. Doing 19 dates in just about the same amount of time, the band has proven that they are still as locked in as ever. For those unfamiliar, Dávila 666 is a band from Puerto Rico (a territory of the colonial United States) that blends elements of 77-style punk, garage rock, and psychedelia together to create a sound that is at once nostalgic and fresh. They sing and belt in Spanish with a fervor that can be enjoyed with or without knowing the language. Their songs can be at one moment filled existential myopia and philosophical dread then shift to moments of resistance and resilience with some good old fashion carnal and romantic notions sprinkled in for good measure. The band sounds amazing when recorded; the layers of the dueling vocals and group harmonizations, the aggressive guitar and bass rhythms on some songs, with multiple layers of percussion coming from both the drummer and tambourine, and an unnameable playfulness that all comes together in a way that can hype up any moment.

Hearing the recordings does little to prepare you for the experience of seeing them live. We checked out the band on one of their earlier dates of the tour at Alex’s Bar in Long Beach and they did not disappoint. The venue is a storied place where many punk rock legends have come to play smaller shows. There is a charm and grit to the space that definitely has a punk rock vibe, but also a bit of Mexican influence to their décor. You might recognize the space if you’re a fan of the HBO series True Blood. From the moment the band took the stage they were on. The songs were loud and blaring but not overwhelming. The banter between the band members (only five members were on this tour) was humorous as well as pulled in the crowd. You could feel the emotions of the songs and the energy of the band. The band moved across the stage, playing off of one another’s energies. There was a level of impromptu choreography to the movements that made everything always feel tight and put together. A Puerto Rican poet friend of mine casually mentioned while smiling that they were getting Menudo (the boy group not the food) vibes from them. I, without as deep of a cultural context of Puerto Rico and boy groups in general latch more onto the punk and garage elements of the band, casually pushed that notion aside. But the very next day a post promoting their show in Lancaster, CA mentioned that Dávila 666 was a Menudo on drugs. You’d be right to guess that I promptly received an “I told you so message” that day. That’s one of the band’s charms, their ability to reach different audiences and give completely different, though complimentary, experiences all at once. If you missed their dates in Long Beach and San Pedro, you are in luck because they are heading to The Paramount in Boyle Heights on July 4^th before they swing into Arizona to close out the tour. Here’s to hoping that they come back sooner than another five years.

Honorable mention goes to the band Mad Menace and the Murder Dogs who had their debut show opening the night. While bringing in a bit of garage rock to the mix, they really channeled the energy and essence of Motorhead with hard hitting rock songs that packed a punch. The band has that classic straight ahead rock energy going for them that is missing in a lot of bands these days. For a first show, MMMD was quite tight in their set and the songs, while calling back to older genres didn’t feel like a recycling of a genre. Keep an eye out for them as their songs will be up on SoundCloud and Bandcamp soon.

Zachary C Jensen

Bowie De La Pena, a native of Southern California, is a dedicated photographer and student at Cal State Long Beach, a decision influenced by the city’s vibrant music scene. Bowie has been honing his photography skills for six years, with a particular focus on music photography for the past four. Initially inspired by friends who were talented musicians and skaters, Bowie picked up a camera as he found his true passion behind the lens. He started with a Canon 7D borrowed from his high school, which he used extensively before acquiring his own camera. His work can be found on his Instagram @bowie_stop

Book Review

The World’s Largest Cherry Pie by Sophie Appel

by Emily Sipiora on June 26, 2024

The World’s Largest Cherry Pie is Sophie Appel’s debut poetry collection, released by Los Angeles alt lit heir, Dream Boy Book Club. Cherry Pie is an inversion of Alexa Chung’s 2013 work It, illustrating Appel’s disparate constellation of other people’s bedrooms and the activities in it. Appel’s poetry evokes imagery of codebreaking rentals and listless travel between the coasts. In one of Cherry Pie’s opening poems, titled “Cygnet”, Appel states:

“I’m never alone when I have my purse / because It’s actually just made out of me.”

Items like cigarettes, lip gloss, receipts, and change compose a purse. Appel’s narration places more abstract ideas into her purse, like bad dreams and their symbolic imagery. Cherry Pie comes from a place of continued girlhood in a life turning the corner in the other direction, approaching the hurdle of 30 with Appel’s unique tone of feminine anxiety.

Appel evokes a specific late-twenties sense of dread. In one poem, she talks about all the world’s flies drowning in left out glasses of wine, indicating that everything is already so over. While Cherry Pie is rife with post-millennial images alluding to nervous sex and hurt feelings, Appel is also literal through the titles of pieces like “A Public Record of My Self Hatred”. “Like a bad dream,” Appel writes in her litany of items edifying the titular record. Cherry Pie is its own collection of flashing vignettes set against the careening cityscapes of Los Angeles and New York City.

Cherry Pie is an expression of the luteal phase – whatever the subject matter at hand is, it keeps getting worse. Appel confesses in “Except For That Snake”:

“This was supposed to crash.”

