4.14.2014

Musician Monday: West Indian Girl

Welcome back to Musician Monday, where I bring out my inner hipster to highlight awesome music for you, my lovely readers, to have a listen. This week I want to talk a band that was quite underground when I found them back a few years ago, but now they have seen a recent jump in popularity despite not having all of their music on youtube. Named after a specific strain of LSD that was popular in the 60s and 70s, they return you, the listener, to the psychedelic feelings of that age with their airy instrumentals and upbeat vibes that characterized that age that defined my parents' generation. They have a very unique sound for our current age of hip hop and alternative/indie dominating the mainstream music segment. You guessed it; I'm talking about West Indian Girl.


West Indian Girl is a group from Los Angeles focused on the extra trippy side of trip-hop that began their journey in the early 2000s with their first album, which is self-titled. On there they featured the awesome vocals of Mariqueen Maandig, current singer of How to Destroy Angels, an equally underground band with a similar music style. She added amazing vocal riffs to Robert James's soft and dreamy lyrics, and I still think that album is their best stuff yet. After West Indian Girl they produced one more album with their old company, Astralwerks, called 4th & Wall. Both of these two first albums focus heavily on the psychedelic sound that defines the band so well. Their latest album, Shangri La, has a lot more jazzy and Indian feel to it while keeping the trip-hop undertones. This creates an even more unique style that I hope West Indian Girl will continue to utilize in their coming work. West Indian Girl is the perfect chill band; anytime I'd want to sit back and relax while watching the clouds float by, I would listen to them. Lets take a look at my favorite picks of West Indian Girl:

What Are You Afraid Of? (5:09)


The first song I heard by West Indian Girl is also my favorite song by the band. It's so upbeat and has a great message, why be afraid? The guitar is beautiful and the lyrics are light and fluffy, accenting their positive feelings and message. This is one song not to miss; it has brightened even some of my worst days so far and it has fantastic remixes too.

All My Friends (3:14)


From 4th & Wall, All My Friends is the perfect showcase of West Indian Girl's psychedelic roots through both instrumentals and lyrics. It has less energy than the other West Indian Girl songs, so it conveys the other side of getting high of the chill, social aspect of hanging with friends.

Hollywood (5:00)


From their first album, Hollywood continues the dreamy landscape-painting by describing Hollywood. Mixing impressive synth with airy vocals, West Indian Girl creates the classic idealized description of Hollywood that all wannabe stars imagine. Most pictures paint a thousand words. The words and lyrics in Hollywood paint one of the most vivid pictures imaginable.

Unfortunately, I could not locate a few of the songs I wanted to show (Under the Light and the rest of Shangri La to be specific) in an easy-to-view venue, so if you have Spotify the rest of West Indian Girl's discography is located there. What do you think of West Indian Girl? Let me know in the comments as well as any suggestions on what you want to be shown next.

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