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| Spiritualized at the Wonder Ballroom. Photo by Autumn Andel. |
The last time Poliça (pronounced po-lisa) played Portland, it was to a packed house at Bunk Bar just days after the Valentine's Day release of their debut record, Give You The Ghost. It was also one of the first gigs the Minneapolis-based act had played outside of the Midwest.
Since, the electro-R&B four-piece lead by sultry-smooth singer Channy Leaneagh has played and wowed big fest stages at Sasquatch!, SXSW, and, most recently, Osheaga and Lollapalooza. And as the band continues their second run around the States, they'll hit a much larger Portland venue, the Wonder Ballroom, on Saturday, August 18th before wrapping it all up at Austin City Limits in October and then following that with dates across Western Europe in November.
Born as a studio project between Leaneagh and producer Ryan Olson (of GAYNGS fame), Give You The Ghost's cool, darkly danceable electronic vibe is created by smooth basslines and plenty of electronic manipulation, from Leaneagh's beautifully Auto-Tuned vocals to Olson's intricate production, like on "Lay Your Cards Out" (below), which features Bon Iver's Mike Noyce on vocals.
But, when it came to take the act out on the road, Olson decided to stay home. In his stead, Leaneagh enlisted bassist Chris Bierden and two drummers, Drew Christopherson and Ben Ivascu, all of whom also played on the record, to aptly recreate the album's elements live. And as they've made the aforementioned rounds, the live sound has evolved into an even tighter and cleaner package that really allows Leaneagh's true vocals to shine—not to mention it's just a joy to watch the pair of drummers deftly knocking out the layered beats.
And without Olson, this lineup is continuing to turn heads, like independent New York record label Mom + Pop Music. The band are set to re-release the full-length album Give You The Ghost on August 14th alongside a Dark Star Remix EP, which features Gardens & Villa and Exitmusic. Plus, they'll surely turn more when they appear on Jimmy Kimmel Live, their second late night TV performance, on August 22nd.
Listen to the Gardens & Villa mix of "The Maker":
Talking about touring highlights and not rushing the new music, OMN spoke to Poliça's Drew Christopherson via email in the week leading up to the show.
Tell me the significance behind the name Poliça.
We were intrigued by the idea of having a name with little to no previous associations to it. Sort of like naming a human or a pet. Poliça is actually a slight misspelling of a foreign word [Polish] meaning "policy," which seemed like an apt declaration of our purpose as a band. While we enjoy coming together as friends and creating music for the simple thrill of it, we also felt a sense of urgency and duty to make this band the best it could be, and that would be our policy. Also, it looks good in print.
After six long months in a Melbourne warehouse, Cut Copy emerged with their third record, Zonoscope, in February of this year. Their most cohesive yet sonically complex effort to date, the album has propelled the quartet to new heights, seeing them travel the world and selling out gigs along the way. And the Zonoscope was the part of process that has afforded them this success. As Dan Whitford (vocals, keyboard, guitar), Tim Hoey (guitar, sampler), Ben Browning (bass), and Mitchell Scott (drums) hunkered down in that “old, dusty warehouse,” they quickly discovered a tropical air permeating their sonic experimentations and soon this aura pulsated throughout all their new creations. This imagined world was in utter contrast to their homemade recording studio surroundings, but as the “tropical, tribal, almost exotic sounds” kept naturally flowing the Zonoscope became the “device for looking into the world that we created making the record,” explains Dan Whitford. “The Zonoscope is some sort of telescopic, weird contraption that you look through to see into this world.”
Finding inspiration in experimenting with new instruments and through reinterpreting their own influences, you can hear the innovation of vintage sounds in every track on Zonoscope. Swirling vocal patterns two-thirds of the way through “Where I’m Going” stir up hazy memories of The Beatles’ “Within You Without You,” minus the sitar and strings, over twinkling synths reminiscent of The Who’s “Baba O’Riley” until the dance-ready beats, yeahs, and hand claps are reinjected.
