PLAYLIST: 10 Songs For January ‘23
10 locally-sourced tracks we’re listening to at WASH this month, featuring new releases from Spiral XP, Black Belt Eagle Scout, and Sandrider.
The third single offered up from Black Belt Eagle Scouts’s forthcoming album, The Land, The Water, The Sky, “Nobody” is a vivid 6 minute rumination on the slow swell of native voices rising in popular media. Katherine Paul sings a reassurance, or maybe an intention, to be something for others that she’d so often lacked. She repeats in a breathy phrase, “nobody sang it for me like I wanna sing it to you.”
This one is a redirection of “Late Night” off Milk Jennings’ 2022 album, Sleep Talker. The alternate version offers up Jennings’ original daydreamy tune in a quiet, acoustic form that answers its own call for something sweet and lullaby-esque.
One of our favorite releases this month, Spiral XP’s “Deja Vu” is filled with relaxed vocals and a guitar-driven, energetic noise punctuated by a hypnotic cadence. This is the first single shared off of their upcoming EP, It’s Been a While, which will be out in full on February 17th.
With an inviting hook that rarely lets up, the winding tension of Spirit Award’s latest release feels like a spiraling inward. And the chaos of the music video evokes a similar dissent into madness. But the mantra on repeat, “pushing forward,” seems to have an eventual payoff, carrying the song out with a newfound levity. The single is our first taste of Spirit Award’s new record, The Fear, slated to come out this May.
Lightweight Champion, a Seattle group formed late last year, shares their second single, “Daisy.” Backed by reliable strumming and riddled with subtle instrumental fills, this story-driven track reaches out to its namesake with familiarity and longing.
Tourist Activities announced their return to music late last year, and they’ve brought some sweet little gifts along with them. “Wrong Side” is one of two singles released this January from their forthcoming debut LP. The track is awash in a fuzz-pop sound tinged with overdrive and dreamy, weightless vocals.
Another new single from a highly anticipated album, "Alia” lives up to all the promise of the heavy rock group, Sandrider. I planned to write more of my own thing here, but I just read Sandrider’s overview of the track and I really think it is its very own adventure. So, straight to the source:
“Lyrically inspired by the character from Herbert’s Dune novels that arguably has one of the most interesting arcs of all his characters. Her mom drank worm bile meant for spice orgies when she was pregnant with her, and it ended up making Alia fully aware of herself and her entire heritage of witch mothers while she was still in the womb. So, she starts life as an almost omniscient tortured genius with thousands of personalities in her mind but she’s just a damn baby, and avoiding spoilers she of course goes on to do insane things in an insane world from that point. Musically we just wanted to write a loud ripper, so that’s what we did.”
A new pop single from Lane Lines pairs eclectic synth sounds with patient layered vocals that cleverly highlight the juxtaposition within the song’s premise. If you’re into it, you’ll have a chance to catch them at their first full-band show at Barboza on February 15th. They’ll be headlining with support from Shadow Pattern and Pseudo Saint.
Melodically rich and quietly intricate, “Copycat” is an exciting look into Coral Grief’s debut LP. Keep an eye out for that late next month!
Sheridan Riley is a name you might recognize from their collaborations/drum credits with the likes of Alvvays and Cassandra Jenkins. Though Riley has shared a handful of tracks as a solo artist in the past, “Relentlessly Relatable” is their first release as Peg, a singer-songwriter project with an album surfacing in late February.