Port St. Willow is the project of Nick Principe of Portland, OR, who says his album Even // Wasteland is “a record about standing in your own way.” After scrapping the origins of the project, Principe built it again from scratch. After an hour with Even // Wasteland (and knowing nothing of what came before), I still declare that it was well worth it. Read More »Port St. Willow: Even // Wasteland [Album Review]
Typhoon is an eleven piece ensemble band from Portland, OR. With their album Hunger and Thirst (produced with Portland’s incredible label Tender Loving Empire), they’ve garnered quite a bit of positive attention, none of it undeserved. Named for a Nietzsche thought, Typhoon create songs highly emotive and visceral in both structure and theme. Their music is an intelligently crafted exploration of what we feel and why we feel it. From beginning to end the album satisfies. Read More »Typhoon [Feature]
The latest video from Portland folk-pop duo The Woodlands is a wispy look into how the two probably spend many… Read More »The Woodlands: In The Dark On Monday [Video]
The music of Portland based band Y La Bamba is that of beautiful, intoxicating contrasts. Both parts calming and alarming, meditative and flippant, their songs weave the delicate web of a line between the joy and sorrow of being alive. I was fortunate enough to see them play in Pullman (alongside Buffalo Death Beam and Horse Feathers) this past week and could not have asked for a cozier winter night. Though the entire evening was satiating, the familial nature of Y La Bamba’s performance is really what struck me; how through the tone and composition of their songs we as an audience were asked not only to receive but also to give. Read More »An Interview with Y La Bamba’s Luz Mendoza
Now this is the sound that gets me excited. Portland’s Wow & Flutter released Equilibrio! just over a month ago on Mt. Fuji Records and if you have yet to check it out, don’t hesitate. Theirs is a sound you do not want to miss. “The Puget Sound” reminds me of noisy melodramatic 90s rock, packed with dreamy vocals, ringing guitars, and heavy percussion. It’s a sound just as familiar to the northwest (their hometown is Portland, OR) as it is to that era DC. The harmonies are dissonant and emotive, while the music behind is wildly consistent and hypnotic. This is the best thing I’ve heard yet from Wow & Flutter! Read More »Wow & Flutter: The Puget Sound [mp3]
Strength is a group that is so unburdened by formalities that it’s almost unfathomable. There style is beyond formative, it’s a splendid blast from the past unlike much of anything you have heard in well over 20 years. It’s like the reincarnation of Daft Punk with vocal duties from the likes of Prince. Mind-Reader, the band’s sophomore release, is a gentle smash to the throat, and a kick in the pants that will undoubtedly make you want boogie and thrash the night away. Read More »Strength: Mind-Reader [Album Review]
Amongst the thousands of hipsters, anti-hipsters, and anti-anti-hipsters roaming around the City of Roses banging away at whatever obscure instrument they can grasp with a tall boy of PBR in their hand, two of the finest individuals to burst out from the scene might be that very scene’s polar opposites. The multitasking duo Hosannas are fully fledged artists who find their niche in making keyboard frenzied indie rock lullabies like those found on their latest record Together. It is not only their best work to date, it might very well be one of the finest independent albums to come spew from the gutters of P town. Read More »Hosannas: Together [Album Review]
The Ascetic Junkies may have recorded their new and stunningly brilliant LP, This Cage Has No Bottom, in a short period of time and in the comfort of their Portland home, but some might feel as though this is an album two years in the making. Although the band’s debut album, One Shoe Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, was a brilliant display of folk/bluegrass in the new age, it was subject to being undeservingly pigeonholed as just an indie folk act. And no matter how wrong and downright stupid these thoughts would have been, they were exactly what was said on occasion. Read More »The Ascetic Junkies: This Cage Has No Bottom [Album Review]
Located in the heart of downtown Spokane sits what might possibly be the most ill coordinated bars on earth. Yes, for an act to play “Baby Bar” (the actual bar area only being a 12 ft by 12 ft room), actually means you will be squeezing you and your gear into a devastatingly small spot next to a couple of pinball machines in the burrito restaurant that makes up the majority of the building (Neato Burrito, without a doubt the best burrito in Spokane.) But, for the likes of Jared Mees & The Grown Children, it’s just another setting for these folk-oriented indie rockers to showcase their irrefutable talent as not only brilliant musicians, but as a live act that is not to be missed when they pass through your city. Read More »Jared Mees & The Grown Children: Live at Baby Bar [10.06.10]
It’s almost been two years since Jared Mees & The Grown Children released their brilliant album Caffeine, Alcohol, Sunshine, Money. But with every live show they play in their hometown of Portland, or throughout the Northwest and California for that matter, their singularly identifiable brand of messy folk continues to seem fresh and frenzied in nature. Read More »Jared Mees & The Grown Children: Cockleburrs and Hay [mp3 review]
