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Best Coast to get the Jon Brion treatment

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Avant pop orchestrator Jon Brion, a longtime regular of Largo, will be producing the sophomore effort from Best Coast. The band unveiled the news today via various social networking sites. No doubt, Brion’s biggest claim to fame is working as a behind-the-scenes man on Kanye West’s ‘Late Registration,’ but locals lucky enough to catch Brion at Largo can get a small glimpse into a pop music mind that constantly seems restless.

Big name guests abound at Brion’s gigs -- a Fiona Apple appearance wouldn’t be unexpected -- but it’s a treat to see Brion essentially act as an one-man band as he subtracts and adds loops and layers to lush and lovely power pop. Brion seems like a fine choice to help transition Best Coast out of the low-fi world without draping the band in studio slickery.

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Lest anyone be concerned that Brion will have Best Coast going all orchestral and stringy, know that his connection to the band runs deep. Best Coast’s secret weapon, Bobb Bruno, has spent plenty of time on the Largo scene and was running in the same circles as Brion, albeit in his bunny guise, long before he joined Best Coast. Those who once caught Brion improvising with now-Wilco guitarist Nels Cline and a man in a bunny suit may even start to wonder whether there’s a harder, rougher, weirder Best Coast yet to be unveiled.

The world will find out in early 2012, when the album is due.

ALSO:

Best Coast plays in the sand of a new California sound

The emotional toughness of the Dum Dum Girls’ ‘Only in Dreams’

The queens of L.A.’s lo-fi scene

-- Todd Martens

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