{Shabazz Palaces photo from the Three Imaginary Girls Flickr Pool by Jason Tang}

Through sheer quirk of fate and possibly my own fatally quirky tastes, the top spots for my four favorite records of the year were given to two separate EPs by two different bands. I'm going to start my Top 20 of 2011 list with a cheat; combining two albums for placement at #1 and #2. Just to obnoxiously make you utterly vigilant of it: the first two spots are taken up by two separate releases, but they're EPs that if combined with each other, tie with/become one release.

Oh, and I'm keeping all hype to 20 words to mirror the Top 20 list. And then I cheat again by having the first two releases described in 40 words, a combination of two 20 word reviews. (No, I haven't been studying Kabbalah with the Wu-Tang Clan.) Also: Mostly in order, but ask me again tomorrow. (The Damien Jurado could be anywhere on this list, for example.) And regional preference takes precedence (call that "fanzine love").

1. Shabazz Palaces, Shabazz Palaces & Of Light EPs
Cracked, uncanny hip-hop collages of unsettling mind-movies, Clockers meets Company Flow. "Juxtapositions of the digital and analog, hard drum-machine beats set against softer bongos or the resonant sweetness of an mbira." -- Jon Caramanica, The New York Times

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{Thee Emergency will be at the High Dive on Friday, September 3 with Macklemore, Kay Kay & His Weathered Underground, Sol, and Curtains For You.}

"Cracka Slang" was the song you may have heard U District-based female-led psych-soul rock band Thee Emergency perform in MTV's $5 Cover Seattle, looking as sizzlingly stylish and sweaty as hell as on a great night at a small club as they always are -- and if you haven't seen Lynn Shelton's band documentary yet, go do that somehow.

Meanwhile, you've probably been wondering what Zana "Dita Vox" Geddes, Matt "Sonic Smith" Bracher, Tom "T. Drummer," and the rest of the band has been up to since their terse debut Can You Dig It? and psychotically expansive sophomore Solid swayed heads and music junkies since they gummed up and acid-overheated CD players all over the region for the past couple years.

I have The Answer: A 12" piece of golden vinyl (yes, color gold) with a download for whatever electronic device you use to not play your damned vinyl, fool. And it too is called Cracka Slang. And it is one of my albums of the year.

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All three of the bands on Saturday's High Dive lineup have filled larger venues with great music and happy audiences.

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at Capitol Hill Block Party 2008

You've got to see them slam and grind it out in concert.

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As of today, we're officially in the second half of 2008. Welcome! To gear you up for another fabulous six months of local Northwest releases, we here at imaginary headquarters have brainstormed an imaginary mix for all of you, containing some of our favorite songs by Northwest artists released this year to date thus far.

No promises that each of these will make our Best of 2008 Reader's Poll final list, but at least this way you have the next six months to follow-up and listen to these releases before you have to decide. To paraphrase imaginary ChrisB, we feel like this list is pretty unfuckwithable. But that doesn't mean that we didn't inadvertently overlook something great. If you have additions for our list, please chime in with your comments below.

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at

As the sun went down Thee Emergency took it upon themselves to turn up the heat.

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There is plenty of Friday and Saturday afternoon to catch the route 60, 131, 134, or 170 to catch this little festival with a big Northwest line-up.

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In case you're still not sure what to do this Friday evening....

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"Solid" is a plush red velvet cave of Dr. Sound's Fender Rhodes woven by fingers that sound as if they grew up jamming along to Tex-Mex psych classics.

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Photo of Dita Vox of Thee Emergency by Abbey at soundonthesound.

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