Birch Cooper is an artist, electronic musician and electronic instrument builder based in Portland, OR. His work centers around integrated systems and creative collaboration. He is a founding member of the art collectives MSHR and Oregon Painting Society as well as many other musical groups. Since 2007 Cooper has installed interactive and generative electronic systems extensively in Europe and the US with MSHR and OPS. Ornamental Hypergate Conglomerate is his first solo exhibition of a generative system.
Opening reception of Ornamental Hypergate Conglomerate on April 29th from 7-10pm.
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This installation coincides with Birch's photo theremin workshop on May 1st. More information here: http://s1portland.com/workshops/photo-theremin-workshop/
Viewing hours are as follows:
Saturday April 30th 12-4pm
Saturday May 7th 12-4pm
Sunday May 8th 12-4pm
First off is the debut full-length from Acapulco Lips on the new label Killroom Records from Ben Jenkins and KEXP's Troy Nelson. If you're into '60s garage rock ala The Pleasure Seekers, or contemporary bands like Shannon & The Clams and Guantanamo Baywatch, you'll definitely enjoy their new record.
Beach House is Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally. We have been a band for over a decade living and working in Baltimore, MD. Depression Cherry is our 5th full-length record. This record follows the release of our self-titled album in 2006, Devotion in 2008, Teen Dream in 2010 and Bloom in 2012. Depression Cherry was recorded at Studio in the Country in Bogalusa, Louisiana from November '14 through January '15. This time period crossed the anniversaries of both John Lennon's and Roy Orbison's death.
In general, this record shows a return to simplicity, with songs structured around a melody and a few instruments, with live drums playing a far lesser role. With the growing success of Teen Dream and Bloom, the larger stages and bigger rooms naturally drove us towards a louder, more aggressive place; a place farther from our natural tendencies. Here, we continue to let ourselves evolve while fully ignoring the commercial context in which we exist.
The feeling and themes of this record:
- "I'll never be able to be here again. As the minutes slide by, I move on. The flow of time is something I cannot stop. I haven't a choice. I go. One caravan has stopped, another starts up. There are people I have yet to meet, others I'll never see again. People who are gone before you know it, people who are just passing through. Even as we exchange hellos, they seem to grow transparent. I must keep living with the flowing river before my eyes." - from Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto
- "We inhabit a world in which the future promises endless possibilities and the past lies irretrievably behind us. The arrow of time... is the medium of creativity in terms of which life can be understood." - from The Arrow of Time by Peter Coveney and Roger Highfield
- "Mostly it is loss which teaches us about the worth of things." - from Parerga and Paralipomena by Arthur Schopenhauer
- "Hark, now hear the sailors cry, feel the air and see the sky, let your soul and spirit fly, into the mystic..........when the fog horn blows, I want to hear it, I don't have to fear it" - from "Into the Mystic" by Van Morrison
The track listing with selected lyrics.
1. Levitation - "The branches of the trees, they will hang lower now, you will grow too quick, then you will get over it"
2. Sparks - "It's a gift, taken from the lips, you live again"
3. Space Song - "What makes this fragile world go 'round, were you ever lost, was she ever found?"
4. Beyond Love - "They take the simple things inside you and put nightmares in your hands"
5. 10:37 - "Here she comes, all parts of everything, stars in the motherhand"
6. PPP - "Did you see it coming, it happened so fast, the timing was perfect, water on glass..."
7. Wildflower - "What's left you make something of it"
8. Bluebird - "I would not ever try to capture you"
9. Days of Candy - "I know it comes too soon, the universe is riding off with you...... I want to know you there, the universe is riding off with you."
Depression Cherry is a color, a place, a feeling, an energy... that describes the place you arrive as you move through the endlessly varied trips of existence...
Beach House will tour worldwide with the release of Depression Cherry.
Website:
http://www.beachhousebaltimore.com/
BLACKBIRD BLACKBIRD
Anthemic, dream-driven themes inspire Blackbird Blackbird's work, where layers of electronic texture drape over organic sounds and ghostly vocals. Within elongated song structures, Blackbird Blackbird harnesses thematic elements of dynamism and composition to create depth and complexity, while never losing sight of his pop sensibilities.
