These are the new and old sounds coming from my corner of Culver City. What have you been listening to?

Parquet Courts - Borrowed Time

This song by Parquet Courts is sturdily constructed with angular but melodic guitar lines and a chanted chorus that fishhooks into the reptile brain. At two and a half minutes it's an epic for the band. Most songs on their newest album, Light Up Gold, are perhaps half as long, earning Parquet Courts a place of distinction in the legacy of the Minutemen and Guided By Voices. When you have done what you came into the room to do, leave.

Secret Circuit - Afterlife

Secret Circuit proves that music doesn't have to be guitar-based and heavy to feel psychedelic. Eddie Ruscha Jr -- the Los Angeles-based mastermind behind Secret Circuit -- comes upon his psychedelia honestly, having played bass with the shoegazing Los Angeles band Medicine and guitar with the John Cale-produced Maids of Gravity. Now he's bent his palate of trippy effects to include twining synth patterns, dubbed-out arpeggiators, billowy vocals, and plenty of space.