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: Thad Wenatchee

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

A film about Northwest hip-hop from

Dear Thad

Hmmm... There’s not a lot of information about this record in the museum encyclopedia.

This TOWN LOVE website was created in 2021 as a pandemic-era project. It was a volunteer-led effort to help document and celebrate the complete history of Northwest hip-hop between the years 1981 and 2020. This public archive we built is now available for free online for everyone to read and explore.

If you'd like to contribute, and you know something about this particular record--a story, a memory, or a favorite lyric--please email us a short write-up, and we’ll add your thoughts to the archive when we get the chance.

Thanks for your help in preserving the history of our scene!

Dear Thad 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

Alchemy Union 4: Gaia

Alchemy Union produce these absolutely killer mix compilation CDs, like AU 4: Gaia, pictured here. They are intimidatingly good. This one explores themes related to climate change. Track two, Alden Lightning‘s enviro-anthem title track, produced by Vaughn, has bass drums pounding down like hydro-fluorocarbons. She sings, “I don’t know why you think this will end well for you.” Some tracks are gorgeously, technically precise, Gershwin… or Classical-even. A few tracks in, your speakers are transformed into tin cans, while Araless raps, “We Can’t See” with verses about all the discarded plastic bottles in the ocean. And moments later, during Carter Wilson‘s “Present Tense,” you’re involuntarily snapping your fingers, and singing along that we’re all “trying to do the right thing.” Mixes like this remind me of the wealth of talent in this city. And damn, this is definitely the place where you’ll find it.

Alchemy Union 4: Gaia 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

Sand Clemente, WA

I first met Thad Wenatchee and the FFU crew a few weeks ago at Channel Fest, an event at Fred Wildlife celebrating local record labels. (They were, surprisingly, the only ones selling any hip-hop.) Thad sold me a copy of his 2014 instrumental beat tape, Sand Clemente, WA. Google tells me this is not a real place, but this record renders it completely: I imagine a seaside village somewhere along the coast near Moclips, remote. Mournful saxophones haunt like distant nautical horns, drums crash with the repetitive ebb and flow of ocean waves. This is the soundtrack of a languid, calm place, full of longing.

Sand Clemente, WA 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

terra galactica

There are moments in terra galactica, a 2014 release from local artist Kelly Castle Scott, that are reminiscent of motivational hypnosis cassettes, her disembodied tones floating above environmental noise. Songs take you on a journey and you find yourself somewhere, uncertain quite how you arrived there. Pulling from a wide and eclectic range of styles and influences–jazz, chill-out electronica, spoken word, and rap–this is ambient psychedelia for a new millennium. Production is courtesy of FFU alumni and local beatmaker Thad Wenatchee.

terra galactica 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!