For 20 years now, Seattle’s Degenerate Art Ensemble has created performance pieces that combine modern dance, Butoh theatrics, avant-garde free-jazz-tinted music, kinetic sculpture, and experimental video. So when the two founders of DAE—vocalist/songwriter Haruko Crow Nishimura and composer/guitarist Joshua Kohl—formed their band Skeleton Flower, it was a fair bet that the sounds would boast as…
Somewhere around the middle of the eighties, pop evolved from the synthesized sparseness of Kraftwerk, early OMD and Depeche Mode, into a glossier, bigger style that was, in its own way, distinctly American. Production became bigger and more epic, with keyboard hooks of Sistine Chapel-level spectacle and sparkle, gated and mechanized drums, and hooks that…
Summer in Seattle was spiritually (if not formally) ushered out last weekend in a flurry of lightning strikes, thunder claps, and heavy rainfall. But Dumb Thumbs won’t let summer go without a fight. Artist Home is proud to premiere “In the Wild,” the flagship single and title track of the Seattle band’s second EP. It’s…
There’s a Rock-of-Gibraltar stability and comfort in Planes on Paper, the acoustic duo co-fronted by singer/songwriter/guitarist Navid Eliot. A lot of that welcoming quality comes from Eliot’s lived-in wanderer’s voice. It’s elemental but soothing, like tall grass that bends but still endures amidst the gusting tumult of a windstorm. And that lyrical and literal voice…
I heard these. They’re really great. Give a listen. Rusty Willoughby, “Uptown” b/w “Viaduct” single, “Another Train Comin’” b/w “Buttercup” single (Book Records): As has been iterated in these virtual pages, we at Artist Home loves us some Rusty Willoughby. And he’s batting a thousand with the four tracks inhabiting these two new virtual 45s….
Seattle jazz collective High Pulp have been doing their very unique thing for about four years now. They’re a prime example of a new breed of jazz combo—one that uses jazz virtuosity and motifs as a gateway into a bouillabaisse of genres. Sonic omnivores who freely cherrypick from funk, soul, electronica, and hip hop,…
Artist Home is proud to premiere “Both of Those Things,” the new single by Tacoma singer/songwriter J. Martin. Full disclosure: the song’s spent the last three days lodged in my head even when I’m not listening to it, so consider this a case of me paying it forward. Martin’s been part of Tacoma indie rock…
Heather Thomas gets a lot of love here at Artist Home, and for good reason. Whether she’s singing in psych-pop ensemble General Mojo’s, or singing and bashing the kit for her own Heather Thomas Band, anything she touches is invariably worth a listen (or several). Artist Home is proud to premiere “When I Was Young,” Heather…
Interview by Odawni AJ Palmer Good things come to those who persist and work hard, and that’s absolutely the case with Seattle alt-rock band Gypsy Temple’s debut album, King Youngblood. Frontman Cameron Lavi-Jones has spent the last ten years working on the album, an exceptional display of persistence considering he’s just 20 years old. The…
Chris Cunningham is chilling in a booth at a Capitol Hill bar, shooting the breeze over whiskeys and talking about the latest chapter in his artistic journey.“It still surprises me that anyone’s asking me to make videos for them,” he says with a combination of amusement and bemusement. “I’ve basically never had any training. I’m…
Let’s just declare this William Cremin Week here at Artist Home. Aside from his Seattle music scene credentials as a member of some of this ‘burg’s best bands (Cumulus, The Torn ACLs, and Roaming Herds of Buffalo among them), Cremin’s also a member of Invisible Shivers (whose great new record got the deep-dive treatment from…
I want to be Ian Shuler’s voice for one day. The frontman/principal songwriter/drummer for Seattle combo Invisible Shivers possesses a croon that rests somewhere on the fault lines of Lou Reed’s streetwise beat-poet drone and the weary boyishness of The Church’s Steve Kilbey. It is lounge lizard, disillusioned noir heel, and bright-eyed little boy all…
