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Operative, “Pulse,” Operative (Root Strata)
“Pulse,” like my favorite tracks by Austrian noise artist Christian Fennesz, cause me to absolutely lose my shit. Operative make dance music, but it’s cerebral, brooding, and alive. The last word is the key: the pleasure in watching Operative is seeing actual living, breathing humans making this music. Instead of one dude (in this case, Operative mastermind Scott Goodwin) standing behind a laptop or a circuit board, Operative create pulsating, intense house music in front of you. There’s a drummer with a traditional kit. There’s a drummer playing an electronic drum set. There’s a guy bobbing around hitting buttons on a sequencer. And, if you’re lucky enough, there’s a laser show that offers the best parts of a rave—intense, blinding lights; thumping bass that’s like being touched by the hand of God; the sense that you’re part of something greater than yourself—without the glow sticks. Depsite its 12-minute run time, “Pulse” isn’t a chore to listen to. It’s heavy music, for sure, but it breezes by with the clarity of the best Orbital songs, causing you to lose sense of anything else going on around you. For me, at least, it stops time. How’s that for a genre description? Download audio file (Pulse.mp3) Operative’s debut, a split 12-inch that also contains the song “Ramp,” is available for purchase on iTunes and Boomkat right now. Link: Photo courtesy of the Ecstasy Blog, a joint collab with Operative’s friends Miracles Club Related posts:
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin. PDX Pop Now! Founder Cary Clarke is Portland’s New Arts & Culture Policy Coordinator
Clarke’s new job description:
I wish my job description was that touchy-feely. But seriously, if anyone will take the gig seriously it’s Cary. See more about his appointment here. In the interest of full-disclosure, I was contacted by the Mayor’s office last week to provide a reference for Clarke, and I talked him up like crazy. I’ll do the same here: In the five years I’ve worked for Willamette Week, I can hardly think of a more helpful, knowledgeable and plugged-in guy than Clarke when it comes to the Portland music scene. With PDX Pop he helped give this city its musical identity, and he’s been a tireless fighter on the side of young people and local music—often at the expense of his free-time and pocketbook—as long as I’ve been around. The city is getting a great dude and overachiever with this hire, and I hope this will provide an opportunity for Clarke to get some of the issues he’s been fighting for as a private citizen—a push for all-ages music spaces and more sensible liquor laws, for example—on the city’s front burner. That’s it for my gushing. Cary had better do a good job, because now it’s both our asses on the line. LINKS: Image: Cary Clarke explains club capacity to kids at PDX Pop Now! 2007 Related posts:
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin. The Clientele, Thursday, March 11Just say no to drugs—unless, of course, drugs make your band better. IMAGE: Andy Willsher by Saxon Baird [PSYCHEDELIC U.K. POP] The music of the Clientele is very English and very sad. Its songs are full of regretful reflections and a longing for the return to fleeting moments of happiness. Despite the somber tone, lead singer and primary songwriter Alasdair MacLean asserts not all is hopeless. “The music of the Clientele is careworn and bittersweet,” MacLean says. “It doesn’t rule out the possibility of hope, it just questions it. I’m not really a melancholy person. I just think that sadness is a truth of life and I try to express that in my music.” And does he ever. The latest release from the London-based four-piece, Bonfires on the Heath, is saturated with hazy melancholy. Loosely inspired by an accidental acid trip MacLean experienced, Bonfires is full of delicately crafted psych pop combined with dark lyrics, illusory visions and eerie, pastoral imagery. As MacLean explains it, the album was an attempt at expressing the sensations he underwent in the afterglow of his psychedelic experience: “I wasn’t quite myself for about three or four months in the height of summer,” he says. “I kept getting these chills in that horrible paranoid, hallucinogenic way. That feeling of slight dread marked by beauty is really what this Bonfires is about.” With lines like: “There’s a phantom in my breath/ There’s a phantom in the gaps between my bones,” it is easy to see what MacLean means. This wasn’t the first encounter for MacLean with a