Kim Free produces spacious, dark pop marked by Free’s otherworldly voice, minimalist bass and keyboards, and her striking violin playing, for which she’s been employed on Zola Jesus’ recent tour. As a solo artist, she had a number of limited-run, lo-fi darkwave releases as Black Church before stepping out on her own this year with Angel Shadow, a more starkly naked collection of songs on which Free played every instrument, as she does live. Kim Free plays Amoeba Hollywood Wed. Oct. 24 at 7 p.m. I caught up with Free before the performance.

PST: The construction of your songs is really interesting. It feels very solitary, despite the presence of other instruments in the background. Did you want the songs and the record to have a sort of intimacy? Or is that just the way you play live, and you wanted to capture that on record?

Free: I didn’t really set out with any intentions for this record. I wrote all the songs in my bedroom, based on the instruments I happened to have at the time. When I wrote the record, I was living with a lot of people, and I would always retreat to my room to kill time between work and whatever else, and Angel Shadow is what came out.

For anyone lamenting the dearth of places to dance in L.A., Fever is your savior. LA Record’s Daiana Feuer recently started the monthly night at Los Globos in Silverlake, hosting a dance party for electronic music that doesn’t fit a specific genre, from psychedelic dance music to alien disco and any number of in betweens. This Tuesday sees performances from heralded local acts LA Vampires and High Places.
 
“Fever is about avant-garde disco, auditory illusions, garage dub tronica, theatrical, ethereal pop, just forward-thinking weird dance music that's almost unclassifiable,” she says.
 
Feuer is the executive editor of LA Record, which since 2005 has ably documented the LA music scene. Fever is just the latest bit of fun from the Cal Arts grad, who also runs The New L.A. Folk Festival, which puts on shows featuring new folk weirdness around the Los Angeles area, including The New LA Folk Fest, the latest of which takes place Aug. 4 at Zorthian Ranch in Altadena.
 
Feuer says her roots are in dance music, having grown up in Florida, but acquired a taste for experimental, psychedelic music experiences while living in California. The aim of Fever is to create a space where the two can live simultaneously, finding a middle place between underground and above ground, she says.
 
“I like music that makes me want to shake my tailfeather but also stirs up my brain,” Feuer says. “I’m really interested in creating experiences. I want people to let loose like children yet also perceive this as conceptual art.”
 
The night involves not only music performances, but also art installations, performance and video art, DJs, confetti, souvenirs, party favors, costumes and toys. Thus far, Fever has involved local talent (musical and otherwise) such as Thelma Houston & Janitor, Busdriver, Pharaohs, Nite Jewel, Hecuba, Dreamers, Butchy Fuego, Moomaw, Young Adults, Diva, PDA, Mor Elian, Alia Penner, Future Eyes, Gifted & Blessed and Captain Ahab. Feuer hopes to open the night to travelling artists and more nights than just one Tuesday a month at Los Globos.
 
This particular evening is exciting for a number of reasons. First of all, LA Vampires put on an insane show. You can even read all about when they opened for Zola Jesus last year in my review of that show.  High Places I’ve also seen a number of times, and their shows and records just get more and more entrancing — can’t wait for their new record, Original Colors, which is set to come out in October on Thrill Jockey. I like the idea of this paring, the cerebral beats of High Places with LA Vampires’ visceral take. Plus, Sodapop from local underground hip-hop label Anticon will be DJing at 10, and I’ll be DJing with Feuer between sets. What could be better than that!

What a perfect love connection! The Creators Project comes to San Francisco—the world’s epicenter of technology and innovation— for a colossal two-day art and technology festival featuring towering multimedia art installations, live music performances, film screenings, and panel discussions. They will be kicking off the 2012 event series with a heck of a weekend celebration on Saturday, March 17th and Sunday, March 18th at the historic Fort Mason. And it's FREE with RSVP!!

Now get a load of the line-up for this weekend of fun:
Yeah Yeah Yeahs bring the post-punk rock from beloved creators Nick Zinner and Karen O, fresh off their recent psycho-opera collaboration, Stop the Virgens. 

Squarepusher debuts his new live show, marking one of his first US performances in more than seven years.

HEALTH, The Antlers, Zola Jesus, Shabazz Palaces, The Hundred in the Hands, and Teen Daze will also perform, plus an audiovisual spectacle from Chinese punk rock band New Pants alongside visuals from Feng Mengbo’s Bruce Lee VJ Project. 

Haim offers Forever EP free.

This trio of sisters spins out serious pop (not pop-inflected goth or whatever) with the kind of easy, a capella style harmonies that come easy to siblings. I like to picture Este, Danielle, and Alana Haim, all in their early 20s, singing along to Hanson in their parents’ car together as kids. Then, like, they grew up and moved to L.A. and started making music that references ’80s pop curios like Kate Bush and Stevie Nicks. I don’t actually know their real story — I’ll have to investigate this further. For now, I can’t stop listening to their three-song EP, particularly the dancey “Forever.” Get it free here.

 

White Arrows – “Fireworks of the Sea” 

White Arrows have been making it happen for a while now with superb live shows and a handful of released recordings hinting at the cool things they’d be doing down the line — I once called them “Paul Simon in space,” and I can’t really think of anything better than that at the moment to describe their sound, so we’ll just go with that. Their new song, “Fireworks of the Sea,” certainly fits that mold, with swirling synths intimating some digital acid trip over Mickey Schiff’s snaking vocal. Their debut EP hits April 3 from Votiv Music. They’ll be at the Roxy March 27. Listen over at Spin. 

Our latest episode of What's In My Bag? features experimental, electronic goth artist Zola Jesus. Her most recent album, Conatus (Sacred Bones), has been on many Amoebites' year end Best Of and Music We Like lists.

Sharing her influences and interests, she picks up music from experimental electronic pioneer Daphne Oram, minimalist modern classical from Luigi Nono, and music from Hermann Nitsch's "Aktions," among other things (like a Gene Simmons KISS doll - wait for it after the credits roll).

If you want more Zola Jesus, she's performing in Los Angeles at the Natural History Museum on Friday, March 2 as part of their First Fridays series, along with another "What's In My Bag?" alum, EMA. That will be one hell of a powerful show! Advanced tickets are already sold out, but you should still be able to line up on the day of the event when they release a few more tickets.