Tag: la lom

Sunday 15th February 2026

Brudenell Social Club, Leeds, England

“… to see them shining,

I do not want

to see their lightning

locked in a cage;

I want to see them live.”

PABLO NERUDA, ELEMENTAL ODES (1954)

The concert reviews I am in the habit of writing usually retreat into the safety of narrative. The night begins, I describe the venue and the atmosphere, the music progresses and reaches a crescendo. Perhaps there is an encore. If there are any standout moments, whether small or grand, I remark upon them. If there are any particularly special songs, I praise them. If there are any remarks or stories from the musicians on the stage, I try to recall them faithfully.

This was true of the last review I wrote of LA LOM, in the Jazz Café in London back in August. But in the days after returning from Leeds for this latest gig, I find myself struggling to do so again. It is not that the night has been lacking in special songs, or standout moments, or vibrant atmosphere. Even the venue, which looked unpromising – a repurposed 1950s social club in a frighteningly run-down part of town – was faultless, its drab, throwback exterior revealing a surprisingly revitalised interior of musical energy and communal strength.

No – instead, the reason why the attempt to write a narrative of the night runs like sand through my fingers is because LA LOM themselves are better described elementally, as one might a lightning strike or breach of sunlight through a dark canopy. Their power cannot be communicated narratively, by describing the cheers as they arrive on stage, the songs they burst into, or the roars for an encore as they leave – roars that are answered with a thunderous, pulsing coda of ‘El Sonido de Los Mirlos’, somehow outdoing the ferocious ‘La Danza Del Petrolero’ and ‘El Cascabel’ which ended their main set. One could describe the dancing throb of the audience, the enthusiastic trills of some of the women in the crowd, or try to evoke the heavy feel of body heat as a mass of hundreds give themselves over to the music.

One could describe the band themselves. An instrumental band; a singular, intoxicating mix of Latin sounds – cumbia, chicha, bolero – with touches of Americana soul and rock and roll. I could describe, on my side of the stage, Zac Sokolow grinning in an open red shirt, his black-and-copper Kay electric guitar barking and singing with the dexterity of a lead singer, close enough for me to see its veneer beginning to wear. Behind him, Nick Baker seated behind a hybrid drum kit of his own configuration: classic drums matched with congas and a cowbell, played with drumsticks and with his bare hands, sometimes with one drumstick while his hand plays a beat on the conga, and sometimes with maracas as drumsticks for an impossibly cool blend of percussive sounds. And, at the far end of the stage, Jake Faulkner all in black, sometimes silhouetted in the stagelights. Alternating between electric and stand-up bass, he is also the band’s cheerleader, jumping and whipping the crowd into heightened motion and howling wild aullidos at cathartic moments of the songs.

And one could certainly collate moments, if only a narrative could be found to hold them. Some are moments common to any LA LOM gig, all part of the passionate show this trio are capable of performing. The familiar live riffs of ‘El Paso Del Gigante’ and ‘Dane Dane Benleri Var’. The similarly recognisable ones of ‘Santee Alley’ and ‘Danza de LA LOM’ pulled straight from their records. The swaying of Zac as he manipulates his guitar into singing, and standing broad-legged as he deploys the heavy Led Zeppelin-esque riff of ‘Alacrán’. The effortless shifts in tempo that allow Nick to run free on his drums. The theatricality of Jake spinning his stand-up bass during ‘Alacrán’, and holding that same massive bass over his head like a colossus at the end of the set.

Other moments are ones that would add flavour to a narrative of this particular night. ‘Angels Point’, the band’s signature song, being played surprisingly early, just three songs into the set; a series of unreleased originals also making the setlist and suggesting their best is yet to come. ‘Alvarado’, introduced by Zac as the first song they wrote together, being one of three songs they play tonight from their first self-titled EP. The moment when Zac opens a metal tin on his pedalboard and takes out a toothpick that he chews on in between riffs; the moment when Nick drops his maracas quickly at his feet as Zac’s guitar launches straight into another song, or when Jake is wrongfooted because of the same – but only for a moment, mind, for all three members of the band can play off one another with ease. And Zac’s other guitar, a distinctive red 1960s National Val-Pro, being placed on its stand by a roadie shortly before the band take the stage, and yet remaining there, completely untouched, throughout the night, as though the worn black-and-copper Kay that Zac carries out instead refuses to be put down.