hallucinogenic, though. Growing up in the small English town of Hampshire, MacLean jokes that as a teenager drugs were easier to obtain than alcohol. These forays into psychedelics still resonate with him, and in turn, are evident in his music. “I think there really is something about those experiences that never went away,” MacLean reflects. “While I can still do long division and work out a budget, that sense of magic and dread which psychedelics do to you has always stayed with me and it probably always will.” When asked if these lingering, drug-induced sensations have anything to do with the underlying melancholy of his music, MacLean admits such sadness stems from his own views on existence: “I see life as inherently tragic. After all, the things that make you feel safe always slip away somehow. There is not really a lasting happiness in life.” This impermanence has been brought into the foreground of the Clientele’s music. After putting out four full-lengths over a 10-year span (the band formed back in 1991 but didn’t release its first album until 2000), MacLean has expressed the possibility of dissolving the Clientele in the near future. “I don’t believe in making records just to make records,” he says. “If we can’t make something new, then I feel it might be a good time for things to end, to draw a line and move on.” MacLean quickly backs down from that statement and half-jokingly warns, “It doesn’t necessarily mean the end of the Clientele. If you’re lucky, we’ll return. I would say buy a ticket just in case, though.” SEE IT: The Clientele plays the Doug Fir on Thursday, March 11, with the Wooden Birds. 9 pm. $12 advance, $14 day of show. 21+. Related posts:
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin. CD Reviews: And And And, Cabinessence
And And And We’ll Be Better Off With The Plants(Self-Released)
[WILD BASEMENT POP] It’s hard to follow up a song like “The Great Tide,” the opening track from And And And’s debut record, We’ll Be Better Off With the Plants. That track melds a handful of winning pop strategies—the Strokes’ lo-fi energy, the Kinks’ naively sweet hooks and the Beach Boys’ ear for vocal harmony—compounded by a spirit both playful and joyful. So the disc’s second track, the flute-driven “Nightmare”—which finds co-vocalist Nathan Baumgartner taking on a theatric, shaky vocal approach (think Arcade Fire; Handsome Furs) that comes and goes throughout the disc—is a bit of a left turn. It swaps the opener’s understated charm for a barrage of acoustic and electric instruments that drive to a punchy pop crescendo. One gets used to these left turns after a few listens of We’ll Be Better Off. There are hit-and-miss ballads (“I Will Still Break Your Heart” being the big, acoustic hit), atmospheric instrumental pieces and a handful of melodic punk cuts in the style of “The Great Tide” that prove the band’s surest winning formula. The infectious, potty-mouthed revenge ballad “An American in Rome” (favorite lyrical turn: “You went to Rome, told me you were coming back/ But now you’re the best thing that I never had—and that’s some bullllllshit!”) is one of the finer examples. If pared from 14 tracks down to 10, We’ll Be Better Off’s shifting sound might be easier to wrangle. But even as it is—a touch too long, occasionally misdirected—the album’s high points are incredibly high. If the worst thing you can accuse a band of is stretching too far and trying too hard, said band is in pretty good shape. That’s true of And And And. The group is smart, bold and earnest; I wouldn’t be surprised—in fact, I’d be stoked—to see it at the forefront of Portland’s indie rock scene in short order. Cabinessence Naked Friends(Spark & Shine)
[WALL OF ECLECTIC SOUNDS] In a town where every band is trying to stumble on some elusive new sound through wild experimentation or ill-advised genre fusion, Cabinessence’s unhindered retro revivalism is refreshing. Within 10 minutes of pressing play on the quintet’s sophomore effort, Naked Friends, one hears traces of Electric Light Orchestra, T-Rex and the Beach Boys—with a little disco, honky-tonk and jazz sprinkled around for good measure. Cabinessence refuses to attend just one house of pop worship, preferring instead to start its own, all-inclusive church. The band must have camped out in the studio for Naked Friends; it’s a beautifully produced record. Tracks like “Thumbs” and “Should’ve Known” are untangleable knots of soulful instrumentation and warm songwriting with polish that few bands attempt and fewer (My Morning Jacket, Spiritualized) ever pull off. Brian