Ty Segall, Vince Staples, Ben Gibbard, And More Music Critics' Picks
by Stranger Things To Do Staff
This week, our music critics recommend everything from the booze-soaked legacy of an iconic '80s American band to one of modern hiphop's most promising young voices, and from the electro-pop little sister of a long dead classical composer to a sold-out benefit show for Standing Rock featuring Ben Gibbard.
MONDAY
Mykki Blanco with Cakes Da Killa
MCs have been spitting bars about the debauched, obscene, and erotic since the earliest days of the genre or, you know, maybe Akinyele if you’re only into what’s on the radio. In that tradition, Cakes Da Killa and Mykki Blanco revitalize the genre’s sexual charge but twist it out of the hypermasculine, heteronormative mode in which so much of the mainstream still dwells. Cakes uses a salacious but no-nonsense narrative take on his life in the fast lane on songs like “New Phone (Who Dis).” Blanco is the more subdued, but perhaps more thoughtful, of the two; the multigender MC draws from diverse sources like riot grrrl and pure pop on her debut album, Mykki. JOSEPH SCHAFER
Vince Staples: The Life Aquatic Tour
Just because this show happens to fall on a Monday is no reason to miss out on seeing one of hiphop’s most important and vital young voices. Los Angeles MC Vince Staples’s early associations with Odd Future’s most technically adept rapper, Earl Sweatshirt, spoke to his preternatural dexterity on the mic. But whereas Earl’s complex lyrics can sometimes soften their impact, Staples does not mince words detailing the many horrors he witnessed coming of age among gang signs and major crimes—experiences he relays with a poetic sensibility that fans of Nas and Ghostface Killa alike will appreciate. After releasing the critically acclaimed Summer ’06 in 2015, Staples followed that effort up last year with his Prima Donna EP, which pushed both his production and the urgency of his lyricism to uncharted areas. This is your chance to see a future legend—who has a new album expected later this year—at an early stage in his career. NICK ZURKO
TUESDAY
Adia Victoria, DoNormaal, Reverend Dollars
“I don’t know nothin’ ’bout Southern belles, but I can tell ya ’bout Southern hell,” Adia Victoria sings lightly and melodically over a hazy, menacing blues guitar line on “Stuck in the South” from her debut album, Beyond the Bloodhounds. It’s the sort of album that seeps into your tissue and fascia and then shakes you from the inside out. Comparisons to other artists are lame and reductive, I know, but Victoria’s vocals take me back to early Cat Power records, and her screaming guitar makes me want to drag my body across a dirt floor the way PJ Harvey’s does. The similarities go beyond sound, to the spell-like manner in which these women entirely transport you to their singular worlds. Victoria’s interior Southern soundscape has range, drawing from country and pop, but it also reaches back, deep and far, through darkness—to muddy Mississippi Delta blues, yes, but also the dusty groans of the genre’s West African roots. Go to this show and you’ll probably be haunted for days. ANGELA GARBES
Bash & Pop, The Yawpers, Waterloo Teeth
How do you escape the prodigious legacy of the Replacements, one of the most glorious and iconic 1980s American rock groups to get stinkin’ drunk to? Not even leader Paul Westerberg has managed that feat. So Bash & Pop’s Tommy Stinson is forever condemned (or perhaps blessed) to wear his old band’s mostly golden oeuvre like a rusty halo, even as he strives to make Bash & Pop its own distinctive thing. Their 1993 album Friday Night Is Killing Me is blue-collar power pop and Faces-like rock that’ll put grease stains on your blue jeans—yes, much like the Replacements did, but minus that Westerbergian melodic sophistication and lyrical wit. The new Anything Could Happen picks up where that one ended, as if 24 years haven’t passed. Nothing fancy here; just some be-denim’d, skinny-white-boy songcraft to make the Rainier flow easier down your gullet. DAVE SEGAL
Mike Watt & The Missingmen, Toys That Kill
Mike Watt found his life’s calling as a teenager when a kid fell on him from out of a tree. The kid turned out to be D. Boon, the guitarist for the Minutemen, with Watt beside him on bass. Watt wove together funk and Rush and politics and passion. The Minutemen played two-minute songs that changed gears every eight or nine seconds. After Boon’s terrible death in 1985, Watt’s subsequent bands did much the same, just a little less frenziedly. He played bass in the reunited Stooges, although Iggy Pop told him not to play so many notes. Watt has joined, jammed, and/or feuded with everybody in so-called indie rock you could name. His new band? Well, he’s back to a trio. But don’t expect punk rock. Nothing so simple. ANDREW HAMLIN
Playback Launch Party
Seattle Public Library launches their second round of local music collection with their streaming service known as Playback this week, and will celebrate with a party featuring live sets from artists included in the service, like indie rockers Honcho Poncho and livetronica band Theoretics, with dance music spun by KEXP DJ Sharlese.