I can mention all this, but not place it into a simple narrative. LA LOM provide ninety minutes on the stage tonight that is of a power you cannot parse, except in recognising their music as something elemental, that would be better understood by something like the free poetic allusions of Pablo Neruda’s Elemental Odes than by any humble review composed by a man stood in the audience to the right of the Brudenell stage. Elemental then, or perhaps quantum; something that is everywhere all at once, impossible to measure or to grasp except where light shines on it. And how to measure when that selfsame band are the ones bringing the light?

Such is a night witnessing the music of LA LOM.

Setlist:

(all songs from the album The Los Angeles League of Musicians and written by Zac Sokolow, Jake Faulkner and Nick Baker, unless noted)

1. Café Tropical (from LA LOM EP)
2. Lucia
3. Angels Point
4. Santa Ana Serenade (unreleased)
5. Los Sabanales (Calixto Ochoa) (unreleased)
6. El Paso Del Gigante (Albert Tlahuetl) (from Live at Thalia Hall)
7. Alvarado (from LA LOM EP)
8. Delta 88 (unreleased)
9. Cumbia Sampuesana (José Joaquín Bettin Martínez) (from Live at Thalia Hall)
10. Rosecrans (unreleased)
11. Santee Alley (from LA LOM EP)
12. Alacrán (single)
13. Wilshire Western (unreleased)
14. Dane Dane Benleri Var (Neşet Ertaş) (unreleased)
15. Danza de LA LOM
16. Lorena
17. La Subienda (Senén Palacios) (unreleased)
18. Magnolia (unreleased)
19. 6th St. (unreleased)
20. Astro Cumbia (unreleased)
21. Figueroa
22. La Danza Del Petrolero (Emerson Casanova Sanchez) (unreleased)
23. El Cascabel (Lorenzo Barcelata) (unreleased)
24. Encore: El Sonido de Los Mirlos (Gilberto Reátegui) (unreleased)

My other concert reviews can be found here.

My fiction writing can be found here.

Wednesday 20th August 2025

Jazz Café, London, England

Regardless of all the wonderful things that are happening in the world, it stands to reason that, if it were possible to weigh such things in the balance, there would be one thing happening in any given moment which is above all the others. Of all the things happening simultaneously across this sphere of ours, there would be one place and one experience that is the best thing currently happening. And while that experience may change – in one moment it could be a couple welcoming their first child, the witness of a meteor shower or other great natural event, the triumph over a great task or an act of consummated love, or even just a moment alone or in fine company – there would always be one such moment. And, hyperbole aside but still feeling the heady after-effects of this music, it is hard for me to imagine that there is any better place on Earth to be on the night of Wednesday 20th August 2025 than among the crowd of a few hundred in the Jazz Café in Camden, listening to LA LOM.

This trio of American musicians leave you speechless. Certainly, they are hard to summarise in a piece of writing. There’s no need for anyone to sing – the band are exclusively instrumental – so it’s perhaps little wonder that my own words seem insufficient. Guitarist Zac Sokolow, dressed in the laid-back style of one of the capable men from Hemingway’s Cuban stories, strides across the stage. A few feet from where I stand in the front row, stage right, he picks up the white lead which has lain like a coiled python on the stage and plugs it into his striking black and copper 1960 Kay Style Leader guitar. On the other side of the stage, bassist Jake Faulkner is dressed all in black, an electric Fender Vintera slung across his body. A large upright bass looms behind him. Between these two guitar players, drummer Nick Baker – as handsome as a model in his waistcoat and slicked-back hair – is seated behind a remarkable array of percussion (on which more later).

I start with the look, not the sound, because, like many, that was what first drew me to the band. As an aficionado of the resurgence in alternative country and roots music in recent years, which has formed the bulk of my live music experiences, I came across LA LOM by chance in the Instagram feed of Sierra Ferrell, one of alternative country’s leading lights and a generational talent herself. A fan of the band, Sierra had reposted one of those vivid Technicolor videos the band has released of their songs. My phone was on mute, but the evocative retro images were enough to hold my attention. And when I unmuted and heard those sounds for the first time, that attention turned to afición.

