La Luz: “Brainwash”

Happy Day-After-Indepedence-Day y’all! A lot of you out there are probably takin’ a four-day weekend, so to help you get your holiday on, we have for you a summer-y new track from Seattle quartet La Luz.

The all-female four-piece have a sound that’s less 2013, and a whole lot more 1963. They call on the girl-group harmonies of The Ronnettes and The Chiffons just as much as the rumbly guitars of Link Wray and the freaky Farfisa of their Pacific Northwest garage-rock forebears. The band has only been together for about a year, but they already have an EP (September 2012’s far-out Damp Face–Burger Records also did a cassette-only, limited-edition re-issue of the EP earlier this year) and a heap of press back home in Seattle (not to mention some praise from the national, underground blogosphere) under their belt.

La Luz is about to get a whole load more press this summer. They’re out on a national tour that’ll be taking them through Austin today with an in-store at Waterloo Records at 5 p.m. and a headlining show at Hotel Vegas later on tonight. And on July 16 La Luz releases a brand new single. The A-side is a roiling bit of surf-psych called “Brainwash.” It starts slow, with a languid, swinging beat and a trebly, crawling guitar line that breathes with salt-air. Then, you hear drummer Marian Li Pino count off on the sticks, and the band’s off and running. The song tightens up, and the pace quickens. The beat drives hard, but the haunting, vintage electric organ sound over the top gives the song a very pleasant wooziness, and the sugary “oohs” in the chorus give it that familiar pop sheen. A track more summer than this one you will not find today.

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