New Music

Off the heels of Honey Bucket’s critically snubbed Furniture Days and Shop Regulars’ charming first release, the punctual Spirited Regulars (released last October), comes Matt Radosevich’s Fortified Regulars, a hyper focused, six-song cassette.

Steal the World’s lived in sound can’t be overstated. It overshadows the pithy, indie wannabes and rock’s legacy acts (who haven’t released anything noteworthy in decades). It’s an endearing rock ‘n’ roll record, which avoids rock’s indulgent pitfalls despite riding so close to rock’s established sounds.

The Dip, being a group of players conspicuously under 30, may be a sign that the next generation is ready to embrace organic sounds and mix conventional rock, blues and soul set-ups with elaborate layers of harmonies and timely conventions into a new type of old school.

As the ending saw-like whirling races to the forefront, accelerating each to his end, From the Land of the Wicked King reveals a new kind of free jazz and experimentation. De Dionyso, Meek, and Rico frustrate, defy, pursue, and expel their divination secrets everywhere. Where they go from here, well…that’s for us to decode.

Jim Basnight is a Northwest perennial, best known for his new wavy combo the Moberlys, but also a figure in such outfits as the Meyce, the Rockinghams, and as a solo act. He’s ventured away from the Northwest, having lived in NYC and LA, but, like a homing pigeon, he invariably returns to our neck of the woods.

“LSG (Movements 1-6)” whines scenic guitar notes amid propulsive drumming in a river without an overriding current. Theodore’s melodic complexities scrap and meander, offering a generous give and take. Instrumentation spins webs as taped looped expressions and experimental aural reveal solar flares.

The ordinary still receives the extraordinary and Bazan’s autobiographical leanings on Phoenix are magnetically cathartic. His knack for surprising listeners with realistic grief and dry humor as he works the kinks out towards an existential resolve show him unafraid and invigorated, even if he gets it all wrong.

Juxtaposed between voice/harp and electronic glitch/processing, reveals a previously unseen path. Animate and inanimate passageways converge as Fisher stumbles upon new hues and feminine spark. She eschews previous movements and stages her prowess not solely with trained instruments, but with interpretation and integration.

Danger Diva is the story of a rock singer who allows her voice to be surgically modified (with the inevitable unexpected results), set in a futuristic Seattle that’s just around the corner. Making her cinematic debut Thunderpussy lead singer Molly Sides stars as “Devi,” who gets more than she bargained for in agreeing to the unorthodox vocal treatment.

Like the cover photo, Sutton offers stillness, amongst water’s long game of cutting into fragile, earthen tones. The Deep End’s profoundly canorous sounds trim in similar ways. The crux of The Deep End is not so much a sauna soundtrack inviting one to take a soak; rather the altering experience water plays in our lives.

Mongé’s strongest attraction is found in the fluidity of feeling. These six songs sprinkled by mostly acoustic guitar, bow toward an intimacy achieved by letting Mongé shine in an uncomplicated way.