“Need You Now” is a yearning, dramatic album opener that builds, like much of Cut Copy’s 5+ minute tracks on Zonoscope, into a dance-y bliss (watch above). The deep, commanding form of Dan Whitford’s opening vocals remind of Dave Gahan’s balladry (and so many other ’80s anthems) while you can’t help but hear the tiniest bit of New Order in the electronic drums of “Blink and You’ll Miss A Revolution.” And closer “Sun God” rocks like a funky Happy Mondays cut with repetitive, Shaun Ryder-touched chants and a jammed out, Euro house breakdown that goes on and on.
The layers are multitudinous and a challenge to recreate live but Cut Copy has been doing it across their “northern hemisphere tour” over the last several months and will continue as they move south. On their first string of North American dates the Aussie pack skipped Portland, but currently on their last set of US dates, Cut Copy will finally bring their tropical vision to Portland’s Wonder Ballroom on Sunday, October 9th with equally danceable performances from Washed Out and Midnight Magic.
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Although fans that saw James Blake on his first American tour, including a sold-out stop at the Doug Fir in May, worried about the intimacy that would be lost as he plays bigger and bigger stages, Blake himself is excited by the prospect–larger venues mean bigger sound systems with more low-end to create the massive sounds he’s seeking. And James Blake demonstrated on Friday night at the Wonder Ballroom that the understated, introspective nature of his performance is still enough to captivate a larger audience, ably pulling the crowd in and keeping their attention with his drama-filled pauses and fragmented laments. Blake does have reason to fancy the increased power–his minimalist songs did sound good on a big PA whether he was vibrating the floorboards with active, soulful dubstep on R&S released EP tunes “CMYK” and “Klavierwerke”–the most club-worthy moments of the night–or providing a brief glimpse of unadulterated piano playing and vocals on “Give Me My Month”–the moment that most embodied Blake’s desire to play serious, solo piano sets, aiming “to make an art of the songwriting for piano.”
As many struggle to understand how James Blake can possibly be classified as dubstep, let alone what dubstep is, Blake simply described dubstep to OMN before the show as an “intense focus on a feeling,” and his stage presence, or lack thereof, was perfectly suited to amplify this emotion. Shy and subdued, his tall frame seated behind two keyboards, Blake mumbled a few anecdotes and was visibly touched by the audience’s reaction to his “melodic bass music.”
Listen to the entire OMN interview with James Blake including his thoughts on his new, “more intense” EP, Enough Thunder, expected in November and future collaborations with Bon Iver, aka Fall Creek Boys’ Choir, but sorry, not tonight at McMenamins Edgefield.
Reverbed, looped, layered and vocodered to create an Auto-Tune effect, the ever-transforming vocals wavered alongside the rhythmically discordant beats, both always on the edge of cracking to pieces yet masterfully restrained. The live layering and looping of the opening lines to “I Never Learnt To Share” captured the audience’s cheers as the audio’s balance panned from side to side, and the song furtively built into a droning, intense frenzy, which if ill-crafted would’ve been offensive. The same was true of the shattering yet delicately measured bass pulsations on “Limit To Your Love,” which obviously received the loudest cheers of the night especially when the disco ball started to spin.
Even if The Black Lips are the last to admit it, they’re maturing. Musically, at least. “Well, I was 18 for years and now I’m 19 in spirit,” says guitarist/founder Cole Alexander. ”Evolution is slow process.”
With Alexander turning 30 yesterday, the day after The Black Lips released their sixth studio album (on Tuesday, June 7th), Arabia Mountain is the most evolved and refined sound to date from the Lips–16 jolting cuts, 14 of which clock in at under 3 minutes, that range from happy-go-lucky (“Go Out And Get It”) to dark and brooding (“Mr. Driver”) to bizarrely based on a true story (the molestation of Spiderman in “Spidey’s Curse”).
As the band’s spirit remains youthful (read: immature), the music has definitely matured, producing The Black Lips’ most palatable album, something Alexander predicted during production when he told NME: ”I’m hoping it’ll be our most fucked up but successful album.”
