It’s the sound of UCLA: a sound rarely heard on campus, because it exists in the apartments, makeshift venues and practice rooms of its students. The sound diversifies across genres, themes and electrification, and begs the question: do you hear the music of Westwood?
Arranged by rock group The Ten Thousand, “DO U C L A!? Vol. 1” is the first compilation record of UCLA students. It entertains and impresses with its wide showcase of talented musicians, featuring Alto, Free Food, Owl Fly South, Arianna Afsar, Nick Valentini and others.
The compilation album includes a lot of bands who have formed at UCLA and continue to play around Westwood as they branch out into the L.A. music scene. The Ten Thousand is a prime example of this, with its good old rock ‘n’ roll sound, with catchy and innuendo-filled lyrics on the second and 11th tracks of the album serving as a bordering start and finish.
“Fight Inertia,” by The Ten Thousand, the second song on the album, comes out of the speakers fast with exciting drums from UCLA alumnus Garrett Harney. The song brings a classic L.A. rock sound to the record and packs a punch with its vibrant guitars and stingingly sexual lyrics.
“When you’re sitting on the sidelines, and you’re waiting on your lifeline,” sings UCLA alumnus Kevin Moultrie of The Ten Thousand. “Then you know you gotta move, you gotta go … away. Where the grass is green and the girls are easy.”
After a strong start to the record, the string indie folk band Alto adds its imprint with “All My Heart” and, later in the album, “Vocable.” The former, which highlights the band’s strong three-part harmonies, displays the band’s folk stylings on violin, viola and double bass, while the latter is an irresistible tune that packs the girls’ catchy vocals with an upbeat rhythm section.
The funk-infused hip-hop of Free Food is found in the fifth track with “Gone.” The loud brass and bass are infectious, as well as the striking rap performance by fourth-year ethnomusicology student Oliver Brown. Brown’s rhythm is impeccable and his rhyme scheme plays upon itself at every moment.
“When the bright lights flicker if the dark is how I figure, then we’re both just one man strong,” Brown sings. “Crowd’s gonna scatter, house will Lincoln log clatter to a little pitter patter, now they’re gone.”
The middle part of the record has some awkward moments, switching from Asia Dae’s dance track “From The Start,” to Nick Valentini’s piano driven ballad “Fallin’ For You,” to the blues-rock of Gearth’s “Get Down.” The songs have a weak placement, despite being relatively well-composed.
The second half of the record, however, which includes a set beginning with “Safe To Fall In Love” by Arianna Afsar, followed by Alto, The Ten Thousand, Owl Fly South’s “Blink (Incandescent Days)” with syncopated drums and lo-fi vocals, and ending with a song by Toy Light, “Relief,” excels at capturing the leap from pop to folk to rock to electronic music seamlessly.
By the time “Relief” comes to finish the album, Toy Light is poised to toss the listener into the electric water of third-year fine arts student Walker Ashby. In “Relief,” the beats that hover over a cascade of ambient melodies are beyond impressive; they are twisted into the spider-like feel of crawling around the speakers.
“DO U C L A!? Vol. 1” is at times exceptional, and clearly conveys the passions and talents of UCLA, talents that are soon to be graduating. The title’s inclusion of the album being the first volume is brave, but if this record is representative of what UCLA musicians are capable of, then the second volume should be exceptional.
Listen to the full album here.