Posts Tagged ‘Washington’

The MOONDOGGIES – ” Easy Coming “

Posted: January 29, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Roots-rock five-piece The Moondoggies are poised to release their new album “A Love Sleeps Deep” on Friday, April 13th on LP, CD, digital, and cassette. Epic lead-off single “Easy Coming” is available now for your listening pleasure . Produced by Erik Blood (Shabazz Palaces, Tacocat), the album sees the Northwest band mining psychedelic, groove-based territory that was only hinted at on previous recordings. The Moondoggies are also returning to touring, and will  hit the road in support of A Love Sleeps Deep in mid-April.

A Love Sleeps Deep’s bones rattle with all the seismic changes of the last five years since the release of The Moondoggies’ Adios I’m a Ghost. While the Washington band got lumped in early on with the woodsy folk-rock/Americana movement that sprung up in the Pacific North- west in the 2000s, the core Moondoggies sound has always been rock in the more classical sense–more groove-based than Woody Guthrie. A Love Sleeps Deep crystalizes that.

SMOKEY BRIGHTS – ” Come To Terms ” EP

Posted: January 18, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Smokey Brights make music that taps into history and stretches out a kind of visionary rock that rolls relentlessly forwardwhile recombining iconic sounds – from funk to Fleetwood Mac, Bowie to Blur, disco to Dire Straits, and splashes of Floyd psychedelia – crafting something urgent, fun, and utterly surprising.

it was back in 2010 than Smokey Brights first formed; Ryan Devlin and Kim West, a new couple with not much money to spare, set about singing Christmas songs to give out as gifts, seven years later they’re stilling singing. They may have been making music for a number of years, however with the release of their upcoming EP, Come To Terms, 2018 looks like being the year when a lot more people notice them doing it.

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The recently released title track, Come To Terms, is a fine introduction to the band’s sound, built around reverberating guitars and bombastic drum beats, it finds Ryan’s gravelly, Cold War Kids meets Two Gallants, vocal to the fore, while Kim’s soulful Beth Ditto like backing adds some wonderful depth to the track. Come To Terms is a record of social division, soundtracking the growth of political chasms between alternating view points, and asking how we can go about rising above and starting to heal the wounds; as Devlin sings on the closing track, “This is not the time to turn your back on what you see. Find the strength in you, and I will find the good in me”. There’s plenty of good to be found here, a big bold and important record, Smokey Brights are a band who seven years in have never sounded more important.

LO TOM – ” Lo Tom “

Posted: January 1, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Lo Tom: <i>Lo Tom</i> Review

Any time musicians from existing bands get together to form a new musical entity, it’s not an uncommon occurrence  especially in indie rock circles for the term “super group” to incorrectly be used interchangeably with the less glamorous (yet oftentimes more accurate) term “side project.” However, in the case of Lo Tom, the acclaimed distinction is unquestionably in order.

The band is comprised of indie veterans David Bazan (Pedro the Lion, Headphones) on vocals and bass, Jason Martin (Starflyer 59, Bon Voyage) on guitar, TW Walsh (The Soft Drugs, Pedro the Lion) on guitar and background vocals and Trey Many (Velour 100, Starflyer 59) on drums. Their eight-song self-titled debut captures the sound of four friends (and frequent bandmates) using the collective skills of their shared trade as the ruse to hang out and have a little fun over two weekends of recording sessions. While the “let’s just get together, press record and see what happens” Lo Tom proves that in the right hands, it can produce pure musical magic.

With a melodic pedigree that’s rooted in  guitar-heavy, alt-rock-fueled ‘90s and also shaped by the glossed-up, genre-shifting ‘00s, Lo Tom encompasses a surprisingly modern sound that simultaneously flirts with and fights against its own nostalgia. The fuzzed-out Martin/Walsh guitar riffs on songs like “Covered Wagon” and “Overboard” wouldn’t be out of place on any of the band members’ previous albums, but Bazan’s pop-infused sing-along choruses and Many’s crisp-yet-understated drumming keep either song from veering into clichéd throwback territory.

