The rock duo from Los Angeles Movie Club. Photo: Jon Jackson
Many musicians have been forced to stay at home due to the ongoing pandemic, but bands like the Los Angeles Movie Club have clearly found a silver lining. For their dark new track “Rainshadow”, drummer Jessamyn Violet and guitarist Vince Cuneo called on friends Rami Jaffee (keyboardist of Foo Fighters), violinist Jessy Greene (who is part of the troupe of pop artist P ! NK) and seasoned bassist Tim Lefebvre (David Bowie, The Black Crowes and previously a member of the blues band Tedeschi Trucks Band).
Violet said: “It was an unexpected benefit of the pandemic that these tourism giants were available to help with the trail. Tim was supposed to be on tour with Black Crowes, Rami was supposed to be on tour with the Foo Fighters, Jessy was just out of the P! NK tour. We were delighted to have their voices in the mix. Movie Club first connected with Jaffee and Greene during a pre-concert for the former California Jam music festival in 2018, while Cuneo met Lefebvre at one of the latter’s concerts in a local jazz club.
The duo mention that Lefebvre worked on a total of three tracks on their upcoming full album. Black flamingo, which releases November 27. While the song “Thunder” was also released, this album follows their release in early 2020. Man o’war. “Rainshadow,” for its part, was written keeping in mind how rarely the Venice Beach neighborhood of Los Angeles receives rain. Cuneo points out that they were influenced by Funkadelic’s flagship track in 1971, “Maggot Brain” to create the ominous cinematic track.
Violet adds that it rains about five nights a year in their area, which means they were likely to use a “magical atmosphere” to create a song. “We started playing a dark, dramatic song to match the storm around us. It was as if we were materializing the atmosphere in music. We rushed to record the jam in the Voice Notes app before it evaporated, immediately naming it “Rainshadow” as we had recently learned of the existence of real rain shadows in Hawaii, “explains drummer.
Although they’ve put together a list of heavyweight artists to feature on this song, Movie Club has a longer wishlist of dream collaborators. Cuneo chooses John Dwyer (of experimental rock band Osees, formerly Thee Oh Sees) on guitar and forward / jazz-funk keyboardist John Medeski. Violet, meanwhile, has Khruangbin bassist Laura Lee Ochoa and singer-songwriter Ty Segall on drums in alt act. “Takers for this show?” Hey… A group can dream, ”she adds.
Listen to “Rainshadow” below. Stream to Apple Music, Spotify, and JioSaavn.