And while it’s an album readily available for mainstream consumption, Arabia Mountain is also their best quality work, full of frenetic pop songs and decidedly darker, occult-inspired tracks. For the first time in their decade-plus career, the Atlanta quartet recorded with an outside producer: Mark Ronson, who is better known for his work with soulful English songstresses Amy Winehouse and Adele or heavyweight rappers like Nas, Busta Rhymes, and ODB. What seemed an odd pairing (and although there was one attempt on Ronson’s life) has resulted in a tight album with (as oxymoronic as this sounds) cleaner fuzz that reeks of the energy and durability of The Ramones and The Hives. Lockett Pundt (of Deerhunter) and the band themselves, of course, also had a hand in the production.
A subtle, cleaner departure from the muddy sound of 2009′s 200 Million Thousand, which was recorded by themselves in a warehouse, the band also experimented with adding some sounds–theremin (played by Sean Lennon), saw, saxophone, horns, and a skull. Yes, a human skull. The psychedelia (on and off the record) continues as the band used a human skull as a reverb chamber, an idea they got from ’60s psych-rockers the 13th Floor Elevators, to actually create ”the sound of being inside a human head,” as Alexander told Spinner.“We’re hoping to tap into the spirit world,” Alexander also told NME. ”We’re hoping the person who once lived in the skull can enhance the songs.”
The previous quote aside, if the album seems a bit calmer and more composed, this will not be reflected in the live setting. The lovably obnoxious offenders are at home on the road and are at it again, touring the world and hitting Portland’s Wonder Ballroom on Tuesday, June 14 with intense East New York punks Cerebral Ballzy (who are set to release their self-titled debut on July 26th via Adult Swim’s Williams Street Records) and Seattle’s Night Beats.
Approaching their thirties, the boys may now be stagebroken but that might not stop them from making out and exposing a butt cheek or more. For a band that’s been kicked out of India because of their stage antics, there will be crowd surfing and spilt (or spit) beer so brace yourself for a wildly offensive and dynamic show–try not to look too shocked at the sight of balls.
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Yelle is pure, unabashed and unadulterated, bliss. Criminally unforgettable beats pulsating behind girlish yelps and chants belted like rallying cries–cries capable of inciting dance floor frenzies regardless the audience’s ability to understand French. It’s quirky, synthesized disco-pop with just the right amount of spunk to catapult it across language barriers. “The main idea,” says producer/mastermind GrandMarnier, “is to dance and cry at the same time.”
Fronted by the namesake mademoiselle and backed by producer duo GrandMarnier (Jean-Francois Perrier) and Tepr (Tanguy Destable), Yelle returned in March of 2011 to release their second French-language album upon American ears, proving their unique gift to craft irresistible and exciting dance music. For non-French speakers, which is likely most of us that will pack the Wonder Ballroom on Sunday, May 15th, it’s a true emotional response to Yelle’s music that makes us want to dance without understanding and keeps us coming back for more.
In some two years away from the road, the band focused their energies on creating a united yet distinct sophomore album. “Pop-Up was produced differently: We did ‘Je Veux Te Voir’ first, then we waited two or three months, then started another song,” says GrandMarnier. “Safari Disco Club is a more fluid, cohesive album that you can listen to from the first track to the last.”
That’s not to say that there aren’t a vast potpourri of electronic styles present–from New Wave synths to tropical rhythms to Chicago house and electronic composition. And, just as 2007′s Pop Up spawned several dance floor hits on both sides of the Atlantic, this year’s Safari Disco Club lacks naught; there are no shortages of dance cuts or intricate energy. Watch the double video for the lead single “Safari Disco Club” followed by “Que veux-tu” plus find a few of the childishly alluring English translations here:
On stage the enthusiasm persists. With an oversized Y in a circle like an inverted peace sign at their backs, the trio’s wild vivacity will leave you breathless. OMN had the opportunity to exchange an email with Yelle (aka Julie Budet) just days after their searing performance at Coachella at the end of last month.
