photo by Lauren Slusher
Line & Circle are a dream pop band who’ve come onto the national scene this year from LA. This five-piece started with the songwriting duo of Brian J. Cohen and Brian Egan -- both from Akron and Dayton, Ohio, respectively -- who met in college before moving from the midwest to Los Angeles. They come out of a tradition of synth and chiming-guitar pop bands like early R.E.M., The Church, or The Feelies -- and the reminders of those groups are a strength, not any indication of lack of originality. White Iris Records picked up the band and released a 7″ Roman Ruins (A)/Carelessness (B) in July this year. The songwriting is assured and their performance at CMJ for KEXP’s broadcast was high-energy and transcendent. Brian J Cohen’s voice yearns over top of postmodern and majestic layers of guitar and synth slipping in and around each other. A couple of weeks ago, they released a video for “Roman Ruins,” which follows a group of young 20-somethings blithely road-tripping up the California coast to San Francisco -- very apt for the band’s nostalgically earnest landscape. Line & Circle will bring their melodic dream-pop to Seattle on November 27th at the Showbox. Check out the videos below if you want a preview of what should be a great show, and be sure to watch the full performance video, which also features two excellent untitled tracks:
Full performance (includes two untitled new songs):
