Food & Drink
Three New Albums to Listen to This Fall
Fresh incarnations and new albums for three beloved Seattle musicians
By Seattle Mag October 23, 2014
This article originally appeared in the October 2014 issue of Seattle magazine.
If you’ve been following the career of David Bazan (center of main photo above) you know he moved from lead singer and songwriter for indie-darling band Pedro the Lion to existential crisis to creating acclaimed solo work. For his newest album, David Bazan + Passenger String Quartet, he bonded with Seattle’s most sought-after experimental neoclassical backing band, led by Andrew Joslyn. Bazan’s beautiful voice recalls Elvis Costello, and is a perfect, scratchy complement to the beautiful strings aching underneath.
Jenn Ghetto
PHOTO CREDIT: CHRISTOPHER WILSON
Jenn Ghetto, former lead singer of dearly departed indie rock band Carissa’s Wierd [sic], is back in the form of the moniker S (under which she’s released several prior solo records). The dreamy new album, Cool Choices—produced by Death Cab for Cutie’s Chris Walla—is a breakup record of the best kind. Gorgeous melodies swim above propulsive guitar and drums, carrying emotionally raw (and sometimes bitingly funny) lyrics that feel both incredibly personal and universal.
Levi Fuller (center)
PHOTO CREDIT: MEGHAN FULLER
Local musician-of-all-trades Levi Fuller (of The Bushwick Book Club music collective, quarterly audio magazine Ball of Wax, Hollow Earth Radio disc jockey, singer-songwriter, etc.) is working with a new backing band, The Library, and has a new record, The Wonders That There Are. The songs are as diverse as Fuller’s many interests—strummy folk ballads buddy up against soaring guitar rock and songs tinged with jangly ’60s psychedelics. It’s a marvelous ride.
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Finding Place in Pictures
Artist Sky Hopinka’s first solo museum exhibit in the northwest showcases his creative approach to language and identity
“I had cassette tapes and workbooks, but it was hard because I was living in Washington, and my tribal language has roots in Wisconsin,” Sky Hopinka says. Learning alone, he could listen to prerecorded Hocak phrases and practice writing letters and words, but an essential component was missing — another person to speak with. Photo
Feeding Ghosts to Free Them
Artist Tessa Hulls creates a revealing graphic novel to help her deal with childhood trauma
Seattle artist Tessa Hulls’ new graphic novel Feeding Ghosts is a deeply stirring narrative of loss, mental illness, and intergenerational trauma. She says that she wrote it to answer this question: What broke my family? Much of the book is about repetition, and how three generations of women in Hulls’ family were emotionally crippled by