Poly Gras: A Mardi Gras Celebration
The controlled tempest that is the Polyrhythmics brings the funk for Mardi Gras, supported by Cecil Moses & the SGs and DJ Abe Beeson for an all-out dance party.
TUESDAY-WEDNESDAY
David Lanz
Seattle native and Grammy-nominated pianist David Lanz will return to Seattle to play solo work from his latest album, Norwegian Rain. His wife and co-composer Kristin Amarie may join him for a song or two on vocals.
WEDNESDAY
Dreamdecay, Lysol, Nail Polish, Lowest Priority
Premier “powerviolence shoegaze” local champs Dreamdecay haven’t released anything since their excellent 2013 LP NVNVNV, but they recently previewed a track from their upcoming album on Iron Lung, YÚ, due out in early 2017. “Ian” is a certifiable slow-burner with a punishing, arty noise-rock atmosphere (their label quaintly refers to it as “dirge pop”). BRITTNIE FULLER
Forms: Teklife Showcase
Chicago-based Teklife boss DJ Spinn brings two of the label’s younger stalwarts to town for what should be an unmissable night of footwork. In addition to helping pioneer that genre’s sound and start the Teklife collective with DJ Rashad, Spinn has put in more than two decades as a DJ. His experience is reflected as his barrage of beats takes hold of the dance floor and turns things up in a serious way. Taso and Taye have also been honing their skills as DJs and producers for years, with the former famously collaborating on five cuts from Rashad’s Double Cup, footwork’s definitive full-length. With both Taso and Taye releasing new material on the Teklife and Hyperdub labels, respectively, you can expect to hear a wide range of the genre’s latest barn burners alongside their own productions. This is one club night where it pays to get there early, as each act is a headliner in his own right. NICK ZURKO
Hero Worship: Kate Bush
Hero Worship: Tribute Night and Pony present the ultimate celebration of the life and work of Kate Bush, powerful backlit ballet queen of the forest and frontwoman of her own genius decades-spanning solo career. A full lineup of local and national music legends lend themselves to all-night live performances, featuring NYC-based composer and choreographer Colin Self, Abbey Blackwell (of La Luz), TV Coahran (of Gazebos and GGNZLA), and Zach McNulty. Backing soundtrack to the festivities will be provided by DJ Kirky and Dee Jay Jack.
Mackned, Fish Narc, Cam the Mac, Rude Crow, Guala Boy, Carter
Thraxxhouse co-founder and West Seattle native son Mackned will headline this show with Fish Narc, Cam the Mac, Rude Crow, Guala Boy, and Carter.
Max & Iggor Cavalera, Immolation, Full Of Hell
Brazilian brothers and co-founders of '80s heavy metal band Sepultura Max and Iggor Cavalera return to Seattle on (what else?) their Return to Roots Tour, with support by Immolation and Full of Hell.
