making superfest 4 a reality... by benefiting music in the schools

The Supernature and SuperFest crew are back at it again with their most ambitious, all-ages, electro endeavor yet. Longtime supporters of DIY dance and electronic music, SuperFest 4 will encompass four days—from Thursday, August 30th at the Crystal Ballroom with Glass Candy to two nights at Backspace to Sunday, September 2nd on the PSU Park Blocks for a free outdoor dance party—and, for the first time, benefit a local a nonprofit, Music In The Schools, run by Portland high school students.

Listen to the SuperFest 4 Synthquest DJ Mix featuring new and unreleased tracks by Etbonz, Vice Device (Atole remix), Solenoid, and Toning, as well as recently released songs by Miracles Club, Soft Metals, Strategy, Grapefruit, Jeffrey Jerusalem, and Palmas:

Working alongside Mast, who "booked half of SuperFest this year and does all the designs," according to Reyes, OMN spoke Manny Reyes about this organizing year's benefit as well as some tips on who to look out for on stage.

This year's SuperFest has notably grown in size and scope, with four days of music and some new venues hosting the fest. But, is this the first year the fest has been a benefit?

Yeah, totally. This is the first year SuperFest is a benefit—a new tradition we hope to continue. We [Eric Mast and I] were trying to come up with a cool theme and we thought how about we go for four days for the first time—and that's the theme—with a free day outside at PSU? Plus, it benefits a nonprofit organization made up of Portland teens that help music programs in Portland high schools.

How and why did you choose Music In The Schools? What's your connection to MITS?

I'm happy you asked this, because the honest truth is that we almost didn't do a SuperFest this year. Essentially, we chose MITS because MITS chose SuperFest as their big annual fundraiser! Eric and I met up and traded dozens of emails this summer with our friend Evan Neuhausen—who's pretty much our favorite Portland teenager ever. We met Evan at the first SuperFest, and he assisted Nilina Mason-Campbell at the last photo booth too. It was actually Nilina who suggested we meet with Evan to help promote SuperFest. And then it was Evan who suggested we join efforts on making SuperFest happen.

Why the new venues this year? What will these new locations enable you to do that hasn't been possible in the past?

The new venue choices were a decision made by MITS—since they are financing the whole fest and using their sponsors as well, we decided to go with venues with established relationships with MITS. Crystal Ballroom made sense because the space can accommodate any size of audience, plus they have a new sound system that will be in effect at SuperFest.

Backspace is the perfect size for all-local band dance parties, plus a lot of kids and their parents are familiar with it. And we special-requested Spencer of Operative to do sound which is a huge plus. We're renting subs and decorating the place to look and sound different too.

The free show (outside at PSU on SW Park and SW Montgomery) is a new idea that we are borrowing from our sister electronic summer fest Closer. It was important for us to have an all-inclusive night where anybody is free to come. We feel the three locations make the event feel much more like a festival too—there's no doubt now if there ever was.

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Read the rest and find out who you should be excited about at this year's SuperFest 4 on OMN.

q/a : matt bishop on seattle chamber-pop septet hey marseilles

"I’m the singer for Hey Marseilles," begins Matt Bishop.

"The band began pretty organically a few years ago. Nick, Philip and I all attended the University of Washington together. There’s nothing better than the open schedule and lack of responsibility of being a college student to inspire three guys to make music."

Three guys soon grew into seven and the Hey Marseilles that now surround Bishop on stage is a veritable orchestra of players. A chorus of vocals combines with strings and brass and bombastic things that go bump, all creating an intimate sound that can draw you in with a tight embrace before thrusting you back with an intricate sonic shockwave.

Selling himself short, Bishop has been quoted as saying, “I don’t have much in the way of musical ability. I can strum three chords along with some really talented musicians."

In fact, it's his emotive vocals and wandering lyrics that lead the band that includes Nick Ward on guitar, drumbourine, and mandolin; Philip Kobernik on accordion and piano; Patrick Brannon on trumpet and bass; Samuel Anderson on cello; Jacob Anderson on viola; and Colin Richey rounding it out on drums. From wispy balladeering to insuppressible marching orders, everyone is known to pick up something percussive towards the end of a Hey Marseilles set generating the propulsion behind merry-making favorites like "Rio":

A hit in their own right up north, the Seattleites are quickly become familiar with the Rose City (and vice versa) as well as the West Coast circuit, sharing the road last summer with Portland's Loch Lomond promoting their independently released debut, To Trunks and Travels. Released in 2008, it was reissued nationally this past summer. Still supporting that debut, the fellows, who range in age from 21 to post-30 "but our collective maturity is in the 25-ish arena," clarifies Bishop, have been making music together as Hey Marseilles for four years.

