Lifeguard- Under Your Reach
Every month I listen to the majority of bands and musicians who are playing in Los Angeles and select some for a monthly playlist. It includes a variety of genres and usually newer work by the artist.
This month’s playlist includes songs from IDK, White Reaper, Surfbort, Bassvictim, Thao, Natalie Bergman, lots of hands, and The Sols.
The song above is from Vancouver band Lifeguard‘s debut album, Ripped And Torn.
Below are March’s selections-
“Neighbors”, acrylic on canvas, 2025
“Neighbors” (detail)
“Neighbors” (detail)
“Bird and Fish”, acrylic on canvas, 2025
The paintings in Aitor Lajarin-Encina‘s exhibition Flora, Fauna, and Furniture at Pentimenti gallery in Philadelphia contain tiny elements that tell bigger stories. The longer you look, the more your interpretation may change.
From the gallery-
Aitor Lajarin-Encina’s paintings engage in dialogue with global histories of painting and popular image-making traditions, drawing from sources as varied as Baroque art, Constructivism, satirical cartoons, and video games. They function as visual poems, inviting viewers into moments of existential suspense that spark philosophical reflections on life and relationships between people, objects, and the environment.
At first glance, Aitor’s playful, cartoony, oneiric acrylic-on-canvas paintings appear figurative and tightly composed, relying heavily on narrative tension and visual appeal. They unfold as dreamlike tableaux populated by recurring iconographic elements: human figures, horses, celestial bodies, domestic furniture and objects, clothing, parks, cityscapes, plants, and everyday items. Beneath this apparently flat appearance, the surface opens into multiple layers rich with texture—drips, splatters, bumps, and accidents—carefully constructed and physically present in his work.
Lajarin-Encina approaches art as an immediate and intuitive experience, emphasizing its poetic intensity and emotional resonance rather than hidden or symbolic meanings. At the same time, the work offers a critique of a world designed by humans to be “user-friendly,” while simultaneously estranging people from the natural mysteries and wonders of the world.
This exhibition closes 4/4/26.
Saintseneca- You Have to Los Your Hat Someday
This song is from Saintseneca‘s 2025 album, Highwallow & Supermoon Songs.
They will be playing at Zebulon in Los Angeles on Thursday, 4/2/26 with Gladie.
Ava Blitz created this glass mosaic, Pink, in 2012 for Philadelphia International Airport. It is part of Philadelphia’s Percent for Art Program.
From Art at PHL-
Philadelphia artist Ava Blitz works in various artistic disciplines including sculpture and photography. In either medium, Blitz is inspired by nature and natural forms. In her sculptural work, she is known to mass similar objects together to suggest continual growth and to emulate the abundance of repetitive forms found in nature. Her sculpture is often large-scale and abstract with minimal detail to capture nature’s basic essence and to encourage the viewer’s imagination. Blitz also photographs nature, usually imagery that she has taken while on walks near her home. The photographs, typically of trees, feature variations of dense, lush foliage. Using digital photography, Blitz is able to heighten the color and alter the imagery to emphasize the beauty and mystery that inspires her artwork.
In Pink, Blitz has incorporated her photography and her interest in nature, abstraction, and repetition to create a glass tile mosaic. She describes the artwork as “playing with the edge between realism and abstraction to create a magical forest or garden – a virtual reality that viewers can enter, explore, and experience on multiple levels.” Seen from a distance, the branches and pink blossoms are recognizable. Yet up close, the tree dissolves into an abstraction of tactile, colorful, iridescent glass tiles.
Sarah Zwerling‘s digital collage Hamilton Street, Philadelphia, is on view at the Philadelphia International Airport as part of their exhibition programming.
From Art at PHL’s website–
Philadelphia artist Sarah Zwerling was invited to create a site-specific artwork installed directly on two interior glass enclosures located in Terminal A-East. Zwerling, whose work often features nature and architectural structures, has combined these influences as she has re-imagined her neighborhood street — an area in West Philadelphia characterized by its abundance of twin homes. Using digital photography, Zwerling focused on the rooflines of the Hamilton Street homes in combination with various trees found throughout nearby Fairmount Park. The imagery lines both sides of the concourse similar to the experience of walking along a narrow residential street like Hamilton. Zwerling has emphasized and altered aspects of the homes and the trees, even adding stylized blossoms and birds to animate the landscape and enhance the overall beauty and sense of wonderment.
The Recap returns with a focus on how artists and identity. While some create characters, obscure details, or in some way hide who they are, others find ways to overcome the identities imposed on them.
Posts from the website are included, as well as some new stuff I’ve found along the way.
Check it out here!
Emily Yacina- Talk Me Down
This song is from Emily Yacina‘s 2025 album, Veilfall.
She is opening for Skullcrusher at Lodge Room in Los Angeles on Wednesday, 3/25/26.
Kay Rosen‘s painting Spring (2021), was part of the 2024 group exhibition Healing at Sikkema Molloy Jenkins in NYC. You can currently see this work as part of John Cage and Kay Rosen at Krakow Witkin Gallery in Boston. The exhibition opens 3/21 and runs until 5/9/26.
From Krakow Witkin Gallery about the exhibition-
The current exhibition arranges works from the past 15 years by Kay Rosen with works from 1983 by John Cage. While not an obvious aesthetic or conceptual pairing, the juxtaposition of works hopes to provide more nuanced understanding and appreciations of both artists’ approaches to observation, appreciation, chance, choice, and control.
And about the painting-
SPRING, like many of Rosen’s works, strives for efficiency and economy. It finds a way to enhance the meaning of spring without adding a word. It cannibalizes one of its own body parts, the letter N, turning spring into sprig, five little green shoots. SPRING is another one of those found works that almost makes itself. Her intervention is merely a small excision of a letter, leaving behind a new word that that suggests hope.
Jim E. Brown- The Queue at Greggs
Jim E. Brown describes himself as a 19-year-old alcoholic singer-songwriter from Didsbury, Manchester. Despite all evidence to the contrary, he is committed to the bit, as are his fans. There are rumors he may actually be a former animation filmmaker from Philadelphia named Max Marguiles, but Brown frequently denies this in interviews.
Like fellow Mancunian Morrissey, he’s fond of what the British refer to as moaning. His lyrics, filled with the miseries of his daily life, also include things associated with England like pub food, the bakery chain Greggs, and local supermarkets like ASDA. In addition to the music, he also writes books and makes short videos complaining about various things he finds out and about.
He is currently in Europe on his world tour.
Lala Lala- Does This Go Faster?
This song by LA based artist Lillie West’s Lala Lala was released as a single in 2025 and is on her 2026 album, Heaven 2.
She is playing at the Lodge Room in Los Angeles on Saturday, 3/21/26, with lots of hands.