WL//WH PREMIERE GUEST DIRECTORS
Started in 2014 when 90s kindred spirit musicians Gary Thorstensen, guitarist of Seattle’s powerful and noisy TAD (Sub Pop), and guitarist/vocalist Julie D of San Diego‘s math-rockers Chinchilla (Crisis/Revelation) and punk band Drip Tank, crossed paths, sharing a common passion for power pop and 60s folk rock, Seattle, Washington-based shoegazers Guest Directors, with the addition of drummer Rian Turner and bassist Charles Russo, have continued to expand, for over a decade, their chemistry while reinvesting themselves and embracing their DIY ethic to write, record, release, and perform as much music as possible.
Renowned as a powerful live act in the Seattle scene, the quartet have shared bills with many excellent bands, including Ringo Deathstarr, Slow Crush, Deserta, Alain Johannes, Dead Leaf Echo, Love Battery, New Candys, Tallies, and Brothers of the Sonic Cloth. They also co-founded and helped run the annual Tremolo:Seattle Shoegaze Festival, in addition to performing on several of its lineups.
The band is now going to celebrate their latest opus, the 9-track studio album, “Before You Get Broken”, due out on May 1, 2026, via Topsy Records, foretasted by its first excerpt “Meet You on the Land”, whose DIY video WL//WH is very pleased to premiere.
A heady mix of shoegaze and psychedelia, cinematic songwriting prowess and imaginative instrumental proficiency, “Meet You on the Land” is a song about a person (Mermaid) who, after leaving the sea to join a loved one on land, feels uncomfortable in the new grounded body and says, “I can’t stay.”
Steered by a subdued yet seamlessly fluid underlying of nimble shuffling drumming and warm bass pulses, FX pedals and resonant reverb embroideries build a vibrant, sparkling tapestry for winding mesmerizing stirring melodies that sprawl on warbly, sparkling lines, blustery, jagged wahwah-laden distortions and rocketing wistful expansions to surround a balmy outpouring of lush and breathy soulful female vocals, longing, fretting, and fading before disappearing into the sea.
The paired Music Video shows Guest Directors performing “Meet You on the Land” at the Central Saloon in Seattle, Washington, under intervals of traced neon lines and trippy, melting color saturations. Symbolic vintage clips change from a group of frolicking mermaids to underwater blooms of white flowers, and finally to a mysterious wedding ceremony where the bride disappears at the end, syncing seamlessly with the mercurial lyrics of the soundtrack.
Guest Directors‘ sophomore full-length album “Before You Get Broken” is scheduled to be released on May 1, 2026 via Topsy Records. Available on Vinyl, CD & Digital, the Presales will start on March 6 through Bandcamp and Ampwall.
The band will celebrate the official release of their second album with Model Shop and Planets in the Ocean on Saturday, May 2, at Conor Byrne Pub/Conor Byrne Coop.
Guest Directors will be part, as always, of the rich line-up at the next Tremolo Fest 2026 on June, 5/6. TICKETS AVAILABLE NOW!
Keep up with Guest Directors:
