James Supercave

James Supercave is about to blow the top off all this shit. And, look, I’m already reading these drawn out accounts of Joaquin Pastor’s perfectionistic genius; the collaborative rigor of James Supercave described as psych-pop lore. It was met with the kind of an eye roll you get when you write about bands and read what other people write about bands. But, after hearing their lead single, “Better Strange,” I emailed everyone I knew associated with the band including the band, and basically begged for an advance of the record. Luckily, I was obliged.  

I’m lucky because I was treated to a fucking perfect record. Better Strange alternates between a stroll around the lake on a sunny day, to standing alone on the Sunset steps in the middle of the night. Joaquin Pastor’s falsetto yearns as Patrick Logothetti’s keys oblige every whim The arrangements are deceptively complex, often fooling me into a pop sense of complacency, only for an unexpected riff or break to deliver a vigorous nipple twist. It’s a feat to accomplish how simple and simultaneously expansive James Supercave manage to be. It’s like being able to buy acid from Walgreens. 

Better Strange, the record, plays like the weather report in Los Angeles. Clear and sunny, yet somehow still unsatisfied. It’s like the knowledge that, despite the envious forecast, at any time the simplest of interruptions to weather perfection can cause catastrophe. Houses tumble into the sea. Mountains liquefy and inhale whole communities. A normally inconspicuous concrete scar swells and rages like a mythical beast of a river hellbent upon escaping from LA. It’s Andrés Villalobos’ guitars (see, “Body Monsters”) that remind us that however wide the canopy, James Supercave’s sturdy roots are beautifully analog.

James Supercave still have this I’m lightly-buzzed and wandering around the belly of the Echoplex among the lasers and smoke machines all alone but nonplussed beauty. It’s a magically real thing. But there’s is also a gentle hand that guides you home safely, gives you a genuinely friendly hug goodbye. Look, I danced in my early Sunday morning kitchen AND got shit-faced drunk and emotional the very next night without changing the soundtrack. It’s that in between. 

In the tradition of Echo Park indie bands like Silversun Pickups or Local Natives, but still getting tacos  with Francisco the Man and Tashaki Miyaki, James Supercave are the products of a golden age of music in Los Angeles. I first heard James Supercave at the Troubadour for some Redbull thing with Black English (formerly NO), and have waited with baited ballsacs for their first official record. Appetite whet from their EP, The Afternoon, but still my parched protuberances thirsted for more. Residencies at the Echo saw swelling seas of swaying Silver Lake-ians, but still no record. Three years since first charming us with psy-pop heights and emotional lows, Better Strange, out next month on Fairfax Recordings, is like a celebration of all things James Supercave.