Positive pop from skid rowThe area of...

Positive pop from skid row

The area of downtown Los Angeles around 4th and Wall streets is not exactly postcard material, especially after 9 p.m. “It’s not that happy a place,” bassist Francis Ten says. “At night, it’s just rows of homeless people. When you first go down there it’s a bit intimidating.”

There, working in the wee hours in a loft studio, Ten and his bandmates in West Indian Girl made their sophomore album, “4th & Wall” (due Oct. 23). But the album owes as much to 4th and Wall as it does to what happened on the road, where a studio project started by Ten and singer-guitarist Robert James grew from a duo to a sextet -- “and became a real band,” Ten says.

West Indian Girl’s debut came out in 2004 on Astralwerks, but Ten and James struggled to re-create it live. Now, with singer Mariqueen Maandig, keyboardists Nathan Van Hala and Amy White and drummer Mark Lewis on board, it’s as if the sextet’s artfully layered dream-pop underwent assertiveness training.

“It was a completely different writing process, having the different personalities and emotions come into play,” Ten says. “A lot of these songs were fleshed out on the road, so instead of a song just being written and recorded in the studio, it’s allowed full gestation.”

From the jammy, intrepid glimmer of “4th & Wall,” you’d never suspect it was shaped amid the grit and desperation of late-night downtown. “We’ve always been laced with a certain degree of positivity,” Ten says. “The nice thing is that we’re doing our own thing; we’re not looking over our shoulder thinking, ‘Oh, there’s another band that sounds like us.’ ”

West Indian Girl performs Wednesday at Spaceland, with additional dates planned near the release of the album.

Songs from rides on public transit

When Ferraby Lionheart evolved from Strokesian indie rocker to anguished romanticist, he was embraced by local music fans as if Silver Lake needed another folkie. Maybe Lionheart’s music, as informed by surfing the Internet as by solitary bicycle rides through the city, struck the right chord. Maybe it was because the songwriter looks like the kind of guy who needs a hug.

One thing for sure: Lionheart put his four-piece Telecast in his rearview mirror, releasing a well-received EP of vintage orchestral pop in 2006, signing to Nettwerk and recording his first album, “Catch the Brass Ring,” which was released last week.

“I feel like musically I had just moved past” Telecast, says Lionheart. “Any artist goes through an evolution; this was part of my development.”

The L.A.-born, Nashville-reared singer conceived much of the material -- described by one magazine as “cotton candy cut with Vicodin” -- in and around his tiny (and noisy) Koreatown apartment. “It’s a little bit of a hideout,” says Lionheart (born Lizarraga). “It’s only natural that whatever you’re doing musically is influenced by your surroundings. I get a lot of pleasure on my bike rides, I use public transportation. During [the making of] the record, I slipped in and out of creative focus. I was riding the train a lot, writing on the subway.”

Lionheart, backed by Joseph Bogan on bass, J Stare on drums and Frankie Palmer on pedal steel, plays the Troubadour tonight with New Zealand pop darlings the Brunettes.

Fast forward

* Touts: Singer-songwriter Joe Henry plays Largo on Friday behind his new album, “Civilians.” . . . L.A. rockers Nightfur celebrate the release of their first album with a show Tuesday at Bordello. . . . Jason Falkner’s new material gets a rare workout tonight at the Roxy. . . . And young experimentalists Health will mark the release of their debut album with a show Sunday in the very room where the album was recorded: the Smell in downtown L.A.

-- Kevin Bronson

www.latimes.com/buzzbands