First off, I want to send love out to the families, the entire communities that have been scarred by two recent, sickening instances of gun violence in our area—the school shooting in Marysville, and the murder-suicide in South Seattle. My heart hurts for y'all, for all of us. What does something like that leave besides grief and ache? Where's the lesson in such loss? I dearly hope some measure of solace, if not answers, are found in one another's love and counsel. I hope you voted in the recent midterms, specifically on the initiatives regarding gun control, because access to (and fascination with) guns is a uniquely American epidemic that's way worse than any headline-topping killer virus. Really, though, I wish we could legislate the dismantling of this sick, sad, psychotropic-pumped culture full of sick, hurt people who hurt other people—particularly their loved ones.

Seattle-based nomad Gabriel Teodros and New Zealand producer SoulChef got together for the James Baldwin–inspired LP Evidence of Things Not Seen—whose release party is Thursday, November 6, at Columbia City Theater. Gabe's marked progress hasn't let up, and the habesha homie is ever openhearted and reverent as he turns standout bars from "Book of Life" off Common's Resurrection into the hook for his "Bus Stops": "How could you understand the pain/When you never had to stand under the rain?/When it rains it pours/And it's about to come down hard/Thank god I found you." Sunday-morning easy, SoulChef's classic, hearth-warm production fits the "30 Something, Hella Single" wanderer-MC like fresh socks as he steps out looking for love ("I kinda flirt with existence"), meaning, and home.

Speaking of wandering—if you have been peeping the sounds of Alana Belle and KMTK, aka the Loops for Lovers Collective, you can hear their breezy love-on-the-run mini-opuses Indian Summer and EST, plus a KMTK beat set and some new tunes, performed live at the Lucid Lounge on Saturday, November 8. That same night, you could catch 206 gloom-fire OGs Grayskul at the High Dive with the Moor Gang's finesse man Thaddeus David, whose newest untitled EP (with PDX producer Stewart Villain) is the latest in a catalog as long as the town's most prolific (ahem—meaning "present in large numbers or quantities; plentiful")—which should put him in a four-way tie with Grayskul, Nacho Picasso, and Avatar Darko, by my count, and not counting CD-R-only joints. Bellingham's blues-rap goofs Bad Tenants and host Graves33, who recently dropped his own characteristically red-matter-dense Fated Empire album—fill this show out well.

Also, the traveling men (and women) of the growing concern that is the Thraxxhouse mossie—whom you might've read about in Mike Ramos's excellent profile from the last issue—will be doing a show (all-ages and bar) at the Crocodile Back Bar on Monday, November 10, starring its own prolific founders, Key Nyata and Mackned, with Sneakguapo's pain-hustle and Snuff Redux's crunchy garage-pop, plus your high host Nacho Picasso. Do your best, kids. recommended