Motel California

My last week was spent largely sitting in traffic jams in my hometown of Los Angeles, often desperately seeking something to listen to on the radio. Imagine my surprise when I tuned to the once legendary - but of late truly awful - KROQ and low and behold, heard some interesting indie-pop! Earlimart, Aushua, Kingsize and an artist I hadn't heard before, The Western States Motel.

Well, here I am back inside the beltway and what do I see in my inbox, but a missive from the Western States Motel, asking us to give a listen to "Oh World" and the rest of the the new Painted Birds Flying in the Orange Mirror Sun EP, out September 30th.

Carl Jordan, the man behind TWSM, has truly crafted a hidden gem of an EP, building upon a foundation of softly sung observational lyrics a la Elliot Smith and Iron and Wine ("Powerlines"), the more art rock leanings of the Shins ("Oh World"), and the hazy stoner rock of the California high desert ("New E Blues"). Also for a bit of odd trivia, it turns out "New E Blues" was featured in a slightly different form on one of the final episodes of The OC. Unfortunately, no one was watching that train wreck by then, otherwise I'm certain TWSM would be huge already!

mp3: Oh World