100 Bands in 100 Days Presented by Verity Credit Union — Day 2: Aquamarine Space Unicorns

Please check out Verity Credit Union, our great partner in the 100 Bands in 100 Days local music showcase.

Artwork by Seattle-area painter E.R. Saba

Music enthusiasts of the Pacific Northwest, welcome one and all to the sixth annual outing of 100 Bands in 100 Days, our year-end music showcase bringing you some of the freshest names in Northwest music you have to know about, sponsored by our four-year-strong sponsor for the showcase, Verity Credit Union. Some days the featured act could be a pre-established and locally-renowned musician with whom you may already be familiar, some days it could be an overlooked locally-sourced act on the up-and-up, and everything in between. Either way, we have faith you’ll come away with this segment with myriad new favorites. Today we’re headed to Seattle to look at an intergalactic duo that reaches for the stars and brings them down to ground-level, Aquamarine Space Unicorns.

Photo courtesy of SeattleSynthwave

Accidentally crash-landed in Seattle years ago while on vacation away from the far-away planet they’d previously inhabited, Joyanna M and Lily Bell have been gracing our region with their pastoral, dreamlike haze of trip-hop grooves, twinkling synths and guitars, and sparing use of glitchy, heavily-modulated sounds. Aquamarine Space Unicorns are dream pop for those who dream of the furthest stars, of what’s hiding out there trillions of light years away. They’re trip-hop for a day of lackadaisical lounging around on the surface of Saturn. With a total of seven releases under their belts, the Unicorns always seek to reinvent and experiment with each new release.

On releases like 2017’s low-key Naked Truth, subtle ear-massaging washes of glitched-out fuzz coat an expansive landscape in which to lose yourself. Songs like the comparatively intimate “Color Washes” are texturally reminiscent of Broadcast at their glitchiest (think Haha Sound), albeit with an off-putting, almost eerie mood. 2019’s Minor AF showcase some of the duo’s most ambitious and carefully-produced tracks to date, such as the starkly transporting “Exit Sign” towards the LP’s back-end, which features a sparse and syrupy beat tucked away behind smooth ripples of dusky synth pads and music box-esque synths. This grimmer shift in spirit further informed the duo’s latest outing, the ominous and dense Anartist.

Daydreamers of the Northwest, enter an act in which to fully immerse yourself, and never want to leave.


(You can listen to Aquamarine Space Unicorns below via YouTube and Spotify; keep up with the Unicorns on Twitter @AquSpaceUnicorn, or via their official website, aquamarinespaceunicorns.com.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajeJxfsYnyM


Submissions for 100 Bands in 100 Days are still open to any Pacific Northwest band interested in submitting. If you would like to submit for a chance to be featured in this segment, consult this link for more information on how you can do so.


A huge shoutout to Verity Credit Union for doing so much for the music community and for being such a great partner. 


As an added bonus this year, House Of Cannabis will be playing the featured bands in each of their three Washington locations.


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