Back in 2006 Pete Yorn took a public break after releasing his third album, Nightcrawler. Seeming a bit disillusioned with the state of the world, Yorn was working his way through some personal issues but defiantly voices that he was never ready to hang up his guitar. And if in 2008 you thought this was a possibility, you couldn’t have been more wrong. Two-thousand nine saw Pete Yorn release two albums–the much publicized album of duets, Break Up, with Scarlett Johansson and the haunting, studio-crafted Back & Fourth–followed by his self-titled, dubbed The Black Album, fifth album in 2010.
Touring in support of three albums in two years, Pete Yorn headlines Portland’s Wonder Ballroom on Sunday, April 3rd ready to celebrate the 10th anniversary of his debut album, Musicforthemorningafter, where Yorn says, “We will attempt to play my debut record in its entirety”–a feat he’s attempting on just six West Coast dates. Opening by himself is Ben Kweller whose youthful rock was anthemic for teens and college students in the early 2000s, capturing many of the same fans as Yorn. Kweller brings his “huge energy,” as Yorn puts it, “even as a solo act,” with his country-tinged, poppy rock singalongs including songs from his fourth studio album, Changing Horses, released in 2009.
In the three years between albums, Pete Yorn was certainly not sitting still; in fact, the 2010-released Black Album was actually recorded just a few weeks before Yorn would even enter the studio to lay down tracks with heralded producers Mike Mogis and Rick Rubin for what would become 2009′s Back & Fourth.
Those “black” sessions took place in Salem, Oregon over five days, with producer Frank Black (The Pixies) guiding the effort to discover Yorn’s true raw sound and cobbling together a backing band. The result is Pete Yorn’s most stripped down, rocking, and honest record to date, all of which stems from the organic environment in which it was recorded.
You were sick with the flu at the time you recorded your self-titled album. That’s something you definitely feel on the stutter start and then rough opening vocals on “Rock Crowd,” yet, on other tracks, you shine with such authentic, vocal strength and power, like on “Always” or “Paradise Cove I.”
Pete Yorn: Yes, I got sick on the second day of recording but we powered through. It was the nastiest flu that I’d had in years. I think the rawness of my voice suits the record well in hindsight.
Overall, it’s clear that this album is very personal and authentic, with heartfelt lyrics on tracks like “Rock Crowd” and contemplated joy on “Future Life.” How much of this album was pre-visioned, practiced and written before you went to meet Black and how much just happened?
The songs were all basically written before I met Frank. We worked on a few lyrics on a couple songs. The songs could’ve been recorded in a number of different styles. Frank was great at guiding the arrangements towards the no frills presentation that exists on the record. He stripped things down in order to make room for more power. It seemed counterintuitive at first, but it was ultimately the way to go.
Why a self-titled album after all these years? Does The Black Album nickname and subsequent dark cover art have anything to do with working with on of your heroes, producer Frank Black?
Although it is quite a raw and stripped back album…. [it's not called Pete Yorn,] it’s actually The Black Album to me. My name is on it, yes, but I went with the dark cover art as a nod to Mr. Black Francis. When I finished the project, we always referred to it as The Black Album or “[the black] project.”
Tell me about the recording sessions for this album, which took place in Salem at drummer Jason Carter’s studio. They came about quite spontaneously, and the whole album was recorded in just five days.
This project kind of came up last-minute. I had a bunch of songs. I was heading to Omaha to make Back & Fourth and a few weeks before I was set to leave, this opportunity to work with Frank popped up and there was no way I was going to pass that up. We gave ourselves roughly five days to capture as much inspired material as possible and we ended up with a whole record. I had no expectations other than, “Let’s see where this goes.” It was fun to hang out and work with Frank.
