Each day this week, we’re spotlighting the homegrown budding talent sourced via KCRW’s Young Creators Project, a community arts mentorship platform celebrating the creative work of SoCal residents under 21.
LA quartet The Treedome represent their communities and micro-generational differences with a palpable sense of pride. From Ecuador to Mid City to Fairfax High to the Americana At Brand, the band’s members take care to infuse their day-to-day surroundings and Latinx heritage into their jazz-tinged indiepop compositions.
“I'm very proud of where I come from — where my parents come from,” says lead singer Gabriela Hernandez, 20. “Because they weren't born here. And I always like to represent that in everything I do, in any type of art. And right now my main art is music. I want to always be pushing that Hispanic and Latinx community representation forward.”
“Beauty of It” tells the universally relatable tale of first love, soundtracked in a way that could easily place it as a lost Cherry Red Records 7” single from 1989, or something from the woefully short lived Oxnard, California-based YAY! Records in the late ‘00s. The fact that they exist in the here and now, poised for breakout success, is an absolute thrill.
Learn more by clicking into the band’s interview with Novena Carmel and Anthony Valadez (player button on your left, or above if on a mobile device). In it, band members Hernandez, Cristopher Perez, 21 (bass, trumpet), and cousins Melvin Zulca, 20 (guitar) and Brian Sulca, 16 (drums) break down how they met, fitting in rehearsals between high school and day jobs, and their wildly supportive families.
