Not surprisingly, this list is filled with EPs by quite a few bands you know and quite a few you probably don’t. Of the ones you don’t know, many are likely from Washington; a quick count leaves me with five bands, or 1/4 of this list. Many of these bands I consider among the most promising artists to surface in 2009. All are worth checking out, and you’ll want to keep an eye on them as we head into 2010.

Let me tell you a story. In 2007 some notable things happened. I attended the annual music festival SXSW (the image above is of myself and The Lovely Sparrows’ Shawn Jones, taken by Abandoned Love Records/Virgin Of The Birds’ Jon Rooney), I grew a mustache, and I met a beautiful girl named Andi at the Capitol Hill Block Party. We hit it off and ditched the after-party to get a sprite (her) and coffee (me) at Denny’s in Ballard (sadly no longer there) at 1:30am. I …

Written by Jon Hegglund
One of the best moments for a music fan is hearing potential realized, and a first listen of Deerhunter‘s Microcastle yields exactly this kind of revelation. The tangled, messy neo-psychedelia of 2006′s Cryptograms was an achievement in its own right, a record whose best moments came when coherent, powerful songs seemed to emerge, almost accidentally, from a dark carnival of dissonant sound. One listen to Microcastle, though, is evidence enough that Bradford Cox and his Atlanta mates have moved onward and upward with a …