Rademaker’s joy division

On the surface of it, the dark, ‘80s-sounding band led by L.A.’s Brent Rademaker seems like a new direction for the canyon-rocker best known for his dusty, mellow work with Beachwood Sparks and the Tyde. But the thinking behind Frausdots, formed with girlfriend Michelle Loiselle and with pinch-hitting by Mia Doi Todd and members of the Cure and Brian Jonestown Massacre, goes back a long way.

“I’m 40 years old,” Rademaker says. “I grew up with post-punk. When I started my first band, with my brother, it was seven Joy Division covers and two songs that sounded like Joy Division.”

As a teenager he also had a fondness for the “new psychedelia” coming out of Liverpool, like the Teardrop Explodes and Echo and the Bunnymen. That love of brooding vocals and reverbed guitars is pretty loud and clear on “Couture, Couture, Couture,” which comes out Tuesday on SubPop and was recorded with decades-old British analog equipment.

“Michelle and I are super aware of the ‘80s revival going on,” says Rademaker, whose band has a record-release party Wednesday at the Little Temple in Silver Lake and is scheduled for the Monday-night residency at Spaceland in November. “I’ve been playing in this group forever, in my head. Frausdots is the name I’ve had since I was a kid. Then I saw bands like Interpol doing what I wanted to do.”

Frausdots, Little Temple, 4519 Santa Monica Blvd., L.A. 8 p.m. Wednesday. $6. (323) 660-4540.