Von Wildenhaus
Mike Dumovich Record Release Show
w/Hunter Lea & Anne Marie Ruljancich & legendary producer & musician Steve Fisk
Snapdragon
All-Ages show
Friday, May 24th
7:00pm doors, 8:00pm show
$15 cover

Von Wildenhaus, hailing from the fog-drenched US Pacific Northwest, is an apocalyptic avant-pop lounge act, a bizarro rock and roll band as comfortable working in American folk idioms as covering Henry Purcell x Klaus Nomi. Ben von Wildenhaus leads a cast of shadowy conspirators in conjur- ing this darkly sonorous music, most notably, the spectral presence of singer Billie Bloom, who delivers ecstatic melodies with fearless and riveting devotion that have found admirers in Spin, The Quietus, and Iggy Pop. https://vonwildenhaus.art/biography/

“Von Wildenhaus [works] his influences — modern primitive folk, cassette hiss, Angelo Badalamenti’s Twin Peaks score — into a tight confluence of meditative anti-shredding.” – Jessica Hopper, Spin

“Wildenhaus anti-prismatically recombines the worlds of David Lynch, Marc Ribot, Jad Fair, and Luis Bacalov into an oddly familiar new whole.” – Tristan Bath, The Quietus

“From country twang and psych-rock whirls to Eastern modes and pondering tones, there’s a delightfully fluid, dreamlike quality to this bizarre book of tunes.” – Elliot Sharp, Magnet

“He’s doing his own thing in his own way.” – Iggy Pop, Iggy Confidential

“..what Sun City Girls might be doing if they’d continued after Charlie Gocher’s death.” – Dave Segal, The Stranger

“…a creative crevice from which no one wants to escape.” – Calvin Johnson, K Records

Mike Dumovich is a singer-songwriter from Vashon Island, Washington, who has been making music for over 30 years. His music is a blend of folk, indie, and psychedelic influences, with a dark and melancholy tone that reflects geography, relationships, and self-inquiry. He has collaborated with many renowned producers and musicians, such as Tucker Martine, Bill Frisell, Eyvind Kang, Karl Blau, Chris Ballew, Luke Bergman, and Laura Veirs. He has opened for artists such as Mark Lanegan, Jesse Sykes, and many others over the years playing in the NW. He has released five albums, the latest being Real Shoring, which was recorded remotely with Light in the Attic producer Hunter Lea over the course of two years. Real Shoring is a collection of songs that chronicle his life events in that period: losing a mother, raising stepsons, and coping with the pandemic.

“Mike Dumovich is amazingly unique. Whatever rules exist in the music world, Mike threw out the ones that didn’t work for him long ago. Mike creates original soulful tunes that take the listener to uncharted territory. Mike’s music and lyrics have depth and relevance that can be experience on many levels.” -Band in Seattle

“Dumovich sings pensive songs, delivering them in a matter-of-fact voice and radiant guitar plucking that can put you in a trance. His lyrics are weighted down with chilly imagery and a very Pacific Northwest gloominess. Dumovich is an idiosyncratic character whose music and personality cannot be neatly boxed up which is to say, he’s a true artist in a music scene full of phonies.” -Brian Barr Seattle Weekly

“...This is plucked mosaic shibboleth blues, where you're willing to follow the weathered vocalist's story anywhere, delighted by each shuffle of twilight imagery and montage of dreams and wilderness. Dumovich has almost unbearable confidence, really seducing the listener into the labyrinth of his storytelling. His visions however more abstract, are no less sensual…” - Chris Estey Three Imaginary Girls

“It wasn’t but a few months ago when I ran across Mike during one of my late night searches via internet when I stumbled across a couple of tracks … my mouth hit the floor and my heart broke immediately upon hearing title track “Acres”. “Who is this, and why hadn’t I heard of him?” I thought. Lyrically his music is heartfelt, but not impossible to grasp. A wonderful labyrinth of lyrical seduction. Musically, Mike’s guitar work is nothing short of brilliant, and poised. The weight of his fingers hitting the strings with precision. But its songs like “whiteout” that really capture the brilliance of his musical ability on every level. The construction of layering within that song had me mesmerized as if I were experiencing some sort of sensory “whiteout” myself. It was a storm of sound all somehow making beautiful sense. Starting out with a rhythmic pulse of a spaghetti western vibe…something you’d hear out of a Robert Rodriguez film, then slowly evolving into a beautiful of sound. Breathtaking.” -Seismic Sound

It is impossible to talk about the unmistakable sound of Pacific Northwest rock music without including the name Steve Fisk. A legend in the Northwest and renowned the world over, Fisk has made an indelible mark on the scene as a producer, engineer, teacher and performer. From the underground to the mainstream, from alternative to indie-pop, artists have been benefiting from his keen ear, superior technical skills, and inventive sound for nearly four decades.

Steve Fisk’s career is a perfect balance of serendipity, ingenuity and hard work. In 1980, after he’d left his hometown of Lakewood in southern California, Fisk found himself in Olympia, WA at the Evergreen State College where he linked up with Bruce Pavitt, who had started a fanzine called Sub/Pop which would become Pavitt’s springboard for Sub Pop, a record label that continues to launch epic careers today. Fisk would go on to graduate from Evergreen with a degree in music composition and a focus on audio engineering and he wasted no time establishing his name in the industry.

Fisk had caught an early wave in a bubbling underground scene and committed himself to both his own creative projects and to helping shape sounds of his peers. By 1983, Fisk joined the experimental, instrumental, alt-rock group, Pell Mell, and played with them while forging ahead in other aspects of his career. He produced for groups like Screaming Trees, Beat Happening, and Soundgarden. By 1990, Fisk had made his way to Seattle where he went on to record several tracks for Nirvana’s Blew EP. In ‘93 he joined forces with Shawn Smith to form Pigeonhed, a highly regarded experimental, electro-funk, soul duo. He has worked with Soundgarden since their second release Fopp in 1988 and in 2010 he remixed their single, The Telephantasm (Resurrection Remix).His list of credits are as diverse as they are plentiful. In 2005, Fisk co-wrote and produced the score for the award winning Kurt Cobain documentary About a Son with Ben Gibbard. To date, he has composed 5 multichannel immersive soundscapes for exhibits at MoPOP (Museum of Pop Culture). He also produced Teens of Denial (2016), the first studio album for Matador recording artist, Car Seat Headrest and he mixed Ben Gibbard's Teenage Fan Club cover album, Bandwagonesque (2017). In 2015, he received The Stranger Genius Award in Music.

WHO IS HUNTER LEA? Hunter Lea is a Grammy Nominated record producer, a songwriter and musician. His work has been featured by Newsweek, NPR, MTV, Mojo Magazine, Q Magazine, BBC, The Los Angeles Times, London Telegraph, Uncut and more. As curator and co-producer of Light in the Attic Records Nancy Sinatra Archival Series & Lee Hazlewood Archival Series, Hunter has worked on over 30 releases, including the Grammy Nominated There’s A Dream I’ve Been Saving: Lee Hazlewood Industries 1966-1971. Learn more about the series at Light In The Attic Records. Want to know more about Lee Hazlewood? Listen to Hunter's two-hour Hazlewoodology Podcast. He currently produces and engineers out of Uptone Recorders in Tacoma, WA. The studio/music museum is a time traveler’s paradise…featuring 1960s recording consoles, Wrecking Crew drummer Hal Blaine’s drums & percussion and a vast assortment of 1950s-1970s mid-century instruments & equipment to record with.

Mike Dumovich Music