Wilson and Gram Parsons would both approve of the gorgeous melodies and vocal harmonies on “Grace.” They’d probably dig the spaced-out country orchestration, as well. Occasionally the old-school worship feels like a gimmick. “How I Learned,” a clap-along faux spiritual that’s part “Maggie’s Farm” and part “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” features a couple of psychedelic bridges that sound a bit inauthentic and kitschy; “Pray” gets so groovy it starts to sound like blaxploitation parody. Still, it’s hard to think of another Portland band with both the will and expertise to make music this all-encompassing. By the time Cabinessence plays us out with the gorgeous, South-of-the-border-meets-sci-fi instrumental “Ruby’s Moon Elevator”—a number with such balls that it would seem obscene if it weren’t so perfectly executed—the listener feels as though they’ve just taken a college course on world pop music from the ’60s and ’70s. But like the best professors, Cabinessence inspires us to continue our studies long after class is out. SEE IT: And And And plays the Ella Street Lounge on Thursday, March 11, with Rainbow Bridge and Pill Wonder. 9 pm. $5. 21+. Cabinessence plays Doug Fir Lounge on Friday, March 12, with Grand Hallway and Mighty Tiger. 9 pm. $7 advance, $8 day of show. 21+. Related posts:
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin. The Accidental AdvocateA rough breakup prompted Rachelle Schmid to find a new hobby as a booster for Portland music. WW’s series on local radio continues. IMAGE: Leslie Montgomery In the sub-basement of Portland State University’s Smith Memorial Student Union, which houses the studio of the college’s radio station, KPSU, Rachelle Schmid is debriefing yet another band as it prepares to perform live on her show, Anti-Apathy, about what it cannot do once it is on air. It’s not a long list. In fact, guests—in this week’s case, atmospheric rockers Hello Morning—are more or less allowed to do whatever the fuck they want so long as they refrain from saying words like “fuck,” or issuing any “calls to action.” Aside from those restrictions, it’s pretty much no holds barred. “If you want to juggle or put on a clown nose,” Schmid tells the group, “I won’t stop you.” Hello Morning does not go the circus route, instead using its 40 minutes of airtime to broadcast its emotionally wrought guitar pop to the greater Portland area. After a brief interview with the band, Schmid proceeds to play two hours’ worth of other local acts, ranging from big-name staples like the Dandy Warhols and Blitzen Trapper to such lesser-knowns as country-funk punks the Quick and Easy Boys and disco throwbacks Strength. In a city where bands should be included on census reports, a radio program focused exclusively on homegrown music is a niche that should’ve been filled long before Schmid wandered onto the airwaves two years ago. And yet, her show was an anomaly then, and still is today. The name Anti-Apathy is, in a way, her own “call to action.” “Portland is such a huge music town, but the radio stations here don’t take advantage of that,” says Schmid, 31. “I felt like, ‘Why don’t people care about this? Why are they so apathetic about the fact we have a huge music scene here?’” Schmid is hardly the person you’d expect to be a vociferous booster of local musicians. An English major, before starting Anti-Apathy she was more likely to spend nights locked inside a book than out at a club. After going through a rough breakup, she sought out a new hobby. She spotted a flier calling for new KPSU DJs, and decided it was about as contrary to her solitary writing pursuits as she could get. Anti-Apathy began as a political talk show, but Schmid quickly found it hard to find guests willing to be interviewed. As a lark, she invited her friends’ band, the now-defunct Miss Anne Thrope, to play on the show. The response to the performance inspired her to switch formats. Now, Schmid is a rabid consumer of all things Portland music, with a massive collection from which she builds each week’s playlist. For someone who knew nothing about radio when she started, Schmid has developed into a charming on-air personality. Prone to giggles, she playfully chides nervous callers and guests and segues seamlessly from promoting a pro-wrestling event to introducing the next song. But she hardly considers herself Portland’s answer to John Peel, breaking bands and making careers (KPSU’s relatively low wattage wouldn’t allow that to happen, anyway—although a syndicated Internet version of the show does receive between 10,000 and 15,000 listeners per week in Taiwan, of all places). Her only goal is to highlight stuff she loves, and have a good time doing it. “I feel like I have a private concert every week,” she says. HEAR IT: DJ Rachelle runs KPSU (1450 AM or kpsu.org) from 6 to 9 pm Mondays. For resources and conversations about local radio, head to wweek.com/localradio . Related posts:
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin. Top FiveWW checks in with the Billboard Hot 100
Black Eyed Peas, “Imma Be” The Black Eyed Peas find themselves in Houston, then wander off into Daft Punk territory. Which part is supposed to get stuck in my head? Young Money, “BedRock” I can see why people like this infectious beat, and Lil Wayne gives it cred. But the “rapping” is awful. It feels like a bad-rhyme competition. Lady Antebellum, “Need You Now” Wow, twang! It’s not just health care this country is divided about. This sounds kinda like a poor man’s Fleetwood Mac—real poor. Ke$ha, “TiK ToK” I don’t even have to hear this song to know I hate it. The quirky capitalization gives it away. But props for the Nintendo beat. Lady Gaga, “Bad Romance” I think Lady Gaga could write some good songs if she wanted to. Related posts:
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin. Sexy BackWhite Hinterland’s Casey Dienel turns to modern R&B to find her voice. IMAGE: Andrew Hager You wouldn’t know it from looking at her, but Casey Dienel—the self-proclaimed “really small white girl” who performs under the name White Hinterland—can rap along to T.I.’s verse in Justin Timberlake’s “My Love.” She can quote almost every rhyme off Outkast’s Aquemini, looks up to Erykah Badu and tried to persuade co-bandmate Shawn Creeden to cover Jeremih’s “Birthday Sex.” But until last summer, she was hesitant to let those influences creep into her music. Dienel was scared. “I was afraid of my voice for many, many years, so I would arrange around it instead of arranging with it,” Dienel says, blushing and fidgeting with the pockets of her skirt. “I finally decided to blur the line between what I like and what I do. I’ve always really loved hip-hop and R&B, and secretly I would sing that way when no one was looking.” On White Hinterland’s new record, Kairos, all those influences come to the forefront. While Dienel’s past work was often hard to pin down—she flirted with piano-based chamber pop and released an EP sung entirely in French—her voice and lyrics were never as central as the music around them. Kairos, though constructed from odds and ends, is a slinky, minimal R&B record of direct pop songs. From the opening jam “Icarus,” it’s clear that things have changed: Dienel’s voice doesn’t just sit at the center of the song, it swirls around it, her harmonies circling the thick dub bass and interlocking drum machine groove like mosquitoes looking for the perfect bite. The newfound confidence is also heard in Dienel’s intimate lyrics, which often come off as both seductive and heartbroken on the same track. Dienel describes Kairos as a breakup record, and though the songs frequently document her indecision (writing a postcard that’s never sent on “Amsterdam”; holding hope that her new love might “become the man I thought you were” on “No Logic”), they are sung from the perspective of someone who’s finally comfortable in her own skin. “In the past I would protect myself from getting too close to the subject matter in the song,” she says. “I tried to be more honest with this one. I didn’t want it to be some TMI situation, like John Mayer’s Twitter feed, but there’s also nothing wrong with a little bit of honesty.” Part of Dienel’s reflection was finding out exactly what kind of songwriter she wanted to be. Dienel—who turns 25 this week—originally left her coastal home in Scituate, Mass., to attend the New England Conservatory of Music. She released her first record, 2006’s Wind-Up Canary, under her own name on local folk label Hush Records before signing to Dead Oceans and releasing a full-length and EP as White Hinterland. The project’s sound shifted frequently, in part because of her eclectic taste, but also because of a band lineup that was never stable. Consistency only came with a 2008 move to Portland and a partnership with fellow East Coast transplant Creeden. Though they’d been friends for years (“He used to play the saw in a hardcore band I liked,” she says, laughing), their music making was cemented last summer in producer Alexis Gideon’s home studio. The trio hunkered down to create the washy backdrops and “slutty basslines” that make