Combine the sophisticated chill of a New York City winter with the girlish, laid back romance of California in the summertime and what to you get? The answer is Best Coast, the latest musical endeavor by perennially cool, self-described “weird girl” Bethany Cosentino. Best Coast was born when Cosentino decided to come home to LA after a time in New York City, to get a fresh start at living in the place she knows best—California. Quickly garnering praise from critics and listeners with the single “Sun Was High (So Was I),” Cosentino was approached by UK-based label Blackest Rainbow, who released her now sold-out tape Where the Boys Are. Also in the works are two new 7-inch’s, one being released by San Diego-based Art Fag Recordings and the other, the debut release from brand-new Brooklyn label Group Tightener. Read More...The Story of Fol Chen: Traffic was thick, thick, thick and Samuel Bing was unwell, strung out on the latest psychotropic fads: sleeplessness and feeling crummy. The Northern State was crawling, the usual twice-a-day funeral procession for Robert Moses. Above the overpasses, the clouds were lined with gristle. Even the horizon seemed to be sinking. So, it came ju... (+) expand

Combine the sophisticated chill of a New York City winter with the girlish, laid back romance of California in the summertime and what to you get? The answer is Best Coast, the latest musical endeavor by perennially cool, self-described “weird girl” Bethany Cosentino. Best Coast was born when Cosentino decided to come home to LA after a time in New York City, to get a fresh start at living in the place she knows best—California. Quickly garnering praise from critics and listeners with the single “Sun Was High (So Was I),” Cosentino was approached by UK-based label Blackest Rainbow, who released her now sold-out tape Where the Boys Are. Also in the works are two new 7-inch’s, one being released by San Diego-based Art Fag Recordings and the other, the debut release from brand-new Brooklyn label Group Tightener. Read More...The Story of Fol Chen: Traffic was thick, thick, thick and Samuel Bing was unwell, strung out on the latest psychotropic fads: sleeplessness and feeling crummy. The Northern State was crawling, the usual twice-a-day funeral procession for Robert Moses. Above the overpasses, the clouds were lined with gristle. Even the horizon seemed to be sinking. So, it came just in time when Donna Donna transmitted her message over the open radio waves – a phantom broadcast from a station whose signal had long since dissolved into static. She spoke backwards for security and you could barely hear her voice between the Crazy Eddie ads, but Samuel Bing had his radio loud. He understood each word. “Initiates in the society of Fol Chen,” Donna Donna whispered, "Let’s get to it. While you sit in traffic, John Shade is busy spreading his black mischief. Here's the Screamer of the Week: 'Birds Fly' by Icicle Works.” Samuel Bing turned off his car and opened his trunk. No one was moving, so no one bothered honking. The trunk was filled with what looked like garbage, but this wasn’t just any piled crap — every object was a module in a greater, yet-to-be-created whole. Samuel Bing fished out a cassette tape and a broken ice-scraper. He inspected the sides of each, found the hidden grooves, snapped them together. He grabbed a faded Polaroid, an old paperback romance, a polyester potholder, and a pair of drugstore sunglasses. He snapped each edge to edge. He chose twelve items, then another six, and arranged all eighteen in interlocking circles that together formed a wider circle. Just to be safe, he welded the grooves with a cigarette lighter, slapped the whole thing on his back. From beneath a crusty blanket where the spare tire should have been, he pulled a wide, machete-like sword, and shoved it in his belt. Then he leapt into the air and let the currents carry him. Melissa Thorne and Phat Jeph were waiting in room 12A when Samuel Bing landed in the parking lot of the Desert Hot Springs Hotel Spa. They met there in times of elevated risk, when the Highland Park compound was out of the question. Phat Jeph was ripped on peppermint schnapps again, but he was a gentle, melancholy kind of drunk, and hard to deal with sober, so Melissa Thorne made sure his glass stayed full. Samuel Bing didn’t bother knocking. He already had a key. He searched the bathroom, looked under the bed. “Where are the others?” he asked. “G-Bone and Wass are on the way,” said Melissa Thorne. “What about Baby Alex?” asked Samuel Bing. They fell silent, just stared at the rug. Samuel Bing knew what had happened, but he poured himself a schnapps and asked anyway. “Shade got him,” Phat Jeph slurred. Samuel Bing gripped the pommel of his sword. “We don’t have time for this,” said Melissa Thorne, and elbowed Phat Jeph in the ribs. “Okay, here’s the idea,” he said. “We have to take this battle to Shade. We have to build a serious pyramid. That way we can take the measure of the stars, the distances between them. Like the Aztecs and the Incas and King Tutankhamen.” “I’ve drawn up some plans,” said Melissa Thorne. She pushed the blueprints across the filthy bedspread. “You in?” Samuel Bing smiled for the first time all week. He pulled his sword from his belt, tested the blade with his thumb, nodded. “I’m in.” - Ben Ehrenreich http://www.artistdirect.com/artist/bio/fol-chen/4865765Fol Chen All Music Guide BiographyUpdating the dance-pop genre with co-ed vocals, oddball experimentation, hipster appeal, and a cryptic public image, Fol Chen began attracting a good deal of blog attention in early 2009. The bandmates (as well as their label, Asthmatic Kitty) maintained utmost secrecy from the start, however, remaining reluctant to divulge the members' names or identities. To promote the release of their debut album, Part 1: John Shade, Your Fortune's Made, the enigmatic band took to the internet, where they unveiled an animated music video (with singing fish and dancing lions replacing the actual musicians) and issued a press release that likened their music to "that mysterious black object that the creepy family is staring at on the cover of Led Zeppelin's Presence album." The record was released