In the same vein, the stabbing rhythms, reverb-ed vocals, and politically-shaded opening lyrics of “Another Mistake” recall some of the more aggressive elements inherent in the musical unrest of the early ‘00s, but the inventive guitar chord voicings over the chorus bring the song fully forward into new sonic territories. Bazan’s unintentionally tongue-in-cheek closing vocal flub provides a clever meta moment to the song as well.

Overflowing with a confidently relaxed cool and an absolute lack of pretense , Lo Tom’s debut somehow feels both enthusiastically self-assured and deceptively effortless . That comfortable ease with which the band unfolds their slinky guitar-and-drum interplay on “Find the Shrine” the perfect splash of drunken swagger to “Bubblegum” is a testament not only to each member’s multi-decade commitment to their own craft.

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Perhaps the best distillation of Lo Tom’s hard-earned ethos can be found in the lyrics of album closer “Lower Down” when Bazan’s gravelly croons espouses, “Man, you don’t need to chase the sound if it comes from lower down.” Potentially off-putting from the mouth of a greener musician, the line is charming, believable and wholly fitting in the context of this seasoned band of artistically adventurous brothers.

Lo Tom is:
D Bazan – Bass, vox
T Many – Drums
J Martin – Guitar
TW Walsh – Guitar, BGV

POSSE – ” Kismet “

Posted: December 28, 2017 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Posse’s “Kismet” as the inaugural release in their Document series! ,
Taking inspiration from the original concept behind the founding of the label’s attempt to document our home city of Omaha through music and art, each release featured in the Document series will comprise of an exclusive 7-inch record featuring unreleased music from various artists outside of the label’s roster and a specially curated zine highlighting the artist’s hometown / music scene.  This Seattle indie rock band had a poet laureate, Posse would since 2010, across two previous albums, the trio chronicled the banality and disappointments of life in their Northwest city with wit and sadness and hilarity. The sound they crafted to accompany their stories  were beautifully spartan; just two guitars and a drum chugging along in a haze. Check out the bands EP “Horse Blanket” it is the band’s final record having decided to call it time up. I really hope we hear somethinhg soon from its members.

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Band Members
Sacha Maxim
Paul Wittmann-Todd,
Jon Salzman
“Saddle Creek started up as a way to spotlight and document what was happening in the music and art community of Omaha, NE. We know there are a lot of great music scenes all around the world that don’t have the spotlight they deserve, so with that in mind we thought creating this series would be a cool and unique way to reference our past while at the same time reaching out to bands that we aren’t currently working with and allowing them to shine a light on the art and music of their own communities. It’s our way to try to capture a band and a city in a specific place at a specific time.”

EMMA LEE TOYODA – ” Sewn Me Anew “

Posted: December 24, 2017 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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This came out at the very end of last year, this is an assured, maybe twee but formidable, colloquial but eloquent, sad but self-aware, Emma Lee Toyoda’s debut LP is a study in the kinds of contrast that cast light on the emotions the songs evoke. The melodies, harmonies, and instrumental arrangements are ambitious and surprising, and the words rest in unfussy service to the sounds that surround them. Above all, this record sounds young and serious in the best way—which is to say not self-serious. These songs still know how to swoon.  Seattle-based semi-nocturnal sadgirlrock backed by Adelyn Westerholm (violin), Veronica Johanson (harmonies), Khyre Matthews (bass) and Zeke Bender (drums)

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all songs written, composed, co-mixed & anxiously nitpicked by Emma
all drum parts composed by Zeke “No Nonsense” Bender *
violin part on Seasick composed mostly (against her will) by Adelyn Westerholm

POSSE – ” Horse Blanket “

Posted: December 6, 2017 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Sad news from the city of Seattle the band Posse decided to add to the ash pile and call it quits.  The trio gifted to the world their final album Horse Blanket

