When I do find the time to write, I typically focus on new releases. Seeing as how music blogging has come fourth to a full-time career, being a dad, and trying to have a 30 minutes of silence once in a while, hunting and posting new tunes has fallen by the wayside.

That said, I discovered Astronoid a few months back. To be perfectly honest with you, I can’t stop listening to them.

If you’ve spent any time on this site, you’d know that we don’t really don’t cover anything heavier than crunchy riffs on an Americana track. This contradicts a large portion of my personal tastes, as I’m an avid fan for the heavy stuff–speed metal, metalcore, post-metal, post-punk, etc. Seeing as how Astronoid is the perfect blend of both dreamy, hazy vocals, long builds, and brutally fast and technically sound instrumentation, I figured today would be the day to bring some head banging to TMN.

If you’re the type that says “I can’t stand the screaming in metal. No matter how talented the band is, I just can’t get past it,” then today is your day. Think of Jonas Bjerre from Mew. Ah, those dreamy, all-encompassing vocals. Now pair that thought with the speed and oft-brutal double kicks, insane shredding, and brutal breakdowns you’d find in a metal track. You with me? That’s what you’ll find with Astronoid. Two worlds, perfectly mashed together.

Comprised of

This Wednesday, eight of LA’s most influential music curators are coming together to provide five rooms of music at Catch One (formerly Union Nightclub). With a combination of Brownies & Lemonade, Emo Nite, Ninja Tune, Adult Swim, Ham On Everything, Mad Decent, Late Night Laggers and Restless Nites, it’s a garauntee that it’s going to be one hell of a night.

While we can’t share the lineup with you, we can share the fact that this event has 100% of the profits going to benefit Downtown Women’s Center and My Friend’s Place, both of which provide services for homeless in the Los Angeles area.

LA GIVES BACK 3 ON 12.19 AT CATCH ONE (FORMERLY UNION NIGHTCLUB) – A SPECIAL HOLIDAY BENEFIT EVENT FOR THE LOS ANGELES HOMELESS

LINE UP TO BE ANNOUNCED + WILL SELL OUT QUICKLY

EIGHT OF LA’S MOST INFLUENTIAL MUSIC CURATORS PROGRAM 5 ROOMS OF MUSIC: BROWNIES & LEMONADE, EMO NITE, NINJA TUNE, ADULT SWIM, HAM ON EVERYTHING, MAD DECENT, LATE NIGHT LAGGERS AND RESTLESS NITES

After a year hiatus, our favorite music festival in the Bay, Treasure Island Music Festival, has finally returned! Sadly, Noise Pop, the festival’s organizers, had to relocate the fest from its scenic Treasure Island backdrop to

LA-based music collective NVDES has made a few appearances here on TMN. Led by frontman Josh Ocean, this free-flowing art project is teeming with joyous energy and has gifted us with many feel-good jams, like this one. NVDES’ music is delightfully fun, meshing pop sensibilities with modern punk vibes.

NVDES received global acclaim for his last EP, Life with Lobsters in 2016, earning a feature on Zane Lowes’ Beats 1, and reaching the Spotify Global Viral Chart. So naturally I’m excited to share that NVDES’ latest EP, La Nvdité Vol. 1, is due out tomorrow (August 11th) on Kobalt.

The opener of the 5 track EP, “May and June”, perfectly encapsulates the infectious energy that NVDES songs display so frequently. Dancy beats in combination with the electro-punk sound of that guitar will make you forget that summer’s coming to an end soon. In juxtaposition with this track, “Do You Think About Me” does an excellent job of showing the emotional range that NVDES possesses. This wistful track inspired by a long-distance romance maintains that summery feel while pondering over a melancholy topic like a strained love.

I was lucky enough to chat briefly with NVDES’ Josh Ocean about the collective, and this latest project. Check out the interview below:

NVDES has such a distinctly fun and confident pop/punk sound that you really don’t find too often anymore. What’s the inspiration for your sound?

My inspiration is purely capturing the vibe i have while making the music…. Most of the time that vibe is high energy, joyful and exciting energy. Music is a drug to me….I make music to make myself feel good so ultimately I want to share that feeling.

As a group, your production style has been described as “lightning-in-a-bottle”– valuing “the thrill of uncertainty over perfection”. How do you know when you’ve got a keeper on your hands?

I’m constantly working on tracks and songs and sounds. For every NVDES track that I release there are probably 10 that I “shelve” on my hard drive. I like to see which songs finish themselves naturally as I’m working with them. I [don’t] try to force anything.

If NVDES could jam with any artist/group, contemporary or historical, who would it be and why?

Suicide.

How did you come up with NVDES as the name of your collective?

I was driving down La Brea ave one day and I passed a strip club with a “live nudes” sign and eureka!  

La nvdité sounds like a really beautiful concept– the idea of being nude with yourself. Can you tell us more about it, and what it means to you as a person and a musician?

From the beginning I wanted NVDES to be a project that I could be totally “nude” with myself as a producer and make music with friends in totally new ways and create a feeling to express ourselves without any specific genre or box for the sound. I wanted the experience of jamming out a NVDES song to be whatever it came out as… to be nude…    

I spent a lot of time in France last year and it is a place that has inspired me greatly. The expression to say La nudite really seemed to capture the ethos in which i started the project.

The cantaloupe seems to be a recurring motif in your artwork. What’s the story there? Do attendees of your shows still get cantaloupes?

For reasons I can’t explain, I have always been obsessed with the aesthetic of a cantaloupes. The colors, the texture, the taste…

On the deeper level I see the universe I have created around the music to all exist with the world of a Cantaloupe. Every cover artwork piece is me sharing a slice of the world that is NVDES.

And YES! Sometimes there are whole cantaloupes at the shows. We have also had slices at the merch table and cantaloupe cocktails at the bar…..