Once a month, Los Angeles's Natural History Museum stays openlate and features live music, exciting scientific discussion, and behind-the-scenes curatorial tours as part of the First Friday program. Amoeba is excited to sponsor this fabulous series of live music, discussion, concessions, tours, DJs and more.

Join us on February 3rd from 5-10pm for a live performance from The Soft Moon and Light Asylum, KCRW DJs Anthony Valadez and Mario Cotto, and a guest lectures from Dr. John Harris ("A Brief Sprint Through Human Evolution") and biological anthropologist Amy Parish  (“The New Science of Darwinian Feminism: Evolutionary Insights from Bonobo Social and Sexual Interactions”).

Find out more HERE!

The Soft Moon


Light Asylum

Dark Allies - Light Asylum from Grant Worth on Vimeo.

Aaron Detroit, Buyer at Amoeba Hollywood. As you may know, I've worked in Hollywood for 8 years, but started my time with Amoeba - way back in 1998 -  at the San Francisco store. This is my extensive list of 2011 releases that I fell in love with or had hot and heavy affairs with this year.

1. Wild Beasts Smother

In 2008, Brit quartet Wild Beasts released their shaky-legged -but- stunning debut, Limbo Panto. In the four years since, the band has released two thoroughly dazzling masterpiece full-lengths of deceptively delicate indie rock, lyrically bent towards looking in the dark recesses of the heart and libido, largely sung by co-vocalist Hayden Thorpe in his trademark falsetto. Smother finds the band adding a new restraint to their arrangements that allows the tension in the lyrics to hit with hair-on-end chills. It is a singular LP by a singular band that I expect will eventually reach a Radiohead-level stratosphere. 

I have been a huge fan of the label Captured Tracks since I first heard anything on that label. There are just some labels that you can always count on. You can trust them to bring you the best of a particular genre. I can honestly say that I love Captured Tracks. They released two of my favorite albums last year by The Soft Moon and Wild Nothing. They both ended up in the top ten of my Top 50 Albums of 2010. I have been closely following this label ever since I first discovered them. If you are a fan of shoegaze and what it has evolved into in the recent years then this label is for you. The releases on this label tend to be on the dark side of things. The label really is as consistent as a label like 4AD. Maybe even more so. I have yet to be disappointed. In November of last year Captured Tracks released the Golden Haze EP by Wild Nothing and the Land & Fixed album by Blank Dogs. Idle Labor by Craft Spells was released by Captured Tracks this last April. And I of course fell in love with this album as well. It is dreamy and gazey and just a beautiful little album. A bit more pop music than the releases from The Soft Moon and Wild Nothing. But still a fantastic album. The excellent Soft Metals album was released in August of this year. Captured Tracks has done it again and released two new albums this first week in November. A new EP from one of my favorites The Soft Moon. And the debut album from Blouse.