Art
Lemolo’s Newest Delivers Beauty and Darkness on an Epic Canvas
Meagan Grandall, lead singer/songwriter/leader of PNW band Lemolo, has spent nearly a decade recording music that’s equal parts intimate and expansive. Her lyrics and bell-clear voice are as emotionally vulnerable and naked as the most introspective folk singer’s. But the sonic canvas on which she paints is ethereal pop, rife with texture and a sense…
Read MoreArtist Home Premiere: “Fitcher’s Bird” by Skeleton Flower
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…
Read MoreFine Prince: Eighties all Over, with a Bittersweet Twist
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…
Read MoreArtist Home Interview: Raven Hollywood, Musical and Creative Shapeshifter
Artistically, Raven Hollywood doesn’t seem scared of anything, though he has a lot of feverish curiosities. He represents a creative dualism that is always moving, always re-shaping but, as a result, never specifically grounded or tied to anything – well, except when it comes to matters of the heart and Raven’s close relationship with partner…
Read MoreSam Anderson of Hey Marseilles: Using Music Technology to Build Community
Throughout the 20th Century, if you were a musician, chances are you had stars in your eyes. You wanted the big rock stage, the loud guitar solos, the people screeching and cheering from the audience. You wanted this as you traveled city to city, venue to venue, locale to locale. And, of course, these aims…
Read MoreErik Blood’s ‘Lost in Slow Motion’: Truth, Beauty, Album Art, and The Music Inside
The assignment starts out as nothing more than another fun Artist Home web piece. AH co-founder Kevin Sur brainstorms the idea to me via email—an ongoing series of articles highlighting some of our favorite Northwest-grown album cover art and packaging. The spark for the idea comes from the stunning presentation behind the vinyl pressing of…
Read MoreSo Long, Marianne…and Leonard…and Sharon
Full disclosure: 2016 has given me a Doctoral crash course in navigating seriously wrenching financial, personal, and emotional loss, especially in the last two months. So for me at first blush, the recent deaths of Leonard Cohen and Sharon Jones—right in time for the holidays— just felt like two more reasons why 2016 could…
Read MoreArt, Metal and Hockey – A Conversation with Illustrator, John Santos
I had the pleasure of sending John Santos (artist extraordinaire, hockey fanatic, connoisseur of the musically sullen and burdensome, homegrown magician and a Colorado native) a few questions about his breathtaking artwork, involvement in an assortment of passion projects, preferred artistic weapons of choice, and unyielding love affair with the Colorado Avalanche and hockey in…
Read MoreSmokey Brights Answer “The 10”
Artist Home has drummed up 10 silly, yet amazing questions that we will henceforth refer to as, “The 10”. Perhaps we’ve watched too much James Lipton or we’ve all been on the road for too long and pondered such profound subjects to kill time while driving through Kansas. Nonetheless, we present to you “The 10”…
Read MoreExile in Hicksville: Spokane’s Lost Underground Music Scene
For the benefit of the uninitiated: Spokane is a rural Eastern Washington manufacturing town, isolated from the rest of humanity by Canadian wilderness to the north, arid Palouse plains to the south, the Cascades to the west, and the Rockies to the east. Even today it’s known as a conservative little place without much patience…
Read MoreThey’re All All Right: A Users’ Guide to Cheap Trick
Yeah, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s proven to be about as relevant an arbiter of, y’know, actual merit as the Oscars. And no, that’s not a compliment. But I still got the feels when Cheap Trick were selected as 2016 inductees on April 8. When Cheap Trick was born in the mid-1970s, the Billboard…
Read MoreTimber! 2016 Lineup Announcement
Timber! Outdoor Music Festival returns for its fourth consecutive year this July 14-16 with another stellar lineup, some new twists and more incredible ways to celebrate the outdoors and Northwest culture. Headlining acts include Langhorne Slim & the Law, Telekinesis, Deep Sea Diver, and a tribute to Creedence Clearwater Revival. Additional artists and activities will…
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