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As major labels continue to exist behind the times, artists and labels with little capital and lesser reputations are producing some of the most innovative, interesting, and inspiring music. Whether it’s creating a new niche in digital technology or looking to once obsolete formats, Agitated Atmosphere hopes to shed a bit of light and share a bit of information on the up and coming sounds of artists such as Maria Grazia Rosin.

Rather than shine a light on a particular album or a piece of recorded material, it only seems fair to delve into the world of art with the opening of Gelatine Lux. As is often the case with much that is covered within Agitated Atmosphere, Maria Grazia Rosin’s exhibit of science fiction, underwater exploration, and minimalist composition is a unique and daring work of art that not only teases aural sensations but challenges your imagination through sight.

Gelatine Lux happens to be the latest traveling exhibit taking over the Science Fiction Museum outfit of EMP|SFM. Italian glass artist Maria Grazia Rosin, with the help of her faithful glass blowers and a couple of musicians, has brought Seattle over 20 otherworldly sea creatures bathed in artificial light. Each figure is richly colorful against the deep ebon that envelopes much of the exhibit space. Dangling precariously from the ceiling, Rosin’s sci-fi interpretations of jellyfish, squids, and macrobiotic sea life hover amidst their fantastical blackened scenery. The swirling mass that pays homage to Rosin’s love of black holes and whirlpools acts as a spooky welcome mat, sucking you into Rosin’s vortex of mangling beauty in a dark, waterless sea.

Rosin’s elegant creatures are buoyed by the ghostly soundtrack from fellow Italians, Gianni Visnadi and David Mora. The duo, known as Visnadi & Camomatic, breathe life into the bright beings through a neary two hour loop of minimalistic found sounds, field recordings, and tempered noise known as “Glass Tongues.” Juxtaposed with the still life of Rosin’s aquatic mosaic, the exhibit begins to heave and sway with the mechanisms of a marine habitat. Manufactured groans, squiggles, and sloshes bounce from one set piece to the next, guiding you along with each voluminous echo from over ten channels. It’s the sort of soundtrack fans of minimalism scoop up from labels across the globe; yet within the realm of Rosin’s world, “Glass Tongues” functions as the heartbeat. The result of Rosin, Visnadi, and Mora’s collaboration may seem like high art for the aristocratic class but it lacks the pretentious shield that keeps the magician’s secrets from the unsuspecting assistants. You’ll be as dazzled and confused as the bourgeoisie, which has always been the breadth of lasting art. If you have the slightest slice of imaginative muscle, Gelatin Lux will make it fit.

Justin Spicer is a freelance journalist who also runs the webzine, Electronic Voice Phenomenon. He writes the Monday News Mash-Up for the KEXP Blog. You may follow him on Twitter.

I’ve been doing a better job this year than I ever have catching all the films generating “Oscar buzz” — (thank YOU, local theaters!) before the actual awards air, and starting this weekend, SIFF Cinema is making it super easy for me with period pieces galore.

Their Awards Buzz Benefit Screenings package starts on Sunday, 11/22 at 2pm with A Single Man. This early 60s drama about a gay man (Colin Firth) who loses his lover in a car crash and contemplates suicide is already gathering talk about Firth taking Best Actor, and about its attention to period detail. All I know is: Colin Firth AND Julianne Moore AND 60s clothes? I am. so. there.

Next up, Me and Orson Welles on Wednesday, 12/2 at 7pm. I’m not quite sure about this one, as “coming-of-age comedy” doesn’t usually resonate with me and I don’t consider Zac Effron to have mad acting skillz, but hey, at least he’s not the one playing Welles (supposedly impressive newcomer Christian McKay is). The plot focuses on Welles’ directing days at the Mercury Theater and a young actor (Effron) in his 1937 adaptation of Julius Caesar.

And last, The Young Victoria, Sunday, 12/13 at 3:30 pm. Emily Blunt is gathering praise all over the place for her portrayal of the famous lady who ascended to the throne almost overnight. Supposedly as non-Hollywood as you can get with a costume drama, the ensemble cast packs a (British) punch with Miranda Richardson, Paul Bettany and Jim Broadbent — and let’s be honest, I’ll be there just for the costumes.

Films are $10 each or you can grab a series pass to all 3 for a discounted $25, with all proceeds going to benefit SIFF — so you can support your Oscar habit and local cinema at the same time, people.

