New Album from The Height of 63 - "A Thousand Swords & The Flooded Cave"

The Height of 63 is Michael Griffith, aka Griff who slays keyboards in Archers. A Thousand Swords & The Flooded Cave is a long awaited collection of songs that have been growing for the past 8 years. In that time Griff has lived in SoCal, Geneva and Portland, all the while crafting a space for himself in the world he hears.

The album opens with the classic pop refrain "ah" repeating into spaciousness, and settles into oscillating 8bit frequencies. Griff follows this with "Clouds Burst", acoustic guitar and organs that build from a subtle strum into a heavy wash of emotion, over a sparse electronic beat. I dont feel as through I am well versed enough to talk properly about The Height of 63. There are so many layers of sound and tone, and Griff moves through them all with a timeless, seamless feeling. Sometimes this album sounds like waking up after a shipwreck, washed ashore in the seafoam.

A Thousand Swords and the Flooded Cave is an immersive listening experience from start to finish, and you can hear it all and download at The Height of 63 on Bandcamp. DO IT.

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Show Review: Eddie Valiant, Mt. Tabor Theater, Portland, OR 2.13.11

A few weeks ago, while hundreds of fans lined up around the block at Portland’s Mt Tabor Theater to see Del The Funky Homosapien, I was fortunate enough to be inside to catch the opening act, Portland locals Eddie Valiant. The house was already filling up by the time DJ Zone began to warm up the stage with some choice cuts. He was joined by a drummer and three vocalists, and it looked like we were in for a typical underground rap act.

Eddie Valiant is anything but typical. Max Graves (a rapper), David Mann (a singer), and Scotty Del (a vocalist who does both), belt out personal anthems and pop harmonies, while DJ Zone lays down beats that blur the lines between indie rock and hip hop, and Chase Pingree’s drums never stop carrying the momentum.

photo by Lindsay Nacko

Graves’ rap voice speaks in stacatto bursts of confident poetry, like the hard truth smashing though the mundane. His stage presence is strength personified, power in the flux of restraint and release. David Mann’s vocals sing from the other side of the spectrum, reaching deep for emotive tones that ride the melody like a trip down the rabbit hole. He illustrates his lyrics with his actions, and comments on their meaning with his eyes. Scotty balances the combination, with a raw flow and singing voice that belie the truth in verses of everyday struggle for personal growth. From his words to his actions on stage its clear that this is not a front, this is his heart laid out in unapolagetic terms.

The production moves from hardcore hip hop to melodic indie rock and even into alt-pop territory. Bolstered by the live drums it had a huge portion of the crowd dancing by the end of their set, no small feat for an unknown opener in a huge, cold room. Every member of the group contributes parts to the music, so their mashup of sounds is a true reflection of the identities of the group.

I got a copy of their new EP from David, and bumped it on my ride home. It held the same huge energy of their set, and had me nodding to the shifting dynamic between the members of the group. It just came out this month on Taxidermy Records, and has already garnered a good bit of interest. With a mixtape download coming out in June, and a bunch of shows coming up over the next few months, he said the group is looking forward to a summer full of more awesome times, and I am stoked to see where it takes them.

Gavin Theory's Metal-Legged Mix

Gavin Theory has been dropping futurist Hip Hop for a number of years. The Emcee/Producer relocated from Wisconsin to Portland, OR, in 2008, along with emcee Lucas Dix to make a bigger name for their group Hives Inquiry Squad. Over the past two years, the duo have built a solid reputation and fanbase around their high energy show, which owes as much to classic hip hop as it does to a number of electronic music styles.

A few weeks ago Gavin released a new mix to preview unreleased tracks from their upcoming full-length "Edifice", as well as Lucas' new project with DJ Great Mundane, The Jellyfish Brigade. The continuous mix also includes tracks from other well respected Northwest artists like Gepetto, Abadawn, Sleep (of Oldominion and The Chicharones), Cloudy October and Mic Crenshaw, as well as some of his favorite selections from major artists like Aesop Rock and Atmosphere.

The new Hives tracks push their style ahead with a mashup of lyrical styles and heavy eclectic production that is going to destroy some fat subs. The Jellyfish Brigade tracks are also real thick, and its great to hear Lucas get the opportunity to expand across a whole track with his multitextured vocal styles.

