Space 15 Twenty has been killing it lately! The L.A. event/retail space that hosted our super fun Where the Wild Things Are photo exhibit and pop-up shop in September has since brought David Kramer’s mind-blowing video art show, Main Street, to glorious fruition, presented a free Girls concert last weekend, and are about to open a fantastical exhibition of DIY fashion designer Susan Cianciolo’s work, called Mountains and Flowers. On top of that, the opening of Mountains and Flowers this Saturday will also feature the debut solo performance of the ethereal Aska.

You loved her as the leader of Moonrats, David Scott Stone’s counterpart in AsDSSka, and an Aaron Rose co-conspirator in The Sads– and now you get to experience the pure, unfettered Aska. With a voice like a sunbeam melting a glacier, you’ll feel like an owl being cooed to sleep by its mother. Check out a cozy acoustic performance by Aska below, and don’t miss her first live show tomorrow at 4pm!

Spike has been hard at work on a top secret robot-related short film. When Dallas and I visited the set, the first person we bumped into was Family owner David Kramer (more on Kramer in Lance Bang’s doc Family Portrait), furiously memorizing a verse of lyrics inscribed on his palm in a parking lot beneath the freeway. Kramer, a non-musician who had joined the project only one day earlier, was preparing to play the lead singer in a fake band called The Lost Trees, alongside the members of Moonrats.

Miranda July showed up and the four of us made our way through the vast maze of a fantastically decaying abandoned building to the room where Spike was setting up The Lost Trees’ big show. Waiting for the shoot to begin in earnest, Dallas and I decided to explore the building’s musty labyrinthine corridors. Scattered remnants left over from other Hollywood productions blurred unsettlingly with authentic artifacts from the location’s functional former life as a ballroom hall/radio station.

After conquering the rooftop with its epic vistas and then descending to the depths of the building’s eerily Saw-esque basement, we returned to the set and found “The Rec Center” now occupied by a couple of radical robots adrift in a roaring sea of extras feigning their fandom for The Lost Trees. Check out the photos above to see David Kramer embracing his inner rock star, Spike and Miranda talking shop, weird finds from our backstage explorations, and Lance Bangs shooting documentary footage in his trademark visor.

Keep an eye out for the short’s premiere in November and the unveiling of Spike’s new robotic stars!

We’ve talked before about our friend Aska Matsumiya and her many projects but haven’t given much shine to her first love – one of LA’s best kept musical secrets: Moonrats. The former Seattle-based trio of young parents, tour mates, and creators of magic have been working on a new full length album set to drop later this year and at the end of June are packing up a school bus mounting a family style West Coast tour with fellow Angelino upstarts Warpaint.

If you’re in the area and want to see the Moonrats before they hit the road you should try to check them out tonight as they join forces with the fixed gear cyclists of all shapes and sizes who will be converging upon LA’s Montalban Theater for Spin Move Sessions Volume 4.

Aska Matsumiya of The Sads and Moonrats + David Scott Stone = AsDSSka (much like celebreviations “TomKat” or “Brangelina,” but with a deluge of unyielding consonants blocking futile attempts at pronunciation). Quoth the AsDSSka MySpace: “Matsumiya is a classical trained pianist and the single, ‘25′, features a slow debussy-like piano refrain accompanied by her delicate voice and Stone’s ethereal modular synthesizer drones.” Delicate and ethereal is right– other acceptable descriptors would include “otheworldly” and “exquisite.” The gorgeous video for “25,” seen above, was directed by Spike and fellow VBS.tv contributor Crystal Moselle.

If you’re in the Los Angeles area, come check out AsDSSka at Family Bookstore on May 24th, backed by Becky Stark’s 14-dame strong ensemble, The Ladies Choir. Here’s a clip of The Ladies Choir covering Yoko Ono’s “Sisters O Sisters”: