Jesca Hoop talks a little louder

Maybe it’s her small-town upbringing in Sonoma County, or maybe it’s her singing voice -- which sounds like a cherub caught in a light breeze -- but people want to know whether moving to Los Angeles somehow threatened Jesca Hoop.

“They want to know if moving through the concrete jungle has affected my writing,” the singer-songwriter says. “But if anything, it makes you talk louder, finish your sentences, speak eloquently.”

It is the artistically amplified Hoop you find on “Kismet,” the debut album she made with producers Damian Anthony and Tony Berg. Grounded in folk music but lovingly rumpled with off-kilter syncopation and jazzy instrumentation, the collection reflects Hoop’s upbringing in a Mormon family that harmonized together.

“I love traditional music, because you know what the intent is with traditional music,” she says. “With pop music, sometimes the heart of it gets crushed along the way.”

She credits Anthony and Berg -- along with collaborators that included drummer Stewart Copeland -- for preserving “Kismet’s” organic feel, especially on “Seed of Wonder.” “That song would give us a little tantrum or a sulk every time we tried to add something to it,” she says.

“Seed” was the song that sprouted Hoop, who spent five years as the nanny for the children of Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan. Waits’ publisher Lionel Conway gave the track to KCRW-FM’s Nic Harcourt, who championed it on his show. “Kismet” indeed.

Hoop performs Wednesday with Matt Pond PA at the Troubadour.

Moving with Bloodcat Love

Buoyant as he feels these days, Myles Hendrik was no overnight sensation. The Bloodcat Love frontman moved to L.A. from New Zealand five years ago -- “to pursue the dream,” he says, making you feel silly for asking why -- only to take that long to find the right chemistry for his quintet.

“Moving to a different country, you start completely over,” he says. Forming a band “is like having four girlfriends. You don’t marry the first four girls you sleep with in L.A. You have divorces, you have horrible breakups. Things happen.”

Most recently, guitarist Dion Lunadan, formerly of the Kiwi rock band the D4, moved away. But Australian Mitch McIvor (cousin of the Cester brothers of Jet) came aboard, as did drummer Marty Cornish, firming up a lineup that includes guitarist Joshua Mancuso and bassist Nicholas Oja.

Just in time. The band’s “Only Dreamers Left Alive” EP is almost ready, and the quintet has a date Friday at the Viper Room before two showcases in New York City as part of the CMJ Music Marathon.

Bloodcat Love’s muscular, beer-soaked primitivism stops mercifully short of the cliched theatrics that sabotage a lot of L.A. garage rockers, and its danceability speaks to Hendrik’s years spent as a DJ and promoter. “Subconsciously, you get a feel for what makes people move, and an understanding of what people emote to,” he says. “We do make music you can kick your heels to.”

Fast forward

* Touts: Behind its new album “Asleep at Heaven’s Gate,” Rogue Wave plays the El Rey Theatre tonight. . . . The Airborne Toxic Event and Low Vs Diamond hit the Echoplex on Friday. . . . And the Culver City Dub Collective and Sara Lov are among the acts playing Sunday at One Colorado Courtyard in conjunction with Pasadena Art Weekend.

-- Kevin Bronson