The mix is available for free at the Hives Inquiry Bandcamp page, in 4 pieces. Gavin recommends you burn a disc to play with no "gaps" to get the full experience. However you decide to ingest it, this plate is full of banger indie rap, sure to please the palette of any and all heads with good taste.

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Album Review: Typhoon "Hunger and Thirst"

Portland’s Typhoon will finally fulfill many fans desire with the release of their new album, Hunger and Thirst, on May 4th by local culture mavens Tender Loving Empire. With gorgeous cover art by R.S. Delucco, the work was produced and recorded by Paul Laxer in the Victorian house they share capturing the beautiful sound and experience of the house shows that Typhoon has become well-recognized for.

It’s been five years since their self-titled debut came out on their own Boy Gorilla Records. The maturity of the group is immediately evident. With seven core members and seventeen players on the record, Typhoon is a mashup of instrumentalists that can pull back to stillness just as easily as they cascade into symphonic emotion. On Hunger and Thirst, they find a taut balance between the two, crafting orchestral folk music arranged for deep impact.

Read the rest of the review on Oregon Music News

Album Review: Graymaker

A while ago I wrote this review of Grayskul and Maker's collaborative project, GRAYMAKER, which came out at the end of 2009 on Taxidermy Records.

Graymaker is the latest release from Seattle’s Grayskul: emcees JFK and Onry Ozzborne of Oldominion and Rhymesayers fame. This project finds them working with Maker, the Chicago-based producer behind the highly acclaimed group Glue.

Maker’s production here is like the soundtrack to a dark seventies crime film. Eerie horns wail over classic soul guitars. The synth is subtle and the drum samples are all very organic, which gives the whole album a classic sound. Jazz and funk elements mesh in spacious loops building an atmosphere of a street late at night.

Read the full review on Oregon Music News

New Music Review - Saudade - Lookouts' Journal LP

I wrote this review for Oregon Music News, which is where it originally appeared.



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.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE

New Music Review - Adam Kadmon - Teslaphonics LP

Adam Kadmon makes rap music that draws from a multitude of sources and clearly reflects the stew of sound that we encounter on an average day of listening in the aftermath of the blog era. I just googled his name and apparently it references a Kabbalistic character that is the primal soul of all mankind. Good starting point. Teslaphonics is hip hop with all its circuits bent, but not to the point that your ears get overloaded. This is lo-fi, scratchy like vinyl and full of strange tones that linger in the rhythm. Some sound like they are banging out of a bomb shelter symphony (Hark the Herlad), and others sound like they were heard at the Circus-Circus while Hunter Thompson was tripping on ether (Nuggets). His vocal delivery is swag enough to have the current crop of post-Kanye-rappers shaking in their vintage sneakers, and filtered through static like a transmission from earths last radio. The lyrics are poetic, drawing abstract metaphors together with sci-fi braggadocio and vivid images from some brokedown noir film. Wild lines I can decipher include: he held a sign in his hand that said spare change please / and in large bold letters GOD DONT HEAL AMPUTEES, and heavenly trumpets playing from the beaches / kids shooting up the school while they layin with their teachers, and I got a coin-operated laundry list of demands / assisted living off the skin off the palms of my hands / skin of our teeth, our lives are intentionally brief / to keep the meaning of it all insufficiently deep. Clearly you will need to think about these songs and thankfully they are engaging enough to warrant many repeat listens. This record is part of the slew of free releases from the good people at World Around Records, who are committed to developing artists that are creative, honest and personal. Adam Kadmon is, at the very least, all of the above, and this record has me wondering what strange landscapes his music will bring me through in the future. I will certainly be listening.

