Local Serge Gainsbourg-influenced songwriter Naim Amor’s stop in Los Angeles while supporting his latest release (titled Sanguine and produced by Calexico’s Joey Burns) isn’t the usual 45-minute gig at the usual indie club. Because in Los Angeles, as everyone knows, it helps to have friends in high places or in a musician’s case, at KCRW 89.9 FM.

KCRW may technically be a community college radio station (Santa Monica College), but since its in inception in 1945 it’s become California’s leading NPR affiliate, and a producer of many nationally-distributed NPR shows and stories on top of its reputation as a tastemaker in the realm of cutting edge music.

So it’s nice that Amor’s music has struck the fancy of KCRW, who has been giving the Tucsonan/Franco-American’s music some airplay. On top of the on-air love, the radio station will be presenting Amor’s upcoming show at Tangier on July 9.

And while KCRW is helping to shoo potential fans his way, Amor’s show will also be written up in the LA Weekly – who have bequeathed him the title of “great artistâ€� while describing his “self-penned French love songsâ€� as “gorgeousâ€� – as a “Pick of the Week.”. Yowza.

Read the preview in its entirety here.

Now, LA is bombarded with truckloads of musical talent every week, but if more than one well-known music news source is singing praises, that generally tends to not fall on deaf ears. So those in Los Angeles who wish to avoid the crowd of critics and Weekly readers on Wednesday, July 9 may also catch Amor in a much more intimate LA gig at the Echo Park Curiosity Shop and Art Gallery on Monday, July 7.

And as far as us Tucsonans are concerned, we can catch Amor live when he returns (triumphant and possibly more jaded, LA-style) at Tooley’s Café on Tuesday, July 15 and at Plush on Thursday, July 24.

Congrats on the great publicity, Naim. Now go do us proud.