At every record store I went to while in the UK, Portland bands received prominent placement. We’re not talking bigtime groups like the Shins, Decemberists, or even their beloved Gossip. No, we’re talking Chromatics, Shaky Hands and YACHT.

Before I left, YACHT had noticed and photographed the same trend. I didn’t go looking for it, but when confronted with the pleasure, I snapped away.

First I went into the renowned Glasgow record shop, Monorail, which is housed inside vegan cafe and restaurant called Mono and is a hang out to pretty much every Glaswegian musician on the map. While I lived there in 2004-2006, it wasn’t uncommon to see members of Franz Ferdinand waltzing in. Patrick Doyle, who is a member of pretty much every Glasgow band worth knowing; Sexy Kids, the Royal We and Correcto (which, incidentally, is a band with Franz Ferdinand drummer Paul Thompson), works behind the bar and Stephen of Domino-signed group the Pastels provides you with receipts for your music purchases. I came in with Starfucker’s EP and the man behind the counter insisted his familiarity with Josh Hodges’ (Starfucker/Sexton BLake) output.

Further into town lies Avalanche, another great independent record store in Glasgow. Decorating the walls are only a handful of albums, while most are confined to files in open drawers. What album did I spy on the wall first? Night Drive by the Chromatics. My eyes instantly scaled downwards to grab ahold of my camera to capture the sight, and what did I see on the journey? Just a shelf below was the Shaky Hands. And below them? David Shrigley’s Worried Noodles, which includes a song by the Rose City’s (and Astoria’s) favorite son, YACHT! (Local electronic multi-talent E*Rock also did animation for Worried Noodles’ promotional art at that).

A week later I was in London taking in an in-store by Sub Pop’s latest signing, math-rockers Foals, at Rough Trade. After the gig and after handing over a copy of Sexton Blake Plays the Hits (one must do their part in the evolution of Portland music) to a buyer, I hurried on over to take portraits of the quintet and stumbled across Chromatics again on the way. Location, location! Pretty much everyone meandering the store had to pass by the trio’s disc, and it looked mighty flash against the black shelving (the other discs in the store receiving prominent placement were mostly hype-heavy British releases).

It was cool to see such under-the-radar releases getting the star treatment abroad.

Photos by Nilina Mason-Campbell