First Fridays Tonight! Javelin & Helado Negro

This coming Friday marks the second to last First Friday at the Natural History museum of 2013.

Artists Javelin and Helado Negro are an excellent bill of kaleidoscopic loop-based artists whose music is wonderously strange and totally mesmerizing alternative pop music that’ll sound awesome in the echoey halls of LA’s most educational hot spot.

Floridian by way of Ecuador, Helado Negrois an excellent producer who’s worked with Julianna Barwick, Bear InHeaven and Prefuse 73. His latest LP Invisible Life is reminiscent of the experimental Spanish electronic pop of Gustavo Cerati and the trippy sonic labyrinths of El Guincho. Album opener “Illumina Vos” is a perfect example of what Helado Negro does…but album track “Dance Ghost” (another one of my personal favorites) is actually available as a free download on Helado Negro’s Soundcloud page.

Helado Negro – Invisible Life – 03 Dance Ghost by HeladoNegro

Brooklyn’s Javelinhas been making psychedelic beat music for a number of years, in fact I got a chance to check them out a couple of years ago at The Smell and it still stands as one of my favorite shows I’ve been to in LA.

They eventually got picked up by David Byrne’s Luaka Bop label, who’ve released 3 Javelin albums. The most recent, Hi Beams sees them pushing their sound forward by crafting more “traditional” pop song structures and lyrics into their swirling layered loops. The following track “Nnormal” is available as a free download on the Luaka Bop Soundcloud page.

Javelin – Nnormal by Luaka Bop

Add KCRW DJ Anthony Valadez and Matthewdavid spinning in the other hall…there’s no spot in the museum that won’t be banging…