So what rocked your socks off this year? For me, there was a lot.
I won’t bother with clucking on about how so many great releases sprang from regional musicians in 2012 that I almost gave up on even compiling a list (even though it’s true). And as far as some far-reaching, all-encompassing summary of the Year in Northwest Music, here goes: A lot of really good two-person bands popped up in town, an exceptional bumper crop of local hip-hop releases surfaced, and a fair amount of bands looked to the sounds of the past (be it way back in the era of the original Girl Groups of the 1950s and ’60’s, or the retro pulse of 1980s new wave) for inspiration, with sterling results.
Enclosed, please find the twelve Northwest releases I listened to the most in the 2012 calendar year–the ones that stirred me most, and to which I’ve continually returned to since their release(s). That means it’s also subjective, informed by what I like and what I’ve been exposed to (much as I heard this year, I didn’t get around to every significant recording by every musician in the Pacific Northwest, for Pete’s Sake). Listen, thank me later, and discuss.
12) Atomic Bride, Dead Air: If you’ve ever wondered what The Cramps and the B-52’s knife-fighting in an alley with Cheap Trick, Dick Dale, and Alice Cooper would sound like, you need to hear Dead Air. Hell, even if you’ve never pondered said scenario you need to hear Dead Air. It’s the best soundtrack for a nonexistent B-movie that I heard in 2012.
11) The Good Sin, The Story of Love X Hate: Not every hip-hop record needs to be stuffed with empty posturing or gaggles of production tricks. Sometimes, all you need is a smart and charismatic MC with a knack for storytelling, some phat beats, and melodies that won’t leave your head. Good Sin delivers refreshingly honest lyrics in a resonant baritone that’s one of the best hip-hop instruments in this town right now. He’s got enough radio-ready tunes to back that voice up, too.
10) Absolute Monarchs, 1: Most new bands plumbing the depths of post-punk music lean towards tweeness, dutifully trotting out jerky rhythms and spiky guitars with precious little substance. Here’s to the Monarchs, then, who turbocharge those elements with undisguised ferocity and jackhammer force. Between his blues-rock growl with My Goodness and his unhinged screaming here, you’d think there were two different Joel Schneiders singing in two great Seattle bands.
9) Tea Cozies, Bang Up EP: Bang Up opens with one of my favorite singles of the year, “Muchos Dracula,” a quintessential slice of Tea Cozies hard-candy buzz pop replete with roller-rink keyboards and stuttering rhythm guitar. The band also deviates from their signature sound to wonderful effect on this EP: the sweeping psychedelia of “Cosmic Osmo” and the anecdotal melancholy of “Silhouette in a Suitcase” work so famously, you can’t help but ache for a full-length release something fierce.
8) Eighteen Individual Eyes, Unnovae Nights: There’s not much more to say about EIE’s terrific debut that I didn’t say earlier this year–except maybe that Unnovae Nights‘ dark animal passion and jagged power remain undiminished after God knows how many listens.
The Young Evils, Foreign Spells EP: Yeah, there are only four songs. But they’re great pop songs with teeth to compliment the earworm hooks, and they serve as a clarion call for the awesomeness that’s sure to come.
6) Erik Blood, Touch Screens: Blood’s impressive production credits in recent years have obscured his gifts as a musician and songwriter. This dense, swirling concept album about vintage porn–equal parts shoegazer headiness, pulsing electronic danceability, and gothic throb–brings those gifts back into sharp focus.
5) Radiation City, Cool Nightmare EP: I was going to make this year’s list all-Seattle, but then this amazing Portland band forced my hand. Somehow, they toss together cushions of gorgeous harmonies, Beach Boys-style kitchen-sink symphonic bursts, new wave keyboards, bouncy bossanova, and dreamy psychedelia to create catchy, haunting, and utterly indelible songs. If this were a full-length release and not an EP, it’d probably be my favorite Northwest recording all year.
4) Hounds of the Wild Hunt, El Mago: The hooligans formerly known as the Whore Moans have delivered a great rock record, sung with take-it-or-leave-it snarl and delivered with ambition to match its fury. How does a punk band reach for the stars, yet not come off like a bunch of sell-out wimps? This is how.
3) Tomten, Yesterday’s Children: Tomten leader Brian Noyeswatkins may wear his influences (Village Green-era Kinks, The Zombies, Pulp) on his paisley-print sleeve, but his catchy pop songs and playfully surreal lyrics cast a spell all their own. End result: a record that glitters like Seattle on an unexpected Indian Summer day.
2) Soundgarden, King Animal: Bigger than life, loud as hell, and long overdue, Soundgarden’s newest obliterates the notion that only youngsters can pull off epic, irony-free, truly heavy rock.
1) THEESatisfaction, awE naturalE: Nine months after its initial release, awE naturalE continues to shake my booty, activate my brain, and seduce my ears like nothing else I heard this year. It’s a treasure trove of surprises, packed into a lean 30-minute run time: Smooth Afro-and-female-centric rhymes that make their point without preaching, impossibly luminous singing, and a stripped-down production that nonetheless gains depth and nuance with each listen. Oh, and it grooves like hell. Most critics and fans point to the incomparably cool rubberized funk of “QueenS” as awE naturalE‘s high point–and it’s great–but me, I’m partial to “Deeper,” the most hypnotic and sensual three-plus minutes anyone, anywhere, committed to recorded posterity in 2012.