CHAD VALLEY
‘Shell Suite’ being used by Alex Patsavas in the major movie, Warm Bodies, and a string of key touring slots supporting the likes of Active Child, Chvrches, Erasure, Friendly Fires and Passion Pit. In 2013, Chad Valley released Young Hunger, his first proper album and one that saw him further embrace his pop ambitions. The material was a modern collage of 80’s freestyle jams and 90’s radio singles, featuring an impressive list of collaborators including El Perro Del Mar, Glasser, TEED and Twin Shadow. In support of the record, Chad Valley toured the world, winning over fans with his stellar voice and impassioned performances.
Now, two years later, Chad Valley’s Hugo Manuel is back with his sophomore album, Entirely New Blue. The record is an exploration in identify and a return to the places that comfort us, especially when we return to them a different person. The album was written between London, where he lived for years with his long-term girlfriend, and Oxford, the town that he came home to when their relationship ended. That painstaking transition is evident across the record’s nine tracks, perhaps mostly on slow-burners “Labasa” and “Seventeen”. The former of which is the namesake village in Fiji where his grandmother was born. Unlike previous material, and embodying the spirit of the music, Hugo’s voice appears higher in the mix and rinsed clean of effects on most tracks. Similarly, the production is more stark, providing Hugo the space to do more with less. Working with producer Joel Ford, the ethos of stripping away everything that’s not immediately useful is apparent.
Entirely New Blue will be released on October 2 via Chad Valley’s longtime label home, Cascine. North American and European tours have been routed for fall.
Coastlands
The NWPRC's network now includes bands, bookers, and listeners in Seattle, Tacoma, Salem, Eugene, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. The NWPRC has also been in contact with the Southwest Post-Rock Collective and has partnered on a compilation album with bands in Santiago, Chile.
This network of bands presents diverse and complex facets of instrumental music. Their unique soundscapes, accompanied by visual imagery, evoke a depth of provocative emotions that draw listeners in.
The NW Post-Rock Collective provides insight into a next generation of post-rock and and innovative adaptation to the music industry.
$7 Advance/Day of show
4.13.16,
For Henry Codax's exhibition at Cherry & Lucic, the artist will present three monochrome paintings in situ. This is the artist's first show in the Pacific Northwest following recent solo, co-solo and group exhibitions at, but not limited to Gavin Brown’s Enterprise (NYC), Martos Gallery (NYC), Carriage Trade (NYC), Brand New Gallery (NYC), Michael Thibault (LA), Office Baroque (Antwerp) and Galerie Susanna Kulli (Zurich). For his exhibition at Cherry & Lucic, a grouping of letter pressed monochromes will be available for viewing alongside the paintings.
Codax: “And you said I made them.”
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subscribe @ cherryandlucic.com/contact.html
WILD NOTHING
What came before: a rightfully acclaimed, much beloved display of singular pop craftsmanship. Tatum's dreamy, unexpected 2010 debut, Gemini, was written while he was still a student at Virginia Tech University. Its equally disarming follow-up, 2012's Nocturne, marked the first time he'd been able to bring his bedroom recordings into a studio, to be performed and fully realized with the help of other musicians. There has been a set of wonderfully expansive EPs in between—each hinting at new directions and punctuating previous ideas—but with Life of Pause, Tatum delivers what he describes as his most "honest" and "mature" work yet, an exquisitely arranged and beautifully recorded collection of songs that marry the immediate with the indefinable. "I allowed myself to go down every route I could imagine even if it ended up not working for me," he says. "I owe it to myself to take as many risks as possible. Songs are songs and you have to allow yourself to be open to everything."
