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Last night the Canadian band Stars took over the beautiful Orpheum Theatre in downtown Los Angeles. Somehow it seemed the perfect venue for this grand performance. Lead singer Torquil Campbell came out to introduce the opener, who's quite a legend in his own right: Lloyd Cole. It was just him and his guitar but somehow it seemed right.

Hong Kong is a city known for its East-meets-West sensibilities. HK-ese identical twins Ming & Ping are the perfect embodiment of this aesthetic. The electropop outfit consists of Ming, Ping, and their producer Bao Vo, and they are currently based in San Francisco. They've just self-released their 3rd album, Causeway Army.

Supercar are probably the closest you'll ever get to a Japanese shoegazer band. They hail from Aomori, a place in the countryside in northern Japan that is usually considered their version of "the boonies." When they first started out, they were a guitar band that seemed happy to just layer their ringing guitar sounds with beautiful melodies. But with their 2nd album Jump Up, their sound suddenly evolved (and this was evolution, not change), going from Britpop copy band to developing their own sound identity.