Tag: Anacortes WA

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Spiral XP Shares “120 Minutes” MTV Alt Rock-like “Window Room”

Back in early 2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic caused the world ground down to a halt, singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Max Keyes abandoned a short-lived move to Philadelphia and returned home to Seattle. The false start helped to spark a sort of existential crisis, and he quickly moved back north to Bellingham, WA, where he’d grown up, hoping the sense of home might provide some much-needed grounding. Perhaps best known for drumming with the acclaimed noise rock outfit Versing, Keyes began hammering out his own songs during this quieter and slower time, approaching the guitar for the first time with serious intention. “It was good to have a couple of years just writing and becoming more confident,” he reflects.

Keyes’ latest project Spiral XP initially started out as a lo-fi solo project with his debut EP, 2021’s Drop Me. He followed that up with last year’s It’s Been A While and this year’s TVXP EP, a collaboration with Seattle-based band TV Star. After those EPs, Keyes recruited scene vets Lena Farr-Morrisey (bass, vocals), Jordan Mang (guitar), Kyle McCollum (guitar) and Daniel Byington (drums) to augment the material, which would become the now, full-fledged band’s, JooJoo Ashworth-produced full-length debut, I Wish I Was A Rat, as they saw fit. “They ended up taking on a life of their own,” he explains, “that’s a little scary but also thrilling to me.”

Recorded entirely in analog at The Unknown, the legendary Anacortes, WA-based studio Phil Elverum helped construct in an abandoned church, the 12-song I Wish I Was A Rat reportedly documents the band at their purest, embracing happy accidents and gritty recording artifacts. “It goes back to that search for authenticity,” says Keyes, “It has a lot of limitations and it makes recording harder, but those limitations make the process so much more meaningful and deep.” While the material shows a reverence for the likes of Yo La Tengo, the material is indebted to a number of influential Pacific Northwest bands like Broken Water, Unwound and Beat Happening. The album’s material sees the band crafting a singular distillation of grunge, indie and slacker rock. Thematically the material explores meaning, truth and value under capitalism while navigating late-twenties existential ennui.

I Wish I Was A Rat’s latest single “Window Room” is a 120 Minutes-era MTV-like anthem anchored around crunchy and fuzzy power chords, thunderous drumming paired with enormous hooks and choruses and soaring falsetto vocals. But at its core is a mix of boredom and longing that should feel familiar.

“I was inspired to write the lyrics while sitting in an enclosed porch one day and examining the window reflections,” the band’s Lena Farr-Morrissey says. “Making plans of nothing and carving out time that is intentionally left blank, I found myself wondering what can bloom from recycled thoughts and memories. On the inside looking out, ‘Window Room’ carries a longing for being at peace with the unknown.”

Directed by Lauren Rodriguez, the accompanying video for “Window Room” featured saturated Super 8 footage of a woman daydreaming at the shore and a ferry. Fittingly, the video manages to match the 120 Minutes MTV aesthetic of its accompanying song.

I Wish I Was A Rat is slated for an October 18, 2024 release through Danger Collective Records.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Karl Blau is an Anacortes, WA-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer, who over the course of his 20+ year career as a musician has developed a now, long-held reputation for an eclectic, genre-defying approach as his sound routinely incorporates elements of folk, dub, R&B, Bossa nova, grunge, hip-hop, drone and worldbeat among others, as well as being a member of the Knw-Yr-Own/K Records collective. Along with that Blau has played in a number of bands including D+, Brothers Blau, Captain Fathom and Your Heart Breaks, and has collaborated with a number of Washington-based musicians including The Microphones‘ Phil Elverum, Mount Eerie, LAKE, Earth and Laura Veirs. And additionally, Blau has released material through his Kelp Lunacy Advanced Plagiarism Society monthly subscription service.

And although Blau has writing, recording and releasing albums for over 20 years, he hadn’t received European distribution until 2015 when renowned indie label Bella Union Records released Introducing Karl Blau, which was considered by many — including album producer Tucker Martine, as shining a light on “one of the great hidden treasures of music.” Interestingly, Introducing featured gorgeous, lush covers of Nashville country/soul; however, his latest effort Out Her Space continues an ongoing collaboration with Spacebomb Records‘ founder Matthew E. White that goes back to 2009.