The Octopus Project, Sound of Ceres, Niagara Moon
Austin experimental-pop outfit the Octopus Project produce some pretty far-out electro-psychedelic sounds (like a collaborative LP with tripped-out eye-crossers Black Moth Super Rainbow, 2006 album The House of Apples and Eyeballs, and soundtrack work that includes the strange yet lovely 2015 film Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter). The release date of sixth studio record Memory Mirror was pushed out to April 7, but first single “Wrong Gong” bodes well for the rest, a mix of fuzzed-out synths, urgent, roiling rhythms, saccharine-free boy-girl vocals, and expected doses of technotronic weirdness. Bonus: The highly intriguing Danny Reisch (White Denim), Dave Fridmann (Tame Impala, Flaming Lips), and Greg Calbi (David Bowie, Talking Heads) mixed and mastered the record. LEILANI POLK
The Radio Dept. with GERMANS
Swedish shoegaze group The Radio Dept. is back on tour with more comforting sonic commiseration and well-crafted twee-adjacent pop perfect for Seattle winters. They'll be joined by GERMANS.
Rare Air: Motion Graphics, Visible Cloaks, Noel Brass Jr., Raica
Like a more bliss-oriented, late-period James Ferraro or a less jagged Oneohtrix Point Never, Motion Graphics (New York musician Joe Williams) traffics in a sort of Day-Glo, digital world of aural wonder. On his 2016 self-titled debut album for Domino, a strange convergence of exotica and pop blooms, an uncanny retro-futurist fusion of oddly familiar melodies wreathed in tonalities that sound unmoored from traditional instruments and known eras. Motion Graphics’ music whooshes and curlicues around you with the silky caress of the new. Portland neo–New Age duo Visible Cloaks (Spencer Doran and Ryan Carlile)—who just dropped the dazzling Reassemblage album on RVNG Intl.—generate impossibly delicate and intricate sonic mobiles that glint with fresh, arresting timbres every few seconds. They create off-center music that helps you to get centered. DAVE SEGAL
WEDNESDAY-THURSDAY
Tigran Hamasyan
Armenian folkloric pianist and composer Tigran Hamasyan employs extensive jazz improvisation in a living fusion of heritage music from his homeland.
THURSDAY
Dobet Gnahoré
Considered one of contemporary African music’s most intriguing newcomers, Dobet Gnahoré sings in seven languages, backed by a Pan-African band. Her powerful vocals and diverse music composition move from genre to genre with a freedom to grow into new territories.
Marie Davidson, Soft Metals, Aos, Sharlese, Kate
Marie Davidson’s brand of haute-art electronic songcraft should be earning the same gushing praise that artists like Julia Holter, Laurel Halo, and Holly Herndon have accrued over the last few years. The Montreal-based auteur combines sotto-voce singing with compositional elegance and tonal chiaroscuro, resulting in a sort of high-IQ, 21st-century pop that’s thankfully unafraid of the dark side (Heldon/Richard Pinhas fans, take note). Davidson’s latest full-length, Adieux Au Dancefloor, ironically welcomes the dance floor, with HI-NRG sweat-inducers that arpeggiate and bounce with Euro-disco brio and icy funk. It sounds trés analog and DTF 24/7. DAVE SEGAL
Mozart's Sister with Teen Daze
It’s difficult to suspend the disbelief in the kind of hubris necessary to name your neo-pop project “Mozart’s Sister.” With Mozart being one of the most prolific composers of the classical era, you’d think no one would want to invite that comparison toward the beginning of their career. And yet Caila Thompson-Hannant claims this territory for her prismatic calculations, a welding of pop with electronic power tools that evokes whispers of Julee Cruise atmospheric synth corners with touches of Kate Bush at her most imaginatively shrill. Thompson-Hannant’s three latest singles—“Moment 2 Moment,” “Angel,” and “Eternally Girl”—hit that sweet spot between cloyingly alternative and mainstream pop, and are legitimately original in their presentation, with a Sixpence None the Richer–style earnestness that spins layers of sugar into a dense sonic fog, enjoyable yet overpowering in their candying influence. KIM SELLING
MUSIC HEALS Community Dance Party
Join KEXP and Seattle Cancer Care Alliance Proton Therapy Center in the radio station gathering space with guest DJs Cheryl Waters (a cancer survivor) and Atticus (whose mother is a cancer survivor). This free and all-ages dance party celebrating hope and survival is the culmination of an all-day series on KEXP, broadcasting the songs and stories of the people whose lives have been irrevocably changed by cancer and helmed by KEXP stalwarts John Richards, Cheryl Waters, and Kevin Cole.
