I won’t prattle on with too much introductory garnish before getting to the meat of the ten (OK, maybe eleven with a tie for first) best Seattle records I heard in 2016.
As always, there were plenty of terrific releases from this neck of the woods this year, and narrowing ‘em down was, again, a genuine Sophie’s Choice. Suffice it to say that, in what was probably the shittiest year on record for a good 85% of humanity, the below recordings helped imbue meaning, hope, and catharsis to the 2016 shitshow.
10) Gazebos, Die Alone
If Devo’s music wasn’t being used in that bar scene from Heavy Metal, I’d replace it with damn near any song from Gazebos’ full-length debut. On a superficial level the Seattle quartet’s informed by the jerky catchiness of, yes, Devo and other early-‘80s new wave. But there’s a fascinating duality going on here—Die Alone is party music in its wonderfully warped way, but it’s the party music blasting out of that Heavy Metal bar as everyone waits for the last nuclear bomb to detonate. Jordan T. Adams’ drums stomp and clatter like gears in a machine that’s about to collapse under its own weight, and lead singer Shannon Perry’s singular yelp-and-bellow gleefully extends both middle fingers squarely at staid retro conventions.
9) Tacocat, Lost Time
It’s a tightrope balance for a snarky, fizzy hard-candy pop band to mature while still maintaining their effervescence. Tacocat’s third proper album straddles that line perfectly, thanks to their strongest set of songs yet and a full production courtesy 2016’s Seattle music MVP Erik Blood.
8) Crater, Talk to Me so I Can Fall Asleep
Seattle breeds electronica and industrial-informed acts that cut through the inherent sterility of technology with bracing emotional immediacy. Crater is the most recent (and most captivating) textbook example of that distinctively Northwest take on the sub-genres. Danceable, catchy, occasionally clattering, and club-friendly from one song to the next, Talk to Me so I Can Fall Asleep always finds an affecting emotional underpinning thanks to a surplus of hooks, Ceci Gomez’s dreamily-expressive vocals and Kessiah Gordon’s textured guitar work.
7) Remember Face, Remember Face
Easily the most mesmerizing hip-hop record I heard this year,. DJ/producer Andrew Savoie opens up a treasure chest of skewed, surreal, densely detailed but hooky grooves, and Chimaroke Abuachi’s sometimes rapped, sometimes crooned delivery suggests TV on the Radio gone hip-hop.
6) So Pitted, neo
So Pitted delivered the year’s loudest, most gloriously ugly head rush in less than thirty minutes with their debut. Its pulverizing energy sprouts from this town’s fertile soil of loud, down-tuned heavy rock (civilians call it ‘grunge’). But the fragments of industrial noise, high-velocity punk and even sludgy psychedelia that claw their way to the surface make the trip as fiercely imaginative as it is, well, fierce.
5) Sloucher, Certainty
A truly great melodic guitar-pop band can summon forth crystalline beauty, heart-on-sleeve romance, melancholy, or buoyant joy with three minutes, four chiming chords, and a pinch of unabashedly beautiful irony-free singing. You get that and more on Sloucher’s debut—a record whose deceptively low-key beauty and hooks grow in richness with each listen, as surely as the most deep-set crush you’ve ever nursed.
4) Tiffany Wilson, #SEESHARP
After utterly blowing my mind as part of keyboardist Lucas Field’s sharp-as-shit live band five years ago, singer Tiffany Wilson fell off of my radar for a good spell. What a return #SEESHARP is. It’s nothing less than Wilson’s swing for the fences, a worthy and largely self-penned 21st century successor to Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On—both in its clarion call for unity in adverse times, and in its sumptuous, soulful analog warmth.
3) Smokey Brights, Hot Candy
I’ve already sung the praises of the Smokeys’ brilliant sophomore full-length—loudly and lengthily— earlier this year, but suffice it to say Hot Candy was one of the most sonically ambitious yet tastily pop-savvy records I heard in 2016.
2) Fly Moon Royalty, Delicious Trouble
Singer Adra Boo and DJ/almost-one-man-band Action Jackson have never fucked around when it comes to delivering a roof-rattling, ass-shaking groove check, so it’s no surprise that that their swan song as a group is assured and danceable as hell. The real revelation with Delicious Trouble is the stunning range and consistency of its songs, from the rolling classic Detroit soul of “Grown Man,” to the indescribably sensual electronic prowl of “Red and the Wolf,” to the cry-in-your-Crystal balladry of “I Miss Her.” One hell of a parting gift, and a stunner of a dance record to boot.
1) Hotels, Night Showers
Erik Blood, Lost in Slow Motion (tie)
When you assemble a list like this, sometimes subjective naked sentiment and flat-out brilliance align magically. So it went for the two Northwest records that occupied my ear space most persistently in 2016, both of which I wrote about more extensively here, and here.
Both Night Showers and Lost in Slow Motion are masterpieces of sustained atmosphere that bear their architects’ distinctive signatures. As composed by Hotels lead singer/songwriter Blake Madden, the former’s cinematic dark-chocolate pop is literally the sound of the city on a Friday—thrumming, thrilling, sophisticated, playful, and moody, but always fulsome with the promise of the weekend. Erik Blood’s most recent solo effort, meantime, is a completely immersive exploration of love, desire, and heartbreak. Both, combined, gave me a mythic—and cathartic—soundtrack for the final third of 2016.