up White Hinterland’s new sound. For the first time, Dienel wrote songs without a piano, instead focusing on vocal melodies, aquatic synth textures, live looping, and lots of primal percussion. “No Logic,” for instance, is built from an acid-fried ukulele line, with natural distortion coming from Dienel’s pickup and a chopped and screwed beat that she and Creeden labored over before settling on a brisk tempo. It led to an album of singles, with each song both experimental but poppy enough to stand out. “Our goal was to make an R. Kelly jam, only with all these odd noises in the background,” Dienel says. “When you’re singing you have to be willing to look a little idiotic. It just took me a while to realize that.” SEE IT: White Hinterland plays Sunday, March 14 at Holocene with Alexis Gideon and Cole Miller. 8:30 pm. $8. 21+. Related posts:
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin. Video: White Hinterland, “Amsterdam”
Kairos is out today on Dead Oceans, and you can read all about Dienel’s R&B transformation in tomorrow’s paper. Links: Screen cap from the video, which is courtesy of Stereogum. Related posts:
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin. Live Review: Midlake, Saturday, March 6 @ the Wonder Ballroom
But that’s not to say Midlake can’t pull off a riveting live show. Its newer material is more organic, propelled by the mystical wind of flutes and harpsichords. It’s all quite earthy, which can be tedious and overly Jethro Tull at times but does lend to some very open-ended jamming. Seven touring members strong, Midlake produced a lush wall of sound which blurred the wide and unexpected genre line between Rock and Victorian. Minus a few lengthy electric guitar battles on stage, the tracks from The Courage Of Others may as well have been written in 18th Century England. Tim Smith’s therapeutic vocals match the band’s languid melodies and old school instrumentation. He barely flinched throughout the 90 minute set, stuck in his familiar mold of peaceful professionalism. The new stuff is less reliant on modern technology, rarely built on synthesizers or electronic riffs. Instead, it’s folksier and more traditional—a better fit for Wonder Ballroom’s raised ceilings and wooden rafters. Midlake even looked the part, heavily bearded and dressed in flannel. In short, the newer songs are less impressive structurally, but better suited for the live show. There’s more open space for improvisation and it quietly relished the opportunity, tossing in some jazz elements here or wedding a pair of songs there (with a wrinkle-free, woodwind transition). Much to the crowd’s joy, Midlake snuck in a few hits from the past. It played a uptempo version of “Roscoe” and an extended take on “Van Occpanther.” With “In This Camp,” the band utilized its large stage presence, adding texture and body to a song that’s already got quite a bit of both. Smith and company admitted that their return to Portland was “long overdue.” But considering Midlake’s slow rate of record production and tendency to recess, most people are used to the wait. And the wait makes sense—it takes a few years to reinvent yourself. Links: Photos by Mark Stock Related posts:
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin. Demune, “Father Time,” The Cyclops (Compilation)
That said, I’m just one dude, and the compilation will probably be a lot of Portlanders’ thing: Those looking for introspective, thoughtful lyrics and low key beats; who feel isolated by the fronting, tough-guy image that even a lot of local artists embody. Cyclops doesn’t bother with the latter bullshit, and it’s nice to hear. And, seeing as how WW didn’t cover the collective’s release show in print (there are almost too many groups involved in this thing to call them out by name: see the rundown here), I thought we’d run one of the better tracks off the compilation here: Demune’s “Father Time.” Download audio file (fathertime.mp3) Along with the atmospheric vibraphone strokes and organ chords, there’s an old record crackle in the backdrop of this cut, and when Demune’s verses hit, I can’t help be reminded by one of my favorite hip-hop groups ever, Camp Lo. Demune throws up a Saint Croix reference, as well, so I’d imagine he’s got some reggae/dancehall influences as well. SEE IT: The Cyclops Music Collective celebrates the release of their new compilation tomorrow (Saturday) night at the Ash St. Saloon with help from Quixotic. Links: Image courtesy of Jeremy Running: www.jeremyrunning.com Related posts:
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