Matt Miner

In the four-plus years since her last album, Are We There, Sharon Van Etten’s life took several new turns. Van Etten guest starred on the Netflix series The OA and performed her song “Tarifa” at the Roadhouse on Twin Peaks (don’t call it “the Bang Bang Bar”). In 2017, she became a mother. More changes are in store for 2019....

One of the must-see acts at this weekend’s Secret_Prøject festival, Roman Flügel is a highly respected German electronic music producer and DJ. Hosted by Insomniac offshoot Factory 93, Secret_Prøject also features Marcel Dettmann, Motor City Drum Ensemble and many other top-flight DJs. L.A. Weekly caught up with Flügel — who has a new album out later this month on the L.A. label ESP Institute — by phone in advance of his performance on Saturday, Oct. 13....

A stygian, discordant style of electronic dance music, techno has since its origin in the 1980s drawn inspiration from the relentless grind and dystopian aesthetic of industrial music. Moe Espinosa, who grew up in the San Gabriel Valley on a steady diet of industrial and punk, is a DJ/producer and a co-founder of Droid Recordings, arguably the most important techno label in the United States today. Luis Flores, also a DJ/producer, is a Mexican-born, Berlin-based veteran and a key player in the establishment of his native Guadalajara as a main hub for techno in Latin America....

L.A.-based electronic duo Wajatta drop their debut album on May 11. They're an unusual pair for sure — Reggie Watts is an acclaimed absurdist comedian, while John Tejada produces refined, melodic techno. Put it all together, and Wajatta make off-the-wall funk and hip-hop–inflected dance music by capturing, looping and layering Watts’ vocals over Tejada’s synth and drum arrangements....

"I was a big fan of John's music for many years," comedian and musician Reggie Watts says by phone from Montana, where, as it happens, he is grocery shopping with his mother, "and I always thought he was this exotic dude living in Austria or someplace, pumping out minimal techno and other electronic music."...

“This is going to be our third pop-up appearance,” says Ed Vertov of Stellar Remnant, the new Highland Park-based electronic music label and online record store. “We started doing them this summer because the online shop is being launched right now. We are doing it for now exclusively at Acid......

A fundamental force in L.A.'s dance music underground since the early ‘90s, antediluvian days of rave, DJ Santiago Salazar is still making bodies move. Salazar, known to friends and loyal fans as Santi, is admired by techno cognoscenti in SoCal and beyond as a world-class talent with a big personality......