If you’ve got an hour to spare, Los Angeles’ Local Natives will make it worth your time. The tropically tinged folk-pop posse recently recorded an intimate 60-minute concert (and interview) for L.A. indie music mainstay KCRW in which they debuted several songs from their long-awaited sophomore album, Hummingbird.
The public radio station was kind enough to offer a high-quality video stream of the event in which we hear a few highlights from 2009’s Gorilla Manor along with new single “Breakers,” and seven previously unheard tunes: “Heavy Feet,” “Ceilings,” “Colombia,” “Black Spot,” “Bowery,” “Three Months” and “You and I.” The songs reveal more of the creative percussion, glistening guitar-play, and big emotions that we’ve come to expect from the band, along with gossamer layers of sworling feedback and some positively beefy synth-work.
As an intermission, DJ Jason Bentley speaks with the boys about their January 29 release and their rise from Orange County unknowns to Silver Lake stars. “I remember the first time I heard one of our songs on the radio… I thought it was a mistake,” says Taylor Rice. He later explains why the band chose to record Hummingbird in New York: “It’s too nice here, too easy. We had to leave to record, otherwise it never would’ve been finished.”