The LA LOM sound is hard to describe, but instantly recognisable as Zac plugs in his guitar and the band begins ‘Figueroa’. Theirs is Latin instrumental music, but that doesn’t begin to cover the vast array of influences which the trio have managed to distil into their own sound. My own reference points were the rock instrumental music I knew – Duane Eddy, Santo and Johnny, perhaps Booker T and the MGs – but those more knowledgeable than I could rattle off more accurate descriptors: cumbia, Afro-Cuban, arabe, Mexican bolero, Peruvian chicha, all backed with classic Americana and the slight hints of country and rockabilly that provide the one link to the alt-country music of Sierra Ferrell that led me here.

It is an incredibly cultured and nuanced musical brew – and also an intoxicating one. Zac’s distinctive guitar tone – particularly from his red 1960s National Val-Pro guitar, which replaces the black-and-copper Kay after the first song in tonight’s set – speaks and sings as clearly as any frontman.

Nick’s drum setup is a masterpiece of innovation and improvisation, combining the traditional Ludwig drum kit – hi-hat, bass drum, etc. – with congas and a cowbell. Nick uses conventional drumsticks, his bare hands, and even maracas as drumsticks, the sum effect allowing one man to perform the beat of cumbia, which usually involves multiple percussionists. It also looks impossibly cool.

Meanwhile, Jake slaps and twirls his upright bass with flair and howls primal Latin aullidos at the most cathartic moments of the songs. He stalks about the stage with the Vintera slung around his neck and provides the band’s swagger as he gestures and cheerleads the crowd. This band has élan. It has cojones. It has the right stuff. They follow up ‘Figueroa’ with the self-titled ‘Danza de LA LOM’, fully announcing themselves to a crowd that is already whipped up by the sound. The bartenders at this jazz bar couldn’t make a more potent mix tonight even if they served their cocktails in quart jugs.

The band begin to roam, showing their dexterity by adapting the Turkish song ‘Dane Dane Benleri Var’ into signature riffs and then moving back into the more familiar territory of the Calixto Ochoa song ‘Los Sabanales’. Zac’s guitar sings, while Jake’s rhythmic swaying and Nick’s short drum solo draw cheers. The crowd is already in a party mood.

LA LOM roam through some more fine cumbia songs that I can’t place, but whatever they are, they’re good eatin’. I swear I hear ‘Moonlight Over Montebello’ at some point in there, but when it comes there’s no mistaking the distinctive twinkling riff of ‘Santee Alley’, which draws cheers from the crowd.

The band have been stacking powder kegs so far tonight, but now they light the match. ‘Alacrán’ is where the night becomes impossibly fierce, so dirty and so bright; in its wake the dancing becomes uncontained. The Arab-tinged guitar riffs of ‘Alacrán’ are, in the live setting of the Jazz Café, made heavier by Zac, reminiscent of Jimmy Page’s Led Zeppelin riffs. Nick matches him with some booming Bonham-style drums. Jake, not to be outdone, unslings his Fender bass midway through the song and, to spontaneous whoops and roars from the crowd, takes and then theatrically spins his upright bass. LA LOM certainly know how to put on a show.

A drum roll triggers the frenetic ‘Arriba Pichátaro’, one of the most glittering moments of music in a night full of them. Jake and Nick pause to track the bars of Zac’s ascending guitar notes, nodding with approval, before each taking a flourish of their own. As Nick performs a drum solo, Jake takes a black cloth from his pocket and waves it like a matador before Nick’s drum set. The drummer takes the bait and turns the intensity up a notch. Jake takes the rag and twirls it around his head, jumping maniacally and whipping the crowd into a frenzy, before throwing it over his shoulder and performing a slapping bass solo of his own.

From this moment on, the night is a Pandora’s box of exploded musicality: an expansive cover of Los Mirlos’ ‘Sonido Amazónico’ that morphs into Fito Olivares’ ‘Cumbia de la Cobra’, followed by the spectral riffs of ‘Ghosts of Gardena’; a grooving cover of ‘Tonta’ by Grupo Mojado; a brand new song, ‘Belvedere’, with a throwback Seventies soul-funk vibe. The band can slow it down with ‘Lorena’ and another brand new “love song”, the slow, hazy romance of ‘Sixth Street’. They can speed it up with the conga-driven ‘Me Robaron Mi Runa Mula’, or roam between the two extremes with a free-range cumbia medley, which also contains the only vocals of the night – Zac singing a verse in Spanish in ‘Cumbia Sampuesana’. And throughout it all there is the signature LA LOM sound; the propelling drums and grooving bass that give a platform for Zac’s riffs on ‘Cumbia Arabe’ and the complete soundscape of ‘Angels Point’, perhaps their quintessential song. One stunning young woman in the front row holds up a sign with a marriage proposal. This might be the coolest band in the world right now.