After a prolonged period of writing and experimentation, recording took place over several weeks in both Los Angeles and Stockholm, with producer Thom Monahan (Devendra Banhart, Beachwood Sparks) helping Tatum in his search for a more natural and organically textured sound. In Sweden, in a studio once owned by ABBA, they enlisted Peter, Bjorn and John drummer John Ericsson and fellow Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra veteran TK, to contribute drums and marimba. In California, at Monahan's home, Tatum collaborated with Medicine guitarist Brad Laner and a crew of saxophonists. From the hypnotic polyrhythms of "Reichpop" to the sugary howl of "Japanese Alice" to the hallucinogenic R&B of "A Woman's Wisdom, the result is a complete, fully immersive listening environment. "I just kept things really simple, writing as ideas came to me," he says. "There's definitely a different kind of 'self' in the picture this time around. There's no real love lost, it's much more a record of coming to terms and defining what it is that you have—your place, your relationships. I view every record as an opportunity to write better songs. At the end of the day it still sounds like me, just new."
WHITNEY
Skepta makes his PDX debut at the Hawthorne Theater.
As a multi-faceted, quadruple threat artist, Skepta embodies a scene’s ability to shift on its own terms. The Tottenham-raised Londoner — a product of the area’s Meridian Estate after a move from east as a toddler— operated behind the scenes in grime’s early days with Meridian Crew in the early 2000s as a DJ and producer, providing a backbone for his Hackney-born younger brother JME to take the mic alongside legends of the industry during an era of lyrical war, with calls for clashes maintaining the raw energy. Behind the boards for 2002’s Wiley and Youngstar inspired Gun Shot Riddim and 2004’s Meridian Crew-affiliated classic Private Caller, Skepta helped define the culture for years to come.
Spitting on hip-hop beats before he ever entered the booth in grime circles, Skepta unleashed his rapid flow in the mid 2000s. As the white label era shifted into flash video and digital downloads, he built a sizeable fan base. Shouting out Meridian Crew and Hackney’s Roll Deep he stepped to the forefront alongside his brother, in the era of pixelated video on Nokia devices, street DVDs and Akademiks sweatsuits.
After his Boy Better Know collective emerged in 2005, Skepta’s 2006 classic Duppy was a crossover moment, as grime made its steps into the mainstream. His Stageshow Riddim was another beat that an entire scene hopped on before an array BBK bangers hit the mainstream. In addition to solo albums, he approached everything with a new hunger as a new decade approached.
Even for an artist with veteran status, 2014-5 were breakthrough years. The self-produced That’s Not Me alongside JME embraced his legacy and beginnings in a track accompanied by an award-winning, appropriately micro budget video that homages the street DVD era. Having started his career deeply inspired by Wiley’s pioneering Eskibeats, Skepta produced another modern standard and return to raw form, On A Level, for him and stepped behind the camera to direct the video and style it too.
A decade into his MC career, Skepta is bringing his worldview to a global audience in undiluted form. His fourth album Konnichawa is the sum total so far and the evolution of everything so far and, with a local and international slew of partners in 2016, the takeover is imminent.
8:00pm (doors open at 7pm). All Ages.
$16.00 advance tix from Cascade Tickets.
$20.00 at the door.
SHEER MAG
'Fuck yuppies, fuck slumlords, fuck cops and the rich—make no mistake, this is the message Sheer Mag wants you to hear. It's coded into their lyrics and built into the young Philadelphia band's blown-out grooves, which match swaggering soul force with a defiant punk spirit. Sheer Mag might reference 1970s classic rock every time they holler and shred, but their gnarled, whiskey-fueled pop-in-miniature is of a singular breed: There aren't many contemporary bands you could imagine unironically covering "Sweet Home Alabama" while some bloody-lipped fan stage-dives. Such is the essence of Sheer Mag's raw power.' --Pitchfork
PUBLIC EYE
ANDY PLACE AND THE COOLHEADS
M83, aka Anthony Gonzalez, has announced an initial series of North American tour dates including special performances at the renowned Coachella festival in Indio, CA and The Governor’s Ball in NYC.
Following the success of critically acclaimed album Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming, featuring platinum selling single “Midnight City,” M83 is on the verge of another epic full-length release. Anthony describes his forthcoming album as “more fun and fresh” with “a lot of eclecticism,” promising plenty of “unexpected guests.”
Support comes from YACHT.
Portland'5 Centers for the Arts and The Attic Institute of Arts and Letters are pleased to present: Poets on Broadway – a free poetry series hosted by Portland'5. Three monthly poetry events will be presented October 2015 – April 2016 in the Antoinette Hatfield Hall Rotunda. Nationally renowned poets will read alongside local emerging poets in the greater Portland community and the Pacific NW.
