Automatic - Signal (2019)

Like all the best bands, Automatic came together organically. Izzy Glaudini (synths, vocals), Lola Dompé (drums, vocals) and Halle Saxon (bass, vocals) met while immersed in LA's DIY band scene, and started jamming together in 2017. Gaining notoriety for their explosive live shows, they were invited to share the stage with bands like Surfbort, Wand and Flatworms.

Lola was born into a punk household (her father is Kevin Haskins of Bauhaus) and joined her first band, art-rock outfit Blackblack, when she was just 13. Halle and Izzy met playing in local bands in Northeast LA; Izzy was a guitarist and vocalist, and Halle liked to plug her fretless bass into a guitar amp. Uninspired by the masculine energy of the local scene and rock music on the radio - "pumped out like plastic bottles into the ocean" - Izzy ditched the guitar for a synth, and in 2017 she and Halle joined forces with Lola. They named themselves Automatic after a song by the Go-Go's - the only all-female rock band to have written and played instruments on an album to reach #1 in the US.

Izzy studied film at college and Halle used to work at cult video store Kim's Video in NYC, and the band also counts film as an important influence on their music. In particular, David Lynch and Dario Argento's fingerprints are all over Signal's ambiguous lyrics and eerie atmospheres.