If Seattle indie rock had a poet laureates, Posse would surely lay claim to the title. Since 2010, across two previous albums, the trio chronicled the banality and disappointments of life in their Northwest city with wit and sadness and hilarity. The sound they crafted to accompany their stories of bad dates at terrible Seattle rap shows (“A bald white guy/With a mumu onstage” one lyric went) and workplace frustration was beautifully spartan; just two guitars and a drum chugging along in a haze. Horse Blanket is the band’s final record, an EP of six songs about the things they know best: “boredom and loss, miscommunication and regret.”

On opener “Dream Sequence” vocalist Sacha Maxim gently shoves a listener into Posse’s disaffected, overcast world: “I was sick/I was tired/I was standing in the rain” she sings with a frown. The lyric is without frills or metaphor. Instead, Posse find poetry in blunt and dead-simple observations. This reflects in their arrangements, which are without ornamentation or glitz, just Maxim and Paul Wittmann-Todd’s depressive guitar strums accompanied by Jon Salzman’s quiet drumming.

While their sound could almost be described as rudimentary, it’s never boring. The deliberate nature of their music, the almost shuffling sleepwalking stupor of their voices and each instrument trudging forward, create a sense of pace and place that is so real it can be hallucinatory. Like on “Shiver” when Wittmann-Todd slurs, “I feel cold/Or maybe something like that,” the frigid trickle of guitar notes perfectly mimics the loneliness of his line. Something the band does so amazingly well, They recreate an entire universe of subtle, painful interactions, “funny little rituals,” and personal landmarks. Wittmann-Todd takes you through a detailed tour of a break-up that travels between cold beaches and the interiors of shitty Volvos. The pain is self-lacerating: “I told myself I’d differ, but I never really change,” he sings.

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Band Members
Sacha Maxim,
Paul Wittmann-Todd,
Jon Salzman

CCFX – ” Venetian Screens “

Posted: November 17, 2017 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Throw some guidelines for artistic conduct and appropriation into a small collective of musicians based in the same sleepy town (Olympia, Washington, in this case) and you can begin to see how inspiration takes root and how a scene is born. Chris McDonnell’s Trans FX project, over the course of three albums released in the past two years, has deftly moved from the recesses of goth to the kind of blasted grandeur found in David Bowie’s Berlin trilogy. The output of the duo CC Dust, fronted by vocalist Mary Jane Dunphe, covers similarly gilded terrain within the realms of ethereal pop and dashed electronic rhythms.

McDonnell and Dunphe could have shared a practice space wall for how close their sources of inspiration overlap.

CCFX slots in these ideas in a formal merger of the two projects, one which nestles Dunphe’s alluring vocals against the expanse of McDonnell’s deep dive into an adolescence dressed in shades of black. With bassist David Jaques anchoring, the pair’s debut self-titled EP speaks directly to the carefree swirl of dream-pop and soulful melody that informed parts of their separate endeavors (Dunphe was also the vocalist of raucous punk band Vexx, and currently shares a second project with McDonald, the country-rock band The County Liners).

“Venetian Screens” lunges forth with a boisterous drum loop, rolling bass against steady organ notes, and spindly guitar around Dunphe’s soothing alto, with the sort of retro-minded genre mash perfected by Saint Etienne. But in the trio’s hands, the track achieves a depth that reaches below the layers of nostalgia in their approach, no matter how sparsely applied its elements may seem.

Theirs is the sound of a late ’80s and early ’90s reckoning with technology, when samples and programmed beats were given a new, emotive context, from the Cocteau Twins to “Tom’s Diner,” amplifying their creators’ introspections under the banner of alternative rock. Songs like theirs are akin to opening an old yearbook and seeing all the faces replaced by newer, younger versions of yourself and all your classmates, a beguiling alternate reality where everyone looks as cool as they feel they are.

