SEATTLE-BASED DARK ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC DJ
BEST OF 2023
"THE OTHERS"
Selections here have descriptions that don't fit in the basic genre molds, or have crossover to more dark pop and/or electronic dance music, but have made an impact within our scene and within our clubs.
Debby Friday
Good Luck
Debby Friday was one of those sweet surprises I stumbled upon a few years ago with her 2019 EP Death Drive. Now after a couple of EPs and a bunch of singles, we get an LP from the Canadian multimedia artist in the form of Good Luck off of Seattle's Sub Pop. When you are a multimedia artist, sometimes you can get caught up doing too many things at once. However, when you hear Good Luck you can hear all these different influences and styles while still showing that restraint needed to make them all play nice with each other. This release (and the accompanying companion film in which she directed (you can find on her site) will take you through multiple feels, from moody and morose to confident and even horny. It's dark, it's edgy, and most notably very hard if not damn near impossible to pidgeonhole into a single genre.
Devours
Homecoming Queen
Escape from Planet Devours was one of my favourites from a couple years ago, so naturally I was really excited for this follow up. Musically, it is a loose assortment of playful synths, whimsical chiptune rhythms, and emotionally yet peacefully perfomed vocals by Jeff Cancade that help you ask the right questions about how to age gracefully as a queer individual while the task of surviving in your home becomes ever more challenging. Although on the opposite end of the sonic spectrum, there is much similarity with Lead Into Gold's The Eternal Present in the fact that this album demands your attention and keeps itself from becoming background music whether it's all the instrumental elements or the deeply profound and genuine lyrics that makes you feel like you are reading pages from Jeff's personal diary.
Fever Ray
Radical Romantics
It's amazing what you can do when you're not boxed into any particular category, be it music, gender, sexuality, or any or all of the above. Radical Romantics is exactly that, from the instrumentation choices to the lyrics and how they are all presented. The first two tracks were produced by singer Karin Dreijer's brother Olaf, of whom they worked with as The Knife, which combines syncopated rhythms and startling synths, and also adding their production chops to this album include Nidía ("Looking For A Ghost"), Aasthma ("Tapping Fingers") and the one and only Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross contributing to "North" which contains some gritty rhythms laying the foundation for swoopy atmosphere to take hold. While different hands went into the production cookie jar, the star of the show remains Karin and their ability to not only use the instrument of their voice but to manipulate however they damn well please to fit the narrative of the lyrics which are as ambiguous and yet definitive as the subject matter.
HEALTH
Rat Wars
HEALTH is the band that is the reason why this category had to be made. Known mostly as a noise rock outfit, this LA band has collaborated with numerous artists within the scene and helped level up their sounds in the process. It would be hard to believe that anything could top their 2015 masterpiece Death Magic, but to borrow from what many fellow artists have posted on social media, Rat Wars fucks so hard. From the club-friendly singles "Hateful" (with Sierra) and "Ashamed" to the aggressive "Crack Metal" and one of my favourites "Sicko" (collabing with Godflesh, at that), the front-to-back listen takes you on a genre-bending journey of raw, dark and heavy music that is tempered only by Jake's hauntingly serene vocals. The soundtrack between dystopia and apocalypse has arrived.
Mechanical Vein
The Storm You Can't Contain
Earlier I had given the companion remix album The Remixes You Can't Contain a nod in the Best Remix Albums category, so I would be remiss to not do the same to the original. The debut LP off Hybrid Blak takes what we know about genre-bending and injects it with 2000's era baseball-grade steroids. It's rooted in dark drum n' bass, but adds elements of industrial, metal, midtempo bass, and other electronic fuckery. Collabs by Alicia Mayhem, Biomechanimal, Caustic, ER4SE, Faderhead, Lecture, MORIS BLAK, Saltee, & Sinister Souls helps breathe new life into a genre that had gone stale and in the process rethink what DnB is capable of becoming.