Karen Holmberg’s second book of poems, Axis Mundi, won the John Ciardi Prize and was published in 2013 by BkMk Press. Slate named it one of the ten best poetry books of 2013. Recent poetry and nonfiction has appeared in such magazines as Southern Poetry Review, New England Review, West Branch, Black Warrior Review, Indiana Review, and Poetry East. She teaches poetry writing in the MFA program at Oregon State University.
Jennifer Richter’s new collection, No Acute Distress, was named a Crab Orchard Series in Poetry Editor’s Selection; her first book, Threshold, was chosen by Natasha Trethewey for the Crab Orchard Series in Poetry and by Robert Pinsky as an Oregon Book Award Finalist. A former Wallace Stegner Fellow and Jones Lecturer at Stanford University, Richter currently teaches in Oregon State University’s MFA Program.
All readings begin at 8pm in the Antoinette Hatfield Hall rotunda- located at 1111 SW Broadway Ave., Portland, OR 97205. The ArtBar & Bistro will be open with food and drinks available to purchase.
Equal parts Old Grape God (Wine) and EYRST's Ripley Snell (Coffee), Wine + Coffee is something like an improvisational hip-hop and R&B conceptual art piece—that is, if you dare label the project. There will be painting, rapping, a little freestyling, some singing, and percolating. A solid trio of Seattle emcees will open for the Portland duo: DoNormaal raps over cloudy, dark, ethereal trap beats, and recently released her debut, Jump or Die; Raven Matthews brings his humorous, distinctive lyricism with tracks off his new project Disco Christ; and prolific producer/rapper OCnotes (Black Constellation), who tends to stray away from samples, mixes and raps over his own blend of jazz, funk, soul, and gospel.
Deja Trimble, better known by her stage name Dej Loaf (stylized as DeJ Loaf), is a rapper and singer from Detroit. She began her music career in 2011, and released her debut mixtape Just Do It in 2012. In October 2014, she released her second mixtape, Sell Sole.
DeJ Loaf rose to greater popularity in 2014 with her single "Try Me", which initially attained viral internet popularity.
Tickets available at http://cascadetickets.com/event/?performer_id=6179369
What is this idea that if we pick up a rock it belongs to us? Hasn't extractionary thinking caused enough harm? For every object there is a corresponding absence somewhere else. The 125 foot hole in the Ross Island lagoon is a reverse monument to Portland, its growth and its development.
The Ross Island Residency is a renegade residency initiated by the artist in collaboration with the curator Will Elder, spanning the period between June 2015-June 2016, at the site of a sand and gravel mine within city limits. This performance is one live component of work which will be concluded at hq Objective's FORTUNE gallery, Portland, OR May 14-June 26, 2016.
Taryn Tomasello is a writer, curator, organizer and artist. Her practice is centered on memory, risk and difference inside human geography. The work takes place between video, performance, text and relational sculpture, exhibiting a dense, variable texture, stoic resemblances and mythic attributes, and a deep sympathy for the uninvited. She currently lives in Portland, Oregon with her family.
Her videos have been screened by Experimental Half Hour, Free Spirit News and other experimental video platforms. She has performed solo and collaborative music under the monikers Aures and Wail Signs.
Tomasello's curatorial endeavor, Object Permanence Project, is an itinerant artists' gallery that takes shape through exhibitions and events at different host venues (often nontraditional sites). It has exhibited at Cibali Arthouse, Istanbul Turkey and ŠKVER, Mali Lošinj Croatia with upcoming exhibitions in Athens, Greece and Berlin. She is part of CENTRAL, an independent creative research initiative focused on an expanded concept of the built environment. She has just collaboratively launched a new curatorial endeavor called Character Plant hosted in gymnasium of the abandoned YMCA building in Astoria.
Linda Austin offers an expanded version of a recent solo based on her 2012 ensemble work A head of time, churning up movement, visuals, props, text and sound in a tragi-comic meditation on time and loss.