In anticipation of Martin and Baldwin hosting,
Amie Simon
*Three Imaginary Girls*

In high iPod rotation:
The Swell Season
Flight of the Conchords
Magnetic Fields

Three Imaginary Girls is a Seattle-based website that showcases the great music of the Northwest and beyond to music lovers worldwide. We post a Seattle live show calendar to help you fill your day-planner with loads of great shows, as well as record reviews, live show reviews, and an imagi-blog to entertain you throughout the day.

photo by Shelly Corbett

Every Monday through Friday, we deliver a different song as part our Song of the Day podcast subscription. This podcast features exclusive KEXP in-studio performances, unreleased songs, and recordings from independent artists that our DJs think you should hear. Each and every Friday we offer songs by local artists. Today’s selection, featured on the Afternoon Show with Kevin Cole is “Look At It This Way” by The Tripwires from their album House to House on Spark & Shine Records.

In perfect timing with DJ Rachel’s Cartographic Study of Musical Incest, we bring you a song off The Tripwire’s second album House to House. For those who may be unfamiliar with The Tripwires power pop with a flair musical stylings, you may recognize the contributions to Seattle music (and beyond) made by the individual members of this Seattle super group. To list their resumes here would be stepping on Ms. Ratner’s toes but highlights include: The Minus 5, Model Rockets, Stumpy Joe (John Ramberg), The Fastbacks, The Young Fresh Fellows, (Jim Sangster), Mudhoney, The Briefs, The The Whoremoans, The Posies, (Johnny Sangster/producer), Screaming Trees, Truly, Nirvana, Neko Case, The Dusty 45’s, and of course Mark Pickerel & His Praying Hands (Mark Pickerel).

With this combined experience, it’s no surprise that The Tripwire’s songs are well crafted, hit all the right notes, and make for a fun live show experience (especially when you add in their dapper attire and Mark’s trademark pompadour which entertain and impress). You can tell that this quartet has nothing but mutual respect and affection for one another which accounts for the ease they fall into the harmonies in today’s song “Look At It This Way.”

Following their recent in-studio (check the KEXP Streaming Archive for their 3PM performance on 11/6), frontman/guitarist John Ramberg and fellow John and guitarist Johnny Sangster gave us some insight into the inner workings of The Tripwires.

You all are currently involved in various other projects, what is it about The Tripwires that brings everyone together?

John Ramberg: “For me, it started as a way to play my songs live. I’d spent the previous ten years doing my thing in The Model Rockets. I was nearly finished with the album that ended up being the first Tripwires album (Makes You Look Around) when I asked Johnny and Jim if they’d like to put a band together. They invited Mark along. Once we’d played together for a few months, we decided to re-record about half the tracks with the band, because we kind of developed into this other thing, more than the sum of its parts and all that. I really believe it’s a world-beater of a group, I’m so pleased to have these chaps to bounce ideas off of!”

Johnny Sangster: “Firstly, it’s that John writes great songs. Next is that we really enjoy the cacophonous sound our playing makes when we all do at the same time. And we get to dress up.”

How long have you all known one another? Do you remember how everyone met?

JS: “Jim’s my brother. We’ve known each other for a while. I remember John asking me if I wanted to play some music with him around the time that the Dear John Letters were wrapping up. I believe he asked Jim soon thereafter. I’d met Mark through Steve Turner (Mudhoney) and Barbara Mitchell (noted rock writer) and in fact we all had a trip to Spain and England together that still gets dragged out with the war stories. I’d asked Jim and Mark to be rhythm section for a Colin Spring record I was producing and we were all so enthused that we told John that Mark had to be the drummer of our new band. Of course this was right after Mark had told Jim and I that he wasn’t going to be joining any new bands, he was going to be concentrating on his songs and just doing sessions, and so on. But how could he say no? He didn’t really have a choice. I think by then Jim and I had already joined Mark’s band — but then again I’m terrible with historical fact…”

JR: “I met Jim when I was 19 or so, about 1989. I was a huge Young Fresh Fellows fan, and they were all very kind to me and the other guys in my first band, Stumpy Joe. I heard about his brother Johnny, at that time living in Denmark and playing in a band called The Sharing Patrol. He re-appeared in the Seattle area in the mid 90’s and ended up producing some Model Rockets stuff. It was clear right away that we were coming from a similar place as far as music goes. I think I met Mark doing a solo show at SXSW in the early 2000’s, but I was a huge Screaming Trees fan back in the old days, especially ‘Invisible Lantern’.”

How do you approach songwriting? Does it start with one person bringing material or is it pretty collective?

JS: “The songs are all John’s except for the 113 covers we’ve learned. John makes demos and they inspire us to play the things we play to his songs. Sometimes we make a suggestion and it helps to better the song. Sometimes.”

