In music, the unequal representation of women is an industry-wide issue with a lasting ripple effect. There’s no sector of the industry with a more pronounced gender gap than in engineering and producing. According to reports by the Audio...
When asked why she makes music, Pacific Northwest songwriter Beth Whitney begins a story about a transient woman she met in Modesto with a ball of tangled fishing line. “She sat next to me and she had a backpack...
What happens when you bring together two musically inventive, botany-obsessed Seattleites? You get Pikefruit, a local duo that draws on the techniques of electronic production and their love of the Pacific Northwest’s lush natural world, in the pursuit of...
Last year, during the 2020 Vice Presidential debates, when Kamala Harris silenced Mike Pence with the measured reminder, “I’m Speaking,” three Oregon-based songwriters – Kristen Grainger, Beth Wood, and Bre Gregg – all had the same epiphany. “All three...
In honor of International Women’s Day, it seems only right to highlight new Seattle projects specifically designed with the interests of womxn musicians in mind. One great example of such an effort is the new self-titled 15-track compilation from...
We all live with other versions of ourselves, identities we’ve outgrown that may suddenly—and uncomfortably—reemerge when we revisit people and places from our past. How we react to these seemingly inevitable encounters is another story, and the topic of...
With the release of their newest album, I Told You So, which drops today on Colemine Records, Seattle’s simmering soul-jazz Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio deliver on a promise they made to their fans more than two years ago. Shortly...
After the year we all just had, it’s completely understandable if you feel like giving up. But with “Don’t Give Up,” Seattle’s Sundae Crush have arrived to offer you another option: How about a therapeutic float through a neon...
Music has always served as a battle cry and a balm during particularly tumultuous times, and in 2020—when injustices like the disproportionate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on BIPOC, the slaying of George Floyd by police, the assault on...
Alaska Reid is already an industry pro. By 14, she was performing her songs in clubs on the Sunset Strip, and by 20, she’d released Crush with her band Alyeska and veteran producer John Agnello (Kurt Vile, Dinosaur Jr.,...
The Alaskan-born daughter of a folk musician, Tekla Waterfield comes by evocative, poignant songwriting honestly. Waterfield has played music in various formations in Seattle since she moved to the area in 2010, but most recently, she’s stepped out on...
In late May, while listening to police flash-bangs and screams of protestors outside his apartment in Seattle during the widespread protests following the May 25 death of George Floyd, multi-instrumentalist Jordan Thomas, a.k.a. Cool Ruins, says he felt the...
In her senior year at Bennington College in Vermont, Dana Foote, a music composition major, was required to present a concert of original music. Foote gathered together some of her school peers, the songs she wrote, and she called...
Jessica Dobson is a quiet giant of contemporary indie music. Along with performing her own material in Deep Sea Diver, Dobson has worked with indie music darlings like Beck, Conor Oberst, Spoon, and The Shins. And yet, if you...
The last time I met with the baroque pop duo Gracie Coates and Rachel Ruggles (aka Gracie and Rachel) was in 2014, in the backyard of Coates’ parent’s house in Berkeley, California – which happened to be near where...
On a bandstand, it’s not uncommon to leave space for band-members—and special guests—to solo and share their own interpretation of a song live for everyone to enjoy. But, during quarantine, while musicians and audiences are alone in their homes,...
Is it too late fix the things in the world that are broken? That was the question on powerhouse Seattle guitarist Kathy Moore’s mind when she wrote her Super Power trio’s newest single, “Bad Day’s Coming,” and started planning...
Oregon State’s motto, “She Flies with her Own Wings,” was first adopted in 1854 as a nod to the “independent spirit” of the state’s first pioneers. In her new single by the same name, Kristen Grainger and True North...
On a cold, gloomy day in late March, a few weeks into the COVID-19 pandemic, singer Debby Nagusky picked up her guitar for the first time in weeks. She had just read several news articles—one about the shortage of...
Using a mixture of performance art, experimental opera, free improvisation, and literary composition, artists Lisa E. Harris and Nicole Mitchell have created EarthSeed, a ten-song album recorded during a live performance and inspired by the groundbreaking works of Octavia...
According to a 2014 study by the League of American Orchestras, less than 2% of musicians in American orchestras are African American, only 4.3% of conductors are black, and composers remain predominantly white as well. Hence, as a classically-trained...
Seattle-based drummer and singer-songwriter Heather Thomas had grand plans for 2020. After releasing her sophomore EP Open Up last year, Thomas hit the road, planning a nearly year-long journey with the intention of spending each month in a different...
About three years ago, Adrienne Clark and Anthony Darnell, bandmates in Seattle new wave dance pop group Killer Workout, replied to an ad from a man who had bought out the stock of a closed-down video store. Interest piqued,...
What do you hear in your head when the world goes silent? This was the question Elijah Dhavvan of Seattle band Tobias the Owl set out to answer with his third full-length album Visalia. The question was originally posed...