Austin puts her 62-year-old body on the line. She wields hammer, balloon, video images, a ladder, extension cords and other props. She wraps herself in blankets and a soundscape by Seth Nehil that weaves together sounds from life, pop music and Seth’s own sound artistry. She pits all of this against the inexorable formation, re-formation, dissolution and fragmentation of the timescapes that make up our very being.
“Everyone has a time machine. Everyone is a time machine.”
“I am transcribing a book that I have, in a sense, not yet written, and in another sense, have always written, and in another sense, am currently writing, and in another sense, am always writing, and in another sense, will never write.”
― Charles Yu, How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe
April 22 & 23, Fri/Sat at 8pm
April 24 Sunday at 2pm
Tickets $15-$50
Net proceeds go to fund dancers’s fees for the November 2016 premiere of Austin’s (Un)Made You
For tour dates and info go to www.johngorka.com.
Deep Under Ground is back at Disjecta Contemporary Arts Center!
After January 15th 2016 DUG is partnering with the lovely team at Disjecta to host our quarterly events. These events are music and arts showcases highlighting visual as well as performance artists residing here in Portland. DUG has been a platform for many artists to express and share since January of 2015, beginning as a hip hop based open mic and growing into many more avenues some still to be announced ;)...This event is geared to provide a healthy and safe environment that will unite the surrounding artistic community with different cultures/views here in Portland. DUG serves a multitude of purposes, from networking, to performance opportunities, and artist promotion. This encourages people to feel welcomed in a community looking to support them on their way to artistic freedom & success.
Featured artists of the evening ~
Visual art and installations: DeAngelo Nicholas Raines and Noor Mariah
Performances by:
Fountaine
http://www.itsfountainebro.com/
https://fountaine.bandcamp.com/album/wisteria
Tribe Mars
http://www.tribemars.com/
https://soundcloud.com/tribe-mars
A music & art collective
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A project to showcase underground culture through music and art, creating an environment to bring people together to express themselves through rhythm and creativity.
Powered By: One Wubb & Nvchxsquvd
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Music by:
First Gift [Main Course/ Panda Funk/Dim Mak, Sweden]
www.facebook.com/firstgiftmusic
www.soundcloud.com/firstgift
DVST [Afterlife+, PDX]
www.facebook.com/dvstofficial
www.soundcloud.com/dvst
Mijo [GlobalBased, PDX]
www.facebook.com/mijoo108
www.soundcloud.com/mijo108
Dirty Deeds [Global Based, PDX]
www.facebook.com/DrtyDeeds
www.soundcloud.com/drtydeeeds
Chris Bower [Fak, PDX]
www.facebook.com/chris.bower.37
www.soundcloud.com/bowerson
Artwork by: Heysus Art & Friends
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The Rose Bar & Lounge
111 Sw Ash ST - PDX
21+ | 9pm | Before 11, $7 entry | $2 Tecates | Free Pizza!
FAT WHITE FAMILY
Fat White Family are the greatest young rock band in the UK and this probably extends to the rest of the world as well. What's that? You want to know more? Christ on callipers, ok, let's see what we've got here then…It won't come as news to anyone who has been to one of their regular Slide-In nights at their local pub and HQ, The Queens Head in Brixton, South London but for a band that only really coalesced as the Fat White Family in 2011, the six piece have already got several once-in-a-lifetime/ 'OMG – were you there?' gigs under their belt. On December 10th 2013 they rattled the walls of the legendary 100 Club, thus aligning themselves with the numerous legends who have trod the very same stage. The band summoned up the feral electric skronk blues of The Magic Band and The Birthday Party, the proto-punk pummelling of The Monks and The Modern Lovers and the twisted folk of Charles Manson and The Country Teasers. And as singer Lias Saoudi, clad in nothing but a pair of back to front, skin tight rubber trousers, was carried at head height off stage by a crowd of howling devotees, it was clear that something special had just happened.
However, it's not all been plain sailing. When confronted by London's pay to play, indie toilet circuit, the Fat Whites aren't known for toeing the line. They're already adept at sniffing out bullshit. At a recent gig in a down at heel dive that shall remain nameless it took less than three songs for the train to come screaming off the tracks.
