Back in 2007 I was deeply joyful to witness a great pop/rock band from Phoenix (where I reside), they opened a concert for Kinky and I’ve followed them since. It was delightful hearing them cover Manu Chao’s “La Despedida” (watch on YouTube), some other familiar songs and an impressive set of original tracks that I found amazingly cheerful. They are a bilingual trio formed by the gifted lead vocalist Carla Morrison, the energetic drummer Nick Kizer and the multi-talented Nichole Petta. They carry a sense of lo-fi pop with slashes of punk and a blend of atmospheric psychedelic outlook rarely found in pop. A couple of weeks ago I was lucky to catch them at November’s First Friday event (a monthly art walk in Phoenix) where they performed with the equally impressive band Underwater Getdown. The show was a triumph, especially for the new audience that walked by, was magnetically attracted by the great sound and bought their improvised but well-put together Babaluca EP (available for purchase at their MySpace). Included is their melodiously charming “Que Bonito”, which is the second most played song at our Rocola #6 (which is running low on bandwidth already) just after Natalia Lafourcade’s “Running too fast.” They are currently unsigned, but it seems they won’t go unheard; they have been on the MySpace Latino front page for more than a week, so take a look people, they got the package.