patrick o'heffernan | Music Junkie Press

Jazz singer Nancy Sanchez releases American Novio – a joy in any language. By Patrick O’Heffernan

June 16, 2017

(Los Angeles) You can take Nancy Sanchez out of jazz, but you can’t take jazz out of Nancy Sanchez, which is why her new album, American Novio, is both a superb work of art on its own and a step forward in cross cultural understanding. American Novio (“American Boyfriend”) is a solid return to her Mexican music roots, but the guitarrón and vihuela notes and Mexican rhythms are delivered with the polish and verve born of her years of American jazz and pop music and concerts. The nine songs on the album, – all but one in Spanish and all but one written by Sanchez – takes you through the bicultural life of a Southern California Latina with side trips for just pure fun. They range from the awakening discoveries of a Mexican-American girl dating an Anglo-American boy, to Sanchez’s own bittersweet rediscovery of her Mexican soul and musical destiny, to exultant dance beats celebrating the arrival of citizenship papers. The forms range from ranchera to pop to mariachi to bossa nova and include [Read More]

Kris Angelis is melodic, hypnotic and addictive in the new Heartbreak is Contagious EP. By Patrick O’Heffernan

June 9, 2017

(Los Angeles) I have been listening to Kris Anglis’ new EP, Heartbreak is Contagious over and over since I recently had her on my radio show, partly because I can’t stop and partly because every time I listen I hear something musically and emotionally new. As with all things Angelis, Heartbreak is Contagious is melodic, hypnotic, and dense with addictive emotion. Three of songs on the EP explore the pain of the love’s demise; the fourth is fun, funny, and foot-tapping but actually a cathartic part of the EP’s soulful narrative. Only Angelis could pull that off — perfectly blending pain and heartbreak with laughter and catharsis in the same EP. Heartbreak is Contagious was written with and produced by Morgan Taylor Reid and Alexander Cardinale. The album follows her earlier The Left Atrium, in that it makes you feel what an emotionally defective heart feels like with stunning poetic lines like I swear there was a time /when you belonged to me/But I’m a two-way heart/ On a one way street. Even deeper than the writing [Read More]

Athena’s back and she brought her friends for one of LA’s best musical nights. By Patrick O’Heffernan

June 8, 2017

(Los Angeles) Back from a triumphant tour in New York, the Greek-British goddess of song, Athena Andreadis, celebrated returning to her adopted home of Los Angles with a sprawling 18-song set at Genghis Cohen’s concert room featuring songs from her album and contributions by a brace of great musician friends. Backed by Deron Johnson on keyboard, Michael Ward on guitar, and Jimmy Paxton on drums – all stars in their own right – Athena was in a lively mood as she danced, bounced, laughed and crooned through the evening, carrying a very happy standing room only crowd with her. Joining her over the performance were Warner-Chappell blue-eyed soul singer Conner Pledger, Angela Parrish – known to millions from her song “Another Day of Sun,” which opened the Oscar-winning film musical La La Land, folk-singer Sarah Melson whose music is familiar to fans of Grey’s Anatomy and other TV series, and singer/songwriter Joy Autumn who recently released the Sunny Lemonade album about her move to LA from Washington State. Dressed in black silk shorts and top, [Read More]

Darla Beaux at the Hotel Cafe: the growth shows. By Patrick O’Heffernan

June 2, 2017

(Hollywood) Darla Beaux was sick Wednesday night when she opened at the Hotel Cafe’s intimate stage. She warned us that she would be singing in her husky voice. And then she let loose with the best singing I have heard from her since I began following her budding career about a year ago. From her new single “Trippin on Tears” to one of the most haunting versions of 1870’s folk song “In The Pines” I have heard in a long time, her husky voice was just fine with me. The fact that she could pull off a powerful, flawless set while not at her best shows how much this teenage singer/songwriter has grown. If the growth continues, I expect to see her filling much larger venues in a year’s time. Asa teenager, Darla has a lot of time to grow, and she is working hard to make it happen. Originally from Atlanta, GA, she has re-located to LA to work with Sera Roadnight, well known in the local music community for her deft skill with [Read More]

Flora Cash talks about their new album – a glowing world of melancholy music. By Patrick O’Heffernan

May 16, 2017

(Los Angeles) Flora Cash is a duo composed of Minnesotan Cole Randall and Swede Shpresa Lleshaj, now based in Stockholm, Sweden. In their latest album, Nothing Lasts Forever (And It’s Fine), they have distilled feelings from their own love story into notes, lyrics and emotions that are an adventure into a misty world of melancholy without sadness. They met on Soundcloud in early 2012 and by the end of the year, they had released two EPs, Mighty Fine EP and Made It For You and built a fan base in Europe. The duo moved to Minneapolis in 2013, got married, moved back to Stockholm by way of LA to release I Will Be There and their latest album Nothing Lasts Forever (And It’s Fine). I am hooked on them and anyone who listens will be too. They are visiting LA right now and stopped by to talk . Patrick. You released your new album Nothing Lasts Forever (And It’s Fine) last month in LA. Congratulations. Cole. Thank you it was a [Read More]

Halo Circus releases East Lansing, an understated nuclear reactor of music. By Patrick O’Heffernan

May 5, 2017

Patrick O’Heffernan (Los Angeles) I thought a long time before I nominated Allison Iraheta for the LA Music Critics Award for Best Rock Singer of 2016. Allison and her band Halo Circus are like no other band in rock music today, so there is no precedent I could point to for my fellow writers. Her superbly controlled voice moves effortlessly from an anthemic howl of anguish to throaty introspective gentleness, but never quite registers in the tones and colors of familiar female rock or pop singers. It has a curl — a shape that is beyond the geometry of what we expect from women fronting bands. On stage she goes into an interior world that does not engage the audience like we expect bands to do, but rather converts them into rapt observers in her inner dimension. There were no precedents, no one to compare her to. But, despite all of this, my fellow writers agreed with me and voted for her. It was this preconception of Allison and Halo Circus as unprecedented [Read More]

A borderless bond of fun. Mar Abierto by Jenny and the Mexicats. By Patrick O’Heffernan

April 19, 2017

(Los Angeles) Jenny Ball – the “Jenny” in Jenny and the Mexicats – tells a story of playing in a packed sit-down venue in Europe where the audience was listening obediently in their chairs until one fan could not resist the music, jumped up and started dancing and singing along. The band was delighted but the police came in and forced him to sit down and stop singing. So the band invited him up to sing with them. He cried onstage he was so happy, the audience stood and cheered, and the band rocked on with a new energy. That is the kind of band Jenny and the Mexicats is -absolutely adored by their fans and not afraid of anything, including seamlessly sliding from Spanish to English, from flamenco to rockabilly, from pop to acoustic. Which is exactly what their new album, Mar Abierto (Open Seas) does. Fourteen songs in all, including album credits set to music, ricocheting from Spanish to English, from Latin Rock to Jamaican dance, to love lost heartbreaking trumpet. There is [Read More]