Nathan Saoudi, Lias' young brother and the group's raven haired organist, says: "It was more of a fight than a gig. It was promoted by these guys who weren't in it for the right reasons. They were just dodgy businessmen. They wouldn't let us play. They cut the microphones. They put bouncers on stage with us. So we just started smashing the equipment up. I remember looking round and my brother Lias was naked and masturbating and it was kicking off everywhere. I was laughing my head off, 'Oh my god what the hell's happening?'"
Saul Adamczewski, the gap-toothed musical director of the group adds: "Literally one minute I was on stage and the next I was outside on the pavement. One by one everyone came flying out of the same door. Then some locals came steaming out and there was a brawl in the middle of the road which only stopped when the police turned up…" He pauses and continues: "But it's not really about the venue or what kind of night it is. I think how good the show is has got a lot to do with how we react off each other. Unless you can go in fearless it doesn't really happen. It doesn't matter how many people are there. The best gig we ever played was to two people. We played for five hours. And it was great that Halloween in Hastings when Lias got naked and painted his cock black so it looked like he had no genitals…" Fat White Family were formed out of the ashes of two bands. In 2006 the 17-year-old Saul's band The Metros were signed to a major deal and touted as the next Libertines. However it was the classic case of too much too young and the band never lived up to their initial promise, fizzling out by 2009. (Saul says: "It was sickening really – telling us we're going to be the next Arctic Monkeys! [laughs] I was just completely lost. I went from having pocket money to having a really big record deal. In the long run it was good though because I became sufficiently jaded. And that's how that became this.") The second was a South London pub rock band called The Saudis, featuring brothers Nathan and Lias. (Lias says: "We were the worst band in London. Always third on the bill at the New Cross Inn on a Tuesday." Although it should be noted that good or not, they still managed to complete a three month tour of Algeria.) They would attend each others gigs but it was a meeting of minds that almost never happened.
DILLY DALLY
“Sexy, menacing, marching, triumphant, and chaotic” – SPIN
Dilly Dally began as a teenage dream shared by Katie Monks and Liz Ball. The two shared a love for dreamy, grungy guitars, epic pop ballads, and began writing music together in their Toronto apartment.
In spring 2014, Dilly Dally self-released their first single, entitled ‘Next Gold.’ The song has since received praise from Pitchfork, NME, and Brooklyn Vegan. It came from a collection of material the band recorded with producers Leon Taheny (Owen Pallett, Austra) and Josh Korody (Fucked Up, Greys) at Candle Studios. That October, the band released a 7” single “Candy Mountain/Green” through Fat Possum/Buzz Records.
It’s taken a few years for the band to fall into itself with the right people, but with the addition of Benjamin Reinhartz (drums) and Jimmy Tony (bass) joined this year, their live sound has never been more energetic and in April this year the band released another song – the raw, unkempt ‘Gender Role’. Dilly Dally is currently at work on their first full length record, scheduled for release in the Fall of 2015.
Doug Theriault is a long time Portland improviser, performer, composer and instrument builder. His work has covered minimalism, noise, jazz rock and classical music. He is interested in the cross contamination of these different approaches.
Doug.theriault.org
Gordon Ashworth is an American musician and sound artist whose primary field is experimental composition for string instruments, magnetic tape and field recordings. He has been heavily involved in the noise and experimental music underground since 2002 and has released dozens of drone, noise, and folk recordings under the names Concern, Oscillating Innards, CAEN, Riverbed Mausoleum, and now his real name. He has performed in over 25 countries and is a member of the extreme metal band Knelt Rote. His debut full-length “S.T.L.A.” is a deep exploration of the fundamental elements of American folk music, musique concrete, and modern classical. Gordon is the head of the cassette label Iatrogenesis, the archival vinyl label Olvido, and is a volunteer at KBOO community radio. His brother is the musician Owen Ashworth (Advance Base, ex-Casiotone for the Painfully Alone), who runs the label Orindal Records.
gordonashworth.com / gordonashworth.bandcamp.com / soundcloud.com/gordonashworth
5-15, sliding scale