After ‘Angels Point’, the band invite Rihab Azar back to the stage. She had been tonight’s support act, delivering a rich, textured half-hour set of Middle Eastern folk music on the oud. Now she brings the lute-like instrument to complement LA LOM on ‘Al Wafa’. Sitting on a stool before the band, her oud dovetails well with Zac’s guitar and, taking a solo on the instrument, she smiles up at an admiring Zac. Her oud solo draws a roar from the crowd as loud as any tonight.

After Rihab leaves the stage to applause, blowing kisses to the band, LA LOM break into the final song of their set, a cover of ‘El Sonido de Los Mirlos’ by the titular Los Mirlos – “one of our favourite groups,” Zac says from the mike. Nick’s rapid conga solo is quickly followed by a dirty, crunching Latin guitar solo by a grinning Zac, which draws another howling aullido from Jake. There’s a massive smile on Nick’s face as another high-tempo drum solo reaches its peak and Zac’s guitar picks up the release. Amongst all the showmanship and colour and fun of the band, there is a powerful synergy of goodwill and musicianship.

After the band leave the stage, there is naturally a huge roar for an encore, a collective passionate wail around the jazz bar that almost drags the band back up on stage by itself. When they do return, Zac has taken off his shirt and is down to his vest in the August heat of the bar, while Jake twirls his black rag again to ensure the crowd remain at fever pitch. ‘El Cascabel’, their encore song, is one final blitz of that addictive LA LOM sound, after which, in one final display of flamboyance, Jake takes his upright bass and holds it high above his head. Are you not entertained? the gesture seems to ask the thronging, roaring crowd.

How bright the sound has been tonight. So much of what is great in music, and in live music particularly, has been manifest in the performance of LA LOM. There has truly been no better place to be in the world for the last couple of hours than in the front row of the Jazz Café in Camden Town, as Zac Sokolow’s singing red guitar emits its perfect tone as naturally as breathing, Jake Faulkner spins his upright bass, and Nick Baker plays a conga with one hand and beats a drum with a maraca in the other.

In look and sound and energy, LA LOM represent something that we understandably thought lost to the world; that undiluted colour and vibrancy and guiltless, irrepressible fun that characterised the music of better times. It’s not something retro or reclaimed, but something reborn, made by a band that refuse to let a soul leave unmoved. It is irresistible, and it was in London tonight. If it is in your city it is essential that you go. It is not up for debate. I can say no more.

Setlist:

(all songs from the album The Los Angeles League of Musicians and written by Zac Sokolow, Jake Faulkner and Nick Baker, unless noted)

1. Figueroa
2. Danza de LA LOM
3. Dane Dane Benleri Var (Neşet Ertaş) (unreleased)
4. Los Sabanales (Calixto Ochoa) (unreleased)
5. Eleno Kerko (Traditional) (unreleased)
6. Astro Cumbia (unreleased)
7. Moonlight Over Montebello
8. Santee Alley (from LA LOM EP)
9. Alacrán (single)
10. Arriba Pichátaro (Daniel Plancarte Alejandre) (unreleased)
11. Sonido Amazónico (Alberto Sánchez) (unreleased)
12. Cumbia de la Cobra (Fito Olivares) (unreleased)
13. Ghosts of Gardena
14. Tonta (Felipe Barrientos/Luis Elizondo) (unreleased)
15. Belvedere (unreleased)
16. Lorena
17. Cumbia Arabe (Francisco Nicolás Bobadilla) (unreleased)
18. La Danza Del Petrolero (Emerson Casanova Sanchez) (unreleased)
19. Cumbia Medley (from Live at Thalia Hall)
    • El Paso Del Gigante (Albert Tlahuetl)
    • La Danza de Los Mirlos (Gilberto Reátegui)
    • Cumbia Sampuesana (José Joaquín Bettin Martínez)
20. Me Robaron Mi Runa Mula (Noé Fachin) (unreleased)
21. 6th St. (unreleased)
22. Angels Point
23. Al Wafa (with Rihab Azar) (unreleased)
24. El Sonido de Los Mirlos (Gilberto Reátegui) (unreleased)
25. Encore: El Cascabel (Lorenzo Barcelata) (unreleased)

My other concert reviews can be found here.