OTEP, The Convalescence, One Day Waiting, Prey The Hunter, Whythre
If words can double as weapons, as OTEP frontwoman/human blowtorch Otep Shamaya contends on her band’s latest record, Generation Doom, Shamaya favors the kind of mushroom-cloud-laying verbal warfare that might inspire the digging of bomb shelters. One of the few openly lesbian artists in heavy metal, Shamaya confronts gender and identity politics directly and furiously, with a tongue as blue as the corpse of subtlety. Comparing herself to a cross between Mark Twain and Jesse James, Shamaya growls, pants, shrieks and sing-raps over a nü-metal backdrop. Considering how plainly, eagerly sexist much of that subgenre was in its late-’90s heyday, it’s fitting that a feminist flamethrower like Shamaya continues to mine those sounds, turning nü metal on its thick-skulled head all these years later. JASON BRACELIN
Rich The Kid with Guests
Up and coming MC Rich The Kid hits El Corazon with guests Jay Critch, JR LaFlame, Cartier Cash, and Conner Reynolds in promotion of his album out later this year.
Studio 4/4: Skream (Open-To-Close Set)
Despite helping to develop the often-maligned dubstep genre, Skream has spent much of this decade producing and spinning four-to-the-floor heaters, moving from disco to big-room-friendly tech house. The producer’s efforts were rewarded last fall with his hit for Crosstown Rebels, “You Know, Right?” Soundtracking clubs around the world, the song’s classic house vocals were given a considerable boost by Skream’s acumen with the low end. Dancers will be treated to five hours of pristine productions, as Skream engineers one of his renowned marathon sets, which take in the breadth of dance music, moving with ease from disco classics to Teutonic techno. NICK ZURKO
THURSDAY-SATURDAY
Ty Segall
Only five years ago, Ty Segall was playing record stores and midsize clubs. Now he’s headlining two- and three-night stands at large-capacity venues in Brooklyn and Seattle. Any other artist in his shoes might have signed to a major, but Segall has stuck it out with Drag City, the Chicago label that lets him do whatever the fuck he wants, and lately he’s been on a theatrical-rock kick. Last year, that meant creepy latex masks. This year, it’s all about the toreador cape, but everything Segall builds rests on a sturdy garage-rock foundation. After the anarchy of 2016’s Emotional Mugger, the new self-titled record represents a return to a more cohesive form with the sort of hazy ballads and glitter-thrash anthems he does so well. KATHY FENNESSY
FRIDAY
Eldridge Gravy & The Court Supreme with Brass Monkeys
Dang, y’all, don’t THIS look like a killer Friday-night throwdown?! If it were just Eldridge Gravy & the Court Supreme, that’d prolly be enough, right, ’cause the Court Supreme ain’t never anything less than a total blowout. They’re a full and funky complement of honkin’ horns, tinklin’ keys, uh… lots of sweat, and a hype man, all bent on laying down high-energy, concrete-thick, late-1970s funk. By the way, don’t think you need to check your head, ’cause it’s the truth: This evening’s opening act, Brass Monkeys, are a Beastie Boys tribute group who, I’ve been assured, have a valid license to ill. MIKE NIPPER
Ghostface Killah with Pure Powers
Wu-Tang Clan’s members often invoked some permutation of Matthew 20:16, such as Killah Priest’s solo turn on “B.I.B.L.E.”: “The first shall be last, and the last shall be first.” This applies well to the great Ghost Deini, since he was the first of the original nine to be heard on 36 Chambers—and, artistically speaking, is pretty much the last man standing (Raekwon’s solid outings and RZA’s hacky directorial work notwithstanding). GFK is now in that rarefied 10-plus-album zone few hiphop soloists get to—and even in that small circle, he’s among the most consistent and forward moving. If you haven’t listened for a while, the Wally Champ’s 2010s output includes, among other things, a couple of ace album-length collaborations with lauded live musicians: Twelve Reasons to Die (with LA’s vintage savant Adrian Younge) and Sour Soul (with reverent Toronto jazz instrumentalists BadBadNotGood). LARRY MIZELL JR.