All the ugly emotions she writes about culminate in sharp and wrenching lines that embellish the damaging girlhood that stays long after its actual time has passed. As an author presumably in her late twenties, Appel’s book answers what comes next, at least for the women that feel the same way that she does –

“I’m ready for the end now,”

“I’m ready for the desert.”

“Key Hole Limpets, Crabs, & Mussels” adds to the aforementioned idea of ascended girlhood. Like a child, she pouts: “Today was supposed to be nice.” Appel’s narration comes from this ideal of post-25 and pre-30 teenage girldom, an odd space in between the beginning and what is to be perceived as the end of all life. Appel references stilted emotions and positions them against images like the dead flies, establishing feelings of not only loneliness but a complete lack of understanding from the world through the idea of exiling yourself to the desert. In the narrative’s pressing need to be understood, it also communicates that it may be better off alone. In “395 After Plague”, Appel echoes the late Dolores O’Riordan by asking:

“How do you know which way to go?”

She’s answered this question several times in the book, providing a compelling argument for already knowing how it all ends.

Available now at Dream Boy Book Club

Album Review Music

Asco by Wazoo

by Guest Contributor on June 24, 2024

Put yourself through a staggered cycle of existential dread with Wazoo’s latest, “ASCO”

The music scene is saturated with countless entities, so much so that regardless of narrowing it down to Los Angeles, discovering a distinct band presents its difficulties through an ocean of musicians. Luckily, In the past two years, Wazoo has slowly emerged within the LA DIY underground scene. The four piece has blatantly displayed their individuality through their chaotic onstage energy and noisy hardcore and shoegaze driven instrumentals. Now, with their first full length album (10 tracks), ASCO, released June 7th this year through Fusion LA, Wazoo has exhibited their potential as an upcoming local band. Packed with noise, melodic bass, and harsh vocals, ASCO takes you through the motions of existential dread as perceived by the band. The soft and ambient composition in the opening track, Bugland 01, may misguide new listeners. That is until the second track, Android, crashes in. Starting off with an ear-ringing guitar riff, then slamming into a heavier sound emphasized by blast-beats, we are swarmed by lyrics, “I feel it, I feel it in my head. I don’t want it in my head.” The scorching vocals that follow those statements can hardly be understood, adding to the chaotic and explosive outro which fades into pedal noise. Likewise, Flesh Eater (track 3) and Garbage (Track 6), include hardcore fingerprints primarily established by the drums and/or vocals. Even so, each track sets forth their distinction from traditional hardcore music through their lead guitarist’s experimental pedal usage, creating unique noise compositions evocative of bands like Sonic Youth. To illustrate, at minute 1:32 in Flesh Eater, following the first chorus, a disorderly electric pedal effect escalates and dissolves into a drum break around minute 1:51. This area of the song places a spotlight on their drummer as they slowly roll the track to build toward a faster time signature for the outro. The distinct raw and jungle-esque sound of the drummer’s snare is also accentuated as the other instruments dial down. Throughout the album, Wazoo illustrates their ability to organically blend disorder and allure. This aspect of the band is what makes them particularly inspiring during live performances as their energy and emotion floods into the crowd. Whether it be in small increments like Garbage’s dissonant introduction prior to eruption, or in ASCO’s third track, Comet Buster. Comet Buster highlights Wazoo’s duality, arranging a song packed with nostalgic feeling, making it a personal favorite throughout the album. The bass line in Comet Buster is quite notable, holding a beautiful melody reminiscent of songs E and TZC from their first release, Eat That! (EP, 2023), unveiling the growth the group is capable of. Encapsulating ASCO into words and even narrowing the piece down to a genre is tough as listeners are taken through a sporadic yet beautiful trip. Full of experimental noise, emotional bass/guitar, haunting vocals and animalistic drumming, the album is an auditory experience in itself that demands to be absorbed.

Kate De La Torre: Born and raised in Southeast Los Angeles, is a 21-year-old community oriented and first-generation Chicana artist. Having focused on visual arts and journalism prior to graduating high school in 2021, De La Torre found herself embarking on an unexpected journey after throwing her first DIY house show on June 18, 2022, under DIY Collective, Rosie’s Pad!. The collective formed with a goal to grow a warm and welcoming community within the local music and art scene for young adults within Los Angeles county. Additionally, she is in the LA based band, Sugarhead. De La Torre also holds bilingual art classes for her elementary school community in Downtown Los Angeles.

katerinosteeth (at) gmail.com

Bella Villa is an up and coming photographer in the LA scene. Her signature photography is personal, scintillating, and infused with surrealism that showcases her experimental style. From vibrant editorials to live music shots, each photo is filled with vibe and intimacy. Look out for her work.

