The holloys is the hallucinatory brain-child of Los Angeles visual artist Jim Brown, crafting intricate and cosmic dance pop adventures.  A five piece – double drum, double bass, trumpet, guitar & synth – dance band. Amidst the funkiness is the philosophy that they are channeling their songs from an alternate dimension called Lake Land. Some peyote traditions were involved in the revelation. The band’s ranks have been filled with former members of Mars Volta, The Breeders, and At The Drive In. Last fall they played at the invitation only festival, All Tomorrow’s Parties, released a cosmically funky album called Art Wars—you could say sounds like Phil Collins leading the Talking Heads—and have a new split 7-inch with Dengue Fever.

“…A singular vision propelled by the type of creators that defy convention yet immediately engage with a catchy musicality all their own. Think of Sun Ra’s ‘cosmic’ philosophies and the many permutations of his band that touched on genres ranging from ragtime to the psychedelic, which in turn helped to shape the far-out phonic funk of George Clinton and his otherworldly notions of what music could be. Operating at least on the periphery of this tradition, Jim Brown has created an alternate realm in which the holloys lay out a most pleasing invitational sound track for us to explore.” -THE RED ALERT

“The Holloys produce sound structures; similar to the way sand and wind, over thousands of years, can hack away at rocks and produce eerie and precise architectures.”  -L.A. RECORD

“I don’t ‘make’ the tree. I don’t make sunlight or water or earth. What happens is magic. I just do my best to help facilitate that. The same way a ritual makes a space for the Spirit to enter.” -Interview with THE ORGAN GRINDER

“So what we’re treated to is succinct, crafted to perfection pop songs, the likes of which fans of Foals, Battles and even Vampire Weekend will lap up.” -THE LIVERPOOL ECHO

“But make no mistake this is music with substance, full of a variety of cultural influences and sounds from prog to dance to trance to afro-pop.” -MUSIC MULE

“The red road has colored my eyes and all I do is an extension of my personal relationship with the mystery power. My art and music is the way I recreate that relationship in a way that I can share its energy.” -Interview with NATIVE AMERICAN INDIGENOUS CINEMA AND ARTS

The band’s former bands:

Jim Brown (Blue Bird, Idaho, Jackie O-Motherfucker, John Frusciate w/ Joe Lally,
The Red Krayola, Glenn Branca)
; Bryan Lee Brown (Blue Bird, Dick Dale, Dave Grohl, Louie Bellson)
; Jon Theodore (The Mars Volta, Golden, One Day as A Lion, Will Oldham)
; Jose Medeles (The Breeders); 
Tony Hajjar (At The Drive In, Sparta); 
Jon Gonnelli (Rye Coalition, The Black Hollies)
; Alfrado Ortiz (The Beastie Boys, Morning Wood, Freska)
; Cliff Bryant (Isis, Red Sparrows)

Someone once asked, “I wonder what kind of music the kids who experienced hurricane Katrina will be like?” and it made me think, if there was anyone in the late ’70s who ever wondered what the music of a post-Vietnam war orphan would be like – I am the only musician I know that can answer to that. If anyone ever wondered. – Michael Nhat

Michael Nhat’s life has been a whirlwind. He came to America hidden in a box on an airplane. The plane crashed and everyone except the children in cargo died, including his mother. He was sent back to an orphanage in Vietnam. Upon returning to the States, he learned the rap game with a rough crowd, but was able to distance himself from that once finding his home in Los Angeles. He volunteers at the Smell and is one of the most prolific and unassuming musicians ready to rise above ground.

Much like his music, Michael Nhat’s story is anything but conventional, yet he delivers it with the nonchalance of a milkman.

Nhat’s played almost every living room venue in Los Angeles. He’s the token rapper at the punk show. In his preppy clothes, he’s not so much the fish out of water as the guy you can expect the unexpected from; the “hip hop Ariel Pink.” On his first full length album, Michael Nhat, we can begin to unravel the emotion, humor, the love lesson, the life quandaries, the enigma that rattles behind his thick glasses.

…A diminutive twentysomething, dressed crisply in a black pullover and white button-down, sitting in a chair with his head slightly bowed. Newcomers probably don’t know what to expect, but Nhat fans can bank on a saucy, effervescent performance…Anywhere Michael Nhat plays is a party…Within minutes Nhat has the small crowd in a tizzy, dancing with abandon to his unique brand of rap-hip-hip-pop. (L.A. Record)

While a few of the songs on Michael Nhat are sample based, Nhat created most of the beats on a keyboard, and the various interludes were captured by himself and friends on a mini-recorder or extrapolated from voicemails. His collaborator in duo 1000 Apes In A Room, vowel wizard Kthei??? appears on two hidden tracks, “When Dracula Met The Wolfman,” and “Tongue Part 1″ – the only song not produced by Nhat himself. “Tongue Part 1″ features the handiwork of Japanese producer Timmo. Travisaurus appears on “Dirt” and Cardio Pulmonary collaborated on “Ponds and Lakes.” With sword-like finesse, Michael Nhat cuts depth with humor and abstract rhythm. The wide-open frontier introduces a new voice to experimental hip-hop.

Asked what he hopes people get out of his music, Nhat says, without flinching, “I hope they get laid.”

Random Patterns write experimental pop songs that swarm around textures, building walls of noise to decorate with psychedelic energy. On their album, Creatures Of Teeth, synths, horns, and samples navigate through progressions while strange, poetic lyrics absorb you into a parallel universe where gnomes might pick your pocket. The band resides in Los Angeles and co-run art/music collective Heard Of Elephants.

In Herman Hesse’s famous allegorical tale, Siddhartha, the main character and namesake of the book explains his greatest assets with the lines “I can wait, I can think, and I can fast.” Songwriter Jacqueline Santillan was taken aback by this simple yet profound sentiment. Together with bandmates Matthew Beighley, Polo Quintero, and Thomas King, Wait.Think.Fast. takes self-reliance and mindful optimism as a point of departure, filling a gap in L.A.’s music scene with a roiling but gentle persuasion.

Although Wilco and The Smiths serve for reference points, famed Argentinean composer Ástor Piazzolla is equally present in the band’s sound. Wait.Think.Fast. straddles the lines between classic and contemporary and Spanish and English, citing the additional influences of Fugazi, Jose Jose, Madlib, Neko Case, and Joy Division. This quality makes it difficult to ascribe them to one particular scene or audience. They might play a show with indie rockers Fol Chen or The Helio Sequence, or fit a bill with Ozomatli and Ximena Sariñana on another occasion. Undoubtedly, Wait.Think.Fast.‘s versatility comes without compromise.

Wait. Think. Fast.’s single “Cien Fuegos” was chosen as KCRW’s Top Tune of the Day (Jan ‘09) and by NPR’s Second Stage as Song of the Day (Dec 08). Interview and live segments from the bilingual band’s Pershing Square “Spaceland on Ice” performance aired on MTV3 and Galeria Alternativa, and the band performed on-air for Univision’s Tu Estilo and Primer Edicion, and Telemundo’s Buenos Diaz.

The quartet has also enjoyed airplay on Indie 103, KROQ, KXLU, KSPC and KPFK, including a live performance on KPFK’s Travel Tips for Aztlan. The band received several “best of 2008″ nods, including best song of 2008 from The Saucido Slant and a worth-your-attention shout out from Buzzbands.la.

17-year-old L.A. artist Alicia Murphy performed all the tracks — guitar, bass, banjo, percussion and vocals — on her self-produced debut album, the full-length Randomness Guaranteed.

She’s currently working on her first studio album.