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q/a : on the yacht for a globe trot

For the last year, this YACHT has been sailing around the world touching every continent possible. One week ago they were playing Bogotá, Colombia. Tomorrow they’ll be back in their home state rocking Eugene’s WOW Hall for University of Oregon student radio KWVA’s Birthday Bash.

Another one week and one day, YACHT will set sail north through the Pacific Northwest to the Gorge to devastate the second day of Sasquatch on Sunday, May 30th.

Less than a week later they’ll be in Corvallis on Saturday, June 5th hanging at OSU for the Flat Tail Music Festival on campus playing a free gig with Neon Indian, Minus The Bear, I Will Be King, and Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band.

Bam! In July, it’s back to the Eurozone for some dates in Deutschland and elsewhere before rocking the Hollywood Bowl in California opening for the Chemical Brothers and Chromeo on August 29th.

Hot shit! Can you even wrap your mind around this?

They’ve been spreading their individualist ideologies around like wildflowers–sometimes in the form of scripture (like the interview below), but more frequently in the form of jump and bump dance music–all while staying “fascinated with the common ground of underground spirituality and underground music,” blogged Team YACHT just two days ago. “After all, both are motivated by the desire to create something more real, special, and rare than what is being presented by the mainstream cultural machine.”

Which YACHT offers to us as free release of their mixtape Disco Worship: Music for Meditative Dancing, a digital version of the sold-out tape edition that was released on the PDX tape-label Gnar Tapes and Shit.

“The music concert is a series of rituals just as the religious service is; we come together in the dark club, following a sequence of understood rules (hand-stamp, coat check, merch table, posture), and we hope to experience transcendence, to have synergistic and communal experience worth remembering.”

Traveling to spread their message, it’s just the lifestyle when you’re involved in YACHT.

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Read the interview on OMN.

pdxtc : a six-way split

“I was stoked on the idea from the get-go, but I’ve seen so many big group split-record projects just sputter out and never go anywhere,” says Devin Gallagher, the founder of Portland label High Scores and Records and the producer of PDXTC.

PDXTC is a six-way, 12-inch vinyl split featuring throbbing dance music from Portland’s diverse dance scene, which culminates in an all-ages record release dance party at Holocene on Thursday, May 27th. Only missing Jeffrey Jerusalem, five of the six PDXTC artists will be performing starting at 8 PM including Atole, Wampire, Guidance Counselor, May Ling, and Breakfast Mountain.

“This is the best comp of Portland dance music I’ve heard and does a good job of showing the diversity within a scene that outsiders might think is easy to peg,” continues Gallagher.

From Breakfast Mountain’s bombastic helter skelter to May Ling’s dank disco drama and Atole’s atomic punk bounce, the scene is definitely dance: Sometimes sampled, often synthed out, but always pushing forward with experimental electronics and employing an arsenal of instruments, it’s occasionally artsy yet intrinsically dance-y. Guidance Counselor is your medicine for writhing, carnal freakouts while Jeffrey Jerusalem’s electro-disco-boogie will make your booty bop and Wampire’s pop is incomplete without an unselfish clothes shedding routine.

There’s only one thing about these cohorts that is easy to peg: Getting dance floors sweaty is priority number one.

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Read the rest with interviews from the artists on OMN.

starfucker returns, in name + dress

Starfucker is back–in name and tradition. That other band name just didn’t sit right with them, and as the band worked through some kinks on Tuesday night at Mississippi Studios during their second of two sets, Josh Hodges (vox, keys, guitar, and drums here ‘n there) announced that the foursome will “hopefully” have a new album out in fall… under the name Starfucker, which drew congratulatory cheers.

Back to basics, the boys slinked on stage dolled up in lovely party dresses and wigs while their man Ryan Biornstad (vox, guitar, synths, turntables) took center stage, leading his ladies wearing a coat and tie. Awkwardly alternating between American Gothic stoic and cranium slamming spasms, Biornstad’s vocals remained submerged beneath pulsing space lasers and drummer Keil Corcoran’s hollow, reverberating thumps.

With some technical difficulties and cumbersome pacing, the sound from the floor was poor and the show did not flow. Songs ended too quickly and abruptly followed by long pauses, unlike other Starfucker gigs where songs meld together seamlessly smooth. But it didn’t really matter. After the slow opening drone, party people pushed to the front, tweaking out to the layered loops as the band shook frantically on stage causing you to ponder, “How do those wigs stay on?”

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Read the rest on OMN.

q/a : fuck buttons retry with a sonically conquering return

This English electro-experimental duo were set to smack PDX artsy hipsters with massive walls of sonic soundscapes during a fantastical audio journey they call a gig at Worksound on November 14th, 2009… when something–we’re not sure what–happened and they were forced to call the rest of their tour off. Bummer.

But now it’s spring and Portland will gladly welcome back the pair of Andrew Hung and Benjamin John Power when they approach the Doug Fir on Thursday, May 13th with our own electro-minimalist White Rainbow (Adam Forkner) opening.

Making progressive, electro-ambiance since 2004, Fuck Buttons released their second disc Tarot Sport in October 2009, an album where five outta seven tracks broach the 10-minute mark.

