{C'est la Mort is playing Saturday, August 14th at the Comet in Seattle.}

To be concise, Empty Words Fill Lonely Spaces by Seattle’s C’est la Mort is a masterful record that has helped me realize that there are still some fine groups out there. This band has been around for some time under various incarnations, but the one that recorded this album -- their debut -- has honed down their sound to an immaculate result.

C’est la Mort consists of a drummer, a bassist, and two guitarists; whose delicate interplay weaves a sonic concoction full of ethereal beauty and urban angst. Their style instantly evokes the classic 4AD sound combined with a not-so-subtle adoration of The Chameleons. This said, the vocals are much the opposite and provide the listener with a unique experience: singer Kim House’s voice falls somewhere in the realm between Miki Berenyi (Lush) and Elizabeth Fraser (Cocteau Twins).

In addition to track after track of fantastic songs, Empty Words Fill Lonely Spaces actually sounds amazing. The production quality is stunning and the songs are perfectly mixed, with just the right levels in the final product. “Drown Out" starts out sounding like Pornography-era Cure, before morphing into something more reminiscent of the Pale Saints; while “Paper Ships” stands out as an epic track, blending all of these influences with layers of guitar that recall The Church circa Hologram of Baal.

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{Jaill is playing in Seattle with The Hold Steady on August 18, at The Showbox}

Underground veterans Jaill (made up of lead vocalist Vincent Kircher, along with unexplained players Austin Dutmer, Andrew Harris, and Ryan Adams) make a strange connect between shared hometown Milwaukee's alternative daddies Violent Femmes (think fast songs on the first, frat-loved album), and wordy garage art-rock bands like The Shins. The latter is the major discernible influence on the second and third tracks here, "Everyone's Hip" and "On The Beat" (the third sounding much like something from Chutes Too Narrow).

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(Three Imaginary Girls is hosting a crafting and listening party featuring this album on Sunday, August 8, 2010 from 1 to 3 pm at Neptune Coffee in Greenwood, which has some of the very best coffee in Seattle. You can also hear "Five Little Rooms" from this album on the August 2010 edition of the Imaginary Mixtape podcast.)

Danny Seim, Justin Harris, and Brent Knopf are collectively known as Menomena, a Portland, OR group enjoyed by many for its mindful artistry in their opaque yet luminously layered songs, excellent live performances, and superb packaging. Mines is their first album after a three and a half years hiatus, after astonishing the national press and fans with the Pitchfork-awarded "Best New Music" title for the 8.5-awarded Friend and Foe.

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(Teenage Fanclub play with Superchunk on October 14, 2010 at the Showbox in the Market.)

It's been a half decade since the last Teenage Fanclub record Man-Made, but their influence has never gone away, even if melancholy power pop bands have come along within that span of time which don't know how much they owe to the Scottish kings. Of course, on early 90s brightly shined gems like Bandwagonesque the band was itself unafraid to remind underground pop-lovers of Big Star or Badfinger or the brimming years of indie bands like Orange Juice and Josef K. from their own region less than ten years before.

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(Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti plays tonight at Neumos with Puro Instinct and Magic Kids.)

Before Today follows up Ariel Pink's previous two Haunted Graffiti projects (and becomes its own "thing" via its addition to his name) Worn Copy (2005) and House Arrest (2006). It lives up to Ariel Marcus Rosenberg's affection for Joe Meek's home-recorded production odysseys, and in the infectious swoon of fifth track "Round and Round" and the 80s-style big-pop-style remake of the Rockin' Ramrods 60s hit "Bright Lit Blue Skies," it transcends record collector rock or the critic's-easy-grab "freak folk." This is a sultry psyche-pop peak experience limber enough to transcend fetishism for either almost-colossal AM buzz or fuzzy handmade culture of past aeons.

