We loved the dreamy ’80s-leaning first single from Portland’s Blouse, but this woozy, fleetingly wistful new jam is kind of next-level for the band, and has us extremely psyched for their forthcoming debut LP, due November 1 via the great Captured Tracks. Way too short, so put it on repeat for a while:
mp3:
Blouse :: Videotapes
[via]
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previously:
Glass Candy está de regreso. La banda de Portland, sacará un nuevo LP que llevará el nombre de Body Work. “Warm In The Water” es el primer sencillo de esta nueva producción.
La próxima semana sale el LP debut de Soft Metals, y para que la espera no se nos haga larga el duo de Portland nos regala otra rola de su nueva producción. Acá dejo “Eyes Closed”, enjoy.
Ian Anderson, formerly of the excellent Portland group Guidance Counselor, has a new project that goes darker than Guidance Counselor’s upbeat noise, but remains as compelling as ever before. He’s working on a full-length album at the moment but has released a 30-minute rehearsal tape. There are a few limited cassettes that you can buy from High Scores & Records for $4, or download from his Bandcamp page. Have a listen to one of the tracks below.
Thanks to Defensive Listening for the heads up on Dreamed, the bedroom recording project of Denton’s Jessica Minshew. One of the stark “skeletons of songs” that she recently posted up on her Soundcloud page, “Izumi” elicits a hazy, soft-focus melancholy that sticks around longer than you’d expect. The song recalls the subtle but substantial emotional weight of the first Beach House record, as it swells into a legit heart-wrencher over the span of just a few listens, mostly on the strength of a simple and moving melody and Minshew’s haunting, lovesick vocals. Listen below, and read more about Dreamed here:
mp3:
Dreamed :: Izumi
Here’s a new track from Portland’s Blouse, who are now 3-for-3 at this point: “Firestarter” is a hazy dream-pop gem that manages to be bright, buoyant, and engaging while still maintaining the same air of detached cool the group displayed on vaguely goth-y a-side “Into Black.” Makes sense that they’ve hooked up with the esteemed Captured Tracks, who will release the excellent Into Black 7″ single in the very near future:
But the facts are in and the laudatory laurels are starting to pile up and frankly something needs to be said here, on home turf, about DiscoWorkout’s own Gudren Wolf, Ms. Patricia Furpurse. P.F. started her band Soft Metals just a little over a year ago, and it sounds as though Disco Workout were to come to life off the screen and into your room to perform an intimate series of command synthpop performances for you and your sexy, sexy cat.
MP3: “The Cold World Melts” – Soft Metals
MP3: “Love or Music” – Soft Metals
Soft Metals are playing on Sunday night in LA at the Echo for Part Time Punks 5 Year Anniversary. The headliner is LA-based DW fave Geneva Jacuzzi, whose video for “Love Caboose” you need to watch immediately:
Geneva Jacuzzi: “Love Caboose” video (directed by Travis Peterson)
xx,
Baron von Luxxury is My Fake Name
@luxxury
Interiors X was born out of Thomas Thorson’s ongoing bedroom recording experiments. To this day, Interiors X retains its interest in sonic experimentation yet maintains a dedication to the pop format, poaching freely from interests in crunk hip hop, dance electronica, shoegazer rock, minimalist composition, and music concrete. As a live ensemble, the project has multiplied and now includes a vast pool of talented musicians that live in Portland and on the West Coast, including regular collaborators Nancy Shevlin and Graeme Enkelis, video artist Jonathan Foltz, and occasional players Brett Whitman of Fleshtone , Matt Henderson, and Kris Doty.
2009 saw the unofficial release of Interiors X’s first album, “Darkness, Can You Save Our Dying Planet,” an album that concocts a surreal combination of Trance synthesizers and heavy My Bloody Valentine-esque guitars. The band is currently hard at work on their follow up album, “Transformation Ritual,” which draws inspiration from Northern European Techno, variations of Trance, Italo Disco, as well as Southern American Hip Hop and German Progressive Rock, while never becoming leaden or conservatively genre-bound. Also in the production pipeline is a Trance/Techno EP, “Better Than Fun.”
Interiors X- We Walk With Diamonds
Interiors X- The Last Days of Decadence
Interiors – Hot Water from Jonathan Foltz on Vimeo.
I think Reporter is so totally rad that I wanted to re-post this interview I did with them on ARAWA. They are playing a show in Portland tomorrow night at Rotture. Free before ten! Rahhh! Enjoy.
Sooo… every time I see Reporter live I basically think… Reporter is the shit. Their energy is similar to nuclear fission with a touch of neon lights. Absolutely amazing sets that incorporate both synthesized and non-synthesized instruments to create a heavy rock and rolling dance aura. A sweet cacophony of buttered pleasure and primal rhythm. After contacting Reporter Alberta, the bassist, was kind enough to send me over a couple mp3s from their upcoming album and to answer two rather short questions. Boom.
So I know you guys were formerly part of a band called Wet Confetti, which has been described as art rock… (I kind of dislike categories?), but I was wondering what inspired the change. Reporter has a definitively dark texture to it, but you often add pretty radiant drum beats. What drove you guys to make a distinctly different sound, which is still greatly experimental.
We also strongly dislike categories. Its seems like every writer is trying to pigeonhole bands and if they can’t they tend to not talk about the bands music and choose to talk about trivial shit like their Myspace quotes or their ironic clothes instead.
The outfit change from Wet Confetti to Reporter just seemed like the right thing to do at the time. Wet Confetti was making dance music when folk music was all the rage. When Reporter first started we were attempting to do something new. It was still rock but we were trying to find ourselves. Then slowly but surely we slipped back into our old ways of creating dance music with Reporter, a lot less spastic this time around and sure enough we started getting a lot more attention than ever as dance music is finally widely accepted in this country. So I guess what we do well and naturally is finally in time with what is popular.
How do you feel playing and living in Portland contributes to the experimentation in your music?
I’m not sure how Portland contributes to our style of music. We love this city and I’m sure it does contribute as you are influenced by everything around you and there are so many great bands and people in this town. I think the abundance of cheap weed in this town is our biggest “influence.”
MP3: Reporter – Geronimo’s Bones
MP3: Reporter – Clicksha
Sex Life have captured the hearts of us Portlanders and soon the world!
Who are Sex Life?
“Sex Life is taking the dance-floor into the sunshine. Making dance-infused pop that takes tips as much from the aesthetics of early electro-disco as it does from the staccato rhythms of electrified African Pop. Sex Life is music for getting down in the modern world. Based out of Portland (and Toronto), Sex Life has been spreading the vibes for the past six months and is currently working on an album’s worth of cassette/mp3 releases to be doled out sometime in the spring. Just in time…”
- Niko Kwaitkowski of Sex Life
Check out their awesome new songs! If you’re in Portland tomorrow night, come see them live at East End!