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Read the rest on OMN.

q/a : mnemonic sounds moves forward

Megan Ouchida and Peter Suk went to the same church as children, but Peter was several years her senior and moved away before they properly knew each other. By 2008, Megan had already released two albums of beautifully tranquil electroacoustic pop when a mutual friend shared some of Megan’s solo work with Peter. Impressed, Peter immediately befriended her and asked if Megan would sing backup on some of the recordings he was producing.

It started with the two sending tracks back and forth via email, a la The Postal Service (“but in the same city,” adds Peter). The collaboration quickly grew and they decided to record a full-length album together under the name Mnemonic Sounds. After a year and a half and the addition of two more players to supplement the live show and recordings, the band released their debut album Muscle Memories on July 22nd, 2010 with a gig at the Doug Fir.

Now Megan Ouchida (vocals, synths, guitars, bass, programming) and Peter Suk (vocals, synths, guitars, bass, programming) have teamed up with Patrick Hughes (drums, programming) and Michael Blake (lead guitar) to create warm Postal Service-esque electro-pop where the wispy, throaty harmonies of Megan intertwine with Peter’s composed masculine vox and intricate orchestrations. Delicately mesmerizing, Mnemonic Sounds’ hard work is quickly soliciting a bright future with the band recently opening for Phantogram at Mississippi Studios plus garnering licensing opportunities, radio (and phone) play, and there are more recordings coming soon.

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Leave a comment on OMN for your chance to win a copy of Mnemonic Sounds' debut CD and two tickets to their gig at Backspace on Friday, October 29th with Galaxy Farm.

q/a : marius libman is copy + then some

A longtime DJ, Marius Libman began performing his one-man electronic music show in 2005 “before I owned a laptop,” says Libman. “I brought a 14-inch LCD screen, a mini-tower PC and a MIDI keyboard to the club.” Since then under the name Copy, he's armed himself with a MIDI-triggering keytar and put out two hot poppy, electronic albums on Audio Dregs, a few mixtapes, remixed artists like Panther, Ratatat, Truckasauras, and Starfucker to name a few (and they’ve remixed him as well), and held down DJ residencies all over town.

Joining the “arty dance rock” band Atole in late 2008, Libman plays the bass and recently started his own band Astrology with Charlie Salas-Humara (Panther and The Planet The) and Mark Onyx (Dinner and The Main Course). He’s also a curator of the monthly Supernature series at Rotture, which hosted LCD Soundsystem as guest DJs last May and Ratatat last week, along with Atole lead singer Manny Reyes and E*Rock.

“Aaaand I just finished up my new copy record, Hard Dream, and that’s set to come out in August.” Err, that’s what Libman said in May while he was still “fiddling” with and finalizing songs. Fast forward to September and Copy just dropped his third album in four years on the 21st and celebrated with a CD release gig last weekend at Rotture. But the all-ages affair happens this weekend at Backspace with Strength (who also just released their “darker” sophomore album earlier this month).

With a hand in many an electronic pie around town, Marius Libman spoke with OMN about his new album, his new live drummer (Andy Parker from Guidance Counselor), his new R. Kelly remix album, and his new “fast, punk-informed” band that loves to “rock out.”

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Read the rest and download new tracks from Copy on OMN.

the ascetic junkies ep release party at backspace

Oregon loves it's folk, roots, americana... whatever you wanna call it. And now a new generation is embracing some sort of blended indie folk that combines strings and foot stomping with banjos and pow-wows and is sooo poppy you'll jiggle and smile inside and out.

This brand is not better typified than Boston-to-PDX transplants The Ascetic Junkies. Mixing vocals from Kali Giaritta and Matt Harmon make for a melodic hootenanny tingling with folk country and bouncing indie.

Obviously literary nuts, The Junkies took their name from a group of misfits in a Kerouac novel and after moving to Portland in 2008, they broke onto the scene with their self-produced and released debut One Shoe Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

A little older, a little wiser, and a little more mixed-up musically, The Junkies release a glorious new four-track EP, Don't Wait For the Rescue Squad, this Friday at Backspace and everyone who attends gets a free copy of the album.

The band says this: "In an attempt to avoid wasting plastic that we assume you won't use for anything other than ripping the album onto your computer, we're just going to bring a laptop with us that you can feel free to plug your iPod/flash drive/CD-R/etc. into at any point during the show to steal the EP. Or if you want to sign your email address on a piece of paper, we'll email it to you when we get home that night."

So come kick it up and swing around to some pop/bluegrass/folk/indie rock with The Junkies.

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Friday, December 11, 2009
The Ascetic Junkies : EP Release Show
Bark Hide and Horn
St. Frankie Lee
Backspace
9 PM
$6
All ages

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Read this article on The Deli Portland.