Listen to Best Coast's new EP 'Fade Away'

By Mikael Wood

Oct. 15, 2013 6:40 AM PT

Mazzy Star, Patsy Cline, My Bloody Valentine -- and Ambien.

Those, evidently, were Bethany Cosentino’s inspirations for “Fade Away,” a new seven-track EP by her L.A.-based fuzz-pop combo Best Coast. It’s due out next week on Cosentino’s Jewel City label (which the singer-guitarist named after her Glendale stomping grounds), but Monday the band made the disc available to stream online.

In a statement posted on the group’s website, Cosentino said the EP reflects a healthier state of mind than the one she was in while recording Best Coast’s critically acclaimed 2012 album, “The Only Place.”

“I was stressed and emotionally worn out, and so tired from touring,” said Cosentino. “I felt like I was losing my mind. That record is very bipolar and has a lot of weirdness in it. When we were making this EP, I was feeling a lot more normal, feeling a lot more like myself.”

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She went on to say that “Fade Away” strikes her as a midpoint between “The Only Place” and the group’s 2010 debut, “Crazy for You” -- “not super lo-fi and DIY-sounding” yet “not too produced either.”

Perhaps that’s why “Fade Away” reminds Pop & Hiss quite a bit of Liz Phair’s 1994 album “Whip-Smart,” when that Chicago indie-rock star was shedding her home-recording roots but hadn’t yet set her sights on the mall-pop glory to come.

Next week Best Coast, which also includes multi-instrumentalist Bobb Bruno, is to play two hometown gigs before heading to Asia for a handful of shows there.

On Monday it will headline a benefit at the Fonda Theatre for the Los Angeles Animal Rescue Group, and the next evening it’s set for an in-store performance at Amoeba Music in Hollywood.

Listen to “Fade Away” below.