A consensus seems to be growing that Los Angeles is in the midst of a renaissance for independent music. In a recent Sunday feature, we set out to discover just how it is that while the major labels continue to suffer layoffs and severe sales losses, this city’s scrappy, savvy, taste-driven indie imprints have, in fact, been thriving. As a corollary to that, we’ve spoken to and profiled 12 of L.A.’s most active young labels, from artist-owned black metal powerhouse Southern Lord to chart-climbing indie rock outlet Danger Bird to progressive hip-hop imprint Anticon. Here’s hoping they’ll all end up in a GZA song some day.

Sargent House (Echo Park)
Longtime talent manager Cathy Pellow started Sargent House in 2006 with one artist: Seal Beach prog-punk band Rx Bandits, who were ready to call it quits after selling around 150,000 records through MCA/Geffen and, according to Pellow, "never seeing a penny." Today, her stable comprises "a middle class of awesome musicians," also proggily inclined, able to live off their earnings. She also manages a sister label co-run by the Mars Volta’s Omar Rodriguez Lopez.

Though the band's MySpace page claims a home base in Echo Park, the music of Rainbow Arabia exists outside the constraints of regionalism. The Internet Age is a strange, tropical-feathered beast. Climate and close quarters can still breed a specific sound (see the Low End Theory beatmakers, the early years of dubstep in London, the lo-fi sound incubated at the Smell), but the next generation of musicians is as equally likely to pull inspirations from a previously unobtainable collection of funk 45s culled from attics across the globe, or obscure Zambian psychedelia, or (far too often) Animal Collective.

Ergo the polyglot funk of Rainbow Arabia, which takes a smorgasbord approach to music -- this potentially explains the excellence of its "Dark and Dumb" remix of "Sequenced" by Swedish minimal tech master the Field. Obsessed with the impeccable Sublime Frequencies label, Rainbow Arabia is apt to incorporate Lebanese synthesizers, Iranian pop, Arabic surf guitar, with maybe a few African hand drums thrown into the mix. The end result is one of the most fun and interesting bands in town and a perfect match alongside tropical punk purveyors Abe Vigoda.

Rainbow Arabia take the stage at the Echo tonight at 11, for the penultimate performance of its June residency -- followed by the punk rockers who took their name from the actor who played Sal Tessio in "The Godfather." Free admission, but bringing your own oud is recommended.

-- Jeff Weiss

Download:

MP3: Rainbow Arabia -- "Rainbow Arabia Remixes" (Left-Click)