I began my KXLU summer with a radio set on A Fistful of Vinyl where every song
honored this perfect sunny season. Putting together the playlist then, there were too many songs
to choose from: wet bathing suit love, feet gliding through lonesome heat, seeing friends through
sunburnt glare. The youthful joy of summer leaps from these songs to the dried working
commute in a long-lost mirage of school break overstays. There are just as many songs about the
end of summer, inching nearer, to belabor the cycling year. Instead of listing these I’ll catch the
unreachable romance of the static season. Here are the best KXLU 88.9FM Los Angeles New
Releases of Summer 2025 to keep its pulse beating through our next Septembers:
Gingerbee – Apiary
Teetering saxophone hastily colors lines carefully sketched by samba guitar, drums crash
through the picture to unveil the decorated feeling, midwest emo riffs and chiptune arpeggios
crisscross the painted forms, and from whispered poetry emerges the whistling screams of desire
left incomplete by the impracticality of togetherness. This second release from the genre-defying
Gingerbee, a bedroom skramz band formed across states over the internet, takes the multi-
instrumentalist complexity of their first release and instills a deeper sensibility for classical
orchestration to create a bee-themed concept EP that sounds like nothing else, if not Disney in a
dust-storm, while leaving tears in your eyes once the onslaught’s passed over.
Frog Eyes – The Open Up
Frog Eyes soaks the dance punk revival in a dirty pool of sincerity. Every song is tight
with rhythm, the vocals echo with sharp inflections, the drums beat in the feeling, but just when you think they’re going to explode in a garage rock blaze, they downshift to a passionate confession. Every song remains in constant creative motion, but not in favor of dissonance, nor resolution, but to cut out a shifting center of expression. Syncopated riffs do not attempt to uplift awkward sarcasm into studded punk coolness and protest, but instead illuminate the narrator’s attitudes for what they are: well-meaning self-deprecation crawling on hands and knees to acceptance. I especially like the quiet keyboard chimes that soften many moments on these passionate songs.
Florry – Sounds Like…
A Summer collection wouldn’t be complete without some folk to carry you down cross-
American road trips. This album does exactly that with ebbing waves of fuzzy folk-rock guitars
accented by harmonica highway warbles. These songs are intensely upbeat while still laced with
the country blues. They sound like the favorite vacant lots of your hometown, racing along the
weed cracked cement with a pardner or two. Sunny days that never end after everyone else has
gone home, pacing alone the changing prairie in your sweat lathered skin thirsting for the
evening breeze. Tomorrow will be just as fine.
Autocamper – What Do You Do All Day?
While Summer’s surely a perfect time for brooding in a book at the beach, it’s an even
better time for exploring love in the AC-frozen arcades before setting off on a new part of your
life’s journey. Autocamper captures the beauty and love that persists smiling through the
suffering heat. What Do You Do All Day? contains ten twee anthems, energetic, occasionally
deadpan, cute, longing. These songs can make any dull employment an opportunity for glimpsing butterfly wings patterned in a wildflower. Notice the colored rocks beset in the baking sidewalk; they shine whether or not someone’s there to hold your hand across the seaside.
CIVIC – Chrome Dipped
CIVIC returns with a heavier take on their garage punk style, from shredding Aussie
waves to the weighty punch of Metal Mario. This album includes speeding punk tracks, grungy
tracks with honest catharsis, and slower wandering tracks that take you to an icy wasteland.
CIVIC crafts every blend of personal alt rock with an unmatched modern heaviness.
Do you want a chance to have your music played on the radio? Send us your music submissions!
Physical submissions (vinyl, CD, cassette):
KXLU 88.9FM
Attn: Music Director
One LMU Dr
Los Angeles, CA 90045
Digital submissions: brettkxlu@gmail.com
Brett also co-hosts A Fistful of Vinyl every Thursday from 9:00-10:00pm PST on KXLU 88.9FM.