q/a : making a living on mackintosh braun

Ian Mackintosh and Ben Braun are in tune with each other. The two finish each other’s sentences and more importantly, each other’s thoughts. Those thoughts often come in the form of sleek, interwoven electro-pop.

“We’ve worked together so much now that we finish each other’s thoughts or we think of it [the same thing] right as they’re saying it,” explains Ben.

“Yeah, we’re in that groove now where we write really well together,” adds Ian.

But being “in that groove” is nothing new. The Portland duo has been working in this fashion since 2006 when Ben’s father casually passed a tape of Ian’s music on to Ben. “I heard the music and freaked out and got a hold of Ian,” says Ben. “We linked up and pretty much hit it off. We started writing right away.”

“And working on music immediately,” continues Ian. “We had an affinity for the same things, even right off the bat. Fast forward four years now, we still have that same affinity for the same things.”

Ben moved to Portland from New York around age ten, and Ian was born in LA but “worked my way up the I-5 corridor and wound up in Portland a little after high school.” Now in their late twenties and early thirties, the two have just released their second self-produced and recorded album, but this time around they are signed to a label, the taste-making Chop Shop Records, a division of Atlantic (alongside a new LA to PDX transplant Anya Marina). Pulsating with cool, danceable electronics, Where We Are came out on September 21st and has solidified the band’s synthpop status fronted by opening single “Could It Be.”

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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.

q/a : four years of horror : strength’s ‘darker’ sophomore album

What are three art school, almost 30-something white boys doing making funky, sexalicious music? Not asking for your permission, Strength is telling you, “Let’s get down” with the release of their second–long, long, long-awaited–album, Mind-Reader. The self-produced, recorded and released album comes out on September 3rd, coinciding with a CD release gig at Holocene with Fake Drugs, DJ Copy, and DJ Patricia Furpurse.

Feeling up MJ and Prince for their goodies, the California-natives but PDX-transplants since ‘03 set out to make a horror-dance album but got distracted along the way by their normal shenanigans of sexy electro-funk-soul. And why shouldn’t they get diverted? …While diverting themselves with their tongue-in-cheekiness. Ridiculous lyrics, indelible riffs and thumping beats make you wanna get up and freak your girl while trying to lay her down.

Looking to make a “darker” sophomore album, Bailey Winters (vox), John Zeigler (keys, programming), and Patrick Morris (guitars, programming) didn’t get distracted with the production, it consumed them–every sound is delicately and deliberately placed. This is why it took them so damn long–four years long–for the release of album #2. But being seriously scrupulous doesn’t mean they can’t have fun, including a vampire track (“Blood” with lyrics “My body’s weak, I’m out of time, I need her blood before sunrise”) and a bit of punk rock, albeit still quite smoothly produced punkiness, on the energetic “Disaster.”

“I thought it would be great to just have a punk song, one of our own,” says lead singer Bailey Winters. “And it goes over pretty well. I think it shakes things up a little bit.”

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Read the rest of the interview and download a new track on OMN.

pegasus dream releases debut album at rontoms

As the festivities of PDX Pop Now! wind down Sunday night, August 1st, an unofficial after party will be ramping up at Rontoms with Pegasus Dream celebrating the release of their first album, Painting Pantheons. Playing alongside Astrology (featuring members of Panther and Copy/Atole) and XDS, the gig is free and will showcase the debut of an album that’s been three years in the making from Spokane to Portland.

Since the last time OMN spoke with Pegasus Dream in late April, they’ve returned to their core duo of JT Lindsey (guitars, samples, vox) and Andy Carlson (keys, vox) parting ways with former drummer Mikey Dane, as he moved back to Spokane, but picking up producer/drummer Jeff Bond (Diamond Liars, Asphalt Thieves) as a live drummer at Superfest 2.

Running just over 35 minutes, Painting Pantheons retains the tones of influences like Ratatat but without the droning repetition that can bore; rather Pegasus Dream’s debut manages to remain anchored in a poppy aesthetic but with enough experimentation and reigned in psychedelia to wander and tease the right extremes without taking the plunge.

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Read the rest and listen to a new track from Painting Pantheons on OMN.

q/a: atole brews up a free dance party at east end

Traditionalist may use masa with fruit or chocolate to make a steamy blend of atole. Others use video game explosions, post-punk basslines, and dancey drums to brew up a sweaty pot of Atole.

Others include PDX heretics Atole, a dance rock, disco mash-up of Italo electro beats and SFX wed to krautrock and decidedly punky exaltations. It’ll make you move.

The boys of Atole have many faces around Portland and love to smother this town with their dance joy, whether it’s at house parties, spinning DJ sets, hosting webisodes, or booking gigs and playing with friends at Rotture.

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copying oaks park

XLR8R visited Portland and Copy took them on a tour of Oaks Park, Potato Champion, and Ground Kontrol.