 

As the story goes, Spacebomb Records’ Matthew E. White had asked Blau to helm the recording sessions for his band Great White Jenkins. When White started Spacebomb Records in 2012, he envisioned the label as having a house band in the style of old school Stax Records and Motown Records. After White started the label, he called Blau to collaborate once again on an album — the critically applauded Big Inner. As the story goes, after hearing the Out Her Space demos, White suggested that the Spacebomb Records house band, centered Cameron Ralston (bass), who’s now a member of Fleet Foxes; Pinson Chanselle (drums) and White (guitar, synth), along with Megafaun’s Phil Cook (piano) and a cast of collaborators, who contributed horns, viola and backing vocals — with the album material being something of a cousin to its predecessor.

The album thematically speaking plays with humanitarian themes, against a backdrop of self-immolating American politics; in fact, as Blau explains in press notes, the album’s title was inspired by an “overwhelming feeling to point out that men, in general, need to listen, to stop being so assertive and get out of her space, let her balance again. Chill out dudes, rather than lead us over the cliff.” Sonically speaking, the material, as you’ll hear on album single “Beckon” is a languid and shimmering track that draws from 70s AM rock, classic soul, funk and Afropop with a slick, carefully crafted hook.

Blau has an upcoming NYC area show 1/11/18 at Rough Trade to promote the album.  [TICKETS/INFO]

 

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Perhaps best known as the drummer of West Grove, PA-based rock Dr. Dog, a member of the Adrian Belew (of King Crimson fame)’s backing band and a co-leader of the Philadelphia, PA-based band Lithuania, Eric Slick’s soon-to-be released solo debut Palisades finds Slick stepping out from behind the drum kit and being a full-time frontman of a backing band featuring Andy Molholt of Speedy Ortiz and Laser Background, Ricardo Lagomasino of Lithuania and Capillary Action and Alexandra Spalding of Avers.

As the story goes, in 2014 Slick decided to leave his native Philadelphia for the first time and relocated to Asheville, NC where he practiced meditation and Jungian dream therapy as a form of reinvention and to write his own original material, which would later be inspired by these periods of intense mediation. Interestingly, Slick found some inspiration in the works of renowned writer/actor Spalding Gray — especially his 1992 book Impossible Vacation, which details the impossibility of searching for and finding Zen. “I know it’s the funny trope: indie rock dude goes to the woods and makes an outsider record,” Slick says in press notes. “But it was a time of deep introspection and a fruitful period of my life. I wrote someone around 50 songs in 2014.” And as a result, the material on the album isn’t a typical indie rock, rock or pop album that focus on heartbreak or love; rather, it thematically focuses on mediation, death, self-help, dream therapy, tarot and mysticism. But at points, the material focuses on both personal events of his life and the random, unexpected thoughts that come up while mediating — in particular, the album title track “Palisades” is about New York’s Palisades Parkway; however, Slick doesn’t really know why or how it came about.

At the end of 2014, Slick returned to Philadelphia to record Palisades at Mt. Eerie’s Phil Elverun’s The Unknown Studio in Anacortes, WA — but the songs were stored away for a period time before Slick finished them with the assistance of Neighbors‘ Jose Diaz Rohena, who produced it, along with Ape School and Kurt Vile‘s Michael Johnson, Lithuania’s Dom Angelella and Ricardo Lagomarsino and Ryan Neitznick and Molly Burch‘s Dailey Toliver.

Palisades‘ latest single “You Became The Light” is a jangling and discordant track featuring enormous, buzzing power chords, thundering and propulsive drumming, a dreamy melody and an anthemic hook — and interestingly enough, the song sounds as though it draws from 90s grunge and alt rock while possessing a free-flowing improvised feel.
Slick plans to take his solo act on the road in 2017, and it includes a May 20, 2017 stop at Sunnyvale. Check out the tour dates below.

 

Tour Dates
Apr 19 – Richmond, VA – The Broadberry*
Apr 20 – Raleigh, NC – Kings*
Apr 23 – Orlando, FL – The Social*
Apr 25 – Atlanta, GA – The Earl*
Apr 26 – Birmingham, AL – Syndicate Lounge*
Apr 27 – New Orleans, LA – Gasa Gasa*
Apr 28 – Houston, TX – White Oak Music Hall*
Apr 30 – Austin, TX – Empire Control Room*
May 01 – Dallas, TX – House of Blues*
May 02 – Little Rock, AZ – Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack*
May 03 – Nashville, TN – The High Watt*
May 20 – Brooklyn, NY – Sunnyvale

* – w/ Sinkane