On Thanksgiving Day, L.A. Collective released a collection of cover songs under the album name Avalancha. Composed by three of the most active ska bands in the L.A. scene: Profesor Galactico, The Paranoias and Ekolekua, L.A. Collective is a group of producers, musicians, engineers and songwriters that joined ventures to create a variety of music that did not fall under one specific genre.
Although the three bands that make up the collective are some of the most sought-after ska bands in the local circuit, L.A. Collective has made it a point not to label itself “ska” and, rather, create the type of music they feel inspired to compose.
Avalancha is the perfect example of that road map. The album is a 12-track compilation of covers that draws from popular emo-rock, Spanish rock, soul and other genres the band members grew up listening to. “As many young bands do, we all started doing covers of songs we liked or that we wanted to sound like,” states the band. “We still love doing them on stage and many of our fans have mentioned to us that they would love to hear a recorded version of some of those songs, so we figured that we should put that type of album together.”
For the album, each band covered four songs. The Paranoias took it under their control to re-do “Cancion Para Un O.G.T.” (El Gran Silencio), “Mi Viejo” (Piero), “Tell Her” (Patti Drew) and “Us vs. Them” (LCD SoundSystem). Ralf Velazquez from The Paranoias said the Piero cover is a tribute to his dad. “He introduced me to the song when I was very young and without really understanding the lyrics or the sentiment, I really connected to it. As I got older I began to understand how this song impacts so many people.”
Profesor Galactico had fun embracing their English synthpop and Swedish indie pop influences, which can be heard in the covers of “Animal” (Mike Snow) and “Bulletproof” (La Roux). They also made their own out of “Machine Gun” (Manu Chao) and “Soy Un Loco” (Vilma Palma).
Ekolekua, on the other hand, finished off the album with covers of “Mario Bros 3” (Taller Para Niños), “Marta Tiene Un Marcapasos” (Hombres G), “Mi Corazon Encantado” (Dan Dan Kokoro Hikareteku), and a nicely done rendition of “Narcisista Por Execelencia” (Panda).
Profesor Galactico’s drummer, Salvador “El Ingeniero” Hernandez, recorded the album at his Top-Head Studios sanctuary. Avalancha is currently available for streaming on L.A. Collective’s YouTube channel and as of Wednesday Nov. 28th is available on Spotify.
“For us it’s easy to release free music since we don’t have a record company backing us,” said the band. “Ultimately we do it for our fans because they are the ones who keep supporting us by coming to our gigs.”
The Paranoias, Ekolekua and Profesor Galactico will be playing cuts from Avalancha this Thursday night at The Alpine Village in Torrance. La Infinita, Bad Apples and Happy Drunk Cartel will also be part of the event.
