For many of us, Tuesday night isn’t the most ideal night to venture out into the frigid April air to attend a small concert in NE Portland. But whatever I can do to encourage you to make it out to tonight’s installment of Experimental Portland Presents…I will do.
The most I can do at the moment is let you know about the amazing music that will be on tap at Habesha on 801 NE Broadway tonight, starting at 9pm. As you glean from the sound clips below, this is going to be a noisy one, probably the noisiest show I’ve done yet. And that thrills me to no end. Bring some earplugs and an open mind.
In case you were unaware: Experimental Portland Presents… #7 is happening TONIGHT at Record Room with an amazing trio of sound artists performing for you. The cost to get in is a nice sliding scale of $3-5, but if you can’t afford that, talk to me at the door and we’ll work something out. As with all the shows I do where money is taken at the door all of it goes into the pockets of the artists. Not the venue, nor myself, are taking a dime for this.
Tonight’s show came together in, I think, one of the best ways possible. Rinus Van Alebeek, the Dutch sound artist who currently resides in Germany, got in touch with me via e-mail, looking for someone to help him get a show together in Portland while he was on the West Coast. I’m so lucky he reached out to me first and I was able to nab him and his incredible collages of found sounds, self-made noises, and cassette buzzing and howling for this event.
The seventh installment of this series not only features my first international artist but also, much to my shame and chagrin, the first time I will have a female artist on one of my bills. I know this might be a touchy issue for some, but there’s still this huge bias towards male artists in every genre, including experimental music. And I didn’t realize I was playing into that until I was booking the last two events. So, I made the call to people via Twitter and Facebook for suggestions of great female experimentalists that live here in town. One of those names was Brumes, an ambient artist whose work is filled with quiet storms of emotion.
Sun Hammer was someone I tried to book early on in this series as I was instantly shaken by the strength of his glitchy, low-end rattling compositions. But it hasn’t been until now that I’ve been able to lock him down for a performance. If the last performance I saw by him at Townsend’s Tea is any indication, this set will end up leaving a huge and inviting impression on your amygdala and send some nice jolts of warmth through your weary joints.
If you haven’t been able to attend any of the Experimental Portland Presents… showcases we have been putting together for you over the last few months, allow us now to give you a little taste. This is a clip of ALTO! performing as part of the fourth installment of this ongoing concert series. It features the trio performing “Piece 11″ and generally blowing the minds of everyone assembled.
You like this? Check our Event Calendar for our upcoming EXPDX Presents shows including next week at Record Room with Rinus Van Aleebeek, Brumes and Sun Hammer, and the next show at Mississippi Studios with Doldrums and Strategy.
UPDATE: Check out another video from the same show. It’s, dare we say, even better.
When I started this blog last June, I honestly didn’t expect the response I have received thus far to be so warm and enthusiastic. Nor did I expect that some eight months later I would be helping host an Experimental Portland Presents… show at one of the best venues in the city, Mississippi Studios.
Tonight is the first one of these monthly events and I couldn’t be more thrilled about the lineup. Here is who is playing with some sound clips to hopefully get you even more excited about it:
By all accounts, the fifth edition of Experimental Portland Presents… was a success. Sadly, I was not in attendance due to some family health issues. But this being the modern age, I’m able to relive the experience in some small way thanks to the recording Ted Laderas aka The OO-Ray captured of his set. And what a gorgeous and dronetastic 25 minutes it was. So glad Ted, Beau, and Tim were all able to come out and play.
Be on the lookout next week for more information about the next Experimental Portland Presents showcase — the first of a collaboration with the great Mississippi Studios — featuring Blues Control, Plankton Wat, and Fang Moon.
A quick note to remind one and all that TONIGHT brings the 5th installment of Experimental Portland Presents… The show gets underway at 9pm at Valentines (232 SW Ankeny). And to get in, you will only have to pay $3.
I have three acts at the ready for you. Here they are with some sound clips to boot.
ETHERNET
THE OO-RAY
BEAUNOISE (making his live debut, no less)
Below is the poster for the show (please ignore the listing for I’ve Lost…he’s not able to play tonight sadly). Hopefully we’ll see one or more of you there tonight.
Don’t let the news of our recent partnership with Mississippi Studios confuse or dissuade you from attending the other Experimental Portland Presents… shows we already have on the books, including tomorrow night’s extravaganza at Boom Bap!
