photo by Bebe Labree Besch (more photos)
Something new’s going on in Seattle. Well, something new and something old. This city’s musical past is already peppered with its fair share of country rock, folk, psychedelic and metal bands, but several up and coming bands are tapping into those genres and styles with renewed vigor. Ballard was always the place where the bearded folkies jammed under longhorn skulls and in Irish pubs, but across town, on Capitol Hill, an edgier, hazier psych rock is spilling out of practice spaces like smoke from a hash den. Like our very recent guests, The Comettes, Seattle’s Rose Windows are channeling the 60′s in a new way. That they performed with Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter in the past should be no surprise... they’re both mixing in that trippy black magic of ritualistic drone, psychedelic guitar jams and heavy metal bombast. (It should be noted that producer Randall Dunn has also worked with Sykes and local drone masters Sunn O))).) While three singers trade vocals in Rose Windows, as you’ll hear in the videos below, it’s Rabia Qazi’s husky voice that shines through with Grace Slick-like intensity. Check out this early performance, live on KEXP’s Audioasis, of a Seattle band on the rise (or wafting hazily, at least).
Full Performance:
