Anna von Hausswolff’s “Iconoclasts” & North American Tour: Mar 16 - 26

For the last decade, Anna von Hauswolff, the daughter of Carl Michael von Hausswolff co-founder of the imagined country of Elgaland-Vargaland, has dealt in a solemn funereal music composed for the pipe organ of reverb decay-laden drone released on labels like City Slang and Southern Lord. Recordings like "Live at Montreux Jazz Festival" elucidate this space between a traditionally classical instrument, and her approach which shares affinities with contemporary doom metal and drone rock. It is in this zone that her studio albums yoke their eerie timbre, producing a "Doomy Epic from a Supernatural Talent", in its weave of drone-inspired 'funeral pop', with added weight and sonic gravitas from producer, Randall Dunn. Her previous album, "All Thoughts Fly", was a collection of instrumentals performed on a replica of a 17th century baroque organ in a cathedral in Gothenburg, Germany, and followed on a set of collaborations with rock titans SWANS, and doom metal band, SUNN O))). So it is that much more of an unexpected turn that the 'funeral pop' component of her music would come fully to the fore, swathed in more straightforwardly melodic structures, and the voice taking the place of the dominant instrument over that of the organ. For which von Hausswolff has enlisted the talents of an artist that Jazzwise lauded; “The music is intentionally puzzling, teased from a meltdown of tropes from jazz, groove and electronic dance music", in the multi-instrumentalist and saxophonist Otis Sandsjö. This meeting of von Hausswolff's dronescapes, and the structural punctuation of Sandsjö's hard-hitting jazz-rock, comprise the framework for "Iconoclasts" song-based album of instrumental dirge and soaring lyricism. Further rejecting some of the characterization of her doom-organ iconography, "A ‘High Priestess of Satanic Art’? This Organist Can Only Laugh", von Hausswolff brings this new pop-focused sound of an "Exhilarating, Euphoric Goth Songcraft" to a string of dates across North America, including two nights at San Francisco's Brick & Mortar. Photo credit: Philip Svensson

Bell Witch & Aerial Ruin, Boris, Primitive Man and Rain City Doom Fest at The Crocodile, El Corazon, Chop Suey & The Clockout Lounge: Nov 17 - Dec 13

The last decade has seen an explosive abundance in the national and international tours spiraling out of the global metal, doom, hardcore, and noiserock scenes. The bands that represent these sounds have now come to encompass melodicism and atmospheres lifted from shoegaze and spacerock, eruptions of heavy psych rock, industrial drumming, synth exploration and electronic atmospheres, and pure experimental noise. This winter sees a representative cross-section of all things metal in Japanese psychedelic and noiserockers Boris return to The Crocodile, for their 20th anniversary performance of their classic album, "Pink", in their ongoing pursuit of "Noise is Japanese Blues". The following week, in their "Search for a Better World", Primitive Man deliver the first live representations of "Obervance"'s explorations of sludge and doom at Chop Suey. In December, all things doom, black, noise, sludge, hardcore, grindcore, post-rock, stoner, and heavy psych are to be heard in a lineup that includes Ragana, Acid King, Mizmor, Tithe, and Electric Citizen in Rain City Doom Fest at El Corazon. The festival is representative of the expansiveness that is to be heard in 21st century metal, as documented by The Quietus in their "Untrue And International: Living in a Post-Black Metal World", with complimentary curation from this sphere found in the excellent selections of The Quietus' Columnus Metallicus. In recent years, Bell Witch, the Northwest's prime purveyors of weighty atmospheres have undertaken a series of even more tectonic works for the Profound Lore label. The first of these was a collaborative album with Aerial Ruin in 2020's, "Stygian Bough Volume I", and the beginnings of an epic trilogy, titled, “Future's Shadow Part 1: The Clandestine Gate”. This month, "Stygian Bough Volume II" arrives alongside an accompanying west coast tour and night at The Clockout Lounge. The Quietus spoke with Bell Witch on the eve of "Clandestine Gate"'s release, bridging such concepts as about the cyclical nature of existence and taking their time with process and creation, such as the first entry in their new triptych of albums, "Same as it Ever Was: Bell Witch Interviewed".

David Lynch & Mark Frost's "Twin Peaks: The Return" at The Grand Illusion Cinema, The Beacon, Northwest Film Form & SIFF Cinema: Nov 13 - Dec 16

"David Lynch, Twin Peaks, and the American Art of Television", took a decades-long and circuitous path through which, "Twin Peaks Got Lost, and Found Its Way Back" with the series reconceived in 2017 in the midst of the abundance of cinematic, high-production-value, longform television. Rather than a recreation of the concerns, technical form and approach of the groundbreaking 1990 original David Lynch and Mark Frost Twin Peaks network television series "‘The High Point of TV as a Medium’: David Lynch’s Twin Peaks May Never be Bettered", the Twin Peaks: The Return miniseries advanced the art beyond the standards of what one would expect even in the current environment of longform streaming content. Dispensing with much of its self-referential observations on network soap opera television, "In ‘Twin Peaks: The Return,’ an Old Log Learns Some New Tricks", instead exhibiting the director's love of classic film, expressed in the series' cornucopia of references to cinema history, "David Lynch Weaves Film History into ‘Twin Peaks: The Return’".

As it aired, The Return delivered a weekly viewing that watched like nothing else, before it or since, producing more of an experience than just television, "Beautiful, Grandiose, Cryptic, and Punishingly Tedious: That's Why 'Twin Peaks: The Return' is So Beguiling". For those who followed the weekly installments of the miniseries on Showtime, there was an ebullient assembly of critical interpretation, enhancement and viewing aids, documented by Criterion via their ongoing "Twin Peaks Returns" column. Expertly insightful weekly recaps could be found on Mubi, The New York Times (concluding with a serving of weekly "donuts") and The Guardian, for those who were looking to delve deeper. Now nearly a decade since "David Lynch Returned to Twin Peaks", the miniseries remains a work to unlock and decode, offering up thematic and technical wonders to savor and rediscover. These lasting qualities earned it the Best Film of the Decade status on the iconic cinephile publication, "Cahiers du Cinéma Named ‘Twin Peaks: The Return’ the Best Film of the Decade, TV Be Damned". This month, the theatrical presentation of this most cinematic of series will see screenings in Seattle, showing at The Beacon Cinema alongside The Grand Illusion Cinema programming the totality of the series in episodes at Northwest Film Forum and SIFF Cinema.