Maybe it’s because "The Green Fury" was one of the first albums I

loaded into my then-brand new version of iTunes — that was at a time when we were

awaking every morning with a queasy churning in our stomachs over the events of 9/11 —

it seems as if Matt Pond PA has been around

forever. With his sixth album, "The Last Light," just having landed, Pond’s

music is as much a retreat now from the digital cacophony as it was a safe harbor then

from ugly world events.

"The Last Light" is less orchestral than much of Pond’s catalog, but no

less sylvan — relocating to Brooklyn from his native Pennsylvania a couple years ago

hasn’t diminished the songwriter’s fondness for solemn, woodsy reflection. It’s as if

every seminal moment or life-changing realization occurs after he’s driven out to the

lake and communed with nature. Which is OK, because they often do.

Pond

documents these entanglements with a tenderness that’s never overly fussy; in fact, on

"The Last Light," his narratives seem infused with a new energy. Perhaps it’s

because Pond is taking his first turn as a producer, or perhaps it’s the by-product of

his having given up meat and smoking. No matter. "The Last Light," with its

roster of guests, including the likes of Neko Case, Rob Schnapf, Taylor Locke (Rooney)

and Isobel Sollenberger (Bardo Pond), shines brightly indeed.

|||

See Matt Pond PA (with Jesca Hoop opening) perform tonight at the

Troubadour.

||| Exclusive download, expires in 2 weeks:

"Sunlight" (from "The Last Light")

Photo by Jeremy

Balderson

Maybe it’s her small-town upbringing in Sonoma County, or maybe it’s her singing

voice — which sounds like a cherub caught in a light breeze — but people want to know

whether moving to Los Angeles somehow threatened Jesca Hoop. "They want to know if moving

through the concrete jungle has affected my writing," the singer-songwriter says.

"But if anything, it makes you talk louder, finish your sentences, speak

eloquently."

It is the artistically amplified Hoop you find on "Kismet," the debut album

she made with producers Damian Anthony and

Tony Berg. Grounded in folk music

but lovingly rumpled with off-kilter syncopation and jazzy instrumentation, the

collection reflects Hoop’s upbringing in a Mormon family that harmonized together.

"I love traditional music, because you know what the intent is with traditional

music," she says. "With pop music, sometimes the heart of it gets crushed

along the way."

She credits Anthony and Berg — along with collaborators that included drummer

Stewart Copeland — for preserving "Kismet’s" organic feel, especially on

"Seed of Wonder." "That song would give us a little tantrum or a sulk

every time we tried to add something to it," she says. "Seed" was the

song that sprouted Hoop, who spent five years as the nanny for the children of Tom Waits

and Kathleen Brennan. Waits’ publisher Lionel Conway gave the track to KCRW-FM’s Nic Harcourt, who championed it on his show.

"Kismet" indeed.

||| Stream "Summertime" here.

||| See Hoop perform Wednesday, opening for Matt Pond PA at the

Troubadour.

[More on these guys at a future date, but for now a quick heads-up:]

SoCal quintet Delta Spirit

celebrates the release of its debut, "Ode to Sunshine," tonight at the

Troubadour. The album is a soulful slice of Americana that, like the work of their

cohorts the Cold War Kids, is more Deep South

than West Coast sunshine — yet Delta Spirit’s songs possess a Britpop-like anthemic

sensibility. Uplifting indeed. The band launches a 17-date tour supporting Dr. Dog later

this month.

Also tonight, Oct. 15

Big

shows at the Santa Monica Civic (Rilo Kiley,

with the Bird and the Bee

opening), the Wiltern (Jimmy Eat World) and

the Orpheum (PJ Harvey). … Black Francis, with Eastern Conference

Champions supporting, start a two-night run at Safari Sam’s. … Hearts of Palm UK are among the openers

as Castledoor continues its

residency at the Echo. … It’s an O.C.-heavy night at the Silverlake Lounge, where Venus Infers supports Aushua’s residency. … And at Indie 103.1’s

night at the Viper Room, it’s the Mae Shi

and Xu Xu Fang.

Photo by Matt

Wignall

Underrated, unsigned L.A. quintet Oslo

celebrates the release of its new album, "The Rise and Fall of Love and Hate,"

with a show tonight at the Roxy. The album (out now digitally, in stores Nov. 6)

furthers the explorations by songwriting triad Mattia Borrani, Kerry Wayne James and

Gabrial McNair into heady, anthemic rock that sounds more London than L.A. Yeah, you can

hear some Radiohead in there.

||| Download the title rack here.

Elsewhere tonight, Oct. 10

Record release show at the Silverlake Lounge too, for both Kissing Cousins and Summer Darling. … In the bigger

rooms, it’s Beirut at the Avalon and Jose Gonzales at the El Rey, while the Henry Clay

People tackle Bordello (they oughta be too big for that room by now), the Microphones

play the Troubadour, Anna Egge entertains at Tangier and Wounded Cougar joins the

Willowz at Safari Sam’s.

My headphones are on, and the final strains of "In Rainbows" are fading away. On first

listen, Radiohead’s new album is a magnificent

head trip — am I getting any work done today? — with production so meticulous

you’re afraid to interrupt what’s going in your ears by even breathing. "15

Step" and "Fishes/Arpeggi" are to die for, but I suspect that after

spending more time with this I will be wishing that someone would introduce Thom Yorke

to Red Bull and that Radiohead could write a full-on rocker or two.

Random other opinions:

Ann Powers, The Times’ pop music critic, stayed up late last night and weighs in here.

Annie Zaleski in St. Louis didn’t get much sleep either. She blogs

here.

Dave Rawkblog’s first impression here.

Track

by track.

Why of course.

