L.A. Witch: L.A. Witch 2017 + Octubre 2018 + Play With Fire 2020

 

Los Angeles' L.A. Witch is a gothy, atmospheric rock trio centered on singer/guitarist Sade Sanchez.

They gained widespread buzz with their 2017 debut, L.A. Witch, which showcased their road-hardened sound and aligned them with gritty, leather-clad outfits like the Kills, the Jesus and Mary Chain, and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.
               

L.A. Witch is an American garage-rock trio formed in Los Angeles, California in 2011. Founded by

L.A. natives Sade Sanchez (vocals, guitar) and Irita Pai (bass), the band's sound has been described as a "mix of forlorn psych folk, lethargic lo-fi blues and boozy garage rock drones steeped in moody, drugged-out surf reverb." The group's influences include Black Sabbath, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, and seminal L.A. punk rock bands X and the Gun Club.
            

Raised in the Valley on the edge of North Hollywood, Sanchez first began playing guitar at age 15. She

quickly discovered punk rock, especially the horror-infused style of bands like the Misfits, the Cramps, and Dead Moon. The band cites The Gun Club as one of its early influences, with Sanchez noting that "When our band first met, that was one of the connections we made. There’s something about their vibe — it’s blues-y, twang-y, kind of country, but also poetic and goth-y — that inspired me."
           

It was during this period that she met English and the two began playing together, even winning a battle of the bands as a duo at Burbank High, where English was a student. After high school, the duo went

their separate ways, with Sanchez forming the noise-rock outfit Silver Drones with bassist Pai. However, Sanchez eventually reconnected with English, and by 2015 Silver Drones had morphed into the trio L.A. Witch. They hit the road that same year, touring almost nonstop for the next three years and picking up well-earned comparisons to many of their idols.
               

The band toured extensively before releasing its eponymous debut album in 2017, recorded at Hurley

Studios in Costa Mesa and mixed in Highland Park, Los Angeles. [14] Their second album, Play With Fire, was released in 2020, followed by a cover of the Gun Club's Ghost on the Highway. The band tours frequently in the U.S. and internationally. Joining the band on its 2022 European tour was guitarist Lauren Andino of the Los Angeles-based duo Tremours.
               

But as more listeners come under the band's aforementioned spell, Pai refutes attempts by journalists to sort them into pithy (and sometimes inane) categories like "beach goth." For L.A. Witch, it was more

about following the kind of sonic aesthetic that they each already naturally gravitated to. For starters, she says the band "really loves horror movies. I think the soundtracks of those films really played a huge role, in terms of influencing that — especially early horror movies. I think that kind of sound just feels right. I can't describe it, it's just something you're attracted to."
              

L.A. WITCH - L.A. WITCH 2017

                   

With a desert rock sound that is positively arid and a penchant for grim lyricism that feels Tarantino-

esque, L.A. Witch’s debut record is as self-assured and succinct as first albums come. At just nine tracks and only 32 minutes, it truly seems like a mirage for the sun-scorched, dust-caked traveler.
        

Though they’ve been buzzing since 2013, the band has taken their time to properly coalesce. In that

time, they switched drummers (Ellie English replaced Crystal Nava) and honed their sound into something more cinematic, which boasts more eclectic genre influences beyond late ‘60s psych rock and bluesy guitar.
            

L.A. Witch – L.A. Witch
Label:S uicide Squeeze – SSQ155
Format: CD, Album
Country: US
Released: Sep 8, 2017
Genre: Rock
Style: Psychedelic Rock, Post-Punk

TRAXS

                  

01. Kill My Baby Tonight    3:07
02. Brian    4:03
03. Untitled     3:14
04. You Love Nothing    3:36
05. Drive Your Car    3:16
06. Baby In Blue Jeans    4:29
07. Feel Alright    3:34
08. Good Guys    2:07
09. Get Lost    4:22

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Bass, Keyboards – Irita Pai
Drums, Percussion – Ellie English
Vocals, Guitar – Sade Sanchez

Flac Size: 223 MB

L.A. WITCH - OCTUBRE 2018

                   

The name is a partial misnomer. Though the band hails from Los Angeles, they do not partake in any

sort of witchcraft. Yet their ability to conjure a specific time and place through their sound does suggest a kind of magic. On their eponymous debut album, L.A. Witch’s reverb-drenched guitar jangle and sultry vocals conjure the analog sound of a collector’s prized 45 from some short-lived footnote cult band.
             

The melodies forgo the bubblegum pop for a druggy haze that straddles the line between seedy glory and ominous balladry; the production can’t afford Phil Spector’s wall-of-sound, but the instruments’

simple beauty provides an economic grace that renders studio trickery unnecessary; the lyrics seem more descendent of Johnny Cash’s first-person morality tales than the vacuous empty gestures of pre-fab pop bands. This isn’t music for the masses; it’s music for miscreants, burnouts, down-and-out dreamers, and obsessive historians.
               

L.A. Witch – Octubre
Label: Suicide Squeeze – SSQ166
Format: CD, EP
Country: UK, Europe & US
Released: Mar 22, 2019
Genre: Rock
Style: Garage Rock, Psychedelic Rock

TRAXS

              

01. Haunting    3:22
02. Sleep    3:53
03. BB's Momma    2:59
04. Heart Of Darkness    2:28
05. Outro    1:56

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Bass, Organ – Irita Pai
Drums, Percussion – Ellie English
Guitar [Additional], Piano [Additional], Organ [Additional] – Mr. Pharmacist
Vocals, Guitar – Sade Sanchez

Flac Size: 172 MB

L.A. WITCH - PLAY WITH FIRE 2020

               

In the dimly lit interior of a small nightclub, where the stale smell of a thousand extinguished cigarettes

drowns out the smell of spilt beer and broken dreams, a band plays against a backdrop of cheap golden tinsel. Outside, palm trees line the night’s horizon. In the years to come, the streets will swell into highways and interstates, but for now Los Angeles is still a young city growing daily with transplants from across the United States, all looking for a new life.
               

It’s still a city largely cut off from the rest of the country, and in the years before the Manson family

forever tarnishes the infinite hope of the Western enclave and before the Hell’s Angels of Altamont interrupt rock n’ roll’s peaceful trajectory with unprecedented violence, there is still a dreamy California sound for those dark rooms suffused with neon light. The three women of L.A. Witch wouldn’t be born for several decades, but their sound transports you back to those warm Californian nights in smoky rooms.
           

L.A. Witch – Play With Fire
Label: Suicide Squeeze – SSQ173
Format: CD, Album
Country: US
Released: Aug 21, 2020
Genre: Rock
Style: Garage Rock, Psychedelic Rock

TRAXS

           

01. Fire Starter    3:21
02. Motorcycle Boy    3:49
03. Dark Horse    3:34
04. I Wanna Lose    4:03
05. Gen-Z    4:08
06. Sexorexia    3:14
07. Maybe The Weather    2:46
08. True Believers    2:02
09. Starred    2:59

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Bass, Keyboards – Irita Pai
Drums, Percussion – Ellie English
Guitar, Vocals, Photography By [Back photo of Sade Sanchez] – Sade Sanchez

Flac Size: 347 MB