Book Review

Lex Icon by Salette Tavares

by John Venegas on June 20, 2024

Collection translated to English by Isabel Sobral Campos and Kristofer J. Petersen-Overton

The phrase “echoing through time” and its variants are usually employed to describe something with historical significance, something that is believed to have recurring influence with cycles that stretch beyond a human lifespan. The phrase is often reserved for people or events or works of art that have had their importance decreed by institutional or cultural consensus, and often carries the implied weight of prophecy or destiny in its fusion of space and time. But if you dispense with the grandiosity, it is not a stretch to say that we all echo through time. We are, at least in the United States of America, not trained to think this way. We are instead taught that history is the record of the actions of “great” individuals (usually men) and that the rest of us amount to little more than the threads of the flags and banners that the “great” use as heraldry. I reject this myopic perspective; each of our lives, regardless of positive or negative labels, is a point of impact, echoing in all directions and affecting everything that will come after. This admittedly defiant train of thought is the fault of Lex Icon, a collection of poetry written by Salette Tavares. I cannot think of a more appropriate single adjective to describe this book than sagacious – it is the kind of text that challenges and helps you to push through the noise, providing a necessary clarity that can be both empowering and humbling.

“Espaço é o mais alto poema do Universo / que o arquitecto produz / é o difícil extracto do intense / que define / a qualidade da luz.

Space is the supreme poem of the Universe / which the architect produces / the hard distillation of intensity / that defines / quality of light.”

To be clear, there is no pseudo-omniscience on offer here; Lex Icon is not a self-help book and Tavares is not peddling some simple solution to life and its problems. But as you read her poetry, you realize that Tavares is consistently applying a very direct method over and over again: stop, observe, and appreciate. Several of the poems revolve around the impact of shoes or napkins or flasks, and one even explicitly around garbage. She is examining what we typically think of as the mundane detritus of human existence and recontextualizing them as the echoes of our lives, for better and worse. Tavares marvels in awe at the ingenuity required to make such things in the first place, and with trepidation at the rampant consumerism that renders such things simultaneously necessary and disposable. In a sense, she writes as a kind of preemptive archaeologist, studying the evidence of our existence and the negative space we leave in our immediate wake. She even ascribes religious significance to these objects; an absurdity, to be sure, and a knowing one on her part, but one that is both reverential and critiquing, rather than mocking.

“Poema litúrgico sobre o sapato. Durante a leitura deste deve seguir-se rigorosamente a indicação à margem. Não esquecer de o recitar em frente de um microfone ligado a vários altifalantes com grande amplificação de som. Sobre uma mesa colocar um sapato. Os fiéis que seguem este ofício devem estar descalços com um sapato em cada mão.

Liturgical poem on the shoe. During the reading, one should rigorously observe the parenthetical instructions. Be sure to use a microphone connected to loudspeakers at high volume. Place a shoe on a table. The faithful who observe this ceremony should stand barefoot holding a shoe in each hand.”

Tavares asks us to exist, even if only for a moment, within these seeming dichotomies and appreciating the perspective gained therein. My understanding of the historical context is that she is writing as part of movements that are transitioning out of modernism and toward greater experimentation, as evidenced by her multiple references to Dada. In this light, you can see Lex Icon as a embodying an early postmodern sensibility. There is a strong emphasis on the flexibility of meaning and the importance of questioning even foundational or “insignificant” assumptions (emphasis mine). The poetry lays out that the dichotomies only really exist in our minds and that, even if they prove contextually useful, they are always subject to change. Perhaps most importantly, the text pushes the reader to question the moral value judgments we casually attach to such ideas. Things can be both good and bad in different contexts and for the same reasons. Tavares posits that only by bridging the divide that we created in the first place can we begin to approach understanding the human experience.

“Dêem-me palavras que eu descobrirei as coisas / dêem-me coisas que eu descobrirei as palavras. / Entre a palavra e a coisa o intervalo é nenhum / palavra ou coisa a eloquência pertence-lhes: / à palavra porque diz a coisa / à coisa porque diz a palavra.

Give me words to discover the things / give me things to discover the words. / Between word and thing there is no gap / word or thing eloquence belongs to both: / to the word because it speaks the thing / to the thing because it speaks the word.”

I had no knowledge of Salette Tavares before reading this collection, and after reading both it and what biographical information I could find on her, I was not at all surprised to learn that she was primarily a visual artist. In her poetry, I feel the echoes of something akin to photography – an attempt to capture a perfectly distilled moment in time from a universe that is constantly and unstoppably changing. There is a kind of tragic impossibility to the task that makes it all the more beautiful. Tavares’ use of structure captures and language captures the infinite kinetic energy and losslessly transfers it into potential. She reframes the signifier and the signified into two inextricable parts of a perpetual motion machine that echo through time. She is, I think, consistently in awe of what the human mind is capable of, again for better and worse; the only thing that may be beyond our capacity is the ability to grasp the full extent of that capacity.

Lex Icon is now available through Ugly Duckling Press

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