Meanwhile, I read only scattered reports of download problems — did everyone get

his/her copy with relative ease?

Young

Irishman Fionn Regan is back in town. The

singer-songwriter wriggled his way into our consciousness with a tour stop in L.A.

earlier this year behind his album "The End of History" (Lost Highway), which

ended up earning a nomination for the Nationwide Mercury Prize in the U.K. His

oh-so-gentle folk music only serves to amplify the storytelling in his songs —

"Hey Rabbit," "Snowy Atlas Mountains" and "Hunter’s Map"

come off as the most evocative of his sketches.

||| See Regan perform tonight at the Troubadour.

||| Stream: "Hunt

er’s Map."

Other touts for Monday, Oct. 8

Justice follows up its Detour

Festival appearance with a show at the Music Box @ Fonda — Tuesday’s show is sold out,

but as of this afternoon, tickets remained for tonight’s gig. … Good Indie 103.1 show

tonight at the Viper Room, with the

Oohlas and Radars to the Sky

playing. … Dual residents Pop Noir and Maxeen tonight are joined by Saint Motel at the Detroit Bar in Costa

Mesa. … Holly Golightly plays the Echo

tonight at 9:15 — fans there to catch the free residency by Castledoor will be admitted after the

songstress’ set. … Bloodcat Love and

OK Stranger head a nice lineup of local

talent at Safari Sam’s. … Aushua continues

its residency at the Silverlake Lounge with the support of Irish electro-pop duo Oppenheimer. Very catchy. … And Oliver Future continues its residency at

Spaceland — last week’s energetic set was capped when the quintet backed its recent

tourmate, the Gray Kid, on a song. For

those who’ve seen the Kid rap/croon/sing/vamp to only backing tracks, it was quite a

revelation.

||| The Gray Kid, along with Sam Sparro, play the Echo on

Thursday night.

And here’s a little parody to kick off your week, the Gray

Kid’s take (starring Daniel Stessen) on "This Is Why I’m Hot":

Bat for Lashes is as much an art project

as a band. Singer-songwriter Natasha Khan’s sublime melancholy haunts with a cinematic

quality that speaks not only to her background in film and music but to her ability to

access imagery that seems to lie just behind consciousness.

"I’m managing to tap into that space between sleeping and awake," says

Khan, who was reared in England, spent summers in Pakistan and identifies with forebears

such as Kate Bush and Björk. "There are notepads under my pillow with all kinds of

scribbling . . . sometimes words written on top of one another. I’m just going with my

imagination."

In doing so she has captured the imagination of thousands. Her debut album "Fur

and Gold" was nominated for England’s Nationwide Mercury Prize, and her L.A. debut

in July at Spaceland was played to an audience spellbound by the string-laden music and

its face-painted players, Khan and cohorts Ginger Lee, Abi Fry and Lizzy Carey.

"The album was just something I made to lift me, to provide transportation for

my heart," Khan says. "I didn’t realize that other people might also get that

out of it."

An earlier tour of the U.S., including a drive down the California coast, inspired

some of the album. Andy Bruntel’s rapturous video for "Prescilla" was shot, in

part, at the "Bat Cave" in the Hollywood Hills.

It’s a long way from the triptych projections with soundtracks Khan assembled early

in her career at the University of Brighton. Or maybe not. "It’s a two-way

process," she says. "My songs and my visuals are happening at the same

time."

||| See Bat for Lashes perform Tuesday at the Troubadour.

Here’s the "Prescilla" video:

[Jeff Weiss boned up on his French and surveyed the scene at the South stage on

Saturday night:]

Justice’s Coachella

performance and subsequent Echoplex set have already passed into the stuff of legend.

Those who were there described it with a level of hyperbole akin to a Moses parting the

Red Sea armed with nothing but a pair of turntables and a crate full of old Daft Punk

LPs. Truth be told, conventional logic suggested that by mid-May, at least four Silver

Lake hipsters had perfected lustrous Gaspard Auge mustaches, purchased plane tickets to

France and sought employment at various Parisian boulangeries to support their

aspirations in the emerging Gallic techno scene.

So, perhaps it was these nearly insurmountable expectations that caused me to be

unimpressed with the red-hot Parisian techno duo’s Detour Festival performance.

Read Full Story

here’s my final take …]

Bloc Party made me wish I’d chosen the

Turbonegro set to end my Detour.

Oh, the Englishmen were charming enough, and their dancier material fairly rattled

the buildings at Main and Temple streets. But it ended up providing a little too pat a

finish to the long day. You add this one up, and it equals a day’s worth of small

tent-caliber material at Coachella.

Do I wish I’d spent my Saturday on the

couch watching college football? No.

Do I wish Detour had at least one band

that was trying to save rock ‘n’ roll? Yes.

Photo: Bloc Party on the East

state (by Kevin Bronson / LAT)

With a throng of very young fans ready to shake their bodies to every note,

Moving Units nearly crashed and burned on the

South stage. Blame the gremlins. "Sorry," front man Blake Miller told the

crowd after having to restart a song not once but twice, "you’re not supposed to

see the smoke and mirrors."

Yes, for all the Units’ swagger, much of the electronic underpinning of their new

songs — "Hexes for Exes" will be released on Tuesday — comes courtesy of a

laptop. And something was not in sync on this night, so the crowd that filled 1st Street

was left with warts and frustration. It made you nostalgic for a three-piece dance-punk

band that married in-your-face attitude with riffs so sharp you could shave with

them.

There’s little of that on the Units’ new album. Maybe the band’s swagger remains, but

the danger is gone.

I will say one thing: "Kids From Orange

County" could probably fill the dancefloor at Cinespace.

Photo: Blake

Miller beckons as the Moving Units start their set (by Kevin Bronson / LAT).