Live In A Daydream

Hailing from what Forbes has ranked as America’s “Best Hipster Neighborhood,” the Silverlake, Los Angeles natives Hot As Sun have released their debut full-length album Night Time Sound Desire on Last Gang Records (Crystal Castles, Metric, Death From Above 1979) after bandmates Deborah Stoll and Jamie Jackson—a journalist and a composer, respectively—discovered their mutual love of weird sounds.

Inspiration for the tracks comes from everywhere, from reggae to hip-hop, pop to dubstep, gospel to electro. While songs are a little funky and contain lots of different noises and sounds, nothing is necessarily noisy. With help from the band’s third and only male member WAZ, songs are formulated and mixed well. There are hardly any moments that don’t contain Jackson’s vocals, which usually sound distant (and occasionally like Madonna) and are sometimes so saturated that it’s hard to make out what she is saying.

The album’s self-titled track is a highlight, and it gives a glimpse of what exactly a “night time sound desire” is supposed to be or mean: “Open our eyes in the night time sound desire, it’ll be alright in the night time sound.” “War With Time” is a slower song and one of the few where a guitar can clearly be heard above the song’s synthesized parts. “The Heist” is another album highlight and accurately portrays the type of fun and dreamy theme the band has going throughout Night Time Sound Desire, repeating, “We got lost in the days of our youth” several times over.

Do Hot As Sun fit into the “buzz band” category? Maybe, but don’t file them away just yet. There are a lot of interesting pieces to Night Time Sound Desire, plus summer is coming and there are plenty of tracks on the album to litter your beach-time and day-drinking playlists with.