TOWN LOVE is an online art museum dedicated to celebrating the vibrant past and present of Northwest Hip-Hop. You can browse by artist or browse by year.

This gallery page is organized to highlight the creative work of

Tag: Sleep Steady

As you scroll, items are sorted from most recent to earliest.

A film about Northwest hip-hop from

TRUNK

The young Tacoma hip-hop scene is on fire. Roughly once a month, in a secret location with a list of secret artists, there’s Toe Jam: A series of cathartic, hip-hop raves, held in sweaty basements, as raucous celebrations of musical debauchery.

That context is useful for understanding the epic, grinding rap-synth-punk sound of Sleep Steady (aka Perry Porter and CidVishiz) and their 2017 album, TRUNK. Like the gaudy and in-your-face cover art–reminiscent of Kanye’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy cover by George Condo–this record balances messy, raw emotion with sweetness, and then hits you in the gut.

Put on the first track, “HABITS,” and let the strident synths overtake you. Beneath all that digital distortion is music screaming for an intimate, close connection. This is anti-algorithm music that, as someone commented on Bandcamp, “goes way hard.”

TRUNK was created in and features appearances from:

Did we get it wrong? It happens. Send us an email and let's get it corrected right away!

A film about Northwest hip-hop from

Distinction Management Essentials 001

This opens with DoNormaal’s “50 Jasper Horses,” (feat. the newly renamed “Rave Holly”), and the placement of that song, first, forces you to hear it anew. The flow into “Dead Rose” by Nightspace is seamless, demonstrating the genre fluidity inherent in Seattle music. (The Deadmics track, with Hekl, The Mad Scientist is a revelation.)

Distinction Management throw these ultra-hip underground parties, at places with made-up names, where everyone attending is a celebrity and you have to know them, or know of them, to know who and where and when. Last Thursday’s had pop-up clothing shops, Taylar Elizza Beth and Aaron Cohen.

Distinction puts out these coveted mixed CDs–this is the first one… The second one was just released. It’s their collection of who’s hot right now, and they know: nerdy hard rock-tronica from Youngster Jiji, gender-fluid Michete (who’s “Red Rover” kicks some serious team-switching ass), musical chameleon Wolftone and of course Sleep Steady. Anna, Jasmine, Sasha and crew, hats off to you. Of course this CD is great.

Distinction Management Essentials 001 was created in and features appearances from:

Did we get it wrong? It happens. Send us an email and let's get it corrected right away!