Today, the Los Angeles singer-songwriter Tony DV shares his debut album I know trash people who keep the oceans clean, produced by Simon Gooding (Fazerdaze, Balu Brigada), with the indie-rock-blushed focus track “Personal Satellite.” Amid a sweetly strange amalgamation of the sounds of his childhood — slickly produced 70s Iranian pop and the crooning harmonies of the early aughts indie scene — Tony DV harnesses seam-splitting idiosyncrasies through analog sonics. Watch his recent FLOOD Neighborhoods session, set to the backdrop of the LA River; Listen to I know trash people who keep the oceans clean here.

“Personal Satellite,” leans into the jangly chug of electric guitar and simple but effective drum patterns that immediately conjure the surf punk shows — like The Growlers — Tony grew up on as a life-long LA resident, with his vocals brightly compressed but clean to blend into the wash of cymbals across the chorus. Of the track, Tony DV simply states that it’s “a very simple love song.”

Place “Personal Satellite” in context with “Still Blue,” and you see the depth of Tony DVs songwriting: opening with a cinematic horn fanfare, the track quickly settles into a desolate strum and 4/4 time signature. It’s electric slide guitar drone suggests Damon Albarn, in melancholy balladeer mode, doing an original song for the Dune soundtrack. “Charcoal Juice,” another cut from the album, served as a striking introduction with a moody and melodic embrace. He’s also already shared “Buff Boy,” which recalls the economical folk-rock melodies of Andy Shauf or the glistening melancholia of Travis; a joyful exhortation to growing up while still extending love to the kid-like, naive side of oneself and others.

Further album highlights include the upbeat indie pop cadence and three part country harmonies of “No Way,” the striking slight sarcasm in the narrative of “I am the Man,” on which Tony DV employs a Bob Dylan-esque nonchalance with his voice. Album closer “Walk In The Dark” recalls Coldplay at it’s best, employing clustered piano chords and turns in the melody that tug at your gut and stick on your skin.

A Los Angeles native, Tony DV is a producer and artist who has dedicated recent years to facilitating others’ visions (Laura Elliott, WHATMORE’s Yoshi T and Jackson August, and the Frank Ocean co-signed Simpson). As Atwood Magazine put it, however, Tony DV arrives as “an artist who already feels fully formed” upon this debut.

However, he found unlikely inspiration for his own music in the LA River. “Most assume the LA River is manmade,” he explains, “it is not. Its current concrete form is the result of humans trying to improve it. Like a bee building a hive, it’s our nature to fortify, eternalize. But what is our responsibility now that we’ve completely dominated the natural world? Does being a good person mean living in opposition of our instincts?”

This observation provided the spark for I know trash people who keep the oceans clean, a project that harnesses his sharpened songwriting acumen to examinations of the tug-of-war between humanity and nature; what’s real and what’s fake; what’s right and what’s wrong. In these dramatic stakes, Tony DV draws out genuine pathos and carves out ebbs of unexpected empathy — hitting on a sound that attains an ornate bigness and distinct character without any sense of overwrought contrivance. It’s a marvelous and lived-in sound, direct but textured with compositional intrigue and philosophical heft.