http://www.kqed.org/.stream/anon/radio/tcrmag/2014/02/2014-02-21e-tcrmag.mp3
It’s not just big-name acts that have teen fans pledging their devotion. One such fan made her way backstage after a new performer known as Lo-Fang finished a dynamic set recently at The Echo, a tiny club in Echo Park. This was no mere teenybopper, though. This was Lorde, the New Zealander who has become one of pop’s biggest new stars -- and one of Lo-Fang’s most prominent early supporters. And Los Angeles-based Lo-Fang’s debut album, "Blue Film," is not teenybopper music.
Right from the opening track, “Look Away,” this is pretty sophisticated stuff, the product of a classically trained young man who can — and on this album does — play a vast array of instruments and who has traveled the globe, picking up inspirations along the way. It slots nicely into the lineage of records from 4AD, the label that’s releasing the album on Tuesday. Its legacy includes such distinctive creative forces as the Cocteau Twins and the Pixies.
As with them, it’s hard to pinpoint any specific styles or locales in the mix. But on such songs as “When We’re Fire,” it all blooms into colorfully kaleidoscopic tableaus. OK, muted, somber colors. But kaleidoscopic nonetheless.
In the album’s closing valedictory “Permutations,” Lo-Fang sings of a world that is “always half-awake and always half-asleep.” The trick is that Matthew Hemerlein — that’s his real name — doesn’t see that as a conflict, but as a state to embrace. And, accordingly, "Blue Film" is full of songs that are thoughtful, introspective and idiosyncratic, and yet also inviting, engaging and unabashedly pop-conscious. Even his stage name is meant to convey a combination of tenderness and strength.