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With more than a decade of beat engineering under a few monikers and countless collaborations and remixes, Eskmo (real name Brendan Angelides) is finally gaining a following worldwide after exposure in traditional media (BBC), the blogosphere (Brooklyn Vegan, XLR8R, Pitchfork), and clubs (alongside Flying Lotus and Amon Tobin). Next up, he’ll be opening for Beats Antique’s US tour on a month of dates including three Oregon stops, Ashland, Eugene and Portland, in the end of March and early April. Striking an emotional chord, Eskmo says his style “sounds like a robotic tree would sound”–a perfect description of vibe he generates on his self-titled Ninja Tune debut, which dropped in October 2010. The organic and electronic cohesion is illustrated in sight and sound the first single, “Cloudlight” (video below, download track here), from Eskmo.
The Connecticut native but San Francisco transplant is inspired by “too much stuff to mention,” but his latest is “primarily about loss, gain, family, relationship, alchemy, love and stillness” and contains an enchanting palate of sounds, including “sticks being stepped on, soda cans, metal plates, etc….” Eskmo adds, “I record a lot of environments and natural sounds to incorporate into the songs.” (Listen to the whole album here.)
The album was written over a six month stretch “in the middle of a whole bunch of personal relationship-type stuff, a lot of deep life-experience type stuff happening that helped the music just bleed out of me. I just poured all those feelings into the music, it’s very cathartic. I allowed myself to let go of DJ structure – it’s not a ‘dance club’ album, because that kind of stuff hasn’t inspired me in years. This is the first full body of work where I’m singing all over it, and allowing myself to get over that furlough of expression has been really liberating.”
Your Ninja Tune debut features your own vocals a lot more than some of your past releases. Why did you decide to incorporate more of your own vocal samples on this album?
My last track of 2009′s “Let Them Sing” for Planet Mu really got me moving more in that direction. I just had a huge pull to let that side of me out. I almost felt like I made that track to say to myself: “Let yourself sing.” I knew it would drive some listeners off, especially since my background and influence is definitely not RnB vocals, which is all the rage. But it felt right to me.
You’ve explored a lot of territory with your music over the years. Tell me a little bit about the road that has led you to this point in your musical career.
I came from a band background, was introduced to electronic [music] in the mid ’90s and it took hold. I bought my first bass and 4 track and started writing in my bedroom. From there I branched out in various downtempo, then drum and bass and some heavier techno and gabber. Music was my fuel and kept me going.
English trip-hop producer Simon Green makes beat-driven, downtempo tunes in the vein of Thievery Corporation under the moniker Bonobo. Jazzy and chilled, his music flows between many different genres, taking the snippets he sees fit, while often enlisting a seductive female voice to make his cuts ever so soulful and sexy. Touring in support of Black Sands, which was released in late March, Bonobo visits the Wonder Ballroom on Saturday, April 24th as part of the Soul’d Out Music Festival, sharing the stage with experimental-electro shoegazers Yppah from Houston and Seattle’s Anomie Bell.
Bonobo snagged the irresistably cool Andreya Triana to stand as his “cohesive voice throughout the record” helping him create an identity across an album that brings together strings and woodwinds on tracks that run from “spiritual, psychedelic Jazz” to “wonky, synthetic Hip-Hop,” as Green describes it. But a cohesion exists because like all Bonobo-productions, it was made by one man, in one room, with Simon Green’s signature all over it.
Picking up where he left off with previous recordings, Bonobo forced himself outside of this comfort zone “pushing slightly off kilter electronica”...
Indie rock bands rise and fall based on capricious blogosphere-buzz, and many internet-hyped acts roll through Portland with mediocre performances. With too many hip 20-somethings playing their instruments so nicely, too many gigs are yawn fests because bands play songs with verbatim meticulousness–working their way though their poppy album tracks as if they just pressed play on their preprogrammed setlist. Why shell out the dough when you can hear the same thing that you already leeched from your favorite blog?Sounding tight and rehearsed, Yeasayer meandered through fresh and different mixes adding small twists to the sounds fans love–faster and louder here, softer and slower there while Yeasayer’s trio of vocalists harmonized, traded, and shared vocals over the pounding array of rhythm makers, tambourines, shakers, and electronic beat claps.
From haunting beginnings with slo-mo, robo-vox to ’80s-inspired funky synth jams, percussion drove the show with constant sticks clacking to puffed out falsetto exhalations.