in February 2009 and quickly drew comparisons to Of Montreal's outrageous, off-kilter pop. ~ Andrew Leahey, All Music Guide(Interview/Feature with tiny mix tapes)http://www.tinymixtapes.com/features/fol-chenWhen I called Fol Chen songwriter/founder Samuel Bing for an interview, I had no idea what to expect. Their bio talks more about Led Zeppelin than it does about Fol Chen or Part I: John Shade, Your Fortune's Made, the band's debut album that features both sunny synth pop and shambling, funereal marches. I didn't even know what my interviewee looked like, because the band's faces are obscured in photos. The shroud of mystery, it turns out, is necessary for Fol Chen to achieve their mission as a band. Sam revealed that the album was inspired by news that his favorite radio station at home in Long Island had gone off the air, so he wanted to replicate the sounds of his childhood in terms of his own music. We also talked about superheroes, growing up in a small town, and why Fol Chen can't save struggling yarn boutiques from going out of business.------------All your press materials project an aura of mystery. Why did the band decide on doing that?We wanted to be superheroes, basically. We're on a mission, so the mystery seemed appropriate. Sometimes that needs to be enough. It's nice to have a secret.How would you describe your mission?It's a personal narrative. I'm from Long Island, where there's very little culture. We had one great radio station, WLIR, that was the first New Wave station in America. I grew up with it because my brother always had it on. When I went home a couple years ago, I discovered that it had gone off the air and I was devastated. That was around the time I started working on the record, and I began having dreams about how the station hadn't gone off the air but had been driven underground by this evil force, John Shade. And that it was the mission of the band to vanquish John Shade so that WLIR could go back on the air.Is this John Shade from [Vladimir Nabokov's] Pale Fire?Only in name. I was reading that book when I found out about the station, and in the book he's not evil; he's just a nice old poet. But in my dreams he became a villain -- you know how dreams are.The album's title implies that it's first in a series. What's Part II?That's a secret! If I revealed it in this interview, John Shade would know our next move, and it would make it all the more difficult for us to topple him.The songs each have their own unique sound but aren't particularly similar to each other. Was the album written as a whole or as pieces?I was really heartbroken about losing this part of my childhood, so I was trying to recapture all the music I heard on the station. It's not really a concept record though. There's an oblique narrative, in that it's different kinds of pop songs. Stylistically, it is all over the map, and for some people that can definitely be confusing. It makes sense to us as a record, and it feels organic to me. I've always felt like there are two kinds of records: ones like Blue by Joni Mitchell, where there's one vibe throughout the whole thing; and then ones like The White Album, where it almost sounds like a mix tape, and the thread running through it is the band's interpretation of each style. I like that one more.What was the music that you were trying to emulate?All the legendary New Wave artists -- Kate Bush, Talking Heads, Public Image Ltd. At the time, it was brand new to me. I was listening to Top 40, because when you're a kid, you listen to whatever's around. So when I heard New Wave, I thought “Wow, what the fuck is this?” It's brain-melting the first time you hear something that's not a pop song. That moment is totally irreplaceable. At the time, I just thought it was weird, and that my brother was a freak for liking it.This record was obviously very personal for you. How did you go about writing the songs?It wasn't like therapy or anything. We basically wanted to make a record that was worthy of being played on WLIR. There's one song that's specifically about Garden City, where the station used to broadcast out of, and it starts with a sample of this DJ named Larry the Duck. I remember writing it and thinking how cool it would be if someone from WLIR heard it one day. Just two days ago, I got an email from Larry saying he'd heard the song and played in on his radio show -- he's a DJ on Sirius now. It was really a dream come true. I wrote back this really gushing response, and I think I freaked him out, since I haven't heard from him again.Did that fulfill some of the Fol Chen mission?I think all I need to do now is go out for drinks with him and two other WLIR DJs, Donna Donna and Malibu Sue, and I'll be good. It all has to do with that station and my memories of it. There's another song called “You & Your Sister in Jericho” that's about a town next to where I grew up. It seemed more magical than where I lived just because it wasn't where I lived -- like, “Syosset sucks, but Jericho is awesome! Their high school is better, the kids are cooler, everyone's just better.”It sounds like Long Island is important to you. How's it been moving to Los Angeles?Long Island itself was pretty terrible except for the radio station. Parts of LA are surprisingly similar to Long Island, especially the sprawling suburbs. I live in Highland Park and it feels like a small town for the time being. Though The New York Times recently published a ridiculous article about Eagle Rock, which is right near where I live, and unsurprisingly they got it completely wrong. It makes you wonder that if they can't write about a city like Los Angeles accurately, how the fuck can they write about anything accurately?This area was supposed to be gentrified by now, and because it's not, people are disappointed that there isn't a Whole Foods yet. It's a big issue around here. Boutiques are going out of business, and apparently there isn't enough support here for a yarn store. I won't admit to schadenfreude, but it really shouldn't be shocking that in this economy a hipster craft store is not going to make it, and Fol Chen cannot help with that issue. We do one thing at a time. Maybe next time we'll save the yarn store. (-) collapse