[PROGRESSIVE JAZZ] Tenor-saxophonist Dusty York’s new album, Thoughts Take Flight, is a showcase of dynamic compositions that move between countless phrases—each with their own style, tempo and feel. It’s one more praiseworthy move for an artist who’s already attracted a heap of well-deserved buzz. In addition to his own music, York’s an advocate for pushing […]

[SOUL-PUNK] Somewhere’s between NME anointing her Coolest Person of 2006 and a “What Would Beth Ditto Do?” advice column appearing in The Guardian, the Gossip’s larger-than-life vocalist (and her band) conquered England. Award-show duets with Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker, a headlining set at Glastonbury, the nude NME cover that launched a thousand women’s studies theses…the sun […]

[SOUL-HOP] With so much hip-hop produced digitally these days, groups utilizing full bands stick out in the studio as much as they do onstage, where the pang of an organic drum kit and the zip of fingers along bass strings add musical humanity to match the flow.
Like the Roots and Sacramento-based Portland-regulars Al Howard and […]

[THE NEW OLD] A female vocalist starting an album with the words, “Cried all night till there was nothin’ more” probably sounds a bit offputting. It does to me—but not when that girl is Zooey Deschanel. And not when her album’s ageless production and simple, shimmering accompaniment comes courtesy of local virtuoso M. Ward.
She & […]

[NOT QUITE POP] Little Beirut’s debut, High Dive, isn’t quite pop. It goes down easy enough—infectious melodies, casually perfected structures, instantly memorable turns of phrase—but pop demands singles. For all the quartet’s invention, an endless parade of potential hits numbs. Pop albums need filler.
But Little Beirut’s also not pop. Hamilton Sims (vocals, guitar) and Edwin […]

[WHISPER POP] Now and again you get in a musical rut, sticking with a few tried-and-true favorite albums instead of branching out for the next big thing. While everyone else is doing back flips over the Vampire Weekends of the world, those scratched-up, skipping old favorites are the only records that seem to really speak […]

[LILITH POP] As the story’s told, Thomas Lauderdale rescued China Forbes from a singer-songwriter career 14 years ago to front Portland art-lounge outfit Pink Martini. A gazillion-selling albums later, it seems Forbes never lost her old dreams. Nor, troublingly, her old journals. 
Pink Martini was never about the lyrics—perhaps the reason so many aren’t in English—but […]

[ECLECTRO-SOUL] Jaded record-store snobs who spend more time discussing the music they hate than the music they love can rub off on you sometimes. In the case of Panther, the funkified local duo of multipurpose player Charlie Salas-Humara and drummer Joe Kelly, that’s what happened to me.
While listening to 14 Kt. God, the pair’s second […]

[ECLECTIC ACOUSTIC] Marking the first year of the acoustic mecca’s existence, WW named Mississippi Studios “Portland’s Best Place to Get an Earful” in 2004. Judging from the aural evidence on its new disc, Mississippi Studios Live, Volume III, the title holds. From the first few notes of local neo-folk act Weinland’s opening number, the laconic […]

[SYNTH-FOLK] Despite their wildly disparate fanbases, synth-pop and folk actually have much in common—fey vocals, self-satisfied cleverness, evidence of a short lifetime spent in one’s bedroom. Still, you don’t see too many artists successfully shift between the two genres. Helio Sequence is attempting to do just that.
Keep Your Eyes Ahead, the Portland duo’s fourth album […]