Saturday, July 20th, @The Garden Bowl
Seattle quartet La Luz immediately brings to mind the girl groups of the ‘50s and ‘60s. The immaculate four-part harmonies, the luscious layers of reverb, the occasional choreographed dance move, even the band’s penchant for oldies-style artwork—it all conjures images of beehived ladies singing sweetly on grainy black-and-white television
But
give the new “Brainwash b/w T.V. Dream”
single a spin and try to pin down a
specific reference point from the past. You
can’t. The dexterous but economic keyboard lines
of Alice Sandahl and the
stripped-down groove laid down by the rhythm
section of Abbey Blackwell
and Marian Li Pino
don’t fit in with wall-of-sound icons like
The Crystals or The
Ronettes. The nimble surf rock twang of
guitarist Shana Cleveland is at
odds with classic Motown groups
like The Marvelettes or
The Supremes. Yes, the doo-wop
nostalgia is certainly there, but the
manufactured glamour and studio sheen is absent.
The
ladies of La Luz are true
Pacific
Northwesterners--swathed in warm wool
sweaters, laying into their instruments as their
hair messily spills over their faces, making
records in trailer parks on the outskirts of the
city, and battling the gloomy weather by
channeling the summer on the two golden nuggets
of their latest EP. The first pressing of this
7” is limited to 500 copies on translucent
yellow/gold vinyl as well as being available
digitally worldwide.