Greg HealeyAn artist who began making music in his bedroom on his own, using an SP-303 sampler, Vex Ruffin was scooped up by the label Stones Throw after sending in a speculative demo. Subsequently he took his pared back reductionist genre-splitting music on...
With an emphasis on the magic of transformation, Symbiosis Gathering 2013 provided an enchanted space of bio-psycho-spiritual healing, environmental and sociocultural conscious learning, and a unique source of musical inspiration. Among the many...
Digging out gems from the datastream can be a full-time job, if not a miracle, what with trying to separate the ore of genius from the millions of sub-par trap remixes extant. Enter Portland's SadoDaMascus Records, the publishing arm of the Sonic...
Vee Hua 華婷婷MusicfestNW began for me like every other MusicfestNW experience. I consistently respect the festival's curatorial efforts, which always yield at least a handful of acts I am excited about, and an even larger smattering that I don't exactly care for...
Bumbershoot Festival signifies a lot of things for Seattle, but the main mark of Bumbershoot is that fall is upon us. The annual Labor Day arts festival in downtown Seattle traditionally comes with both good weather and the need for umbrellas, aka a...
Last month, I came across a music video that Total Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs called, “one of the best music videos I’ve seen in a long time”: a live performance by iFani EWE in the Johannesburg neighborhood of Soweto. Having just...
Holy shit, how 'bout 2013? If someone told me in 2005 that in 8-years-time, Japan would be melting from radioactivity, Daft Punk would make a yacht rock record with Nile Rodgers on guitar, Barack Obama was a two-term president and he too was a war...
Demon Queen Exorcise Tape Rad Cult (2013) Exorcise Tape is a soundtrack to an ectoplasmic burlesque in the 6th rung, born of a bad break-up, graffiti, and a strip club on 29th street in Tucson. Zackey Force Funk, of the hip-hop collective Machina...