CCFX EP comes out October 20th via DFA Records.

JAKE STARR and the DELICIOUS FULLNESS – ” Satisfaction Guaranteed “

Posted: July 3, 2017 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Let’s start out by saying, Jake Starr and The Delicious Fullness play the kind of tunes that I could play all day long. It’s the rock ‘n’ roll that I grew up on, some MOD , some garage, and a whole lot of rock ‘n’ roll fun. What I do care about is finding Bands that are in the game for the right reasons. I am not here to break down the structure of the songs nor to analyze the lyrics , Rock ‘n’ Roll is meant to be fun , you are supposed to be able to put on a Record and blast the shit out of it, dance like a crazy person and get lost in the coolness of the beat and that indeed happens when you play Jake Starr and The Delicious Fullness. I would like to say thank you to Hidden Volume Records for turning me on to Jake Starr and The Delicious Fullness, and that is just one more reason for all you garage rockers to show some love .

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Nathaniel Osgood: drums, all instruments on “Hong Kong Phooey”
Louie Newmyer: bass, harpsichord on “By the Grace of Mod”
Kathleen Wilson: guitar, backing vox, Farfisa organ
Sean Crowley: guitar, backing vox, lead vox on “Learnin’ to Howl” and “Ognir’s…”
Jake Starr: throat, tambourine, maracas

VARIOUS ARTISTS – HARDLY ART RECORDS – Hardly Released: Bedroom Recordings, Demos, Rarities, Unreleased, and Widely Ignored Material

Posted: May 2, 2017 in MUSIC
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Often referred to as Sub Pop’s “sister label,” Hardly Art is an offshoot of Sub Pop designed to spotlight emerging talent. While the label’s initial focus was local when it started up in 2007, over the past decade it has expanded beyond the Cascade region to welcome artists from all over the United States and abroad to a roster that has grown increasingly varied and eclectic, encompassing the sounds of garage rock, post-punk, surf rock, power pop, electronic, and other debatably useful genre descriptors.

Hardly Released: Bedroom Recordings, Demos, Rarities, Unreleased, and Widely-Ignored Material makes a strong case for Hardly Art’s sonic diversity. Spanning a decade of recordings, the seventeen tracks of Hardly Released culls together a wide-ranging assortment of songs from the label’s history, including a little-heard gem from Hardly Art’s inaugural signing (Arthur & Yu) and a tune from Chastity Belt’s I Used to Spend So Much Time Alone sessions, the label’s most recent release. The full list of contributors includes Colleen Green, The Dutchess & the Duke, Fergus & Geronimo, Gazebos, Grave Babies, Hausu, Hunx & His Punx, IAN SWEET, Jacuzzi Boys, Jenn Champion, La Luz, The Moondoggies, Protomartyr, Seapony, and Shannon and the Clams.

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CATALDO – ” Keepers “

Posted: April 1, 2017 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Cataldo is the recording project of Seattle musician Eric Anderson. His upcoming album is called “Keepers”, and the track we’re premiering today certainly fits the bill. “Person You’d Be Proud Of” is wistful and hopeful and beautiful, a brightly emotive yet understated slow-build that splits the difference between Anderson associate Ben Gibbard’s pensive indie rock stylings and rhythmically complex pop worthy of an ’80s teen movie’s closing credits. Or as Anderson himself explains it:

At some point recording this tune my drummer asked “So…are we going full Gabriel?” As you can hear, we super, super did. This is a song about feeling lucky and wanting to somehow earn your own good fortune.

His new album, Keepers, is due out April 28th via Red Pepper Records/Moon Crew Records.

“‘Photograph’ is a song about rich kids,” Cataldo tells us, “the nature of memory, and the peculiar cocktail of charisma, unfounded confidence, and concealed naïveté that’s common in late adolescence/early adulthood.” Youth is meant to be photographed.

From the album “Keepers” out 4/28

 

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