The name Packaging may connote a cynical mindset about the music industry, but the music that duo Daniel Lyon (Spirit Award) and Daniel “Connor” Birch (Flaural) make is far from cynical. Instead, it’s a passionate merging of elements from their distinct voices: krautrock chug, psychedelic swirl, electronic grandeur, and tuneful accessibility, with a pinch of bristling self-awareness sprinkled on top.
Their debut album, Packaging, is a suite of emotionally resonant songs about disconnection, ennui, and restless movement. Featuring several musical contributors, including Luke Temple (Here We Go Magic), Ash Reiter (Sugar Candy Mountain), James Barone (Beach House), and Andy Rauworth (Gauntlet Hair). The album, like actual packaging, is a tactile experience. From the pulse-pounding rush of “Running Through The Airport” and “In My Pocket” to the woozy melancholia of “Didn’t Wanna Stay” and the quietly devastating “On Holiday,” Lyon and Birch combine their talents in ways that push each other to new emotive heights.
Coral Grief
Coral Grief, the Seattle rock trio, and Air Between Us, its debut album, are accurately named. The first notes from Sam Fason’s guitar on opener “Starboard” hit like a blast of sea air to the face. In just seconds, you’re soaring, equal parts under the sky and above the sea. It’s a similar in-between where Coral Grief thrives, as they construct elaborate webs of double meanings across this tribute and eulogy to their city and community.
Singer and bassist Lena Farr-Morrissey and Fason are linked by the psychic chemistry one can only unlock by playing together in bands for years. Fason’s guitar is the sail to Farr-Morrissey’s anchor, and here, he crafts textures thick as sheets of wind. Tying it all together—the engine in this nautical metaphor—is drummer Cam Hancock, who came highly recommended by mutual friends. His propulsive playing serves as a bridge of ideas, their final puzzle piece, a master of dynamics and transitions that shoves their songs into new territory without showing off. Together, they draw inspiration from Stereolab, Broadcast, Th’ Faith Healers, and Seefeel, to name just a few, reframing that very specific strain of British cool in a uniquely Pacific Northwest way.
To bring the songs to life, the trio decamped to The Unknown–a decommissioned church turned sail manufactory turned recording studio in Anacortes, WA. Working with engineer Nich Wilbur on a diet of five matchas a day, the workspace became their workshop. “We were committed to the three-piece way of doing things but wanted to make it sound as lush and as full as possible,” Fason explained.
Air Between Us is an homage to beachcombing, a thank you to everyone who keeps our music community loyal & eccentric, a document of a record store’s nine lives, a yearning to question our complacency.
It’s a midnight drive where the sun never sets, it’s the sweetest things that your grandma says. It’s one of the iconic shops on Rainier Avenue when it finally closes. It’s the takeoff, it’s the waves, it’s a traveler and a friend.
Best enjoyed while you’re going someplace, but you don’t have to know where! →←
