Finding inspiration in tender psychedelia, existential poetry & literature, and the woollier, more expansive realm of the punk rock canon, Local Tourist have fashioned a sound out of defiant vulnerability.

Co-produced by Umstead & Sampson, Other Ways of Living feels both hushed and pronounced, earthy and otherworldly. The songs themselves open gradually with a wary strength, like battered coastal flowers in the morning sunlight. Sampson and Dalley underpin Umstead’s steady slow burners with understated, unfurling interplay. At once Umstead’s voice is the centerpiece – holding low and sagacious while ember-glow guitars smolder with an almost devotional quality. The effect is warming. A peaceful pull inward.

But it’s the attention to detail here which most enchants: the candescent, ever-so-warbled guitar tones, Umstead’s sedate phrasing, the perfectly luminous production throughout. Perhaps the album’s greatest feat is the way it leans into dark spaces without ever falling on oppressive terrain. Rather, each song maintains a steady flame, buoyant like proud little boats atop uneasy seas.

With Other Ways of Living Local Tourist have offered up a gentle burner for all seasons.

Released January 26, 2022.

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Soporus is the musical duo of Matthew Stone and William Stichter, childhood friends who have played in bands together for over 25 years. Formed in 2003 to explore their shared interest in ambient music and honed after-hours while playing together in instrumental rock group Saxon Shore, Soporus combines shifting drone with shimmering glacial melody that builds into dense layers of enveloping sound. Stone and Stichter craft songs primarily on guitar and bass, using careful techniques that often obscure their origins, and add accents of keyboard, electronics, and field recordings.

DIVERS, their sixth release, continues their musical trajectory as well as the themes of the frightening power of nuclear reactions, a long-time inspiration in their work. The album was completed in the often apocalyptic-feeling spring of 2020, lending an unsettled undercurrent to the otherwise soothing sounds.

Like the movie itself, SWISH BLADE’S soundtrack for the documentary RAW! UNCUT! VIDEO! celebrates intimacy while existing in a space shared by defiance, tenderness, lust, sorrow, anger, and humor. There is a simmering unease that never completely boils over and is often obscured by how rich and sensual the textures are. Using found sound, cut up sampling, synthesized keys, drum machines, and piano, SWISH BLADE creates an environment that is centered around the push and pull of emotive expression.

Back Forty, the debut solo album of Seattle singer-songwriter Rob Joynes, is a collection of pensive, hummable songs that find power and emotional resonance in restraint. Sam Rosson’s clean and clear production gives the instruments a vibrancy that is complimented by Rob’s candid lyrics. The songs are concise and carefully-constructed, and while deeply personal, they also speak to universal themes of love, grief, family, and finding one’s place in the world. Occasionally, a debut album comes along that presents a fully-formed picture of the artist’s direction and aesthetic, and listening to it, you can feel that the artist has a long and accomplished career ahead of them. Back Forty is one such album.

Released September 18, 2020.

Forever Falling is an instrumental, melodic, almost-ambient collaboration between Seattle musicians Joshua Daniel and Paul Gonzenbach that explores the beauty and expressive qualities of subtle tones and layered textures, juxtaposing elements that sometimes fight and sometimes harmonize with each other. Forever Falling’s five pieces avoid traditional song structure, expanding or contracting in unexpected ways. The result is dreamlike and, at times, hallucinatory songs that are sometimes lulling and sometimes disorienting. It’s the kind of album that sounds completely different in different contexts, one where you hear something new on each listen.

Masc Acting is the musical project of artist Jonathan Bell Wolfe. His music layers cascades of shimmering guitars over keys and drum machine, with the occasional recorder thrown in. His third album Rhododendron was recorded in all live takes, giving it an immediate, intuitive feeling. Rhododendron has its own logic that steers songs in unexpected directions, and its own language of loops, melodies, and textures. Pinning down the lush music is Wolfe’s tenor vocals, which speak of love, queer identity and experience, the natural world, and grief.

Released December 18, 2020.

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Released September 17, 2020.

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Released September 13, 2019.

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Released October 30, 2015.

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Released May 20, 2014.

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Released September 10, 2013.

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Released August 12, 2010.

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