The Gospel of The Gutter Queen: Caela Bailey's Album Release Party
Caela Bailey's long awaited debut album The Gospel of The Gutter Queen is finally here, and she'll be releasing it in the patented Bailey/Von Tramp family style—that is, in wild cabaret fashion at Washington Hall in honor of the 70th birthday of her father Ron, who is one of the founders of Seattle's Moisture Festival and a long-time cabaret and music mogul himself. Enjoy burlesque, vaudeville, cocktails, and an abundance of live performances from special surprise guests.
Moon Duo with Evening Bell
Moon Duo are nothing if not consistent, and their output represents some of the most satisfying, lead-footing-it-down-the-Autobahn music extant. Since 2009, guitarist/vocalist Ripley Johnson and keyboardist Sanae Yamada have been forging streamlined, riff- and drone-based songs that get from point A to point “hey, let’s fade it out here” with a Suicide-meets-Hawkwind kind of monomania. Top it all off with deadpan Iggy Pop/Alan Vega crooning, and call it a wining formula. The new Occult Architecture Vol. 1 LP on Sacred Bones contains some of their catchiest—and heaviest—material to date, with standout “White Rose” approaching Can’s “Mother Sky” for motorik thrills. Longtime fans will not be disappointed; potential new ones should hop on this well-oiled machine now, while it’s still firing on all cylinders. DAVE SEGAL
Six Organs of Admittance, Don McGreevy
Ben Chasny has been releasing recordings under the Six Organs of Admittance moniker since 1998. Sometimes labeled as “freak folk” (back when that was a thing, see: Devendra Banhart), Chasny’s otherworldly psych transmissions have slightly more of an edge on the latest record, Burning the Threshold. While the early/mid-’00s Dark Noontide/Compathia-era material all still sounds fresh after 10 years, Threshold moves beyond the heavy Eastern guitar and drone meditations in a more austere, dark-folk direction, recalling the blackened yet pillowy fantasy realm of when Neurosis get soft. This bill also transcends with original Master Musicians of Bukkake drummer/Earth bassist Don McGreevy, whose 2014 pastoral Appalachian fingerpicking record Aichmophobia also includes hints of no-wave/experimental legend Glenn Branca and effortlessly deployed glockenspiel. BRITTNIE FULLER
FRIDAY-SUNDAY
Bugs Bunny at the Symphony II
For many of us, Richard Wagner’s music entered our consciousness when, in Bugs Bunny’s “What's Opera, Doc?” we heard Elmer Fudd sing “Kill the wabbit, Kill the wabbit” to Ride of the Valkyries. And when Bugs Bunny hears Fudd calling for the death of his kind, he pokes his long-eared head out of a hole, looks at the the camera, and says, with the kind of sadness that is funny because it’s almost real: “Kill the rabbit?” They do not make cartoons like that anymore. Cartoons that bring the highest parts of Western culture right down to the big belly of low culture laughter. CHARLES MUDEDE
SATURDAY
Michael Partington
Award-winning British concert guitarist Michael Partington has been lauded by Classical Guitar Magazine for his "lyricism, intensity and clear technical command."
