BUZZ BANDS

Trippy punksters

File under: Silver Lake stories.

When Viva K climbs onstage Sunday for its matinee set on the second day of the Sunset Junction Street Fair, the quartet will be mere blocks away from “the Ranch,” the residence in which the group’s debut album was recorded. Not that the album (due Sept. 6 on Stinky Records) sounds very L.A. -- like a lot of things Silver Lake, Viva K is a distillation of very disparate parts.

The project of four friends -- whose families come from India, Greece, Lebanon and Ukraine, respectively -- Viva K began in the days after George Harrison’s death as “free-form Indian jams” at the band’s hilltop Craftsman, singer Ween Callas says.

“We had a sitar and tabla and we were being totally fearless,” guitarist Ravi Dhar says. “As it turned out, I was left without an instrument, and there were these guitars lying around.... “

Voila, Silver Lake had its first sitar-infused, spaced-out, female-fronted electro-punk band. “I always played trippy music before, so Ravi’s punk influence was refreshing to me,” says Callas, whose vocals range from desperate caterwauling to soaring and suppliant on the radio-ready antiwar anthem “Does It Matter?”

The self-produced album (with Skoda on bass and guitar and Evan Haros on sitar) boasts a dizzying array of textures -- tenuously held together by the mixing job of Eli Janney (Girls Against Boys). Viva K’s release party is Sept. 5 at the Standard Hotel downtown (where Haros is a regular DJ).

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In the beginning

Add Sunset Junction: As always, there is plenty of rising local talent taking the stage -- the Willowz, Run Run Run, Let’s Go Sailing and Foreign Born, to name a few. Then there is thirtysomething tunesmith Jason Falkner, whose star has risen and receded -- maybe a few times -- since early in his career with Jellyfish and the Grays.

On Saturday evening, Falkner will be playing for the fourth time with new bandmates Jeff Lee, Dean Truitt and Petur Smith, previewing material from a new album “that I think has been in the works since the time of Genesis,” he says with a laugh.

“It’s been a long process,” Falkner says of his first full album of original music since 1999’s “Can You Still Feel?” “But I’m really excited about it.”

The album, actually three years in the making at his Mt. Washington home studio, is likely to be released next year on a British indie label.

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Fast forward

On its second album, “Over and Over,” the 88 somehow makes retro sound vibrant, without a smidgen of camp. The L.A. quintet will give fans a preview of the Sept. 20 release with a show tonight at the Viper Room.... Teenage quartet Orange celebrates the release of “Welcome to the World of Orange” (on Tim Armstrong’s Hellcat label) with a show Friday at the Key Club.... Early this year, the Heavenly States played Libya (good reading: www.theheavenlystates.com). In July, the Oakland trio released a gem of an album, “Black Comet.” On Tuesday, they play the Knitting Factory. Consider that a tout.... One-man spectacle P.J. Olsson has a new album, “Beautifully Insane,” and a show Wednesday at the Silverlake Lounge.