You can download the full record HERE and check out more great music at WorldAroundRecords.Com

New Music Review - Forest World "Super Bright Skullz" EP

Super Bright Skullz is the new EP from Provo based electropop duo Forest World. This is clearly music to dance with. The bass knocks hard, with kinetic snares that punctuate hi-hats and cowbells. Drawn out background synths hold the feeling while melodic arpeggios bounce in around the drums, amid errant 8-bit accents. The songs build up and release with extended breakdowns that riff off all the elements and create the sense of a live mix. Throughout the EP you hear all of the sounds interact in different ways that continuously re-frame the overall feeling. Both lo-fi and clean tones keep the vibe crispity crunchety in your ears. Sean and Sam share the vocals in a pleasant male/female harmony that gives a sense of dialogue to the lyrics, which seem to be heartfelt glimpses of hope and connection in the modern mundane. I love the refrain from the title track, "all of this is just as real as you can make it," spun through a dance floor crusher that I will be stoked to experience live. The track that challenged me most was 'Jodie Jensen' which is apparently an ode to a high school crush and thrusts a grip of awkward romantic attachment over a sparse beat that takes two minutes to come back from its initial despair. It does come back though, and they follow it with 'The Singularity' which is also low-key but draws me in with its story about living to age 100, only to be alone with nothing but the songs written in your youth. Overall the lyrics are emotional and real, but not overbearing, and never empty, even when distanced through distortion. This is perfect music for sweaty basement dancing, solo city cycling or making out in a car on the side of an empty mountain road.

Listen to most of the tracks at myspace.com/forestworld
or go ahead and get the hand-packaged cd at forestworldblog.blogspot.com (download is available as well)

New Music Video - Tell The Truth "Consoul"

Tell the Truth are street musicians. I have seen them on stage and in coffeeshops or bars but when I see them on the street I know they are at home. They wail out ballads that pull me into the depths of an emotive struggle for understanding the knot of reality, relations and experience. Their music is challenging - the vocals will pierce anyone's wall of cool, digging into your ears, only to apply a sensual massage once there. The guitar is passed back and forth, along with vocals that harmonize or push off of each other, building into a completely shared expression - two people as one voice that echoes through the city.


listen to more at myspace.com/tellthetruthpdx

Lo-Fi Hip Hop from Disneyland, Oregon

Just like our physical world of interconnected realities, the internet lends itself to synchronicity and serendipity, if you happen to have the open space of perception to realize such things. I was looking at some obscure tape labels the other day and came across a label/collective page that sounded vaugely familiar, though I was not sure why. Turns out that Grand Cooley hosts a ton of music including some made by a Portland homie who I know exclusively through random occurrence/coincidence. I first met Bangs in 2007, either at the clinton st brewpub (now the shangri-la with awesome vegan indian food) or the langano lounge back when i was hosting shows with moose knuckle (who went solo as Daps (Nightcrawlers) and Gepetto). I am fairly certain that he and a friend asked to get on the mic in between sets, and then freestyled some of the more amusing rhymes that night. Since then we have run into each other at parties, street cyphers and open mics in and around Portland about once every three months. Scrolling through the albums at Grand Cooley I saw his name and the image of his handmade cardboard cd sleeve and had to smile. A click later I run into his smiling face, from another timezone, somehow still in the same loop, still glad for the randomness.

Bangs makes lo-fi dissonant breakbeat driven hip hop that is rapid fire and stacked with funny rhymes, tripped out scenarios and his stoked perspective on reality. He is the guy who crashes your party with a boombox strapped to his bike freestyling, who will climb two stories to break into a closed door session and his record sounds like it: live and raw, loose, fun and determined.

download "way to win" and
check out the rest of his record at grandcooley.com

Forest World - sweet electro pop from provo

This week I have been jamming out to some sweet electro indie pop from provo, utah called forest world. I got a friend request at the start fires myspace and checked it out, then decided to write because i was enjoying the music. Well, sean wrote back and sent me a download of a bunch of their material (which you can get too if you want, just email them) and I have been bumping it ever since, while i clean the house or google away my day, or thumping out the window while caustic and I painted a new free book box for boise. The vocals kind of remind me of the simple sweetness of eskimo and sons with a less restrained postal service vibe to the beat...i want to hear it in a hot summer basement with a bunch of people dancing, or else coming out of a small radio taped to some handlebars. I think they are playing in seattle sometime soon and looking to make it to portland this summer.

anyway its worth a listen and definitely making its way onto the upcoming summer mix.

bury me with my money!
http://myspace.com/forestworld