La Luz
Inspired by a line adapted from author Octavia E. Butler, News of the Universe sees La Luz channeling transformation, mortality, and unconditional love into their most emotionally expansive record yet. Written in the wake of songwriter Shana Cleveland’s breast cancer diagnosis shortly after becoming a mother, the album blends dark, beautiful psychedelia with themes of survival and renewal. It also captures a moment of transition for the band, featuring drummer Audrey Johnson’s debut alongside final contributions from longtime members Lena Simon and Alice Sandahl, adding a bittersweet undercurrent to the record’s cosmic scope.
Since forming in 2012, La Luz has built a devoted following for their mix of surf rock riffs, dreamy harmonies, and hypnotic psychedelic textures, and News of the Universe pushes that sound into deeper, more vulnerable territory. Songs move between urgency and bliss, pairing apocalyptic imagery with moments of warmth, wonder, and joy. Inspired by Cleveland’s reflections on nature, decay, and the cycles of life around her rural California home, the record ultimately becomes a meditation on accepting change rather than resisting it.
Produced by Maryam Qudos, the album’s all-female creative team helped foster an atmosphere where experimentation and emotional honesty could fully thrive. The result is a record that feels both intimate and otherworldly - unapologetically feminine, sonically adventurous, and rooted in La Luz’s enduring belief in the transformative power of love, connection, and a great guitar riff.
Marinero
Los Angeles band Marinero, led by creative force Jess Sylvester, released their latest album, La La La, on CD/LP/DSPs worldwide through Hardly Art Records in 2025. The 12-track album features the standout tracks “Dream Suite,” “Sea Changes,” and “Cruz.”
Playfully named both for the city that helped shape it and the sophisticated pop it contains, La La La is multivalent and endlessly lush. The album was recorded at Savannah Studios in Los Angeles and co-produced by Jess Sylvester and Jason Kick, featuring contributions from Chicano Batman’s Eduardo Arenas and labelmates Chris Cohen and Shana Cleveland (La Luz). Weaved throughout these 12 songs are motivational anthems about self-acceptance and playful numbers about flirting through food, shaping a set rich with humor, empathy, and encouragement.
Sylvester, born to parents of Mexican and Irish-American descent who settled in San Francisco, has sometimes encountered preconceived notions of his sound and style that aren’t correct. On La La La, he simultaneously steps into and out of those preconceptions, singing tracks above salsa in joyous Spanish or pondering the dynamics of the Hollywood Ten and blacklists above mysterious lap steel and teasing trumpet. His identity should now be clear: He is a Californian, making music shaped by the diversity of encounters and experiences that are a central part of that state’s fabric. Never before has he presented himself so fully and unabashedly on tape as with La La La, an album Sylvester built with new inspirations to deliver new charms.