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June 11th 9pm

The first 15 people to buy tapes at this show will get a free split 7 inch with side A featuring Partman Parthorse- "Hardcore Fucking" and Side B, SPURM- "Making Love." Just think you get the best of both worlds for free with Emerald City Dummies, PMPH's new release. Kicking off the whole dang music orgy are Scraps, fellow ggnzla artists, and Mash Hall, previously They Live! Don't be fooled by “Dollar Bin,” PMPH's release from the new album, with such an awesome array of musical talents at their record release show, it's pretty clear that they don't hate all of Seattle's music scene. And let's say you DO hate on Seattle's music scene, well, where else can you drink, play basketball (the finals are on), and cheer along when one of your friend's bands get dissed on stage? Funhouse. Friday night.

For their fifth full length for a band that has been around since 2000, Blitzen Trapper come on like a mighty gust of minty fresh barf. When I listen to Destroyer of the Void I am trainspotting back to the bedroom I shared with my brothers with scattered piles of gatefold LPs surrounding me, Roger Dean covers gleaming beneath the overhead, LA cowboy band member-photographed inner sleeves toss about, studying the thick lengths of tracks on vinyl containing arcane mixtures of big beat dinosaur stomp, keyboard sheen and swirl, folk-pop snappiness, misty roads into musical necropolis. These records are the cities of the dead now, buried by three chord punk and music videos and busted-bass mix tapes, and once piled up ubiquitously in record stores across the land to await some form of damnation have probably all ended up in Blitzen Trapper's Portland. There they and Colin Meloy and other fearlessly nostalgic musician dudes have probably emptied out the long platter bins to swipe riffs, bang the bong and blast the beer to, and reincarnate them in songs like the opening title track to Destroyer of the Void, which sounds nearly Wagnerian by way of Wings.

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We asked Alex Robert, frontman for Black Whales, to keep us posted about what's going on with the band now that they are unsigned and recording a new album with John Goodmanson. We'll be posting his words here in three parts. This is the third. If you missed it, check out the first and second parts, here and here.

{If you would like to see the Black Whales at the Chop Suey, June 11th for free, email us your name and a reason why we should give you a pair of tickets to <tig@threeimaginarygirls.com> by Tuesday, June 8th at 5:00pm with "Black Whales" in the subject line. We have two pairs of tickets folks. Get 'em!}

So, if you've been following any of the little studio diaries that we have put up over the past four or five weeks, then a thanks is in order. Thank you very much! We really appreciate it. If you haven't, then nothing is in order. Nothing for you in this. Thank you for nothing.

To close things out: The next couple of weeks are John's time to do his thing to the thirteen songs that will be on this record. It's kind of a downer really, finishing a record. The next time I'll be in a studio to record music won't  be for awhile. And I've gotten so used to doing it everyday that everything else seems like plain Yoplait by comparison.

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The Purrs are a veteran Seattle rock band who have recently put out their sixth release, Tearing Down Paisley Garden, a seven song DIY statement they'll be celebrating the release of with Brent Amaker and the Rodeo and Battle Hymns at the Crocodile on Thursday, June 24. The reason I'm writing this review a few weeks beforehand is that their music gains so much power by replaying it over and over, I want to encourage old fans and new seekers alike to seek out this mini-album and get into its songs before they see them played live.

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Do you know a David Cross? Sometimes I think we all must. He's a really smart guy in your social circle (usually tied to the music scene) who fights with depression and being a drunken jack-ass, usually has the shaved head and National Health framed glasses, showing both a feather-touch sensitivity and inflamed sense of outrage when someone blindly passes along a notion.

A real "David Cross" isn't just pissed off and double-edged resistant, though, he's usually capable of delivering the most devastating, transgressive, vicious, and wild joke about something completely inappropriate. His morbid fascination with his and others' cruelty can be deflated by one cathartic guffaw at the expense of our own blind, insane, reckless way through a pretty awesome place called earth. Where crack babies, gay bashers, mean cops who think they're cool, and especially the religious just crap it all up.

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