GOON

Kenny Becker, a Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalist and visual artist, originated Goon as a vehicle for blending fuzzy lo-fi indie pop with melody-rich alternative rock and muscular post-grunge. The project draws from an eclectic range of touchstones that encompass Pavement, Boards of Canada, Pixies, Radiohead, and Nirvana, and it features Drew Eccleston, Andy Polito, and Caleb Wicker among its participants. Plagued by painful sinus polyps that impair his smell and at times his hearing, Becker converted that ordeal into the murky 2016 debut EP Dusk of Punk, issued on Partisan Records. The 2017 release Happy Omen EP built upon that foundation by introducing additional acoustic textures while sustaining the same propulsive drive. Two years afterward Goon delivered its first full-length album, Heaven Is Humming, thereby folding contemplative, grunge-tinged psychedelia into the ensemble’s sonic range.