She has been making noise across the pond since the release of her first album in 1986. Now on her third record, IRM, she got some help from a pivotal co-producer and writer, Beck. Born in London and raised in Paris, Charlotte Gainsbourg has been a force in film and French pop music over the years but the support of her newest collaborator has propelled her into the international limelight. Providing some backing instruments and vocals, Beck has stamped Gainsbourg’s album with his twisting signature as the album works from poppy and sweet, full of sleepy sunshine to heavily dramatic, wrapped in confusion, all the while flavored with tidbits of dreamy French. The first single “Heaven Can Wait,” a duet with Beck, belongs on the thump-y edition of Sea Change while other songs transform from the robotic “IRM” to an Air-inspired “Le Chat du Café des Artistes” to raw blues on “Trick Pony.”
The title for Gainsbourg’s latest release is French for MRI, inspired by an experience in 2007 when she was rushed to a Paris hospital...
From SoCal to Spokane to Portland, Hockey eventually found a home and full lineup... but they don't spend much time here. For many in-the-know PDX hipsters, it feels like Hockey has been doing the same thing, for a while now. And for Hockey, sometimes it feels that way too. After loads of hype in 2009, Hockey saw themselves propelled onto an international stage where their achievement checklists became quite impressive, quite quickly.
Constantly on the road rocking festivals around the world with their new wave, dance-rock, Hockey burned up the American blogs with dynamic, disco-funk performances at SXSW, Sasquatch, Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, and CMJ while dazzling the English and European press at Glastonbury, T In The Park, Leeds, Reading, and many more. Sharing some main stages with big acts as well as touring with buzzworthy, indie dance acts Passion Pit and Friendly Fires, Hockey is trying to stay fresh--musically, mentally, and physically--as they continue to gruelingly spread their dance-rock rhythms worldwide.
As Hockey's lead singer Ben Grubin told the Crystal Ballroom last December, “You may not know this, but we’re from here.”
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Some things haunt you for the rest of your life. Haunts of "SELL-OUT" shouted at shows, or despondent, isolated devotees wandering the moonless night in shock, never to find peace again. Haunts like changing the name of your band from Starfucker to Celine Dion's Shaggy Penis.
Or some things aren't scary at all. They just make sense. So congratulations to the hometown boys who are able eke a living out of an artistic passion.
Whatever you wanna call them, Starfucker/PYRAMIDDD plays a spooky Halloween show at the Wonder Ballroom. We all know the boys love to don drag and stage dive so try to outdo their kinky costumes as the band will be personally judging a costume contest.
Enter the gymnasium on Saturday, October 31st like you're attending some haunted prom where alcohol is no longer taboo (eerie, huh?).
On a stage crammed with gadgets, Starfucker presents a low-fi, digital indulgence plump with candied beats, sweet and sour drum machines, and chocolate turntables. Somehow their smorgasbord of audio, from echoing voices to bleeps and zaps, sped up, slowed down, is so precisely pieced together that you wanna get topsy-turvy.
And as ever, this year's treat is sprinkled with the delectable double-drummer technique known to kick ass at Starfucker shows.
So whether you're restless or confused or pissed they "sold-out," get off your high horse. The music is still the same even if this is their last show under the Starfucker moniker. As Josh Hodges, SF general and commander, believes: making music should be fun so if you can make money doing it... fuck it.
Drinks, decadence and dance music prevail. Get all three treats this Halloween.
Trick or treats : Get your mitts on Starfucker's "German Love" and download opener Deelay Ceelay's album Thank You here.
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Saturday, October 31, 2009
Starfucker / PYRAMIDDD
Deelay Ceelay
Nice Nice
Wampire
Wonder Ballroom : 128 NE Russell St, Portland, Oregon 97212
Doors at 8 PM, show at 9 PM
Cost : $14 advance and day of show
All ages
Beth Ditto has an icy, trilling prowess. Wooing and coaxing, jarring and brassy.
