Every year, new artists emerge ready to be Los Angeles’ next great musical discovery, making their rounds through small club tours across the city. Inspired by the hippie enclaves of Topanga, the backyard punk scene of East L.A. or the coastal grunge of Venice Beach, each act has its own distinct sound.
People will say what they want about Los Angeles, but even the city’s harshest critics cannot deny the landscape-changing musical talents that have been found in Los Angeles’ backyard. Whether their members were born here or just came together in some dark corner of the Troubadour, acts from N.W.A. to Queens of the Stone Age have called Los Angeles home.
In The Valley Below’s Jeffrey Jacob and Angela Gail may not have been born in Los Angeles’ Eastside, but they found each other after coming to the city, relocating to a neighborhood with its own distinct character: Echo Park, one of Los Angeles’ most popular hipster enclaves.
The band will further cement its status as an eminent force in Los Angeles’ indie rock scene with a free show at The Satellite in Silver Lake – a mainstay for indie bands in Los Angeles that has recently included acts like Dorothy and Wildling in residency – on Wednesday.
The concert also happens to be just a $20 Uber ride away from UCLA’s campus, finally giving UCLA students a good reason to check out Silver Lake – and Intelligentsia Coffee – along with some live music to ease students into the new quarter.
In The Valley Below’s signature harmonies stand out in its catchy single “Peaches” and in “Hymnal,” a slow burn standout track on the group’s debut album, “The Belt,” released in August 2013. Gail and Jacob’s musical brainchild is often ethereal and almost similar to an energetic version of The xx, featuring heavy synths and relaxed vocals.
While “Peaches” and many of the other tracks on “The Belt” initially seem underwhelming because of Gail and Jacob’s dispassionate vocals, the duo knows how to create an earworm with songs that immediately get stuck in the listener’s head.
Themes of religion and sensuality appear throughout “The Belt,” with the refrain of “Dove Season” eerily suggesting that the two lovers “start all over/ On earth as it is in heaven.” But the only real connecting force within the somewhat disjointed album is the blending of Jacob and Gail’s voices together and their Americana-tinged synthetic melodies. It’s only on the latter half of the album that the duo’s ethereal, melodic musical direction presents itself with a much smoother blend of songs coming together to close the band’s freshman effort.
The influences of Los Angeles’ culture can be heard in the duo’s sound, a blend of classic rock, folk and synth-pop bolstered by the duo’s frequent harmonization. While Jacob and Gail have cited many Brits as musical inspirations – Pink Floyd and Phil Collins, to name a few – their music also has traces of fellow Los Angeles-based band Broken Bells.
Traces of Echo Park’s indie scene can also be seen just by looking at the duo. The pair’s typical performance uniform of Jacob’s suspenders and Gail’s white dress, large hat combo make the band’s appearance as distinctive as their sound. Their vintage-inspired wardrobe fits in with Echo Park’s typical blend of new bohemian looks and modern fashionistas.
Still, the far-reaching influences on both sides of In The Valley Below’s power duo set the band apart from the many indie acts on the Eastside. Jacob and Gail have created a new sound from their different musical backgrounds that reflects the musical diversity of Los Angeles.
The band has multiple record deals internationally including Capitol Records in America, Sony Music in Europe, and Oskar in France. It recently concluded an American tour opening for The Airborne Toxic Event and performed across Europe in 2013.
But the most typically “L.A.” aspect of In The Valley Below is, frankly, its vibe. An unnameable chill that is a part of the city’s collective personality finds its sound in In The Valley Below, ready for a long drive down the Pacific Coast Highway more than a Thursday stuck on the I-405.