LA-based psych band Wand returns to the Chapel
Though arguably not quite as prolific as his fellow Los Angeles psych merchants (and former Bay Area residents) Ty Segall and John Dwyer of Osees, Hanson and company have released an impressive string of albums since first coming together in 2013. Guitarist and vocalist Hanson got his start playing in the band Thief with high school friend Chad Ubovich, a future Segall collaborator who leads his own band Meatbodies in addition to playing bass in Segall's power trio Fuzz.
While Ubovich has dismissed Thief as "a pretty boy band...trying to be Radiohead," the experience started Hanson down a steady path of playing music. He would work with another Segall collaborator in Mikal Cronin as well as playing stints with SoCal punk band togetherPangea and Ubovich's band the Meatbodies before striking out on his own. After recording demos of songs that would make up the first Wand album, Hanson convened the first version of the group with art school friends Lee Landey (bass) and Evan Burrows (drums). The band would eventually expand to a quartet with second guitarist Daniel Martens.
Released on Segall's Drag City imprint God? Records in 2014,
Ganglion Reef
quickly established Wand as a new force on the LA garage-psych scene with its mix of soaring melodies and sludgy guitar riffs. Their first tour opening for Segall found the band warmly embraced by a ready made audience happy to mosh to Hanson's tuneful, fuzzed-out anthems. The band quickly followed with
Golem
for In the Red Records, which teamed Wand with regular producer/engineer for Thee Oh Sees Chris Woodhouse for an even heavier sound, before issuing their third more folk-pop psych effort
1000 Days
within the space of just over a year.
While Hanson would take more time for the next Wand album, if anything his productivity increased. In addition to expanding the band to a quintet with guitarist Robert Cody (Martens had left the year prior) and keyboardist/vocalist Sofia Arreguin and touring extensively, Hanson also issued his first solo album -- the delicate acoustic guitar and strings effort
The Unborn Capitalist In Limbo
that had echoes of Love's
Forever Changes
and Nick Drake -- and toured as a member of Ty Segall's new band project, the Muggers.
2017 saw the release of Wand's fourth album
Plum
. The accomplished tunes further distanced the group from its raw, garage-psych beginnings as they embraced an expansive chamber pop approach with more intricate vocal harmonies. During an exhaustive live schedule of shows to promote the album, the band proved it could still deliver the more sophisticated material (and older gems) without skimping on the ferocity that had marked their performances in the early days. A follow-up EP
Perfume
also showcased the broader sonic palette.
Building on that continued refinement, in 2019 Wand delivered what may be its most experimental collection of songs to date. The sprawling double LP
Laughing Matter
echoes Radiohead, '90s avant-pop synth group Stereolab and krautrock pioneers Can mixed with Hanson's infectious vocal melodies and the band's kinetic, propulsive energy. The group toured extensively to promote the album, closing out the year with a celebrated run of performances supporting Stereolab.
While the pandemic curtailed band activity, Hanson remained busy, releasing his second solo album
Pale Horse Rider
on Drag City Records. Turning away from the psychedelic chamber folk of his debut, the album found Hanson exploring a style of cosmic Americana that nods to the work of genre pioneer Gram Parsons and the Flying Burrito Brothers with its wind-swept desert soundscapes and swelling pedal-steel guitar. During the COVID-19 lockdown, Hanson also launched the web series
Limited Hangout
on YouTube that featured surreal comedic vignettes interspersed with performances of the new songs.
Hanson has been splitting his time between his solo efforts and Wand of late, with the band releasing the sprawling live recording
Spiders in the Rain
late last year that drew from performances during the 2020 tour to promote
Laughing Matter.
Meanwhile, Hanson's third solo album
Western Cum
issued in the spring hews closer to the loud, electric-guitar dominated sound of the songwriter's main band.
Last summer, Wand released its long-awaited sixth album
Vertigo.
The new quartet line-up of the group featuring Burrows, Cody and bassist Evan Backer has delivered another woozy dose of psychedelia fleshed out by horn and string arrangements (provided by Backer) that in some ways find Hanson coming full circle with fragile, hypnotic art-rock tunes that could be long lost Radiohead outtakes. That fall, group released an additional 12" single featuring music and remixes of songs recorded during the
Vertigo
sessions. Drag City also issued
In a Capsule Underground
, a collection of demos and unreleased material from the band's
Ganglion Reef
-era recordings. Wand returns to San Francisco Thursday night when it plays
the Chapel in the Mission District
for this performance with no support acts that will include a liquid light show by regular collaborators Mad Alchemy.
An Evening with Wand
Wednesday, March 27, 8 p.m. $25-$28
The Chapel
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Los Angeles Times
4 days ago
- Los Angeles Times
The neon-streaked L.A. of ‘Drive', plus the week's best movies
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Luc Moullet will see a tribute series at Lincoln Center in August, while Jacques Rozier currently has a program of his work available on the Criterion Channel. For as much attention as French cinema has gotten over the years, it is exciting to see that there are still new corners to be explored and fresh discoveries to be made. 'Television Event' On Friday night the American Cinematheque at the Los Feliz 3 will host a screening of Jeff Daniels' documentary 'Television Event,' which takes a look at the end of the Cold War through the lens of the 1983 TV movie 'The Day After,' which dramatized the aftermath of a nuclear weapons attack around Kansas City, Mo., and Lawrence, Kan., with a cast that included Jason Robards, JoBeth Williams, Steve Guttenberg and John Lithgow. Nicholas Meyer, who directed 'The Day After,' will be present for a Q&A on Friday moderated by his daughter, screenwriter Dylan Meyer. 'Television Event' will also show on Saturday and Monday. 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USA Today
08-07-2025
- USA Today
'Madden 26' predicts Broncos will beat Bengals, start season 4-0
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Yahoo
10-06-2025
- Yahoo
Friendship Breakups Suck. Little Simz Turned Hers Into Gold on ‘Lotus'
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The song thrashes like 1990s grunge and Simz is absolutely cutthroat on it, evoking the eerie menace of Kendrick Lamar's whopping Drake diss 'Euphoria.' The public nature of her fallout with Inflo and how readily she tackles it on Lotus makes it a distinctly personal entry to her oeuvre – listening feels more like living in her skin than any project she's done before. There's a meta-allusion to the way she refuses to bury her truth under convoluted poetic flourishes when she tells Wretch 32 not to do the same on 'Blood,' where she and her fellow British rapper trade bars as they portray siblings in a fight. Lotus is an excellent album, in part because songs like 'Thief' and 'Blood' are so uncomfortable, like peering at a nasty accident on the side of the highway and feeling more alive because of it. In the aftermath of an imploded childhood friendship, Lotus is a rigorous ode to the trauma and wisdom of truly growing up. 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The similarities, though, feel like Simz staking her claim to a sound she was integral in pushing forward. Little Simz's hard-earned sense of self-worth courses through the album. Much of her best rapping here blossomed from hardship – that, in fact, is what a lotus is, a flower that can bloom out of mud. 'I know my mind is a textbook they can learn from even though I ain't got a diploma,' she says on 'Blue,' in the middle of a calm but relentless flow full of empathetic reflections on poverty, incarceration, family, and death. 'Free' is a particularly moving trove of wisdom, expertly crafted with subtle foreshadowing between a cunning first verse on what love really is and a second on how fear threatens it. 'I think that shit is a lethal weapon,' she says. Though Lotus finds Simz rapping as victim and survivor, it's filled with empathy for just how hard the human experience is, even for her tormentor, whose own pain she acknowledges. 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