So before the clock strikes twelve and this lovely little website turns into a pumpkin for a (hopefully) brief winter’s nap, it seemed necessary to cobble together a list of the best Northwest music releases to cross my ears in 2013.
Narrowing down my picks proved tougher than I thought it’d be. Although I hadn’t heard quite as many different Northwest records this year as I had in years previous, the quality of what I heard in 2013 was uniformly–almost maddeningly–consistent. As always, the final arbiter for me was pure subjective enjoyment: the baker’s dozen below were the full-length local releases that occupied my stereo and earbuds, and generated my most relentless earworms, all year. Enclosed, please find my favorite Northwest releases of 2013, in descending order.
13) Bat Country, Love’s The Only Engine of Survival: Given the tragic loss of Bat Country bassist Joe Albanese in last year’s Cafe Racer shootings, it’s a minor miracle that this singular goth/cabaret/Americana band was able to complete its long-gestating first album at all. Even divorced from its bittersweet origins, it’s one hell of a farewell–a work of crushed black-velvet beauty that stares into the darkness without flinching, even as it raises a loving glass in salute to one of its own.
12) Brent Amaker and the Rodeo, Year of the Dragon: The Rodeo’s bad-assed, wryly funny take on black-hatted country has always floated my boat in a major way, and they’ve never been funnier–or more bad-assed–than they are on Year of the Dragon.
11) Mikey and Matty, Harbor Island: Seattle’s overlooked status as a wellspring of great pure pop diminished some with the breakup of Curtains for You earlier this year, the upside being this great collection of low-key and lovely songs by Curtains members Mike and Matthew Gervais.
10) XVIII Eyes, I’ll Keep You: They’ve shortened their moniker from Eighteen Individual Eyes to the more-portable XVIII Eyes, but this Seattle quartet remain masters of gothic math rock, anchored magnificently by Irene Barber’s alluring voice and a menacing instrumental backbone that kicks tweeness to the curb.
9) La Luz, It’s Alive: La Luz ain’t reinventing the wheel with It’s Alive’s collection of girl-group-gone-bad rock songs, but the concise sting of Shana Cleveland’s guitars (and La Luz’s brilliance at making even the prettiest pop songs swagger) spin that old wheel something sweet. And if a more unassailably cool video than the band’s “Big Big Blood” clip surfaced in 2013, I haven’t seen it.
8) Sweet Madness, Made in Spokane, 1978-1981: A slew of great reissues greeted fans of local music in 2013, what with deluxe editions of Nirvana’s back catalog and the overdue digital bow of Soundgarden’s still-potent Screaming Life and FOPP EPs. But the best Northwest reissue of 2013 came from a band that many didn’t even know existed. Spokane’s Sweet Madness purveyed a brand of sharp, hyperdriven new wave pop that sounds distinctively of its time, yet impossibly fresh and exhilarating today. “Concrete River” remains the most resonant ballad I heard all year–a haunting, smalltown evocation of young love whose wounded romance runs on par with David Bowie’s “Heroes.” Huge bonus points for Light in the Attic’s lavish and loving vinyl edition.
7) The Physics, Digital Wildlife: There were splashier local hip-hop releases this year, but the South Seattle crew of Thig, Monk, and Justo combine their party ethos with imaginative electronic touches (and–go figure–a lot of real singing) to sublime effect here.
6) Sean Nelson, Make Good Choices: It’s been far too long since the erstwhile Harvey Danger frontman’s put his songwriting hat on, and this jewel of a pop album was worth the wait.
5) Hobosexual, Hobosexual II: My favorite straight-up rock record of 2013 found Ben Harwood’s mighty guitar and Jeff Silva’s lethal whomp of a backbeat serving an over-the-top concept album. Think OK Computer after two shaggy-maned vikings take bong hits and kick the shit out of it with Van Halen II‘s boots, and you’re only scratching the surface of its cartoon brilliance. Oh, and it rocks like holy Hell.
4) Cumulus, I Never Meant it to Be Like This: The flush and exhilaration of youth is something that can’t be borrowed, bought, or faked. The winsome but refreshingly toothy pop songs on this scrappy Seattle band’s debut provide living, breathing, wonderful proof. Try not to be enchanted by the best single from a Seattle band all year, “Do You Remember.” I dare you.
3) Ravenna Woods, The Jackals: One of Seattle’s finest live acts crafts a long-player that captures their alchemistic combination of ferocious precision and surging acoustic grandeur with total fidelity.
2) Radiation City, Animals in the Median: Portland band Radiation City has obviously been beamed in from an alternate universe. The Andrews Sisters front a new wave band there, with Brian Wilson producing a stable of their lush electronic pop songs by cherry-picking from movie soundtracks, techno, swirly shoegazer music, and Motown soul. That’s the closest theory I can muster to explain this intoxicating album.
1) Pickwick, Can’t Talk Medicine: You can hear the seams all over Can’t Talk Medicine–songs rife with false starts, melodic fragments that trail off to nowhere, familiar Pickwick faves ever-so-slightly mutated. The end result is one of those beautifully messy records, where quirks intertwine with songcraft in thrilling and unpredictable fashion. In non-geek terms, that means it’s as ragged as it is gloriously right. My biggest local record crush of the year, hands down.