Kate Eringer takes you through the music of Echo Park Rising. Photographed by Alexandra Cabral

Now in its fifth year, Echo Park Rising, who started out slow, has turned into LA’s answer to SXSW. The (entirely free) festival takes over hip area of LA Echo Park, where every other resident happens to be a musician or artist or both, making use of every possible space – vintage store, grocery store, car park – you name it there was music there. For three full days, the streets were full of music lovers.

Two prominent music labels that reside in the area, Lolipop and Burger Records, even had their own spaces, showcasing some of their buzziest bands. The bougie but beautiful dog store/warehouse extraordinaire “Blue Collar Working Dog” provided a beautiful outside music space. Restaurants and bars opened up and, of course, music venues like the Echo and Echoplex who championed the event.

Buzzy bands like Kim and The Created overtook the stage with performance and presence, while other low-fi bands remained low-key like Billy Changer, Slutever, and LA Witch. Listen to sound and visual artist snake chime zen, who played at Silverlake store Spacedust, via his Bandcamp.

Most of these bands are pretty new, or relatively under the radar, or just local to the area – let my playlist guide you to the best bands at Echo Park Rising 2015.