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Gardens and Villa hail from sunny Santa Barbara, Calif. They have brightly-colored vinyl deckchairs for a MySpace background. Band photos feature them dressed hella casual in bright tones, hangin' on a porch. A year ago, these incriminating aesthetic details would have led uninspired critics to quickly label these guys "chillwave"
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Infinite Love, the new record from guitarist Dustin Wong, may not be literally infinite, but it sure as hell is ambitiously epic. Clocking in at 1 hour, 20 minutes, Infinite Love is a double LP of visionary instrumental loopage in the Mark McGuire mode. A DVD with deeply psychedelic accompanying
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Infinite Love, the new record from guitarist Dustin Wong, may not be literally infinite, but it sure as hell is ambitiously epic. Clocking in at 1 hour, 20 minutes, Infinite Love is a double LP of visionary instrumental loopage in the Mark McGuire mode. A DVD with deeply psychedelic accompanying
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Total Life is the solo project of Kevin Doria from esteemed experimental Olympia expats Growing. Like most drone music, Total Life can be as punishing as it is proficiently-crafted, and so subtle that the many shifts and eddies which unfold amidst Doria's white noise squall sometimes barely register, sticking to
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For almost thirty years, Olympia's K Records has been a cornerstone of the Northwest music scene. Founder Calvin Johnson's Dub Narcotic Studio has played host to some of our region's most celebrated bands, and its jaw-dropping wealth of vintage analog equipment has been used to produce some of the most
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TENDER FOREVER >>>Tuesday, Nov. 2 Lyrics are typically secondary in electronic and dance music, but Melanie Valera's intonations on No Snare, her latest as Tender Forever, are not only emotionally resonant, but a critical part of the listening experience. While the electro-acoustic percussion on No Snare booms, chirps and rattles exultingly, it's
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For music fans that obsess over production and arrangement, the brand of stripped-down, no-frills folk that's ubiquitous in the Pacific Northwest can, at times, become tedious and uninspiring. With those kind of bands (and the area is lousy with them), there is little to scrutinize or pick apart aside from
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Seattle four-piece Hunting Grounds is in a state of flux. The band’s already multifaceted sound is about to take an evolutionary leap with the departure of singer Mike Ensor, whose vocal contributions added an unmistakable New Wave vibe to Huting Grounds’ genre-bending indie rock songs. Now remaining members Todd Bernier
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Seattle four-piece Hunting Grounds are in a state of flux. Their already multifaceted sound is about to take an evolutionary leap with the departure of singer Mike Ensor, whose vocal contributions added an unmistakable New Wave vibe to the band's genre-bending indie rock songs. Now remaining members Todd Bernier (guitar,
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LAKE is something of a local supergroup. All of its many members are solo artists or participants in other area acts, making the collective something of a part-time gig. Nevertheless, LAKE has a full-time wondrousness and enough talent to fill several bands (which, duh, makes perfect sense). Their music is
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German über-producer Ulrich Schnauss is one of those artists who makes a very deliberate effort to cross-pollinate between genres and - most especially - blur the boundary lines between them. Schnauss' utopic IDM prefigures a world where shoegaze (in the tradition of chord-bending greats like the Jesus and Mary Chain,
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A minute into "Finger," the opening track on Melted, the fourth solo record by Ty Segall, an amplifier obliterates the song's initial mellowness with an ungodly squeal, and an enormous wall of distortion swallows the song whole. In headphones, it's a tinnitus-tempting tidal surge - both ears are flooded with
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A minute into "Finger," the opening track on Melted, the fourth solo record by Ty Segall, an amplifier obliterates the song's initial mellowness with an ungodly squeal, and an enormous wall of distortion swallows everything whole. In headphones, it's a tinnitus-tempting tidal surge - both ears are flooded with riotous
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Local quartet Wheelies' indie rock combines equal parts depravity and delicacy; they can sing about getting wasted while sounding angelic, only to eventually tumble into Murder City Devils-esque explosions of musical furor. But besides being slippery players, they're also straight-shootin' dudes with a sound that juxtaposes very pretty guitar and
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More than ever, the power to coordinate and organize youth-centered events is being put in the hands of young go-getters themselves (the Redmond Fire House, WhAAM up in Bellingham, et al.). The Olympia Film Society's seventh annual What You Got? Festival aims to provide local kids with a 48-hour arts
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It's not easy to labor in purposeful obscurity for more than a decade, cultivating an atmosphere of secrecy and hard-line artistic weirdness, but Olympia's Dead Air Fresheners have been going strong (and going secretive) for nigh on 13 years now. The creatively-uncontained, nominally-instrumental band (sometimes joined by spoken word performers)
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Over the last decade, Olympia, Tacoma and Seattle have taken steps to support and encourage youth appreciation of, and engagement with, the aural and cinematic arts. Where once there was a drought of legitimate all-ages venues, now there's no shortage of cool, volunteer-run enterprises, and more than ever, the power
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While rustic Northwestern folk gilded with gorgeous multi-part harmonies is a type of music that may have already peaked in local and national popularity (what with the Fleet Foxes' recent meteoric ascension from Emerald City darlings to Saturday Night Live musical guests), it's also something that'll likely never grow tiresome,
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Bellingham quintet the Sunshine Bumpers have a talent for crafting boozy, bluesy rock, and even though most of the band isn't even old enough to drink yet, they admit that they like to get rowdy. Rambunctiousness, of course, goes hand in hand with rock 'n' roll, and, as soulful frontwoman
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Bellingham quintet the Sunshine Bumpers have a talent for crafting boozy, bluesy rock, and even though most of the band isn't even old enough to drink yet, they admit that they like to get rowdy. Rambunctiousness, of course, goes hand in hand with rock 'n' roll, and, as soulful frontwoman