JR: “Sweet inspiration strikes, I record a demo at home, play it for the guys, and they help me polish it up. these guys all have piles of great ideas and are used to playing together in Mark’s band as well as various other recording projects; they hammer stuff out good and fast! They’re quick studies. Would ‘Quick Studies’ have been a batter band name? Too cocksure?”

Can you tell me anything about today’s song “Look At It This Way?” What’s the story/inspiration behind it?

JR: “Some phrases just stick in my head. That particular day ‘look at it this way’ Struck me as a ridiculous thing for someone to say, like when people preface a statement with ‘listen’. It sounded self serving and sort of bullshitty. I started imagining the worst kind of thing someone could try and use that phrase to justify. In this case, I imagined a couple of stock brokers justifying a career’s worth of shady trades and stuff.”

JS: “I’ll share this little production tidbit. The slide guitar that you hear throughout the second half of the song is played on a special guitar that John and Kurt Bloch dreamed up and then implemented. You take a guitar and string it up with all the same gauge string, and then tune all of these strings to the same note. You can then use a slide across all six strings and move it around to play a pretty little tune. The beauty of the all-one-string-guitar is the natural chorusing that occurs when these six strings are only almost exactly in tune with each other.”

What’s next for The Tripwires?

JS: “Well, were losing our practice room 1st of December so I think were gonna practice a whole bunch next week so it will last us for a while. Know of a good cheap room?”

JR: “As Johnny said, we need a practice space for starters! We’re planning a tour down the coast in February. We’ve had a few bites in places like Germany and Japan. We’re hoping those pan out!”

We wish you luck on both counts!

House to House is currently in stores now in CD form but is soon receiving the vinyl treatment. You can purchase the vinyl version for yourself at their Vinyl Release party at The Funhouse on Dec 5th with The Fucking Eagles and Virgin Islands. Check out their website for more info about shows and their myspace page to listen to more tracks from the album.

The idea of the band This Mortal Coil is quite ingenious, really. Ivo Watts-Russell, who founded the label 4AD Records (probably past, present or future home of some of your favorite bands) started a band in the early 80s whose original purpose seems to have been to promote his label. The band featured Watts-Russell and a rotating cast of guest musicians, most of them from 4AD bands. Many of the songs they recorded were covers, often of songs by other 4AD bands. I’m trying to imagine Jonathan Poneman starting a band and recording an album with Sera Cahoone, Sam Beam (Iron & Wine), Alan Sparhawk (Low), and Chris Martin (Kinski) covering songs by Beach House, the Ruby Suns and Tiny Vipers — and maybe throwing in some old folk tunes, too. Actually, that would be awesome.

Watts-Russell retired the This Mortal Coil name after the release of this album, but now that I think about it, he should probably bring it back. You’d buy an album featuring members of Bon Iver, Department of Eagles, Future of the Left, and the Mountain Goats, wouldn’t you?

New Faces, as immortalized by KEXP contributing photographer Chona Kassinger

• Seattle band New Faces has decided to split up “due to irreconcilable conflicts.” All of their upcoming shows have been canceled. Good luck to each of the members in their future musical endeavors!

• ha! Remember when Jay Reatard’s band quit mid-tour? Well, I guess they’ve found a new home: with hip new it-band, Wavves. The following video shows former Reatard bassist Stephen Pope and former Reatard drummer Billy Hayes backing up Wavves frontman Nathan Williams.

• What’s with all the NSFW videos lately? Sigur Ros did it, so did Girls, and The Flaming Lips. And now Yeasayer has a nudie interactive video promoting their website and “Ambling Alp” giveaway track.

• In case you’ve been living under a rock, this will serve as your wakeup call that the GIVE compilation is now out. It features tracks from KEXP local favorites like The Cave Singers, Grand Archives, Champagne Champagne, The Maldives, Mad Rad, and The Moondoggies. Soon enough, additional exclusive tracks from The Long Winters, Ben Gibbard, David Bazan, Throw Me The Statue, The Dutchess and The Duke, and more will be released. It’ll be one of the best uses of your $7 for a long time.

• The Magnetic Fields have announced their 2010 tour dates and, sure enough, there are two for us here in Seattle: Town Hall on February 23rd and 24th. Also, I guess, their new album features no electric instruments at all and is influenced by “late 1960s/early 70s orchestral and psychedelic folk.”

