10 Hidden Gem Albums La Luz Thinks Everyone Should Own

Welcome back to Crate Digging, a recurring column that finds artists exploring music history in search of albums everyone should hear. In this edition, La Luz songwriter and frontwoman Shana Cleveland unearths 10 great albums she considers hidden gems ahead of her appearance at Somewhere Music Festival and Conference, which goes down June 12th and 14th in Wichita, Kansas.

There’s nothing like stumbling across a hidden gem, is there? The feeling of discovering a song, artist, or album that you — and seemingly everyone else — know nothing about, only for it to blow you away. It’s almost as if it were made just for you, and now you get to spread the word about its magic.

Anyone at least halfway invested in music as an art form has assuredly had such an experience. Shana Cleveland, frontwoman of indie rock act La Luz, certainly has. As an avid fan of subcultures like Japanese surf rock, old-school soul, and 20th century Cambodian pop, she’s got a wealth of great records she’s just waiting to recommend. So, we had her do exactly that.

Ahead of her appearance at the Somewhere Music Festival and Conference in Wichita, Kansas, we sat down with Cleveland to learn about 10 great hidden gem albums she thinks more music fans should be obsessing over.

“The Beatles is my favorite band, so I definitely could have gone just to the records that everyone knows,” she says of her decision to focus on lesser-heard albums. “But, I thought this would be more interesting.” It certainly was.

Check out all of the hidden gems La Luz’s Shana Cleveland recommends below. Then, snag tickets to Somewhere Music Festival and Conference 2025 for a chance to catch La Luz live in concert, as well as continue the artists-helping-artists theme with their weekend-long conference.

Yanti Bersaudara — Yanti Bersaudara

I chose two albums by this band Yanti Bersaudara, an Indonesian band from the ’70s. I think they maybe did some albums in the late ’60s as well. But this is one of my favorite bands, and I come back to their albums all the time for inspiration. There are just really amazing, haunting sister vocal harmonies. They’ve always got a really great backing band and the arrangements are just really cool.

The two albums that I like, there’s a record called [Yanti Bersaudara] and another one called Sinbad…

Stream Yanti Bersaudara on Apple Music or Amazon Music | Buy on Vinyl