Sculpting beats into a river of noise that thrashes and drowns, the Bristol, UK Buttons have supported Mogwai and Caribou on previous tours, but before they bring their commotion to your underground log cabin, the Fuck Buttons spoke to OMN about strippers and Tupac Shakur reincarnated.

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Read the interview on OMN.

the bill says starfucker at mississippi studios

Starfucker… ahem, Pyramiddd is having an identity crisis. Trying to shed old skin, the original Starfucker MySpace page was finally deleted (well, the URL changed) only to be replaced in Pyramiddd’s Top 8 Friend Space by this Starfucker MySpace.

And Pyramiddd is NOT on tour (but Starfucker is) nor do they have any music streaming on their MySpace… all of those pertinent details are found on the new Starfucker page.

And coming to Mississippi Studios on Tuesday, May 11th is Starfucker, who are currently on a West Coast tour–playing two homecoming shows, one early, all ages gig at 6:30 PM with Wampire and XDS and a second late show at 9:30 PM with Strength, XDS, and DJ Copy that is 21+.

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Read the rest on OMN.

sallie ford preserves the sound outside

Who is Sallie Burgess Ford? Close your eyes and listen.

You might hear Ella and Etta. Robust and emotive. Billie and Dinah. Laden with road weariness, demanding and bewitching.

“I always liked belting,” announces Sallie Ford smiling a toothy grin.

Open your eyes and you see a petite package sent to Portland from Asheville wearing cat-eye glasses, adorned with silver flares and masking tape.

Shuffling to refill her coffee-stained paper cup, she spills her change across the counter trying to do three things at once. The barista chuckles and demands that she keep her coins.

Chortling back, Sallie insists that her pile of silver is a tip.

How do these two personas coexist within the same small frame?

“When you first start singing, you have a lot of decision in the way your voice sounds,” says the girl who was once christened Down South Sallie.

Now backed by her three boys, it’s Sallie Ford and The Sound Outside, and “It’s an outlet to be someone other than my actual personality.”

Sallie is still Sallie. She’ll always be Sallie. But on stage, her voice is her alternate persona. Emotion-wrought vocals cut and captivate, but only in three-minute spurts–between songs she’s back to Sallie, endearingly goofy, giggling and embarrassing her band with gushing confessions and blurted banter.

And embracing her like older brothers, Tennis, Tornfelt, and Munger can’t help but laugh along as the band grows up together–sometimes at their own pace but at other times very quickly, like last year when they played two sold-out gigs at the Crystal opening for The Avett Brothers...

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Hear Sallie's pipes while reading the rest on OMN.

album : microfilm releases compilation double album

A new 24-track double album compilation from electro-pop group Microfilm will feature 12 Collected cuts from 2006 to 2010 and 12 Remixes. Both will be released this Tuesday, May 11th.

Two hours of often dark yet flittering beats live amongst forests of mechanical snares and cymbals from the Portland producer duo of Matt Keppel and Matthew Mercer. Listeners ride on Kraftwerk’s Autobahn while Daft Punk’s stylized vocals dance between the blips (much like they did on their September-released EP, Blips Don’t Lie). Shifting while steady, Microfilm has mastered their style of droning disco highlighted on I Am Curious (Microfilm): Collected 2006-2010–a 12 track overview of singles and album tracks (with edits and alternate versions), and also covers including Cat Power and Sufjan Stevens’ “Chicago.”

It plays chronologically across the band’s career starting with the 2006 single “Young Adult Fiction” (which was featured on BBC Radio 1) to their most recent, a “slinky,” synthed cover of Queen’s “Body Language.”

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Listen to Microfilm and read the rest on OMN.

save the mustache, save the parlour!

“Southeast Portland’s Mustachioed Venue,” The Parlour, opened it’s doors in late October but the venue, which hosts “live music, theater, vegetarian/vegan fare, and tasty microbrews,” is in desperate need of your support as it may be forced to close its doors before the end of May.

The crew of the all-ages venue says, “The Parlour has come to a rough rough spot,” and encourages you to “Save the Moustache!” at this Thursday’s The Parlour Benefit Show with Soap Collectors and Your Canvas. Doors open at 7 PM and donations will be accepted at the door. Get more details on OMN.

pegasus dream finds home

Three and a half years since its inception, Pegasus Dream is close to finding a home. Close to finding their sound and close to finding the right place to unveil it.

Portland is that perfect home.

“It’s great to see everything coming together in the next few months,” says keyboard player and singer Andy Carlson, “especially in a place like Portland where there’s actually room for people to be excited for it.”

Growing from one to three in as many years, the changes have been gradual, contemplated, and absolutely necessary for the developing band. But finding the right environment for their growth has been tantamount.

Hailing from Spokane, WA, Pegasus Dream began as a solo, experimental electronic project for guitar player, producer and singer JT Lindsey. A year and a half ago when Lindsey started playing shows in Spokane, he added synth player Andy Carlson to the mix.

Mingling around the local music scene, the duo got to play with all the top indie rock and electro acts that rolled through town, like Starfucker and Helio Sequence, but beyond those opportunities, there were very few local bands they wanted to share the stage with.

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Read the rest on OMN.