Hazel

Hazel is the name used by several different music acts. The best-known is the Portland, Oregon post-punk band active in the early to mid-1990s. That group features Jody Bleyle on drums and vocals, Peter Krebs on guitar and vocals, Brady Smith on bass, and Fred Nemo as dancer. It releases several singles and EPs on independent labels and issues two albums on Sub Pop before breaking up. Bleyle also plays in Team Dresch, while Krebs later records as Pete Krebs and the Gossamer Wings.

The Portland group is noted for the vocal interplay between Bleyle and Krebs, and for a sound that combines guitar crunch with a more layered feel. Its music balances pop melodies with noise and a melancholic tone. In its active years, it tours with other Portland-area bands including Pond, Crackerbash, Sprinkler and Heatmiser, the latter featuring early Elliott Smith.

Other acts using the name include a Polish singer-songwriter project started in 2003 by Joan Wisniewka, also called Hazel, who writes, performs, produces and programmes her own songs and plays guitar and piano/keyboards. Her self-titled Beauty Loves Aggression CD is a home-studio demo recorded in Warsaw, Poland. There is also a computer-music artist who begins on the C64 around 1989, later moves to the Amiga, and is active in demo music, C64 remixing and free-download albums. Additional acts named Hazel include a British Leeds band, a Mexican urban rock band, a banjo-based solo artist with a 13-track album, a Turkish rapper based in İstanbul, and a Vietnamese rapper based in Hanoi.