There’s plenty of reasons to show up: the three bands—ALTO!, Noise Agency, and No Parades—are fantastic (which if you scroll down a tad, you can find out for yourself), you’ll be supporting the local experimental scene, and you’ll be helping to say goodbye to Boom Bap…hopefully just for the time being. The new landlords for their building evicted them this month, leaving them with two more shows to prove their mettle.
The poster for the show and clips to all three bands are below. I sincerely hope you can make it out. And if you do, find me and say hello. I’m tall, bespectacled, a little overweight (or a “fat fucker” in the eyes of one angry Mississippi Studios patron), and quite gregarious.
In case you missed the announcement on Twitter today, a pretty thrilling bit of news just came to light today: starting next month, Experimental Portland will be collaborating on a monthly concert series with the good people at Mississippi Studios. Together, we’re going to curate some amazing bills featuring national and international acts as well as pulling from our amazing pool of local talent.
The first one of these shows are already set to happen on February 28th, with this incredible lineup — Blues Control, Plankton Wat, and Fang Moon.
You can expect to hear more about each of these acts in the weeks to come here on the blog, but for right now, we’ll give you a taste of each one for your listening pleasure.
Before that, I’d like to emphasize how completely agog I am about all of this. When I started this little venture, I didn’t realize how starved this region was for news and music from the underground/experimental scene. And it has taken off in ways I could never have imagined. So, please accept my thanks for reading and supporting the blog, for supporting the shows that we’ve already done, and have/will have lined up for the future.
It being the last day of 2012, I’m in a bit of a reflective mood. This feeling is aided by the warm feelings I still have inside about this past Saturday’s Experimental Portland Presents… show that featured some amazing performances by Jatun, Abusive Consumer, and Cloud City Cars. I’ve said this a bunch of Twitter already, but thank you to all the acts and all the folks that showed up at Record Room to watch.
Too, I’m thinking warmly of all of you folks that read this little one-man effort to keep up with the thriving experimental music scene here in Portland. I’m still kind of amazed at how well received this has been and at all the people and artists I’ve been able to meet and befriend as a result. I’m sincerely humbled, and excited to see what the next 12 months has in store.
Tying both of those above paragraphs together is this stunning new track from No Parades, a new project conceived of by soon-to-be former McMinnville resident Jay Schwab. This gent is one of the many folks I’ve gotten to know personally thanks to this blog, and he has agreed to perform at the next Experimental Portland Presents… show happening on January 19th at Boom Bap.
The warm expanse of this track is reflective of his gregarious personality. It carries a stuttering heartbeat reminiscent of one of my favorite albums Oval’s 94 Diskont, but glides along with a much more linear logic than anything on that disc. But like that LP, you can almost see the sound waves of “Awkward Ballast” ballooning outward as each layer of itchy static and glassine drone is added to the mix.
I’m thrilled to hear how Schwab brings these ideas to bear in his live set next month, and to be further inspired by his person and his art. For it is people like him that are keeping me excited and dedicated to doing what I am doing here at Experimental Portland. Thank you Jay and thank you one and all. We’ll see each other again in the new year.
The Christmas spirit must have me in its sway; I’m ready to stuff your aural stockings with a few choice gems.
Let’s start with the world of TAMARACKmusic, one of many local labels challenging our brains with new and exciting sounds. The imprint’s SoundCloud page is chock-a-block with great new fare, including some Nintendo 64 jams by Black Daddy and centrifugal spins of beats and antic noise by Daddy Longlegs. As well, they’ve offered up this sweet ambient ditty from an upcoming collaboration between the man behind the label Elias Foley and Tim Gray of Ethernet infamy. For such an aggressive title – “Cutting With a Hammer” – the track is really quite soft on the brainpan.
In case you missed this bit of news around the campfire, Regular Music has recently expanded into a quintet, adding two drummers (Papi Fimbres and John Rau) to their trio of synth setups. As you might imagine, the sound is now far more driving, hypnotizing, and hip-swinging than ever before. The wise gent behind Real Future Recording Company, the label that released one of RM’s 2012 releases Buddy Cops did a little bootlegging of the band’s most recent show at Boom Bap – which he has offered up on the RFRC site for download.
Finally a bit of news from our camp — if you didn’t see it on the Events Calendar, Experimental Portland Presents… is returning for a third installment on December 29th. This time around, the show will be going down at Record Room, and will feature sets by a trio of incredible local talents: Jatun, Sun Hammer, and Abusive Consumer. It’s a free show, it’s (sadly) 21+ and it is at a great space. I hope to see as many of you in attendance as possible.
