THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST

… songs such as “Secret Handshake” and “Sweet Tooth” showcase the band’s guitar-driven roots, but then they can totally change it up and (surprise!) even get kind of twangy for songs like “Carolina Throwaway.”

Hey Marseilles have come a long way since I first saw them play a breezy 2 o’clock opening set for Capitol Hill Block Party.

On a soggy Thursday evening, my partner-in-crime and I made our way into Ballard’s Tractor Tavern for the perfect cure for our mildew blues: Julia Massey and the Five Finger Discounts, The Hoot Hoots, and the Great Um.

Five Letters From Far Away, the new album from Julia Massey and the Five Finger Discount, is a cosmic pop journey, space exploration through a dance-party sector of the universe.

Stripped of loud guitars and surface fluff, he maneuvered into the subtle rather than the over-stated.

Thee Satisfaction @ Nectar Lounge, Seattle, Washington, United States

Feeling like you’re in a funk? The Rubbish Zoo can take care of that.

It’s this honesty that shines through the entire album. Liz Rognes is a woman who is not afraid of her own self, her strengths and her flaws, and she sings her truth in a voice of redemption …

Opening with a spirited La Gallina, off of Don’t Mess with the Dragon, from 2007, Ozomatli made it perfectly clear that they were taking no prisoners.

Sara spent a full seven months in the recording studio, and you can hear in the results the time and effort involved to fully process her music …

Though based out of Portland, their breed of garage punk summons images of desperate times in 1970’s New York City.

The album crosses realms of a less audacious Modest Mouse, a Decemberist without the pretension, or an Aqueduct beyond synth; the production, a crisp sheen on a bulging, morphous creature of pop-rock.

… the theme of the night – three bands on the verge of great things, busting at the seams with new music to share.

With some debt to post-rock, Martha! Mother isn’t afraid of crescendos, musical and emotional. What sets them apart is when they combine it with the intimacy and fuzziness of a 4-track recording. If this all sounds messy, in practice it isn’t because of a heaping dose of restraint.

Gone is the overcast, coffee simmered survival mechanistic humor; this is a sound not of salty skyscrapers but of a land left wilder, the sound of a handful of speeding cars on I-84 at midnight.

..the EP is an aural glimpse of a ghost, an Americana wanderer searching for a frontier that disappeared in the gaudy neon of the modern world.

The snow had stopped by the time we reached the High Dive, Fremont only getting a heavy dust on this first day of Puget Sound’s state-of-emergency, national-news-making, self-parodying blizzard.

Venue & Performance Space @ 3552 N Mississippi, Portland, OR 97227, United States

This is a record that will make you want to take a long pull on a cigarette and stare, brooding, into the western horizon. It captures the messiness of life: love, pain, death, anger, and hunger but in such a way you’ll finish listening to the ten tracks and want more.

Bright Brown started out as a solo project by Nahas in response to a post 9-11 world and his thoughts regarding his own identity as an Arab American living in a society with many barriers.

wild and crazy; the performers danced insanely, instruments broke frequently, and bizarre howling duets happened (more than once). For those of you who enjoy music that messes with your mind and toys with that bit of childlike anarchy still lingering in our souls.. I hope you were at the show.

When you listen to Fullam, it’s like listening to music played to you when you were young. Well, that is if your folks were awesome and made sure to play you Nash, Buffalo Springfield, and Odetta. If that is the case, listen to Fullam’s music and see if you don’t remember him.

Moraine, Mean Recess, F, Bone Cave Ballet, Motercraft, Haikuchi, and Alligator Pears playing the Shared Medium NW Showcase at the 2010 Artopia Festival, Georgetown.

Members Saskia van der Giessen (vocals, guitar, violin), Arne Wolfswinkel (guitar), Thanios Fotiadis (bass) and Dyan Ramekers (drums) play a melodic, and often chaotic, blend of music that’s familiar to indie fans – both catchy and oftentimes heavy.

Hailing from Staten Island, New York, The Headlocks is a big band. Rob Carey, lead vocalist/guitar/harmonica player, ensures me there’s only seven full time members.

Hannah and Samuel, of the Woodlands, have crafted together a work that conveys the intelligence and art of simplicity.

The Soft Hills new EP, Painted World, depicts the serene soundtrack to what is quite possibly one of Wayne Coyne’s day dreams…

I wish I could figure out what holiday was going on in the universe cause I can’t wait for it to come again…

Essentially, this album is a rabbit hole of both practical and nonsensical emotional reactions; but making interesting observations about love, lust and humanity.

Self described as American Folk / Melodramatic Popular music, this Bellingham band, led by Jake Humming, accompanied by Steve Norman on Pedal Steele/Dobro and Trumpet, backed up by Mike Bergstrom on Bass and Derek Jackman on Drums, had no problem drifting into the ageless ballads of the West Coast folk tradition…

Ethan Perry’s music is drunk with melancholy, but without the hangover at the end.

A Silent Way & Mars Retrieval Unit @ Nectar Lounge, Seattle

Emily Wells and Simple Citizens @ High Dive, Seattle, WA, United States

‘Gun’s Ammo, Jewelry Coins’ (Strange Jerome, 2009) is a life retrospective. The album carries the slightly aching and very honest melody of love realized (and not), choices revisited and ambitions rekindled.

Branden Daniel and Everybody Gets Laid, Moraine, Reptet, and RandAll Dance at Olympic Sculpture Park, Seattle. Shared Medium Northwest Showcase, Summer 2009.

Shared Medium Showcase at Artopia, June 28th 2008, Georgetown. David Hillman, Pete Bush and the Hoi Polloi, The Nextdoor Neighbors, The Alligator Pears, and Seeing Blind.

This Self-titled release by Daryl Pierce is like a ride on a slow-moving cloud.

Melodic and wondrous, The Attic revels in a dark lounge sound… Each instrument, each note, each line laid down on their debut self titled album lives like smoke in some dark bar unchecked by society.

Amanecer, Luna Nueva’s debut album, opens with a ruckus-like a good joke told and guitar laughter fills a crowded room-and instantly you understand why a new moon has risen.