• Matador has disclosed that awesome indie-folk group Shearwater will be releasing their sixth album on February 23rd in North America and the 15th elsewhere. It’s called The Golden Archipelago and I, for one, don’t doubt it’s golden-ness. There’s video and associated music over at the Matador blog.

• Rogue Wave is also releasing a new album early next year. Permalight will be released March 3rd on Jack Johnson’s Brushfire Records. Yeah, for real.

• In the face of Facebook, social networking pioneer MySpace has made an effort to stay relevant by reportedly signing an agreement to acquire ad-supported on-demand music service imeem. Rumors abound as to whether or not MySpace will incorporate imeem or let it continue to run separately.

• Acoustic indie supergroup Monsters of Folk just released a new music video for their song, “Say Please.” It’s real pretty and feaures the members as World War II soldiers and entertainers at a frontier town roller-skating rink. Check it out below.

Every Monday through Friday, we deliver a different song as part of our Song of the Day podcast subscription. This podcast features exclusive KEXP in-studio performances, unreleased songs and recordings from independent artists that our DJs think you should hear. Each and every Friday we offer songs by local artists. Today’s selection, featured on the Afternoon Show with Kevin Cole, is “Que Viva El Rocanroll” by Spider Bags from their 2009 album Goodbye Cruel World, Hello Crueler World on Birdman Records.

A twangy rock band with a name referencing packages of heroin is probably not the first thing that comes to mind when visualizing a place called Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Yet, the quaint East coast town is home to the Spider Bags who are best known for “Waking Up Drunk” and their sloshy punkesque shows. With the release of their second album, Goodbye Cruel World, Hello Crueler World, these self-taught drunk rockers have proven themselves solid, surpassing the vast sea of “underground” college radio bands and faceless kind-of-country, kind-of-rock groups of the early and mid 90s.

The album’s fourth track, “Que Viva El Rocanroll,” comes off as another silly tune about girls, jukeboxes and drinks at first listen. But, by dissecting the sing-talk lyrics of Dan McGee alongside their pure American rock instrumentals, one will realize that this song is in fact about learning to appreciate the small moments in life. Opening with clean and steady guitar (think a more upbeat, jangly version of The Animals’ cover of “The House of the Rising Sun”), the song quickly builds in passion with layers of clashing cymbals and brotherly “ooo’s”. The only thing missing is a group of intoxicated, close friends with arms around each other, bellowing along in front of a campfire.

Unfortunately, the Spider Bags don’t have any shows lined up on our side of the States any time soon. Until they do, check out their MySpace page for live performance videos and to hear songs from Goodbye Cruel World, Hello Crueler World and A Celebration Of Hunger.

Listen to KEXP three days in a row and statistically you’re practically guaranteed to hear at least one if not two Pixies songs — that’s just how integral this seminal band of American alternative rock is to the station. Last week, the band was in town playing two sold-out shows at the Paramount Theatre.

Missed it? Lived it? Either way, we’re going to air the Friday, 11/13, concert in its entirety on Thanksgiving Day at 12PM for you and everyone else to enjoy.

And not only that, we’re also giving away 10 exclusive CD copies of the show starting this Thursday, at 10AM, over on the KEXP Facebook fan page.

Check in with us tomorrow and tune in on Thanksgiving Day at noon for a rockin’ live concert from Pixies.

Help support independent radio! Our neighbors on the New York dial, freeform station WFMU, broadcasting online and at 91.1 FM in Manhattan and at 90.1 FM in the Hudson Valley, is currently running an emergency 24-hour marathon pledge drive to help raise money to keep them on the air through the winter months:

At WFMU we’ve always prided ourselves on being able to support ourselves on one pledge drive a year, plus whatever we can scrape together by selling roses outside the Holland Tunnel.

But that was before the great recession. Before we fell over $100,000 short of our goal during our March fundraiser. Before we lost our lease on our main transmitter site and set out to put an antenna in midtown Manhattan.

That’s why we’re setting aside our pride for 24 hours for our first, and hopefully last, day-long marathon. Starting Tuesday, November 17th at 7pm and continuing for 24 hours, we’ll be trying to raise enough money to keep WFMU’s heart pumping and turntables spinning until next Spring.

This is only the third time in WFMU’s 51 years on the air that we’ve taken the drastic measure of interrupting our programming, even briefly, outside of our annual March Marathon. The first two times happened when our old owner, Upsala College, went down the financial tubes. Our 24-hour Marathon is meant to ensure that WFMU doesn’t meet that same fate.

The diversity of independent radio benefits everyone. Please help support stations like WFMU by calling 1-800-989-9368 today or by pledging online.