To gauge how Seattle musicians and DJs have been dealing with the looming prospect of a four-year shitshow, The Stranger asked some of them to reveal the sounds that are keeping them relatively sane during this gut-wrenching time. The response was overwhelming and diverse—including everyone from Leonard Cohen to Björk to A Tribe Called Quest. We have a crisis on our hands, America. (Personally, I’m coping with heavy doses of Terry Riley and Alice Coltrane, plus Colin Newman‘s A–Z and Not To—not that you asked.)
NATASHA EL-SERGANY (OF SOMESURPRISES, MAN)
I have been listening to Björk’s 2001 album Vespertine, as it combines the comforting experience of being at home (it was an album about things that happen in the home—the B-sides release was called Domestica) with her powerful emotional vulnerability and femininity. It just reminds me that what is in our homes and hearts are worlds unto themselves and the source of what we will present as an alternative to the cold neoliberal and now potentially fascist politics of the outside world. Also Marcel Khalife’s album Promises of the Storm, because it’s sad and beautiful. I’m so upset about this election and glad to be in a city where that sentiment is overwhelmingly shared.
RAFAEL ANTON IRISARRI (OF THE SIGHT BELOW)
A few months ago, during my many days of utter despair and overwhelming anxiety (as it sank in that Trump could win), I said jokingly that I’d curate the 2017 Trump inauguration: Sunn O))), Tim Hecker, and Lawrence English. You know, some sounds to go along with the impending beginning of the end we’d be witnessing.