Notorious Productions Presents: The Sound of Seattle with Malfunkshun and Guests
During my misspent childhood, I’d see Malfunkshun posters and figured them for some funk/Frankenstein combo. I was wrong about most of the funk, but the late Andrew Wood, who called himself “L’Andrew the Love Child,” was indeed a Bowie-esque amalgam of frontman, sage, savior, and holy fool. (Former roommate Chris Cornell recalls how they took inspiration from a local CCM station—the radio in their Ford Galaxie wouldn’t pick up anything else.) Wood joined Mother Love Bone, and then he shot up and died young. The ones left behind became Pearl Jam. The new Malfunkshun have at least one other Wood brother, and some of L’Andrew the Love Child’s left-behind lyrics. Hope springs eternal. ANDREW HAMLIN
Shelby Earl, Silver Torches, Planes on Paper
When it comes to her music career, golden-voiced Shelby Earl has a knack for doing things a little backward. At an age when most musicians are thinking about leaving the game and getting a real job (mid-30s), Earl quit her full-time position at Amazon to devote her life to music. Then, after releasing her debut record, Burn the Boats, in 2011, rather than following up with a flawless second album that utilized all the new tricks she learned the first time around, Earl recorded Swift Arrows (released 2013) in only eight days, using a lot of first takes and live recordings as the foundation. MEGAN SELING
SneakGuapo, Siq Fux, ST$ Boys
West Seattle MC SneakGuapo exists in the overlap of two of the town’s most productive rap collectives, Moor Gang and Thraxxhouse. The night-crawling braggadocio woven into his verses is a thread from the Moor Gang quilt, but the most defining color on his style palette is pain. Guapo’s urgent emotional purging in the studio has driven the flow of his output to the same prolific heights as his Thraxxhouse brethren, each song a status update with cathartic resolve. His latest release (between a string of singles and guest verses), Oblivious Indigo Child, is a four-song grouping recorded near the end of 2015 with premium production from the likes of Raised Byy Wolves. Alternately guarded and oversharing, Oblivious is Guap distilled to his purest form, which is also his finest. TODD HAMM
SUNDAY
Ben Gibbard with Sherman Alexie and Naomi Wachira
By the time you read this, the entire Standing Rock issue may well find itself consigned to cold history. The Mighty One (orange) made Obama’s fixes part of his supper. Well, go to this benefit for Standing Rock and the Water Protector Legal Collective anyway. Sherman Alexie is only one of the most amazing writers the Pacific Northwest ever produced, and you don’t have to take my word for it. Ben Gibbard hails of course from Death Cab for Cutie, ’nuff said, a rare solo show. Naomi Wachira’s website describes her as Afro-folk—although I say sweet soul. And maybe the issue is out of the news by the time you read this—but the splat from the orange pulp will need cleaning up. ANDREW HAMLIN
DevilDriver, Death Angel, The Agonist, Azreal, Ashes Of Existence, K’atun
California groove-metal rockers DevilDriver list their interests as "Loud heavy metal circle pits BBQ beer" so you know they're back in town to have a good time. Joining them on their tour are Death Angel, The Agonist, Azreal, Ashes Of Existence, and K’atun.
Jens Lekman with Lisa/Liza
Up until his just-released fourth LP, Life Will See You Now, Swedish musician Jens Lekman wrote guitar-driven pop songs with heavily orchestrated arrangements of strings, horns, and backing chorales, the results cheesy yet endearing. A big part of his charm lies in his adorably accented phrasing, silky, low-toned vocals, clever yet vaguely forlorn diaristic lyrical turns and storytelling that often spells out just what he means, and the occasional misinterpreted moments (“She said that we were make believe / But I thought she said maple leaves”). Lekman told Entertainment Weekly that he was learning about drum machines and electronic instruments while making Life Will See You Now. This is not necessarily a good thing, and it only bears a passing resemblance to my favorite Lekman music. Let’s hope the live performance will be a different story. LEILANI POLK
LVL UP, Palm, Great Grandpa
Most of my workday (and life) is spent ignoring indie-rock bands. Rock and roll has the capacity to be the most boring and uninspired of genres, and when some deeply entitled dude is demanding you give him your time when his pet project sounds like everything that has come before it (and each that will follow), it can be difficult to get excited about certain qualities. LVL UP don’t necessarily break this barrier, but they definitely insert a spring into the genre’s step. They harness their earnestness as a sort of doom-saddled-yet-youthful surge that powers each of their tracks. This is contemplative indie rock, but it shreds, with a growing-pains energy that rings true without shrugging into sophomoric feats. KIM SELLING