Song Spotlight: Primer's A New Paradigm (a night at Echo Park Rising, Sticky Rice stage)

I first crossed paths with Primer (moniker for Alyssa Midcalf) back in 2022. I was immediately captured by her synth driven music. In 2024, I covered her Round and Round EP release party for US Rocker Music. When the Sticky Rice schedule posted for Echo Park Rising, I was thrilled to find the band on the schedule. Since this is my final dedicated Echo Park Rising post that highlights a band playing the Sticky Rice stage, I should say: of course, the Sticky Rice stage was awesome throughout the festival considering that Make Out Music booked the stage. Sticky Rice knows how to select the perfect indie promoters who have their ears to the ground of the Los Angeles music scene. Last year, they had Rocknite book the weekend. 

Primer at Echo Park Rising

Primer's set was played under red lights, giving the set an intense emotional tension. Midcalf often sang with her left hang holding the microphone while playing synths with her right. Her vocals were passionate in her defiance of not wanting to surrender to fatalism. Her opening song "Impossible Thoughts" has her believing that the world is ending, but that won't define her life: I don't wanna live that way she sings with cautious hope. 

She switched between dancing to the beat of her music and facing the crowd while singing. When singing, she'd lean forward with piercing focus that would send the crowd into heightened dance mode and heart signs. 

Primer at Echo Park Rising

Though her music has the synth electronic beat, that doesn't mean she won't go dreamy underground art scene via a song like "Things Fall Apart." A song title that always has me flashing back to Chinua Achebe's book of the same title. The hypnotic "Round and Round" had the crowd dancing in a similar manner. What would a synth driven artist be without a song seemingly inspired by the 1980s and "Feel the Way I Do" has those Eurythmics / Depeche Mode vibes. 

The Song Spotlight goes to the most recent release "A New Paradigm." A song with an immediate ear worm beginning. Is there a proclaimed savior out there or should you remain wary?

Primer at Echo Park Rising

I am the fire that is burning where your heart should be
I am not what you want

Setlist: Intro, Impossible Thoughts, A New Paradigm, Hypercube, Things Fall Apart, Round and Round, Feel the Way I Do, Warning.