Oregon Music News

Next week, the Indie section will be looking back over a decade’s worth of music from Oregon, listing out what this writer and a few of his trusted allies deem to have been the best albums released during the past 10 years.

But for this week, we want to look to the future a little bit, to give you a heads up on the artists that you will be talking about in the new year. Some of the groups already have a healthy buzz being made about them, while others are just getting started. Another is the fascinating collaboration between two already-established artists who are combining their disparate approaches to music. These are the people that are going to get a lot of attention outside our borders, representing Oregon to the rest of the world into the next decade and, hopefully, beyond.

Explode Into Colors - Much ink has already been spilled about this groove-tastic trio. They were named 2009’s Best New Band by the readers of Willamette Week and have already made some headway into the mind space of the tastemakers around the U.S. 2010, though, is going to be their year, as it will bring about the release of the group’s first full-length album (on the venerable Kill Rock Stars label). Our appetite has already been well whetted with the release of a trio of 7″ singles and their tightly knit live shows that put the emphasis on the deep dub-empowered rhythms of late ’70s post punk and the high wire tension of the Riot Grrrl movement.

Ethan Rose & Laura Gibson – Sometimes the most interesting and exciting music can come from connecting two elements that didn’t seem like they would fit together. On paper, the collaboration between circuit bending, music box manipulating experimental sound artist Ethan Rose and feather-light folk singer Laura Gibson wouldn’t seem like a creative match. But, in practice, it is one of the most thrillingly original sounds to come out of Oregon in some time. Gibson puts her vocal parts completely in Rose’s care and, in return, he has edited and warped them to fit his twinkling ether frolic soundscapes. It’s music custom-made for dream sequences and surrealist art installations.

Black Elk/Red Fang – Heavy rock is on the upswing in the Indie world and these two colorful groups are going to be the ones carrying the torch for us to the rest of the world. The former is a sludgy, angry quartet led by dynamic vocalist Tom Glose. The group recently got anointed by the gods of heavy noise rock when they were hand-picked by The Jesus Lizard to be the opening act on a number of recent reunion shows. The latter quartet adds a little bit of ’70s boogie to their earth-shaking riffs, but still bring it hard and fast. They are gearing up for the release of a new album in 2010, a disc recorded by Viva Voce’s Kevin Robinson.

Saudade - The band’s name comes from an apparently untranslatable Portuguese concept that they say is close to a sort of longing or homesickness. Their press materials rightly say that it is a close an approximation of the sound this duo creates – one that layers on washes of guitar noise without vocal focus and adds dreamlike bits of electronics and programmed beats. It’s a gentle touch that invokes the idea of loss and longing almost too perfectly at times. Saudade released their debut album at the end of 2009, but its ideas and beauty will be lingering on the minds of many music fans and writers well into the new year.

Justin Power – His were the best songs on the most recent release by the Portland Cello Project, compositions that would lose nothing were the cellos to be removed but that also benefited greatly from his collaborators’ tasteful accompaniment. Now that Justin has gotten his name before the world at large, he can start drawing attention towards the rest of his fine catalog of songs that are rooted in the ache of folk and filled with an invigorating and childlike whimsy. He’s a man without a record label. That will likely change very soon.

Saudade is an untranslatable Portuguese word for an irreconcilable longing.

Saudade is also the musical conversation between Jason Gray and Chris Cantino, two artists who met working in a residential psychiatric treatment facility.

They come from different musical backgrounds, and opposite sides of the country, but working together they found a common voice in tonal dialogue. They have been playing shows in Portland since 2007, and their 2008 downloadable LP The Hooded Ones (also released on the cassette-only label Peasant Magik) was well received and made a few top-ten lists in the noise/ambient blog world.

Their newest effort, Lookouts’ Journal, is available this week from Arena Rock Recording Co.

Lookouts’ Journal opens with soft tones, static and the voices of children beneath layers of feedback. This holds the promise of a journey toward learning how to feel like a child at play amid the noise of our world, perhaps an instruction on to how to approach the album.

The subtle movement continues on “I Have Come to Claim My Throne,” which brings to mind dawn’s light filtered through trees, and crescendos into banging cymbals and noise, as though nature cannot be separated from the encroachment of culture. “Interstate Bridge Song,” built from samples taken from the namesake Portland bridge, brings us to the repetition of the city and finds a quiet peace in the detached voices of man-made cacophony. From there they move between inner and outer worlds, tonal reflection, and resonant noise, which puts me in a state of awe and emotional impermanence.

Throughout the album, Saudade draws me into their field of awareness and then closes the door, only to open another portal of perception to our multifaceted reality. The sound finds its cleanest point on “Abandoned Campground,” a probable ode to hidden forest moments that exist only for the person seeking such encounters. The noise reaches intense peaks of layered feedback, but Saudade manage to rein it in as on “Earth House Hold” and especially on “The Negative Side of the Dragon” to a place where the I can comfortably explore my response to it.

I would actually like to hear them break this comfort zone in a more extreme way, which I have been witness to at some of their live shows.  Yet, I admire their ability to work with the sound so completely that it maintains a constant tension between the lush and the atonal. On this delicate thread is where Lookouts’ Journal keeps the listener, balanced through chaos and calm, which makes this album perfect for a headphone journey through the city, sitting quietly with a great friend, or opening all the windows and cleaning the crap out of your house.