VA - From Far It All Seems Small: A Compilation From Seattle's Underground (2024)

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VA - From Far It All Seems Small: A Compilation From Seattle's Underground (2024)

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Once considered a remote backwater, Seattle, Washington, and its underground music scene, existed in a state of seclusion. It was a city isolated both geographically from the rest of the country and commercially from the entertainment industry machinations of the major cultural hubs. With technological advancements making the world a smaller place, a huge influx of corporate money changing the demographics of the city itself, and staggering population growth – not to mention the sudden explosion of worldwide interest in Seattle’s musical exports in the early 1990s – the place is not quite the distant territory it once was. Yet, the Emerald City’s subterranean musical petri dish has remained largely a scene unto itself, comprised of devoted DIY practitioners building their community and creating their noise in obscurity.

From Far It All Seems Small is a compilation album simply put, but more than that, it’s a celebration of that underground community, and a snapshot of an especially exciting and exuberant moment in Seattle music. Continuing in the spirit of regional compilations like 1988's Sub Pop 200, From Far It All Seems Small showcases a core sample of the city’s contemporary independent music landscape. Fourteen of the most promising current bands contribute new and unreleased songs, representing many shades of “alternative-rock” in its innumerable forms. From grunge to power pop, shoegaze to noise pop, indie to alt… these are all just convenient catch phrases to describe a common theme: authentic, non-corporate rock music. Long running veterans like Versing, Supercrush, Sun Spots, and Fluung sit alongside newcomers Kennero, Texas transplants Prim, recent tour-mates and collaborators TV Star and Spiral XP, legendary institution the Shook Ones, and more to create a tracklisting that is diverse, while remaining coherent and cohesive.

The idea of the comp was conceived by the members of Supercrush while on a cross-country tour, during long drives spent reflecting on the abundance of great bands back at home. Supercrush’s Mark Palm explains further, “We realized the scene here is the best it’s been in a long, long time. There was a good feeling of camaraderie developing between many of the groups from playing shows together and working alongside each other on various projects. The comp is an opportunity to celebrate the music from our extended circle of friends here in town, and hopefully to galvanize the scene and contribute further to that sense of camaraderie.” Palm continues, addressing the unavoidable question of From Far It All Seems Small’s place in the continuum of Seattle rock history, “Of course, there’s a musical past here that looms large, and at one point it crossed-over massively into the mainstream - for better or worse. That was a long time ago. We’ve gone back to a tight-knit hidden world of exciting bands that exists below the surface - that’s what this record is documenting.” The album title – a lyric from Dead Family Dog’s contribution to the collection – seems to echo those sentiments. At a distance Seattle may not currently appear to be a rock ‘n’ roll boomtown – not through the lens of popular culture at least. But this compilation is evidence of a vibrant and thriving scene – you just have to get up close to see it.